by Tami Hoag
“Are you allowed out of bed?” Mitch asked with some alarm. He rounded the foot of the bed and hovered beside her, ready to catch her if she collapsed.
Megan did her best to ignore his concern. Shooting him a look of annoyance, she hobbled toward the window, leaning heavily on a single crutch tucked under her left arm. “As long as I promise not to run up and down the halls shouting obscenities.” She had never dreamed so many parts of her could hurt simultaneously, but she would get through it, tough it out, because she had to. “I need to stand awhile. Lividity was setting in.” She propped herself up against the window well.
Night had fallen outside. Black over a blanket of pristine white. The snow lay in drifts over the hospital lawn, sculpted into elegant lines by the wind. She could feel Mitch standing behind her, his warmth, his energy, tempting her to lean back into him. She could see his faint reflection along with her own in the window, dark shadows with haunted eyes.
“But, life's not all bad,” she said with cynical humor. “I'm getting a commendation from the bureau. I'm losing my field post, but I'm getting a commendation. Beats the hell out of a pink slip, I suppose. And Paige is dropping the lawsuit in light of the photos old Henry Forster snapped of her sneaking in and out of Steiger's trailer. Lucky for me she was too greedy for details about the arrest to keep her panties on.”
“Greed is a great motivator.”
“That's a fact,” she murmured. “I wish that's all this case was about—greed. At least that's something everyone can comprehend. Garrett Wright's motive . . . How can anyone understand a game as twisted as the one he's been playing?”
Mitch offered no answer. She knew he didn't have one any more than she did.
“Is he talking yet?” she asked softly.
“No.”
“You haven't found the place he took me.”
“Not yet. It could take some time.”
“And Josh . . .”
“We'll find him,” Mitch declared as if there weren't hundreds of cases that went unsolved forever. “We'll go on looking until we do.”
“I saw his face,” Megan said slowly. “In between beatings. I saw him, but I don't know if I was conscious or if I was hallucinating. I don't know if what I saw was real. I wish I knew, but I don't.”
It made her head hurt to try to separate the real from the surreal. Knowing that Wright was a psychologist, an expert in learning and perception, only complicated the issue. Could he have somehow planted that image in her mind? Possibly, but that didn't explain the conversation she had had with Hannah earlier in the day.
Hannah had come in to deliver the rosebush herself. Pale and thin, looking as if she belonged in a bed instead of standing beside one, she presented Megan with the plant and with her thanks for all she'd done.
“I got myself caught and beat up,” Megan admitted. “I don't feel like I deserve thanks.”
“Because of you, Garrett Wright is behind bars,” Hannah said simply.
Megan didn't ask her how she felt about the fact that her neighbor, someone she had trusted, had been the one to put her through this hell. Enough people would ask that question over and over, poking at the open wound in Hannah's soul.
“I have to ask,” Hannah murmured, trying to hide the tremor in her voice. Her gaze darted from Megan's to the square of bed covers she continually smoothed with her fingers. She started to speak, stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “Did he say . . . anything . . . about Josh?”
“No,” Megan whispered, wishing with all her heart she could offer something more, some concrete evidence that Josh was alive. But all she had was a vision that might well have been drug induced. She looked up at Hannah, at the dark rings around her eyes and the emotions she couldn't hide and made her decision. Slim hope was better than no hope at all.
“I did . . . see . . . something . . .” she started, choosing her words as carefully as picking her way through a mine field. “He drugged me, you know, so I can't say if what I saw was real. In some ways it seemed like it was. In other ways . . . I just can't say.”
“What did you see?” Hannah asked carefully, her expression guarded. Megan could feel her tension level rise. Her fingers left the sheet and wrapped around the bed rail.
“I thought I saw Josh. It might have been a projection of some kind. It might have been something Wright planted in my mind. I don't know. But I thought I saw him standing across the room, just looking at me. He didn't say anything. He just stood there. I remember his eyes and his freckles.” She looked back into her own memory for details, for some hint of reality. “He had a bruise on his cheek and he was wearing—”
“Striped pajamas.”
Hannah finished the thought for her. Megan looked up at her, stunned, a chill running through her. “How did you know that?”
She breathed deeply and stood back from the bed. “Because I saw him, too.”
“How?” Megan whispered, nearly dumbstruck with astonishment. Was this the reason Hannah had sounded so confident on TV about Josh being alive?
“In my mind I saw him one night, and he looked so real that it couldn't have been just a dream. What you've told me confirmed what I already believed. Josh is alive. I'll get my son back.”
Megan wanted to believe it, too. That they would find Josh safe and sound and bring him home to live happily ever after. She stood there now in her room, staring out at the night, wishing, and knowing wishes wouldn't get them anywhere.
“I asked him, you know,” she said to Mitch. “If he killed Josh. He wouldn't say. He told me the game wasn't over yet. He told me they had considered every possibility, that they couldn't lose.”
Mitch's eyes narrowed. “He's sitting in a jail cell, booked on charges of kidnapping, depriving parental rights, assaulting an officer, attempted murder, auto theft, and fleeing arrest. Ruth Cooper ID'd him in a lineup as being the man she saw on Ryan's Bay last Wednesday, and she ID'd his voice. We've got him dead to rights. I'd say he's a big-time loser.”
“No sign of a record on him?”
“No.”
Meaning if Garrett Wright had committed murder, as he had told her, no one had ever pinned anything on him. The thought only deepened the hollow feeling in Megan's stomach. She tried to ease it with the thought that now every stone of Wright's past would be turned over. A vision of squirming maggots filled her head and she blinked to clear it away.
“Any connection to an accomplice yet?”
“Olie looks like a good bet. He sat in on some of Wright's classes. He had the van, the opportunity, the history. Wright might have had some kind of hold on him psychologically.”
“What about Priest?”
“Volunteered to take a polygraph and passed it with flying colors. Todd Childs claims he was with a friend most of Saturday. Says he was at the movies the night Josh disappeared.” He blew out a breath, his broad shoulders sagging under the weight of it all. “I've been talking to Karen Wright, trying to find out if she might know something without realizing it, but she hasn't been any help. She's so distraught, she can hardly function.”
“Yeah, well, that's a pretty ugly surprise—to find out you're married to a monster. Seems to be an ongoing theme since I came here—ugly surprises. Do you think that's a sign?”
She tried to smile, but it hurt too much that she didn't belong there—and it just plain hurt, tugging at the stitches in her lip. She looked down at the cast on her hand and felt that lifeline stretching thin. There was no promise she would belong anywhere. She turned a whiter shade of pale.
“I think you should lie down,” Mitch said gruffly.
“Don't boss me around,” she shot back with a fraction of her usual fire.
“What are you going to do about it, O'Malley? Hit me with your crutch?” The mock irritation did a poor job of covering his concern.
“Don't tempt me. I'm cranky.”
“Get back in that bed or I'll put you there myself.” He pointed the way for her. “Natalie is right, we need you bet
ter and back on the job. That Tom Hanks impersonator they sent down here is driving me nuts.”
Megan gave him a look. “Like I didn't?”
“At least you're a good cop,” he grumbled. “And I can kiss you when you make me mad.”
“Marty might like that, too. Have you asked him?”
“Very funny. Come on, now, Megan, I'm not kidding. Get back in bed.”
Megan ignored the dictate, turning her attention back out the window. Talk of work only made her more keenly aware of her tenuous position. The fear swelled inside her like a balloon. She told herself to handle it as she had handled most everything else in her life—alone. Mitch didn't want her burden. He had made it clear what he wanted from her—a brief affair, no strings attached, no complications. She was one big complication now.
Still, the pressure of an uncertain future built inside her, trembling like a clenched fist, and she couldn't seem to keep the words from leaking out.
“I might not be coming back to the job,” she said in a small voice. “Here or anywhere. Maybe never.”
She watched his reflection in the glass as he moved a little closer. He ran a hand over her hair and settled it on her shoulder.
“Hey, I thought you were a tough cookie,” he said. “It ain't over till it's over, O'Malley.” She turned wary eyes on his reflection. “I know about your hand, honey.”
“Don't call me honey.”
He slipped his arms around her with infinite care. He held his breath as he waited for her to lean back against him.
Megan held her breath against the need to let him hold her, waited for the need to pass. It wasn't smart to need that way. She'd known that all her life. Stand on your own two feet, O'Malley. Hang on to your heart. The trouble was, she didn't feel strong enough to stand alone, and her heart was already gone. She had nothing left to lose but her pride, and that was tattered and threadbare.
The tears came despite all efforts to fight them off. She didn't have the strength for shields and armor, the defenses that had guarded a too-tender soul for so long. She could feel everything she'd ever wanted, ever loved, sliding through her grasp, leaving her alone, with nothing, with no one. She'd been alone so much and it hurt so badly.
The words, like the tears, came grudgingly. “I'm . . . so . . . scared!”
She turned and pressed her face against his chest and cried. Mitch held her and whispered to her. He lay his cheek on top of her head and squeezed his eyes shut.
“It's all right,” he whispered. “I'm here for you, Megan. You won't be alone.”
He tipped her face up and looked into eyes that were wary and wide, that had seen too much disappointment. His hand cradled a face so fragile, so pretty, it took his breath away. At that instant he didn't see the black eye or the battered lip. The feeling that swelled in his chest scared the hell out of him.
“I'm saying I love you, Megan.” He swallowed hard and said it again. “I love you.”
“No,” she said, stepping back from him. “No, you don't.”
Mitch scowled at her. “Yes, I do.”
“No.” She shook her head, hobbling toward the bed, the rubber tip of her crutch squeaking against the polished floor. “You don't love me. You feel sorry for me.”
“Don't tell me what I feel, O'Malley,” he growled. “I know when I'm in love with somebody. I'm in love with you. Don't ask me why. You're the most stubborn, confounding woman I've ever known. That's how I know I'm in love with you.” He lifted a finger to emphasize his point. “If I weren't in love with you, I'd want to wring your neck.”
“What a romantic,” Megan said dryly, covering her emotions with sarcasm. “It's a wonder women aren't hurling themselves at your feet.”
“No, I have to pick a woman who'd rather hurl something at my head.”
“Lucky you I'm crippled,” she grumbled, struggling to get herself up onto the bed.
Mitch made a sound of boiling frustration between his teeth and came to her aid. “Let me help you.”
“I don't want your help.”
“Tough.” He put his hands around her waist and lifted her like a doll. “Dammit, Megan, it's not going to kill you to say you need me or to let me know when something hurts you.”
“You hurt me,” she said. “Don't tell me you love me when you don't. I'm not what you need or want and you know it! I don't know anything about being in love. All I know is how to be a cop and how to be alone. So why don't you just get out!”
He heaved a sigh. “Aw, Megan . . .”
She narrowed her eyes at the look on his face. “Don't you dare pity me, Mitch Holt. And don't argue. Just leave.”
“I don't pity you,” he said quietly, stepping closer and closer. “I love you. And God knows I've wanted you from the minute I laid eyes on you.”
“So, you had me. You should be happy.”
“I'm going to have to knock that chip off your shoulder every damn day, aren't I?” he murmured half to himself. “I can't say I would have asked for this. You punch my buttons. You make me mad. You make me feel. Maybe that's not what I thought I wanted, but I need it. To feel again.''
He brushed a knuckle against her cheek. “I almost lost you, Megan. I'm not going to walk away from you. Our lives can change so fast. In the blink of an eye, in a heartbeat. It's stupid to let a chance go by because we're too proud or too scared. That chance may never come again.”
A chance at love. It hung in this moment between them, a pale, shimmering promise. A chance Megan had longed for in silence all her life. It terrified her now to think it might be a mirage, that it might vanish if she reached for it. But what if she didn't? What would she have then?
“Come on, O'Malley,” Mitch goaded. “What are you—chicken?”
“I'm not scared of you, Holt,” she returned. Her breath hitched in her throat and she scowled.
“So prove it,” he challenged her, stepping closer, sliding his fingers into her hair, cupping the back of her head. “Tell me you love me.”
Megan met his gaze, his tough-cop look, his eyes that looked a hundred years old. Eyes that had seen too much. She raised a hand and traced a fingertip over the scar on his chin.
“Break my heart and I'll kick your ass, Chief.”
A crooked smile broke across Mitch's face. “I guess that's close enough.”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her unbruised cheek, breathed in the scent of her hair and the faintest breath of perfume that clung to her skin.
“So I know you've got a rule against dating cops, O'Malley,” he murmured in her ear. “But do you think you could marry one?”
Megan lay her head against his chest and listened to his heart beat in time with hers. “Maybe,” she whispered, smiling. “As long as the cop is you.”
CHAPTER 41
* * *
DAY 13
10:04 P.M. 16°
Boog Newton sat with his feet on his bunk and his back against the wall, picking his nose, his eyes fixed on his little television. He never missed the news. A lot of it seemed like bullshit to him, but he never missed it anyway. That was tradition. The fact that Paige Price made him horny as hell was just a bonus.
The top story of the night was the press conference on that kidnapping deal. Boog felt a personal connection to the case after what had gone on with that Olie character. He listened closely as Chief Holt told the reporters practically nothing.
“Digging for gold, Boog?” Browning, the jailer, sauntered past the cells. He was making rounds every fifteen minutes instead of every couple of hours the way he used to, which had to cut into his magazine reading in a big way.
“Take off, pork,” Boog sneered, flicking a big fat booger at Browning's beer gut.
“Jeez!” The jailer jumped back as if he'd been shot. His face twisted with disgust. “Look at that! God!” He ducked out the door. Boog snickered and turned back to his news. The guy in the next cell was watching, too. He was creepy, sitting there all day, never saying anything, his expression nev
er changing. Boog had caught him looking at him different times, staring at him as if he were a bug under a microscope.
“Hey, that's you they're talking about, ain't it? You're the one took that Kirkwood kid. That's sick,” Boog declared, sticking out his bony chin. “You're sick.”
Garrett Wright said nothing.
“Hey, you know what happened to the last guy they brought in here? They said he done it. They put him right in that cell you're sitting in. You know what he did? He took his glass eyeball right out of his head and killed himself with it. I figure he was nuts. Anybody who'd do that has to be nuts.” He pressed his lips together and scratched at his greasy hair, figuring some more. “You must be nuts, too,” he deduced.
The corners of Wright's mouth flicked up. “I teach psychology at Harris College.”
Boog made a rude noise, eloquently expressing his opinion of teachers. On the television they were showing cops and lab guys from the BCA trooping in and out of a fancy house in Lakeside—Wright's house. A pretty woman with dishwater-blond hair stood by the front door, bawling her eyes out.
“Hey.” Boog shot another look Wright's way. “What'd you do with the kid? Did you kill him or what?”
Garrett Wright smiled to himself. “Or what.”
DAY 14
midnight 12°
Hannah woke sharply from a troubled sleep. Sleeping alone triggered some internal alarm system that was oversensitive and went off at the slightest hint of sound or movement. She lay in the middle of the big bed and stared up at the skylight and the black rectangle of January night, listening, waiting, every muscle tense. Nothing. No sound, no movement. The house was still. The night was silent. Even the wind, which had been relentless for days, as cold and sharp as an ice pick, held its breath as one day passed and a new one began with the tick of the clock: 12:01.
A new day. Another day to face. Another twenty-four hours to wander through, trying to function, looking like a normal person, appearing as her former self, an impostor. Nothing about her life or herself was normal anymore. She would get through this day and the next and the one after that because she had to for herself, for Lily . . . and for Josh.