Beneath Devil's Bridge(54)

“Can you wait here a minute?”

She looks at me blankly.

“I’ll be right back. I just want to get some gloves.”

I fetch a pair of crime scene gloves and return to the room. Tentatively I open the bag. My pulse kicks.

Disgust fills my throat.





RACHEL


NOW


Friday, November 19. Present day.

It’s 3:45 p.m. and dark outside as I walk down the quiet hospice corridor, looking for Luke O’Leary’s room. I find it—his name card is in the holder outside the door, and the door is ajar. I hesitate. Afraid. There’s a small glow from inside. A curtain hangs partially across the doorway. I ease back the curtain and enter quietly.

My heart stalls for a moment.

I don’t recognize the man propped up in the hospital bed with his eyes closed. He’s impossibly thin. Gray complexioned. His veins, deep purple, are ropy and visible through translucent skin. A drip from the side of his bed leads into his arm. Oxygen tubes feed into his nostrils. The machine makes a hum. My stomach tightens. The once burly and gruff-looking detective who was married to his homicide job is a ghost of the man I once knew. And maybe once could have loved.

Careful not to wake him, I move quietly around the bottom of the bed and sit in the chair beside him.

He turns his head slowly, sensing a presence. His eyelids flutter open.

My heart quickens. I lean forward.

“Luke?” I say softly. “It’s me—Rachel. Rachel from Twin Falls.”

He stares at me blankly, and then he appears to slowly recognize who I am.

“Rachel.” His voice is hoarse. Quiet. A smile curves weakly across his mouth, but the rest of his body doesn’t move. “You finally came to see me. About bloody time.” He pauses, inhales slowly. “Now I know what it takes . . . to get your attention.” He sucks in another breath, struggling. “I’ve got to go and die, huh, and then you come?”

I give a soft, sad laugh. “I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, then, have you, Luke?” My voice hitches as emotion suddenly explodes in my chest. I fight to hold back tears, be brave. I have nothing to give to help him with what he is battling through. And I suddenly, desperately, don’t want him to die. I reach forward and take his hand. His skin is cool, dry.

“Bloody thing, this cancer,” he says. “Thought I could fight it, you know? So who told you I was checking out, eh? Who broke the news?”

I debate whether I should even mention it. But suddenly I need to talk to someone. Someone like Luke. Someone who was there. Someone who, in truth, I think maybe I did actually love. Maybe I still do, in a strange way. Or perhaps the emotion I’m feeling is far more complex, and it’s another kind of bond that we share. A knowing. A mutual understanding. I know what makes him tick, and he knows in turn what makes me tick. And he once cared.

He cared when Jake didn’t.

“Well, it’s kind of a long story,” I say.

“I have a bit of time. I think.”

I inhale deeply. “There’s a young woman who is doing a true crime podcast on the Leena Rai murder.”

His eyes close. He’s silent for a long time, and I wonder if he’s gone to sleep. Or worse. Panic licks at me. I lean forward. “Luke?”

“I’m here. I’m here.” He tries to moisten his lips, struggles to swallow.

I reach for the plastic water cup next to his bed. It has a bendy straw inserted into the lid. I offer him some water. He sits up a bit, and I hold the straw to his dry lips. He sips with difficulty. Water dribbles down his gray-whiskered chin. I reach for a tissue, wipe it away, and my eyes flood with emotion again. I smooth his hair back off his forehead. His brow feels hot. Clammy. He doesn’t smell so good. And I wish—wish with all my heart—that I’d seized life by the horns all those years back and not let Luke go. That when Jake walked out, I’d followed Luke to Vancouver.

But I had Maddy.

I was, and still am, a mom.

Even though Maddy wanted nothing to do with me then, and even less now. She moved in with her father when Jake left me for the other woman. I figured if I remained in town, I could still be there for Mads, and she’d eventually grow out of whatever strange phase she was going through. I truly believed she’d come around and learn to love me again. But it was futile.

“How is your family, Rache?”

I wonder if he’s lost the conversation thread. Or if he’s reading my mind.

“Alive.” I offer a smile that feels false. “Maddy ended up marrying Darren Jankowski, from school. He was one of the kids you interviewed back in the day, about the Leena Rai case. I don’t know if you remember him?”

“Not really. Are they happy?”

I look away.

I owe Luke the truth. His days, hours, are numbered. There is no place left for lies in this fragile space between life and death. Pretending otherwise is just me trying to save face. He deserves more than that. If it were me in that bed, I’d want honesty. And maybe I just need to say it. To someone. Get it out of me.

“I don’t know if my kid has deep-down happy genes, Luke. She loves her family and being a mother, but I don’t know if Maddy is actually capable of finding true inner peace. She fights against everything, all the time. Especially me. There’s like . . . a bitterness in her. A permanent rage that simmers perpetually just below the surface. She . . .” My voice fades as Luke’s eyes close and his breathing deepens.