Redemption Road(28)

“Liz!”

Slippery skin and pain …

“Liz, damn it!”

That was Beckett, still distant. She ignored the brush of his fingers, and only in the fresh air did she realize he’d followed her down the stairwell. There were cars and black pavement, then Beckett’s fingers on her wrist.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Liz, look at me.”

But, she couldn’t. A car had leaked oil onto the tarmac. Sunlight turned the puddle into melted iron, and that was exactly how she felt: as if all the hardness had been drawn from her bones, as if she, too, were melting away. “Don’t call me, Charlie. Okay? Don’t call me. Don’t follow me.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” she said; but that was a lie.

“Maybe you should talk to Wilkins.”

“Don’t go there, either.” Wilkins was the department shrink. Every other day he called. And every other day she declined his services. “I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that, but you look like a strong wind will lift you off your feet.”

“I’m fine.”

“Liz…”

“I have to go.”

She got in the car and drove to the abandoned house where Channing had been held captive for forty long hours. She wasn’t sure why she’d come, but guessed it had to do with photographs and dreams and the way she avoided this bit of town. The structure was a shell under the darkening sky. It sat far back from the road, part of it crushed by a fallen tree, the rest of it obscured behind saplings, milkweed, and high grass. She could smell it through the open window, a whiff of rot and mold and feral cat. The house next door was empty. Three more on the street were dark.

The city was crumbling, she thought.

She was crumbling.

At the porch, she hesitated. Yellow tape fluttered at the door. The windows were boarded up. Elizabeth touched flaking paint and thought of all the things that had died on the other side of the door. Five days, she told herself. I can handle this. But her hand shook when she reached for the knob.

She stared at it, disbelieving, then snapped her fingers shut. She stood for a long minute, then retreated in disarray for the first time since pinning on a badge. It was just a place, she told herself. Just a house.

Then why can’t I go inside?

Elizabeth got back in the car and drove, houses flicking past, sun dropping behind the tallest trees. It was only as the road bent in a long, slow curve that she realized she wasn’t going home. The houses were wrong, the ridgelines and the views. But, she kept driving. Why? Because she needed something. A touchstone. A reminder of why she’d become a cop in the first place.

When she found Adrian, he was ten miles out of town in a burned-out building that used to be his home. It sat under tall trees at the end of a half-mile drive, a once-fine farmhouse now little more than ash-heap walls and a bone of chimney. She stepped out under a spinning sky, and the wind, on its lips, carried the faintest taste of smoke.

“What are you doing here, Liz?” He stepped from the gloom.

“Hello, Adrian. I’m sorry for just showing up like this.”

“It’s not really my house, is it?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then, what?”

“Prison. Thirteen years.” She ran out of words because Adrian was the one who’d made her what she was. That made him a god of sorts, and gods terrified her. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit.”

“You were just a rookie. We barely knew each other.”

She nodded because words, again, were inadequate. She’d written him three times in the first year of his incarceration, and each one said the same thing. I’m sorry. I wish I could have done more. After that, she’d had nothing else to offer.

“Did you know…?” She turned both palms to finish the sentence. Did you know your house was burned, your wife gone?

“I never heard from Catherine.” His face was a slash of gray in the gloom. “After the trial I never heard from anyone.”

Elizabeth rolled her shoulders against a final rush of guilt. She should have told him years ago that his wife had left, his house had burned. She should have gone to the prison and told him face-to-face. She’d been unable to bear it, though, the thought of him locked up, diminished. “Catherine left three months after your conviction. The house sat empty for a while, then one day it burned. They say it was arson.”

He nodded, but she knew it hurt. “Why are you here, Liz?”

“I just wanted to check on you.” She left the rest unspoken: that she was looking at murder charges of her own, that she was hoping for insight, and that she might have loved him, once.

“Would you like to come inside?”

She thought he was joking, but he picked his way through scrub and rubble until orange light touched his skin. It was the old living room, she saw. The floor was gone, but fire burned in the fireplace and made sounds as it settled. Adrian added wood, and the light spread. Around her, she saw ash, swept back, and a log dragged in as a seat. Adrian’s hands were stained, too; and Gideon’s blood still showed black on his shirt. “Home sweet home.” He said it flatly, but the hurt was there. His great-great-grandfather had built the house. Adrian grew up in it, then deeded it to his wife to cover his legal bills, if necessary. It had survived the Civil War, his bankruptcy, and his trial. Now, it was this shell, tumbled and damp beneath trees that had seen the sweep of its history.