“I guess we’ll talk later. When it all … fades.”
“I don’t think it will fade for us, George, but yes, later would be good. Right now I better get my girl home.” Despite her best intentions, her voice caught on that. My girl. “Our girl, I mean.”
He reached out cautiously, touched Alice’s back. His dark hand looked huge between her shoulder blades. “I never stopped loving her.”
Julia closed her eyes.
She couldn’t think about this now or she’d fall apart. With a mumbled apology, she turned away from him and walked briskly toward her truck.
She was almost to the sidewalk when she saw Max.
Light from the nearby street lamp cascaded down on him, made his hair look silvery white. His face was all shadows.
Slowly, he crossed the street toward her. His boot heels were loud on the worn, bumpy asphalt; each step matched the beating of her heart.
He moved in close, the way lovers did. “Are you okay?”
Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the tears from flooding her eyes. “No.”
He took Alice from her and put the sleeping child in her car seat. Then he did the only thing he could do: he took Julia in his arms and let her cry.
By the time Ellie finished writing her report and sending out faxes and e-mailing the right agencies, she was exhausted.
She pushed away from her desk, sighing heavily. It was only ten o’clock, but it felt much later.
There was nothing more she could do tonight, so she got up slowly and walked through the station, turning off lights as she went. The off-site 911 service was probably besieged with questions. It was something she’d deal with tomorrow.
Outside, the night was still and quiet. A slight breeze tugged at her hair and made the fallen leaves dance along the rough sidewalk.
She was almost to her cruiser when she noticed George. He was leaning against a streetlamp. He wore no coat; he must be freezing.
She went to him.
He didn’t look up at her approach.
Ellie had never been good with words and none came to her now.
He looked at her. “All the big city cops who followed me around, and it was you who found the truth.”
“I had Alice.” Ellie remembered a moment too late. “Brittany.”
He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. It wasn’t a romantic kiss, but still she felt its impact.
In other days, other times, this feeling would have been enough to make her reach for him, to deepen the kiss into Something. Now, instead, she drew back.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“It doesn’t change everything,” she said, hearing the crack in her own voice. “Alice needs my sister. Without her …”
“She’s my daughter. Can you understand that?”
Ellie’s voice, when it finally arrived, was barely there. This was the place truth had sent them. “Yeah. I know.”
TWENTY-FIVE
By three o’clock the next day all of the major network and cable news channels were interrupting regularly scheduled broadcasts to report on the discovery of Zo Azelle’s body in the deep woods of Washington State. Crime lab analysis had confirmed her identity, as well as that of the man who’d been there, too. His name was Terrance Spec, and he’d had a long history of problems with the law. He’d been convicted of first-degree rape twice. He’d also been a suspect in all those Spokane prostitute disappearances a few years ago, but no solid evidence had ever turned suspicion into probable cause. He’d been killed in September—a hit-and-run accident on Highway 101.
Every newspaper and radio station and television show proclaimed George Azelle’s innocence.
The jury system had failed, they said. A man everyone from waitresses to senators had blown off as a “guilty son of a bitch” had been innocent. Pundits from CNN and Court TV—especially Nancy Grace, who’d called him a vicious sociopath with a killer smile—were busy wiping the egg from their made-up faces.
Now, George stood at the podium in the police station with his lawyer. They’d been answering the same questions all afternoon. The revelation that the wolf girl—so easily discarded as sensationalism by them only a few weeks before—was his daughter only fueled the fire. The headline LIVING PROOF was even now being inked across millions of newspapers.
Ellie stood at the back wall, shoulder-to-shoulder between Cal and Peanut, watching the show.
She felt Cal’s gaze on her. In fact, he’d been watching her too closely all day. Wherever she went, he was there, standing by but saying nothing. “What?”
“What what?”
Peanut laughed. “You two are gonna have to quit with the philosophical discussions. I can’t keep up.”
Ellie ignored her friend. “What, Cal?” she said, irritated.
“Nothing.”
“If you’ve got something on your mind, you might as well spit it out. We’ve been friends long enough that I know when you’re pissed off about something. What did I do?”