Redemption Road(25)

“I thought…”

“You thought what?”

“I was drunk.” He pressed fingers against his eyes. “I thought it was a dream.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gideon with a gun in his hand.” Robert shook his head, dark hair glinting. “It came out of the television. That had to be a dream, right? Guns coming out of TVs. That can’t be real.”

“Was it your gun, Robert?” His mouth stayed shut, so she pushed harder. “Did you know that Adrian Wall was getting out of prison today?” He looked up, his eyes so suddenly pink and shattered-looking Elizabeth knew the answer. “Jesus, you did.”

“It was a dream. Right? How could that be real?”

He buried his face in his hands, and Elizabeth—understanding—straightened.

Had he really thought it was a dream?

Or had some part of him known?

That was the part of his soul that had him weeping. The part that thought it was real and decided not to call the cops, the part that wanted Adrian Wall dead and was willing to let his son do the dirty work.

“Is my boy alive?” He showed the same pink eyes. “Please say he is.”

“Yes,” she said. “Twenty minutes ago he was alive.” He broke then, sobbing. “I want you to come with me, Robert.”

“Why?”

“Because as much as I might hate it right now, Gideon loves you. You should be there when he wakes.”

“You’ll take me?”

“Yes,” she said; and he rose, blinking and afraid, as if condemned to some terrible fate.





6

Elizabeth drove Robert Strange to the hospital and got him situated in a waiting room down the hall from the surgical theaters. After a brief talk with one of the nurses, she returned to the place she’d left him. “Gideon’s still in surgery. It looks good, though.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be.” Elizabeth pulled twenty dollars from her pocket and dropped it on the table. “That’s for food. Not liquor.”

The irony was that Elizabeth wanted the drink. She was tired and drained and for the first time in her adult life knew she didn’t want to be a cop. But what else was there?

Some other job?

Prison?

That felt real as she drove. State cops. Incarceration. Maybe that’s why she took the long drive to the station. Maybe that’s why she was thirty minutes late.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Beckett was waiting outside, his tie loose, his face redder than usual. Elizabeth locked the car and considered the second-floor windows as she walked. “What happened with Adrian?”

“He’s in the wind.” Beckett fell in beside her, deflated by her steady calm.

“Where?”

“Walking down the road, last I saw him. How’s Gideon?”

“Still in surgery.”

“Did you find his father?”

“He’s at the hospital.”

“Drunk?”

“Yeah.”

They were avoiding the obvious. Beckett came around to it first. “They’re waiting for you.”

“The same ones?”

“Different.”

“Where?”

“Conference room.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The conference room was beside the bull pen and glass-walled. That meant the state cops wanted her visible. They wanted every other cop to see. “I guess we do this the hard way.”

They took the stairs to the second floor and stepped into the bull pen. People stopped talking and stared. She felt the distrust and condemnation, but tuned it out. The department was taking heat, yes. The newspapers had turned, and a lot of people were angry. Elizabeth understood all that, but not everyone could walk into the dark and make the hard choice.

She knew who she was.

The cops in the conference room, though, were strangers. She saw them through the glass, both of them older and stern. They wore sidearms and state credentials and watched intently as she moved between the desks.

“Captain.” She stopped where Dyer waited at the conference room door. “Those are not the same investigators.”

“Hamilton and Marsh,” Dyer said. “You’ve heard of them?”

“Should I have?”

“They report directly to the attorney general. Dirty politicians. Crooked cops. They go after the worst of them. It’s all they do. Big cases. High profile.”

“Should I be flattered?”

“They’re a hit squad, Liz, politicized and effective. Don’t take them lightly.”

“I don’t.”

“Yet, your lawyer’s not here.”

“True.”

“He says you haven’t met him at all, won’t return his calls.”

“It’s fine, Francis.”

“Let’s reschedule and bring in the lawyer. I’ll take the heat.”

“I said I’m fine.” She laid a palm on his face, then opened the door and went inside. Both state investigators were standing on the other side of a polished table. One’s fingertips rested lightly on the wood; the other’s arms were crossed.