“I don’t want to talk to anybody,” Lesley said.
“Fine. I’ll listen to the messages.”
Rose sat down on the bed, hesitated for a moment, then found the correct button. Lesley continued to stuff the suitcase, only half listening when the messages started to roll. As she suspected, nothing but people wanting a piece of the cyberterrorist’s girlfriend.
Then one voice caused Lesley to stop with a pair of pajamas in her hand.
“Hi, it’s Tim. Dad said you called. Sorry I missed you. You can call me back at home.”
Lesley blinked. She didn’t remember calling Tim. Her mother gave her a triumphant look.
“See?” Rose said. “I told you they wouldn’t all be reporters.”
Lesley threw her mother a look of annoyance. “Do you have to be such a know-it-all?”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“You’ve been this way ever since Rob was arrested. Like you know exactly what I should do.”
Rose’s mouth pursed into a small rosebud. “Well, after all, you’re so happy. Who would need any help in your circumstances?”
Lesley threw the pajamas into the suitcase in an untidy ball.
“See?” she said. “You’ve got an answer for everything.”
“I thought mothers were supposed to help.”
“Like telling me to abandon Rob?”
“I never said you should—”
“That is what you think, right? I should just walk away, forget about him.”
Rose hesitated. She looked like she was trying to choose her words carefully. “You’ve been hurt badly,” she said after a moment. “You need to start healing.”
“Then you should be happy. Rob and I broke up this morning.”
Rose looked immediately at Lesley’s hand. “You’re not wearing the ring.”
“I gave it back to him.”
Rose’s face flooded with astonishment.
“Oh, Lesley.”
“Satisfied?”
“Why are you so angry at me?” Rose said. “I only want what’s best for you.”
“Meaning I shouldn’t make the same mistakes you did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I need shampoo,” Lesley said. She headed for the hallway and the bathroom. Her mother followed.
“Don’t walk away from me like that,” Rose said. She cornered Lesley in the tiny bathroom. “What mistakes are you talking about?”
Lesley stopped rooting through the drawer next to the sink and let her head drop.
“I was there, remember?” she said. “I heard you and Dad fighting all the time.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It wasn’t just him. You had a role in it, too.”
“In what?”
Lesley began gathering up her toiletries but had to stop when her hands started to shake and her eyes brimmed with tears. She leaned on the bathroom counter for support and squeezed her eyes shut.
“I’ve always wondered,” she said with a small, quavery voice, “if he would have killed himself if we had … figured out what he needed or helped him or … something.”
Rose’s eyes grew wide and she stood with her mouth in a surprised “oh” shape for a few seconds. Finally she said, “You think it was my fault?”
Lesley couldn’t bring herself to look at her mother. “I don’t know.”
“Lesley, your father was—”
“Just like Rob. I know.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“That’s what you think, though.”
“I think you’ve got some mixed-up ideas about what happened to your father.”
Lesley used some toilet paper to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“Most of what your father and I went through happened behind closed doors,” Rose said, “after you and Michael were in bed. You don’t know the demons he fought with and you have no idea how hard I tried to help him.”
“All I ever saw was you yelling at him.”
“I shielded you and your brother from most of it. And after he … well after he was gone, I did my best to help the two of you get through it.”
“What if all he needed was someone to understand what he was going through?”
“I tried that,” Rose said. “When that didn’t work I drew lines in the sand. I pleaded with him, insisted on counseling. None of it did any good.”
“But I didn’t do anything. I mean, on the day he died I went off to school like it was just a normal day.”
Rose was shaking her head. “You were just a kid.”
“I’m not a kid anymore,” Lesley said.
“No, but—”
“And I didn’t help Rob.”
Lesley looked plaintively at her mother. “How could I not know he was headed for trouble?” she said, her voice wavering again. “I didn’t notice anything. I … what if he needed me to … oh, God.”
Lesley’s face crumpled again. Rose bit her lip and tears started to leak silently from her eyes. She stepped forward and put her arms around her daughter. Lesley leaned in and they melted together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rob’s interrogation was well into the second hour before he figured it out. By then his brain was a fog of aches and pains. Blood ran down his chin. Both shoulders screamed from the repeated pounding and from his inability to shift position.
At times Landry’s voice bit into Rob’s consciousness as if he were shouting through a bullhorn, demanding information over and over again. There were also long periods when Rob’s body was so consumed with the agony that his overworked senses threatened to shut down and Landry faded into a distant drone. Rob might have passed out a time or two, he wasn’t sure.
At one point his thoughts cleared long enough for Rob to recognize the truth; he was going to die in that chair. Strangely enough, the thought gave him an edge, a growing resolve. If he only had a short time left, then he was going to wake up and pay attention. Even an existence filled with pain and misery can be precious when it’s all that’s left.
Landry sat in front of Rob, tapping the silenced pistol contemplatively in the palm of one hand. He seemed to be regarding Rob with all the sympathy of a boy in middle school dissecting a frog in biology class.
“We can stop any time you want,” Landry said. “You need to let go of your pride, son. There’s no other way out. You have to recognize that.”
Rob tried to clear his throat, which resulted in a spasm of coughing when he swallowed more blood from his nose.
“Have I mentioned you have an incredibly ugly mustache?” Rob said. Even this minor defiance made Rob feel better.
Landry didn’t seem perturbed by Rob’s words.
“Oh, he’s feeling tough. Well let me tell you how this is going to go if it drags on much longer.” Landry smirked at him. “Have you ever really been thirsty Rob? I’m talking so thirsty your throat starts to close in and your body goes hunting around for fluid reserves. I’ve been there. Believe me, it’s no fun. When you get like that, you’d sell your own mother for a drink of water. And I’ll be right here, sipping on a beer. You see, I figured we might be here a while so I came prepared.”
He gestured over Rob’s shoulder toward the parking area outside the building.
“I’ve got food and drinks in the car. Enough to last a couple of days if that’s what it takes. The beer’s probably warm by now, but I’m sure it’ll taste fine. What do you say? Tell me the keyword and it’ll be Miller time. I’ll go get us a couple of cans and we can each have one before we go on our merry ways.”
Rob’s throat had gone incredibly dry while Landry was talking. He hadn’t felt thirsty before, but now his body cried out for a drink. Rob realized this was just one more tactic to make him miserable. He willed himself to stop thinking about water — and his throat grew drier still.