Fury (35 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

             
Ethan

             
Finley and I stayed wrapped in one another’s arms on the shore of the cove that belonged to Slánaigh, intertwined in such a way that you could not decipher what limb belonged to whom. There wasn’t a single minute of that night wasted as we talked throughout, clinging to each other’s words as well as our bodies bathed in the soft light of a full moon.

“Tell me what our lives would have been,” she asked me.

My tongue felt too heavy but I answered anyway. “We would have left here,” I began. “We would have gone back home but only until we’d had enough saved to move somewhere exotic, somewhere tropical, somewhere beautiful. We would have bought some land, built a pretty little house. Maybe our little plot of land somewhere allowed for a vegetable garden, been near the beach.” I’d known for several weeks into our trip to Vietnam that I’d never wanted go back to Montana and its cold. I’d pitched the idea out in the air near Fin one day, hoping she’d latch on to the prospect with enthusiasm, and, of course, she had.

“Eventually we’d marry, share a room,
share a bed
. We’d maybe take up surfing, or paddleboarding, or whatever, and we’d live simply, learning the land around us when we weren’t learning each other,” I told her, clutching her to me. Regret laid heavily in my grasp. The what-could-have-beens laid heavily between us. Her body wracked with sobs. “Do you want me to stop?” I asked her.

“No. Please, keep going.”

“We’d own a big, stupid dog with long hair that shed all over our furniture. Daily you’d complain about it, but you’d be the first one out the door with it when it was time for its walk. We’d eat mangos on our little covered porch and watch the sun as it set, our dog at our very bare feet.” She laughed in spite of the tears. “We’d make our money any way it would come, and my dad would visit for weeks at a time.” I took a deep breath. “Eventually we’d have a baby.” She sniffed at this, her pain so evident in the simple sound. “Girl or boy we wouldn’t care. I’d place my hands on your belly as he or she grew. Devour annoying and pointless books on having and raising a baby but realizing they were useless when it really came down to it because when you gave birth to our baby, we’d see everything we needed in their eyes.

“We’d take turns during the sleepless nights, switching off when one couldn’t take it anymore and just needed sleep. I’d make you breakfast in bed just because I could. If you ever wanted for anything I would get it for you. I would have pleased you, I think, Finley.”

“Yes, I believe you would have,” she said as the sun rose over the cove.

I kissed Finley then—a kiss to cherish, a kiss to remember, a kiss of what could have been.

We stood together, both of us covered in sand, but neither of us cared. We made our way toward the beach, under the canopy of trees, and up the path to the shell gravel drive. We sat on the bike together, starting it up, and heading out toward the main road, not a single word spoken to one another. I, for fear I would change my mind and risk my soul, our souls. She, I believe, in fear that she’d let me.

We drove through town slowly and before either of us were ready, we’d arrived at Tran’s police station.

Finley and I got off the bike and hugged one another so fiercely bones risked snapping.

Fin had tried to be brave but she failed when she saw me succumb to the anguish that was saying goodbye to the love of your life, knowing you would probably never see them ever again.

“I love you,” she said, wounding me with her simple yet profound words.

“I love you,” I secreted into her ear.

I kissed her my last goodbye, our last goodbye, and tore myself away from her, fighting myself with the strength of ten men, wrestling the demons who’d brought me there in the first place and heaving them into the street at my feet.

I refused to look back until the very last second. I made sure she’d gotten back on the bike and started to leave.

“Finley!” I shouted, and her head whipped my direction. I choked on the emotion settling in my throat. “Finally!” I told her. “Finally!”

She paused as if to collect herself. “I love you too,” she declared, a hitch in her voice.

I turned to the door of the police station, unable to look on her it hurt so badly, and swung it open.

              I didn’t bother taking in my surroundings, as nothing mattered to me then. I knew nothing would ever matter to me ever again.

I was a murderer of child molesters and sex traffickers, and I was prepared to pay for my crimes that although bent toward the righteous were tainted with sin.

              I stood at the entrance, my head hung low, and yelled for Tran. Without realizing anyone had been near me, I was yanked by my arm. I looked up and found Tran’s face.

“This way,” he said quietly, his head turning about his neck quickly, taking in his surroundings. I followed where he led, into a small office. He shut the door behind us.

Finley

             
I stood on Slánaigh’s porch hugging Sister Marguerite, crying, and wishing the pain would stop, but I knew that it would not. I knew I was unspeakably altered.

              “I feel like my purpose has been ripped out from underneath me,” I told Sister.

              “No, child, it has not,” her French accent soothed. “If in this life you are not meant with Ethan, in the next you are.”

              This truth made me sob even harder. “Please, I hope you are right.”

              We broke down together, sat united at the end of the porch, near Slánaigh’s door.

              “He’d promised me the most glorious life, Sister. We were going to conquer the world together, and I believe it would have been the best life I could have ever had.”

She took my hand, soothing me with her own delicate ones, and prayed under her breath for me.

              We sat quietly for many minutes, maybe an hour, until Father had met us. He stood on the stairs facing us.

              “Ach, my choild! I’m sorry for ya. So sorry for ya.”

              “I know, Father,” I told him.

              “‘Spite it all, he’s still the most wonderful boy, he is. That he is. I’m ta go ta him late this evenin’, discover what ’tis Tran can do fer him.”

              Unable to speak, I only nodded my head.

              I stood with every intention of going to my room, falling into my borrowed bed, and staying there for days. At least until I found out what could be done for Ethan. I knew I needed to call his father in Montana soon, but not until I could glean a little more information on what was to happen to him. The possibility of death haunted me and I refused to think of it, though I knew it was their favorite option, especially for someone who had hit their own dirty pocketbooks with such a vengeance.

              I was afraid for Ethan. I was more afraid than I had ever been in my entire life.

             
And that’s saying something.

             
Ethan

Tran’s office owned a bland khaki color all over—from the floor, the chairs, the walls, the tile ceiling, even Tran’s desk. He plopped into his tan chair and it creaked under his weight. He signaled toward a metal chair in front of his desk. I sat under his command.

“Ethan,” he said.

“Detective Tran,” I greeted.

We sat in silence for half a minute.

              “I suppose you know why I’m here,” I told him.

              “You are here to confess to your crimes, I assume.”

              I swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

              “What crimes are these?” he asked, knowing the answer already.

              I took three deep breaths, my heart sped to a dangerous rate. “I murdered
countless
men.”

              “Who were these men you murdered?” he asked.

              “Sex traffickers and their customers.”

              “No,
who
were these men you murdered?”

              “I don’t understand.”

              “Describe these victims to me.”

              “Uh, men who kidnapped innocent children and sold them into sex slavery and the men who molested them.”

              Tran leaned back in his chair. He turned to where his side sat flush with the line of the front of the desk. His elbow met the surface. He brought his hand down and played with a rubber band, running it in circles with his index finger.

              Tran’s head met the back of his chair. “Did Father Connolly ever tell you why I became a detective, Ethan?” he asked the ceiling, baffling me.

              “No. He mentioned once you’d been doing it for over fifteen years or something like that.”

              He sat up, turning to face me once more. He laid his forearms on the desktop and leaned forward.

              “I have been a detective for sixteen years, three months, two weeks, two days,” he admitted, startling me.

              “Committed,” I acknowledged, knowing the hell he got daily for being a straight cop in a crooked city.

              “I decided to become a detective seventeen years, six months, three weeks, six days ago.” My brows drew together, perplexed. “That was five days after my daughter had gone missing,” he stated, astonishing me.

              I shook my head in disbelief, not knowing what I could possibly say to him.

              His eyes grew glassy. “She was beautiful,” he said. He leaned back and grabbed a framed picture of a little girl. His fingers traced her face before setting the picture face down. “I can’t look at her sometimes it’s so painful,” he explained. He took a deep breath. “She would have been just a little bit older than you. She would have been twenty-two this year.” He grew quiet, searching precious memories, it seemed. “I never found her. I have no idea if she is still alive, whether she’s happy or not. I have no idea if she is
alive
, Ethan,” he said, his voice breaking. “What keeps me awake at night is knowing that if she
was
, I would think she would have come home by now.”

              “I am so sorry,” I told him seriously, honestly.

              “It was a beautiful day out. I’d sent Hanh to fetch some broth at the market. I’d expected her back a half hour prior so I left the house to look for her. I can admit it now, though for years I couldn’t, but I had left our home furious with her. When I arrived at the market, I searched the ice cream shop, so sure she would have been there, but when I discovered that she wasn’t, I moved to the shops that held jewelry since she loved to try on the different pieces, but I could not find her there either. Frantic at that point, I tore through the market yelling her name repeatedly but no answer came.

              “I’d decided to circle the market once more when I came upon one of her friends from school. I’d greeted them and asked if they’d seen Hanh, they told me they’d seen her and a man get into a car.”

              My heart plummeted at my feet for Detective Tran.

              “As you can imagine, at that moment I was crazy, overwrought. I’d refused to stop, refused to sleep, refused to eat. It was a frenzied search for my Hanh.”

His head fell into his hands.

              “You can’t imagine my pain, my suffering, my torment. I started looking for Hanh the minute I knew she’d been taken, and I have not stopped since.”

My chest constricted for him. I tried so hard to put myself in his shoes, imagine the suffering he knew so well. Yet, the horror I felt for him that took residence in my heart and chest, I knew, fell very, very short.

              Tran fell back in his chair and ran his hands down his tired-looking face. “So you can imagine my predicament,” he said, staring at me.

              “What predicament?” I asked.

              “The one I’m presented now. The one where I arrest a good man for misguided crimes against the most vile human beings that ever walked the earth.”