Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(32)

He did not plan on making that mistake again.





C ATHERINE DROVE TOWARD her father's house. Light was failing, another day meeting a premature death as winter reared its ugly head. She was tired. Bone-deep weary in a way that made her grip the steering wheel too tight and twist about in her seat. Jimmy had always teased her when she drove, how she'd be horrible on a road trip, probably falling asleep and killing herself before ever reaching her first stop.

Thinking about him now made her feel a sharp, stabbing pain somewhere deep. How long had it been since they'd said a kind word to one another? How many years since they'd even bothered to pretend they were in love? She guessed it didn't matter. He'd been a constant in her landscape and she missed him now the way other people might miss a limb. Once she'd been whole. Now she felt curiously incomplete.

She arrived in her father's neighborhood. Her neighborhood. Her parents had bought this house when she was five years old. The split-level ranch sat on a quarter acre, surrounded by other modest homes on other modest lots. Little had changed over the years. Her father maintained the same white siding with Colonial red shutters. Tuesday was garbage day. Saturday, people worked in their yards. And every Wednesday night, her father got together with the McGlashans and Bodells to drink beer and play cards. He'd have stories for her now of their children and grandchildren. Kids she had grown up with who'd gone on to manage grocery stores or work at banks, who drove minivans and now lived in split-levels of their own with tow-headed children and big bouncy dogs. Kids she'd grown up with leading normal happy lives.

She had wondered sometimes, right after it had happened, why it hadn't been one of them. Why couldn't they have seen the blue Chevy? Why couldn't they have been enticed to stop and help look for some mythical lost dog?

God, she hated turning down this street.

She parked her Mercedes in the driveway. Her father had the porch lights on, illuminating the tiny brick walk and four front steps. She took a deep breath, reminded herself to stay on task, and got out of the car.

The cold hit her hard. She shivered uncontrollably. She looked up the street, where night gathered just beyond the trees, forming a dark tunnel from which there would be no escape. She looked down the street and saw the same.

And suddenly, passionately, she hated this damn place. The house, the yard, the 1970s neighborhood. It had been an act of unkind fate that had brought her parents here. And as far as she was concerned, it was a bigger act of conscious cruelty that made them stay.

“It's not the neighborhood,” her father had told her mother again and again right after it happened. “It was one man. We move now, and what will Catherine think?”

I would've thought you cared.

She drew in her shaky breath, realized she was close to losing it, and forced her hands into fists. Think of a happy place, she told herself a little wildly. Then thought, Fuck it, and headed for the door.

Her father was already waiting for her. She came up the steps and he opened the wooden door, leaving her to manage just the screen while he stood patiently to the side.

Inside, he took her coat and, as was his custom, said, “How was the drive?”

“Fine.”

“Traffic?”

“Not bad.”

He grunted. “Heading in, though, getting back to the city on a Saturday night . . .”

“I'll manage.”

He grumbled again about traffic—he didn't like where she lived any more than she liked where he lived—then gestured weakly to the small living room. Carpet was still gold shag, the sofa a brown floral print. Catherine had offered to replace the furniture for him once. He'd shaken his head. The sofa was comfortable, the carpet durable. He didn't require anything fancy.

Catherine moved to the edge of the tiny love seat and sat perched with her hands upon her knees. Entering this room always felt like entering a time warp; she never knew where to look or how to feel. Today she chose a spot on the carpet and fixed her gaze there.

“I need to talk to you about something,” she said quietly.

“Are you thirsty? Want something to drink?”

“No.”

“I have some soda. Root beer, right? That's what you like.”

“I'm not thirsty, Dad.”

“What about water? Long drive like that, you must be parched. Let me get you some water.”

She gave up arguing. He shambled into the kitchen, then returned with two glasses of water in daisy-printed plastic cups. He took the brown La-Z-Boy. She remained on the love seat. She drank some of the water after all.

“You know what happened,” she said at last.

Her father couldn't seem to look at her. His gaze was ping-ponging around the room. He finally found the portrait of her mother, hanging over the mantel, and she thought his face looked old and sad.

“Yeah,” he said at last.

“I'm sorry it ended like this. I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry Jimmy's dead.”

“He hit you,” her father said, the first time she'd ever heard him acknowledge it.

“Sometimes.”

“He wasn't a good man.”

“No.”

“You liked his money that much?” her father asked, and she was shocked by the sudden anger in his voice.

She faltered, her hands shaking harder. She tried another sip of water, but the cup trembled in her grasp. She wished she could just bolt from the room.