“So why are you telling us instead?” Richard interrupted.
“And why are you talking in the past tense?” June added. Tears shone in her eyes like water caught behind glass. Richard had gone absolutely still, his face unreadable.
“I’m afraid that’s where I come in,” I said. “I’m Detective Inspector MacBain. I work for the Inverness police.”
Jacob’s parents knew then what I was going to say. I wished it could be anything else, anything at all, but I had no choice but to deliver the news.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you that your son is dead.”
Richard shot out of his chair even as June grappled for his hand. She caught it and held it, preventing him from bolting from the room. He slowly sank back down, mouth flapping uselessly. Tears streamed down June’s cheeks as her shoulders shook, her sobs threatening to tear her right in two. Richard and June hugged each other as tightly as they could, the wooden armrests of the rocking chairs knocking together, June began to softly keen as Richard rubbed circles on her back, his own eyes squeezed shut against the flood of grief.
We averted our eyes. Alana and Rayla huddled together, and I glanced at Fletcher to see her face contorted with sympathetic pain, cheeks twitching as she struggled to control it. I put my hand on her knee and gently squeezed, letting her know I was there.
I pried myself off the sofa, stuffed in with the others so tightly that it was hard to move, and went to fetch the box of tissues sitting by the window. I passed a couple out to Fletcher, Rayla, and Alana, and then set the rest of the box down in front of Richard and June.
My thigh pressed into Rayla’s when I sat back down, and she glanced at me, a slight smile on her face. I scooted my leg away as best I could, unsure why I was suddenly nervous at the contact.
We sat in silence for twenty minutes as the Greenes held each other and mourned for their dead son. I stared at my hands while I waited. I would not rush them. They could take as long as they needed, even if that was the rest of the day. That didn’t mean I felt comfortable with the waiting. My heart felt like there should be something I could do or say to help, but my head knew that there was no way I could make this better. It was a bitter thought, being so helpless.
June pulled her face away from her husband’s chest, her eyes red, her cheeks streaked with tears. She sniffed, blew her nose, and crumpled the tissue in her hand, her knuckles white. “What happened?” June demanded.
“June…” Richard began softly.
“What happened to our baby?” she repeated, cutting him off as she choked on the force of her words.
“He was murdered, killed outside his flat,” I answered, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “At first, we thought it was a hate crime, but now it’s looking like there might be something else behind it.”
“Like what?” Richard asked. He pitched his voice low to hide the way it trembled and shook.
“Well, he wiped his work computer. Our lab techs are working to recover what was on it. And there seemed to be someone following him that last week.” I hesitated, unsure how deep into our theories I should go, but if anyone deserved the full truth, it was the parents. “Hate crimes are usually crimes of opportunity. It seemed like Jacob knew that something was going to happen. When was the last time you heard from him?”
June and Richard glanced at each other. “A few weeks ago, I think,” Richard answered. “Over the phone, I mean. We text more regularly. Texted.” His heart looked fit to break as he corrected his tense, and June gripped his hand as tightly as she could, both of them holding on for dear life.
“Did he sound strange or worried at all? I know it’s hard to get a read on that over text, but did you pick up on anything?” I wanted to leave these people alone with the ghost of their son, not badger them with questions, but it had to be done.
“He was planning to come to visit this weekend, actually.” June’s voice cracked as she realized that it was the weekend and he hadn’t shown. “We were about to call when you arrived.”
“He was going to come out to you,” Alana said quietly. “He told me. I helped him prepare.”
June looked at her, eyes magnified by the tears. “Why didn’t he tell us sooner? Did he think we were going to reject him?”
“No, of course not.” Alana rushed to comfort her, sitting up and leaning forward. “But it’s a terrifying thing, coming out. No matter how well you think you know someone or how much you love them, you can never truly know how they’ll react. It takes a while to work up to it, and even then…” Alana shrugged and shook her head slightly. “Sometimes you lose your nerve. I know I did.”
June crumbled, folding in on herself like a wet piece of paper as Richard struggled to keep the two of them upright. “He was living a lie with us all those years, and now, we’ll never know his real self. I’m so sorry, Jacob. I’m so sorry.” Her voice grew softer and softer as she whispered apologies to her son, a tissue soaking up the words along with her tears.
Alana shook her head vehemently, climbing from the sofa to kneel before June, placing her hands on the older woman’s knees. “That’s not true. He’s still the same person, just a different name and pronouns. Nothing would have changed.”
“But he didn’t trust us with the truth,” Richard said.
“He did. He just… ran out of time.”
“But that makes it worse!” Richard pointed out. June could no longer speak through the thickness in her throat.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.” Alana pressed her forehead to June’s, sharing in her grief.
Richard fixed his gaze on me, his eyes intense and his lips white as he pressed them together to keep them from trembling. “You’ll find whoever did this? You’ll make them pay?”
“Yes,” I said simply, and he nodded, the motion slow and ponderous, and I felt the weight of all the hopes he was hanging on our investigation.
Eight
We stayed at the Greenes for a few more hours, answering questions, offering support, looking through the things Jacob had left behind, though there wasn’t much--just a few old school books, some childhood toys, and a guitar that he kept meaning to take back with him but never did and now never would. June wept over that guitar, cradling its neck in her hands as if it were actually her child.
As the afternoon turned towards evening, she asked Alana to stay behind, wanting to hear about Jacob’s experiences being Jacob and not Julia and what his life had been like in Inverness. Rayla left with us, promising to meet Alana at the train station for their late-night train back home.
“Could you drop me off somewhere?” Fletcher asked as the three of us climbed into my car. The rain had not stopped, dragging a pall over the already dreary day. “I made plans with some old friends.”
“Sure, just tell me where.”
Fletcher directed me through the streets, and we wound up in the city centre near Buchanan Street, part of Glasgow’s main shopping district. Fletcher made sure she had everything she needed before she climbed from the car, leaning over to say goodbye before she shut the door. “Thanks. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” We’d decided to spend the night in Glasgow and head back tomorrow morning. Dunnel was paying for it, after all, and it had been a while since either of us had gotten away for a night.
“Have fun.”
Fletcher gave me a two-fingered salute and disappeared into the crowd.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at Rayla who’d sat, quiet and despondent, in the backseat for the entire ride. She sensed my gaze and lifted her eyes to meet mine, smiling softly. “Do you want to get some dinner?” I asked. “You’ve got a few hours before your train, right?”
“I could eat,” Rayla agreed. June had offered us biscuits and tea, but no one did much more than pick at the food.
I found a parking spot in an overpriced multi storey car park, and then we wandered around until we spotted a suitable looking pub. Its exterior was painted a dark red, and the letters spelling out “Cairns Bar”
were etched with peeling gold. Warmth spilled out as I held the door open for Rayla, mingled with the sound of jumbled voices and fiddle music played over the speakers.
The inside of the pub was narrow and rather cramped with tables scattered across the floor seemingly at random, candles dripping wax down old liquor bottles. Picture frames filled the walls, and the shelves of the bar were backlit by yellow lights, making the liquid inside glow.
We seated ourselves at an empty table, the menus already laid out on the dark wood, waiting for us. The leather creaked as I slid into the booth. Rayla set her bag down first and then eased into the other side, brushing rain from her tights before she sat down fully.
Now that I could smell the food wafting off the nearby tables, I was starving, and I eagerly perused the menu. Cairns Bar had standard pub fare--pies, fish and chips, a few house specials, a couple of salads. The shepherd’s pie called out to me immediately. It took Rayla a few extra minutes to decide, and we approached the bar to put in our order, waiting patiently until the barman noticed us and wandered over, polishing a glass. We gave him our table number and requests, watching as he put it all into the computer before I thanked him and we returned to our seats.
Just a few minutes later, a waiter arrived with a pitcher of water and my pint, setting everything down in front of us with a smile. Then she was gone as quickly as she’d come, leaving Rayla and me alone. I glanced across the table at her. The candlelight glowed off her dark skin and sparked twin golden stars within her eyes, her dreadlocks unbound today, cascading over the wet shoulders of her jacket.
She noticed me looking, and I quickly dropped my eyes, focusing in on my pint. “You care an awful lot, don’t you?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” I said after I’d swallowed a too-large gulp of beer.
“You didn’t need to come in person today or go with us to break the news to Em. You didn’t even need to correct that journalist. But you chose to do all those things. Because you care.” She poured water into her glass but didn’t drink any, choosing instead to watch me as she drew her finger through the condensation left on the table.
“Anyone else would have done the same,” I insisted, but she shook her head.
“I don’t think so.” Rayla smiled. “It’s nice. To know someone cares so much, I mean.”
I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about it like that. I’d always just assumed that everyone got as invested in their cases as I did. “I just want to do right by people,” I said. “What about you? What do you do?”
“Alana and I work for the same youth club in town. Planning activities, providing resources and support, creating a safe place for these kids. That sort of thing.” She smiled as she spoke of her work, some of the grief that had haunted her since we met lifting away. I decided to do everything I could to make tonight a reprieve for her, a space away from the darkness hanging over her life, even if it was only for a few hours.
“Are you and Alana together?” I asked.
Rayla laughed. “No. We almost went out once, but we decided it was best not to date within the friend group. How about you? Got anyone special?” She wiggled her eyebrows, smiling.
I sighed. “I almost had this thing with a bodhran player, but it got really complicated since she wound up involved with the kidnapping I was investigating, but she double-crossed her ex for me, and then disappeared on tour and never came back.”
Rayla stared at me, at a loss for words as I laid out the insane situation that was my last attempt at dating. “Yeah,” I said, summing it up for her. Thinking about Lena still hurt a little. I’d gotten my hopes up that something would happen between us when she returned from tour because I honest-to-God liked her in a way I hadn’t liked anyone in a long time. But instead, she’d disappeared into thin air, leaving me wondering if I’d ever even see her again.
“My last boyfriend ran off to join the circus if that makes you feel any better,” Rayla said.
I laughed, almost choking on my beer. “You’re joking.”
“Unfortunately, I am not.” Rayla sipped at her water and grinned. “He didn’t even break up with me before he left.”
“Well, if you want me to track him down and give him the what for, I’m happy to.”
Rayla laughed, the sound bright and clear against the dark walls of the pub. “I might just take you up on that.”
I was glad to see her smile. It had seemed like she and Alana would never be able to smile again. She grew serious as if she’d sensed my thoughts, her eyebrows crinkling above her nose. “Do you really think Jacob got wrapped up in something he shouldn’t have?”
“I really don’t know. It almost looks that way, but we only have suspicions to back it up.” I straightened my fork and knife so that they were neatly lined up with the edges of the napkin. “Another witness also thinks she saw a blonde man following Jacob. We might be onto something there.”
Of course, we had no idea how to find this blonde man with only Rayla’s uncertain description and the grainy image taken off the CCTV footage.
“I don’t understand how people kill,” Rayla said. “Jacob’s dead, Cameron Houser is dead… How do you justify ripping a life from the world?”
I could only shrug.
“Have you ever killed someone?”
“No. I hope I never do.”
Eleanor MacBain had. She’d killed twice in her career. The first had been trying to kill her, and the second had pulled a gun on her partner, fully prepared to shoot. She killed the first man before I was born, but I’d been thirteen when it happened next. She’d withdrawn from us for a long time, had almost seemed afraid to touch us as if she feared staining our skin red with her hands, and she’d never fully returned to her old self. She was someone new, someone different, but my sister, my father, and I loved her all the same.
When I joined the force, she finally told me more about it. She’d always refused to discuss it with us. She said it was like it had carved a hole through her, one that never really closed but instead dripped blood every moment she was awake. She said we had to be careful not to shoot too many holes in ourselves or else the stuff that made us us would eventually dribble away.
“Alana doesn’t speak with her parents much any more,” Rayla said, changing the subject and pulling me out of my reverie. “They never quite accepted her, and she eventually just stopped trying.”
“Must be hard,” I murmured. “My dad left when I was in uni. I know it’s not quite the same, but I understand what it’s like to feel rejected.”
“Have you heard from him since?” Rayla asked, reaching across the table to lightly touch my hand. Her fingernails were long, slightly sharp against my hand.
“No,” I said simply. I didn’t want to get into the whole my dad might have been kidnapped by the Loch Ness Monster thing.
“Were you close?”
“I thought so.”
Our food arrived then, a steaming bowl topped with mashed potatoes for me and just a bowl of chips for Rayla. She hadn’t had much of an appetite since she found out Jacob was dead. I offered her some of my shepherd’s pie just the same, but she shook her head.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, and I was glad to finally quiet the monster in my stomach. The food was decent--I’d had better, but I’d also definitely had worse. I got up and ordered another pint since I figured I was technically off duty and bought Rayla an orange juice at her request. She picked at her chips, tearing them to pieces rather than actually eating them.
“Did you ever try to find that woman?” Rayla asked finally after the quiet had stretched on a little longer than she liked.
“Lena?” I asked, though I hadn’t told Rayla her name. “No. She needed space after everything that happened, and I figure it’s better to let her find me if she ever wants to. Clearly, she doesn’t.” I forced half a smirk across my lips, but it felt a bit like a knife slash across the face. I couldn’t help but wonder if I did something wrong in those last few days, if I drove her
away.
“Maybe she’s waiting for you to make the first move,” Rayla suggested. She finally took a full bite of a chip though swallowing it seemed to pain her.
“I doubt it.”
Rayla wagged her finger. “You’ll never know unless you try.”
“I’d rather just not try,” I said. There were a lot of those in my life right now. Boxes that I didn’t want to open.
Rayla let the matter drop with one last shrug.
When we were done eating, I paid the bill with my business expense card, waving off Rayla’s attempt to pull cash from her purse. We walked back out into the light rain, and I wished for Fletcher and her trusty umbrella. I never remembered to grab one. Rayla hadn’t either. She still had an hour before she had to meet Alana at the train, so she pointed towards an ice cream shop across the way, and we wandered over, ducking inside where it was dry.
We walked up the streets with our cones, heads ducked to protect the ice cream from the rain, studying the display windows of the shops lining the street. Most everything, the smaller businesses especially, was starting to close up for the night, lights switching over, grates pulled down over the glass.
Despite that, the night life continued. Most pubs and bars were only just gearing up for the night, and musicians ducked through doors every few feet, headed inside for sound checks before the show or maybe popping in for a bite to eat before the session. Live music could be found just about anywhere, any night, no matter the weather. I’d always found it comforting that I could step into any establishment I wanted and find something going on there.
The Hidden Eye Page 10