Rite of Wrongs (29 page)

S
IXTY
-F
IVE

Sunday, 12:30 a.m.

Miriam raced toward Caring Hands, reports crackling over her radio. Shots fired at the senior center. A hostage situation in progress. Dread turned her limbs to deadweight, and she jammed the accelerator to the floor. SWAT response anticipated by oh-forty-seven.

She rejected another call from Melvin. She couldn’t talk to him yet. The Yukon’s sirens blazed. The lights in the grille spun like flares. The strobes of red and blue in the cab made her dizzy. She had to get there before SWAT locked down the building.

Augie was inside.

Stupid, stupid cowboy.

What did he think he was doing? And what in the world had sent him from her parents’ house to Dorothy? Because if it was Edward who’d fired the shots, her family was out of danger, but Augie was up to his elbows.

She dialed the center’s switchboard. The call went to a recording after six rings. She hung up and tried Augie’s cell again. Once more to voice mail. Frustration crawling through her, she threw her phone at the passenger floorboard, a dumb move since at the next corner she took, it slid beneath the seat. It started ringing again with Melvin’s tone.

The drive was short, and Augie her focus, but still Sameen’s revelations whirred . . .

Dorothy had killed her husband, Edward’s father, Van.

Gina had witnessed the murder and blackmailed Edward’s mother.

The fosters had kept the secret because Gina had shared the money.

Was that it? The only reason? Had they agreed to hide all of their past suffering, too? Maybe something more?

Somehow Edward had found out about all of it. And he was extracting revenge . . . for the death of his father? For the loss of the money that should have been his?

Was she missing a clue somewhere?

Had Augie figured it out, and that’s why he’d gone to see Dorothy?

As she turned onto the street where the center was located, she cut the sirens, bouncing into the parking lot and skidding to a stop in front of the door. She dug for her phone, and instead of calling for backup, she called Melvin, working her way out of her blazer while she waited for him to pick up.

“Where the
hell
did you go?”

“I’m at Caring Hands—”

“Uh-uh. Don’t even tell me that. SWAT’s headed there now. Something’s going down.”

“I know. I got a text—”

“Miriam Rome, I am going to slap cuffs on you so hard—”

“Later,” she said, on the run now. “Edward’s inside. He’s the shooter.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. Then you wait for SWAT, you hear me? You work with the negotiator. You talk him out. You do not go in there—”

“I can’t wait,” she said, jerking open the facility’s front door. “I have to go in. He’s got Augie.”

Melvin bit off a long string of curses. “Tell me you’ve got your vest. Miriam, goddamn it.”

“I’ve got my vest,” she said, struggling into it as she sprinted through the lobby. She shoved her phone in her pocket, the call still connected, and shouldered her way through the swinging doors while buckling up.

The weekend staff was already at work clearing the premises. Miriam commandeered two of the male nurses and led them to Dorothy Lacey’s wing. There she knocked on every door along the hallway, making sure the residents remaining were escorted safely out.

In the distance, sirens blared. If she didn’t get into Dorothy’s room now, SWAT would pull her out of the building. She couldn’t let that happen. No matter how many rules she was breaking. No matter if she lost her job when all was said and done.

She had to get to Augie.

She made one last run down the corridor, looking into all the apartments before returning to Dorothy’s door. She took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then she pressed her back to the hallway’s wall beside it, facing the opposite wall as she drew her sidearm, and knocked.

“Edward? It’s Detective Rome. We met a couple of times at your office. I’m coming in, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned the knob and shoved. She stayed where she was next to the jamb as it swung open, creating a yawning maw at her side.

“Edward? SWAT has probably pulled into the parking lot already. You could make things a whole lot easier on everyone if you’d leave your gun in the room and come out.”

“Why would I want to do that, Detective? If I stay here, I get shot. If I come out, I get shot. At least here I’ve got air conditioning.” He gave a strangely accepting laugh. “Or I suppose SWAT will be turning that off when they arrive.”

Only if they could easily isolate the wing and not risk the health of residents unable to evacuate. “I’m going to come in now. No sudden moves on my end or yours.”

“Move as fast or as slow as you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

Gun at the ready, she took a step to the side and turned into the room, and though she was prepared for what she saw . . . she wasn’t.

Edward stood against the rear wall, the window to his left, the bed to his right. He held his left arm around Augie’s neck, the gun in his right below Augie’s ear.

He was alive. He was upright and breathing. Relief nearly took her to her knees before her training kicked in and told her to ignore the hostage.

Damn hard to do when she still loved the man.

The smell of blood hit her then, the wall behind Dorothy’s bed snagging her eye. A verse about training up one’s child. She gave it but a cursory glance, then saw Gordon sprawled at the foot of the bed, a gunshot to his groin.

Blood pooled around him. Most likely the source Edward had used to paint his newest masterpiece. Dorothy’s wheelchair sat inside the small bathroom. The older woman’s feet were splayed on the floor as if she’d slid out of her seat.

Augie was the sole hostage. Miriam’s gaze came back to his. Whatever the hell he was doing here could wait. Getting him out in one piece could not.

She kept her Glock trained on Edward’s forehead. “Edward, let Father Treece go so you and I can talk.”

“I can hear you just fine,” he said, his head just to the right of Augie’s. His voice was level. His hand, too. He wore a dress shirt, dress pants, and tie. He wasn’t visibly sweating. “The priest stays where he is.”

The upward movement of Augie’s chin was nearly imperceptible. She held his gaze, waiting for his next cue. “Then let’s talk about what happened here. Or we could talk about what your foster siblings did to piss you off.”

Edward laughed again, adjusting his stance, his gun slipping along Augie’s carotid. “I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, Detective. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Her radio crackled with commands from the SWAT team’s on-scene commander. “I know you killed Gina for blackmailing your mother—”

He gave a derisive snort. “If you think this was about the money, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

“Then it must be about your father,” she said, as Augie brought a hand slowly to his chest, spreading out three fingers. “About everyone but you knowing he wasn’t alive.”

“Dig a little deeper, Detective. How about everyone but me benefiting from my mother killing him? Even Gordon had everything paid for while I worked my ass off to put myself through school, to give my family what they needed. I did all that. On my own.”

“I’d think you’d be proud of that. Not go on a killing spree,” she said, just as Augie mouthed the word
one
.

Edward said something in response, but Miriam wasn’t listening. She took a deep breath as Augie mouthed the word
two
. Then she nodded, the response appearing as if intended for Edward, when Augie was all she could see.

He’d barely formed the word
three
before his knees gave way and he left Edward caught off guard and bearing his weight. Edward grunted, realizing too late he was done. He lifted his gun hand, but Miriam was faster. She shot first, hitting his shoulder as his arm swung wide.

When he returned fire haphazardly, she nailed the base of his throat, tearing a hole through his spine.

Then she dropped to her knees, her ears ringing, her skin clammy, her heart pumping as she held her gun in shaking hands until Augie crawled toward her and took it away.

S
IXTY
-S
IX

Sunday, 2:00 a.m.

The room next to Dorothy’s was blessedly empty and mostly dark, the curtains drawn, the bed stripped bare. Only a lamp on the bedside table burned, as if this had been someone’s room very recently. Now it belonged to no one, the occupant having moved on, though to another facility or another realm, Augie didn’t know.

It probably wasn’t the best place to let Miriam spill her grief, but it was the closest he could find. He knew for first kills, and she wasn’t going to make it any farther. She was shaking, every bit of her, and with his arm around her shoulder for support, he could feel the powerful grip of tension ripple through the muscles in her back.

He closed the door behind them. He backed her against it to steady her. She made no move to drop to the floor and sit, or to shove him away and pace. She stood there, trembling, her eyes wide, her expression pushing its way out of a blank stare to the realization of what she’d just done: taken another human being’s life.

“What were you doing in that room with Edward?” Her voice was strained, cracked. “Augie? The fuck?”

He braced a palm on the door above her head. “You had Sameen in custody. Edward had what looked like a solid alibi. I started clicking through your suspect list, wondering if there was anything you’d missed.”

She closed her eyes, but not before he saw the flash of disbelief that was as dark as her suppressed anger.

He was in the wrong. He knew it. This was no longer his life. “I came to ask Dorothy if there had ever been other foster children in the home. One who may have been trouble and gone back into the system before the others arrived. One who could’ve been in danger, too, if someone was sending a message to Dorothy. Or one who could’ve been the killer.”

That was when she looked at him again. “You didn’t think I would’ve checked on that? You didn’t think to ask?”

“I should have. I’m sorry. But even when I realized Edward was there with his mother, I wasn’t worried. Not at first.” Oh, yeah. He was an amateur. “But thinking about it now, his progression makes sense.”

“How so?”

“When Carolyn shared the details of the abuse, she talked about Edward helping his mother. Dorothy would send him out to the shed with Autumn’s food. If it rained, she’d have him take Darius a garbage bag. He didn’t do anything for Gina. He just watched her get wet. Usually while she wore nothing but underwear. If that.”

“He got off on the abuse. It was his power play as much as his mother’s,” Miriam said, shuddering as the new information sunk in.

“I should’ve made the connection sooner. It would’ve saved us all a lot of grief if I had,” he said, the words—or his lack of focus—causing Miriam to shake her head.

“Christ, Augie.” His name, and her curse, came out gritty and harsh, and she beat her fist on his chest. “It’s like there’s not any cop left in you at all.”

She was probably more right than either of them realized. “I’m sorry—”

“No. Stop. Just stop. I can’t do this.” Her voice was nothing but a whisper, yet it still broke. “I didn’t want to kill him. Those two boys in his office photos. His wife. I didn’t want that for them, to destroy their lives.”

Augie wasn’t sure the boys wouldn’t be better off, though it would take a long time for them to understand everything they’d lost. But he couldn’t think about that. His heart, which was supposed to be generous and compassionate and Christ-like, had room for only Miriam.

“It shouldn’t have happened that way. No one deserves to go out at the end of a gun,” she said, another point he would probably argue later. “But Augie, fuck all, I couldn’t lose you.”

She wailed the last words, pounding her fists into the door behind her, breaking the intangible bonds that had been keeping her upright and collapsing into him.

“I know, baby. I know,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her head against his chest. This right here, this right now. Nothing else mattered to him.

Nothing else, no one else ever would. Not in this way.

She dug her hands into his shirt front, her tears wetting the fabric. Miriam wasn’t one to cry. In all their time together, he could count on one hand the times he’d seen her break down. Her strength made her a good cop.

But he’d always worried that same strength would eventually be her ruin, and he held her tighter now, hoping to keep her from shattering. It wasn’t that she’d killed a man. It wasn’t about the man’s family. It was about the why.

Augie knew this because five years ago, he’d killed a man to save her.

And now she’d killed a man to save him.

They’d made the same choice for the same reason. Yet nothing between them had changed.

He closed his eyes, squeezing them against the emotion rushing through him and threatening to take him to his knees. He couldn’t give in. Later, maybe, but not now when he was the only rock she had to hold onto. When he knew what it was like to do this alone.

She gave a final shudder, putting enough space between them to realize how badly she’d crushed his shirt. She smoothed it out as she released him, but then her hands slowed, and her touch became something other than fixing the mess she’d made.

It was a caress, and it was familiar in ways that had his head pounding and his pulse racing and his palms coming up to cup her face. “Miriam—”

She was on her toes, her mouth on his, and he let her have her way. She was frightened. She needed to connect. She was drowning. Then the kiss evolved into more, and he was the one stumbling, unable to find his way out of what she’d always made him feel.

This couldn’t happen. This could not happen. But it was too late, because he’d never been able to set her away, and she still hadn’t learned how to walk alone.

He leaned into her, pushing her hard against the door, and shoved his thigh between hers, lifting her for a better fit of their bodies. This, too, was familiar, and it needed to stop.

Later. Not now. She tasted too good, and felt like heaven, and he didn’t even care how blasphemous the thought was because this was what she’d always done for him, left him spineless.

She shoved her hands into his hair and held him, tiny chirping sounds escaping her mouth. Pleas for things he didn’t have in him to give her. And when he realized they were sobs and that she was crying, he moved his hands to her wrists and lowered her to stand on her own.

“You’re going to be okay,” he heard himself saying. “It doesn’t feel like it now, I know, but you will. You’ll survive this. You’ve got more grit than most men I know. More backbone. More self.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, static sticking her hair to the door’s paint. “I don’t feel like I’ve got more of anything. I don’t feel like I
am
anything.”

She was everything. But that was his burden to bear.

He reached up to push her bangs from her eyes. She reached up to stop him.

“C’mon,” he said. She was so strong, so capable, so confident . . . so absolutely full of right. “Let’s get back and get this done. Crime techs will be here soon. The death investigator. IA. You’ve got a lot of questions to answer.”

She blew out a deep and irreverent breath, smoothing her palms down her thighs. Then she looked at him, sadness pulling sharply at the corner of her mouth. “You don’t have to stay.”

“I know,” he said, but there wasn’t a chance in hell of him leaving. He wouldn’t wish what she was going through now, or all of what was to come, on the worst of men.