“The kids can miss school, right? No big deal.”
“I already called the school, told them I’d be taking Julia and Lucas out of classes for a few days. Hell, I even picked up the tickets at the airport when I got in.” He pulled an envelope from his breast pocket, took out the tickets and held them up, fanning them like a winning hand of cards.
Cassie’s smile vanished. “Three tickets.” She pulled her hand away.
“Just family. Me and the kids. I don’t think we’ve ever done this. Just us three, heading off for a few days somewhere.”
“Just family,” Cassie repeated in a harsh whisper.
“I think it’s important for me to try to reconnect with the kids. I mean, you get along with them better than I do, which is great. But I’ve let my part in it slip-I’ve sort of delegated that to you, like I’m CEO of the family or something, and that’s not right. I’m their dad, whether I’m any good at it or not, and it’s my job to work on making us a family again.”
Cassie’s face was transfigured, weirdly tight as if every muscle in her face were clenched.
“Oh God, Cassie, I’m sorry,” Nick said, flushing, embarrassed by his own obliviousness. “You know how much you mean to us.”
Cassie’s eyelids fluttered oddly, and he could see the veins in her neck pulsing. It was as if she were struggling to contain herself-or maybe to contain something larger than herself.
He smiled ruefully. “Luke and Julia-they’re my direct reports, you know. And I don’t know when I’ll have the chance again.”
“Just family.” The sound of one heavy stone scraping against another.
“I think it’ll be really good for us, don’t you?”
“You want to get away.”
“Exactly.”
“You want to escape.” Her voice was an incantation.
“Pretty much.”
“From me.”
“What? Jesus, no! You’re taking this the wrong way. It isn’t about-”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “No. No hiding place. There’s no hiding place down there.”
Adrenaline surged through Nick’s veins. “What did you say?”
An odd smile appeared on her face. “Isn’t that what the stalker spray-painted in the house? That’s what Julia told me.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Those very words.”
“I can read the writing on the wall, Nick.”
“Come on, Cassie, don’t be silly.”
“It’s like the book of Daniel, isn’t it? The king of Babylon throws a big drunken party and all of a sudden he sees a mysterious hand appear and start writing something strange and cryptic on the plaster wall, right? And the king’s scared out of his mind and he calls in the prophet Daniel who tells him the message means the king’s days are over, Babylon’s history, he’s going to be killed.” Her expression was glassy.
“Okay, you’re starting to creep me out.”
Suddenly her eyes focused, and she met his gaze. “Maybe I should be grateful. I was wrong, wrong about so many things. It’s humbling. Humbling to be put right. Just like with the Stroups. But so necessary. Listen, you do what you think is best. You do what’s best for family. There’s nothing more important than that.”
Nick held out his arms. “Cassie, come here.”
“I think I’d better go,” she said. “I think I’ve done enough, don’t you think?”
“Cassie, please,” Nick protested. “I don’t get it.”
“Because I can do a lot more.” Noiselessly, she walked out of the kitchen, her steps so fluid she could have been gliding. “I can do a lot more.”
“We’ll talk, Cassie,” said Nick. “When we get back.”
A final glance over her shoulders. “A lot more.”
99
Early Sunday morning, before church. Audrey sat in the kitchen with her coffee and her buttered toast while Leon slept. She was poring over the bills, wondering how they’d be able to keep up, now that Leon’s unemployment benefits were running out. Usually she paid off the entire credit-card balance each month, but she was going to have to start paying only the minimum balance due. She wondered too, whether they should drop to basic cable. She thought they should, though Leon would not be happy about losing the sports channels.
Her cell phone rang. A 616 number: Grand Rapids.
It was a Lieutenant Lawrence Pettigrew of the Grand Rapids police. The man who’d first talked to her about Edward Rinaldi. She’d placed several calls to him over the last few days and had all but given up on him. Noyce had made it clear that he didn’t want her asking around in GR about Rinaldi, but she had no choice in the matter.
“How can I help you, Detective?” Pettigrew said. “The kids are waiting for me to take them out for pancakes, so can we make this quick?”
The guy was no fan of Edward Rinaldi, so she knew that asking about Rinaldi again would be like pushing a button and watching the vitriol spew out. But she had no reason to expect that he’d know the specifics of a long-forgotten and, in fact, quite minor, drug case.
He didn’t. “Far as I’m concerned, Rinaldi’s gone and good riddance,” he said. “He wasn’t exactly a credit to the uniform.”
“Was he fired?”
“Squeezed out might be more accurate. But I were you, I wouldn’t be bad-mouthing Eddie Rinaldi over there in Fenwick.”
“He’s the security director of Stratton, is that what you mean?”
“Yeah, yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Didn’t you say you’re in Major Cases?”
“That’s right.”
“Hell, you want to know chapter and verse on Eddie Rinaldi, you could ask Jack Noyce. But then again, maybe you shouldn’t.”
“I don’t think Sergeant Noyce knows all that much about Rinaldi.”
Pettigrew’s laugh was abrupt and percussive. “Noyce knows him like a book, sweetheart. Guarantee it. Jack was Eddie’s partner.”
Audrey’s scalp tightened.
“Sergeant Noyce?” she said, disbelieving.
“Partner in crime, I like to say. Don’t take this the wrong way, Detective-what’s your name again?”
“Rhimes.” Audrey shuddered.
“Like LeAnn Rimes, the singer?” He warbled, off-key, ‘How do I live…without you?’”
“Spelled differently, I believe.”
“Quite the babe, though, no matter how you spell it.”
“So I hear, yes. Noyce…Noyce was known to be dirty, is that what you’re telling me?”
“Hell, there’s a reason Jack got sent to Siberia, right?”
“Siberia?”
“No offense, sweetheart. But from where I sit, Fenwick is Siberia.”
“Noyce was…squeezed out too?”
“Peas in a pod, those guys. I got no idea who did more pilfering, but I’d say they both did pretty good. Works better in a team, so they’re each willing to look away. Eddie was more into the guns, and Jack was more into the home electronics and the stereo components and what have you, but they both loved the cash.”
“They both…” she started to say, but she lost the heart to go on.
“Oh, and Detective LeAnn?”
“Audrey.” She wanted to vomit, wanted to end the call and throw up and then wrap herself in a blanket and go back to sleep.
“Sweetheart, I were you, I wouldn’t use my name with Noyce. Guy’s a survivor, and he’ll wanna let bygones be bygones, know what I’m saying?”
She thanked him, pushed End, and then did exactly what she knew she would. She rushed to the bathroom and heaved the contents of her stomach, the acid from the coffee scalding her throat. Then she washed her face. All she wanted to do right now was to enrobe herself in the old blue blanket on the living room couch, but it was time for church.