Luke had been talking, on and off, for three hours. A nurse came to take his vitals.
“That’s enough visiting,” she said.
Rigo and I stepped from the room.
My mother was at the nurses’ station. Andrea was with her, elbows on the counter, features slack as if she’d fallen asleep standing up.
My mother saw me and murmured something.
Andrea opened her eyes.
She pushed upright and came straight at me.
I got ready for a tongue-lashing: Everything that had happened to Luke was my fault.
My mother seemed to expect the same thing. She hurried behind Andrea, hand outstretched to restrain her, not quite making contact.
I squared toward Andrea. She walked right into me. Her arms wrapped my waist and she clung to me tightly. I peered down at the top of her head. Gray lined the part in her hair.
My mother looked on with a puzzled smile.
Cesar Rigo was writing in his notebook, like a scientist charting animal behavior.
Andrea gave a squeeze, released me, and went into Luke’s room.
My mother pecked me on the cheek and followed her.
I limped to the elevator, Rigo at my side.
“I neglected to thank you,” he said. “The firearm you furnished is a match for my murder weapon. Though I confess I would have preferred that you furnish it sooner.”
The elevator arrived. We got in. Rigo pressed the button for the lobby. I pressed two.
My mind kept returning to the coil of wire in Jace Dormer’s pocket.
They’d kept my brother alive for four days.
They were never going to kill him.
They were going to force me to do it. Like their uncle had done to their father.
“I understand you have taken a leave of absence from the Coroner’s Bureau,” Rigo said.
“It wasn’t a choice.”
“Please know that it was not my desire to cause problems for you.”
“You didn’t cause them, I did.”
The doors opened on the second floor.
Rigo gave a shallow bow. “I wish you a speedy recovery.”
I limped to Billy Watts’s room and knocked.
Rashida said, “Come in.”
They’d taken out his breathing tube. He was reclined on pillows, looking ashen and flayed. Rashida perched on the pulled-out sleeper chair. I said, “Don’t get up,” but she did.
Nwodo was there, too, notebook in her lap. “We were wrapping up.”
I smiled at Billy. “How are you?”
Watts flashed a thumbs-up. He tried to say “Not bad” but it became a hacking fit. Rashida fed him water.
“How’s your brother?” she asked.
“Better, thanks. They’re going to keep him here a little bit longer.”
“And you?”
I touched the bandage on my head. “Couple of stitches.”
Thirty-eight, plus thirteen for the quad.
Billy Watts pushed the straw out of his mouth. In a voice barely there, he said, “Pussy.”
Rashida clucked her tongue at him but smiled.
Nwodo turned off her recorder. “I’ll walk you out.”
Billy Watts had spotted the white truck outside his house twice, first on Saturday afternoon and again early Monday morning. He didn’t like how it was idling in the street or the look of the driver; nor did he like how it took off in a hurry when he walked toward it. The second time he caught most of the tag. He ran it and the registration came back expired. The name of the owner gave him a jolt: Sherri Dormer, Gunnar Dormer’s widow.
“He figured they were trying to put a scare into him,” Nwodo said. “Like the brick in your window. He thought maybe you’d heard from them, too.”
The elevator bumped to a stop. We crossed the lobby.
She said, “I brought Sherri in. She swears up and down the boys moved out last year and took the truck, she hasn’t seen them since, has nothing to do with it.”
“You believe her?”
“Doesn’t matter what I believe. They’re both dead, it’s her word.”
Outside the air was better than it had been for weeks. Far from perfect, though.
I said, “You do realize there’s a whole tribe of them.”
“Four boys, eight girls, including the cousins. The next oldest is sixteen. I spoke to her, too.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Who knows? You dealt them some pretty heavy casualties. They’d be smart to cut bait.”
“They’re not smart.”
Nwodo turned up her face. “Feel that?”
“What?” I said.
Then I did: a prick of rain.
We stood there, staring with our necks cricked. Whatever was coming, it was taking its time.
I picked up Charlotte and drove to the supermarket. The lights along Washington Avenue burned gaudily, as though it were the Las Vegas Strip, and Safeway held the promise of riches.
With Charlotte in the cart seat, I limped the aisles, piling in eggs, milk, cheese, greens. I asked again what she’d done at preschool. She gave the same answer.
“Nothing.”
“Who’d you play with?”
“Lila.”
“Lila F. or Lila N.?”
“Both.”
“What did you play?”
“Frozen Two.”
“Were you Anna or Elsa?”
“I was the water horse.”
“Nice. Should we pick you up some oats?”
“No.”
“What about water oats?”
“What’s water oats?”
“It’s what water horses eat.”
“They don’t need to eat,” Charlotte said. “They’re magic.”
Boots kicked off; a squealing stampede. Mommy.
“I smell frittata.”
“Mommy I cracked the eggs.”
“Great job.”
Amy lifted Charlotte to her hip. Trunk and branch, fine and sturdy. For a moment I thought about the twins. Someone’s kids.
I set the hot pan on the range and kissed Amy. “How was your day?”
“Fine. Tiring.”
“Mommy, I had so much fun today.”
“That’s wonderful. Let’s set the table and you can tell me about it.”
“I played with Lila F….”
Amy and I began disassembling the Great Wall of Cardboard late one night. She gave the bread machine to her mother, who needed a replacement for her old one. When we were done there was a long rectangle of compressed carpet. We vacuumed but it wouldn’t go away.
“We should rip it out,” Amy said.
“The carpet?”
“It’s so ugly.”
“Okay. Sure. Do you want me to look into that?”
“Eventually.” She sat down and patted the sofa.
I sat beside her.
“I’ve been waiting to have this conversation, Clay. But we need to have it.”
I nodded.
“I know you think you were protecting us. I get that it came from a good place. But you almost died. And—please, please don’t say you didn’t, because that is completely beside the point. It’s unacceptable and I’m furious with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you mean that.”
“I do. I—”
“I believe you mean it right now,” she said. “I’m not talking about right now. I’m talking about the next time.”
“Honey. Nothing like this is ever going to happen again.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Start by not putting yourself in danger.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t lie to me. Ever again.”
“I won’t.”
She let out a short, sad laugh.
She walked to the bookcase and took down the nine-hundred-page history of Europe I’d never gotten around to reading. From the chapter on the Ottoman wars she removed the personal check made out to our daughter for a quarter of a million dollars. She dropped the book on the ugly carpet, slapped the check on the coffee table, and looked at me expectantly.
I said, “Peter Franchette gave it to me. He’s the guy I—”
“I remember who he is. Why did he give it to you?”
“As a thank-you for finding his sister.”
“Why is it in a book?”
“I can’t cash it. I could be fired if I did.”
“So you hid it from me.”
“No. No. I didn’t want to be tempted. Amy—”
“Someone gave you this money, money for our daughter, and you didn’t tell me about it.”
“I meant to. I forgot.”
She left the room.
I let a few minutes go by.
She was plucking her eyebrows in the bathroom.
I said, “I’m sorry.”
She put down the tweezers. “This is a terrible pattern, Clay.”
“You’re right.”
“We need to deal with it.”
“We will.”
“I want us to go into couples therapy.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
She said to me in the mirror, “You are so lucky I love you.”
She turned. Her hand came up sharply, as if she was going to slap me.
She brushed my cheek. “Let’s change your dressings.”
Later, naked, in bed, entwined, we saw the walls flash white, heard a far-off rumble, followed by tapping on the roof, tentative and sporadic, then picking up speed.
Amy sat up. She wrapped the blanket around her long, lean body; around the gentle swell of new life. She took my hand and led me to the window, and we watched the sky release its mercy.