Charlie tucked her chin to her chest and turned away.
“Little kids aren’t supposed to be tough, though, are they?” Kit said.
Charlie’s whole face turned upside down, and she sobbed like she’d been holding it in all her life. Kit pulled her into her arms and held her daughter tight, squeezed her with all the love in her heart. The pain soon overwhelmed her so that she had to let Charlie go and lie back down. All at once, the pain subsided, and a heavy, peaceful feeling coursed through her body.
“The nurse said hit it when you get to three,” Charlie said, the morphine drip button in her hand. “She said it was okay. You’ll feel better soon.”
Kit nodded minutely, eyes closed. “I’m just going to rest for a bit,” she said.
“Okay,” Charlie said, her eyes blotchy and swollen from tears. “I’ll be here.”
Charlie pulled the chair closer to the bed. Before she drifted off, Kit pulled back the blanket and patted the space next to her. Charlie climbed in, ever so carefully, and curled up in the warm bay of her mother’s lap.
Chapter Forty-Six
Later that day, Kit cracked her eyes, rubbed away a mortar of goop, and found Caleb in the armchair next to her, perfectly upright, eyes closed. She could tell by the slow drag of his breath that he was sleeping. Her heartbeat sped up, and she wasn’t sure if it was from injury or because of how oddly endearing he looked there, dozing like a horse.
“Where’s Charlie?” she asked.
His eyes flitted open. “Hi,” he said and smiled. “I think she went to get some lunch.”
Then Kit remembered his reaction when she had asked him to help her look for Charlie. She rolled her head away from him. There was a load of anger inside her, rearing and ready to buck. It was so big she feared it might hurt her. She groped around for the morphine button.
“I got nothin’ to say to you,” she said, hoping her scorn would push him backward and out the door.
“I’m sorry, Kit,” he said, like he could read her mind. “I felt so bad about turning you away that I went looking for you as soon as I was done with Sandy’s crime scene, but you weren’t home. They’d seen you at the church and said you’d left in a huff. Doc told me what really happened. I’m just so sorry.”
All his talking only made her more angry, a bitter brew of old hurt and new.
“You be mad at me all you want, Kit,” he said. “I deserve it. I can’t believe I didn’t listen to you.”
She shook her head slightly and fixed her gaze on a dry-erase board that tracked her meals, pees, and shits.
“I’m a terrible cop!” he said, and she could hear he was smiling. Smiling. What did he think was so funny about all this? “I have terrible instincts!” he said.
She turned toward him, his friendly, goofy face just gazing at her like she was a newborn baby.
“If you feel so terrible, why do you look so happy?” she asked.
“Well, dang it,” he said. “I’m just so relieved to see you. After Sandy . . . and when I heard Charlie had been seen out in the boonies with that . . .” He exhaled and slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well, I’ve never been so glad to see you give me a dirty look.”
She tried to sit herself up, but a new colossal pain shot through her. She went to hit the morphine button then changed her mind and waited for the searing waves to ebb. Though her eyes were closed, she sensed him move to her side. She wanted to come around. Couldn’t she remember the good that came before he let her down?
When she opened her eyes he was right there, kind and concerned.
“Look, I’ll change the subject, okay, no pressure,” he said, pulled a pen from his shirt pocket, and clicked it open. “Don’t suppose you’d be up for giving me a statement,” he said, gauging her reaction.
She wasn’t tracking. “I know it’s bad timing and maybe bad taste, but you know, technically I am still on this case—” He stopped, likely noticing her confusion. “Sandy’s murder?” There was a little dip of disappointment in her middle as she wondered if that was why he had come today and not to see her. “We sure don’t have to do it right now if you’re not up for it,” he said.
The prospect of putting something down on official record gave her pause. She had killed a man last night, and there would be specific questions about how long she knew Manny, the nature of their relationship, and possibly even why she had come to Pecan Hollow. A simple lining up of the date she came to town and the day Manny was arrested would be damning. She needed time to think this through.
“I’m not up for it.” The guilt hung heavy around her.
He clicked the pen closed. “Fair enough,” he said. “Good excuse to come back tomorrow.” He looked like he was thinking something over. “Look, I know you’ve never been real enthused about us, but just so you know, you’ve got a lot of fans back in Pecan Hollow.”
“Ha,” she said. “What’s the punch line?”
“No, seriously. You’re a hero. Charlie, too.”
She was no hero, she was an outlaw. Even outlaw was too grand a name for what she was. She was a crook. And a coward. She’d been hiding from the wrong she’d done for too long. She had to come clean to him.
“Look, don’t call me that,” she said. “I’m a criminal.”
He pulled his chair up to the bed. “You’re not. What you did, that was self-defense,” he said, all worked up. “That was an act of courage.”
“No, no, I’m not talking about that,” she said. “Listen, please. Before I came here, I was with Manny. We were together, kind of, and we did bad things. I did bad things. I never worked for anything, just went around scaring people and taking their hard-earned money. I never wanted you—or anyone—to know because I thought they’d take Charlie away from me. But now, with what just happened, people will be looking into things, and . . .” She trailed off. He was fumbling in his back pocket for something. She flashed angry eyes at him.
“The hell are you doing?” she said. “I’m making my goddamn confession here.”
Caleb let out a nervous laugh. “Listen, sorry, I just— If you give me a quick second.” He opened his wallet and pulled out a square not much larger than a postage stamp and placed it in the palm of his hand.
Kit strained to focus on the grainy scrap in black and white. He held it closer and she took it, wincing against the pain of moving. It was cut from a copy of a photo, cropped around the image of a young woman, her eyes reflected in a rearview mirror, her ponytail thrashing in the wind.
“That’s me,” she whispered, frightened at what this could mean. “How did you find this?”