Beneath Devil's Bridge(55)

“Go on,” he whispers, eyes still closed. “I’m listening.”

“Sometimes I feel as though she’s been trying to self-destruct since her early teens, you know? She almost succeeded when she had a climbing accident and suffered a spinal cord injury.”

His eyelids flutter open. He stares at me.

“Paralyzed from the waist down.”

“So she took up rock climbing?”

I nod and moisten my lips. “From about the age of sixteen. She tackled more and more complicated and technical climbs over the years, and then started attacking the north routes on Chief Mountain like a fiend, every free moment she could. Like she needed to fight that granite mountain. Or dare it to kill her. And it almost did. She fell shortly after her youngest daughter was born. Now she no longer climbs, yet chooses to live in a house where she can see that rock face taunting her, lording over her, from every damn window in her house.”

He’s quiet for a long while. “So she has kids. You’re a grandmother.”

“On paper I’m a grandmother. Two girls. Lily, who is three now, and Daisy, who is almost five. They barely know me. Maddy never forgave me for . . .” Suddenly I can’t say it.

“You mean for me. For us. That one time.”

I nod, fiddle with my fingers. “She fights me harder than she fought Chief Mountain.”

Luke reaches for my hand. I take his and hold. The contact settles something in me, and I fall quiet.

“Tell me about the podcast. Is that why you came?”

“I came to see you, Luke. The podcaster—her name is Trinity Scott—she broke it to me that you were in hospice. I didn’t know.”

“It’s all the rage, isn’t it, these crime podcasts.” It’s more a statement than a question. “Did she say why she picked the Leena murder? What’s the angle?”

“Clay Pelley is talking.” I watch his face closely as I say it. “He’s on tape, saying he didn’t do it. He said he did not assault or kill Leena.”

He squints at me, then pulls a wry mouth. “Even if Pelley is lying, even if no one believes him, it sure gives fodder to a true crime narrative,” he says, barely audible. “Why in the hell is he suddenly talking now, anyway, after all these years?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you been interviewed?”

“I declined.”

“She’s going to drag you into it, Rache. If you don’t talk, it’s going to make him look sympathetic. Maybe you should tell your side of the story.”

I sit silent for a while.

“What’s there to lose, really?” he asks. “Or . . . is there something I don’t know?”

Anxiety rises inside me. “What do you mean?”

“I always felt . . . that you were keeping something from me. Protecting someone.”

My heart beats faster.

“That’s why it never did work between us, isn’t it? You had barriers up, blocking something. It locked me out.”

“That’s not true. I had a teenager. I was a mother. I had future job prospects with the Twin Falls PD.”

“Yet you were passed over in the end. You were groomed and pegged for chief, yet Ray Doyle brought in a shiny new guy from the Vancouver PD. Why do you think he did that?”

“You know why. It was the stress leave I ended up taking, the therapy I needed. I . . . I suddenly wasn’t such a good prospect. Perhaps I should have left the PD back then. Maybe, deep down, that part of me that wasn’t a mother wanted to follow you—should have followed you.”

He smiles sadly and closes his eyes. He’s silent for several minutes, and again I worry that he might have stopped breathing.

“What if he’s telling the truth?” he whispers finally.

“Clay? You cannot be serious.”

“I’m too far gone to not be serious.” He opens his eyes, takes another strained breath, and when he speaks, his voice is weak, fading.

“We had loose ends with that case, Rache. In more ways than one. Questions that were never answered because he confessed. There were things I wanted to know, like—”

A nurse enters, so silently that she makes me jump. “Evening, Detective O’Leary,” she says cheerily. “Are you ready for your meds top-up?” She’s holding a syringe as she goes over to the drip next to his bed.

“Morphine,” explains Luke.

“Who’s your lovely lady friend?” the nurse asks, giving me a wink as she feeds the syringe contents into a tube.

“My old girlfriend,” he says.

She laughs. “Right. Sure. She’s far too good-looking for you, Detective.” Then she says softly to me, “He’ll go to sleep as soon as I’ve administered this.”

I nod. “I’ll wait with him.”

The nurse exits.

“Bye, Rache,” Luke whispers, his eyelids going heavy. His words begin to slur. “Thanks . . . for coming to say farewell. Live a little while you still can. Get . . . to know those grandbabies of yours. Life—the little moments, the now—it’s all we’ve got.”

Emotion wallops me. I try to swallow it down as tears pool in my eyes. I kiss him on his brow and whisper near his ear, “I’ll be back. I’ll tell you more about the podcast. I’ll download it for you. Okay?”