“Your wife, Denise?” Caruso said as though asking permission.
My stepmother gasped softly and tossed a hand over her mouth at the mention of her name. Dutifully, tears sprang to her eyes. But I had mad skill at reading people, and I could tell she was getting off on the sympathetic gazes sliding her way. Even more than that, however, I could feel the relief that swallowed her as she glanced toward me, because Caruso had come after me, not her. I supposed I couldn’t blame her for that, really, but I could have done without her fix for attention at my expense.
Caruso waited for a reaction. “No,” he said, his voice resigned. “No, you need to lose a daughter, just like I did. How about Gemma? The pretty one?”
Though Gemma had hardly moved an inch the entire time, she stilled. Her face paled, and her breathing stopped for what seemed like a full minute before she looked up at Dad. Denise wrapped an arm into his and leaned into him to offer support in her superficial way, but he neither looked up at Gemma nor acknowledged his wife’s ministrations. He was lost inside himself, a shell where my father had once been. Oddly enough, he was sweating nine millimeters. Why now? It was said and done. The guy was back behind bars.
And still, he did not answer the man.
Then everyone waited, knowing what was coming next. Who was coming next.
“Or how about that pistol of yours?” Caruso asked, his gravelly voice enjoying the moment. “What’s her name? Oh, yes … Charlotte.”
He said my name slowly, as though he relished every sound, every consonant as it rolled off his tongue. I felt each gaze present snap in my direction, but I lowered my eyes and kept them down. I could especially feel Uncle Bob’s, for some reason. He had always had such a soft spot for me. One that I took advantage of every chance I got.
But then Dad spoke, his voice crystal clear in the recording, each note strained, each syllable forced. He hadn’t said a word when Caruso mentioned Denise or Gemma, but when my name came up, he broke.
“Please,” he said, his voice hoarse with the emotion he held at bay, “not Charley. Please, not Charley.”
My heart stopped. The air in the room thickened until I thought I would suffocate on it. The truth of what was happening washed over me in waves of such shock, I sat utterly stupefied for a solid minute before glancing up. Now, everyone had cast gazes of sympathy toward my father. They saw a man in anguish. I saw a man, a veteran cop and detective, who had made a decision.
My father lowered his head and, from underneath his lashes, cast furtive, sorrowful glances at me. To say I was taken aback by his plea would be the understatement of the century. The whisper of emotion he fought tooth and nail to control was not the pain of fear, but the pain of guilt. His eyes locked on to mine, a silent apology dripping from each lash, and the agitation that overcame me pushed me out of my chair like a bully on a playground.
I stumbled to my feet, the blanket and the rest of the recording forgotten, and scanned the faces around me. Denise was appalled that her husband was begging for my life when he hadn’t begged for hers. Her shallow sense of reality simply didn’t run deep enough to grasp the truth. It must’ve been nice to see the world so one- dimensionally.
But Uncle Bob knew. He sat with mouth agape, staring at Dad like he’d lost his mind. And Gemma knew. Gemma. The one person on planet Earth I didn’t want or need sympathy from.
Thankfully, any tears that might have surfaced from the knowledge that my father had practically painted a target on my forehead stayed behind a wall of bewilderment. My lungs were still paralyzed, as if the air had been knocked out of me. They started to burn, and I had to force myself to breathe as I stared in utter disbelief.
My father, a twenty-year veteran of the Albuquerque Police Department, was way too smart to do something so incredibly stupid. And my Uncle Bob knew it. I could see the shock and anger mingling behind his brown eyes. He was just as stunned as I was.
The look on my father’s face was reprehensible. The clueless look on my stepmother’s as her gaze darted back and forth between the two of us was almost comical. But there were three other people in the room who’d figured it out. Uncle Bob I could understand, but I couldn’t believe that even Taft had figured it out. He had planted a surprised look on me that bordered on apologetic.
But the look of incredulity on Gemma’s face was more than I could bear. She stared hard at our father, her face a picture of stupefaction. Her Ph.D. in psychology was paying off. She knew that our father had chosen her over me. Had chosen our stepmother over me.
My feet carried me back until I felt a door handle nudge my hip. I reached behind me and turned the knob just as my father stood up.
“Charley, wait,” he said as I rushed out the door. The hall opened up to a sea of desks with phones ringing and keyboards clicking. I hurried through them.
“Charley, please stop,” I heard my dad call behind me.
And let him see the drooling mess I’d become? Absolutely not.
But he was faster than I’d given him credit for. He caught my arm in his long slender hand and pulled me around to face him. It was then that I realized my tears had broken free. He was blurry, and I slammed my lids shut and wiped my face with the back of my free hand.
“Charley—”
“Not now.” I jerked out of his grasp and started toward the exit again.
“Charley,” he called out again and caught me just as I was heading out the door. He pulled me back inside, and in my attempt to get free, I jerked my arm out of his grip. He grabbed me again and I jerked again, over and over until my palm whipped across his face so hard, the sound echoed throughout the precinct. A silence fell over the room, and every eye was suddenly focused on us.
He touched his cheek where I slapped him. “I deserve that, but let me explain.”
We stood in the hall as a prickly kind of betrayal and humiliation kept me from hearing anything he had to say. I shut down. His words bounced back as though I had an invisible force field protecting me, and after delivering the best glare I could conjure, I turned and tried to walk away again, mostly because I saw Gemma and Denise coming. The thought of dealing with their indifference made me physically ill. I swallowed hard, fighting the bile in the back of my throat.
Dad didn’t grab me this time. He just braced an arm on the wall, blocking my path. He bent down to me, whispered in my ear. “If I have to handcuff you and carry you kicking and screaming back to that room, I will.”
I glowered at him as Denise hastened up to us in a huff. “Did she just hit you?” she asked, appalled.
More than any other time in my life, I wanted to belt her as well. Where was Ulrich when I needed him?
“What are you going to do about it?” she asked my dad.
“Shut up,” he said, his voice so quiet, so menacing, it left her speechless. For once.
She raised a hand to cover her throat self-consciously. By law, any police officer who saw me hit him was duty bound to arrest me. None stepped forward.
Dad towered over me, his frame thin but rock solid, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he wanted to wrestle me back, he could. But he would be grabbing a cat by its tail. He would have a fight on his hands, one he would not soon forget.
“Fine,” I said, my voice just as soft as his, “cuff me, because I am not going back into that room so that everyone can feel sorry for me because my father sent a madman to kill his own daughter.”
He sighed, his shoulders crumpling. “That’s not what I did.”
“Isn’t it?” Gemma asked, her voice hard as she stepped forward. “Dad, that’s exactly what you did.”
“No, I mean—”
“She’s so special. She’s so unique,” Gemma said, her words stealing my breath. “She’s so much more than even you know. And you sent him to her?”
“Gemma,” Denise said, and I could feel the betrayal wafting off her, “what are you talking about? He begged that man not to hurt Charley.”
Gemma seemed to be struggling for patience. She closed her blue eyes a long moment, then turned to her. “Mom, did you not hear him?”
“I heard every word.” Denise’s voice was suddenly edged with bitterness.
“Mom,” Gemma said, placing her hands on Denise’s shoulders, “open your eyes.” She said it softly, not wanting to hurt the hag’s feelings.
