Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(118)

I have a sudden terrible premonition of what’s going to happen next. Fresh air, hitting those flames.

I flatten on the floor, throw my hands over my head as if that will make a difference. Just as something flat and wet smacks against my arms.

“Run,” Evie screams hoarsely in front of me. “Goddammit, move!”

She stumbles for the far window. I’m up, making a crooked dash. The roar the roar the roar. The searing heat against my back.

She dives awkwardly through the window. I think she’s screaming. I think I’m screaming. But all I hear is the howl of racing fire.

I throw myself at the opening, falling against the frame.

Just as a hand snaps through the opening, grabs my wrist, and pulls hard.

“You will not fucking die on me!” D. D. Warren growls as she drags me through the window. The upper glass shatters. We flatten against the metal platform as flames explode above, and a spray of shockingly cold water shoots us from below, blowing off my towel, blasting back my hair. Firemen to the rescue.

I’m clutching D.D. Or maybe she is clutching me.

I think we are both now laughing.

But then we are both crazy.

“Evie?” I manage to ask.

“Phil’s got her.”

I don’t talk anymore. We wait till the firemen beat back the flames enough for us to slide down to the ground. Then we lie in a puddled mess for a long time.

I look up at the sky. I think of so many things. Jacob, being sent back to the hell he came from. Keith, who is maybe more dangerous than I originally thought, but for entirely different reasons.

Evie. Motherhood. Mothers.

I make a decision. Then I close my eyes, because I’m simply too exhausted to think anymore.

Jacob is laughing again. But this time, I’m the one who lets him go.





CHAPTER 42


    EVIE


WHEN FLORA SAID HER MOTHER lived on a farm in the wilds of Maine, she wasn’t kidding. We have been driving forever. A good four hours at least, heading farther and farther north out of Boston.

Flora is at the wheel. It’s my car, as she doesn’t own a vehicle—but she’s the pilot, as I don’t know where we’re going. Getting out of the city had been … interesting. Flora drives the same way she moves: quickly, impulsively, aggressively. I might have actually let the older couple cross the street, but hey.

Flora doesn’t talk much. It’s okay. These days, I don’t often feel like talking.

Once Boston was behind us, she headed for Route 1 up the coast. Longer drive, but more scenic. It had been nice, watching the quaint towns and ocean views pass before us. Lobster rolls for lunch. She knew a place, total dive, which of course meant it had the best lobster in New England.

I settled for a simple garden salad. One month after our fiery experience, we are both recovering. Flora’s throat still holds a rasp. I cough up black soot that makes me fear for my baby. Medically, however, we’ve both been checked up, down, and sideways. My health is good, my baby amazing. No more gentle swelling; I now have a firmly established baby bump and I couldn’t be more grateful. Every day I start the morning talking to my baby. Letting him or her know how happy I am to be a mom. How I can’t wait to finally meet in person. How much I’m already totally in love.

“And your daddy loves you, too,” I always whisper. Because in my heart, I know that is true. Conrad had his secrets. But they were merely painful, not sordid. My husband was a good man. A great man, many might say, working quietly and discreetly for others.

Sergeant Warren tells me they’re still piecing it all together, but with information from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and testimony from the ex-wife Conrad was helping keep hidden, the Boston PD had been able to track down several other women Conrad had assisted over the years. Flora could’ve been one of them. She doesn’t talk about it. And I don’t pry. We are both women who understand there’s no point to the coulda, woulda, shouldas of life.

Flora makes the transition from Route 1 to another windy rural road, then another and another. She is humming slightly, her fingers tapping the wheel.

We’ve spent some time together these past few weeks, first at the hospital, then being debriefed by the police, then just … because. The day I was discharged from the hospital, she and D.D. seemed to have already worked out a plan: a month-to-month rental of a cute little home in Waltham. Maybe not the best location ultimately, given my job, but then again, I haven’t been to work in months and, with the baby coming and no family of my own to say do this, stay there, think about that, the rental was as good a start as any.

Who knew there’d come a time when I’d miss my mother’s overbearing ways?

I had lunch with the school principal and my friend Cathy Maxwell last week. It was awkward, as I expected. And yet … They were both so kind. We’re so sorry we didn’t know. What can we do? How can we help?

I feel like I’ve spent my life putting up walls, hiding behind my preconceptions while judging people for their own. I’m too shy to have real friends. And who would like some awkward woman most notorious for having shot her own father?

I told them the truth at lunch. About all of it. My dad. Conrad. The men I loved. The people I lost. The mother who died for me even though I’d gone most of my life feeling as though she didn’t even like me.