Gone(78)

He’s not there. Don’t talk to him. Jessy’s voice. At least he never saw Jessy. He didn’t think he could handle that. But she still spoke to him. Just a soft voice, in the dark there with him. Leave him be, she said.

Rondeau turned away, hit the gas, and trundled down the long drive.

Ten minutes later, he was pulling into the Stock County Public Safety Building. A sense of nostalgia washed over him. For two years — six, sometimes seven days a week — he had arrived at this same spot. He sometimes caught Mindy (or was it Cindy?) on her way in. He’d see King and Bruin sneaking a morning kiss in King’s truck before they went inside, thinking no one saw them. Well, they could do it out in the open now, if they wanted — Stokes said they had plans to get hitched. Good for them.

He shut off the truck and the memories turned to anxiety. Was this crazy or what? The whole of Stock County knew he was batshit (a term he’d borrowed from the FBI, though Dr. Lang didn’t approve of it). He’d been the head of a missing person’s investigation, while he’d been seeing an imaginary person. Not just one imaginary person — but multiple. Such as secret agents he thought he’d killed deep in the tunnels. Had he been tied up? Kept in a box? No. He’d suffered a mental breakdown. Tasked with finding a missing family, he ended up hip-deep in conspiracy theory and paranoia. He’d even thought Connie’s accident had something to do with it all. He’d been completely off the rails. It was only by some miracle it had worked out in the end.

The FBI had grilled him enough, miracle or not. Five days straight they’d interrogated him. And it wasn’t just about the Kemps. It was about the District, about what happened when Lee Angstrom had chased down a mass murderer plaguing the city. The whole thing had made him itch. Made his bullet wounds feel like bacterial infections, spreading through his body.

They wanted to know if he’d been in contact with Addison Kemp. Of course I have, he’d replied — she was kin to the missing family. Did you know she was an investigative reporter?

No, he hadn’t.

He opened the door and stepped down from the truck. He drew another breath, felt the sun again. Then he went inside.

Within the jail was business as usual. Deputy Kenzie smiled at him, said hello, and led him through the entry process. It felt strange to be a civilian now. It felt okay. He collected his items from the tub on the other side of the metal detector and Kenzie keyed the lock to the main doors. Rondeau was led to Sheriff Oesch’s office. He knocked, was invited to enter, and then stopped short when he found Addison Kemp seated across the desk from Sheriff Oesch.

Addie rose as Rondeau entered the room.

Oesch bellowed in a friendly way, standing as well. “The prodigal son returns,” he said. Oesch was never that funny.

Addie extended a hand, and Rondeau took the grip. “Detective, I just want to thank you. You did everything for my brother and his family. You and your team.”

Rondeau found it hard to look at her. Found it hard, really, to take in any of it. He started thinking of excuses to leave. He let go of her hand, and took a step back, his mouth working, his blood rising. Then his eyes fell to the folded up newspaper in her other hand.

Before he could ask her what it was she was holding, he heard a commotion in the hallway. Oesch got a look on his face like a kid about to launch a surprise birthday party. Addie looked pleased too — Rondeau searched her face for some sign of what was happening — her lips were pursed, her eyes bright.

He turned toward the door to the room. He walked towards it, as if in a dream, and stepped into the hallway. At first his eyes only registered Peter King and Althea Bruin. They were walking side by side down the corridor, and Peter was pushing someone in a wheelchair. Someone very familiar to the detective.

Connie looked frail, but she was smiling. She had some scarring, and her hair was tucked under a wool cap, probably because they’d shaved some of it to operate on her. But she was beautiful. And as she neared she said, “Hi, Rondeau.”

“Hi, Connie.”

Peter stopped pushing her and came around the wheel chair. He stuck out his hand, and Rondeau shook it, still in shock. Peter threw his arms around Rondeau and hugged him. “Come on,” he whispered in Rondeau’s ear.

No TV, no newspapers — that was Lang’s strict media diet. At least, he’d said, for a few months. Investigators’ brains never stopped looking for patterns, trying to solve the world around them. And the work Rondeau needed to do was in here, the doc had said, pointing to his chest, not out there. Corny, but Rondeau had gotten the gist, and he’d stuck to it. He hadn’t seen anything in the news for weeks. He knew what the FBI had told him, he knew what Lang had told him. So when they paraded him back into the sheriff’s office, Addie laid the newspaper out on the desk. The headline read: REAL VALENTINE KILLER CONFESSES.

That was the first thing he absorbed, and it took a moment, his eyes lingering over the words. There was a subheading, too, though: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OPENS UP CASE ON FBI CRIME LAB FRAUD IN WASHINGTON D.C.

It was hard to take in. Extremely hard. His body was shaking as his mind tried to make sense of the words. He could only get bits and pieces. The feds were accused of framing an innocent man for the multiple murders. The real culprit had come forward, turned himself in. He’d made a phone call to a reporter — Addie Matheson. The innocent man had been freed — there was a picture of the man Rondeau remembered from the shipyard, and he was smiling.