Now Melanie was retreating, mentally withdrawing. He wondered if she was remembering William too. Maybe the way he'd cheated on her, or maybe the look on his face right before he struck her. Or maybe she was thinking of Harper, of the man she'd grown up calling Dad whom she knew now as, at the very least, a cold-blooded felon, if not a child murderer. Then there was Russell Lee Holmes, the genetic dad, who'd also killed little girls as a hobby.
“I'm not going back to Boston,” she said abruptly. “I can't yet. There are answers here. I have to know what they are.”
His fingers stilled just above her elbow, his hand settling on her arm, cupping it lightly. “If you agree to stay in my custody,” he said after a minute, “I may be able to buy us both some time. We can work on this together, see what we find.”
“We made love.”
“Yes.”
“You're an agent. I thought they had rules about such things.”
“There are rules. I've crossed the line.”
“What will they do?”
“I don't know. I might get written up. I might lose my job. It's possible.”
She rolled over, looking at him with a fierceness that hit him hard. “Regrets, then? Tell me, I want to know.”
He said honestly, “No regrets, Mel. For you, not ever.”
She whispered: “I'm ripped up, David. There aren't enough pieces left to make a whole. I'm so frightened of what I'm going to find. I'm angry and I'm scared and I …I can't believe what William did. I can't believe Harper hates me this much. I can't believe I loved them all and I didn't know them at all. I feel so completely, utterly
empty
, and I don't even care.”
“It's going to get better, Melanie. It will.”
“I don't even know myself anymore. Why I do the things I do or say the things I say? I want to buy a gun. I used to hate guns. What is happening to me?”
“It's going to work out, Mel,” he tried again. “I'm going to help you.”
“David, I don't believe you.”
He had to nod. The words hurt, but she had the right. He drew her back into his arms. At least she didn't protest.
After a moment he said against the top of her head, “Why don't you rest now, Melanie. You've been the strong one through this. Now it's my turn.”
She seemed to nod against his chest and they drifted off to silence together, then sleep. When David awoke, Melanie was untangling herself from his arms and crawling out of bed.
“I need to shower,” she said. “I have an appointment.”
“With whom?”
She gave him a small smile and strode toward the bathroom. “Russell Lee Holmes.”
WHEN THEY PILED into David's car, a thunderstorm was rolling across the sky. Clouds teemed and broiled, blacking out the sun and settling an eerie heaviness over the city. They drove in silence for fifteen minutes, watching the horizon crackle with lightning while the air conditioner blasted their cheeks.
David pulled over at the Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery. “The sky looks like it's going to go.”
“It's only water.” She got out of the car and headed straight into the graveyard.
The cemetery didn't have a fence. Some flowers had been planted at the perimeter, now leaning over and panting from the heat. The rest of the cemetery was filled with rows of white crosses marching steadily backward. They rolled back as far as she could see, the last dozen rows so wind-scarred, the dates and prisoner numbers had completely eroded. Those were surrounded by hard-packed ground and thick, old grass. Then there were the front rows, the fresh new graves with the black earth still mounded from recent filling.
The sky cracked, the first fat raindrop splashing on Melanie's nose as an owl hooted and lightning danced across the sky.
“We'd better hurry,” David called above the growing wind, his dark suit glued to his lanky frame. “The storm's almost overhead.”
“We have to look for the prisoner number,” she called back to him, and rattled off the information.
Lightning cracked again, so close they felt its charge zip through the air. The wind was whipping up now. The owl hooted again, agitated and uncomfortable. Then thunder boomed. More lightning. Melanie could feel the static electricity raising the hair on her arms, rippling up her spine, accelerating her heart. She began to feel panic. The rain hit her face. She was breathing too hard. She could feel the thunder still echoing in her belly, and suddenly she felt like a little girl lost in a sea of white death, trying to find her father.
David was suddenly at her side. He took one look at her face and ordered her head down between her knees. He grabbed her hands and gripped them tight. “You're having an anxiety attack. Calm down.”
The sky abruptly gave up. It burst like a giant water balloon and deluged them in a sheet of rain.
David led her over to the grave he'd found. She stood beside him in front of the white cross. Prisoner number and date. That was it.
Melanie thought she should feel something. She
wanted
to feel something. This was her father's grave, her real father. Please let it mean something to her, give her some sense of closure.
She felt hollow. The marker meant nothing to her. Neither did the dead man who'd once been her father. These were abstract concepts that couldn't begin to compete with the real, vibrant, warm memories of Harper, Patricia, and Brian Stokes. David had been right, she did have a family and she missed them and she loved them. No going forward, it seemed, and no going back.
David put his arm around her shoulders. He led her back to the car through the stinging sheets of rain and held open the door for her. Then he removed his jacket, and tucked it around Melanie's shivering shoulders. Then he fastened her seat belt.
When he pulled back to close the door, his gaze was liquid gold. Understanding, she thought. Simple understanding.
“He is not what you're about, Melanie,” he said. “You can spend your time in prison museums and graveyards if you want, but you are not the legacy of Russell Lee Holmes.”
He shut the door, and she watched him cross rapidly in front of the car to the driver's side.
He knew her, she realized, even when she had stopped knowing herself. He did have enough faith for both of them.
And then she thought, I want to go home.
She turned away so David wouldn't see her tears.
LATER DAVID HELPED her shower and crawl into bed, tucking the covers around her shoulders. She was too exhausted to fight him, falling almost immediately to sleep with her head buried against the feather pillow.
David got out the phone and prepared to do more work.
Their clothes were strewn all over the room, damp puddles reminding him of the choices he'd made. His suit mingled with her T-shirt, his loafers rolling over her sandals.
His FBI shield next to her makeup on the blue Formica counter.
Chenney picked up the other end of the phone line just as Melanie began to mutter in her sleep. David turned his back to her for more privacy and searched for a neutral tone of voice.
“Hey, rookie. What's the status?”
Silence over the line. Then a long, hard sigh. That told David enough.
“Lairmore didn't buy it, did he?” he said.
“I think he's gonna write you up,” Chenney confirmed. “It's going in your files. Jesus, Riggs, you're not exactly the most popular guy around here at the moment.”
“I went after a suspect in a murder case. I wouldn't think that would be such a breach in protocol.”
“Oh, yeah, Riggs. You flew across the country without backup, discussion with your supervisor, or any solid leads. And the Bureau has such a reputation for loving cowboys. Did you sleep through the academy, or what?”
David managed a ghost of a smile. For so long he'd been convinced he hated his job. Now that he was tossing it away, however…
“Things blow over,” he said at last. “Just give me an update.”
“You need to come back, Riggs, I'm serious.”
“I have a lead. I've traced Melanie Stokes to the William P. Hobby airport and a rental car agency. It's not a goose chase, Chenney. I'll leave Lairmore a report.”
“Then let me come out there and help you.”
“You don't want to come here.”
Another small silence as comprehension dawned. “Shit. Riggs—”
“Just give me the update, Chenney.”
Chenney exhaled in fury. David waited.
“Fine. Here's where we're at, but if Lairmore drills you too hard—”
“You had nothing to do with it. Trust me, Chenney, I know.”
Chenney didn't sound mollified. Maybe he liked Riggs after all, maybe they had formed some version of a partnership. Stranger things had happened.
“Well, we got some answers and some questions. Which do you want first?”
“Go in order. Where are we with the Sheffield homicide?”
“Well, I'd think you'd know more than me—”
“Chenney.”
“Yeah, fine. Okay. Jax is heading up the case, and let me tell you, he's riding Harper with a vengeance. Jax ordered fingerprinting powder over every damn square inch of the study, and every time Harper makes a condescending remark, Jax simply has more floorboards ripped up and sent to the lab. Yesterday he even tore down the curtains. Soon Harper's gonna be living in a crime lab.”
“And this is teaching us…”
“How to have a good time. No, we don't have many leads other than Melanie Stokes. Lairmore has us attacking it from the healthcare side. I was over at the hospital yesterday conducting the interviews on Sheffield. Interestingly enough, another anesthesiologist, Dr. Whaler Jones seems to know an awful lot about Sheffield. I get the impression she was a little jealous of all the surgeries Sheffield got to pick up. She can put Sheffield at the hospital at all sorts of times he had no good reason to be there, that's for sure.”
“Still circumstantial.”
“Yeah, that's the problem we have. Too many circumstances. Lairmore is toying around with having all pacemaker patients receive a second evaluation, but from what we've heard, that won't fly. The attorney general tells us we could be sued by Harper for ruining his reputation. To be on the safe side, we got all the serial numbers of the pacemakers Harper has installed in the past five years. Quite a list, let me tell you. The FDA ran a cross-check. They've received only
one
complaint on the batch, which is actually well under the industry average. So we can't even go after the pacemakers that way. Everything appears perfectly legit.
“At this point, we'd have to bring in patients, remove the pacemakers, and then hook the patients to a heart monitor to see if they're truly bradycardic. Let's just say both the legal and medical experts agree that's not a great idea. On the other hand, the pacemakers naturally expire in five years and will have to be removed, so if we're willing to be patient…” Chenney shrugged, declaring bluntly, “We got nothing, Riggs. At this point Harper's coming away clean.”
“What about the outline of the papers next to William's body?”
“That's the thing. There's gotta be documentation somewhere. We've ripped apart Sheffield's apartment, but no such luck. Bank shows Sheffield deposited some rather large checks from Harper, but Harper claims the money was a gift to his one-time future son-in-law, and who are we to argue? We couldn't find any propranolol in William's place, no notes, and no friends who have an inkling what he was into.”
“Jamie O'Donnell might know something.”
“Well, that brings us to the second point. Jamie O'Donnell seems to have skipped town. Checked out of the Four Seasons yesterday afternoon and nothing's been heard from him since.”
“Hmmm.” David tucked that information away. Of all the people to come after Melanie, Jamie O'Donnell would be it.
“Patricia Stokes has also bolted,” Chenney said.
“Huh?”
“Yep. I was over at the Stokes house earlier this afternoon. Harper's playing cool about it, but the maid told us Patricia packed a bag last night and walked out the front door. Boston homicide talked to the people at the Four Seasons, but they claim they haven't seen her around. Most likely she finally got sick of Harper's shit. I mean, trying to turn in your own daughter…”
“Not endearing,” David agreed.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Harper has on a bandage today. His whole hand is wrapped up. Seems he injured it somehow, but he won't talk about it. Jax even asked him point-blank what he'd done and Harper told him point-blank to go fuck himself. You know, I don't think Harper has that fresh feeling anymore.”
“Think if Jax pushes him hard enough, he might crack?”
“I don't think it's Jax,” Chenney said. “I think our mystery manipulator is pulling out the stops. It's what she wants, right? All those little gifts reopening old wounds. Melanie's on the run, Brian's removed from the family, Patricia finally left her husband, and O'Donnell has gotten the hell out of Dodge. Harper's alone and feeling the strain. Ten to one, the man is frightened. I don't put anything past him at this point. I'm trying to run down information on Ann Margaret, by the way. Nothing immediate comes up on the computer though, and I haven't had time to do anything more in-depth. Kind of need more hands at this point.”
“Don't we all. What about the Texas angle? I'm here, so let's use me.”
“Actually, you may be helpful, Riggs. I think I may have a break in Texas.”
“That's my boy.”
“Okay, Jax and I went through the public pay phone records yesterday.
Nada
. I mean zip. But Jax — give him some credit here, Riggs — didn't subpoena just the Boston records, he got Larry Digger's Houston phone records as well.”
“Son of a bitch. He never told me that.”
“Of course not, we're the feds, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Well, you were the one who said Digger reported the anonymous call three weeks ago. Sure enough. Twenty-five days ago, Digger's phone records suddenly exploded with calls. I got them from Jax. Then to entertain myself this morning, I cross-referenced the names of the people Digger called with the mid-wives association's list of Texan members. And guess what I found…”
Chenney rattled off the name, David quickly wrote it down. “I'll look her up first thing in the morning. If she remembers Russell Lee Holmes, she must remember his wife, so maybe I can tie in Ann Margaret from this side.”