“That may be so, but when I describe the young lady’s actions, I don’t use the word noble lightly. Channing confessed to make sure you were safe and well. No threats were made against her, no leverage or offers of leniency. She offered the truth for a splendid reason, and that is rarely a simple thing.”
“Is she in state custody or local?”
“Local for now. Charging decisions remain unmade.”
Elizabeth stared into the forest. Charging decision or not, she saw how it had to be. The girl would be in processing, now. Stripped of her clothes. Examined. Violated all over again.
“She wanted you to have this.” A piece of paper appeared in the old lawyer’s hand.
Elizabeth took the folded page. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not. By all means.”
Elizabeth walked to the far end of the porch. The note was in a beautiful hand, and brief.
Dear Elizabeth, You told me wounds heal, but only if we’re strong and if we’re right. I try to be strong, and think maybe I can be, but nothing I do will ever make things right. You were in that basement because of me, and not in the way you think. Your partner can explain. He figured it out, and I know you would too, in time. The thought of that is more than I could bear, worse even than the memories of what we suffered together. Please, don’t hate me for telling the truth about what happened. I love what you tried to do, but I pulled the trigger and nobody else. It’s my fault, all of it. Please, don’t be angry. Please don’t hate me.
Elizabeth read the note a second time, then let her gaze fall to the lake. How could she hate her? They were sisters. They were the same.
“Are you quite all right, my dear?”
“I don’t think I am.”
Crybaby appeared beside her. “The indictment against you has been rescinded, and the state police have no further interest in you. I can take you home if you like. Your car will be fine until tomorrow.”
“May I stay for a while?”
“As long as you wish. I made no joke about provisions. There’s food, liquor. Enough for a week, if you like.” She nodded, and he pressed closer. “Was there comfort?” he asked. “In the young lady’s note?”
“No. Not really.”
“Then let me tell you a thing I’ve learned in my eighty-nine years. This house, the friends and memories—I’d trade it all for a chance to do what that young woman just did: a noble act, freely undertaken. How many of us have such a chance? And how many the courage to take it?”
“You’re the kindest man I’ve ever known. I’m sure you’ve had many chances.”
“To put one’s freedom above my own? To risk my life for another I barely know?” He shook his head, serious. “What I see here is the rarest of things, and the loveliest: her sacrifice and yours, what you’ve tried to do for each other. One in a million would do the same. One in a hundred million.”
Elizabeth studied the keen eyes and white brows, the lines that furrowed his face as if to show every hard decision he’d ever made. “Do you really believe that?”
“With every ounce of my soul.”
She looked away and swallowed in a dry throat. “You’re a good man, Faircloth Jones.”
“I’m an old fart, actually.”
Elizabeth folded the note and took his arm. “You said something about liquor.”
“I did.”
“Is it too early for a drink?”
“Not at all, my dear.” Crybaby leaned on the arm and steered for the door. “I have found, in fact, that on days such as this the whiskey lamp is most always lit.”
20
Beckett didn’t go for a drive. He went to the gym in the basement of the precinct. It wasn’t much of a facility, but his wife had been after him about his weight, and the next hour came down to two possibilities: sling some steel or seriously hurt somebody.
Minutes. Seconds.
He was that close to losing his shit.
Opening the locker, Beckett stripped off his suit and put on gray sweats and old sneakers. He loaded steel plates on the long bar and didn’t worry about the noise as he grunted through more reps than he’d pulled in a long time. Curls, bench, squats. After that, he hit the machines. Triceps, lat pulls, leg extensions.
There was no peace, though.
Too many things moving.
A cold shower broke the sweat, but his mind was still hot as he took the stairs up and rounded into booking.
“Detective Beckett?” a voice called out, and Beckett saw the new girl brought in to work the phones. Laura? Lauren? She pushed past two bloodied men cuffed to a bench and met Beckett halfway across the room. “I tried your cell. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I was working out.”
“Two messages in the past hour. This is from the warden.” She handed him a pink slip with a number on it. “He wants you to call his cell. He said it’s his fifth message and that he expects to hear from you this time.”
Beckett crumpled the paper; tossed it into a can. “What else?”
“A call came into the tip line twenty minutes ago. No name. He asked for you specifically.”
Beckett processed that. The only active tip line he knew about had been set up for the Ramona Morgan case. The number was in the papers, on local TV. “What’d he say?”