“Do you remember what he said to you?”
Wendy repeated their conversation at the diner in a toneless voice, as if she were reading lines for a part she had in a play just to get them memorized and would add the emotion later.
“He didn’t use your last name?” Juliet asked.
“No.”
“When you talked to Juan, you clearly stated that you were my niece?”
“I had to.”
“Of course, you had to, honey. That’s not what I meant. Bobby Tatro and I have a history. He’s the guy I told you about last night. I arrested him when I was working in Syracuse. He just got out of prison. He was a free man. He had a chance to pull his life together. Instead, he decided to come after me.” Juliet tried to sound comforting, but she could hear the tension and regret in her voice—the anger that this man would traumatize a seventeen-year-old girl to exact his revenge. “You got caught in the cross fire, Wendy. I’m sorry.”
“Juan…” She couldn’t seem to say more than that.
Juliet could see him slumped in his tiny office, smell his blood. “It looks as if he got caught in the cross fire, too.”
“I should have told you,” she whispered. “I should have told you about the diner yesterday.”
“That might not have changed anything. We don’t know.”
Rivera rapped a knuckle on the open door. “Your brother’s here, Juliet. The girl’s father.”
But Joshua was already pushing past the chief deputy, ignoring him and his sister as he went straight for his daughter, grabbing her into his arms. She crumpled, sobbing into his wool shirt. He was a big man, and he filled up Juliet’s small bedroom.
“Thank God you’re okay,” he kept repeating, his voice hoarse.
“I shouldn’t have come back here,” Wendy sobbed. “That man might have seen me get off the subway and followed me here.” She raised her head, her face splotchy, tears and snot running down her cheeks, into her mouth. “Juan might still be alive if I’d stayed on the train.”
“Tatro wasn’t after you,” Juliet said. “He’d have—”
Joshua glared at her. “Stay out of this, Juliet.”
“Dad—stop. Juliet saved my life.”
But Juliet understood her brother. If she’d taken up landscaping the way everyone had expected—if she’d stayed home in Vermont—his daughter wouldn’t be in New York in the first place. She wouldn’t have had to use her wits to get out of a bad situation with a sadistic ex-con. She wouldn’t have to deal with murder.
Never mind that Joshua was a state trooper who faced similar risks—then, he was in control. For the past twenty-four hours, he’d had no control whatsoever. He was powerless, and Juliet knew he hated that feeling as much as she did. At the moment, with his frightened daughter in his arms, maybe more.
Rivera motioned to her with one hand. “Come out here with me.”
Juliet left her brother to console Wendy in his way and joined the chief deputy out in the hall.
“Joe Collins found a fish under the couch,” Rivera said, leading her back to the kitchen. “It ended up in this little puddle, just one of those things. He’s proud of himself for saving it.”
“Good for him,” Juliet said dully.
“And he found this.” Rivera pointed to a small tin on the counter. “It looks likes somebody’s ashes.”
“What? Mike, for God’s sake—”
“You look. You’ll see what I mean.”
Juliet frowned at him, but he reached past her and lifted the loosened lid off the tin.
Ashes, indeed.
She moaned, sinking against the counter.
Teddy.
“Ah, hell, Mike.” She fought a surge of unwanted tears. “The ashes have got to be Wendy’s dog. He died a few weeks ago. Sixteen-year-old golden retriever. They had him cremated.”
“Must be what she came back here for.” Rivera rubbed the back of his neck, looking pained. “Kid’s been carrying around her dog’s ashes. I’ve got five daughters, Longstreet. Trust me. The father’s not going to understand.”
“About the ashes or about my work putting Wendy in this situation?”
“Take your pick.”
“If she’d been a boy maybe he wouldn’t freak out.”
“You see a seventeen-year-old boy taking off to New York with his dead dog’s ashes in a cracker tin?”
Juliet sniffed back any tears. Damned if she’d cry in front of Rivera. “Wendy’s a gentle soul.”
“Well, she handled herself admirably today. She got through this thing alive. That’s all that matters.” He sighed at the tin. “She’ll want to know the ashes are intact. Her father’s your older brother, right?”
“All my brothers are older.”
Rivera squinted at her, as if he was suddenly seeing her for the first time since arriving at her apartment. “Do you need to see a doctor? That bastard twist your arm or anything? Sometimes you don’t feel it until later.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what you said in May when you had a couple of cracked ribs and a road rash from hell.”