Fallen (15 page)

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded in a low, harsh voice.

She sighed. “I’ve already explained—”

Adam jabbed a finger back toward the hallway. “He lost Tyler and then he lost
you
. It’s taken everything he has to get through this.”

Lifting her chin, she felt a stab of pain. “We
both
lost Tyler—”

“That’s right,” he said tightly. “But you didn’t pull your own child out of a pool and perform CPR on him until the paramedics showed up. And you don’t wake up every morning knowing he’s dead because you let him slip out of your sight for a few minutes.”

She swallowed and clenched her jaw.

Adam’s voice roughened. “I was here for him when you weren’t, Lyd. I saw him tear himself apart. And I can promise you that as much as you blamed him for what happened, he blamed himself a thousand times more.”

Lydia pressed a hand against her stomach as his gaze raked over her. “You’ve had no problem moving on, but now that he’s finally started pulling it together without you, you’re back to mess him up again, is that it?”

His shoulder radio crackled to life. With a muttered curse, he responded to the dispatcher, letting him know he and his partner were en route. Walking to the door, he shook his head. “You’re good at leaving, Lydia. Go back to New Orleans … or to your goddamn surgeon. And you smell like booze.”

For several long moments after the door had closed behind him, she stood motionless, eyes burning and face hot.

Ryan located her a short time later on the porch.

“Sorry. I had to take that call.” He stood next to her, bracing his forearms on the railing. Confederate jasmine grew along the nearby brick wall. “A fugitive unit thought they’d cornered Pooch in a rent-by-the-week hotel near the airport. I stayed on the line long enough to find out they had the wrong guy.”

“How’re you feeling?” she asked, subdued.

Ryan shrugged, watching as a fat moth flew circles around the streetlight. Beyond it, the tree limbs hung heavy with wisteria. “I’ve got a small headache, is all.”

She felt a dull thud inside her own skull. “If the pain persists or worsens, you need to see a doctor immediately. Promise me, Ryan.”

He straightened, frowning as the cab pulled in front of the house. “I was going to drive you home.”

She forced a small smile, her eyes not quite meeting his. “It’s after midnight. I couldn’t let you do that.”

His sigh held anger. “Adam jumped you. What did he say to you?”

“Nothing he wasn’t completely right about,” she admitted quietly. She touched his arm. “Good night.”

She went down the stairs and climbed into the cab’s rear. As it pulled away, she dared to look back. Ryan remained on the porch, his features shadowed, watching her departure.

“Where to, miss?” the cab driver asked in a heavy Indian accent.

Regret tightened her throat. Lydia provided her Buckhead address.

Chapter Eleven

Looking at him,
his face appeared ashen, the once-faint lines deeper and making him seem older than his thirty-six years. Shoulders slouched under his dress shirt, tie loosened at his throat, Ryan stood in the dying sunlight seeping in through the kitchen windows. Around them, casseroles and Bundt cakes brought by well-meaning mourners filled the counters. The low, respectful buzz of conversation wafted from the living room, the voices of her mother and sister among the others.

“When?” he managed to rasp, seeming dazed.

“Tomorrow … with them.” Lydia’s eyes burned from too much crying, not enough sleep. She tried to speak, her words faltering, and tried again. “They’ve already booked my seat.”

Ryan swallowed, his own reddened eyes glazed with fresh pain.

“I’ve already told the hospital.”

He nodded in silent acceptance. “For how long?” His voice trembled.

Hands wrenched together, she glanced away. “I don’t know.”

“I said, are you all right, miss?”

Lydia looked up, the cab driver’s question pulling her back to the present. He studied her from the rearview mirror.

“I’m fine.” She sat up straighter to prove she really was.

“You’re quiet,” he commented as he drove. “Me, I like to talk to stay awake.”

He continued elaborating on his work habits as the light ahead of them changed on busy Peachtree Street, flashing from green to yellow and then red. They came to a stop in front of the Fox Theatre, its minarets and onion domes making it look like an opulent mosque among the city buildings if not for the neon marquee advertising an in-town Broadway musical. Lydia watched absently as people wandered the sidewalks, hopping between the still-open restaurants and bars.

“You’re from here?” the driver inquired once the cab started up again, still attempting small talk. “Atlanta?”

“Not originally,” she responded quietly. “I grew up in New Orleans.”

“Ah,
The Big Easy
.” He blew his horn at a jaywalker. “I ask that question all the time—
where are you from?
People work here, they visit here, but they’re never
from
here. Do you work?”

“I’m an ER doctor at Mercy Hospital.”

His eyebrows rose in the mirror. The information seemed to impress him.

“My son goes to Georgia Tech,” he said proudly. “He’s in the honors program, studying to be an engineer.”

Lydia congratulated him. He chatted on, his monologue eventually fading off into white noise. Instead it was Adam’s harsh words she heard echoing inside her.

You’re good at leaving, Lydia. Go back to New Orleans …

She closed her eyes against the justifiable wrath that had been in his voice. After losing Tyler, she
had
needed her mother and sister. But Lydia flinched inwardly at the hard truth. She had also needed to be away from Ryan. It hadn’t been possible to look at him without seeing traces of their sweet little boy in his features, without questioning how he could have let the unthinkable happen. Without blaming him. Devastated himself, guilt-stricken, he hadn’t fought her decision to return home.

Her abandonment of him seemed so callous to her now, irrational and inexcusable.

A short time later, they reached the cluster of beautiful old churches in Buckhead referred to by the locals as Jesus Junction. Lydia felt a thick tangle of emotion upon seeing the backlit stained-glass windows, the statue of Mary outside the All Saints cathedral. Where Tyler had been christened. Where his funeral mass had been held. She felt a pining ache where she had carried him in her womb. He had been taken from her so suddenly that sometimes it seemed she had only imagined him, imagined loving someone so much.

Much of the weeks following his death remained foggy to her. She’d been inconsolable. Ultimately, she had spent ten days at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans, diagnosed with an acute emotional collapse, something no one but her mother and sister knew about. At Lydia’s plea they’d closed ranks around her, still reeling themselves from the loss of their grandson and nephew. Ryan was aware of the grief counseling but not the hospitalization. She’d begged them not to tell him, not wanting to see him and knowing he would come.

It had been another way of shutting him out.

Weeks later, when she’d finally stabilized enough to return—to her job at the hospital, to him and their too-quiet house—there was a strain in their relationship, a distance between them that couldn’t be bridged, although admittedly Ryan had tried. Tyler had been their soul.

She was aware of the staggering statistics, how many couples don’t make it through the loss of a child.

A short time later, the cab pulled in front of the towering condominium building, its smoky glass sides glittering with the reflection of city lights. Paying the fare, she went across the plaza and, using the security code, into the lobby. It was late, the concierge already off duty for the night. Surrounded by marble walls and flooring, a chandelier sparkling overhead, she pushed the elevator button to go upstairs.

Once inside her unit, she went into the kitchen, laid her bag on the counter and checked her voice mail. There were two hang-ups, as well as a message from Rick, calling to say he had been thinking about her and that he was looking forward to the upcoming weekend. Lydia sighed tiredly. She had forgotten about the hospital gala on Saturday. Rick had asked her to attend with him weeks ago, had made certain she was off the ER schedule. There would be no getting out of it.

Now that he’s finally started pulling it together without you, you’re back to mess him up again, is that it?

What was she doing? She ran a hand over her eyes, knowing Adam was right. It had been her choice to let go.

Not wanting to think anymore, her emotions too sharp, Lydia counted the hours before her shift the next day, making sure there was adequate time for the sleeping pill’s sluggish effects to wear off. She took it. A thickness in her throat, she poured a glass of wine from the open bottle on the counter, too.

She carried it with her to the bedroom to undress.

Chapter Twelve

“Jewel Magill was
Quintavius’s aunt,” Ryan said as he entered the bullpen. Shrugging out of his suit jacket, he draped it over the back of his chair, the late-afternoon sun slanting through the window behind him. He’d been tied up in court again for most of the day—the same murder trial as Wednesday, called back after a continuance for cross-examination. Mateo looked up at him from his computer screen.

“I had someone at the newspaper check the archives.” He sat behind his desk. “Magill’s maiden name was Roberts. The obit listed Quintavius as a surviving nephew. He was around fifteen at the time.”

“Six degrees of separation.” Mateo removed the glasses he needed for computer work and rubbed his eyes. “Thank God for that, right?”

Reaching to his stacked in-box, Ryan felt the tenderness in his side, a memento from his confrontation with Pooch the previous night. He wondered if they’d seen the last of him, considering the growing bounty on his head. “Any luck with the transactions?”

They had secured both Nate’s and John Watterson’s credit card records, hoping to find a commonality—perhaps some locale both men had frequented—since they’d been unable to identify any crossover in their arrest logs. Mateo had been comparing the line items while Ryan was in court.

“
Nada
, but I have more to go.” Returning the glasses to his nose, he studied the computer screen. “Nate left one mother of a paper trail. Six credit cards. Who needs that many? He put pretty much everything on plastic, right down to convenience-store purchases. On the other hand, Watterson appears to have had a cash-only policy. Only a handful of credit transactions in the six months prior to his death—less than seventy total.”

Which meant even if there
was
a connecting physical location, it might not be apparent. Ryan frowned. “Keep looking.”

“Chin and Hoyt are helping with the last of the names from Nate’s files.” Mateo handed a folder to an admin clerk who’d come by for it. “We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel by now, but they said they’d call if anyone raised a flag. How’d it go in court?”

The case was a robbery-turned-homicide in Grant Park that had occurred five months earlier. As the senior arresting detective, Ryan had been subpoenaed to testify. “Unless the DA’s office blows it, we’re looking at a murder one conviction.”

“Hope they don’t let him plea down.”

Ryan would be glad to see the perp—a violent repeat offender—permanently off the streets. But the testimony had taken time away from his current investigations, particularly Nate’s. The first forty-eight hours were critical in solving homicides. Statistically, the majority of closed cases had suspects identified within the first twenty-four. With Nate, they were at a solid week.

Impatience gnawing at him, Ryan had picked up the handset on his console to reach Chin for an update himself when Mateo snapped his fingers. “Shit, I almost forgot. You probably haven’t heard since you’ve been in court all day.”