Shadow Man (24 page)

She smiles and nods. All done.

“Then let’s get home and get eating.”

It’s not riding the bike that’s the problem, I realize. It’s the road the bike is traveling that’s changed. Love, shelter, macaroni and cheese, sure. There’s also a mute child and there’s a new mom who’s scarred, talks to herself, and is a little bit crazy.

I am on the phone with Alan’s wife, and as I talk, I watch Bonnie wolf down her macaroni and cheese with dedication and intensity. Children have a real pragmatism when it comes to food, I muse.
I know the sky is
falling, but, hey—you gotta eat, right?

“I really appreciate it, Elaina. Alan told me what’s going on, and I wouldn’t ask, but—”

She cuts me off. “Please stop, Smoky.” Her voice chides, gentle. It makes me think of Matt. “You need time to work things out, and that little girl needs a place to be when you’re not there. Until you get things settled.” I don’t respond, a lump in my throat. She seems to sense this, which is very Elaina. “You
will
get things settled, Smoky. You’ll do the right things for her.” She pauses. “You were a great mother to Alexa. You’ll do just fine with Bonnie.”

A mixture of grief, gratitude, and darkness comes over me when she says this. I manage to clear my throat, and get out a husky “Thanks.”

“No problem. Call me when you need me to help.”

She doesn’t demand more response from me and hangs up. Elaina has always been long on empathy. She’d agreed to look after Bonnie if there were times I needed a sitter. No hesitation, no questions asked.
You’re not alone, babe,
Matt whispers.

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C O D Y M C F A D Y E N

“Maybe,” I murmur back. “Maybe not.”

My phone rings, startling me out of my conversation with a ghost. I answer it.

“Hi, honey-love,” Callie says. “Little development I wanted to apprise you of.”

My heart clenches. What now?

“Tell me,” I say.

“Dr. Hillstead’s office was bugged.”

I frown. “Huh?”

“The things Jack Jr. said in that letter, honey-love: Didn’t you wonder how he knew them?”

Silence. I’m startled and dumbfounded. No, I realize. I hadn’t wondered. “Good grief, Callie. It never occurred to me. Jesus.” I am reeling.

“How is that possible?”

“Don’t feel bad. With everything else that happened, it didn’t occur to me, either. You can thank James for thinking of it.” She pauses.

“Dear God, did I really just say ‘thank’ and ‘James’ in the same sentence?” I can hear her mock-shudder through the phone.

“Details, Callie,” I say. The words come out tight and impatient. I’m not interested in humor right now and I’m too tired to apologize for it.

“He had two audio bugs planted in Dr. Hillstead’s office—functional but not high end.” She’s letting me know that they aren’t distinctive as gadgets go and probably not traceable. “Both were remote activated. They transmitted wirelessly to a miniature recorder placed in a maintenance closet. All he’d have to know is when your appointments with Dr. Hillstead were, honey-love. He could activate the bugs and pick up the recordings later.”

A sense of violation surges through me, a powerful jolt of electricity. He’d been listening? Listening to me talk about Matt and Alexa? Listening to me be
weak
? My rage is so overwhelming I feel like I want to swoon, or vomit.

Then, as fast as it came, it goes. No more violation, no more rage, just exhausted desolation. My tide has gone out, my beach is dry and lonely.

“I gotta go, Callie,” I mumble.

“Are you all right, honey-love?”

“Thanks for telling me, Callie. Now I have to go.”

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141

I hang up and marvel at my own emptiness. It is exquisite, in its way. Perfect.

“At least we’ll always have Paris,” I murmur, and feel a cackle building.

I realize that Bonnie has finished eating and that she is looking at me. Watching me. It startles me, shakes me down to my bones. Jesus, I think. And it comes to me that this is the first thing I need to realize, once and for all. I am not alone. She is here, and she sees me. My days of sitting in the dark, staring off at nothing and talking to myself—those days have to end.

No one needs a crazy mommy.

We’re in my bedroom, on my bed, looking at each other.

“How’s this, honey? Will it do?”

She gazes around, runs her hand over the bedspread, and then smiles, nodding her head. I smile back.

“Good. Now, I thought you would probably want to sleep in here with me—but if you don’t, I’ll understand.”

She grabs my hand and shakes her head like a bobble-head doll. A definite yes.

“Cool. I do need to talk to you about some things, Bonnie. Is that okay with you?”

A nod.

Some people might disapprove of this approach. Getting down to business so soon with her. I don’t agree. I’m going by feel here, and something tells me to be honest with this child, nothing less.

“First thing is, sometimes when I sleep—well, most of the time—I have nightmares. Sometimes they really scare me, and I wake up screaming. I hope that doesn’t happen with you sleeping in here, but it’s not really under my control. I don’t want you to be scared if it does.”

She studies my face. I watch as her eyes slide over to the picture on my nightstand. It’s a framed photo of me, Matt, and Alexa, all smiles and with no idea that death was in the future. She gazes at it for a moment, then looks back at me, raising her eyebrows. It takes me a moment to understand. “Yes. The nightmares I have are about what happened to them.”

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She closes her eyes. She lifts her hand up and pats her chest. Then opens her eyes and looks at me.

“You too, huh? Okay, honey. How about we make a deal—neither one of us gets scared if the other one wakes up screaming.”

She smiles at this. It strikes me, for just a moment, how surreal this is. I am not talking to a ten-year-old about clothing or music or a day at the park. I’m making a pact with her about screaming in the night.

“The next thing . . . it’s a little harder for me. I’m deciding whether or not I’m going to keep doing my job. My job is to catch bad people, people who do things like what was done to your mom. And I might just be too sad to keep doing that. You understand?”

Her nod is somber. Oh yeah, she understands.

“I haven’t decided yet. If I don’t, then you and I can decide what to do next. If I do . . . well, I won’t be able to keep you with me all the time. I’ll have to have someone watch you when I’m working. I can promise you this: If I do that, I’ll make sure you like whoever you’re with. Does that sound all right?”

A careful nod. I’m getting the hang of this.
Yes,
that nod says—
but
with reservation.

“This is the last thing, babe. I think it’s the most important, so listen to me carefully, okay?” I take her hand and make certain that I am looking right at her when I say what I say next. “If you want to stay with me, then you will. I won’t leave you. Not ever. That’s a promise.”

Her face shows the first real emotion I’ve seen since I found her in that bed at the hospital. It crumples, overtaken by grief. Tears spill out onto her cheeks. I grab her and hug her to me, rocking her, as she weeps in silence. I hold her and whisper into her hair, and think of Annie and Alexa and the First Rule of Mom.

It takes a while, but she stops crying. She continues to hold on to me, her head against my chest. The sniffles die away and she pulls back, wiping her face with her hands. She cocks her head and looks at me. Really looks. I see her eyes roam over my scars. I start as her hand comes up to my face. With tremendous tenderness, she traces the scars with a finger. Starting with the ones on my forehead, running feather touches over my cheekbone. Her eyes tear up, and she rests a palm against my cheek. Then she is back in my arms. This time, she is the one hugging me.
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Strangely, I don’t feel like weeping as she does this. I have a brief glimpse of peace. A place of comfort. Some warmth enters into that part of me that froze at the hospital today.

I pull back and grin at her. “We’re some pair, huh?”

Her smile in return is genuine. I know it’s only momentary. I know that her true grief, when it hits her, is going to be a tidal wave. It’s still nice to see her smile.

“Listen, part of what I told you? About deciding whether or not I’m going to keep doing my job? There’s something I need to do tonight. Do you want to come with me?”

She nods. Oh yeah. I give her another smile, a chuck on the chin.

“Well, let’s go, then.”

I drive to a gun range in the San Fernando Valley. I give it a once-over before getting out of the car, trying to work up my nerve. The building is all function, with peeling paint on the exterior walls and windows that have probably never been washed. Like a gun, I think. A gun can be scratched and battered, have lost its shine. All that matters, though, is the basic truth: Will it still fire a bullet? This worn-out building is no different. Some very
serious
gun owners come here. By serious, I don’t mean enthusiasts. I mean men (and women) who have spent their lives using guns to kill people or keep the peace.

People like me. I look over at Bonnie, give her a lopsided smile.

“Ready?” I ask.

She nods.

“Let’s go, then.”

I know the owner. He’s an ex–Marine sniper, with eyes that are warm up front but cold in the back. He sees me and his voice booms out:

“Smoky! Haven’t seen you in a while!”

I smile at him, gesture at the scars. “Had some bad luck, Jazz.”

He notices Bonnie and smiles at her. She doesn’t smile back. “And who’s this?”

“That’s Bonnie.”

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Jazz has always been a good reader of people. He knows Bonnie is not all right and doesn’t bother with any “hey, honey, how are you”

stuff. Just nods at her and looks at me, hands flat on the counter.

“What do you need tonight?”

“That Glock.” I point at it. “And just a single clip. And ear protection for both of us.”

“You bet, you bet.” He removes the gun from the case and lays a full clip beside it. He grabs some ear protectors off the wall. My hands are sweating. “I, uh, need a favor, Jazz. I need you to take it into the range for me and load in the clip.”

He raises his eyebrows at me. I feel myself blushing with shame. My voice, when it comes out, is quiet. “Please, Jazz. This is a test. If I go in there and can’t pick up that gun, then I’ll probably never shoot again. I don’t want to touch it before then.”

I see those eyes, examining me, warm and cold at the same time. Warm wins out. “No problem at all, Smoky. Just give me a second.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.” I grab the ear protectors and kneel down in front of Bonnie. “We have to wear these inside the firing range, honey. It’s superloud when you fire a gun, and it’ll hurt your ears if you don’t.”

She nods, holding out her hand. I give her the ear protectors. She puts them on and I do the same.

“Follow me,” Jazz indicates with a gesture.

We go through the door into the range. Right away I smell that smell. The smell of smoke and metal. There’s nothing quite like it. I’m relieved to see that the range is empty right now. I make it clear to Bonnie that she has to stay back against the wall. Jazz looks at me and slides the clip home. He lays the gun down on the small wooden counter that faces the range. The cold eyes this time, but then he smiles at me and turns and heads back into the main part of the shop. He knows I want to be alone.

I look back at Bonnie, give her a smile. She doesn’t return it. Instead, she looks at me, an intent look. She understands that I am doing something here, something important. She’s giving it the seriousness it deserves. I pick up the human-shaped target and attach it to the clip that holds it. I hit the button, watching it sail away from me, down the range, farther, farther, farther. Until it seems the size of a playing card.
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My heart thuds in my chest. I am shivering and sweating at the same time.

I look down at the Glock.

Sleek, black instrument of death. Some protest its existence, some think it’s a thing of beauty. For me, it’s always been an extension of myself. Until it betrayed me. This is a Glock model 34. It has a 5.32-inch barrel and weighs just under thirty-three ounces with a fully loaded magazine. It fires ninemillimeter bullets and has a magazine capacity of seventeen. The trigger pull, unmodified, is a smooth 4.5 pounds. I know all of these mechanical things. I know them like I know my own height and weight. The question now is whether or not we can reconcile, this blackbird and I.

I move my hand toward it. I am sweating more profusely now. I feel light-headed. I grit my teeth, force myself to keep reaching. I see Alexa’s eyes, the
O
of her mouth as my bullet, from my gun, entered her chest and silenced her forever. This plays over and over again in my head, like film that has been looped. Bang and death, bang and death, bang and the end of the world.

“GODDAMN YOU GODDAMN YOU GODDAMN YOU!” I don’t

know if I am screaming at God, Joseph Sands, myself, or the gun. I snatch up the Glock in a single fluid motion, and I am firing it; the black steel jerks in my hand,
pow-pow-pow-pow-pow!
Then I hear the click of an empty chamber, a spent magazine. I am shaking, crying. But the Glock, it’s still there. And I have not passed out.

Welcome back,
I think I can hear it whisper. With a shaking hand, I push the button that will bring the target back to me. It arrives, and what I see fills me with a kind of exultation, tinged with sadness. Ten head shots, seven in the heart. I had hit everything I wanted to, where I wanted to. Just like always. I look at the target, then at the Glock, and I feel that joy and sadness all over again. I know now that shooting will never be the simple joy it used to be. There’s been too much death behind it for me. Too much grief I can never forget.