by Nora Roberts
“How can you ask me to put her through that, to make her talk about it?”
“It’s in her head. Whatever she saw or heard is already there. We need to ask her what that was. She knows me from that night. She felt safe with me. I’ll be careful with her.”
“God.” Jamie lifted her hands, pressed her fingers to her eyes and tried to think clearly. “I have to be there. I have to stay with her, and you’ll stop if I say she’s had enough.”
“That’s fine. She’ll be more comfortable with you there. You have my word, I’ll make it as easy as I can. I have a kid of my own.”
“I doubt he’s ever witnessed a murder.”
“No, ma’am, but his father’s a cop.” Frank sighed a little as he rose. “They know more than you want them to.”
“Maybe they do.” She wouldn’t know, she thought as she led them out and up the stairs. David hadn’t wanted children, and since she hadn’t been sure she did either, she’d been content to play doting aunt to her sister’s daughter.
Now she would have to learn. They would all have to learn.
At the door to the bedroom, she motioned the two detectives back. She opened it a crack, saw that her parents were sitting on the floor with Olivia, putting a child’s puzzle together.
“Mom. Could you come here a minute?”
The woman who stepped out had Jamie’s small build, but seemed tougher, more athletic. The tan and the sun-bleached tips of her brown hair told Frank she liked the outdoors. He gauged her at early fifties and imagined she passed for younger when her face wasn’t drawn and etched with grief. Her soft blue eyes, bloodshot and bruised-looking, skimmed over Frank’s face, then his partner’s.
“This is my mother, Valerie MacBride. Mom, these are the detectives who . . . They’re in charge,” Jamie finished. “They need to talk to Livvy.”
“No.” Val’s body went on alert as she pulled the door closed behind her. “That’s impossible. She’s just a baby. I won’t have it. I won’t have anyone reminding her of what happened.”
“Mrs. MacBride—” But even as Frank spoke, she was turning on him.
“Why didn’t you protect her? Why didn’t you keep that murdering bastard away from her? My baby’s dead.” She covered her face with her hands and wept silently.
“Please wait here,” Jamie murmured and put her arms around her mother. “Come lie down, Mom. Come on now.”
When Jamie came back, her face was pale and showed signs of weeping. But her eyes were dry now. “Let’s get this over with.” She squared her shoulders, opened the door.
The man who looked up had folded his long legs Indian style. His hair was a beautiful mix of gold and silver around a narrow face that was tanned and handsome. The eyes of deep amber he’d passed to his younger daughter, and to her daughter, were fanned with lines and widely set under dark brows.
His hand, long and wide-palmed, reached out to lie on Olivia’s shoulder in an instinctive gesture of protection as he studied the men behind Jamie.
“Dad.” Jamie forced her lips into a smile. “This is Detective Brady and Detective Harmon. My father, Rob MacBride.”
Rob rose, and though he offered his hand to each detective in turn, he kept himself between them and his granddaughter. “What’s this about, Jamie?”
“They need to talk to Livvy.” She pitched her voice low and gripped his hand before he could protest. “They need to,” she repeated, squeezing. “Please, Dad, Mom’s upset. She’s lying down in your room. I’m going to stay here. I’ll be right here with Livvy the whole time. Go talk to Mom. Please . . .” Because her voice threatened to break, she took a moment. “Please, we have to get through this. For Julie.”
He bent, rested his brow against hers. Just stood that way for a moment, his body bowed, his hand in hers. “I’ll talk to your mother.”
“Where are you going, Grandpop? We haven’t finished the puzzle.”
He glanced back, fighting the tears that wanted to swim into his eyes. “I’ll be back, Livvy love. Don’t grow up while I’m gone.”
She giggled at that, but her thumb had found its way into her mouth as she stared up at Frank.
She knew who he was—the policeman with long arms and green eyes. His face looked tired and sad. But she remembered he had a nice voice and gentle hands.
“Hi, Livvy.” Frank crouched down. “Do you remember me?”
She nodded and spoke around her thumb. “You’re Frank the policeman. You chased the monster away. Is it coming back?”
“No.”
“Can you find my mama? She had to go to heaven and she must be lost. Can you go find her?”
“I wish I could.” Frank sat on the floor, folded his legs as her grandfather had.
Tears welled into her eyes, trembled on her lashes and cut at Frank’s heart like tiny blades. “Is it because she’s a star? Stars have to be in heaven.”
He heard Jamie’s low sound of despair behind him, quickly controlled as she stepped forward. But he needed the child’s trust now, so he laid a hand on her cheek and went with instinct. “Sometimes, when we’re really lucky, very special stars get to stay with us for a while. When they have to go back, it makes us sad. It’s all right to be sad. Did you know the stars are there, even in the daytime?”
“You can’t see them.”
“No, but they’re there, and they can see us. Your mother’s always going to be there, looking out for you.”
“I want her to come home. We’re going to have a party in the garden with my dolls.”
“Do your dolls like parties?”
“Everybody likes parties.” She picked up the Kermit she’d brought with her from home. “He eats bugs.”
“That’s a frog for you. Does he like them plain or with chocolate syrup?”
Her eyes brightened at that. “I like everything with chocolate syrup. Do you have a little girl?”
“No, but I have a little boy, and he used to eat bugs.”
Now she laughed and her thumb popped back out of her mouth. “He did not.”
“Oh yes. I was afraid he’d turn green and start hopping.” Idly, Frank picked up a puzzle piece, fit it into place. “I like puzzles. That’s why I became a policeman. We work on puzzles all the time.”
“This is Cinderella at the ball. She has a bea-u-tiful dress and a pumpkin.”
“Sometimes I work on puzzles in my head, but I need help with the pieces to make the picture in there. Do you think you can help me, Livvy, by telling me about the night I met you?”
“You came to my closet. I thought you were the monster, but you weren’t.”
“That’s right. Can you tell me what happened before I came and found you?”
“I hid there for a long, long time, and he didn’t know where I was.”
“It’s a good hiding place. Did you play with Kermit that day, or with puzzles?”
“I played with lots of things. Mama didn’t have to work and we went swimming in the pool. I can hold my breath under the water for an ever, because I’m like a fish.”
He tugged her hair, peeked at her neck. “Yep, there are the gills.”
Her eyes went huge. “Mama says she can see them, too! But I can’t.”
“You like to swim?”
“It’s the most fun of anything. I have to stay in the little end, and I can’t go in the water unless Mama or Rosa or a big person’s there. But one day I can.”
“Did you have friends over that day, to play?”
“Not that day. Sometimes I do.” She pursed her lips and industriously fit another piece of her puzzle into place. “Sometimes Billy or Cherry or Tiffy come, but that day Mama and me played, and we took a nap and we had some cookies Rosa made. And Mama read her script and she laughed and she talked on the phone: ‘Lou, I love it!’ ” Livvy recited in such a smooth and adult tone, Frank blinked at her. “ ‘I am Carly. It’s about damn time I got my teeth into a romantic comedy with wit. Make the deal.’ ”
“Ah . . .” Frank stru
ggled between surprise and admiration while Livvy tried to set another piece of her puzzle in place. “That’s really good. You have a good memory.”
“Daddy says I’d be a parrot if I had wings. I ’member lots of things.”
“I bet you do. Do you know what time you went to bed?”
“I’m ’posed to go to bed at eight o’clock. Chickens go broody at eight. Mama told me the story about the lady with long, long hair who lived in the tower.”
“Later you woke up. Were you thirsty?”
“No.” She lifted her thumb to her mouth again. “I had a bad dream.”
“My Noah has bad dreams, too. When he tells me about them, he feels better.”
“Is Noah your little boy? How old is he?”
“He’s ten now. Do you want to see his picture?”
“Uh-huh.” She scooted closer as Frank took out his wallet and flipped through. Cocking her head, she studied the school photo of a boy with untidy brown hair and a wide grin. “He’s pretty. Maybe he can come over to play.”
“Maybe. Sometimes he has bad dreams about space aliens.”
Forgive me, Noah, Frank thought with some amusement as he replaced his wallet, for sharing your darkest secret. “When he tells me about them, he feels better. You want to tell me about your bad dream?”
“People are yelling. I don’t like when Mama and Daddy fight. He’s sick and he has to get well, and we have to keep wishing really, really hard for him to get all better so he can come home.”
“In your dream you heard your mother and father yelling?”
“People are yelling, but I can’t hear what they say. I don’t want to. I want them to stop. I want my mama to come. Somebody screams, like in the movies that Rosa watches. They scream and scream, and I wake up. I don’t hear anything, ’cause it was just a dream. I want Mama.”
“Did you go to find her?”
“She wasn’t in bed. I wanted to get in bed with her. She doesn’t mind. Then I . . .”
She broke off and gave a great deal of attention to her puzzle.
“It’s all right, Livvy. You can tell me what happened next.”
“I’m not supposed to touch the magic bottles. I didn’t break any.”
“Where are the magic bottles?”
“On Mama’s little table with the mirror. I can have some when I get bigger, but they’re toys for big girls. I just played with them for a minute.”
She sent Frank such an earnest look, he had to smile. “That’s all right then. What did you do next?”
“I went downstairs. The lights were on, and the door was open. It was warm outside. Maybe somebody came to see us, maybe we can have cake.” Tears began to stream down her cheeks. “I don’t want to say now.”
“It’s okay, Livvy. You can tell me. It’s okay to tell me.”
And it was. She could look into his green eyes and it was all right to say. “It smells bad, and things are broken, and they’re red and wet and nasty. The flowers are on the floor and there’s glass. You don’t walk near glass in your bare feet ’cause it hurts. I don’t want to step in it. I see Mama, and she’s lying down on the floor, and the red and the wet is all over her. The monster’s with her. He has her scissors in his hand.”
She held up her own, fingers curled tight and a glazed look in her eye. “ ‘Livvy. God, Livvy,’ ” she said in a horrible mimic of her father’s voice. “I ran away, and he kept calling. He was breaking things and looking for me and crying. I hid in the closet.” Another tear trembled and fell. “I wet my pants.”
“That’s all right, honey. That doesn’t matter.”
“Big girls don’t.”
“You’re a very big girl. And very brave and smart.” When she gave him a watery smile, he prayed he wouldn’t have to put her through that night again.
He drew her attention back to her puzzle, made some foolish comment about talking pumpkins that had her giggling. He didn’t want her parting thought of him to be of fear and blood and madness.
Still, when he turned at the door to glance back, Olivia’s eyes were on him, quietly pleading, and holding that terrifyingly adult expression only the very young can manage.
As he started downstairs, he found his thoughts running with Jamie Melbourne’s. He wanted Sam Tanner’s blood.
“You were very good with her.” Jamie’s control had almost reached the end of its strength. She wanted to curl up and weep as her mother was. To mire herself in chores and duties as her husband was. Anything, anything but reliving this over again as she had through Olivia’s words.
“She’s a remarkable girl.”
“Takes after her mother.”
He stopped then, turned and looked at Jamie squarely. “I’d say she’s got some of her aunt in her.”
There was a flicker of surprise over her face, then a sigh. “She had nightmares last night, and I’ll catch her just staring off into space with that—that vacant look in her eyes. Sucking her thumb. She stopped sucking her thumb before she was a year old.”
“Whatever comforts. Mrs. Melbourne, you’ve got a lot on your mind, and a lot more to deal with. You’re going to want to think about counseling, not just for Olivia, but for all of you.”
“Yes, I’ll think about it. Right now, I just have to get through the moment. I want to see Sam.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“I want to see the man who murdered my sister. I want to look him in the eye. That’s my therapy, Detective Brady.”
“I’ll see what I can do. I appreciate your time and cooperation. And again, we’re sorry for your loss.”
“See that he pays.” She opened the door, braced herself against the calls and shouts of the press, of the curious, crowded in the street.
“We’ll be in touch” was all Frank said.
Jamie closed the door, leaned heavily against it. She lost track of how long she stood there, eyes closed, head bent, but she jerked straight when a hand fell on her shoulder.
“Jamie, you need some rest.” David turned her into his arms. “I want you to take a pill and lie down.”
“No, no pills. I’m not having my mind or my feelings clouded.” But she laid her head on his shoulder and some of the pressure eased out of her chest. “The two detectives were just here.”
“You should have called me.”
“They wanted to talk to me, and to Livvy.”
“Livvy?” He pulled her back to stare at her. “For God’s sake, Jamie, you didn’t let them interrogate that child?”
“It wasn’t like that, David.” Resentment wanted to surface, but she was too tired for it. “Detective Brady was very gentle with her, and I stayed the whole time. They needed to know what she’d seen. She’s the only witness.”
“The hell with that. They have him cold. He was there, he had the weapon. He was fucking stoned as he’s been half the time the last year.”
At Jamie’s quick warning look toward the stairs, he sucked in a breath, let it out slowly. Calm, he reminded himself. They all had to stay calm to get through this. “They have all the evidence they need to put him away for the rest of his miserable life,” he finished.
“Now they have Livvy’s statement that she saw him, she heard him.” She lifted a hand to her head. “I don’t know how it works, I don’t know what happens next. I can’t think about it.”
“I’m sorry.” He gathered her close again. “I just don’t want you or Livvy, or any of us, to suffer more than we have to. I want you to call me before you let them talk to her again. I think we need to consult a child psychologist to make sure it isn’t damaging to her.”
“Maybe you’re right. She likes Detective Brady, though. You can tell she feels safe with him. I upset my mother.” For a moment, she burrowed against David’s throat. “I need to go up to her.”
“All right. Jamie.” He slid his hands down her arms, linked fingers with her. “They’re going to release Julie’s body day after tomorrow. We can hold the memorial service the following d
ay, if you’re ready for it. I’ve started making the arrangements.”
“Oh, David.” Pathetically grateful, she shuddered back a sob. “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to make calls later today.”
“I know what you want for her. Let me take care of this for all of us, Jamie. I loved her, too.” He brought her hands to his lips, pressed a kiss to her fingers.
“I know.”
“I have to do something. Details are what I do best. I, ah, I’ve been working on a press release. There has to be one.” He ran his hands up her arms again, back down in a gesture of comfort. “It’s more your area than mine, but I figured simple was best. I’ll run it by you before it’s confirmed. But as for the rest . . . just let me take care of it.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, David. I don’t know what I’d do.”
“You’ll never have to find out.” He kissed her, softly. “Go up to your mother, and promise me you’ll try to get some rest.”
“Yes, I will.”
He waited until she walked upstairs, then went to the door, stared out the glass panels at the figures sweltering outside in the high summer heat.
And thought of vultures over fresh kill.
three
She didn’t want to take a nap. She wasn’t sleepy. But Olivia tried, because Aunt Jamie had asked her to, and lay in the bed that wasn’t hers.
It was a pretty room with little violets climbing up the walls and white curtains with tiny white dots on them that made everything soft and filmy when you looked through them. She always slept in this room when she came to visit.
But it wasn’t home.
She’d told Grandma she wanted to go home, that she could come, too. They could have a tea party in the garden until Mama got home.
But Grandma’s eyes had gotten bright and wet, and she’d hugged Olivia so hard it almost hurt.
So she hadn’t said anything more about going home.
When she heard the murmur of voices down the hall, behind the door of the room where her grandparents were staying, Olivia climbed out of bed and tiptoed from the room. Aunt Jamie had said, when Olivia asked, that Grandma and Grandpop were taking naps, too. But if they were awake, maybe they could go out and play. Grandma and Grandpop liked to be outside best of all. They could play ball or go swimming or climb a tree.