Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(20)

“What did she find?”

“I don’t know. I’m a victim specialist, not a special agent. Her job was to save you then. My job is to save you now.”

“Bite me.”

He smiles again, and maybe it’s just my imagination, but he appears relieved at my returning rancor.

“Flora, what’s the biggest enemy for survivors?”

“The coulda, woulda, shouldas,” I mumble. We’ve had this conversation before.

“Whatever happened, happened. You won. Jacob lost. Don’t replay the game.”

“You’re not going to give me the file.”

“No.”

“But you also know I won’t just walk away.”

“It’s possible I’ve met you before.”

He smiles again, but now it’s somber. He and I both know I’ll pursue this. I understand that in his professional opinion, this is a bad choice for me. I understand that in his personal opinion, it’s also not good for me. Or, for that matter, for my mother. And yet …

“I’m sorry,” I say. We both know what I’m apologizing for.

Maybe he thinks I’ll personally call up SSA Kimberly Quincy. I haven’t spoken to her since that day. I barely remember her face. And yet, saving me was probably one of the highlights of her career, meaning she’ll more than likely take my call. Maybe even give me a few kernels of information.

But I’ve spent a lot of time researching both criminals and law enforcement in the years I’ve been home. The FBI is a stodgy, conservative, rigid institution, where talking out of school is one of the quickest ways to get fired. Whatever SSA Quincy tells me won’t be enough for me, while still potentially damaging for her.

Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren recruited me for a reason. Law enforcement officers have their resources. But I have mine.

I know then whom I’m going to call. A man who’s been waiting six years for this moment. Sending me countless e-mails, from the sweet, to the bragging, to the nagging, to the just plain whining.

I’ve always ignored him.

Now, thanks to one shooting, I’m going to make his day.

I don’t need the FBI after all.

I just need the right true-crime nerd.

I rise to standing. Samuel can tell from the look on my face that I’ve made a decision. We know each other that well. He cares about me that much.

“Be careful,” he says softly.

“Be there for her,” I say, because what I’m going to do next will definitely break my mother’s heart.





CHAPTER 7


    EVIE


DO YOU EVER FEEL ALONE in a crowded room? That when other people laugh, you don’t get the joke? That everyone knows something—the secret to life, the true meaning of happiness—that you will forever fail to understand?

That is the way I have always felt.

Even when my father was still alive.

—

MY MOTHER DRIVES me home. She is talking excitedly, completely oblivious to my lack of answers. That’s okay; my mother has never required my thoughts or opinions, and most of her questions are rhetorical anyway.

She is nearly sixty years old, I find myself thinking. The age of a grandmother, which makes sense since I’m carrying her first grandchild. She doesn’t look a day over fifty. In fact, today I’m willing to bet she looks younger and better than me. The frosted Jane Fonda hair, not a strand out of place. Her signature pearls around her neck. She wears a spring-green cashmere sweater with camel-colored slacks. She looks like Cambridge. She looks like what, in her mind, she’ll always be: a professor’s wife.

She paid half a million dollars, cash, for the pleasure of my company. I don’t ask where she got the money. Mortgaged the house? Probably couldn’t do that in a matter of hours. Maybe she extracted it from a Swiss bank account, remains from my father’s life insurance. Hell if I know.

We’ve stayed in touch over the years. Kind of. She’d tell you whatever coldness exists between us is of my making—assuming she admits there’s any strain in our relationship. My mother is one of those women who don’t have problems. Or really, problems wouldn’t dare to bother her.

She’s never moved from her and my father’s house. She spent a year in black, widow’s weeds, I believe they used to be called. She played up the tragedy. Her loving husband, killed in the prime of his genius life. Her poor daughter, who would surely never recover from the horror of the experience.

One year. Exactly one year. Then, like some heroine from a Victorian novel, she put away the black Chanel and returned to her signature spring palette. And took up the very important role of preserving her Husband’s Legacy.

My father’s legacy? Again, hell if I know. He was active in many projects. Most likely, he had unfinished theorems, theories, research projects, research papers. I’m sure his various assistants rushed to fill the gap. What my mother with her cashmere sweaters and Mikimoto pearls had to add to that, I have no idea.

But she continued to be the hostess with the mostest among the Harvard crowd. I think people came in the beginning, attracted to the drama. Unfortunate accidents such as shotgun blasts don’t happen much among the academic set. Best I can tell, however, my mother’s charm has prevailed. Sixteen years later, she continues to hold court among the intellectual elite.