Last Light (2 page)

“Yes, ma’am.” He hung his head, contrite, but his gaze angled up under the fringe of dusty brown bangs, assessing her expression in the rearview.

She sighed and glanced at the baby sleeping beside him. Sweet Glory was her last chance out of this place, her chance for a new life. They could run away. Tomorrow. Tonight. Be together, forever.

“Well, they’re coming out of your allowance, that’s for sure.” She yanked the wheel, pulling into their drive. No sign of Peter’s truck. Good. Cub Scouts had run late and so had juggling the kids with the grocery shopping, and now all she’d have time to cook before Peter got home would be Hamburger Helper. If Peter bothered coming home. Friday night, payday. There was a good chance he’d end up over in San Angelo at the gaming tables.

“Help me in with the groceries.”

She got out of the car, the setting sun angled at the top of the house’s corrugated tin roof blinding her. When she looked up, squinting, Blackwell Manor, the next property over, seemed to float above the rays of sunlight and clouds. As if the mansion and the rich people privileged to live inside resided on a heavenly plane compared to folks like Lily. She blinked away foolish fantasies, but couldn’t resist hiding a sliver of hope in her heart. Someday, maybe, she’d be living in a house like that with a good man, a man who loved her.

Alan banged the car door as he hopped out.

“Hush, don’t wake the baby.”

Together they carried the first load of groceries inside, leaving Sweet Glory sleeping in the car with the doors open to the mild November breeze.

“Can I watch TV?” he asked, not waiting for her answer as he dumped his bag on the kitchen table and ran to plop himself on the sofa in front of the TV.

“Only until your father gets home. But first wash your hands and face.” If he got chocolate over her sofa...Alan leapt back to his feet and raced past her down the hall, holding his hands out so he didn’t touch anything.

“Wait, give me your shirt. I’ll start it soaking.”

He barely slowed enough for her to tug the shirt, still buttoned, over his head and up-stretched arms. Then he was gone.

The boy was perpetual motion. She’d hoped he’d calm down now that he was in first grade and school was all day, but no. Seemed like he saved up all his energy for when he came home and she was too tired to wrangle him.

She put the frozen food away then took the shirt out to the sink in the laundry room behind the kitchen. After she’d picked off the chocolate and graham cracker chunks and immersed it in soapy water to hopefully soak away the rest, she went back out to the car, leaving the front door open, and hefted two more bags from the rear of the station wagon.

Peter’s parents and his sister’s family were coming for Thanksgiving, so she’d been trying to stock up on nonperishables whenever they went on sale. Today she’d found a whole stack of canned beans and corn, all half-price just for little dents that didn’t harm what was on the inside.

She turned, shifting the heavy bags in her arms, hugging them tight to keep them from slipping free, and headed back to the house. Something stopped her as she passed the station wagon’s rear door. She dipped her head down, certain the sun reflecting off the window had created some kind of optical illusion.

But no. Glory’s car seat was empty. Only the drool-stained bib remained.

Shock froze Lily, as cold as the setting sun was bright. “Glory!” she shouted as if the seven-month-old could answer her. Much less climb free of the car seat. What in Lord’s name? Panic tightened her throat and she lost her grip on the bags. They dropped to the ground, cans clanking and rolling and bouncing under the car.

Lily yanked open the car door, certain Glory had somehow slipped below the car seat’s restraints. She lay across the back seat, hands flailing as she checked the space below the front seat, behind the car seat, over the seat in the way back, then shimmied into the narrow space between the two front seats. No sign of Glory.

Frantic, she scrambled back out of the car, not caring about the way her dress rode up. She tripped on one of the damn cans of green beans and caught herself against the open car door, her breath coming in gasps.

“Glory!” she screamed.

She shielded her eyes from the setting sun, whirling around, scouring the horizon, searching for an answer.

“Alan,” she called, surprised her shrieking hadn’t brought him running already. Movement came from the shadows gathered around the open front door. The sun was now directly behind the house, the roof a blaze of gold, blinding her as she stumbled toward the door.

“Alan, where’s Glory?” she shouted, angry now, certain this was some kind of silly, childish prank.

The figure who appeared at her door wasn’t her son.

“What are you doing here?” she stuttered, shocked, confused. “Where’s Glory?”

“Glory’s here.” The figure turned so she could see the baby.

And the knife held to Sweet Glory’s throat.

ABILENE, TEXAS, PRESENT DAY

DAVID RUIZ HATED
hospitals. Had vowed when he returned from his final assignment in Afghanistan—the one that left him half dead and the soldiers he was embedded with all dead—that he’d avoid hospitals at all cost.

It wasn’t the smells or sights or memories of white-coated ghosts tending to young men who were suddenly mangled apparitions of their former glory-selves. Wasn’t even the blood—hell, he’d worked the crime beat in Baltimore while finishing J-school. Blood was an old friend, meant a better story.

He pulled his dusty Ford Escape into Abilene’s Mercy Medical Center’s parking lot. Hunched over the steering wheel, he stared through the bug-splattered windshield up at the five-story glass and concrete building. It sat at an angle, two wings stretching out from a central hub. He guessed some architect had sold them on the design, probably thought it looked like angel wings opened wide to offer comfort and solace.

Only problem was the weathered concrete and glass tinted against the Texas sun created more of a feeling of oppression and despair.
Abandon hope, all ye who enter
,
he thought as he climbed out of the SUV.

This was why he hated hospitals. They stole your free will; relegated you to a number housed in a database; told you what to do, when to do it, worse than any Army drill instructor; all in the name of providing a chance to live. Offering hope that your life wasn’t fucked up beyond repair.

But it was all just a crapshoot. A game of existential roulette. And behind their masks and arrogance, the doctors knew that. Otherwise, why the hell would he be walking across this asphalt parking lot made sticky by the Texas sun, alive when he shouldn’t be?

He pushed through the glass doors, air conditioning rushing at him like a slap in the face from a woman who’d held an icy drink in her hand. Stood for a moment to get his bearings, taking in the scents that all the antiseptic in the world couldn’t hide, noting the large cross hanging above the receptionist desk, the quiet hush of the empty foyer.

And fought to shake off the feeling that there was someone at his back, ready to ambush him. He stepped forward, surprised at how much the simple act wrung him out. If he couldn’t find the courage to face the baby-cheeked old lady at the desk, how the hell was he going to make it to his destination?

His steps were a stumbling shuffle, hardly the confident stride of a twenty-nine-year-old investigative reporter who’d seen the worst the world had to offer.

At least he thought he had. Damn, he hated hospitals. Almost as much as he hated Texas. Yet, here he was.

“David Ruiz,” he announced himself to the clerk. He was too tired to modulate his tone and it emerged sounding more like a chainsaw grating on metal than human.

The old lady glanced up, startled by his abnormal voice—he still wasn’t used to that, wished he hadn’t forgotten his electrolarynx in the truck. As a prop, it came in handy times like this. “You’re a patient of?”

“I’m here to see my mother, Maria Ruiz.”

“Alrighty then.” Her fake smile shone bright as she searched her computer. Then her smile dimmed. “Oh.”

“She’s in the end-of-life unit.” He said the words so she wouldn’t have to. His tone was blunt, devoid of emotion, making her wince and look away. He sighed. Too tired to explain to a total stranger. Not that explaining ever truly changed anyone’s first impression.

A helpful therapist, hoping to get him to commit more fully to his speech rehab, had shared the research with him: people cemented their impressions of strangers not by their appearance but rather by how trustworthy their speech, cadence, and tone were judged. Cadence he could control
,
but tone and trustworthiness? Even with the help of his vocal coach, those were beyond his capabilities. “Hospice.”

“Room three-twelve,” came her equally flat reply. No eye contact, no acknowledgment of his humanity—or his mother’s. Simply a dismissal as she looked away and pretended to be totally absorbed in her computer. But her eyes didn’t track with the words on the screen and a thin film of sweat beaded on the back of her neck. His fright-night axe-murderer’s voice scared her. She wanted him gone.

So he left. Funny thing was, it wasn’t all that long ago that he would have been able to charm someone like her. With a sly wink and subtle hint, he’d quickly have them gushing about how they’d seen his televised reports from the war and how handsome he looked and how brave he was, returning to a war that everyone else was leaving, and could they have his autograph?

He still looked the same. Well, almost—no one noticed his prosthetic eye; it was a perfect match to his real one. There were no visible scars now that his hair had grown back. The only external clue to his brain injury was his voice: flat, cold, devoid of emotion or humanity.

Kiss of death for his TV career, but in many ways, maybe the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Funny how everything you thought was Truth turned out to be a bunch of lies.

David stood outside the door to his mother’s room, waiting while a nurse finished adjusting the infusion pump that provided Maria’s pain medication. Typical Maria, she had ignored her symptoms, denied that anything could come between her and her son and the life she dreamed for her family until it was too late.

When he was a kid—after he was old enough to stop believing in Santa Claus, his father’s innocence, and other fairy tales—he’d accuse her of being delusional, living in a fantasy world where she could make dreams come true. Now that he was an adult and had seen more than his fair share of dreams shattered, he wondered if it was more a case of Maria fighting to protect her tiny family from harsh reality.

“Hi, Mom,” he said as he entered and leaned over the bed to plant a gentle kiss on her forehead. The cancer had infiltrated her bones, creating constant pain at the slightest touch.

“David, my David,” she murmured, her eyes glazed. He thought she might drift off—she was spending more and more of her time in the netherland between sleep and wakefulness—but she gave herself a shake and pushed the button to bring the head of her bed up so she could face him. “Have you gone yet? Have you seen your father? He needs you, David. And you need the truth.”

The gush of words left her breathless, gasping. He adjusted her oxygen cannula, noting the bruises left by the tape holding it to her cheeks. The mask would be more comfortable the nurses said, but Maria refused it. She hated anything that might impede her last chances to communicate. Maria had always been a talker, just as her son had always been the one to ask questions.

He smoothed out her orange and green crocheted afghan before taking the chair beside her, making sure he was at her eye level so she wouldn’t have to strain to see him. She was the one person who didn’t seem to mind his new speech patterns; she understood the emotion behind his words without needing to hear it.

“You must go to him, David. Before it is too late.”

The one person alive on this planet who knew him better than he knew himself and she was dying. Yet, she didn’t want him here with her; all she wanted was for him to reconcile with his father. How could he say no to her final request?

But he was merely going through the motions for her. Lying and trying his best to hide it from her. He’d never reconcile with his father, never forgive.

“No, I haven’t been to see him yet. The Justice Project attorney is working to get me permission for a special visit this week.” He was glad his voice hid his emotion—it had been eight years since he’d seen his father and he’d be happy to never visit him again.

As if she read his mind, she stretched a bone-thin hand to cover his on the bed rail. “You need to go. You need the truth. And so does your father.”

He shook his head. “What truth? He confessed. He took the plea. The prints on the gun were his. We might get him out on a technicality, but that doesn’t make him innocent.”

Her sigh emerged as a rattling noise that made him wince and look away. He’d heard that noise before in soldiers about to die.

“When did you lose faith, David? You used to believe.”

“How can you still?” he argued. “Twenty-nine years you’ve followed him from one prison to the next, dragging me along, fighting a battle even he never asked you to fight. The man’s in prison. Where he belongs. Why can’t you see that?”

To his surprise, she smiled. Not at him, at some hidden memory. “He’s innocent. I know it. Just as I know you are the one to save him.” She turned her head, stared at him straight on. “Promise me, David. Promise me you won’t give up on him.”

He already had, years ago. Given up on the idea that his father could be innocent, that he wasn’t the son of a vicious, cold-blooded killer, that justice hadn’t already been served. Michael Manning was exactly where he should be: behind bars.

But David had never been able to deny his mother anything. “I promise,” he whispered. Her fingers tightened on his hand with surprising strength. “I promise I’ll keep fighting to get him released.”