“So you were shocked when they wound up in this hotel?” Jane went on, ignoring Robyn’s last question. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, of course!” Robyn leaned forward, beseeching, convincing. “You were there, Jane, when Lewis called! To finally say where he was, to tell me to let you come reclaim my darling Gracie-”
She stopped. The white-walled room went still.
“What, Mrs. Wilhoite?” Jake’s voice was even, calm, hard as onyx. Jane knew exactly what was coming.
Robyn’s eyes searched the room floor to ceiling, then side to side, a frantic sparrow searching for a way out. Then she sat up straight, shoulders squared, back not touching the curved metal of the chair.
“Where is she?” she demanded. “What have you done with her?”
“Yeah, interesting you brought that up.” DeLuca looked at his watch, as if he’d been calculating the time. “Wondered when you’d ask about her.”
“She’s fine,” Jake said. “She’s with her father. Daniel Fasullo.”
Robyn rolled her eyes. “I want to go,” she said. “So tell them, Jane, tell them-”
“But why did you come here, Robyn?” Jane almost felt like crying. Her voice wasn’t quite working. She was tired and stressed, yes, but this story was such a wretched one. “You said Lewis would give Gracie only to me. Why didn’t you just let that happen and let it all be over?”
“He called again, while you were gone,” Robyn said. “Told me he’d changed his mind, that I had to come. He demanded I come. He insisted that he and I had to talk it out, face-to-face. He sounded horrible, ugly, I know how he gets. I tried to call you but-”
“But?” Jane said. She felt one eyebrow go up.
“I kept getting the wrong number, I don’t know,” Robyn said dismissively. “You know phones.”
“So it was a surprise to you that Lewis chose this particular hotel?” Jake had pretty much stayed out of it so far. Now he took a step forward, his right arm almost touching Jane’s left. Jane didn’t move. Letting him play the card. “Mrs. Wilhoite? A surprise?”
“Yes, of course. Tell them, Jane. You were there. You heard the call.”
Jane kept her expression even. No wonder Jake closed cases. He was methodically reeling Robyn in. But Jane had thought of asking about the room reservation. He owed her one.
“I heard you,” Jane said again. She mentally replayed their conversations, the phone calls, one after the other. Remembering. “Not Lewis.”
“Well, whatever!” Robyn waved her off. “And then I got here, and went to his room. And he was completely out of it, drunk, I think, and crazy and demanding and-”
“Was Gracie there?” Jake asked.
“Yes. No. When?” Robyn shifted in her chair, then seemed to gather herself. She clasped her hands in her lap, the picture of maternal virtue. “No, when I arrived she was-I don’t know. Wherever Lewis hid her!”
“I see,” Jane said. Jane thought of Gracie at the palm trees, Gracie not expecting her. Gracie aimless and bored. She’d been sent away. On purpose. By who?
“And then what?” Jake asked.
“And then Lewis, or whatever his name really is, pulled out a gun and tried to shoot me! What do you think?” Her voice tightened, rising pitch by pitch as she talked. “So I kicked him and grabbed the gun-he’s such a fool-and he came at me and I had to shoot him. He would have killed me! What else was I supposed to do? You know it! You know it! I was defending myself and my daughter. Jane, you know this! He was going to take her!”
60
“Mom?” Tenley’s rear hurt from sitting on the long wooden bench in the waiting room. She was thinking so hard, it seemed like it made her heavier, the weight of everything on her shoulders and in her brain. There could not be any secret video of her doing anything wrong or embarrassing. Because she’d never done anything. So what had her father been trying to protect her-and their family-from?
The sign on the wall was a circular seal of Boston, like the one in her mother’s office and the one on the wall in her own stupid office, the surveillance room. But underneath this one, the blocky black letters spelled OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER. The police officer, that Sergeant Naka, had asked them to wait here in the little lobby place. “Ten minutes,” she said, looking at a round clock on the wall. The kind with big black numbers and big black pointing arrows. It actually gave a little click as each second went by.
Tenley wondered if time could stop, maybe. Just stop. Or rewind, erase, and start over. The video of their lives, take two. But in real life there were no second chances.
Behind the closed blank metal door, Tenley knew, was her father’s body. Mom had already identified him. The police had called, saying they’d come talk to her later. Mom was really upset.
Now they had to wait for the “effects.” What Dad had in his pockets. She almost couldn’t breathe thinking about that, because some of it was supposed to be about her, but she couldn’t let her mother face this alone. Mom, who was now holding Tenley’s hand maybe for the first time in ten years, stared at the space in front of her. Tenley kind of wanted to let go, but when she gave a little tug, her mom held on tighter.
Brileen sat on the other side of her, clutching her laptop bag as always. Why had she even come along? Tenley still couldn’t decide if Brileen was good or bad. She’d only tried to help, she’d told them. Everything she did was to try to help. But Brileen had made a bunch of really shitty decisions.
Tenley knew how that felt.
Thing was. What Tenley had been thinking about so hard this whole time and throughout the silent drive from City Hall to the medical examiner’s office. The video of Lanna.
“Mom?” Tenley said again. She kept her voice low. It seemed like the thing to do in a place full of dead people.
“Yes, honey?”
Her mom turned, looked over at her, shifted a bit on the bench but still didn’t unclasp her hand. Mom was off in some other world, seemed like, and was almost whispering, too. The clock ticked, one hand moved ahead a little space.
“I know you don’t want to look at the thumb drive video of Lanna,” Tenley said. “Neither do I. But what if it’s connected? What if the person on the video is the person who killed her?”
“No one killed Lanna, Ten.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears. “It was an accident.”
“But why was she in the woods?” Tenley had to make Mom at least think about this. “What if she was meeting-whoever it was? And what if that’s who’s on the video? You know what I mean. The horrible video and the boyfriend and the money. And Dad.” Tenley paused, knowing she was running all her words together. “What happened to Dad. Maybe it’s all connected.”
Silence. Except for the stupid clock.
Tenley felt Brileen shift in her seat again, probably embarrassed and humiliated by the whole thing. It was Brileen’s fault, really, some of it, at least.
“You said she had a boyfriend.” Mom interrupted Tenley’s thoughts.
“Yes,” Brileen said.
“Yes,” Tenley said at the same time.
“But you don’t know who it is? Was?”
“No.” They answered separately this time. Tenley remembered even the police couldn’t find him.
Brileen slid farther away, got as close to the end of the bench as possible.
The clock ticked again, so loudly Tenley wondered if it was her imagination. Nothing could be that loud. Six minutes to go.
“Brileen,” Mom said, “may I use your laptop?”
Jane felt the vibration of her phone through her tote bag, even heard its insistent buzz in the padded silence of the supply room. All eyes were still on wild-eyed Robyn, who’d paused in her tirade. She was watching Jake and DeLuca and the other cop, watching Jane, obviously gauging their reactions.