by J. R. Ward
As they approached the firehouse, he didn’t know how he was going to make it through the rest of the shift—
The Subaru parked across from the bays had to be another figment of his imagination. But just in case it wasn’t, he jumped out as soon as Doc stopped the engine to back it in.
“Where you going?” Moose hollered.
Danny let his walking answer the question. And as he came over to the Outback, he was relieved when Anne put her window down.
Her eyes were sad as they looked at him. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You should.”
* * *
The bays of the stationhouse still smelled the same—like baked bread, fresh engine oil, and lemon air freshener.
Anne had never expected to walk into them again, and somehow, having Soot by her side on his leash made everything easier. Guess comfort dogs worked.
She stopped between the engine and the ladder truck and looked up at the old-school pole that they didn’t use anymore. The hole at the top, which was in the center of the bunk room, had been paneled over.
But her father had gone down it during his time.
“You want dinner?” Danny asked quietly. “We got plenty.”
She leveled her head and stared at him. “You have bags under your eyes. You’re exhausted.”
“I think there’s even leftover roast beef. It was too rare last night. I could cook it again for you.”
“What kind of call were you out on?”
“Car accident. Two injuries in the sedan obeying the traffic laws. The asshole who was speeding and cut the red light walked away just fucking fine.”
“That sucks.”
Off in the distance, familiar voices echoed into the tall ceiling. Moose. Duff. Deshaun. None of them knew she’d come in. All of them had watched as Danny had jogged across the street to her car.
Abruptly, she frowned.
“Hey, do you remember those pictures we used to have over there?” She nodded toward the workout equipment. “Where’d they go?”
“When we had a bathroom leak, it ruined the wall.”
“Did they get killed?” As if they were mortal. “I mean, were they thrown out?”
“Nope. They’re upstairs in the hall. We figured they’d be safer. You want to go up there and see ’em?”
“Yes, I do. But will you take me? I mean, now that I don’t work here anymore and I’m not on the crew—”
“You’re always welcome. Anywhere.”
She waited for him to take the lead, and as they walked over to the old steps to the second floor, she gave the boys who were around the incident command center a little wave.
God, she felt like she was sneaking around and had just gotten caught.
“Hey, Anne,” Moose called out. “You staying for dinner?”
“Nah, I’ll leave the eating up to you.”
“Is that your dog?”
“Yup.”
Before she could get tangled into a conversation, Danny stopped at the base of the stairs and motioned the way up. As she ascended, the steps still creaked the same, the narrow walls like entering a chute.
The second floor was still beadboard that had been painted a million times, and the bathroom with the shower stalls still had that frosted-glass entry door.
The twenty or so framed pictures had been hung down the hall, the sizes and frames different, some of the images in color and some in black and white. She instantly recognized her father in the five he was in.
God, he and Tom looked so alike. And somehow their father had managed to be the center of every picture he was in. But he’d been like that. The fulcrum around which things revolved, the leader who only appeared to be phlegmatic about his role. In reality, she knew he must have taken that identity and its preservation very seriously.
If adulation had been currency, then Tom Sr. had been rich through his own design. As long as you didn’t count what he’d done to his wife.
“He was larger than life,” Danny said quietly. “Your father was the standard everyone lived up to.”
Anne looked down at her prosthesis and wondered about the nature of anger. She wouldn’t have identified herself as a hostile person, just someone who was direct and got what she wanted and needed out of situations.
Refocusing on the images of her father, standing so proud and tall among others of his generation of firefighters, she reflected on how pissed off she had been about everything—and for how long.
She also thought about that fire that had changed her life, and her determination to send Emilio up those stairs. Then she pictured him in the emergency room after his suicide attempt, alive by a stroke of luck and nothing else.
She didn’t mean to turn to Danny and reach for him, but she did.
As his arms came around her, she stared at all the pictures, and not just the ones that her father was in.
“He saved a lot of lives, you know,” Danny murmured.
He ruined a lot of them, too, she thought.
chapter
42
The next morning, Anne woke up at six a.m. Or, rather, she got out of bed at that time. She hadn’t done a lot of sleeping. After getting dressed, she went downstairs to the kitchen with Soot. While he went out to do his business, she opened her cupboards.
Instead of viewing her mother’s rearrangement as an intrusion, she looked at the order that had been made: the canned goods had been grouped together by whether they held soup or vegetables. The crackers were by the soups. The boxes of pasta were next to the sauce jars.
She opened the drawers under the countertops. Her silverware was next to the dishwasher—which would make the latter easier to empty. The plates had likewise been relocated above the dishwasher for the same reason. Pot holders were by the stove instead of across the way next to the refrigerator.
Closing everything up, she stepped back. Then she let Soot back in, sat at the table, and stared out to her living room. The sofa was now on the far wall—so you didn’t need to walk around it to enter the kitchen. The armchair was by the fireplace and the lamp on its table had been pulled in tight.
If you wanted to read a book or do needlepoint, the illumination would come over your shoulder.
Perfectly.
Anne was still sitting there when her mom came downstairs. As Nancy Janice rounded the corner, she stopped. Her face was made up. Her hair was done. But she was still in her nightclothes, the matching gown and bathrobe pink with yellow flowers. She even had slippers that coordinated with the color scheme.
Her pleasant expression, which was so ubiquitous it seemed like an actual feature—like the woman’s nose or chin—was lost instantly.
“Good morning, Anne.”
As Nancy Janice entered the kitchen, the actual number of steps she took was small. The distance she traveled was greater than miles. And Anne noted the lines in that face. The slight stoop to the shoulders. The gray hairs coming in at the temples as that auburn hair color grew out.
Time was passing, leaving its mark, taking its taxes and penalties in the form of fading beauty and function.
Anne thought of those pictures in that hallway at the stationhouse. And then of her father’s funeral. And finally of the childhood house that had been a place to start off from for her and her brother . . . but which had been, for their parents, a goal reached.
“I didn’t touch anything else.” Her mom put out her hands. “I swear, Anne.”
Sunlight glinted off the gold wedding band on her mother’s left ring finger.
“Can I ask you something?” Anne said in a low voice.
Nancy Janice came over and sat down. “Anything. Please.”
As if there had been a wait of years for such an approach.
“Why do you still wear that ring?”
Her mother stiffened, those eyes dropping away. And then she put her hand under the table, out of sight.
“Why, Mom?” Anne shook her head, aware she was asking about so m
uch more than only the band. “Why.”
Just as she became convinced there’d be no reply, Nancy Janice said, “Marriage is a private affair between two people, consecrated by the church.”
“If you have children, it’s not just about two people anymore.”
“Your father was a good man. An imperfect but good man.”
“I know what he did, Mom. I’ll spare you saying it out loud. But I know.”
The crumbling that occurred was on the inside. Even as the outward composure was retained, it was but the facade of a building, the walls and ceilings of which had fallen from their nails and screws.
Her mother’s voice was weak when she finally spoke. “All I have ever done was try to make things better than they were. For you. For your brother. I have done what I could to . . . make things work. There were no resources for me. I didn’t graduate high school when I got married. He didn’t want me to get a job. I have no skills. Without his pension now? I don’t know where I would go. Where I would be. What I would do.”
Anne looked past her mother to the rearranged living room. To the armchair with its perfectly placed lamp.
“I am nothing,” her mother whispered. “That’s what he always told me. I am . . . nothing.”
As Anne’s eyes filled with tears at the defeat in those sad words, she stood up and went around her little table, getting down on her knees. Wrapping her arms around her mother, she realized it was the first time they had hugged in . . . forever.
“Oh, God, Mom,” Anne said hoarsely. “God . . .”
Damn him, she thought to herself.
They stayed that way for the longest time, her mother crying softly, Soot padding over and sitting as close as he could to Anne.
When she finally eased back, she took her mother’s hands in her own—both the one that was of flesh and the other of molded plastic.
“I am so sorry you were hurt, Anne,” her mother said as she stared down at where they linked. “I am so sorry. It has killed me to know . . . you were hurt.”
“It’s amazing what you can live through,” Anne murmured, “and come out stronger on the other side.”
Putting her mother’s left palm on her prosthesis, Anne took that wedding band between her fingertips and slowly pulled it off. She wanted to toss the fucking thing across the room. Instead, she placed it on her table and then reached up and dried her mother’s tears.
“Time to let old lives go, Mom.” As her mother stared at the ring, her eyes were exhausted, and Anne knew how that felt. “Old lives and old dreams that were really nightmares. Strength only exists if it is tested, and I promise you, you are stronger than you know.”
“I have never been strong.” Those eyes closed so hard, her lips peeled off her teeth. “And that’s why you hate me. Because you know I’m not like you—”
“Yes, you are.” Anne smiled through her own tears. “I’m your daughter so half of me is you. If I can resurrect myself, so can you.”
Her mom’s eyes opened once more. “I wanted so desperately to have something in common with you, but I was always so glad you were not like me. You’re the strongest person I know.”
“Let’s shoot for two in this family, ’kay?” Anne squeezed her mom’s hand. “We can do it. Together.”
chapter
43
The following day, Anne went down to the municipal court and county jail complex, arriving a good twenty minutes before she was supposed to see Ollie Popper, real name Douglas Contare. After going through a metal detector and getting wanded by a deputy, she was given very precise directions to the northwest corner of the maze of concrete and glass. Talk about your foot traffic. There were hundreds of people milling around the mall-sized facility. Some were in professional dress. Others were harried and scrambling. And there were cops and sheriff’s deputies everywhere.
When she got to the jail entrance, she had to wait to get buzzed through, and then she was checking in at a bulletproof window. After that, things moved fast, and she was shown into a long thin room cut in half by thick Plexiglas. Private cubbies were created by partitions on both sides, and there were chairs and two handsets for conversation between prisoners and people who were visiting.
Left alone while they got Ollie, she debated taking a seat, but decided to wait until the guy was brought in.
Five minutes later, a door opened behind her. Another deputy, different than the one who’d brought her in, entered.
“Are you here for Contare?” the woman asked.
“Yes?”
“Sorry, wrong place. His lawyer is waiting in an interrogation room for you guys.”
Anne frowned. “You mean his public defender?”
“No, his attorney showed up just now. Said Ollie could talk to you only if he’s in the room.”
The re-routing was good news as it gave her a little time to adjust her approach. Preparation for interviewing witnesses or interrogating suspects was critical: Before you sat down with anyone as part of an investigation, you needed to know what you were going after, what the goal was. You also had to have your facts straight and be prepared to retain your composure no matter what direction things went in.
A lawyer was a surprise. Especially when they showed up at the last minute.
The room she was taken into was as she expected. No windows, a table and four chairs that were bolted into the floor, and a video monitoring camera mounted up in the far corner. There was also soundproofing on the walls and fluorescent lights on the low ceiling. Standard-issue.
The silver-haired lawyer in a silk suit that stood up was not. “Ms. Ashburn? How are you. Sterling Broward.”
No reason to correct him on the “Ms.” even though her proper title was Inspector. “Mr. Boward, nice to meet you.”
“Broward,” he corrected.
“Of course,” she said with a smooth smile. “Shall we bring your client in?”
“Just so you and I are clear, none of this is under oath and it is my intention to keep the focus tight.”
“Your client is a person of interest, not a suspect.”
“Exactly.”
After Broward gave the deputy the go-ahead to get Ollie, Anne sat down and the attorney joined her in taking a chair.
“Don’t you want to get your notepad out?” he said.
“No. Do you?”
The lawyer sat forward, linking hands that had buffed nails together. His expression was one of great kindness and benevolence. “I’m just trying to help you do your job.”
His “little girl” tack on was implied in the tone. And as Anne regarded the man, she couldn’t wait until the inevitable passage of time ushered this older generation of males off the planet and to their royal reward—rather like a pantry was cleaned of things that were past their “best by” dates: Their condescending attitude’s shelf life was up, and it was time for their act to go into the trash.
When she just stared him straight in the eye, he raised his brows, and she dubbed in his internal monologue on the hairy-arm-pitted feminist who was too much of a man-hater to accept some kind advice from someone who knew better and was looking out for her.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve heard you were difficult to deal with.”
“My job is not to make people feel comfortable.”
“I think you’ll find you attract more bees with honey than vinegar.”
Anne sat forward and mimicked his pose. “How long have you been working for Charles Ripkin?”
The change in the man was subtle but instantaneous, those brows lowering by a millimeter. “My client is Donald Contare.”
“Douglas. His name is Douglas.” She leaned farther forward. “And right now, I’m wondering how a two-bit drug dealer and addict like Ollie Popper can afford a lawyer with your kind of wardrobe. Mystery, isn’t it. Guess Ollie’s been saving his pennies from all that office equipment he’s been burning up in Ripkin’s warehouses.”
“Those isolated fires have nothing to do with Ripkin Devel
opment.”
“Boy, that denial seems to just roll off your tongue. I’ll bet you find yourself saying stuff like that a lot, huh.”
The door to the interrogation room unlatched and opened, and Ollie was smaller in person than he’d seemed in those mug shots. He was only about five feet six, and he couldn’t have weighed more than a buck forty, buck fifty tops. Also his eyes were not manic anymore, whatever he’d been on during his arrests having been metabolized.
The shackles were a surprise. He didn’t seem dangerous.
When he saw Broward, he froze, the sheriff behind him bumping into him. Ollie recovered quickly. “Hey. Wassup.”
His voice was fried, the rasp a result of inhaling hot contaminants.
His attorney made nice, shaking hands and doing that double-clasp thing with his palms, the equivalent of a politician’s I-really-care-about-you.
“I told you I was coming,” Broward said. “You know what this is about.”
“Yeah. Sure. I get it.”
Ollie focused on Anne, not that that involved much more than his eyes passing over her. He seemed more concerned with Broward as he sat down, and he tried to move the bolted chair away from the other man.
Anne cleared her throat and took her ID out of her suit jacket pocket. “I’m Inspector Ashburn. I’d like to ask you a few questions about some fires down on the wharf.”
“I don’t know nothing about no fires.”
“Okay. Well, maybe you’ll indulge me as I describe a couple of the incidents anyway. There have been six of them in the last two years, and the reason I wanted to talk to you is because of the excess office equipment found at the sites.”
“I don’t know nothing about office equipment.”
“That’s funny, because I’ve seen pictures of the three apartments you’re leasing right now. And there were rooms full of old laptops, desktops, and phones in them.”
“No, there ain’t.”
“I’ve seen the photographs.”
“They empty now—”
Broward interjected. “We are off topic. This is about the fires down by the wharf, isn’t that right. In those abandoned warehouses.”