“Am I wrong, Bobby? Is something wrong with my memory?”
His breath shuddered out softly. “No. She used to say, used to tell me that you—the kids she took in—were lucky to have someone offer them a decent home. Care enough to take them, to teach them manners and discipline and respect. That’s what she said it was when she locked you up. Consequences for unacceptable behavior. Things would be a lot worse if you were on the streets.”
“Did you buy that, Bobby?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some. She never hurt me.” He turned his head now, met Eve’s eyes. “She never treated me that way. She said it was because I did what I was told. But I didn’t, not always. If she caught me, she’d usually laugh and say, ‘Boys will be boys.’ It was the girls she… I don’t know why. Something inside her. She hated her mother. Used to tell me we were lucky to be rid of the old bitch. Maybe—I don’t know— maybe her mother did those things to her. It’s a cycle, right? Isn’t that what they say about abuse? It’s a cycle.”
“Yeah, it often is.” Maybe that comforted him, she thought. “What about you, Bobby? Did you cycle around, take care of your mother? She must’ve been a hardship on you. New wife, new business, and here’s this demanding woman, prying into your life. A demanding woman with a big pile of money stashed away.”
His eyes filmed over for a moment. Tears he blinked away. “I don’t blame you for saying it, thinking it. And you can put on record that I’ll take a Truth Test. I’ll take one voluntarily, as soon as you can arrange it. I want you to find who hurt her.”
He took a long breath. “I loved my mother, Eve. I don’t know if you can understand, but even knowing what she was, what she did, I loved her. If I’d known what she was doing, I’d have found a way to make it stop. To make her give the money back, and stop. That’s what I want to do. Give the money back. You have to help me get the money back to the people she took it from. Maybe it won’t make it right, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“Yeah, I can help you with that. How would you have made her stop, Bobby?”
“I don’t know. She’d listen to me. If she knew I was really upset, she’d listen to me.” Now he sighed a little. “Or pretend to. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know how to tell Zana all this. I don’t know how to tell her this is true. She’s already been through so much.”
“She was tight with your mother.”
“They got along. Zana gets along with everyone. She made a real effort with my mother—it takes one.” He tried another smile.
“You know, women get tight in a certain way. When they do, they tend to tell each other things they might not tell a man. Could it be your mother told Zana about what she was doing?”
“Not possible.” He tried to sit up straighter, as if to emphasize his point, and cursed the restriction of his broken arm. “Zana’s… she’s scrupulous. I don’t know anyone as intrinsically honest. She might not have argued with my mother about it, but she’d have been horrified, and she’d have told me. We don’t have secrets.”
People said that, Eve knew. But how did they know the other party didn’t have secrets? How did they know there’d been full disclosure?
“Zana the type to keep her word?”
His face was full of love. “Probably cut off a finger before she’d break it.”
“Then she’d be in a tough spot if she’d given your mother her word not to tell you, or anyone.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and Eve could see him wrestling with this new possibility. “I don’t know how she’d have dealt with it. But she’d have told me, at least after my mother was killed. She’d never have kept that to herself. I wonder where she is.” His fingers began to tug at the sheet. “I thought she’d be here by now.”
“I’ll check in a minute, make sure she’s on her way. They say when they’re springing you?”
“Not before tomorrow, but I’m pushing for that. I want to salvage something of Christmas. It’s our first, probably told you that. At least I bought a couple of things here, so Zana will have something to open. Man, this—how did you put it? Oh, yeah, this sucks out loud.”
Reaching into the pocket of her coat, Eve brought out a little bag. “Thought you might like these. Cookies,” she said as she put the bag in his good hand. “I figure they might not run to Christmas cookies around here.”
“Appreciate it.” He peeked inside, nearly smiled again. “Really. The food’s fairly crappy around here.”
He’d brought her food once, and now she’d returned the favor. She thought that made them even, or wanted to think it.
Eve checked with her uniforms, assured Bobby his wife would be there shortly.
Then she let it all shuffle around in her mind during the long, ugly drive uptown.
Her pocket ‘link signalled, causing her to fumble a moment as she interfaced it with the unfamiliar system on the all-terrain so her hands stayed free to fight the fight. “Dallas, and this better be good because I’m stuck in lousy traffic.”
“I’m not!” Peabody’s voice shot out thrills and excitement completely in contrast with the icy rain. On the dash screen, her face glowed like a damn candle. “I’m in Scotland, and it’s snowing. It’s snowing in big, fat, mag flakes.”
“Yippee.”
“Aw, don’t be that way. I just had to tell you we’re here, and it’s so beyond frosty. The McNabs have this amazing house, kinda like a really big cottage, and there’s a river and mountains. McNab’s dad has a burr.”
“Well, why doesn’t he pull it out?”
“No, no, the accent. It’s total. And they like me, Dallas. I mean, they just slathered, like, all over me.”
“Again, I repeat: Yippee.”
“I don’t know why I was so nervous and freaky. It’s just piles of fun on top of more. The shuttle ride was so uptown, and then, wow, the scenery is so completely mag. It’s like a vid or something, and—”
“Peabody, I’m glad you’re having a good time. Seriously. But I’m trying to get home here, so I can grab a little Christmas cheer myself.”
“Sorry, sorry. Wait, first, did you get the presents I left on your desk?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Oh.” Peabody’s face went through several expressions, ending on a pout. “You’re welcome.”
“We didn’t open them yet.”
“Oh! Oh, okay.” The pout turned into a nervous grin. “You want to wait until tomorrow. I just wondered. So, well… Anything I should know on the case?”
“Nothing that can’t wait until you get back. Go eat some—what is it—haggis.”
“I might. I’ve already had a really big whiskey, and it’s dancing in my head. But I don’t care! It’s Christmas. And last year you and I were mad at each other, and now we’re not. I love you, Dallas, and Roarke, and every bony inch of McNab. And his cousin Sheila. Merry Christmas, Dallas.”
“Yeah, you bet.” She cut off before Peabody could get started again. But she was smiling as she rolled through the gates toward home.
The house was lit as if it were night, and an icy mist rolled over the ground, sparkled just a little in the lights. She could see trees shimmering, candles glowing, and heard the patter of that cold, hard rain on the roof of her vehicle.
She stopped, just stopped in the middle of the drive. Just to look, and to think, and remember. Inside was warmth, fires burning with the crackle of real wood. Everything in her life had somehow navigated her here. Whatever the horrors had been, the pain and blood, whatever dogged her dreams like a hound, had brought her here. She believed that.
She had this because she’d survived the other. She had this because he’d been waiting on the other side of the road. Navigating his own trenches.
She had home, where the candles were lit and the fires were burning. It was good, she thought, to take a moment to remember that, and to know, whatever else she faced, this was here.