Spiraled (Callahan & McLane Book 3) (9 page)

“And if something had happened to your son if you’d stopped?” Ava asked.

His gaze shot back to hers; his chin came up. “I’d be in hell.”

“Don’t play that game with yourself,” she emphasized. “It’s over. You made the right decision and everything worked out. Don’t waste your time worrying about something that didn’t happen.”

“What were you doing at the mall that early?” Zander asked, subtly shifting the subject.

“I’d taken Chase to play on the little playground. And there’s a good water fountain for kids at the other end of the mall. I try to get him out of the house to burn off some energy every day during the summer before it gets too hot.” He grimaced. “He’s up by six
A.M.
and full of energy. Our days start early.”

“And you were using the restroom when the shooter entered?”

“I was washing my hands and Chase’s at the time. I remember he calmly walked in the door, and I glanced up to acknowledge him and did a double take.”

“What did he do?”

Steve closed his eyes, his palms flat on the table in front of him. “He swung the gun directly at us and stopped next to the first sink. I swear he was startled to find us in there because he seemed to hesitate. Then he yelled for us to get out. He fired his weapon into the ceiling. Chase started to cry. I grabbed him up, and the shooter stepped to the side and gestured with his weapon for us to move past him to the door.” He opened his eyes, and Ava realized he had tears running down his cheeks. “I thought we were dead. All I could think about was holding Chase as tight as possible to me, that maybe my body would block most of the bullets and he’d survive.”

Ava’s stomach tightened into a hard mass.

“I ran. But when I saw the hurt woman with you”—he nodded at Ava—“I had to stop. But she couldn’t walk, right? She couldn’t move?” His eyes pleaded with Ava.

“She couldn’t put any weight on that leg. Even when I bumped it, she’d nearly pass out,” Ava assured him.

“I couldn’t carry her. I might have been able to help you get her upright and between us
. . .
and maybe we could have—”

“No,” said Ava. “It wouldn’t have worked.”

He swallowed audibly. “So I ran with my son.”

“Was there anyone else in the bathroom?” Zander asked. Ava thought the agent affected the perfect amount of concern in his tone. He skillfully kept the witness on task and focused.

Steve nodded. “An older guy came in and went in one of the stalls. He was still in there when I left. I briefly spotted him in the police area afterward and was relieved that the shooter had let him out.”

“Anyone else? What about in the back half of the restroom?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything, but I wasn’t paying attention. I had the impression we were the only ones when Chase and I first entered, but I didn’t walk to the back part and look. Plus Chase was singing so loud when we first went in—and it echoed like crazy. I remember thinking we were clearly announcing ourselves to anyone else in there.”

“Any other impressions of the shooter that you could share with us?” Zander asked. “You mentioned he seemed startled that someone else was in the restroom. Do you remember getting any other emotions from him?”

Steve’s forehead wrinkled. “I’m not sure what you mean. Like did I think he was upset and about to shoot himself?” He looked from Zander to Ava, a touch of sarcasm entering his gaze. “I thought he was going to kill me. He fired a gun in a small enclosed space and yelled at my son and I didn’t take the time to wonder if he was depressed or suicidal.” The sarcasm evaporated, leaving anger seething in his dark eyes.

An ache shot through her heart for the man.
How damaged is he? Will his son be all right?

Zander studied him and then pulled a business card out of his folder. He wrote something on the back and slid it across the table. “That’s my card. Email or call me if something occurs to you that you’d like to share.” He paused. “There’s the name of an excellent mental health group on the back.”

“I don’t—”

Zander held up his hand to silence Steve. “Hear me out.” He leaned forward, holding Steve’s gaze. “You’ve been through a traumatic experience and people who go through that shit can easily end up with post-traumatic stress disorder. You don’t have to be in a war to become a victim.
For your son
, you need to take steps so it doesn’t manifest in your home. It can sneak up on you and most of the time you can’t see it until it’s ripped a big hole in your life.” His voice quieted. “This group knows their stuff. You got health insurance?”

Steve nodded.

“Then go. Don’t do it for you, do it for your wife and kid. Catch it early or get a clean bill of health. Can you do that?”

The father picked up the card and read the back. He lifted his gaze to Ava and then met Zander’s.

“Yeah, I can do that.” He tapped the card on the table. “Thank you,” he whispered.

12

“Only old people eat this early,” Mason stated, tossing the menu to the side.

“I don’t let stereotypes affect my hunger,” answered Ava, biting back a grin. “You know as well as I do to eat when you can when a case is heating up. And I’m starving.”

She’d asked him to meet her at a restaurant on the edge of downtown Portland, where the foot traffic morphed from people in business suits to tourists in shorts. The pub offered a nice outdoor seating area with a great view for people watching. It was a bit out of his way, but they both knew the service was fast and the place was quiet. There were two other tables of diners, and the quiet created an insulated pocket of peace from the intensity of the investigation.

Taking time to connect was priority number one for their relationship. Their careers could easily swamp their lives, squeezing aside precious minutes spent with one another. She’d seen too many law enforcement relationships in which the marriage came second to the career. No marriage yet
. . .
but maybe someday. Mason had already walked the marriage path, and they were both stepping cautiously with this relationship. Nothing was hurried.

“How’d it go at the Yoders’?” She’d reviewed the entire menu even though she knew it by heart and always ordered the same Asian salad. She knew Mason would get the burger with the jalapenos and not touch his fries.

Are we in a rut?

Nothing wrong with routine and knowing what you enjoy.

She listened to his description of Justin’s home, interjecting occasionally with a question.

“I can’t get a feel for this kid yet,” Mason said, his eyebrows coming together. “Usually by now I have a picture with lots of pieces. So far all I can see is a typical twenty-year-old who doesn’t know what to do with himself and isn’t getting much guidance from his parents. They seem to let him float along, doing as he pleases.”

“What about his history of depression? They got him help for that.”

“Yes, but I wonder if they were scared to push him into more independence. It really was odd over there. It was like he was sixteen, not twenty. When I was twenty, I’d been out of the house for two years. I studied hard in college, worked a part-time job, and got an apartment with friends. We were lucky that one of us had an old TV, otherwise we wouldn’t have had one. Kids today believe they
must have
every piece of updated electronics.”

“Careful, your old man is showing,” she teased. “Next you’ll be telling me you didn’t get a new car for high-school graduation.”

He snorted. The waiter took their orders and left them with a basket of dark warm bread. Ava tore off a piece, slathered it with butter, popped it in her mouth, and sighed, closing her eyes in bliss at the happy sparks emanating from her tongue. She opened her eyes to find him grinning at her.

“What?”

“You look happy. That makes me smile. I didn’t know someone could enjoy bread so much.” His brown gaze held hers, and she wished she weren’t heading home alone after their meal.

“I told you I was hungry. So Justin’s room turned up nothing? His car looked pretty clean, although we did find some of his prescription bottles in the trunk. It was the same medication his mother showed you.”

“Who keeps old pill bottles? Most people throw them out once they’ve picked up the refill.”

“Maybe the evidence teams will find something more interesting in his car or the home. Is his psychiatrist next on your list?”

Mason swallowed his mouthful of bread. “I hope so. Ray’s contacting him because we want to talk to him tonight. Was Zander still at the command center?”

“Yes. Although the connection to his jewelry fence is looking weaker and weaker. Justin Yoder doesn’t seem like the type to get involved in millions of dollars of stolen gems.”

“Agreed. The kid collected Marvel action figures and had a weakness for Mountain Dew. Doesn’t say international assassin to me.”

A group of people strolled by their outdoor table, and Ava fought the urge to hide as her gaze locked on a slim platinum-blond woman dressed in too-short shorts.

Jayne?

The woman laughed in the center of the group; her head turned and Ava caught a clear view of her profile.
Not Jayne.

“Jesus Christ,” said Mason. “What was that?” He studied her, his brow wrinkled. “You looked like you were about to dive under the table.” He turned to follow her gaze, and watched the group continue down the sidewalk. “Oh.” He looked back at her. “It was the blonde, wasn’t it?”

Ava gave a shaky nod.

“What went through your head?” His expression showed nothing but concern.

“I wanted to hide,” she said, her heart still pounding. “I didn’t want her to see me or see us or stop to talk to us.” She briefly covered her eyes. “Oh, my God, how wrong is that?”

“Not wrong at all. I’m pretty certain you prefer your calm life instead of the spinning mess that Jayne creates. I don’t think your reaction was overboard.”

Ava took a long drink of her ice water and set it down. “You don’t know the jolt it sent through my system.” Her limbs still tingled.

“I saw it clear as day on your face.” He scowled at her. “Stop beating yourself up about it. You haven’t seen her in months. And the last time you did see her, she wasn’t fit for human companionship.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. The waiter brought their food and she took a few bites of her salad, not tasting it.

“Screw this.” Mason set down his knife and looked at her earnestly. “I thought you’d learned not to let her affect you. We’ve got a good chance for a nice meal here. I don’t want Jayne McLane messing with my burger.”

He was absolutely right. She shook her head at him. “It snuck up on me. I talked to her on the phone this morning, and she sounded great.”

His brow rose and he popped a piece of bread in his mouth.

“I know it’s temporary. But I do like to talk with her when she’s normal.”

“You miss her.”

She sucked in a breath. “I miss the normal Jayne, but normal has always come with a large piece of crazy. I don’t think there’s been a time in our lives when she’s been one hundred percent normal.”

“What was your mother like?” Mason carefully buttered another piece of bread.

His casualness didn’t fool her.
Was your mother mentally ill, too?
“Other than two years of hell with her ovarian cancer at the end of her life, she wasn’t like Jayne. Ever.”

“And you never knew your father.”

“Right.”

“You’ve looked.” It wasn’t a question.

“I did after my mother died. I suspect she didn’t give us accurate information about his name and where he lived. The question is, was that deliberate or an accident? Maybe he was never honest with her.” It wasn’t a new discussion for her and Mason. They’d skirted around her family history a few times. Her past was like a partially healed scar. It’d been ripped open too many times, and she’d discovered the only way to let it mend was to completely avoid it. Mason had pressed her a few times about her parents, and she’d been brief. If she dug too much, the scar might tear wide open.

“I miss my mother,” she said softly. “She was a hardworking woman who never gave up. She knew Jayne wasn’t right in the head, but she didn’t believe in coddling her
. . .
or giving her special treatment when she was younger. She set expectations and we were to meet them. If we didn’t, there were consequences.”

“Sounds like my kind of woman.”

“She would have liked you,” Ava said. “She didn’t take crap from anyone
. . .
including Jayne.”

“Smart.”

“I rarely saw a soft side of her.” A small pain started at the site of the scar. “Her chin was always up. Looking back, I think she had to fight for everything. Her job, her independence, us.”

“She raised you well.”

Ava looked out the window. The passing group was long gone. Her emotions had been triggered as if by a ball in a pinball machine. It bounced off raw grief, anger, tenderness, and guilt. This was why she didn’t like talking about her family: it was exhausting.

“Someday we’ll look for your father.”

The pinball vanished as all her emotions dried up. Her father was an empty dry well in her brain. A place she avoided. She didn’t know how to feel toward a man she’d never met, so she didn’t dwell on it. There was no point. How could she be angry at or disappointed in someone she knew nothing about?

Does he know Jayne and I exist?

The question was like a tiny rock dropped into the well. It hit the dusty dirt at the bottom and then
. . .
nothing.

“We’ll see,” she answered noncommittally. She didn’t know if she wanted to explore that pit of nothingness. Some things were best left alone. They spent a few minutes eating in comforting silence. There was no need to fill the air with useless conversation. She and Mason were both fans of avoiding empty conversations; they didn’t waste effort or breath on small talk.

His phone buzzed, and he reluctantly looked at it. Usually they had a no-phones rule during meals, but with the urgency of this case, it was suspended. “Text from Ray. Address of the psychiatrist. We’re to meet with him in an hour.” He took a large bite of burger. “Plenty of time to eat and get over there.” He set the phone back on the table, facedown. “Let’s pretend for a few more minutes that no one died yesterday, and you had an uneventful morning at yoga.”

“Agreed.” She smiled at him and welcomed the peace that enveloped her. It’d been that way from the first moment they met. When they were together, the air around them settled into a relaxing harmony. It was rare and precious, and something she wanted for the rest of her life.