“I suspected,” Jack said.
“I want to help her. But how?”
Jack looked across at the drawings on the fridge again. “Maybe it’s like when a child finds out they’re adopted. Suddenly they have to go back, re-imagine their entire life as it might have been. Their first instinct is to try and find out who they really are, where they come from.”
“I’m her mother. She came from me,” Laura said sharply. Jack finished off the last of his coffee. He pushed out his chair a little, ready to get going.
“You want some more coffee?” Laura asked, rising to grab the pot.
Jack shook his head. “I really should get back. We’re holding a suspect in custody.” Laura refilled his cup anyway.
“Can I ask you a question?” Jack shrugged and waited. “How long have you had it?” Jack played dumb. She sat back down, not taking her eyes off him. “I know what cancer looks like.”
Jack’s eyes slowly drifted from hers down to his coffee. “My father had it,” Laura continued, “thin as his sheets when he died.”
“They didn’t tell me how long I’ve had it, just how long I will have it.”
“I’m sorry,” Laura said. Jack shrugged indifferently.
“When did your father pass away?” Jack asked.
“Last June. It took him getting sick for us to finally reconcile.” Laura let out a long sigh. “He had scotch for breakfast. I left home to escape the abuse, then married into it. When my father got sick, I refused to visit. Until he was admitted to the hospital. I figured… I could keep my distance there.”
Laura sniffled, containing it. She saw Jack was still listening so she continued, “I saw that big, frightening force reduced to a helpless pile of bones. I almost felt sorry for him. And for the first time, we actually had a normal conversation, father-daughter.” Laura remembered something and smiled. “He commented on how nice my hair looked.” She puffed air at the thought, drifting back. “He never paid me a compliment my whole life. It was such a simple gesture…”
Jack watched her fingers as they nervously traced the handle on her coffee cup over and over. Clearly, he was the first person she had opened up to about this.
“I realized, all this time… he was just a prisoner in a bottle. I know it’s not an excuse to justify what he did — how he treated us — but that’s how I was able to forgive him. The day they prepped him for surgery, I had to work late. I arrived just as they were wheeling him into the operating room. He smiled, ‘See ya soon.’ I wanted to say I love you so badly, but all that came out was ‘good luck.’”
Jack nodded, knowing how the story will end.
“When the doctor came out, I just knew. My father was a very bitter man. Looking back, he wasn’t blessed with much luck in his life. Just one disappointment after another. I think, in the end, that bitterness ate him up inside.”
Jack’s face was still as he listened.
Laura exhaled; telling that story took a lot out of her, but sharing it also seemed to lift a weight from her shoulders. “How’s your family taking it?” she asked. Jack simply shrugged. “Don’t you have any family?”
“…I have a brother.”
“Does he help out?”
“We don’t speak.”
“Why?”
Jack rolled his tongue over his front teeth. “Long story.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger.” Laura leaned forward and gently placed her soft hand atop his. It was warm.
He looked into her eyes. “I don’t consider you a stranger.” Laura smiled a satisfied smile. Jack scratched at his 5 o’clock shadow and pursed his lips, hesitating, searching for the words.
“About 12 years ago, we were at a restaurant, it was my birthday. Me, him, his wife Trish, and my wife…Sarah.” It pained Jack just to speak her name. “We were all pretty liquored up. I got called in to the station. I should have never answered the page. My brother said he’d drive Sarah home. I was so wrapped up in my case, I didn’t—” Jack beat himself up emotionally, clenching his fist and lifting it to his forehead, tapping it. “They stayed late. He dropped Trish off, then drove Sarah home. Trish asked her to just stay the night, but she had to get up for work in the morning. My brother was in no shape to drive.”
Jack rubbed his nose and cleared his throat, which was getting dry. “I got a call at the station. Their car had veered into oncoming traffic.”
Laura covered her mouth with her fingertips. “Oh God,” she whispered.
“When I arrived at the hospital, Sarah was in surgery.” Jack’s face hardened, recounting this caused him physical pain. “Standing next to me in the lobby were two sisters discussing their father. He’d been shot during a holdup at his jewelry store. The bullet miraculously missed his heart. They praised God for watching over him. At that same moment, the surgeon came out and told me they had done all they could…but my wife was gone.”
Jack looked at Laura. “All I can remember thinking was…does that mean God wasn’t watching over Sarah? Didn’t God love my wife too?”
The emotion hung thick in the air. Jack’s head bobbed a little, the memory coursing sorrow through his veins. “My brother and I never spoke again. I wouldn’t even let him attend her funeral.”
“You haven’t spoken in 12 years?”
“Actually, I’m going to be an uncle.”
“Then now’s your chance.”
“For what?”
“To make things right.”
Jack shook his head. “Never thought I’d be afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Dying.”
Laura got up and moved to the chair beside him. She held his hand again. Her touch eased Jack’s blood pressure, his tight shoulders relaxed. “Don’t carry that anger with you,” she said with the softest of voices. It was like silk to Jack’s ears; angelic, like the voice from his dream. “Get rid of it, while there’s still time.”
Jack gazed into Laura’s eyes. No one had listened to him in a long while. Laura was thinking the same thing. There was a feeling of mutual respect and empathy, they had connected on a deep level. Jack contemplated kissing her; he felt his body leaning forward.
Just then his phone rang, shattering the moment. He answered it.
“Ridge.”
“Jack, where are you?” Harrington said.
“What is it?” Jack asked. Laura sensed the urgency in his voice and stood up to give him some space.
“Teresa Mason is dead.”
Jack nodded solemnly. “I’m on my way.”
Jack pushed out his chair and stood up wincing, his legs had fallen asleep. “I have to go.”
“Are you gonna be okay?”
Jack nodded. “Laura, if you need anything…” This time he touched her arm.
“I was going to say the same to you.”
He grimaced and exited the kitchen. As he passed through the living room, he spotted Rebecca curled up asleep on the couch. He slipped past her quietly.
He took Carmen’s gold necklace out from his coat pocket and placed it on the table beside her. As he closed the front door, Rebecca opened her eyes.
CHAPTER 51
Jennifer greeted Jack at the front entrance of the precinct to walk him in. He sensed an urgency at her presence.
“About time,” Jennifer said, “after Harrington confronted him with news of Teresa’s death, he started babbling about how lucky we were.”