Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(95)

DANIELLE


“Did you come back just for me?” the sergeant asked a few minutes later. We’d finished cleaning and were now combining smaller tables to form a larger rectangle for the upcoming staff meeting. The other detective, the George Clooney look-alike, had taken over scrubbing the blood out of the carpet. Kept him busy, but also within earshot. D.D. continued, “Because I’d love to speak with you.”

“I’m here for the debriefing,” I said stiffly, fitting in the final table. “Karen said I could attend.”

“Gonna mention the anniversary, Danielle? You remember that twenty-five years ago your father gunned down your family?”

The sergeant was goading me. I understood that, and still had to work not to rise to the bait. I noticed some blood droplets on the far window, picked up the Windex, and got busy again.

For the past twenty-five years, I thought I’d done okay. I’d gotten myself through college. I’d landed a job that I loved, and three hundred and sixty days out of the year, I was pretty solid. I didn’t replay the events of one night over and over again. I didn’t dredge up old photos of my family. I didn’t recall the stink of whiskey on my father’s breath and I didn’t fixate on the weight of a nine-millimeter gun in a child’s hands.

I worked with my kids. And I made it a point not to look back.

Until one goddamn week a year.

I felt inundated with my family these days. Scalded by memories I’d made it a point not to remember. And suddenly flush with new information. My mom had been leaving my dad? She’d found a “good guy”? Maybe my father had slaughtered everyone over her affair, instead of my rebellion?

I didn’t know, and for the first time, I was desperate to speak with someone about my past. I’d tried Sheriff Wayne, wanting to ask exactly what time he’d arrived at the house that night. Could it really have been two and half hours between my conversation with my mom and my father opening fire?

A police receptionist had informed me that Sheriff Wayne had passed away two years ago. Died in his sleep. I couldn’t believe it. Sheriff Wayne was supposed to live forever. He owed it to me.

Now there was only Aunt Helen and myself who remembered my mother’s smile, my sister’s giggle, my brother’s goofy grin. It wasn’t enough. I needed more people. I needed more information.

“Tell us about Lightfoot,” D.D. prodded, behind me. “Is it just me, or is he way into you?”

I stopped wiping windows, turning around enough to meet the detective’s eye. “Andrew and I are not, and never were, an item. We had one date, which he spent grilling me about my father. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t consider discussions of my homicidal parental unit to be a turn-on. That was the beginning and end of our personal relationship right there.”

“He’s solely interested in your father?”

“From what I can tell, I represent some kind of celestial challenge. If Andrew can get me to forgive my father, to open my heart to the light, then, hey, he can convert anyone. Score one for the good guys.”

“But you don’t want to forgive your father.”

“Nope. I’m comfortable hating him. No need for group hugs on the mumbo-jumbo superhighway.”

D.D. arched a brow. “Is that what Lightfoot wants to do? Arrange a ‘meeting’ on the spiritual interplanes?”

“That’s the drift. If you want the details, better ask him, not me. I’m not buying what he’s selling.”

“Did Greg have any better luck?”

That detective’s transition was so smooth, I almost spoke first and thought later. At the last second, I caught myself. “Greg and I are friends.”

“Friends with privileges?”

“Hardly.”

“Friends who go to bars? Friends who bare their souls?”

“Friends who share an occasional pizza. This job wears you out. Not a lot left over for post-work rendezvous.”

“You left with Greg today,” the detective replied evenly. “Looked pretty comfortable doing it, too.”

The statement caught me off guard. But of course the cops were interviewing everyone in the hospital, and it wasn’t like Greg and I crept away in the still of the night. Any number of people could’ve seen us leaving together and reported it.

“Greg walked me out,” I conceded. “He’s thoughtful that way.”

“And drove you home?”

“He drove me to his place.”

“That’s sounding personal again.”

“We talked. He knows this time of year is rough for me.”

“I wouldn’t mind crying on his shoulder,” the sergeant commented.

I couldn’t help myself: “He’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”

“Meee-oww,” the sergeant drawled, clearly amused by my cattiness. “Word on the street is that Greg’s been chasing you for years. He finally get to cross the finish line, Danielle?”

I wouldn’t even dignify that with a response. Mostly because I didn’t want to think of my morning with Greg. I had been rejecting him for years. Only to finally go to his place, and have him reject me.

“Look,” I said impatiently, “I don’t have relationships. I work with kids, and I leave the personal crap alone. End of story.”