Sarah was her name, Rose’s daughter.
Tito had been unable to cut through his restraints with my knife, but Sarah was younger and more agile, and she’d successfully freed herself.
She’d then cut loose Boyd, who had called the police before trying to hack away Tito’s plastic handcuffs.
Sarah had taken that opportunity to grab a gun from the shelf and head to the bedroom in the back. She had moxie, that Sarah. Just like her mother.
I freed Mia, who immediately scooped up Caleb. Jax had given him Benadryl and he was slowly coming awake.
Tito burst into the room and saw what had happened. He cut me loose and asked if everyone was all right.
I nodded and sat on the bed, holding onto Mia and Caleb until the first two responding officers arrived.
Tito gave them a very abbreviated version of what had happened and told them to call Detective Larry Weeks.
Weeks arrived ten minutes later, along with a patrol lieutenant and the medical examiner.
They took a quick walk-through of the house and then returned to the living room where everyone had congregated.
Mia was sitting on a chair in the corner, holding Caleb. Boyd and Sarah stood nearby.
Tito and I were by Jax’s body.
Weeks surveyed the scene in the living room one more time and then said to me, “What happened?”
Before I could reply, Tito said, “My client was involved in a shooting after having been held hostage by the two decedents.”
Weeks pointed at Mia and said to me, “I thought she was your lawyer.”
“Ms. Kapoor and her infant were kidnapped by the two decedents,” Tito said. “They’ve both been through the wringer. I’ll be speaking for everyone here.”
Weeks jerked a thumb toward the rear of the house. “Dead guy in the back is Blaine McFadden. You better start speaking fast.”
“We need paramedics,” Tito said. “After everybody gets checked out, we can talk about what happened.”
Weeks chewed his lip for a moment before pulling a radio from his belt and calling for an EMT.
Boyd took a step forward, his head low, shoulders hunched like a dog who was afraid someone was going to swat his nose with a newspaper.
He stared at the carpet and said to Weeks, “Do you want to see the video?”
“Why, yes I do,” Weeks replied.
Boyd picked up a tablet computer from the dining room table. He told us he had cameras in the living room and in the front yard, inconspicuous little things he’d bought because they were so cheap. They recorded to the cloud, and he showed us what had happened, clear footage of Blaine and Jax breaking in, Jax tasering me and Tito, and finally Blaine killing Jax with my pistol.
“Thanks for showing us that,” Weeks said. “What’s your name, son?”
Boyd told him.
“This your house?” Weeks asked.
Boyd nodded.
“This is Rose’s brother,” I said. “I’ll explain later.”
The expression on Detective Weeks’s face softened. “Rose was my partner.”
Boyd stared at a corner of the ceiling without speaking.
“Being somebody’s partner is like being family,” Weeks said to Boyd. “That means you’re like my family now.”
Boyd wiped his eyes as the first of the crime scene investigators arrived.
While the house was being processed by the investigators, Sarah and I sat at the kitchen table with Mia, who had Caleb in her arms in a vice grip.
“How did you know my mother?” Sarah asked.
“I was married to her for fifteen years.”
She was silent for a moment. “Daddy told me she died.”
“Boyd?” I said. “That’s your father?”
She nodded. “Why would my mother not want me?”
“She was very young when you were born,” Mia said. “Not even in high school.”
Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, her expression indicating she had a lot to think about. As did we all.
“How did you end up living here?” I asked.
“I’ve always lived here.” She told us her last name was not Doucette, but one I recognized as Gloria’s maiden name.
Since childhood, she’d been told to never acknowledge the Doucette name if anybody ever came around asking.
She also told us she worked at a clinic and one day she wanted to be a nurse.
“That sounds like a fine idea,” Mia said.
“Sometimes I think I might want to be a police officer,” she said. “Like my Aunt Rose. She used to tell me what it was like to be a cop when she came to visit.”
Mia squeezed Caleb tighter and looked away.
I walked to the sink. Stared outside at the yard, blinking back tears.
The lawn was green and well-tended. There was a small brick patio with a charcoal grill and several outdoor chairs. A wind chime hung from the branch of a Bradford pear tree in the corner of the yard.
I tried to imagine Rose sitting in one of those chairs, nursing a glass of wine, talking to Sarah. Lying to her.
From out of nowhere a new emotion came over me, anger at Rose for keeping this life secret for all those years. From her two husbands. From her daughter. From everyone. The anger vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, replaced with a deep sense of melancholy.
“That’s a great idea too,” Mia said. “I bet your … Aunt Rose would like that.”
I debated how much to say right now. Should I tell Sarah that Rose was her mother and she was now dead, killed a few days before by the man who I had shot only an hour ago, a monster who just happened to be her biological father? Eventually it would all have to come out. But for now, perhaps taking things slow might be better.
One of the crime scene techs came into the kitchen and asked a question about the house. Sarah left with him, and Boyd crept into the room, arms crossed, not making eye contact.
“You doing okay?” I asked.
He stared outside. “Rose told me you could fix this.”
“I did my best. Unfortunately, a lot of people died. Why was she meeting with you in the parking lot across from the stables?”
“She wanted me and Sarah to leave town. Josh, he was the other one with us that summer, he was going to blow the story open. She didn’t think we’d be safe.”
A sound idea. If they had left, I wouldn’t have encountered Sarah puttering in the yard, her presence lodging in my subconscious. The uncle’s old address would have just been another dead end.
Yes, a sound idea except it wouldn’t have stopped Blaine McFadden’s relentless search.
“When she was a minor,” I said, “what was her custody situation?”
“My aunt and uncle took her in. My mother, well she didn’t need to raise any more kids.”
“Why did you move in?” Mia asked.
“My aunt died. And my uncle was old, so he moved to Denver where his children lived.” Boyd paused. “Seemed like the right thing to do. We’re family after all.”
Mia nodded. “Why didn’t you leave when Rose told you to?”
“Where would we go? This is the only home Sarah has ever known.”
No one spoke for a few moments.
“I told Rose years ago that you should know,” he said to me. “About Sarah and all. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” I asked. “None of this is your fault.”
He was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “I told her she should tell Sarah too.”
And what good would come of that, I wondered? There were no right answers for this situation, only ones that appeared less bad than others.
“What was Rose and Sarah’s relationship like?” Mia asked.
“Good, I guess. Rose loved her and tried to be there for her.” He paused. “But then she wouldn’t come around for a long time.”
The child represented a failure, I realized, a time when Rose had been unable to control something. The real Rose Doucette became more and more clear in my mind, the hard place she found herself in. The best thing in her life, the person she loved most in the world, was a constant reminder of the worst time in her entire existence.
Mia sighed. “What a terrible situation for everyone.”
Footsteps from the hallway. The three of us stopped talking.
Sarah came back into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and looked at me. “Would you tell me about my mother sometime? What she was like?”
I smiled. “I’d be happy to.”