He wanted to strike something, break something to pieces, to punch his fist into something hard that would bloody it. She’d been abused as surely as if she’d been found with bruises and broken bones, by a mother who could walk away from a traumatized, terrified child.
He put the kettle on. She needed to get warm again, feel safe and quiet again. He’d needed to know what she told him, but he wished he’d let it go, let it slide away, from both of them.
Still, as the kettle heated, he took out his notebook, wrote down all the names she’d given him. Then tucked the notebook away again, made her tea.
She sat very straight on the couch, very pale and very straight, her eyes shadowed. “Thank you.”
He sat beside her. “I need to say some things to you before you go on with this.”
She stared into her tea, braced. “All right.”
“None of this was your fault.”
Her lips quivered before she firmed them. “I have some responsibility. I was young, yes, but no one forced me to make the IDs or go to the club.”
“That’s just bullshit, because neither of those things make you responsible for what happened after. Your mother’s a monster.”
Her head snapped up, her shadowed eyes went huge. “My—that—she—”
“Worse. She’s a fucking robot, and she tried to make you one, too. She let you know from the get-go she’d ‘created’ you to her specs. So you’re smart and beautiful and healthy, and you owe her for that. More bullshit.”
“My genetic makeup—”
“Shut up. I’m not done. She made you dress as she wanted, made you study what she wanted, and I’ll lay odds made you associate with people she chose, read what she chose, eat what she de-fucking-creed. Am I wrong?”
Abigail could only shake her head.
“She may never have raised her hand to you, may have kept you clothed, fed, with a nice roof over your head, but honey, you were abused for the first sixteen years of your life. A lot of kids would have run away or worse. You cut your hair and snuck into a club. You want to blame somebody other than the shooter and his boss for what happened, blame her.”
“But—”
“Have you ever had any therapy?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“No, you’re not. I’m just asking.”
“I was in therapy as long as I remember until I left home. She engaged one of the top child therapists in Chicago.”
“You never had any choice on that, either.”
“No,” Abigail said with a sigh. “No, choices weren’t on her agenda.”
He took her face, laid his lips on hers. “You’re a miracle, Abigail. That you could come from something that cold-blooded, that coldhearted, and be who and what you are. You remember that. You can tell me the rest when you’re ready.”
“Will you kiss me again?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.”
Again, he took her face in his hands, leaned in to lay his lips warmly on hers. She curled her fingers around his wrists to hold him, hold there a moment longer.
She wasn’t sure he’d want to kiss her once she’d told the whole of it.
She told him about John, about Terry, the house itself, the routine of it, the legal delays. Stalling a bit, she admitted. She told him about Bill Cosgrove teaching her poker, and Lynda doing her hair.
“It was, in a terrible way, the best time of my life. I watched television, listened to music, studied, cooked, learned, had people to talk to. John and Terry—I know it was a job, but they were family to me.
“Then my birthday came. I didn’t think they knew, or would think anything of it. But they had presents for me, and a cake. John gave me earrings. I’d gotten my ears pierced that day at the mall with Julie, and he gave me my first real pair of earrings. And Terry gave me a sweater; it was so pretty. I went up to my room to put the earrings and the sweater on. I was so happy.”
She paused for a moment, working out how to explain to him what she’d never fully explained to herself.
“It wasn’t like the day in the mall. The happiness wasn’t fueled by rebellion and novelty and lies. It was so deep, so strong. I knew I’d wear that sweater set, those earrings, on the day I testified in court. That while I couldn’t bring Julie back, I would have a part in getting justice for her. And when it was done, I’d become who I wanted to be. Whatever name they gave me, I’d be free to be myself.
“And then … I don’t know everything that happened. I can only speculate. I’ve put it together so many ways. The most logical is that Bill Cosgrove and the agent who substituted for Lynda that night, his name is Keegan, came in through the kitchen, as usual. I think Terry was in there alone, and John in the living room. She must have sensed or suspected something. I don’t know what or why. They killed her, or at that point disabled her. But she managed to call out to John first, so he was alerted. But he couldn’t get to me, couldn’t get to the stairs without exposing himself.
“I heard the gunfire. Everything happened so fast. I ran out of the bedroom and saw John. When John got to me he was shot, several times. He was bleeding, from the leg, the abdomen. He pushed me back in the bedroom, and he collapsed. I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”
She looked down at her hands. “I couldn’t stop it. I knew what to do, but I couldn’t help. He didn’t have much time. There wasn’t much time. He told me to run. To take what I could and get out through the window. I couldn’t trust the police. If they had Cosgrove and the other, they’d have more. The Volkovs. I didn’t want to leave him like that. But I went out the window, with the money I had, with my laptop, some clothes, with his ankle weapon. I was going to try to call for help. Maybe if help came he wouldn’t die. I didn’t know if Terry was alive or dead. I’d barely gotten a block away when the house exploded. I think they’d planned to blow it up, with me in it. They’d have taken over from John and Terry, staged something and blown up the house.”
“Where did you go?”
“I went home. My mother would be at work, and the cook would have gone for the day. I still had my key. I went home so I could hide until my mother got home. And I found she’d boxed up all my things. Some were already gone. I don’t know why that upset me so much, considering.”
“I do.”
“Well. I opened her safe, and I took money from her. Ten thousand dollars. It was wrong, but I stole from my mother, and I left. I’ve never been back. I walked, tried to think. It had been storming, but now it was just rain. Just rainy and dark. I knew John and Terry were dead, and the last thing he’d told me to do was run. I saw a pickup truck with Indiana plates outside a coffee shop. I got in the back, under the tarp. I fell asleep somewhere along the drive, and when I woke up, I was in Terre Haute. I found a motel, paid cash. I went to a drugstore and bought bright red hair dye. It turned my hair orange, but I looked different. I slept again, a long time. Then I turned on the television. And I saw on CNN the report about John and Terry, about the house. About me. They thought I’d been in the house. They were looking for our remains. I nearly called the police. I had Detective Griffith’s card, but I was afraid. I decided I’d wait, buy a cell phone, a disposable, in case. I waited another day, eating in the room, barely leaving it, watching the news, trying to find out more through the Internet.”
She paused, took a long breath. “Then I found out more. They didn’t think I was in the house. They knew I wasn’t. There was speculation someone had abducted me, and other speculation that I’d snapped, shot John and Terry, blown up the house. Cosgrove and Keegan had each other to back up the story, how they’d gotten there just seconds too late. And Cosgrove was wounded.”
“John got a piece of him? What about ballistics?”
“It was through-and-through. They said the lights went off, and they couldn’t be sure who fired at them, but Keegan got Cosgrove out. The house exploded as he called it all in.
“So I ran. I took a bus to Indianapolis. I got supplies, another motel, and I made new identification, and with it and some of the cash I bought a used car from a junk dealer that got me to Nashville. I waited tables there for three months. Then I changed my hair again, my ID again, and moved on.”
She drew another breath. “There wasn’t much on the news anymore, and I wasn’t quite able to hack into the
