'It's only me,' Terri said softly. 'Just your mom.'
Her daughter gazed back at her, too newly awake, and perhaps frightened, not to appear vulnerable instead of guarded. Anxiously, the girl demanded, 'Is something wrong?'
'Something happened,' Terri answered. 'Something I want to tell you. But nothing's wrong.'
Taking Elena's hand, Terri waited for her daughter to collect herself. 'What is it?' Elena asked.
'The man who may have followed you, the one I believe killed Thuy Sen all those years ago. He's dead.'
Elena's eyes fluttered, then studied Terri with a look of hope and disbelief. 'How did he die?'
Terri hesitated, remembering Elena's tortured outcry, 'Maybe I'll kill a man for forcing me to do things.' But nothing but truth could come to Terri's lips. 'He beat a woman, Elena, then forced her to give him oral sex. So she shot him in his sleep.'
Elena covered her face. After a moment, she murmured, 'Will the woman be all right?'
'I don't know.'
Elena sat up again. 'I wanted him dead,' she said after a time, 'and now some other woman will pay for it. Why wouldn't it be better if they'd sentenced him to death?'
At first, Terri had no answer. Then she said, 'It would have been better, Elena, if they'd sentenced him to life. You'd still be safe now, and so would Rennell.'
Elena did not answer.
'You are safe,' Terri said softly. 'Just sit with it for a while, and know I love you.'
Mute, the girl nodded, and then Terri returned to the library, to try to save Rennell Price from a dead man, and the State of California.
* * *
In the morning, Elena appeared in the library.
It was six o'clock, and Terri was revising her petition. To her surprise, Elena stood behind her, silently rubbing her shoulders. Terri did not ask why, and Elena gave no reason. But when Elena was finished, she kissed her mother softly on the crown of her head, a brush of lips, and then went back to bed.
TWENTY
FACING RENNELL, TERRI KNEW WITH QUIET MISERY THAT, WITHOUT some startling event, he would be dead at this time tomorrow.
Dead like Eddie Fleet, she thought.
It was nine in the morning, but her own words of reassurance sounded as rote to Terri as cocktail party patter at the end of a long day. 'We're still working,' she told him, 'trying to find out more about Eddie Fleet. Chris is hoping to see the Governor.'
After all of the procedural twists and turns she had tried to explain—clemency, a new petition to the Ninth Circuit; a request for a stay from the United States Supreme Court—Rennell gazed right through her, as though she were speaking in Urdu. All he seemed to know was that each step had moved him closer to his death, and that now death was at hand. Perhaps that was the only thing worth knowing.
She took his hand, as much for herself as for Rennell, an effort to ground herself for the long day ahead. 'Rennell . . . ?'
He shook his head. After a time, he mumbled, 'I was gonna be free . . .'
You nearly were, Terri thought. It seemed as though she were living in a dream state: between seven and eight, trying to steal an hour's more sleep, she had suddenly awakened, skin clammy, heart beating swiftly. Now her every word and gesture felt unreal.
'I'll be back,' she promised. 'At five o'clock. Maybe I'll have some news.'
* * *
Tammy Mattox was crammed in a cluster of cubicles with two private investigators, fielding Internet tips and calls to the hotline number they had established, all the while keeping contact with Johnny Moore. 'Still nothing more on Fleet?' Terri asked.
Tammy looked up, dark circles of weariness smudging the skin beneath her eyes. 'Nothing new. Except that he's still dead.'
Terri stood by Tammy's chair, gazing at the telephone. 'You know what's worse?' she said. 'We're still tracking Fleet because we know he was a pedophile. But now no one knows which one of them killed Thuy Sen. Absent an improvement in DNA technology, no one else will ever know. Rennell's dying from uncertainty.'
Tammy shook her head. 'Rennell,' she amended, 'is dying from artificial certainty. The system demands an end to things, and Darrow needs a ritual execution.'
There was nothing to say to that, and no use dwelling on it. Terri was headed for her office when Tammy's phone rang.
Terri paused, turning back to look at the flashing phone line. Tammy waved toward the phone. 'Go ahead,' she said. 'Maybe our luck will change.'
Terri answered. 'Who's this?' a woman's voice demanded.
'Teresa Paget—I'm a lawyer for Rennell Price. Can I help you?'
'More like I can help you. Hear you lookin' for dirt on Eddie Fleet.'
The voice was young, Terri felt certain, its intonations African American. Swiftly, she picked up Tammy's pencil, saying, 'If it's true.'
