“Fair enough.” Mitch nodded. “And if we do take Tom O’Brien into custody, we keep him in our custody. No locals. Federal holding.” He glanced again at his watch. 8:40.
“I think I can work that. I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s all we both can do. Thanks.”
“Now tell me the truth-why do you keep looking at your watch?”
Mitch could have lied, but after bringing Steve over to his way of thinking he needed to lay everything out on the table.
“Claire is meeting me here at nine.”
Steve nodded, as if he knew the complete truth.
“Then I’d better get the hell out of here.”
Nelia was sitting at the table in the dark when Tom walked in with fast food he’d grabbed at a nearby drive-through. He put the food down and said, “Hi.”
She just stared at him with her large eyes, darker in the dim artificial light filtering through the creases in the blinds.
He turned on a light and saw that her eyes were bloodshot. His stomach flipped. The last person he wanted to hurt was the woman who had saved his life, who believed in him.
“You’re angry because I went to Claire’s without you.”
She tilted her head but remained silent.
“You’re angry because I left in the first place.”
Nelia dipped her head in acknowledgment.
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
He sat across from her. “I had to go. I had to see how Claire lived. I had to be near her.”
“I understand that, but we had an agreement. You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie-”
“You planned all along to go on your own. Don’t make it worse by repeating the excuses you thought up on your way back here.”
“You’re right. But you’ve risked so much to help me. I can’t have you risk anything more.”
“That isn’t your choice, is it?”
“I couldn’t live with myself if you got in trouble-or hurt-because you helped me. Nelia, you have to understand that! I’m an escaped convict. They’re not going to play nice if they spot me. To me or anyone with me.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. But this is bigger than you and me, this is about the truth. I never knew the truth about what happened to Justin. Never! His killer was never caught. The police never even had a suspect. There were no similar crimes in the area, nothing in the state, nothing in the damn country that they could find. It was as if some phantom killer walked in, killed my baby, and disappeared. I never knew why. Why Justin? Why me?”
“Nelia-”
“Now I have the chance to find the truth for someone else.” She slammed her fist on the table. “For you. You were a cop. You know the first person they look at when a child disappears? His parents. Andrew and I were under investigation. They had to clear us before they seriously started looking at other potential suspects. For days the police looked at me as if I had killed my son. As if I had something to do with it. And Andrew. Either separately or together. They tried to get me to tell them that I knew my husband had killed Justin, implying that I was protecting Andrew. Then in that stupid good-cop/bad-cop game, a vile detective flat-out said we’d conspired to kill Justin. Why? Why would I kill him? But they didn’t care why, they figured if I’d confess they’d uncover the motive later. Maybe I was just crazy.
“Andrew and I didn’t love each other, but I never believed he could hurt Justin. But for a while, after all the questions, after Andrew’s affair became public, after the police showed me the ph-photos-” Her voice cracked and Tom wanted to wrap his arms around her, but Nelia had never talked of this. Tom doubted she’d spoken to anyone about what happened during the weeks after her son was murdered.
“I thought maybe. . and then I thought about my sister. She was babysitting for me that night. What if she had a boyfriend over? Was protecting him? What if she was part of it?” Nelia’s voice trembled. “I blamed everyone. I know Andrew didn’t kill Justin any more than I did, or Carina, or a phantom boyfriend. But when I saw-” She rubbed her face roughly, squeezed her eyes closed, and sank into the chair. Tom took her hand. She was shaking.
“The crime scene photos.” Her voice was barely a whisper, the anguish in every breath. “And.” She cleared her throat. “For a minute, I looked at Andrew. As a killer.” She opened her eyes, stared at Tom. “I knew he wasn’t. He was far from perfect, but he loved Justin with his whole heart.”
“I hate that you went through that.” Even though Tom understood it all too well.
“I was a suspect because I didn’t have an alibi,” she said. “I was working alone at my office.”
“No one believed-”
“Yes, they did. Strangers believed. People who didn’t know me. And for a while, I thought my family-”
“They didn’t think you’d killed your own child.”
She sighed, some of the pain and anger escaping. “No, but for a while they questioned just like I did. Because there were no suspects, there was no one else, and it came down to why? Why would someone randomly break into a house and steal a child and kill him? It wasn’t a pedophile, he wasn’t abused that way.” Her head fell to the side, downcast, tears streaming down her face.
Tom stood and pulled her up and into his arms, holding her tight. She clasped her arms around him, her body shaking with silent sobs.
Several minutes later, as Tom stroked her hair and murmured soothing nothings in her ear, Nelia said, “I know the pain in your heart, having someone you love think you are guilty. I believe you, Tom. I want Claire to believe you, too.”
Tom found her lips with his, kissed her, tasted the tears caught in the crevice of her lips. His hands fisted in her hair and he gently pushed her down to the bed. The love, the trust, the faith this woman had in him undid him. He didn’t deserve it, but he would protect it with everything he had, including his life.
“I love you, Nelia.”
She whispered in his ear, “You’re the only person who has ever been able to dull the pain in my heart, pain I’ve lived with for twelve years. You saved my soul, Tom. I love you.”
TWELVE
Claire drove to the Fox amp; Goose after changing at her house. The conversation with Dave had depressed her, making it clear that there was no one on her side in this situation. She wished she could confide in Dave, but he was a cop first. Yes, he cared about her, and he had once been close to her father, but she still didn’t expect him to forget that her father was a fugitive. She couldn’t.
But. .
Oliver Maddox’s death couldn’t be a coincidence. She wished she had been thinking clearer when her father cornered her that morning, asked him more questions, like what exactly did Oliver Maddox know?
She swallowed thickly. She had been in no frame of mind then to ask anything coherent. If only she had a way of contacting him, finding out-
Wouldn’t Oliver have kept records? Files? Notes on his thesis? Something where she could pull out threads to follow on her own? But where to start?
She was no longer a scared high school freshman who’d had her entire life blown up. She’d be thirty this year, she had a career, she was smart. She should be able to look at the evidence on her own, dispassionately, to see if maybe there was something-anything-missed the first time around.
What did Oliver see that no one else saw? Where did the Western Innocence Project fit in? Or Professor Collier?
Tomorrow, she’d catch up with Collier in his office bright and early. She didn’t think she’d learn anything by hitting Oliver’s house-the police would have gone through it after the missing person report was filed. But she’d go by, see if something stuck out to her. Talk to Tammy again, ask more questions about Oliver’s thesis and whom he had spoken to. Though she said she hadn’t known any details, Tammy probably knew more than she thought. It was all about asking the right questions. Then Claire would head into the Rogan-Caruso offices and use their vast computer resources to search for more information. Investigation was legwork and questions. And more legwork and more questions until the truth emerged. That she could do. She felt better having a game plan.