O
ne of the police officers held a cup of coffee in front of Zachary’s face. He looked up from the chair in the hospital waiting room and saw that it was Joshua Campbell. He nodded his thanks and took the coffee, taking a sip of the hot, rich blend to steady his nerves.
“Another feather in your cap,” Campbell observed, sitting down in one of the other chairs. “You’re getting quite a reputation for being the guy to solve murders that weren’t supposed to be murders.”
Zachary gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Sometimes the family—or friends—know instinctively what the police or coroner could never have known. I’m just following the direction they point me.”
“Well, I’ve known you were a good investigator for a long time. Nice that you’re getting some recognition.”
Zachary’s ears got warm. He was tongue-tied for a moment. He never had gotten the knack for graciously accepting a compliment.
“These murder cases,” Campbell said, “that woman principal a few months back, the abuses at Summit…”
Zachary nodded and took another sip of coffee. “Yeah, I guess. Sometimes it feels like it’s all skip tracing and cheating spouses, but there have been a few more interesting cases lately.”
“And Lucas at the hospital,” Campbell added to his list of Zachary’s cases.
Lucas. Zachary had to think for a minute before he remembered the hospital worker who had upset Ruth Wicker during the Salter investigation.
“Lucas. I forgot about him. You looked into him? Did you find something?”
“Nothing we can charge him with, but enough to drop a word to the hospital on the QT that they might want to find a reason to let him go.”
Zachary thought back to the way the hospital worker had behaved. Ignoring Ruth’s protests, trying to bully his way through when confronted by Zachary, insisting he had the right to do whatever needed to be done for Ruth and that she owed him her gratitude for it. Then the way he had reported that Zachary had threatened him and kidnapped Ruth, which could very well have landed Zachary in jail if Ruth hadn’t been able to verify his story and Campbell hadn’t shown up when he did.
“That weasel,” Zachary said. “What did you find out?”
“He’s had various assault charges against him in the past. Not by hospital patients… but his work history is very checkered. He doesn’t stay anywhere for long, and his previous employers say things like ‘we cannot comment on that matter.’”
“They’re gagged. They told him he could leave quietly and they would keep whatever had happened confidential.”
“That’s my impression,” Campbell agreed. “In a case like this, if you fire the guy and refuse to give him references, then he sues you for termination without cause. That blows up into some big media circus and a legal case that costs thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands. Cheaper to pay him out, give him a reference, and keep quiet.”
“Especially when you can’t prove he’s done anything illegal or harmful to a patient.”
“Exactly.”
“Is the hospital going to send him on his way?”
“They’re talking to their legal department.”
So Lucas would be gone and no longer be a danger to vulnerable patients like Ruth.
Until he got another job.
Zachary wasn’t able to see Bridget that first day, but when she asked him to visit her at the hospital the next, it sent his heart soaring. He knew she wasn’t calling him about Robin’s death, because she already knew Gloria had been the one to give Robin the iron that had caused her death.
That meant that Bridget wanted him for something else.
Maybe she had realized, when her own life was in jeopardy, that she really did love Zachary and wanted to get back together with him. Her relationship with Gordon could be no more than a sham when compared to the love Bridget and Zachary had shared together, the love that had driven Zachary to find Bridget and bring the forces of the FBI to bear just in time to save Bridget and apprehend Gloria before she could run again.
Zachary thought everything through before he went to see her. He showered, carefully shaved, and put on clean, neat clothes, a good notch or two higher than his usual jeans-and-tee combination. He went to a flower store. Not the hospital flower store with its sad little arrangements, but a real flower store. He didn’t buy her red roses. Instead, he picked from the varieties of flowers that he had seen at the house, having the florist design a bright and cheerful arrangement in an elegant vase. He didn’t buy her chocolates. That would be going too far, and he knew that since the chemo, she eschewed sugar and would not want to compromise her health. She needed to heal from her ordeal and overloading her system with sugar would just lower her immunity.
Then he headed to the hospital. He had her unit and room number, and followed the hospital color and letter codes to get to the right place.
When he walked into the room, his heart sank. Gordon sat beside the bed, talking with Bridget in a low voice, holding hands with her. They both looked up when Zachary arrived. Bridget pulled her fingers out of Gordon’s grip.
“Gordon, dear, would you mind…?”
Gordon nodded briskly and stood up. “I’ll give the two of you some time alone.”
Zachary strove to keep his expression blank as Gordon left the hospital room. He didn’t want to sneer at Gordon or to give him a gloating look over Bridget’s dismissing him. Zachary could be gracious whether he were the loser or the winner. For once, he was actually going to be the winner.
With Gordon out of the way, Zachary walked the rest of the way into the room. He showed Bridget the flowers and let her smell them, then put them down where she directed. Bridget stared at the arrangement for a few long seconds, giving no sign of what she was thinking. She motioned for Zachary to sit in the chair that Gordon had just vacated so he could sit at eye level with her. He could still feel the warmth from Gordon’s body there.
“How are you feeling?” Zachary asked.
“I’m doing much better. So good to get properly hydrated and to be able to eat at regular intervals. It really is amazing how we take food for granted! We’ve always had what we need, so we don’t understand what it is like to want.”
Zachary nodded his understanding. He had experienced plenty of lean times as a child. Times when they simply didn’t have food to put on the table and the children went to bed with empty stomachs. But Bridget wasn’t thinking about that. She wasn’t asking him whether he had ever experienced it. She was just sharing her experience with him.
“You’re looking a lot better.” It was amazing how much of a difference one day could make. Her color was better. The hollows in her skin had filled in. Her eyes were bright and alive with interest. He’d been afraid when he’d seen her at the cabin. She had looked so close to death. She had not been able to sit up or to raise the cup of water to her mouth on her own.
“I hope so!” Bridget patted at her hair. “I must have looked a fright…”
“No. Just… sick. I was worried about you.”
“I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done. For investigating Robin’s death and figuring out what had happened. And then for searching for me and tracking me down. You really are… an amazing investigator.”
Zachary smiled sheepishly, his face getting warm. “I had to find you. When I knew how long it had been, and that you would be waiting for me, wondering why I hadn’t come…”
“It was the only thing I had any hope for. The police and the FBI…” She shrugged expressively. “I trusted your investigative skills and your… passion.”
Zachary hadn’t thought it was possible for him to blush even more, but he did, his ears and cheeks on fire. He reached for Bridget’s hand.
“I care about you, Bridge… I couldn’t live without you. If I had let something happen to you…” he trailed off. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. But the last few times he had said it, she had brushed his feelings off, even mocked him for makin
g such a ridiculous statement in the midst of the dissolution of their marriage. You don’t even know what love is. You don’t want a wife, you want a mother.
“Zachary… no. Don’t say anything else.”
He was quiet, waiting.
“I care about what happens to you too. But… let’s not go too far here. You and I… we’re never going to be a couple again.”
He felt like she had just stabbed him in the gut. She lay there and smiled sweetly as she twisted the knife.
“Gordon and I are not breaking up. I don’t want to be with you again. We weren’t good for each other.”
“But—”
She shook her head. “You come here all cleaned up, with your flowers and your company manners… it’s obvious what you’re thinking. But we’re over, Zachary. I can’t ever be with you like that again.”
Zachary took a long, shuddering breath. He nodded stoically. “Okay. Got it.”
He stood up. He didn’t know whether to shake her hand or kiss her on the cheek. He ended up doing neither.
“I’ll, uh, see you around, then.”
She reached toward him, eyes soft and concerned. “Are you okay, Zachary? Will you be okay?”
“Sure. Of course. Don’t you worry about me.”
Epilogue
Z
achary had been holed up in his apartment for some time. Long enough that he’d lost count of the days and frequently had to look at the date on his phone or computer to orient himself. He had plenty of computer work and other desk work that he could do without going out or having to talk to anyone, so that was what he worked on.
Some friends or clients had called him and left messages. Zachary replied to them by email so he wouldn’t actually have to speak to anyone. He’d finally ordered a couch for his living room that fit through the apartment door, and that was where he was spending his nights, watching TV until he fell asleep, the nights he actually managed to fall asleep.
There was a persistent knocking on the apartment door. Zachary ignored it for a good ten minutes, but whoever was there was not taking no for an answer, so they probably knew he was home and had not left the apartment in days. Zachary went to the door and looked through the peephole. He sighed and opened the door, stepping back to let Kenzie in.
“Hey,” Kenzie said brightly. “I wondered where you’d gotten to. Glad to see you’re still around.”
Since he’d texted her answers to her voicemails, she really couldn’t complain that he hadn’t responded or that she thought something had happened to him.
“Hi. Yeah. I’ve been busy with work.”
“Any interesting cases?” She followed him into the living room and sat down on the new couch, testing it out. “Oh, this is nice! Comfy?”
“Sure.”
Kenzie glanced over at the TV, which had pretty much been playing 24/7 for however long it had been since Zachary had gotten home from visiting Bridget at the hospital. He didn’t like it when it was too quiet. “Are you watching something, or could we shut that off?”
Zachary wasn’t even sure what time of day it was, let alone what program was on. He slipped out his phone and covertly checked the time and date on his way over to shut off the TV.
“Are you out of work early, or didn’t you have a shift today?” he asked.
“I’ve been working overtime, so I took off early today.”
“That’s good,” Zachary said without enthusiasm. “It’s important to take care of yourself.”
Kenzie snorted. He sat back down and glanced over at her.
“It’s time to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, Zach.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, I don’t think you are. I think you’re spending your life holed up over here, moping over Bridget again. I told you from the start she wasn’t interested in getting back together with you. She wanted your investigative services. She should have just hired someone out of the phonebook. That would have been a lot kinder.”
“Someone else would not have dug down deep enough to find the truth. They probably wouldn’t even have taken the case.”
“And what would that matter? I’m sure homicides like this usually go undetected. Robin was dying anyway. All Gloria did was hurry things along. If you hadn’t been digging into it, Gloria would never have gone after Bridget. She would have just stayed home with Rhys and gone on with her life.”
“But that wouldn’t have been right,” Zachary pointed out. “That wouldn’t have been justice.”
“By whose definition? Robin was a killer, don’t forget. She had ruined their lives. Especially Rhys’s. Would her just living out her normal lifespan without ever having to confront what she had done be justice?”
“Turning her in ten years ago would have been justice. What Gloria did wasn’t justice. It was revenge.”
Kenzie shrugged. “Whatever. You still need to get past this and go on with your life.” She raised a finger when Zachary opened his mouth to respond. “And that is not what you are doing.”
“Maybe I’m not ready.”
“Then it’s time to see your psychiatrist. Get some help.”
Zachary drew in a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen into such a depression. Kenzie was probably right.
“Fine. I’ll make an appointment.”
“And start taking your meds.”
He looked for an argument, then shrugged, conceding.
“Let Bridget go. She’s with Gordon Drake now. So you’re not getting her back, no matter what she led you to believe. You need to let that whole notion go.”
“That’s not as easy as you think. I made vows. I promised…”
“She’s released you from them. So go on.”
Zachary shook his head and didn’t try to explain how impossible that was for him.
“You’re taking me out for dinner tonight,” Kenzie informed him. “You choose the place.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then just order an appetizer. We’ll head over there after. Maybe you’ll be hungry in a couple of hours.”
“After? After what?”
She shook her head, her hair bouncing around her face, bright red lips curved in a smile. “After we go see Rhys.”
Once again showered, changed, and dressed in fresh clothes, Zachary headed out with Kenzie. She wouldn’t give him any details about where Rhys was or how he was doing. She told him to just go with her and see for himself, and he couldn’t argue with her logic. It was the first thing that had interested him since seeing Bridget at the hospital. Bridget would be back home and completely recovered. Since Zachary hadn’t left the apartment, he hadn’t even driven by her house since she’d been released and could only assume that everything was back to normal for her.
“Good to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair?” Kenzie asked, winding through the streets with the top down. Zachary brushed his hand over his hair with one hand, but it was short enough that the wind couldn’t mess it up.
“Yeah, it’s nice,” he agreed.
She turned up the radio to eliminate the need for more conversation. Zachary watched the streets pass by, his arm resting on the window ledge.
He was surprised when they pulled up to the Salter house. He had assumed that Rhys would be in foster care, maybe even institutionalized, given his mutism and the trauma of the kidnapping and his mother’s behavior. He’d had to go to a facility once before, after Clarence’s death and, in Zachary’s experience, one institutionalization led to another.
“But who’s…?” Zachary shook his head, not even finishing the sentence, because he knew Kenzie wouldn’t answer it. There must have been some other relative willing to move into the house to look after Rhys. Some cousin.
Kenzie just smiled and walked up the sidewalk, using her fingers to comb her hair back into shape after the ride in the convertible. She rang the bell.
Zachary nearly fell over when Vera answered the door. He hadn’t expected to ever see her
outside of a care facility again.
How could they have released her? She couldn’t possibly be taking care of Rhys, and Rhys couldn’t be taking care of her.
“Mr. Goldman, I’m so glad you could come. Come in, come in.”
Kenzie and Zachary entered.
The house was spotless, everything put away in its proper place. Even the shoes at the door and Rhys’s skateboard were neat and tidy. Zachary sat down on the couch with Vera. She put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug.
“I wanted to thank you for everything you did. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t stepped in.”
Zachary looked at her and shook his head. “I don’t understand. The last time we talked to you, you were…” he trailed off, not sure of a tactful way to say that she’d appeared to have dementia. When now, she obviously didn’t.
“Gloria again,” Kenzie said. “It looks like she was intentionally giving Vera drugs that would make her muddled. So she wouldn’t understand what was going on or be able to tell anything to the police.”
Zachary blinked. “That’s… I don’t know. That’s devious.”
Kenzie laughed. Vera sighed and shrugged. “I guess so. I really don’t know what to think of this all. I started to feel better after a few days off of those pills. Like myself again. I’m still not sure of everything that happened while she was giving them to me, or how long she was doing it for. She was always in charge of dividing up my pills into daily doses for me. I just… took what she gave me.”
“So, you’re better now… and you can take care of Rhys.”
Vera nodded. “That’s right.” She raised her voice. “Rhys? Where are you? Are you going to come in to see Mr. Goldman or not?”
Zachary looked up at a heavy approaching footfall. But it wasn’t Rhys he saw, it was Stanley Green. Tall and broad and looking like he owned the place.
Zachary’s jaw dropped open. He looked at Vera and Kenzie, but neither of them seemed to be surprised or alarmed, so obviously they had already known that Stanley was there or was going to be. Both women looked at him expectantly.
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