'What do you mean?'
Victoria shrugged, sipped her coffee. 'I wish they could see it from the inside.'
Byrne had a feeling he knew what she was talking about. It appeared she wanted to tell him. He asked. 'See what?'
'Everything.' She took out a cigarette, paused, rolling it between her long, slender fingers. There was no smoking here. She needed the prop. 'Every day I wake up, I'm in a hole, you know? A deep, black hole. If I have a really good day, I just about break even. Reach the surface. If I have a great day? I might even see a little sliver of sunlight. Smell a flower. Hear a baby's laugh.
'But if I have a bad day-which is most days-well, then. That's what I wish people could see.'
Byrne didn't know what to say. He had flirted with bouts of depression in his life, but nothing like what Victoria had just described. He reached out, touched her hand. She looked out the window for a few moments, then continued.
'My mother was beautiful, you know,' she said. 'She still is to this day.'
'So are you,' Byrne said.
She looked back, frowned at him. Beneath the grimace, though, was the slightest blush. He could still bring the color to her face. That was good.
'You're full of shit. But I love you for it.' I mean it.
She waved a hand at her face. 'You don't know what it's like, Kevin.'
'Yes, I do.'
Victoria looked at him, giving him the floor. She lived in the world of group therapy, and in it everyone told their story.
Byrne tried to organize his thoughts. He really wasn't prepared for this. 'After I was shot, all I could think about was one thing. Not about whether I was coming back to the job. Not about whether or not I could go out on the street again. Or even if I wanted to go out on the street again. All I could think about was Colleen.'
'Your daughter?'
'Yes.'
'What about her?'
'I just kept wondering if she was ever going to look at me the same way again. I mean, all her life, I've been the guy who's looked out for her, right? This big, strong guy. Daddy. Daddy the cop. It scared me to death that she would see me so small. That she would see me diminished.
'After I came out of my coma, she came to the hospital alone. My wife wasn't with her. I'm lying in the bed, most of my hair is shaved off, I'm twenty pounds down, fading in and out on the painkillers. I glance up and she's standing at the foot of my bed. I look at her face and I see it.'
'See what?'
Byrne shrugged, searching for the word. He soon found it. 'Pity,' he said. 'For the first time in her life, I saw pity in my little girl's eyes. I mean, there was love and respect there, too. But there was a look of pity and it broke my heart. It occurred to me that, at that moment, if she was in trouble, if she needed me, I wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing.' Byrne glanced over at his cane. 'I'm not in much better shape today.'
'You will come back. Better than ever.'
'No,' Byrne said. 'I don't think so.'
'Men like you always come back.'
Now it was Byrne's turn to color. He fought it. 'Men like me?'
'Yes, you are a big man, but that's not what makes you strong. What makes you strong is inside.'
'Yeah, well…' Byrne let the sentiment settle. He finished his coffee, realizing it was time. There was no way to sugarcoat what he had to tell her. He opened his mouth and just said it: 'He's out.'
Victoria held his gaze for a few moments. There was no need for Byrne to qualify his statement, nor say any more. No need to identify the he.
'Out,' she said.
'Yes.'
Victoria nodded, taking it in. 'How?'
'His conviction is being appealed. The DA's office believes it may have evidence that he was framed for the murder of Marygrace Devlin.' Byrne continued, telling her what he knew, about the allegedly planted evidence. Victoria remembered Jimmy Purify well.
She ran a hand through her hair, her hands betraying a slight shake. Within a second or two, she regained her composure. 'It's funny. I'm not really afraid of him anymore. I mean, when he attacked me, I thought I had a lot to lose. My looks, my… life, such as it was. I had nightmares about him for a long time. But now…'
Victoria shrugged and began to spin her coffee cup in her hands. She looked exposed, vulnerable. But she was, in reality, tougher than he was. Could he walk down the street with his face segmented like hers, head held high? No. Probably not.
'He's going to do it again,' Byrne said.
'How do you know?'
'I just do.'
Victoria nodded.
Byrne said: 'I want to stop him.'
Somehow, the world did not cease spinning when he said these words, the sky did not turn an ominous gray, the clouds did not split.
Victoria knew what he was talking about. She leaned in, lowered her voice. 'How?'
'Well, I have to find him first. He'll probably make contact with his old low-life crowd, the porno freaks and S-and-M types.' Byrne realized that this might have sounded harsh. Victoria had come from this milieu. Perhaps she felt he was judging her. Luckily, she did not.
'I'll help you.'
'I can't ask you to do that, Tori. That's not why-'
Victoria held up a hand, stopping him. 'Back in Meadville, my Swedish grandmother had a saying. 'Eggs cannot teach a hen.' Okay? This is my world. I will help you.'
Byrne's Irish grandmothers had their wisdom, too. There was no arguing with it. Still seated, he reached out, took Victoria in his arms. They hugged.
'We begin tonight,' Victoria said. 'I'll call you in an hour.'
She slipped on her oversize sunglasses. The lenses covered a third of her face. She got up from the table, touched his cheek, and left.
He watched her walk away-the fluid, sexy metronome of her stride. She turned and waved, blew a kiss, then disappeared down the escalator. She was still a knockout, Byrne thought. He wished for her a happiness he knew she would never find.
He got to his feet. The pain in his legs and back were shards of fire. He had parked more than a block away, and the distance now seemed enormous. He inched his way along the length of the food court, leaning on his cane, down the escalator and across the lobby.
Melanie Devlin. Victoria Lindstrom. Two women full of sadness and anger and fear, their once happy lives shipwrecked on the dark shoals of one monstrous man.
Julian Matisse.
Byrne now knew that what had begun as a mission to clear Jimmy Pu- rify's name had become something else.
As he stood on the corner of Seventeenth and Chestnut, the maelstrom of a hot Philadelphia summer evening flowing around him, Byrne knew in his heart that, if he did nothing else with what was left of his life, if he found no higher purpose, he would make certain of one thing: Julian Matisse would not live to cause a single human being any more pain.
16
