Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(83)

“Perhaps your husband . . .” the hotel clerk suggested kindly.

“Yes, yes, that's right,” she murmured. “He lost his card not that long ago. I didn't realize the company would cancel both.”

She knew this wasn't Jimmy's doing, however. He'd never possessed this level of finesse. This was her father-in-law. This was James. “Things for you are only going to get much, much worse. . . .”

“Do you have another card?” the man asked.

“Umm . . . let me look.” She opened her wallet, staring blankly at her collection of plastic. She had an Amex and two more platinum cards. She could hand them over, but she thought she already knew the results. James was thorough. And the more cards that were rejected, the more reason the hotel clerk would have to be suspicious.

She checked her cash instead. One hundred and fifty dollars. Not enough for the Ritz.

She gave it one last try, hoping her voice didn't sound as desperate as she felt. “As you can see from the address on my driver's license, I live just around the corner. Unfortunately, there's been a terrible incident this evening and my son can't sleep in our home. We just need a place to crash for a few hours. I don't have another credit card, but tomorrow, I swear to you, I'll bring a check.”

“Ma'am, we need a credit card to release a room.”

“Please,” she murmured.

“I have so much power. . . . You have no idea . . .”

“I'm sorry, ma'am.”

“He's only four years old.”

“I'm sorry, ma'am. Surely you have some family that could help you?”

She turned away. She didn't want this stranger to see her cry.

Walking across the lobby, she saw an ATM. Fatalistically, she got out her bank card. Inserted it. Entered her PIN.

A message flashed across the screen: “Please contact your nearest bank branch. Thank you.”

The machine spat her bank card back out, and that was it. No cash, no plastic. She'd been trying to stay one step ahead, but still her father-in-law had outmaneuvered her. How far could she get on one hundred and fifty dollars in cash?

Catherine took a deep breath. For one instant, she heard the weak little voice in the back of her mind. Just hand over Nathan. If she played her cards right, she bet she could get James to write her a check. No, scratch that—she'd get cash. Or better yet, a wire transfer. How much was a son worth? One hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, a million?

She wasn't a good mother. The authorities weren't as wrong as she would've liked. She didn't know how to love the way other people loved. She didn't know how to feel the way other people felt. She had gone into a hole a happy little girl; she'd emerged a hollowed-out shell of a human being. She was not normal; she merely did her best to imitate the normalcy she sensed in others.

So she'd gotten a husband, she'd had a child.

And now here she was, thirty-six years old and still terrified of the dark.

Catherine pulled out her cell phone. She dialed a number. It rang for the longest time, then a male voice came on the line.

“Please,” she whispered. “We have no place else to go.”




D O YOU THINK Catherine Gagnon was abused by her husband?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think she deserved it?”

“What the hell do I know?”

“Come on, Bobby. You have anger toward your mother, you have anger toward Catherine. Part of that anger is the belief these two women could've done something differently. That they should've kept themselves from being victimized.”

“I watched her,” he said abruptly. “Some nights, my father would walk through the door, obviously already liquored up, and I'd watch her start in on him. Been drinking again? Jesus, just one night couldn't you be a decent man and think about your family. . . . Come on, we all knew what was going to happen next.”

“He'd hit her?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she fight back?”

“Not physically.”

“But he'd hit her. And then?”

Bobby shrugged. “I don't know. He'd get mad, then eventually he'd pass out.”

“So if he started out by getting mad at your mother as you say, he'd take his aggression out on her, then pass out.”

“I guess.”

“So he wouldn't hit you or your brother?”

“Not if we stayed out of the way.”

“Do you think your mother knew this?”

He paused, appeared troubled. “I don't know.”

“A woman's love for her husband is a very complicated thing, Bobby. So is her love for her children.”

“Yeah, she loves us so goddamn much she just can't wait to call.”

“I can't comment on that, Bobby; I've never met your mother. For some women, however . . . some women might feel too ashamed.”

“I thought we were talking about Catherine,” Bobby said.

“All right. Do you think Catherine provoked her husband?”

“She's capable of it.”

“And Thursday night?”

He resumed pacing again. “Maybe. It doesn't make sense. But then again . . .” He looked at Elizabeth. “It's the fact that we had met before, that we had spoken, that bothers me. Sure, I didn't remember her, I'm confident of that. But she asked me questions about the job, questions about how and when a tactical team would be deployed. Why those questions? What was she thinking?”