Fractured (22 page)

Victor stroked her back with his thumb, either a playful, flirting gesture or a nudge to keep her talking. "What would an arrest entail?"

She took a deep breath before listing it out, "Handcuffing him, driving him to the station, fingerprinting, photos, taking away his belt, his shoestrings, his personal belongings, putting him in a cell with the dregs of society." She leaned her chin in her hand, thinking about Gabe Cohen being locked up with the drunks and the dealers. "That late in the day, he would probably spend the night in jail, then be taken over to the courthouse in the morning, where he would wait three or four hours for his bail hearing, then he would have to wait to be processed out, then wait some more for his trial." Faith took a heftier sip of her drink, then leaned back into his arm. "And from then on, every time he got a speeding ticket or an employer did a background check or even if a crime happened in his neighborhood and his name came up, he would be subjected to the kind of scrutiny that would make a proctologist blush."

Victor put his thumb to work again, and again she didn't know if it was blanket encouragement or a more intimate gesture. "You did him a favor today."

"I don't know," she admitted. "It seems like I just pawned him off on you."

"I'm glad you did. We had a student last year who overdosed on oxycodone. She lived off campus. No one found her for a while."

Faith could all too easily imagine what the scene had looked like. "In my experience, the ones who talk about it don't usually do it. The quiet ones, the ones who just close in on themselves, are the ones you have to worry about."

"Gabe wasn't being quiet."

"No, but maybe he was getting there." She took another drink so she wouldn't fidget with her hands. "You never know."

Victor told her, "Gabe's father took him to a private hospital."

"Good."

He loosened his tie some more. "What else happened today? How is your case going?"

"I've already dominated the conversation too much," she realized, feeling slightly embarrassed. "Tell me about your day."

"My days are tedious, trust me. I solve squabbles between students, I rubber-stamp requests for kids to build lofts in their dorms, take endless meetings on the same, and if I'm lucky enough, I get to deal with spoiled little jerks like Tommy Albertson."

"How fascinating. Tell me more."

He smiled at her teasing, but asked a serious question. "Do you think you'll be able to find that girl?"

"I think that…" She felt the darkness come back, the deepening pull of the abyss. "I think I like me better when I'm not wearing my badge, too."

"Fair enough," he said. "Tell me about Jeremy."

Faith wondered if that was really what this date was about- idle curiosity. "We're just another Reagan-era statistic."

"That sounds like a stock answer."

"It is," she conceded. There wasn't really a way to describe what had happened. In the course of a month, she had gone from singing Duran Duran songs into a hairbrush in front of her bathroom mirror to worrying about hemorrhoids and gestational diabetes.

Victor gently pressed, "Tell me how it was."

"I don't know. It was how you would think. Horrible. I kept it from my parents as long as I could and then it was too late to do anything about it."

"Are your parents religious?"

She gathered he was asking about abortion. "Very," she answered. "But they're also realists. My mom in particular wanted me to go to college, to have a family when I was ready, to have choices in my life. My dad had some qualms, but he would've supported any decision I made. Basically, they both left it up to me."

"So what happened?"

Faith gave him the truth. "It was too late for a legal abortion, but there was always adoption. I hate to admit it, but I was selfish and rebellious. I didn't think about how hard it would be or how it would impact everyone in my family. Everything my parents told me to do, I did the exact opposite, damn the consequences." She laughed, saying, "Which might explain how I got pregnant in the first place."

He was staring at her again with the same intensity that had sent a jolt through her the first time they had met. "You're beautiful when you laugh."

She blushed, which was just as well because her first inclination had been to throw herself at his feet. The effect he had on her was both exciting and humiliating, mostly because she had no idea how he felt in turn. Was he asking all of these questions out of idle curiosity? Or was he really interested in something deeper? She was far too inexperienced to figure this out on her own, and much too old to be bothering.

Faith had actually brought her purse with her, a concession to femininity when her earlier dressing debacle had ended with her wearing her extremely unsexy but moderately clean work outfit. She dug around in the bag to give herself something to do other than stare like a lost puppy into the fathomless, deep black of his beautiful eyes.

Kleenex, her wallet, her badge, an extra pair of hose, a pack of gum. She had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for as she rummaged around in the bag. The back of her hand brushed against what she thought was one of those annoying little perfume samples they give you at the mall, but turned out to be the plastic vial of gray powder that Will Trent had given her. She had thrown it into the bag at the last minute, not really thinking about it. Now, she felt nauseated as she held the vial in her hand, considered the implications behind the theft.

Victor asked, "Is something wrong?"

She forced out the question before logic had time to stop her. "Does Tech have someone who specializes in…" She didn't know what to call it. "Dirt?"

He chuckled. "We're ranked the seventh best public university in the country. We've got a whole dirt department."

"I need to ask you a favor," she began, but didn't know where to go from there.

"Anything you want."

She realized that this was her last chance to change her mind, that she could always make up an excuse, change the subject, and be the kind of straight-arrow cop that her mother had taught her to be.

Faith was a mother too, though. How would she feel if some cop out there was playing it so close to the rulebook that Jeremy's life was lost?

Victor motioned over the bartender. "Maybe another drink will help loosen your lips."

Faith put her hand over her glass, surprised that it was empty. "I'm driving."

He took her hand away, holding on to it. She could feel his other hand wrap around her waist. There was no mistaking his meaning now. "Tell me your favor." He stroked her fingers, and she felt the warmth of his skin, the firm caress of his thumb. "I'll make sure you get home safe."

CHAPTER TWELVE

ABIGAIL SAT ON the couch as she watched her mother fuss around the room, straightening pillows, opening curtains. Beatrice had flown fourteen grueling hours to get here, but her makeup was neatly applied and her hair was tightly swept into a bun. When Abigail was growing up, her mother's unflappability had annoyed her to no end. She'd spent years trying to shock her with tight jeans and garish makeup and inappropriate boyfriends. Now she could only be grateful for the normalness the older woman brought to the situation. Emma may have been missing for three days and Abigail may have killed a man, but the bed would still be made and fresh hand towels would still be put out in the bathroom.

"You need to eat," Beatrice told her. "You want to be strong when Emma comes home."

Abigail shook her head, not wanting to think about food. Her mother had been speaking in these sorts of declarative statements since she'd arrived yesterday afternoon. Emma was the fulcrum to everything, whether it was coaxing Abigail to get out of bed or making her comb her hair for the press conference.

Beatrice addressed Hamish. "Young man, would you like something to eat?"

"No, thank you, ma'am." He kept his head down, checking his computer equipment again. Bless his heart, the man was terrified of Beatrice and her desire to put everything in order. From the moment she started straightening, Hamish had stationed himself in the kitchen, hovering over his equipment for fear she would touch something. When the other technician came to relieve him for the night, Hamish had told the man to go away. Abigail wanted to think his actions were out of concern for his computer equipment rather than any indication that the situation had escalated.

She shuddered, the mechanical voice on the phone coming back to her.

Is this the mother?

The ransom call had changed everything. The whispers between Paul and her father had increased. They had talked about the money, the logistics of putting their hands on the cash, as if the kidnapper had asked for billions instead of one million. Abigail knew for a fact that they had at least a million and a half in their money market account. Barring that, her father could have the sum couriered to his doorstep with just a phone call. Something was going on- something that they didn't want to tell Abigail about. She was at turns furious and relieved that they weren't involving her.

"Now," Beatrice said, sitting on the opposite side of the couch. She was on the edge of the cushion, her knees pressed together, legs slanted to the side. Abigail could not remember ever seeing her mother slump against anything. She seemed to have a spine made of titanium. "We need to talk about what you are doing to yourself."

Abigail glanced back at Hamish, who was studying something on his computer screen. "Do we need to have this conversation now, Mother?"

"Yes, we do."

She wanted to roll her eyes. She wanted to flounce. How easily she fell back into that rebellious pattern when Abigail could plainly see that all her mother was doing was trying to help her. Why was it so much easier with her father? Why was it that Hoyt had persuaded her to eat a piece of cheese toast and change into a fresh set of clothes? Why was it so much easier to cry on his shoulder than to take comfort from her mother?

Beatrice took her hand. "You're crying again."

"Am I allowed to do that?" Abigail stared at the stack of newspapers on the coffee table, the printouts from the
Washington Post
and the
Seattle Intelligencer
. Paul had downloaded every story he could find, scouring the reports for some detail that he was certain the police were withholding from them. He was paranoid about everything, quizzing Abigail about crime-scene details the press had made up, conjecture they'd put out as real news. Three years ago, Adam Humphrey had been cautioned for driving without proof of insurance. Did that point to a darker side the police weren't talking about? Kayla had been kicked out of her last school for smoking on campus. Did that mean she was doing harder drugs? Did her drug dealer bring this insanity into their lives? Was there some thug out there who was pumping Emma full of dope right now?

Making matters worse, Paul's temper was more uncontrollable than ever. Abigail had pressed him for details about the fight with Will Trent yesterday and he had gotten so angry with her that she'd left the room rather than hear his tirade. She wanted to say that she didn't even know him anymore, but that wasn't true. This was exactly the Paul she had always known was there. Tragedy just brought out the finer points, and, frankly, their privileged lives had made character flaws easier to overlook.

They were used to living in eight thousand square feet of space-plenty of room to get away from each other. The carriage house, with its cozy kitchen/living room and single bedroom, was too small for them now. They were tripping over each other, constantly in each other's way. Abigail thought that she was just as much a prisoner of this space as Emma was-wherever that may be.

What she really wanted to do was grab him, punch him, do something to punish him for letting this terrible thing happen to Emma. Paul had broken their silent deal and she was furious with him for his transgression. He could fuck around with his women and spoil their daughter to within an inch of her life, but at the end of the day, the only thing Abigail wanted from him, the only thing she expected from him, was to keep their family safe.

And he had failed miserably. Everything had gone so horribly wrong.

Beatrice stroked Abigail's hand. "You need to be strong."

"I killed someone, Mother." She knew she wasn't supposed to talk about it in front of Hamish, but the words flowed. "I strangled him with my bare hands. Adam Humphrey was the only person here who tried to help Emma, the only person who could tell us what really happened, and I killed him."

"Shh," she hushed, stroking Abigail's hand. "You can't change that now."

"I can feel remorse," she said. "I can feel anger, and helplessness and fury." She gulped for air, her emotions overwhelming her. How could they expect her to go on camera today, to expose herself to the world? They weren't even going to let her speak, a fact that had made Paul furious but had secretly relieved Abigail.

The thought of opening her mouth, begging some unseen stranger for the return of her child, made Abigail feel physically ill. What if she said the wrong thing? What if she answered a question the wrong way? What if she came across as cold? What if she came across as hard? What if she sounded too harsh or too needy or too pathetic?

The irony was that it was other women-other mothers-she was worried about. The ones who so easily passed judgment on their own sex, as if sharing certain biological characteristics made them experts on the subject. Abigail knew this mind-set because she had shared it back when she had the luxury of her safe and perfect life. She had read the stories about Madeleine McCann and JonBenet Ramsey, following every detail of the cases, judging the mothers just as harshly as everyone else. She had seen Susan Smith pleading to the media and read about Diane Downs's despicable violence against her own children. It had been so easy to pass judgment on these women-these mothers-to sit back on the couch, sip her coffee, and pronounce them too cold or too hard or too guilty, simply because she had caught five seconds of their faces on the news or in
People
magazine. And now, in the ultimate karmic payback of all time, Abigail would be the one on the cameras. She would be the one in the magazines. Her friends and neighbors, worst of all, complete strangers, would be sitting on their own couches making snap judgments about Abigail's actions.

Beatrice said, "It's all right."

"It's not all right." Abigail stood up from the couch, snatching her hand away from her mother. "I'm sick of everyone walking around on eggshells. Somebody needs to mourn Adam. Somebody needs to acknowledge that I fucked everything up!"

Beatrice was silent, and Abigail turned around to look at her mother. The harsh light did her skin no favors, picking out every crevice, every wrinkle that the makeup could not hide. Her mother had had work done-a lift of the brow, a sharpening of the chin- but the effect was not drastic, more a softening of time's ravages so that she looked young for her age rather than like a silicon-lipped, plastic figurine.

She spoke quietly, authoritatively. "You did fuck up, Abby. You misread the situation and you killed that boy." Her mother didn't like to use such language, and it showed on her face. Still, she continued, "You thought he was attacking you, but he was asking you for help."

"He was only eighteen years old."

"I know."

"Emma may have loved him. He had her picture in his wallet. He might have been her boyfriend." She thought about what that meant-holding hands, their first kiss, awkward fumbling and touching. Had her daughter made love with Adam Humphrey? Had she experienced the pleasure of a man holding her, caressing her? Was that first love the memory she would have, or would Emma only recall her abductor hurting her, raping her?

This time yesterday, the only thing Abigail had thought about was Emma's death. Now she was finding herself wondering what would happen if Emma lived. Abigail was no fool. She knew that money was not the only reason agrown man would stealaseventeen-year-old girl from her family. If they got her back-if Emma was returned-who would that child be? Who would that stranger be in the place of their daughter?

And how would Paul deal with it? How could he ever look at his little angel again without thinking about what had been done to her, how she had been used? After yesterday's fight, Paul hadn't even been able to look at Abigail. How could he face their daughter?

She spoke the words that had been choking her since they had realized Emma was not dead, but taken. "Whoever has her…he'll hurt her. He's probably hurting her right now."

Beatrice gave a curt nod. "Probably."

"Paul won't-"

"Paul will handle it, just like you."

She doubted that. Paul liked for things to be perfect, and if they couldn't be perfect, then he liked the appearance of perfection. Everyone would know what had happened to Emma. Everyone would know every single detail of her damaged life. And who could blame them for their bloodlust, their curiosity? Even now, the smallest part of Abigail's brain that remembered details from movies of the week and sensational magazine cover stories threw out the names of abducted and returned children: Elizabeth Smart, Shawn Hornbeck, Steven Stayner…what had become of them? What had their families done to cope?

Abigail asked, "Who will she be, Mama? If we get her back, who will Emma be?"

Beatrice's hand was steady as she tilted up Abigail's chin. "She will be your daughter, and you will be her mother, and you'll make everything fine for her, because that is what mothers do. You hear me?"

Abigail had never seen her mother cry, and that wasn't about to change now. What she saw in her eyes was Beatrice's strength, her calm in the storm. For just a moment, the certainty in her voice, the sureness of her words, brought something like peace to Abigail for the first time since this waking nightmare had started.

She said, "Yes, Mama."

"Good girl," Beatrice answered, patting her cheek before she walked toward the kitchen. She rummaged through the cabinets, saying, "I told your father you'd have some soup before he got back. You don't want to disappoint your daddy now, do you?"