“Want a soda?”
“No,” he snapped. He’d wanted time alone with Amy’s memory. He certainly didn’t want to stand around and chat with her lover, a man he didn’t even like.
“Good work catching Driscoll. I was impressed.”
Zack grunted. “You’re not going to get me to comment on the case, Kirby.”
“I don’t want you to. I have enough stuff to write a different article every day for a month.” Kirby drained his soda and put the empty can in a bag. “Maybe this was fate, or divine intervention, or something. That we’re both here at the same time.”
Zack rolled his eyes. “Just my dumb luck.”
“You didn’t like me because I dated your baby sister.”
“I didn’t like you because you were a cocky reporter who made cops look incompetent. And,” he added reluctantly, “because you dated my baby sister.”
Zack sat down on the other side of the headstone. “And, because you knew what she was up to and didn’t tell me.”
“I promised Amy I wouldn’t.”
“And she ended up dead.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that, Travis. I’ve thought about it every day of the last six years. I loved Amy and I miss her terribly. But there’s something you need to understand.”
Zack looked at Kirby. Saw the anger and sadness in his eyes, emotions that mirrored his own feelings whenever he thought about Amy.
“What do I need to understand?”
“Amy believed in what she was doing. She didn’t want you to know. She pleaded with me to keep her secret. She thought you wouldn’t let her see it through.
“When her best friend died of a drug overdose, it changed Amy in ways I don’t think you ever fully understood. Maybe because you were her big brother, the cop who always saw the world in black and white, maybe because you tried to protect her from not only others but herself, I don’t know. But Amy made it her mission to get kids off drugs. She worked as a drug counselor for years.”
“She had to for her probation after being arrested for dealing.”
“That sentence was five hundred hours’ community service. She became a certified counselor and put in thousands of free hours helping kids get off and stay off drugs.” Kirby paused, ran a hand over her name. “Amy learned that one of her mentors, a woman she trusted implicitly, was dealing at the same time she was counseling. She went to the local DEA office. I went with her. After several months of investigation, they couldn’t get anywhere, so they agreed with Amy’s plan that she would infiltrate the organization and see what she could learn. Amy and I staged a public breakup and she went to this woman in tears, threatening suicide, a bunch of stuff. This woman offered her some heroin to ‘take the edge off.’ Knowing full well that if Amy started up again, it would be twice as hard-maybe impossible-to quit.
“I didn’t like everything Amy was doing, but I stood by her because stopping this drug pusher was important to her. And the more she learned about the Seattle drug trade, the more she wanted to put a big hole in it.”
“She never told me,” Zack said. And it hurt. “She didn’t trust me.” And that hurt even more.
“I don’t think it was a matter of trust.”
“What else could it be? I was a cop, dammit! I could have protected her!”
“Protected her, perhaps. But they would have smelled something rotten if you started hanging around.”
“I’m better than that.”
“You’re not discreet, Travis.”
“Dammit, this was my sister’s life you were playing with!”
“It was her choice. Her decision. She knew the risks, but she was willing to take them on herself.” Kirby paused, looked Zack in the eye. “Maybe it was a matter of trust. Not that she didn’t trust you, but she knew you didn’t trust her.”
“That’s not true.”
“You didn’t give her many chances. One screwup and she was walking on hot coals around you.”
“She was arrested for dealing drugs, Kirby. It wasn’t a little screwup.”
“Before that. When you first found out she was on drugs, you laid down the law. Because Zack Travis makes no mistakes.”
“Dammit, that’s not true. I made a hell of a lot of mistakes when I was a teenager. I didn’t want Amy to fall into the same traps. I got out, but other people don’t.”
“And she was weaker than you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No? You could ‘get out’ of the gutter, but Amy couldn’t? Not without the big macho cop throwing his weight around?”
Kirby stood and packed up what had obviously been a picnic.
“Travis, I promised Amy that I would help get you to understand. She died before she had a chance to explain herself. To convince you she was worthy of your love and respect.”
“I always loved her.” Zack pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes hot with unshed tears.
“Yeah,” Kirby said softly. “I know you did. Deep down so did Amy.”
“God, I hope so.” He swallowed the hot sting of tears. What if Amy didn’t know how much he loved her? He’d just wanted to protect her.
“I tried to talk to you after Amy died, but you never wanted to listen.”
“I blamed you for what happened.” Zack paused. “And myself. I was more to blame than anyone.”
“The killer was the one to blame. The drug dealers were to blame. Not me, and certainly not you, Travis.” Kirby slung his backpack over his shoulder and stared at Zack. “Amy credited you with her life turnaround. Yeah, she gave you a rough time, but she loved you. If it weren’t for you, she would never have had the courage to get off drugs. You were there when she really needed you.”
As Kirby walked away, he said, “By the way, I gave my notice to the Times. I hate my editor. Everything you think I wrote about you, I didn’t. I just wanted you to know that before I left Seattle.”
Zack turned to Amy’s grave. He sat in the spot Kirby had vacated and stared. He ran his hand over the engraved name.
Amy Elizabeth Forster.
Amy had their mother’s maiden name. She never knew her mother, or her father. Zack was all she had, and he’d failed her in so many ways. But maybe not in the ways he’d always thought.
Now alone, he let the tears fall.
“Amy, I’m sorry we never talked. Really talked. I’m sorry I was such a domineering jackass that you thought I didn’t trust you. Maybe-maybe I didn’t. But I was wrong. I’m proud of you, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”
He pictured Olivia falling down the crevice, jumping from a moving vehicle. The cut on her neck; the wound over her heart.
If something happened to Olivia, he would feel just as lost and alone as he did now. With her, he’d felt complete. She was smart and sexy and wise.
And he loved her.
Was he a fool to hold her deception against her? To use her lie as an excuse to force her from his life?
Could he forgive her?
He envisioned Olivia as she was on Friday, looking at the house she’d grown up in, a house full of grief.
I’m glad the house finally found a real family.
He wanted a real family. He wanted the life he’d been denied by a selfish mother.
He wanted his family to start with Olivia.
CHAPTER 33
Miranda and Olivia were glued to the news while Quinn was on the phone with his boss getting the details.
Jennifer Benedict’s father had shot and killed Chris Driscoll as he was being transported from the sheriff’s substation to the county jail. The Slayer was dead.
Olivia certainly didn’t feel sorry for Driscoll, but she ached for the man who’d lost his daughter, and now his freedom.
But perhaps his freedom meant nothing with his only child dead.
The doorbell rang, and Olivia jumped. After learning about Hall last night, she was on edge. The late-night phone call with Zack hadn’t calmed her nerves. She kept replaying the conversation in her mind, wondering what she should have said. What she could have said to make Zack understand.