“Is that what you call that?” They’d made it all the way around, then twice more, before she added, “Why’s Mom staring at you every time we pass her?”
“Is she?” Sydney didn’t doubt it, was purposefully avoiding her mother’s gaze.
“Yeah. Is she mad at you?”
“Just worried.”
“What is that? The grown-up way of saying mind your own business?” Angie craned her head to see as they skated past. “That is so not a worried look.” Then, “Oh my God. Do you have any of your cards?”
Angie came to a stop, and Sydney nearly fell in the process. She pulled her hand from Angie’s, grabbed the wall. “For what?”
“Nick Santos just skated on. He thinks he’s all that, because his dad is a deputy sheriff. You have to show him your card.” And then, before Sydney knew it, Nick Santos, the boy in question, skated alongside them, and Angie gave him her sweetest smile. “Hi, Nick.”
“Angie.”
“This is my sister. She’s an FBI agent.”
“I know,” he said, giving Sydney only a fleeting glance as though he’d heard this line before. “My dad’s a deputy. He’s on SWAT.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But Sydney draws dead people.”
Nick eyed her with renewed interest. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Angie said, crossing her arms with a burst of confidence. “You have to see her card. It says Forensic Artist on it.”
Nick gave Sydney a skeptical look, and, to defend her sister’s honor, she pulled out the soft card case from her blazer pocket and removed a business card, handing it to Angie, who then gave it to Nick.
“Dead people? That is so cool,” he said, tracing his finger over the embossed letters that spelled out Forensic Artist. He glanced at Angie, his gaze more respectful, as he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, keeping the card. “You want to skate around with me?”
Her eyes lit up, until she looked at Sydney, no doubt recalling that she had promised to skate with her.
“I really need to take a break,” Sydney said.
Angie gave her a grateful smile, then skated off with the boy who was “all that,” leaving Sydney no choice but to face their mother.
She navigated off the floor, feeling her mother’s gaze on her the entire time.
“Hi, Mom,” she said when she reached the table, where her mother sat monitoring the shoes and kids’ belongings strewn about the several tables claimed for the occasion.
Mary said nothing at first, while Sydney sat, deciding to remove the skates before she broke her neck. Mary watched her for several very long silent seconds, then, “Why?”
“I told you, it was something I had to do.”
“You’ve said that every year for the last, what? Four, now? And you’ve never done it.” Sydney had no idea what she should say, what made it different, except that with the impending execution, she knew this was her last chance.
Mary Fitzpatrick-Hughes fixed her gaze on Angie as she skated round and round with the boy, Nick. “Did you get my message about babysitting Angela?”
“Yes. I’m sure it’ll be fine, Mom.”
“It’ll just be overnight, and she doesn’t have school the next day, but I can call Rainie if you’d rather not.”
“Mom. I want to do it.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, and finally her mother said, “So what happened?”
Sydney wanted to let her know, quite simply because she longed for nothing more in that moment than to have her mother wrap her arms around her and tell her that everything was okay, that there was some mistake, and the killer wasn’t out there still. But Sydney couldn’t. It wasn’t for her to burden her mother with anything more than what she’d already been saddled with in her time, and Sydney ignored the thought that she’d done that very thing, just by telling her mother of her visit. “Nothing, Mom.”
“Nothing? He just sat there and stared at you? I thought you went there to ask him why?”
“That was only part of the reason I went. And I don’t want to talk about it right now. I can’t.”
Her mother’s lips pressed together in a thin line. She sat there for a moment, still watching Angie. Finally, “I can’t believe you went. How could you do that?” And then, with one last stab of maternal guilt to bestow, she added, “On today, of all days.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Her mother’s gaze remained steadfastly on Angie, and Sydney slipped her feet from the skates, and into her shoes.
She walked over, kissed her mother on the forehead. “Good-bye, Mom. I love you.”
Mary stared at her clasped hands, and reluctantly Sydney turned away. And then, in a barely audible voice, her mother said, “There are things you don’t know about your father. He’s not the saint you thought he was.”
Sydney stopped in her tracks, thinking of what Scotty had told her. “What do you mean by that? What did he do?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. But you put him on a pedestal he should never have been on. And I was willing to let you live with that belief. He’s your father. He loved you.”
“You can’t just tell me that and not say what he did.”
“Yes, I can. Like you, I don’t want to talk about it. He’s gone, and you have to get on with your life.”
Her mantra. Sydney had gotten on with her life just fine, and wanted to tell her mother exactly what she thought of it right then, but she heard Angie laughing and realized this was not the time or the place. “I should go.”
Mary said nothing, not even demanding that she stay and get her photo taken for the senator’s campaign, and so Sydney kissed her once more, then left, stopping only long enough to tell Angie that she had to leave.
“Why?”
“Work,” Sydney said, waving her cell phone at her, and earning a look of awe from Nick.
An easy lie, and at least Angie was smiling when she left.
But things did not get better, because Sydney ran into her stepfather, Jake Hughes, in the parking lot. He was tall, fit for a man in his fifties, and like Angie, he had blond hair and dimpled cheeks, though you couldn’t see the dimples. He was not smiling when he saw her. “I can’t believe you entertained such an idiotic idea.”
And then Sydney wondered if telling her mother of her visit to San Quentin was selfish, that maybe, had she really stopped to think things through, she would have realized this. “I shouldn’t have told her. I just thought-”
“Thought? You weren’t thinking. You should have left well enough alone, without putting your mother through that sort of misery.”
“Her misery? What about mine? You have no idea what it was like for me. He was my father.”
“And it’s been twenty years, for God’s sake. Twenty years today. You can’t go on like this forever, letting your father’s death define your entire life.”
“That’s not true. And I resent your saying so.”
“Resent it, then. But think about why it is you chose a profession that lets you carry a gun twenty-four/seven. Your father’s killer has been caught, he is not coming after you or your mother. She has moved on with her life. You should do the same, and not drag her back into the pain it took her so long to get past. Nothing is going to happen to you if you vary from your schedule, or you break a rule, Sydney. Nothing.”
She crossed her arms, staring down at the ground, feeling his hard gaze on her, not daring to tell him she thought Wheeler might be innocent. She wasn’t sure that was the best move right now. In his mind she had crossed the line. He had been her father’s friend, was there for her mother in her time of need, had helped to raise Sydney, and voiced his objections when she chose to go in law enforcement.
He was right in some respects. Her father’s death had given her purpose, had defined her. “Just tell Mom I’m sorry.”
He gave an exasperated sigh, took a couple of steps toward the door, then paused. “Was it worth it? Did he tell you something that made a difference?”
She hesitated. She wanted to tell him, wanted someone on her side. But she couldn’t. Not without proof. “Nothing that would make a difference.”