Redemption Road: A Novel (27 page)

“This is dated the twelfth.”

“The timing is also irrelevant. You cannot pursue this line of questioning.”

“You knew about this days ago.” Beckett dropped the paper and squared up on Mr. Shore. “She’s your daughter, and you fucking knew.”

*   *   *

Outside, the day was too hot and blue for Beckett’s mood. The abduction was not random, the bad guys not some passersby who saw Channing on the street.

And the father knew.

Motherfucker …

“I didn’t know until after.”

Beckett spun on a heel.

Alsace Shore had followed him out. He looked smaller and shaken, a powerful man begging. “You have to believe me. If I’d known while she was missing, I’d have told you. I’d have done anything.”

“You withheld evidence from me, Mr. Shore. It wasn’t some
accident
your daughter was taken. What happened to Channing is your wife’s fault.”

“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think
she
knows that?” Shore stabbed a finger at the house, and Beckett remembered the man’s talk of grief and grieving and things forever changed. “I can’t undo what happened to my daughter. But I can try to protect my wife. You have to understand that.” Shore’s hands rose, clasped. “You’re married, right? What would you do to spare your wife?”

Beckett blinked; felt sun like a palm on his cheek.

“Tell me you understand, Detective. Tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”

*   *   *

Liz was on her second cup of coffee when the banging started. Beckett had left two messages, so she knew it was coming. Another day. Decisions. She opened the door after about the twentieth knock. She was in faded jeans and an old red sweatshirt, her face still pale from sleep, the hair loose and wild on her head. “It’s a little early, Charlie. What’s the problem? No coffee at the precinct?”

Beckett pushed inside, ignoring the sarcasm entirely. “Coffee sounds good, thanks.”

“Okay, then.” She closed the door. “Come on in.”

Elizabeth poured a cup of coffee and added milk the way he liked it. Beckett sat at the table and watched her. “Hamilton and Marsh got their subpoena. The girl will have to answer their questions about the basement. She’ll have to do it under oath.”

Liz didn’t blink. “Take this.” She handed him a cup and saucer and sat across the table.

“They tried to serve it this morning, but Channing was gone. Her parents don’t know where she is. She sent a text, though.”

“That was considerate of her.”

“They say that’s not her normal behavior. Sneaking out, yes. Not the texting.”

“Hmm.” Elizabeth sipped from her own coffee. “How odd.”

“Where is she, Liz?”

Elizabeth put the coffee down. “I’ve told you how I feel about you and this girl.”

“She doesn’t exist. I remember. Things are bigger, now. You can’t protect her. You shouldn’t.”

“Are you saying it’s wrong to try?”

“She’s a victim. You’re a cop. Cops don’t have relationships with victims. It’s a rule designed for your own protection.”

Elizabeth looked at her fingers on the china cup. They were long and tapered. The fingers of a pianist, her mother once said. If Elizabeth closed her eyes, though, she’d see them bloody and red and shaking. “I’m not sure about rules, anymore.” She said it softly and left out the rest. That she wasn’t sure about being a cop, either, that maybe—like Crybaby—she’d lost something vital. Why was she doing it if not for the victims? What did it mean if she became one? They were hard questions, but she wasn’t upset. The feelings were more of calm and quiet, a strange, still acceptance that Beckett—for all his abilities—didn’t seem to notice.

“If I take Channing in, I can keep your name out of it. No obstruction charges. Nice and clean.” He reached for her hand, and she watched his fingers on hers. “She can tell the truth, and this can end. The state investigation. The risk of prison. You can have your life back, Liz, but it has to be now. If they find her here…” He let that hang between them, but his eyes were deadly serious.

“I can’t give you what you want,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“And if I force you?”

“I’d say that’s a dangerous road to walk.”

“I’m sorry, Liz. I have to walk it.”

Beckett rose before the last word died. He moved down the short hallway, surprised when she didn’t try to stop him. He opened one door and then another, and at the second stared for a long time at tousled hair and pale skin and tangled sheets. When he returned, he sat in the same chair, his features still. “She’s asleep in your bed.”

“I know.”

“Not even the guest room. Your bed. Your room.”

Elizabeth sipped coffee, placed the cup on its saucer. “I won’t explain because you wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re harboring a material witness and obstructing a state police investigation.”

“I don’t owe the state cops anything.”

“What about the truth?”

“Truth.”

She laughed darkly, and Beckett leaned across the table. “What will the girl say if they find her? That she was wired on the mattress when it happened? That you shot them in the dark?”

Elizabeth looked away, but Beckett wasn’t fooled.

“It won’t work this time, Liz, not with autopsy results, ballistics, spatter analysis. They were shot in different rooms. Most of the bullets went through and through. There are fourteen bullet holes in the floor. You know how that plays.”

“I imagine I do.”

“Say it, then.”

“It plays as if they were on the ground, and no threat at all.”

“So, torture and murder.”

“Charlie—”

“I can’t have you in prison.” Beckett struggled, found the right words. “You’re too …
necessary
.”

“Thank you for that.” She squeezed his hand and meant it. “I love you for caring.”

“Do you?”

He tightened his grip enough to show the strength in his wide palm and in fingers that stopped an inch from her cuff. Their eyes met in a pregnant moment, and her voice caught like a child’s. “Don’t.”

“Do you trust me or not?”

“Don’t. Please.”

Two words. Very small. He looked at her sleeve, and at the narrow flash of china wrist. Both knew he could lift the sleeve, and that she couldn’t stop him. He was too strong; too ready. He could have his answer and, in its wake, find helplessness and truth and the ruins of their friendship. “What is it with you and these kids?” he asked. “Gideon? The girl? Put a hurt child in front of you and you don’t think straight. You never have.”

His grip was iron, his hand squeezed so tight she had little feeling left in her fingers. “That’s not your business, Charlie.”

“It wasn’t before. Now it is.”

“Let me go.”

“Answer the question.”

“Very well.” She found his eyes and held them, unflinching. “I can’t have children of my own.”

“Liz, Jesus…”

“Not now, not ever. Shall I tell you how I was raped as a child? Or should we discuss all that came after, the complications and the lies and the reasons my father, even now, won’t look at me the same? Is that your business, Charlie? Is the skin on my wrists your business, too?”

“Liz…”

“Is it or isn’t it?”

“No,” he said. “I guess it’s not.”

“Then let go of my hand.”

It was a bad moment that caught like a breath. But he saw her clearly, now. The children she loved. The string of broken relationships and the withdrawn, cool way she often held herself. He squeezed her hand—once and gently—then did as she asked.

“I’ll try to keep them away.” He stood and seemed every inch the clumsy giant. “I’ll do what I can to conceal the fact she’s here.” Elizabeth nodded as if nothing were wrong; but Beckett knew her every look. “Channing’s scores are public record,” he said. “You can’t hide that she’s a shooter. Sooner or later someone will figure it out. Sooner or later they’ll find her.”

“All I need is for it to be later.”

“Why, for God’s sake? I hear what you’re saying, okay? The kids and all. I get it. I see what it means to you. But this is your life.” He spread the same thick fingers, struggling. “Why risk it?”

“Because for Channing it’s not too late.”

“And for you it is?”

“The girl matters more.”

Elizabeth lifted her chin, and Beckett understood, then, the depth of her commitment. It wasn’t a game or delay for its own sake. She would take the heat for Channing. The murders. The torture. She would go down for the girl.

“Jesus, Liz…”

“It’s okay, Charlie. Really.”

He turned away for an instant, and when he turned back he was harder. “I want a better reason.”

“For what?”

“Look, I’ve made mistakes in my life, some really big ones. I don’t care to make another one now, so if there’s a reason you’re doing this—something beyond childhood wounds and raw emotion—”

“What if there is?”

“Then I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

Elizabeth measured his sincerity, then pulled up both sleeves and lifted her arms so he could take it all in: the fierce eyes and conviction, the raw, pink wounds and all they implied. “I would have died without the girl,” she said. “I would have been raped, and I would have been killed. Is that reason enough?” she asked; and Beckett nodded because it was, and because, looking at her face, he knew for a fact that he’d never seen anything so fragile, so determined, or so goddamn, terrible beautiful.

*   *   *

When he was gone, Elizabeth pushed the door shut and watched him all the way to his car. His stride was slow and steady, and he drove away without looking back once.

When she turned, Channing was in the hall. A blanket wrapped her like a package. Her skin was creased from sleep. “I’m ruining your life.”

Elizabeth put her back to the door and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “You don’t have that power, sweetheart.”

“I heard what you said to him.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“And if you go to prison because of me?”

“It won’t come to that.”

“How can you know?”

“I just do.” Elizabeth put an arm around the girl’s shoulder. Channing wanted a better answer. Elizabeth didn’t have one. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I was sick again. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Elizabeth felt a stab of guilt. She slept so well with the girl warm beside her. “You should eat something.”

“I can’t.”

The girl looked as fragile as glass, the veins powder blue in her arms. She looked how Elizabeth felt. Even the skin beneath her eyes was smudged.

“Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

“Where?”

“You need to see something,” Elizabeth said. “And then you’re going to eat.”

*   *   *

They took the Mustang, top down. Heat was already spiking in the day, but dense trees shaded the streets, and the lawns in Elizabeth’s neighborhood were thick and green. It made for a pleasant drive out, and Elizabeth watched the girl when she could. “Why the desert?”

“Hmmm?”

“You said once that we should go to the desert. I found it odd,” Elizabeth said, “because I’d had the same thought just before that, and I’m not sure why. I’ve never considered the desert, never thought I’d want to live there or even visit. My life is here. It’s all I’ve ever known, but I lie awake at night and imagine wind like it came from an oven. I see red stone and sand and long views of brown mountains.” She watched the girl. “Why do you suppose that is?”

“It’s simple, isn’t it?”

“Not to me.”

“No mold, no mildew.” Channing closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun. “Nothing in the desert smells like a basement.”

*   *   *

They were silent after that. Traffic thickened. Channing kept her eyes closed. When they reached the commercial district, Elizabeth edged onto a ramp that spit them out six blocks from the square. They passed office buildings and cars and homeless people with loaded carts. When the square appeared, they circled the courthouse and turned onto Main Street, which was dotted with a few shoppers and people in suits. They passed a coffee shop, a bakery, a lawyer’s office. Channing eased the sweatshirt hood over her head and sank into the seat as if people frightened her.

“You’ll be fine,” Elizabeth said.

“Where are we going?”

“Here.”

“What’s here?”

“You’ll see.”

Elizabeth parked at the curb, then opened the door and met Channing on the sidewalk. Together, they passed a hardware store and a pawnshop. The door after that was glass with wood trim painted dark green. Letters on the glass said
SPIVEY INSURANCE, HARRISON SPIVEY, BROKER AND AGENT
. A bell tinkled as they pushed into a small room that smelled of coffee and hair spray and wood polish.

“Is he in?” Elizabeth asked.

No preamble. No hesitation. The receptionist stood, the gap of a sweater gathered in one hand, her soft face turning bright red. “Why do you come here?”

Elizabeth said to Channing, “She always asks me that.”

“You’re not a client, and I don’t think for a second that you’re a prospective one, either. Is it a police matter?”

“That’s between Mr. Spivey and me. Is he in or not?”

“Mr. Spivey comes in late on Fridays.”

“What time?”

“I expect him any moment.”

“We’ll wait.”

“Not here, you won’t.”

“We’ll wait outside.”

Elizabeth turned and left, Channing at her heels as the bell tinkled again, and the receptionist locked the door behind them. On the sidewalk, Elizabeth stepped into a shaded alcove. “I feel bad about that. She’s a nice enough woman, but if her boss won’t tell her why I come, then I won’t either.”

“If you say so.” The girl was still small, still sunken in the sweatshirt.

“Do you understand whose office that was?”

“You don’t need to do this.”

“You need to see how things can change. It matters. It’s important.”

The girl hugged herself, still doubtful. “How long do we wait?”

“Not long. That’s him.”

Elizabeth dipped her head as a car rumbled past. In it, a man tapped his hands on the wheel, mouth moving as if singing. Two hundred feet farther, he pulled into an empty spot and climbed out, a thirtysomething man, thick in the middle, thin on top. Otherwise, he was strikingly handsome.