Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(10)

Tonight, that was lucky me.

It took until eleven for the kids to settle down. Some were sleeping on mattresses in the well-lit hall; these were the kids who were terrified of the dark. Others could only sleep alone in a pitch-black room. Others still required music or white noise or, for one child, a ticking clock simulating his lost mother’s heartbeat. We set up everyone accordingly.

For Lucy’s first night, I did nothing special. Just sat with my back to her doorway and read stories to the other children. From time to time, I’d catch Lucy’s reflection in the silver half dome mounted in the ceiling above me. The mirrored half domes dotted the broad hallway at strategic intervals—our version of a security system, as they reflected back activities from inside each patient room.

Lucy seemed to be listening to the story. She’d curled up on the floor, waving one hand through the air, the way a cat might study its own paw. If I read faster, her hand moved faster. If I read slower, her rhythm adjusted accordingly.

Then, twenty minutes later, she’d disappeared. In the dome’s distorted reflection, I’d finally spotted her foot sticking out from beneath the mattress. When she didn’t move, I turned around to study her room directly. It appeared that she’d pulled the mattress over her body and had finally gone to sleep. From time to time, her foot would twitch, as if from a dream.

I settled in myself, sitting on the floor with my back against the wall. There were over half a dozen other staff members scattered down the hall. Nighttime in the unit was paperwork time. Gotta catch up while you had the chance.

None of the kids would sleep for long. Some of the more manic ones required food every three hours, though you’d never know it to judge by their skeletal frames. Others just couldn’t sleep.

Nighttime meant old terrors and fresh fears. A subconscious buffet of every evil thing ever done to them. Kids woke up crying. Kids woke up screaming. And some woke up primed for battle. Fight or flight. Not everyone was born to run.

I flipped open the first patient chart, and felt my eyelids already getting heavy. I’d been working a lot lately. More and more shifts. Less and less sleep. I needed to keep busy, especially this time of year.

Four days and counting. Then it would be twenty-five years down, and one more to go. Keep on trucking, the duty of the lone survivor.

I wondered what Lucy would think, if she knew that for years I’d slept tucked beneath a mattress myself.



On my eighteenth birthday, I seduced Sheriff Wayne. I hadn’t started out with a plan. I’d run into him in Boston, three days prior. He’d brought his wife, grown daughter, and two grandkids to the Public Garden to see the Swan Boats. The sun was out, a beautiful spring day where tulips waved and children shrieked as they chased ducks and squirrels across the sprawling green grounds.

Sheriff Wayne didn’t recognize me. I suppose I’d changed in the past nine years. My dark hair was long, cut in a sleek line with overgrown bangs. I wore low-slung jeans and a yellow-striped top from Urban Outfitters. My Aunt Helen had turned her white-trash niece into Boston hip. At least we both liked to think so.

I recognized Sheriff Wayne from the back. It wasn’t how he looked; it was how he moved. The solid roll of his legs across the pathway as he corralled bouncing grandkids, herding them steadily back to the family fold.

Sheriff Wayne noticed me standing a ways off, staring at him. He turned back to the women on either side of him, then it must’ve hit him. The nagging sense of familiarity clicked and he whirled around, taking me in squarely.

“Danielle,” he said, and the sound of his voice again, after all these years of living in my dreams, the lone whisper of safety amidst so many images of blood and violence, finally released me. I took a step forward. Then another.

His wife and daughter had noticed by then. His daughter was confused by my approach. His wife—Sheila was her name—must have remembered me. She held very still, and I could see the quiet sympathy in her eyes.

Sheriff Wayne took over. Shook my hand, made the introductions between myself, his wife, daughter, and grandkids. He smoothed it over, in the way a man who broke up bar fights would know how to do. I might have been the daughter of an old friend, reacquainted after all these years. We made small talk of the sunny day and the beautiful park. He told me of his other child, a grown son who lived in New York. We marveled over his granddaughter, who hid behind her mother’s legs, and his grandson, who loved chasing squirrels.

I mentioned I would be starting college in the fall. Sheriff Wayne shook my hand again, all quiet approval. Look at me and how I had turned out.

Look at me, the lone survivor.

They continued with their day, following the curving path down to the Swan Boats. I studied the empty space where they used to stand.

And I knew, in that instant, I had to see Sheriff Wayne again.

I had to have him.



I called the next day. It had been nice to see him in the park. His daughter was lovely, his grandkids adorable. Listen, I had some questions. I didn’t want to put him on the spot, but maybe we could get together. Have dinner. Just once.

I could hear his reluctance. But he was a decent man, so his decency won out, brought him to me.

I gave him the address of the studio apartment I had moved into that fall, a baby step in my preparations for college. I implied he would pick me up and we’d go out to dinner. I already knew otherwise.

I folded up my futon bed. Pulled out the card table and topped it with my favorite floral print. I set a nice table, coordinating red and yellow stoneware plates set against a rich backdrop. A shock of purple flowers in the middle. Two long white tapered candles in the crystal candlestick holders my mother had once received as a wedding gift and probably opened with a sense of joy and optimism.