A Spark of Light(32)

Beth stared at her. “So what happens now?”

“You’re going to get discharged from the hospital, in a day or so. And then you’ll stay in custody until the trial.”

Beth’s heart monitor began to spike. “No,” she said. “I can’t go to jail.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

I never did, Beth thought.

—


“YOU’RE LYING,” GEORGE SAID. “MY daughter isn’t here.”

Fuck that cop. He might be fishing for information, but that didn’t mean George planned to give it to him. Yet now that Hugh McElroy had brought up his daughter, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Was Lil all right?

Was she looking for him?

“Because she doesn’t know what you’re doing,” Hugh said. “Am I right?”

Lil knew that he loved her. He loved her so much that he had come here to make things right, even though it seemed impossible. George would never meet his grandchild. He just hoped this had not cost him Lil, too.

“How would she feel about you being here, George?”

He had not been thinking about that, clearly, when he came. He was just an avenging angel for her suffering. And he had been thinking of God’s word. An eye for an eye.

A life for a life.

“What’s her name, George?”

“Lil,” he said, the syllable falling from his lips.

“That’s pretty,” Hugh said. “Old school.”

George hated that he’d left her after they argued. He knew she’d be well taken care of in his absence, but he also knew he had fucked up. He’d just never been good with speeches. He didn’t know how to say what he was feeling. Pastor Mike used to call him a man of few words, but reminded him that deeds spoke a thousand times more loudly.

That’s why he was here, wasn’t it?

The drive here had been long, and his thoughts had provided the soundtrack for the journey. He had imagined Lil in all the incarnations of her life—the time she was a baby with croup and he sat up with her all night in a steamy bathroom, the shower blasting hot water; the Father’s Day when she tried to make him pancakes for breakfast and set a dish towel on fire; the sound of her voice harmonizing with his when they sang at church. Then he’d pictured himself like an avenger, swollen to comic-book-hero proportions, bursting through the doors of the clinic and leaving destruction in his wake.

He had imagined screams and falling plaster and a haze of dust. But somehow although he could see himself when he started shooting, everything afterward was fuzzy. Revenge, in theory, throbbed with adrenaline and was clean with conviction. In reality, it was rushing into a house on fire, and forgetting to map out your exit.

Behind him, George heard a ripple of conversation. He turned around, the phone still clutched to his ear. “Quiet,” he ordered.

“What’s going on in there?” Hugh asked.

George ignored him, trying to focus on the scene in front of him. The women were whispering, and the baby killer he’d shot was still lying on the floor, a bandage twisted around his thigh. “Joy needs to use the bathroom,” said the kid.

The one who’d scratched him.

He glanced at her hands, making sure they were still tied.

“Well, hold it in,” he muttered.

The nurse who was kneeling on the floor looked up. “It’s not that,” she said. “She needs to check her pad. She just had a—”

“I know what she had,” George snapped, interrupting.

“Is everything okay?” asked the cop. There was a strange note in his voice, a vibration.

“I have to go.”

“Wait!” Hugh said. “George, I wasn’t lying before. I didn’t say your daughter was here. I said she wants to talk to you. She’s listening to the news, George. And they don’t get things right. They’re not going to give your side of the story to her. Only you can do that.” Hugh paused. “I can make that happen, for you. I can get her on the phone.”

“Wait,” he muttered, distracted.

“What’s wrong, George?” the cop asked. “Talk to me.”

He was staring at the television that had been on the entire time. When he first got here, there was some daytime food show on. But now, there was a breaking news banner and a picture of a reporter with the clinic behind her. Her lips were moving, but the volume had been lowered; George couldn’t tell what was being said.

What if Hugh was right? What if Lil was listening?

“Where’s the remote?” he asked. When the women stared at him like he was crazy—was he? Or was he thinking clearly for the first time in hours?—he barked at them again. “The remote!”

The old lady pointed to a shelf near the television.

“Get it,” he commanded. He was still holding the phone, but he had tuned out the cop’s insistent voice.

The old lady was fumbling with the control. She dropped it, picked it up, and pointed it at the television. “I think this is the right button,” she said, but nothing happened.

“Faster!” George yelled, and he jerked the gun at her.

The woman screamed and dropped the controller again.

“Leave her alone!” the kid cried.

“George?” Hugh’s voice blistered against his ear. “George, who was that yelling?”