“She saved my life. That’s what she does. She’s strong like that. She’d never just let me go. She would have held on no matter what, even if I took her down with me. And now, well, it’s my turn to hold on. Do you get that?”
Kat nodded slowly. “I do.”
“I’m sorry, Kat. I should have showed you the texts. But if I had, you’d have never listened.”
“Speaking of which.”
“What?”
“You only showed me the one text. There were two.”
He pressed a few buttons on his phone and handed it to her. The text read:
Having a wonderful time. Can’t wait to tell you all about it. I have a big surprise too. Phone reception is terrible. Miss you.
Kat handed him back the phone. “Big surprise. Any idea what that means?”
“No.”
Her cell phone rang. Talk about the perfect interruption—Kat could see from the caller ID that her mother was calling. “I’ll be right back,” Kat said.
She ducked into the bedroom, wondering how long her own mother would last in a riptide, and answered. “Hey, Mom.”
“Ooh, I hate that,” her mother said.
“Hate what?”
Her voice was raspy from too many years of cigarettes. “That you know it’s me before you pick up.”
“It pops up on the caller ID. I’ve explained this to you before.”
“I know, I know, but really, can’t some things remain a mystery? Do we really need to know everything?”
Kat held back the sigh but allowed herself the eye roll. She could picture her mom in that old kitchen with the linoleum floor, standing up, using one of those old wall-mount phones that had yellowed from ivory too many years ago. The phone would be tucked under her chin. There would be a half glass of cheap Chablis in her hand, the rest of the jug back in the fridge to keep it cold. A vinyl tablecloth with faux crochet would be covering the kitchen table. A glass ashtray would, Kat had no doubt, be perched atop it. The peeling wallpaper had a flower pattern, though many of the blooms had also turned pale yellow over the years.
When you live with a smoker, everything starts to take on a yellowish hue.
“Are you coming or not?” Mom asked.
Kat could hear the drink in her mother’s voice. It was not an unfamiliar sound.
“Coming where, Mom?”
Hazel Donovan—she and Kat’s father used to call themselves and sign all their correspondences H&H for Hazel and Henry, as if this were the cleverest thing in the world—didn’t bother to hide the sigh.
“Steve Schrader’s retirement party.”
“Oh, right.”
“You get time off for that, you know. The precinct has to do that.”
They didn’t—Mom had all kinds of weird ideas about the lax rules for cops, all gathered in the era of her father and her husband—but Kat didn’t bother correcting her.
“I’m really busy, Mom.”
“Everyone will be there. The whole neighborhood. I’m going with Flo and Tessie.”
The Trinity of Cop Widows.
Kat said, “I’m working on a pretty big case.”
“Tim McNamara is bringing his son. He’s a doctor, you know.”
“He’s a chiropractor.”
“So what? They call him doctor. And a chiropractor was so good with your uncle Al. You remember?”
“I do.”
“The man could barely move. Remember?”
She did. Uncle Al had gotten worker’s comp for a work-related injury at the Orange Mattress factory. Two weeks later, this chiropractor healed him. It was nothing short of a miracle.
“And Tim’s son is so handsome. He looks like that guy on The Price Is Right.”
“Thanks for the invite, Mom, but I’m going to have to pass, okay?”
Silence.
“Mom?”
Now Kat thought that maybe she heard gentle sobs. She waited. Her mother called only late at night—drunk, slurring her words. The call could consist of many things. There might be sarcasm. There might be bitterness or anger. There was always a mother-daughter guilt trip.
But Kat didn’t remember ever hearing sobs.
“Mom?” she tried again, her voice softer now.
“He died, didn’t he?”
“Who?”
“That man. The one who ruined our lives.”
Monte Leburne. “How did you hear?”
“Bobby Suggs told me.”
Suggs. One of the two lead detectives on the case. He was retired, living not far from Mom. Mike Rinsky, the other detective, had died three years ago, sudden coronary.
“I hope it was painful,” Mom said.
“I think it was. He had cancer.”
“Kat?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“You should have been the one to tell me.”
Fair point. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“We should have gotten together. We should have sat at the kitchen table like we used to do, like we did when we first heard. Your father would have wanted that.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll visit soon.”
Hazel Donovan hung up then. This was how it always went too. There was never a good-bye. There was just a hang-up.
Dana Phelps had been missing a day or two before her son noticed and started to worry. Kat wondered how long her mother could go missing. Weeks maybe. It wouldn’t be Kat who’d notice. It would be Flo or Tessie.
She made a quick call to Joe Schwartz in Greenwich and asked him to e-mail her the ATM video. “Crap,” he said. “I don’t want to get involved. My captain chewed my ass off for taking it this far.”
“I just need the video. That’s all. Once Brandon sees his mother, I think it’ll help calm him down.”
Schwartz took a few moments. “All right, but that’s it, okay? And I can’t e-mail it to you. I’ll e-mail you a secure link. It’ll be good for the next hour.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Kat came back out into the living room. “Sorry,” she said to Brandon, “I had to take that call.”
“Who was it?”
She was about to tell him that it was none of his business but decided to go in another direction. “I want to show you something.”
“What?”
She beckoned Brandon toward her computer and checked her e-mail. Two minutes later, the message from Joe Schwartz came up. The subject read: Per your request. The message was only a link.