“Off the record, then. Come in and shut the door. Not you, Beckett.”
“Liz?” Beckett showed his palms.
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
She tried to tell herself that was true, but Dyer looked ruined. Even Hamilton and Marsh seemed burdened by some unseen weight. Elizabeth worked to hold on to her conviction and purpose. She’d come for Adrian because the old lawyer’s certainty was as compelling as any proof she’d ever seen. But the air in the close, crowded office tasted thick and sickly sweet. It was fear, she realized. She was barely three feet into the room, and already afraid. “Am I being charged?”
“Not yet.” Hamilton closed the door.
She nodded, but not yet meant it was coming, meant it was close. “What evidence?”
“Forensics on the basement.” Hamilton’s fingers touched a file on the desk. “Is there anything you want to tell us about what happened there?” His voice came from some distant place. “Detective Black?”
Everyone was looking at her, now, Dyer suddenly worried, the state cops so full of inexplicable pity they seemed grotesque.
“We ran DNA,” Hamilton said. “On the wire used to bind Channing Shore. The lab identified blood from two different people. One was from the girl, of course, which we expected.” He paused. “The second sample came from an unknown person.”
“A second person?”
“Yes.”
“One of the Monroe brothers,” Elizabeth said.
“Both brothers have been ruled out.”
“Then the blood came from some other crime. Cross-contamination. Old evidence.”
“We don’t believe so.”
“Then, some other explanation…”
“May we see your wrists, Detective Black?” Everyone looked at her sleeves, at the light jacket and buttoned cuffs. Hamilton leaned closer, his expression as soft as his voice. “We’re not incapable of sympathy.…”
Elizabeth kept her hands perfectly still, though her skin seemed to burn. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“If there’s a reason you snapped—”
“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“If there are extenuating circumstances—”
“I shouldn’t be here at all.”
She hit the door at a fast walk, blood rushing in her ears, the skin still burning. She didn’t think about why because she was tired of thinking, same with feeling, remembering, talking. There was a time and a place, and not every goddamn thing mattered. That’s what everyone else refused to understand.
The basement was done.
Over.
For an instant, she sensed Beckett behind her, his voice in the stairwell, then on the street. She moved faster, slid into the car, then gunned it, seeing his face as a white blotch, his hands rising and then down. She drove fast and let the car do the talking. Rubber at the corners. Engine on the flats. Her skin still burned, but it was more like shame and rage and self-loathing.
DNA on the wire.
Her hand hit the wheel.
She wanted to move and keep moving. Barring that, she wanted to get drunk. She wanted to be alone in the dark, to sit in a chair and feel the weight of a glass in her hand. The memory would still be there, but the colors would dim; the Monroe brothers would fade; the carousel would stop.
Beckett, however, had other ideas. His car hit the driveway twenty seconds behind her own. “What are you doing here, Charlie?”
“I heard what they said.” Beckett stopped at the bottom step. “Through the door, I heard it.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, I don’t know what to do.” He looked as ruined as Dyer as he tried and failed to keep his eyes off the place her hands joined her arms. “Liz, Jesus…”
“Whatever they’re talking about has nothing to do with me. I’m a cop. I’m fine.”
“If something happened—”
“I shot them like I said. I don’t regret it. I would do it again. Beyond that, there’s no story. Good guys won. The girl’s alive.”
“And if the girl was talking? If Hamilton and Marsh could get through her father’s lawyers?”
“She’d say the same thing.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. The way things are with you two.” He tilted his large head, and shadows moved on the broken landscape of his face. “You make it easy to believe the worst.”
“Because we look out for each other?”
“Because when you talk, you use the same words. You should look at your statements. Put them side by side and tell me what you see. Same words. Same phrasing.”
“Coincidence.”
“Show me your wrists.”
“No.”
He reached for her arm, and she slapped him so hard the sound itself was like a shot. They froze in the silence that followed. Partners. Friends. Momentary enemies.
“I deserved that,” Beckett said.
“You’re goddamn straight.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“Go away, Charlie.”
“No.”
“It’s late.”
She fumbled with keys, and Beckett watched from the fog of his discontent. When the door closed between them, he raised his voice. “You should have called me, Liz! You should have never gone in alone!”