Night Sins (52 page)

Except for Lily.

Lily lay on her side in her crib, curled around Josh's old teddy bear, her thumb just out of her mouth. Hannah looked down on her daughter. The thinnest edge of a night-light touched Lily's face, so sweet, so innocent, so precious, framed in golden ringlets. Long lashes against a plump cheek flushed with sleep. Her mouth a rosebud just opening.

“My baby,” Hannah whispered, reaching out to brush her fingertips over Lily.

She could still remember what it had felt like to carry this precious life within her. She could still remember what it had felt like to carry Josh. Every moment of joy, of fear, of wonder at the miracle that would be her first child. Their excitement—hers and Paul's—at the news that they would be parents. The nights they had lain in bed and talked in quiet voices, planning the future, Paul's hand on her belly.

It broke her heart to think that they would never lie together that way again, that she would never plan a future because she knew how bitterly the present could turn on her. She felt as if she'd been robbed. Robbed of her son, of her marriage, of her belief that the world was a place full of wonderful promise.

“There's nothing left but us, Lily-bug,” she whispered.

Lily's wide eyes blinked open. The baby sat up, rubbing a small fist against her cheek. She looked up at Hannah, frowning at her mother's tears.

“No no cryin', Mama,” she murmured, raising her arms in a silent plea to be picked up.

Hannah scooped her up and held her close, sobbing for all she had lost, for the uncertainty of the future. Pain and fear raked through her, and all she could do was hold her child and pray for hope. It seemed so little to ask when she had lost so much.

Her strength waning, she sank down into the old white wicker rocker. Lily stood on her lap and tried to wipe her tears away with her hands.

“No no cryin', Mama,” she said.

“Sometimes Mama needs to cry, sweetie.” Hannah kissed her daughter's fingertips. “Sometimes we all need to cry.”

Lily sat down to ponder this. Silence filled the room, while outside the wind howled a hostile counterpoint. Hannah slipped her arms around her little girl and pulled her close.

“Where Josh, Mama?” Lily murmured, her thumb inching toward her mouth.

“I don't know, honey,” Hannah answered quietly, her gaze on the empty crib and the ragged panda bear that had been her son's. She had bought it for him the day her doctor told her she was carrying him. He had slept with it near him every night of his life. Every night but the last eleven.

“Let's think he's somewhere warm,” she whispered, breathing deep of Lily's sweet, powdery scent, rocking her gently. “That he's not afraid. That he misses us, but he knows we'll bring him home just as soon as we can. That he knows we love him. That he knows we'll find him . . . because we will . . . I promise.”

She closed her eyes and held her breath and held her baby. She prayed for hope and for the strength to make good on the promise and for the belief that somehow, somewhere, prayers were heard and answered.

CHAPTER 40

D
AY
13
5:54
P.M.
         18°

S
he could see the boy's face, a pale oval with freckles like a sprinkling of nutmeg over cream. He stared through her, his eyes wide and blue and blank. Then he was gone, like a light switching off to leave her in total darkness.

We have a treat for you, clever girl . . . clever bitch . . .
A voice with no body, as smooth and sinister as a snake. She trembled and felt herself tipping, twirling in the black void. Powerless. Vulnerable. Waiting. Then pain struck from one direction, then another, then another.

Megan jerked awake. The surgical scrubs Kathleen Casey had procured for her clung to her body like wet tissue paper. She took stock of her surroundings item by item, forcing herself to calm, to pull back her control inch by inch, to shake the disorientation and the fear. She was safe. Garrett Wright was behind bars.

She wondered if they had found Josh.

The calendar on the wall across the room said it was Monday, January 24. Tom Brokaw was talking to himself on the wall-mounted television.

She remembered Mitch bringing her to the hospital. Everything after that blurred together like images whirling inside a kaleidoscope. A little man with an Indian accent and an enormous nose, calmly giving orders and asking questions. Nurses murmuring to her as they moved around her bed on air cushion shoes. Needles. Pain. Visions of Harrison Ford looking down on her.

She supposed that had been Mitch checking up on her.

She had slept through Sunday and most of that day, knocked out by exhaustion and drugs. Now she felt groggy and fuzzy-headed. The pain cut through whatever it was they were giving her. Fine lines of it were drawn directly from her injuries to her brain. Her right knee. Her left forearm. Her kidneys. Her right hand—the hand that had helped fill out a thousand police reports. The hand that had held a pistol steady enough to win her half a dozen awards for marksmanship. The hand that was now encased in a temporary cast.

Dr. Baskir, he of the nose and accent, had been in earlier in the day, during one of her brief periods of lucidity. Humming and muttering to her various body parts, he had checked her vital signs and her sore spots. Many, many contusions, he told her back. He told her knee it would want physical therapy. He addressed her hand last. “Poor, poor darling little bones.”

With a grave expression of sympathy, he told Megan he couldn't promise she would regain full mobility of the hand. He spoke in a near whisper, as if he didn't want the darling little bones to hear the bad news. He had done what he could as a temporary fix, but now that the weather had finally cleared, they would transfer her to Hennepin County Medical Center, where an orthopedic surgeon would begin the painstaking process of repairing the extensive damage to the delicate structure.

Fear cut through her like a machete as his words replayed in her head. A cop needed two good hands. A cop was all she had ever wanted to be. The job was her life. Now her life stretched before her with the possibility of her never being able to hold that job again.

Fighting the tears that threatened, she looked around the private hospital room. Flowers and balloons decorated the cabinets. Kathleen had read the cards to her. They were from the Deer Lake force, the bureau, her old buddies in the Minneapolis police department. With the exception of a beautiful miniature rosebush from Hannah, they were from cops. Nearly everyone she knew was a cop. What would happen if she ceased to be one?

She felt as if she were attached to her world by a single thin tether, like an astronaut walking in space, and the line was in danger of being severed. And she was absolutely powerless to stop it.

In an attempt to push away the fear, she pressed the volume button on the television remote control. Her right hand was immobilized in a sling against her. The left had hosted an IV catheter for eighteen hours, but that was gone now. Maybe she could teach herself to become left-handed, she mused as she punched the channel button, surfing through the stations as the six o'clock local news came on.

She flipped past
TV 7,
home of Paige Anything-for-a-Story Price, and settled back on Channel Eleven. A shot of Minnesotans digging out after the weekend storm gave way to the file photo of Josh in his Cub Scout uniform.

“. . . but our top story tonight comes from Deer Lake, Minnesota, where, over the weekend, authorities apprehended a suspect in the abduction of eight-year-old Josh Kirkwood.”

Videotape of a press conference filled the screen. The press room in the old fire hall, standing room only. Mitch stood at the podium, looking grave and tired. Marty Wilhelm stood to his right, looking stupid. Steiger sat at the table, frowning, his nose a triangle of adhesive tape. Mitch read a prepared statement, stating only the barest of facts about the harrowing events of Saturday, refusing to answer most questions pertaining to details of evidence, refusing even to confirm Wright's name, on the basis that releasing any information could possibly endanger the integrity of the ongoing investigation.

“Josh Kirkwood is still missing and all law enforcement agencies involved are still actively searching for him,” he said.

“Isn't it true that evidence recovered Saturday night included a bloodstained sheet?”

“No comment.”

“Is it true the suspect in custody is a faculty member at Harris College?”

“No comment.”

“So much for protecting the integrity of the investigation,” Megan muttered. The media weasels would dig and hunt and bribe and trick their way into getting what they needed for their headlines and damn the consequences.

“Is it true you personally chased the suspect on foot half a mile through the woods?”

Mitch gave the woman offscreen a long look. Camera shutters clicked and motor drives whirred. When he spoke it was in the low, measured voice he used when his patience was wearing thin. “You've all tried to make me out to be some kind of hero in this. I'm no hero. I was doing my job, and if I'd done it better, there wouldn't have been a chase. If there's a hero in this, it's Agent O'Malley. She risked her life, and nearly lost it, in the attempt to bring Josh Kirkwood's kidnapper to justice. She's your hero.”

“Oh, Mitch . . .”

“It's the truth.”

He stood in the doorway, tie askew, hair mussed, looking tough and tired, his shoulders sagging a little. Jessie stood beside him, a plush tiger-striped stuffed cat under one arm.

Natalie herded them into the room. “Don't you keep me standing out here in the hall, where any stray nurse wandering by could poke my big behind with a needle.”

Megan sniffed and mustered a smile. “Hey, look who dragged a cat in. Hi, Jessie. Thanks for coming to see me.”

“I brought you Whiskers,” Jessie said, presenting the stuffed toy as Mitch hoisted her up and stood her on one of the lower side rails of the bed. “So you don't get so lonesome for your real cats.”

The toy looked well loved. The ears lined with pink satin were a little worn around the edges. The long white whiskers were a little bent. Megan's eyes instantly brimmed with tears at the thought that Jessie would give her such a treasured possession. She rubbed her fingertips over the soft gray fur.

“Thank you, Jessie,” she whispered.

“Me and Daddy are taking good care of Gannon and Friday,” Jessie said, her attention on the toy as she stroked it. “They like me.”

“I bet they do.”

“And they like to play with string.” She looked at Megan from under her lashes. “Daddy said maybe I could still visit them after you're better.”

“I'm sure they'd like that.” Megan's heart sank at the knowledge that Jessie wouldn't be able to visit her cats at the house on Ivy Street because they wouldn't be in the house on Ivy Street much longer.

“Daddy said you aren't going to heaven like my mommy did,” Jessie said solemnly. “I'm glad.”

“Me, too.” The words barely squeaked out of Megan's mouth. She had never allowed herself to become attached to anyone because she knew it would hurt. It hurt to feel the emptiness and the longing for something she couldn't have, and it hurt to know the relationship would end. It hurt now, the longing to pull Jessie close and hug her.

“I brought cookies,” Natalie announced. She pulled an enormous Tupperware tub out of her tote bag like a magician pulling a moose head out of a hat, and plunked it down on the bedside table. “Chocolate chunk. You need fattening up.” She turned an eagle eye on Megan. “You hurry up and get out of here,
Agent
O'Malley. That puppy-faced boy the bureau sent down here is like to drive me crazy.”

“I think you'll probably have to get used to him,” Megan said with a rueful smile.

Natalie gave a harrumph. “We'll see about that,” she muttered ominously. Fishing several cookies out of the tub, she gave Jessie a nudge and wink. “Come on, Miss Muffet, let's go see if we can scare up some milk and spoil your supper.”

“Catch you later, Megan!” Jessie beamed as she leaned over the railing to give Megan an awkward high-five, then scrambled down and scampered out of the room with Natalie right behind her.

Megan looked down at Whiskers, rubbing her thumb over one tatty ear. “She's pretty special.”

“I think so,” Mitch said. “But I suppose I'm biased.”

Gently, he hooked a knuckle under her chin and tipped her face up. “How do you feel?”

“Like a sadistic psychopath beat me head to toe with a baton.”

“That son of a bitch. I'd like to take a club after him.”

“Get in line,” Megan said. She turned away from him and eased her legs over the side of the bed to slip her bare feet into a pair of hospital slippers.

“Are you allowed out of bed?” Mitch asked with some alarm. He rounded the foot of the bed and hovered beside her, ready to catch her if she collapsed.

Megan did her best to ignore his concern. Shooting him a look of annoyance, she hobbled toward the window, leaning heavily on a single crutch tucked under her left arm. “As long as I promise not to run up and down the halls shouting obscenities.” She had never dreamed so many parts of her could hurt simultaneously, but she would get through it, tough it out, because she had to. “I need to stand awhile. Lividity was setting in.” She propped herself up against the window well.

Night had fallen outside. Black over a blanket of pristine white. The snow lay in drifts over the hospital lawn, sculpted into elegant lines by the wind. She could feel Mitch standing behind her, his warmth, his energy, tempting her to lean back into him. She could see his faint reflection along with her own in the window, dark shadows with haunted eyes.

“But, life's not
all
bad,” she said with cynical humor. “I'm getting a commendation from the bureau. I'm losing my field post, but I'm getting a commendation. Beats the hell out of a pink slip, I suppose. And Paige is dropping the lawsuit in light of the photos old Henry Forster snapped of her sneaking in and out of Steiger's trailer. Lucky for me she was too greedy for details about the arrest to keep her panties on.”

“Greed is a great motivator.”

“That's a fact,” she murmured. “I wish that's all this case was about—greed. At least that's something everyone can comprehend. Garrett Wright's motive . . . How can anyone understand a game as twisted as the one he's been playing?”

Mitch offered no answer. She knew he didn't have one any more than she did.

“Is he talking yet?” she asked softly.

“No.”

“You haven't found the place he took me.”

“Not yet. It could take some time.”

“And Josh . . .”

“We'll find him,” Mitch declared as if there weren't hundreds of cases that went unsolved forever. “We'll go on looking until we do.”

“I saw his face,” Megan said slowly. “In between beatings. I saw him, but I don't know if I was conscious or if I was hallucinating. I don't know if what I saw was real. I wish I knew, but I don't.”

It made her head hurt to try to separate the real from the surreal. Knowing that Wright was a psychologist, an expert in learning and perception, only complicated the issue. Could he have somehow planted that image in her mind? Possibly, but that didn't explain the conversation she had had with Hannah earlier in the day.

Hannah had come in to deliver the rosebush herself. Pale and thin, looking as if she belonged in a bed instead of standing beside one, she presented Megan with the plant and with her thanks for all she'd done.

“I got myself caught and beat up,” Megan admitted. “I don't feel like I deserve thanks.”

“Because of you, Garrett Wright is behind bars,” Hannah said simply.

Megan didn't ask her how she felt about the fact that her neighbor, someone she had trusted, had been the one to put her through this hell. Enough people would ask that question over and over, poking at the open wound in Hannah's soul.

“I have to ask,” Hannah murmured, trying to hide the tremor in her voice. Her gaze darted from Megan's to the square of bed covers she continually smoothed with her fingers. She started to speak, stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “Did he say . . . anything . . . about Josh?”

“No,” Megan whispered, wishing with all her heart she could offer something more, some concrete evidence that Josh was alive. But all she had was a vision that might well have been drug induced. She looked up at Hannah, at the dark rings around her eyes and the emotions she couldn't hide and made her decision. Slim hope was better than no hope at all.

“I did . . . see . . . something . . .” she started, choosing her words as carefully as picking her way through a mine field. “He drugged me, you know, so I can't say if what I saw was real. In some ways it seemed like it was. In other ways . . . I just can't say.”

“What did you see?” Hannah asked carefully, her expression guarded. Megan could feel her tension level rise. Her fingers left the sheet and wrapped around the bed rail.

“I thought I saw Josh. It might have been a projection of some kind. It might have been something Wright planted in my mind. I don't know. But I thought I saw him standing across the room, just looking at me. He didn't say anything. He just stood there. I remember his eyes and his freckles.” She looked back into her own memory for details, for some hint of reality. “He had a bruise on his cheek and he was wearing—”