by Nora Roberts
She turned to Emily, burrowed in. “I couldn’t tell you. I was afraid to tell you, but I was getting more afraid of not. Because when Zane goes to college, I’ll be alone. Did Dad push him down the steps?”
Emily nodded. “But he’s going to be okay. The boy isn’t yet sixteen,” she said to Lee. “He has a concussion, a broken elbow, a seriously sprained ankle. The doctor wanted to keep him in the hospital overnight, but … their father is a surgeon there, and the police where we live believed him and my sister, and he’s friendly with important people. Like judges. They took that boy to Buncombe. He’s fifteen. He’s hurt. He’s never been in trouble. You could talk to anyone and they’d tell you. His coaches, his neighbors, his teachers.”
“Why did his doctor sign him out?”
“Because the man who put him in the hospital said if she didn’t, he would. You can talk to her. She’s Dr. Marshall, at Mercy Hospital.”
Lee made another note. “Has he hurt your brother enough for the hospital before?”
“He didn’t let Zane go to the hospital before. He locked him in his room. Christmas, Emily, you remember? Not last Christmas. The one before.”
“Oh God.” Emily closed her eyes. “Zane didn’t have flu, and he didn’t have a skiing accident when you were at the resort.”
“We came home from school. The last day of school before Christmas. Dad was home early, and when we came in, we could hear Mom crying, and Dad yelling. Zane tried to stop me, but I ran back, and she was on the floor, and there was blood, and he was hitting her, and I yelled for it to stop. And Zane…”
She took a long sip of Sprite. “Before, he’d make me go upstairs, sit with me. Or if it happened when we were already in our rooms, I’d go to his, and he’d let me stay until it stopped. But this time, he tried to stop him from hurting her, and Dad…”
She let out a hiccupping sob. “I kept yelling to stop, and he—Dad turned and looked at me, and he was going to hit me. And Zane pushed me back and tried to stop him. He hurt him so bad, Mr. Keller. He kept hitting him, and he kicked him, and she just watched! And Dad picked Zane up, like over his shoulder, and took him upstairs, locked him in his room. I should’ve done something, but I was afraid.”
“It’s not your fault.” Even paler than she’d been, Emily brought Britt’s clenched fist to her lips, kissed it. “None of it’s your fault.”
“He broke Zane’s nose, and his eyes were all swollen and black, and his lip was cut and swollen. I snuck him a sandwich when I could, a PB&J, but he could hardly eat.
“The day after, on Christmas Eve, I heard Dad go in, and in a little while Zane was yelling—screaming—like he was hurt again. And he said—Dad said—Zane had the flu. He was contagious and no one was allowed to see him, and spread germs. Even though Grams and Pop were coming for Christmas. And when we got to the resort, we’d tell the people there he’d been messing around on his bike and had a bad fall. He had to stay in the room while we went skiing. And when we got back, we had to say he fell when he was skiing.”
She took the tissue Emily pressed into her hand. “You can call the resort if you don’t believe me. You can call them. We go every year. They’ll tell you he had the black eyes and everything when we got there. And you can talk to people where we live, to his teachers, and they’ll tell you how we said he fell skiing.”
“What resort do you go to?”
“High Country Resort and Spa. We go from December twenty-sixth to the thirtieth. We go every year.”
“I went to see Zane Christmas Eve,” Emily said. “My sister called, said he was sick, said we had to move Christmas dinner to my place because of germs. I went to take him some chicken soup, and a book I was going to smuggle in—on their do-not-read list. A Dark Tower novel, that’s all.”
When she felt her throat burn, she took a swig of Coke, breathed out the helpless rage. “They wouldn’t let me go up, and they left him there alone on Christmas while they came to dinner. They’ve cut me off from the kids recently. I don’t get to see them very often, there’s always an excuse.”
“They said you didn’t want to spend time with us, that you had other things you wanted to do. We didn’t believe them, honest we didn’t, but that’s what they said. Dad says you’re a lazy slut.”
Emily managed a smile. “Sometimes I wish.” She kissed Britt’s cheek. “We have more evidence. A friend—the father of my nephew’s best friend is on his way here now. He’s an EMT, and he heard Zane was hurt, he stayed with him at the hospital. Zane gave him his house key, asked him to go in and get some notebooks he’d hidden. He said he’d written it all down. They took him to prison, Detective Keller. They had to take him out in a wheelchair. If you became a cop to help people, help us.”
“What’s the name of the friend bringing the notebooks? I need to clear him with the officer on the night desk,” he said when they both hesitated.
“Dave Carter.”
“Give me a second.”
He should call his lieutenant, Lee thought. Child services. He should call Buncombe and get the full name of the brother. But for now, he’d play it out.
The kid wasn’t lying.
He came back to find the girl with her head on her aunt’s shoulder. She looked so damn small, so beat-up.
“How’d you get out of the hospital?”
“I snuck into another room for the phone, and called Emily. She was already there, but they wouldn’t tell her where I was because my father said not to. I went down the stairs, and she met me. Because she believes me, believes Zane, because she said we had to tell the police. My father will hurt her, too, if he can.”
“You don’t worry about that,” Emily told her.
“If I’m going to help you, I need your names.” It would take him about two minutes to find this Zane with a call to Buncombe, but he wanted the girl, the little girl with exhausted green eyes, to tell him. To trust him.
“Do you believe me? Will you believe me even when my father says I’m lying?”
“If I didn’t believe you, I’d have made calls already. I’m a detective.” He smiled when he said it. “I could find out your names, and your brother’s. But I didn’t, because I believe you, and I want you to believe I believe you.”
Britt looked at Emily, got a nod. “You have to trust.”
“I’m Britt Bigelow. My brother’s Zane. My parents are Dr. Graham Bigelow and Mrs. Eliza Bigelow. We live in Lakeview Terrace. And I think he’ll kill me if he can now that I’ve stopped lying.”
“He’s not going to touch you, or Zane, again. Didn’t I tell you I wouldn’t let him? The wrong Bigelow is in prison, Detective. And I’m Emily Walker.”
“Got someone here for you, Detective.” A uniformed officer led Dave in.
“Hey, Britt, let me have a look there.” With a messenger bag over his shoulder, Dave crouched down by her chair. “Are you hurting?”
“I have an awful bad headache, Mr. Carter, and my cheek hurts a lot. My eye, too.”
“Oh, Britt, why didn’t you say? Damn it, I didn’t even ask, not really. I must have some Advil or something.”
“Let’s not,” Dave said as Emily started pawing through her purse. “I don’t know what they gave her in the hospital. But I stopped on the way.” He opened the bag, took out a bag of frozen peas. “Quick relief. You just hold that on your cheek, okay? How many?” He held up two fingers.
“Two. I’m okay, Mr. Carter. I feel better since we came here.”
“Good to hear.” Dave rose, held out a hand to Lee. “Dave Carter.”
“Detective Keller.”
“Well, Detective Keller, since I had Zane’s key and his permission, I don’t think going in the house, into his room qualifies as unlawful entry, but I’ll take that lump if it comes.”
He pulled several notebooks out of his bag. “I read the first entry in the one marked Number One. If you can read that and do nothing about getting Zane out of that place, about putting Graham Bigelow behind bars, you aren’t human
.”
Lee opened the first book, read the first entry.
December 23.
When he finished, he picked another entry at random. Opened the second book, did the same.
“So, Britt, did your grandparents come to visit last summer?”
“In August, after we got back from vacation. They stayed with Emily. It used to be their house, but they gave it to her and my mom. Mom didn’t want it, so Emily paid her share. We had them over on the last day for a party on the sailboat. It was really nice. Then…”
She leaned into Emily again, carefully drank some Sprite. “Then after everybody left, my father got mad. He hit Zane in the stomach—he likes to hit in the stomach because it doesn’t show. He said Zane embarrassed him because he’s a bad sailor, and all he did was talk about baseball with Pop and he ate too much of the food like a greedy pig. And I don’t remember all of it.”
“That’s enough.”
Lee closed the book.
“If you had to go in front of a judge, and swear under oath, would you say everything you’ve said to me?”
“Will you get Zane out of prison if I do?”
“I’m going to work on that. Mr. Carter, do you remember Zane having a skiing accident?”
“Yeah, Christmas before last. Face-planted, he told me. Ah, shit. Shit.” Dave pressed his fingers to his eyes. “He didn’t come around until after the first of the year—and he and my Micah are usually joined at the hip. He had a broken nose, but it was healing up. I didn’t question it. But it was right after that he asked me to help him get stronger. Learn to lift. Because of baseball, he said, and I didn’t question that either.”
“I told you.”
“Yeah.” Lee nodded at Britt. “You did. Now Mr. Carter corroborated your statement, your aunt’s. And I’m going to wake somebody up at the High Country Resort and Spa, and nail it down a little more.”
“We stay on the Executive level. They have twenty-four-hour butler service. But I don’t know the number.”
“I’ll get it. I need to talk to the police chief in Lakeview.”
Britt shook her head, cringed back against Emily. “He’s a friend of my dad’s. He’ll—”
“He may be a friend of your dad’s, Britt, but he’s a law officer, and I’ve worked with him a couple times. He’s not going to push this away. You have to keep trusting me, but another thing I have to do is going to be hard for you. I have to contact child services.”
“They can’t take her.” Emily wrapped both arms around Britt. “I’m her aunt.”
“I’m going to push as much as I can push, but if I don’t contact them, it’ll be harder yet. You took the minor child out of the hospital because both you and the minor child feared for her safety and well-being. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“All right. You have to let me do my work, you have to trust I’m going to do that work with the safety and well-being of Britt top of my list.”
“Zane.”
“He’s right up there with you, kid. I’m going to show you a place you can wait, maybe get some rest. Can you wait here, Mr. Carter? I just have a couple more questions.”
“Sure.”
“One more thing. The grandparents, not local?”
“Not anymore.” Emily answered. “My parents moved to Savannah nearly ten years ago. You’re looking for other family, in case they won’t let me keep them. They’d come. They’d come without hesitation.”
“Okay. Let me show you where you can wait.”
When he settled them, he hit the break room, got coffee, brought some to Dave. “Being an EMT, I figure you can handle the coffee.”
“Thanks. Jesus. Britt, she’s tight with my daughter. Seeing what he did to her. What he did to Zane.”
“You responded to the nine-one-one.”
“No, I wasn’t on, but word traveled, and fast. The kids are like family to me.” Sitting, he rubbed hard at the tension in the back of his neck. “I went down to see what I could do, if I could help. They were bringing Zane out. And they had his wrist cuffed to the damn gurney, saying he was under arrest, three counts of assault.”
Dave drank the cop coffee without a wince. “And bigger bullshit I’ve never heard. I’d taken him, my son, their dates to the school dance. And what, ten minutes after I drop him back home, he’s attacking his mom? He wouldn’t hit his mother or Britt. He was happy when I dropped him off, Detective. They’d had a great time.”
“Any drinking?”
“Absolutely not. Kid’s an athlete. He’s serious about baseball, and damn good, too. He wouldn’t risk getting benched for a beer, especially not before States. Jesus, you read the notebook.”
“I’m getting details, Mr. Carter.”
Dave held up a hand, drank more coffee. “Sorry. I’m wound pretty tight right now. Zane was sober, happy. It was their first big date, double date, Zane and Micah, my boy. And his tox came back clean. I was there when Elsa read it—Dr. Marshall, the orthopedic surgeon who treated him. He might still need surgery on the elbow, and he shouldn’t have been taken out of the hospital, much less to Buncombe. Elsa didn’t want to clear him—he should have had overnight observation. But Graham’s not only his father, he’s chief surgical resident. She didn’t have a choice.”
“You stayed with him?”
“Rode in the ambulance with him,” Dave confirmed, “into the hospital, stayed. Neither of his parents came down. Emily came. I called her. They didn’t.”
“Tell me what Zane said to you.”
Fueling himself with coffee, Dave went over everything he could remember, backtracked, added more detail.
“All right. I might need to talk to you again, but you can go home.”
“I’ll wait with Emily and Britt. I just need to let my wife know.”
Lee angled his head. “Your wife? You and Ms. Walker aren’t involved?”
“What?” Dave’s face cleared for the first time with a quick laugh. “No. I’ve been married for seventeen years. Eighteen? One of those. I’ve got two kids. I used to work for the Walkers back when I was a teenager, and summers into my twenties. I’ve known Emily, and Eliza, forever. Emily and I—and Em and my wife—are pretty good friends.”
“Not friends with Eliza Bigelow?”
Humor cooled out of Dave’s eyes. “We don’t run in the same circles as Graham and Eliza. She let that happen to her kids. Maybe she’s a victim, too, but she let that happen to her kids. And her son is hurt, terrified, and in prison. She let that happen, too.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll wait with them.”
Lee gave him directions, then sat back a minute. He’d been on his way home after a sixteen-hour day. Thinking he might have a before-bed beer.
Now it looked like more coffee with another long day to come.
He turned to his computer, did a run on Zane Bigelow, his parents, his aunt, Dave Carter. He got the phone number for the resort, and got to work.
* * *
When Zane looked back on the worst night of his life, small details stuck. The smell of the van—metallic covered with the sweat of fear and desperation. The sound of the wheels on the road sang misery. The impossible loneliness.
Whatever Dr. Marshall had given him for pain kept it under the surface. He knew it was there, knew it would come back, but he was too numb—body, mind, spirit—to care.
The guard had eyes like marbles, hard and cold. The driver said nothing. He was the only prisoner. He’d learn later his father’s insistence and influence helped speed his transport, alone and at such a late hour.
“Looks like you got your ass kicked, didn’t you? That’s what you get for going at your mother, your baby sister.”
Zane didn’t respond—what was the point? He kept his head down.
And later, like so many things later, he’d learned the guard’s marble eyes and the disgust in his voice were due, at least in part, to the fact that Dr. Graham Bigelow had performed surgery on the guard’s son after a car accident.<
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He couldn’t find his fear, couldn’t even dig down through the numb for worry.
Until the misery music of the tires changed to a kind of threatening grumble. And he heard the sound of the gate clanging shut behind the van.
Panic bloomed in his belly, spread its tendrils into his chest. And rocks tumbled over it, sharp and heavy. He felt tears stinging the back of his eyes, and some instinct, some atavistic animal inside him warned that if they fell, if even one escaped, it would doom him.
“Welcome home, asshole.”
The guard had to help him out of the van. If he felt any pity for the trembling boy with a splinted arm and ankle boot, he didn’t show it.
He went through a steel door, a metal detector. He had to stand against a wall, bright lights in his eyes, his weight on his uninjured foot. He gave his name, his birth date, his address.
They took him to a room, took his clothes. He couldn’t undress himself with his arm splinted, so suffered the humiliation of being stripped down, the unspeakable humiliation of the strip search.
They gave him clothes. Orange shirt, orange pants, orange clogs—or one clog because of the boot. They had to dress him.
They took him to a room—they called it a pod. It wasn’t a cell like he’d imagined; it didn’t have bars. It had a cot, a toilet, a sink. No window.
“You get up when we tell you. You make your bed, and wait till we take you in for breakfast. You eat what we give you. Since you got your ass kicked, you’ll get a check at the infirmary before you talk to the head shrink, who’s going to ask you about your fucking feelings. You do what you’re told when you’re told. Give me any shit, you’ll pay for it.”
Marble Eyes stepped to the door. “Your father’s a great man. You’re nothing.”
He went out. The door locked with a click that boomed in Zane’s ears.
And the lights went out.
He took one limping step, feeling for a wall, ramming his shin against the side of the cot. He crawled onto it as the trembles turned to shudders, as his breathing devolved into a kind of mewling.