Why? Lena was the last person on earth the woman should trust with her boy.
She got some tissue out of the box and wet the edge in the cup of water by the bed. Brad was on a ventilator, and some dried saliva was caked around his mouth. His lung had collapsed. His liver was damaged. There was lots of internal bleeding. They were worried about infection. They were worried he would not make it through the night.
She wiped his chin, surprised to feel stubble. Lena had always thought of Brad as a kid, but the hair on his face, the size of his hand that she held in hers, reminded her that he was a grown man. He knew the risks that came with being a cop. Brad had been on the scene when Jeffrey died, the first responding officer. He never talked about it, but Brad was different after that day. More grown up. The chief’s death was a grim reminder that none of them was impervious to the bad guys they arrested.
Her phone vibrated again. Lena took it out of her pocket and scrolled through the numbers. She had called her uncle Hank in Florida to let him know she was okay in case he saw something on the news. Jared had called her as she was putting Tommy Braham in the back of the car. He was a cop. He’d heard about the stabbing on his radio. She had told him two words, “I’m okay,” then hung up before she started crying.
All of the other incoming calls on her phone were from Frank. He had been trying to reach her for the last five hours. She hadn’t seen him since he took off with Brad in the helicopter that had landed in the middle of the street. The look in his rheumy eyes had told a story she hadn’t wanted to hear. And now he was worried that she was going to tell everyone what she knew.
He should be worried.
Her phone rang again as she held it in her hand, but Lena pressed the button until the device powered down. She didn’t want to talk to Frank, didn’t want to hear any more of his excuses. He knew what had gone wrong today. He knew that Brad’s blood was on his hands just as much as it was on Lena’s—maybe more so.
She should just quit. Her resignation letter was in her jacket pocket, had been for weeks. She had gotten Tommy’s confession in record time. Let someone else get the details from him. Let another cop stare at Tommy Braham’s slack-jawed face for another two hours trying to figure out what was going on in that tiny little brain of his. They could not fault Lena for her work. Jeffrey’s ghost could not hold her here after what had happened today.
Delia Stephens came back into the room. She was a large woman, but she moved quietly around the bed, fluffing Brad’s pillows, kissing his forehead. She stroked back her son’s thinning blond hair. “He loves being a police officer.”
Lena found her voice. “He’s very good at it.”
Delia had a sad smile on her face. “He always wanted to please you.”
“He never failed to,” she lied. “He’s a good detective, Ms. Stephens. He’s going to be back on the street in no time.”
Delia’s eyes clouded with worry. She rubbed Brad’s shoulder. “Maybe I can talk him into selling insurance with his uncle Sonny.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to persuade him,” Lena’s voice cracked. Her false optimism was fooling no one.
Delia stood up. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Thank you for watching him. I always feel safer when he’s with you.”
Lena felt dizzy again. The room was too small, too hot. “I’m just gonna go to the bathroom for a second.”
Delia smiled, her gratefulness so apparent that Lena felt like a knife was being twisted in her chest. “Take your time, sweetheart. You’ve had a long day.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Lena kept her head up as she walked down the hallway. There were a couple of Grant County patrolmen standing vigil outside the ICU waiting room. Inside, she could see local Macon cops milling around. Frank Wallace was nowhere to be seen. More than likely he was bellied up at a bar trying to drink the bad taste out of his mouth. It was probably best for her not to see him right now. If he’d been standing in the hallway, she would’ve called him out on his drinking, his lies—everything that she’d been ignoring for the past four years. No more. After today, Lena’s knee-jerk loyalty to the man was gone for good.
At least Gavin Wayne, the Macon chief of police, was there. He nodded as Lena walked by. A few weeks ago, he had talked to Lena about joining his force. She was picking up Jared from his shift because his truck was in the shop. Lena had liked Chief Wayne all right, but Macon was a huge, sprawling city. Wayne was more politician than policeman. He was nothing like Jeffrey, an obstacle that had seemed insurmountable when he’d mentioned a job.
Lena pushed open the door of the ladies’ room, glad to find it empty. She turned on the cold faucet. Water ran through her hands. She had washed them a thousand times but the blood—Brad’s blood as well as her own—was still stuck under her fingernails.
She had been shot in the hand. The bullet had taken a chunk of skin off the outside edge of her palm. Lena had doctored it herself, using the first aid kit at the station. Oddly, there hadn’t been much blood. Maybe the heat of the bullet had cauterized the wound. Still, it took three overlapping Band-Aids to cover it up. At first the pain was manageable, but now that the shock had worn off, her whole hand throbbed. She couldn’t have anyone at the hospital look at it. Gunshot wounds had to be reported. Lena would have to call in a favor for some antibiotics so she didn’t get an infection.
At least it was her left hand. She reached toward the faucet with her good hand and added hot water to the cold. Lena felt filthy. She wet a paper towel, added some soap from the dispenser, and washed under her arms. She kept going, giving herself a whore’s bath at the sink. How long had she been up? Brad’s call about the body in the lake came around three this morning. The last time she’d checked a clock, it was coming up on ten in the evening. No wonder she was punch-drunk from exhaustion.
“Lee?” Jared Long stood in the doorway. He was dressed in his motorcycle patrol uniform. His boots were scuffed. His hair was a mess. Lena’s heart jumped at the sight of him.
The words rushed from her mouth. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“My squad came over to donate blood.” He let the door close behind him. It felt like forever as he crossed the room and took her into his arms. Her head rested on his shoulder. She fit into him like a puzzle being solved. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
She wanted to cry, but nothing was left inside.
“I nearly died when I heard one of you got hurt.”
“I’m okay.”
He took her hand in his, saw the Band-Aids she had used to cover her wound. “What happened?”
She pressed her face against his chest again. She could hear his heart beating. “It was bad.”
“I know, baby.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t know.” Lena pulled back, still letting him hold her. She wanted to tell him what had really happened—not what the reports would say, not what the newspapers would be told. She wanted to confess her complicity, to unburden her soul.
But when she looked into his deep brown eyes, words failed.
Jared was ten years younger than she was. She thought of him as pure and perfect. He didn’t have crow’s feet or lines around his mouth. The only scar on his body came from a bad tackle during a high school football game. His parents were still happily married. His younger sister worshipped him. He was the exact opposite of Lena’s type. The exact opposite of any man she had ever been with.
She loved him so much that it frightened her.
He said, “Tell me what happened.”
She settled on half of the truth. “Frank was drunk. I didn’t realize how much until …” She shook her head. “Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention. He’s been drinking a lot lately. He can usually handle it, but …”
“But?”
“I’m through,” Lena told him. “I’m going to resign. I’ve got some vacation time coming. I just need to get my head clear.”
“You can move in with me until you figure out what to d
o.”
“I’m serious this time. I’m really quitting.”
“I know you are, and I’m glad.” Jared put his hands on her shoulders so he could look at her. “But, right now, I just wanna take care of you. You’ve had a hard day. Let me be there for you.”
She relented easily. The thought of handing over the next few hours of her life to Jared seemed like the best gift in the world. “You go first. I’ll check in on Brad and then follow you in my car.”
He tilted up her chin and kissed her mouth. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He reached for the door just as it opened. Frank stood stock-still, staring at Jared as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. She could smell the whisky on him from five feet away.
“Go,” Lena told Jared. “I’ll meet you back at the house.”
Jared wasn’t so easily directed. He stood his ground, glaring at Frank.
“Please go,” she begged him. “Jared. Please.”
He finally moved his gaze from Frank to Lena. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Just go.”
Reluctantly, he left. Frank stared after him so long that Lena had to close the door before he would look away.
“What the hell are you doing?” Frank demanded. He had to keep his hand on the wall to steady himself. “How old is he?”
“It’s none of your damn business.” Still, she told him, “He’s twenty-five.”
“He looks ten,” Frank countered. “How long have you been seeing him?”
Lena wasn’t in the mood to answer questions. “What are you doing here, Frank? You can barely stand up straight.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Did you drive here? Don’t answer that.” She didn’t want to think about how many lives he had risked climbing behind the wheel.
“Is the kid okay?”
He meant Brad. “They don’t know. He’s stable for now. Have you had anything to drink today that didn’t have alcohol in it?”
Frank’s footing was off. He didn’t go to the sink so much as fall into it.
Lena turned on the water for him. She had a flash of her childhood, her uncle Hank so drunk that he’d pissed himself. She tried to separate her emotions, to distance herself from the anger she was feeling. It didn’t work. “You smell like a bar.”
“I keep thinking about what happened.”
“Which part?” she asked, leaning down so that her face was close to his. “The part where we didn’t identify ourselves as cops or the part where we nearly shot a boy for holding up a letter opener?”
Frank gave her a panicked look.
“You didn’t think I’d find out about that?”
“It was a hunting knife.”
“It was a letter opener,” she insisted. “Tommy told me, Frank. It was a gift from his grandfather. It was a letter opener. It looked like a knife, but it wasn’t.”
Frank spit into the sink. Lena’s stomach roiled at the dark brown color of his phlegm. “It doesn’t matter. He stabbed Brad with it. That makes it a weapon.”
“What did he cut you with?” Lena asked. Frank had been writhing on the floor of the garage, clutching his left arm. “You were bleeding. I saw it. That’s what set this whole thing in motion. I told Brad he cut you.”
“He did.”
“Not with a letter opener, and I didn’t find anything else on him except a toy car and some chewing gum.”
Frank glanced at himself in the mirror. Lena stared at his reflection. He looked like he was two steps from falling into the grave.
She peeled off the Band-Aids on the side of her hand. The wound was red and raw. “Your shot went wild. Did you even realize I was hit?”
His throat worked as he swallowed. He probably wanted a drink. By the looks of him, he needed it.
“What happened, Frank? You had your gun out. Tommy came for you. You pulled the trigger and shot me. How did you get cut on the arm? How did a hundred-thirty-pound wimp of a kid get past you with a goddamn letter opener?”
“I told you that he cut me with the knife. He was wrong about the letter opener.”
“You know, for a cop, you’re a shitty liar.”
Frank braced himself on the sink. He could barely stand. “Tommy doesn’t mention a letter opener in his confession.”
Lena’s voice was more like a snarl. “Because I’ve got about two drips of loyalty left for you, old man, and they’ve been circling the drain all damn day. Tell me what happened in that garage.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“How did Tommy get past you? Did you black out? Did you fall?”
“It doesn’t matter. He ran. That’s the point. Everything that happened after that is on him.”
“We didn’t identify ourselves in the garage. We were just three people pointing guns at his head.”
He glared at her. “I’m glad to hear you admitting you did something wrong today, princess.”
Lena felt overwhelmed with fury, ready to do any kind of damage she could. “When Brad shouted ‘Police,’ Tommy stopped. He turned around. He had the letter opener in his hand. Brad ran into it. Tommy didn’t mean to stab him. I’ll tell that to anyone who asks me.”
“He killed that girl in cold blood. You telling me you don’t care about that?”
“Of course I care about that,” she snapped. “Jesus, Frank, I’m not saying he didn’t do it. I’m saying the minute Tommy gets a lawyer, you’re screwed.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Let’s hope the judge agrees with you, otherwise he’ll invalidate the arrest, the confession, everything that came out of finding Tommy in that garage. That kid’s gonna get away with murder because you can’t stand up straight without a bottle of whisky in you.” She put her face inches from his. “Is that how you want to be remembered, Frank? As the cop who let a killer get away because he couldn’t stay off the booze while he was on the job?”
Frank turned on the faucet again. He splashed water on his face, the back of his neck. She saw his hands were shaking again. His knuckles were busted up. There were deep scratch marks on his wrist. How hard had Frank hit Tommy that the boy’s teeth had managed to break through Frank’s leather gloves?
She said, “It’s your fault this went bad. Tommy got past you. I don’t know what you were doing rolling on the floor, how your arm got cut, but I do know if you had done your job and stopped him at the door—”
“Shut up, Lena.”
“Screw you.”
“I’m still your boss.”
“Not anymore, you drunk, worthless bastard.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her resignation. When he didn’t take it, she threw it in his face. “I’m done with you.”
He didn’t pick up the letter. He didn’t shoot back a stream of obscenities. Instead, he asked, “Which pen did you use?”
“What?”
“Your pen that Jeffrey gave you. Is that the one you used?”
“Are you trying to guilt me into staying? You’re going to tread on Jeffrey’s memory so I’ll stick around to help you clean up this mess?”
“Where’s your pen?” When she didn’t volunteer it, he started searching her coat, patting her pockets. She resisted, and he slapped her around, throwing her against the wall.
“Get away from me!” She shoved him back into the sink. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He looked her in the eye for the first time since he’d walked into the room. “Tommy killed himself in the cells.”
Lena put her hand to her mouth.
“He cut his wrists open with an ink cartridge. The metal kind that you use in good pens. Good pens like the ones Jeffrey gave us.”
Lena’s hands wouldn’t work for a few seconds. She found the pen where she always kept it—inside the spiral of the notebook in her back pocket. She twisted the barrel. The ballpoint didn’t come out. “S
hit,” Lena hissed, unscrewing the cap. “No … no …” The pen was empty. “How did he get …” She felt sick with grief. Her stomach clenched. “What did he …”
Frank asked, “Did you frisk him before you put him in the cells?”
“Of course I—” Had she? Had Lena taken the time to pat him down or just thrown him into a cell as fast as she could so she could get to the hospital?
“It’s a good thing he didn’t attack anybody while he was back there. He already killed one person and stabbed a cop.”
She couldn’t stand anymore. Her knees gave out. She sank to the floor. “He’s really dead? Are you sure?”
“He bled out.”
Lena put her head in her hands. “Why?”
“What did you say to him?”
“I didn’t …” She shook her head, trying to clear out the image of Tommy Braham lying dead. He had been upset when she’d locked him up, but suicidal? She didn’t think so. Even as rushed as she was to get to the hospital, Lena would have said something to the booking officer if she thought Tommy needed to be watched. “Why did he do it?”
“Must’ve been something you said.”
She looked up at Frank. He was paying her back now. She could tell it by the petty look in his eyes.
He added, “At least that’s what Sara Linton thinks.”
“What does Sara have to do with this?”
“I called her because Tommy, your prisoner, wouldn’t calm down. I thought she could give him something to help. She was there when I found him.”
Lena knew she should be worried about her own hide, but all she could think about was Tommy Braham. What had gotten into him? What had pushed that stupid kid over the edge?
“She’s got some bigwig from the GBI down here to look into the case. Knox has already dealt with him. He’s figured out Tommy got the pen from one of us.”
Lena tasted something awful in the back of her throat. Tommy was her prisoner. He was in her care. Legally, he was her responsibility. “Do they know the cartridge came from me?”
Frank dug around in his coat pocket. He tossed Lena a cardboard packet. She recognized the Cross logo. A new ink cartridge was wrapped in a plastic shell.
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