Redemption Road(117)

He moved his hand, and Elizabeth trapped the plastic with three fingers. She saw the back of the photograph. The paper was yellowed, the edges tattered. “Under the church?”

“Right above the bodies.”

She turned it over; stared for long seconds. Randolph watched her face. She couldn’t move or speak.

He gave her a moment, then tilted his head so he could look at it straight on. “I didn’t think it was you, but Dyer says it is. He says he knew you from church and childhood, that even that young and long-haired he knew it was you the second he saw it. I’m guessing you’re what? Fifteen?”

“Seventeen.”

The word was an exhalation of loss. The photograph was faded and cracked and water-stained. In it, she wore a plain dress with her hair drawn back and tied with a black ribbon. She was walking near the church. Wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t sad. She wasn’t there at all. Not really.

“Do you remember this photograph?”

She shook her head, and it was not a total lie. She’d never seen the photograph, but she knew the dress, the day. “Did you find fingerprints?”

“No. We’re thinking gloves. Are you okay?” She said she was, but tears were on her face. “Jesus, Liz. Breathe.”

She tried, but it was hard. She remembered the walk by the church.

Five weeks after she was raped.

The day before she killed her baby.

*

Elizabeth was still glassy-eyed when she stepped into the bull pen. In seconds, everyone was looking at her, but she barely noticed. She was thinking of a black ribbon in hair that hung halfway to her waist. As a girl, her ribbons had always been blue or red or yellow—the only real colors she was allowed. But she’d twined a black one in her hair that single day, and her thoughts were trapped there on that ribbon, as if she could touch it or take it back.

“Liz!”

She heard her name from across the room, and even that seemed faint.

“Hey!”

It was Beckett, working his big body through the room. She blinked, surprised by the urgency of his movements. He was bulling the crowd, and the crowd was angry. A buzz was in the air, and it wasn’t like before. The whispers were back, the distrustful looks.

Shit … She knew what that meant, too.

“Liz, wait—”

But she didn’t wait. She couldn’t. The hallway door was twenty feet away, and she was moving—fifteen feet, then five, Beckett still coming. Her hand was on the knob when he caught up and took her arm. She tried to pull it away, but he didn’t let go. “Walk with me.” He pushed her into the hall and then into an empty stairwell. The door clanked shut, and it was just the two of them, Beckett squeezing hard, the look on his face desperate enough to keep her quiet. He was frightened, and it wasn’t a normal kind of fear. “Just keep walking. Don’t talk to anybody. I mean it.”

He led her down a flight, then into another hallway and to a side exit. He hit a metal door with his shoulder. It crashed against the wall, and they were outside. “Where are you parked?”

She pointed, and he dragged her in that direction. “Dyer knows?”

“That you lied about the motel, yeah.”

“I guess word spreads fast.”

“You think?”

She looked up and saw faces in the windows, watching. A few men were on cell phones. One was snapping his fingers and pointing. “How bad is it?”

“Dyer’s about to sign a warrant for your arrest. Obstruction. Accessory. You made him look like a fool.”

Elizabeth saw it, of course. She’d lied about Adrian, and the lie had caught her out.

“Tell me where he is.”

“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said.

“You’re lying.”

“What if I am?”

“Tell me where Adrian is, and maybe I can make this go away. Talk to the state cops. Convince Dyer to rescind the warrant. You have to give me something, though. A real address. A phone number.”

“Francis will settle down.”

“He won’t.”

“So I made him look foolish.” They reached the car. Elizabeth pulled her arm free. “I gave him a bullshit address. So what?”

“People died.”

“What?”

“State police went to the motel you gave us. They found two people shot dead in the shower. The room still smelled of gun smoke. That’s how close it was.”

“I don’t understand.”

Beckett took her keys, opened the car, and got her inside. “Tell me where to find him.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Elizabeth kept her eyes straight ahead; felt the intensity of his stare.

“I need him, Liz. You can’t understand how badly. But please. I need you to trust me.”

Beckett was hurting. Was it jealousy? Anger?

“Trust? What trust?” She started the car and let him twist. “You should have told me about the photograph.”

“James Randolph.” Beckett’s jaw clenched. “He showed you?”

“Yeah, he did. It should have been you.”

“Liz—”

“Partners, Charlie. Friends. You don’t think I had the right to know?”