Fallen (49 page)

Will had heard the phrase before. It referred to a psychological syndrome where a group of seemingly normal people developed a shared psychosis when they were together. The Manson Family. The Branch Davidians. There was always an unstable leader at the center of the sickness. Roger Ling had called it the head of the snake. A man like Roger Ling should know.

Evelyn said, “Part of me wanted Faith to come home early. I wanted her to meet Hector, so I would be forced into explaining.”

“Did Caleb kill Hector?”

“I think it must’ve been him. It was sneaky, and cowardly. I heard the gun—you don’t forget the sound a silencer makes once you’ve heard it before—and I looked out into the carport. The trunk was closed and there was no one there. I didn’t think twice. Maybe I had thought this was going to happen all along. I scooped up Emma and took her into the shed. I came back with my gun and there was a man in the laundry room. I shot him before he could open his mouth. And then I turned around and there was Caleb.”

“You struggled with him?”

“I couldn’t shoot him. He was unarmed. He was my son. But I got the better of him.” She looked down at her wounded hand. “I don’t
think he was expecting me to be so aggressively opposed to his trying to cut off my finger.”

“He cut it off right then?” Will had assumed it was part of a later negotiation.

“One of the other boys sat on my back while Caleb cut it off. He used the bread knife. He sawed it back and forth like you’d do with a tree. I think he enjoyed hearing me scream.”

“How did you get the knife away from him?”

“I don’t really know. It’s one of those things that happens without your thinking about it. Actually, I don’t remember much of what came next, but I do recall that other boy falling on top of me, and the feel of that knife going into his stomach.” She exhaled sharply. “I ran into the carport to get Emma and get the hell out of there. And then I heard Caleb screaming. ‘Mama, Mama.’ ” She paused for another moment. “He sounded like he was hurt. I don’t know what made me go back inside. It was instinctual, like with the knife, but that was self-preservation, and this was self-destruction.” She obviously still struggled with the memory. “I was aware of it—how wrong it was. I remember thinking quite clearly as I ran past my car and back into the house that this was one of the stupidest things I would ever do in my life. And I was right. But I couldn’t stop myself. I heard him crying for me, and I just ran back inside.”

She paused again for breath. Will could see that the angle of the sun had changed so that it was shining into her eyes. He got up and tilted down the blinds.

She breathed out an exhausted-sounding “Thank you.”

“Do you want to rest?”

“I want to finish this, and then I never want to talk about it again.”

That sounded exactly like the kind of thing Faith would say. Will knew better than to argue. He sat down in the chair, waiting for her to continue.

Evelyn didn’t start back immediately. For a full minute, she just lay there, her chest rising and falling as she breathed.

Finally, she said, “For about three years after he was born, around
once a month, I’d tell Bill and the kids I had to go do paperwork at the office. Usually it was a Sunday while they were at church, because it was easier.” She coughed. Her voice was getting raspier. “But I’d really go to the park up the street, and I would sit on that bench by myself, or if it was raining, I would sit in my car, and I would just cry and cry. Not even Mandy knew about it. I’ve shared everything in my life with her, but not this.” She gave Will a meaningful look. “You don’t know how hard it was for her with Kenny. She couldn’t give him children, and he wanted a family. His own blood. He was very insistent about that. Telling her about how I longed for Caleb would’ve been cruel.”

Will felt a little squeamish hearing something so personal about his boss. He tried to get Evelyn back to the day she’d been abducted. “Caleb tricked you to get you back into the house. That’s why you didn’t take Emma and leave?”

She was silent long enough to let him know that she was aware he was changing the subject. “You can’t fool someone who doesn’t want to be fooled.”

Will wasn’t so sure about that, but he nodded anyway.

“I ran into the kitchen. There was Benny Choo. Of course it was Benny Choo. Carnage everywhere. He was in his element. We had a bit of a struggle, which he won, mostly because he had help. He wanted the money. Everybody wanted the money. The place was filled with angry men demanding money.”

“Except Caleb,” Will guessed.

“Except Caleb,” she confirmed. “He just sat on the couch eating sandwich meat right out of the bag, watching them run around and tear apart my house. I think he loved it. I think it was the most fun he had ever had in his life—watching me sitting there, scared to death, while his friends ran around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for something that he knew wasn’t there.”

“What about the
A
on the bottom of the chair?”

She gave a stuttered laugh. “That was an arrow. I assumed that the crime scene techs would find it. I wanted them to know that the main
culprit was sitting on the couch. Caleb must’ve left hair, fiber, fingerprints.”

Will wondered if Ahbidi Mittal’s team would’ve figured out the message. Will had certainly botched the job.

She asked, “Tell me, did they really dig up my backyard?”

Will realized she meant Caleb’s crew, not Ahbidi Mittal’s. “You told them the money was there?”

She chuckled, probably thinking about the boys running around in the dark with shovels. “I thought it seemed plausible, inasmuch as it’s happened in the movies.”

Will didn’t confess that he’d seen too many of those movies himself.

Abruptly, Evelyn’s demeanor changed. She looked back at the ceiling. The tiles were stained brown. It wasn’t much of a view. Will recognized an avoidance technique when he saw one.

She whispered, “I keep struggling with the fact that I killed my son.”

“He was going to kill you. And Faith. He killed countless more people.”

She kept staring at the tiles. “Mandy told me not to talk to you about the shooting.”

Will knew that Caleb Espisito’s death was being reviewed by the police, but he assumed Evelyn would be cleared in a few days, just as Faith had been. “It was self-defense.”

She let out a slow breath. “I think he wanted me to make a choice between the two of them. Between him and Faith.”

Will didn’t confirm that he shared this opinion.

“He could forgive his father. Hector had a nice life, but he never married and he never had another child. But when Caleb saw what
I
had—what I had struggled to build back with Bill and the children—he resented the hell out of it. He hated me so much.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I remember one of the last things I told him before all of this happened was that holding on to that kind of grudge was like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Will guessed this was the kind of advice mothers gave their sons. Unfortunately, he’d had to learn that lesson the hard way. “Do you remember anything about where they kept you?”

“It was a warehouse. Abandoned, I’m sure. I yelled enough to wake the dead.”

“How many men were there?”

“At the house? I think eight. There were only three at the warehouse, counting Caleb. Juan and David were their names. They tried not to use them, but they weren’t very sophisticated, if you get my meaning.”

Juan Castillo had been shot outside of Julia Ling’s warehouse. David Herrera had been shot in cold blood right in front of Evelyn and Faith. Benny Choo, Hironobu Kwon, Hector Ortiz, Ricardo Ortiz. In all, eight people were dead now because of one man’s twenty-year grudge.

Evelyn must have been thinking the same thing. Her voice took on a desperate tone. “Do you think I could’ve stopped him?”

Short of killing Caleb before it happened, Will didn’t see how. “Hate like that doesn’t burn out.”

She didn’t seem comforted. “Bill thought what happened with Faith was my fault. He said that because I was with Hector, I took my eye off my children. Maybe he was right.”

“Faith is pretty determined to do her own thing.”

“You think she takes after me.” She waved away Will’s protest. “No, she is
exactly
like me. God help her.”

“There are worse things.”

“Hm.” Evelyn’s eyes closed again. Will stared at her face. Her features were almost obscured by the swelling. She was about Amanda’s age, the same kind of cop, but not the same kind of woman. Will hadn’t spent a lot of his life feeling envious of other people’s parents. It was a waste of time to think about what could’ve been. But talking to Evelyn Mitchell, knowing the sacrifices she had made for all of her children, Will couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.

He stood, thinking he should let her sleep, but Evelyn’s eyes opened. She pointed to the pitcher of water. Will helped her drink from the straw. She wasn’t as thirsty this time, but Will saw her hand clench around the morphine trigger.

“Thank you.” She put her head back on the pillow. She pressed the trigger again.

Will didn’t take his seat. “Can I get you anything else before I leave?”

She either didn’t hear the question or chose to ignore it. “I know Mandy is hard on you, but it’s because she loves you.”

Will felt his eyebrows shoot up. The morphine had started working fast.

“She’s so proud of you, Will. She brags about you all the time. How smart you are. How strong. You’re like a son to her. In more ways than you know.”

He felt the need to glance over his shoulder in case Amanda was laughing from the doorway.

Evelyn said, “She
should
be proud of you. You’re a good man. And I wouldn’t want my daughter partnered with anyone else. I was so happy when you two got together. I only wish it had turned into something more.”

He checked the door one more time. No Amanda. When he turned back around, Evelyn was staring at him.

She asked, “May I be honest with you?”

He nodded, though Will wondered if that meant she hadn’t been honest so far.

“I know you’ve had a difficult life. I know how hard you’ve worked to turn yourself into the right kind of person. And I know you deserve happiness. And it’s not going to come from your wife.”

As usual, Will’s first impulse was to take up for Angie. “She’s been through a lot.”

“You deserve so much better.”

He felt the need to tell her, “I’ve got some demons of my own.”

“But yours are the good demons, the kind that make you stronger for having them.” She tried to smile. “ ‘If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.’ ”

He took a wild guess. “Hemingway?”

“Tennessee Williams.”

The door opened. Amanda tapped her watch. “Time’s up.” She waved for him to leave.

Will looked at the clock on his cell phone. She’d given him exactly an hour. “How did you even know I was here?”

“Walk and talk.” She clapped her hands together. “Our girl needs her rest.”

Will touched Evelyn’s elbow because that was the only place that wasn’t bandaged or hooked up to something. “Thank you, Captain Mitchell.”

“Take care of yourself, Agent Trent.”

Amanda gave Will a shove as he left the room. He almost knocked down a nurse in the hallway.

Amanda said, “You tired her out.”

“She wanted to talk.”

“She’s been through a lot.”

“Are there going to be any problems on her shooting Caleb Espisito?”

Amanda shook her head. “The only person who should be worried is Roz Levy. If it was left to me, I’d have her up on obstruction charges.”

Will didn’t disagree, but Mrs. Levy had perfected her old lady act. No jury in the world would ever convict her.

“I’ll get the old hag eventually,” Amanda promised. “She’s like a stick—always stirring up shit.”

“Right.” Will tried to wrap this up. Sara had gotten off work five minutes ago. This morning, he’d suggested they have lunch together, but he wasn’t sure she would remember. He told Amanda, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He started walking toward the elevator. To his dismay, Amanda followed him.

She asked, “What did Evelyn tell you?”

He lengthened his strides, trying to lose her, or at least make her have to work for it. “The truth, I hope.”

“I’m sure it was buried in there somewhere.”

Will hated that she could so easily sow doubt in his mind. Evelyn Mitchell was Amanda’s best friend, but the two women were nothing alike. Evelyn didn’t play games. She didn’t take pleasure in humiliating people. “I think she told me what I needed to know.” He punched the down button on the elevator. He couldn’t resist. “She said that you were proud of me.”

Amanda laughed. “Well, that doesn’t sound like me at all.”

“No.” A thought occurred to Will. Maybe Evelyn had been dancing around the truth after all. Had she secretly given him a clue? Will felt a wave of nausea come over him.

You’re like a son to her. In more ways than you know
.

He turned to Amanda, preparing himself for the worst day of his life. “Are you going to tell me that you’re really my mother?”

Her laugh echoed down the hallway. She braced her hand against the wall so she wouldn’t fall over.

“All right.” He punched the button for the elevator again. And again. And then a third time. “I get it. Very funny.”

She wiped tears from her eyes. “Oh, Will, do you really think a child of mine would turn out to be a man like you?”

“You know what?” He bent down so that he could look her in the eye. “I’m going to take that as a compliment, and you can’t stop me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He walked toward the emergency stairwell. “Thank you, Amanda, for saying such a nice thing to me.”

“Come back here.”

He pushed open the door. “I will treasure it forever.”

“Don’t you dare walk away from me.”

Will did just that, taking the steps two at a time, safe in the knowledge that her little feet could not keep up with him.

S
ARA TOOK OFF HER READING GLASSES AND RUBBED HER EYES
. She had been sitting at the table in the doctors’ lounge for at least two hours. The patient’s chart on the tablet in front of her was starting to blur. She had slept a total of six hours in the last four days. Her level of exhaustion was reminiscent of her residency, when she’d slept on a cot in the broom closet behind the nurses’ station. The cot was still there. Grady had undergone a billion-dollar renovation since the last time Sara worked in the emergency department, but no hospital had ever wasted money on making residents’ lives easier.