Dark Waters (2013) (42 page)

“Are you OK?” she asked quietly.

He nodded and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t think the Mounties bought my story about overpowering the guy and getting that gun off him, though.” Harvey shrugged. “I think those men are in serious trouble for saving our lives and I’ve made sure they know they have my attorneys at their disposal.”

“I think Anna’s in love.” Katherine hoped her daughter dealt with it better than she ever had. She wrapped her arms around herself, cold to the bone. Her clothes had been taken by the crime scene people, so she was in scrubs from the hospital. Harvey was in a borrowed sweat suit and looked a little ridiculous. He didn’t seem to care.

“From the look on Brent Carver’s face, I’d say the feeling is mutual. I wonder who he is. See the art on his walls?”

Katherine had been too scared to notice pictures. She shook her head.

“Barb’s on her way here,” said Harvey after a brief moment of silence. “Ed tied her up in your room. She seems pretty worried about me.”

“Do you think you two can work things out?”

Harvey shook his head. “No, but we can part ways amicably and with dignity.”

Katherine felt an uncomfortable knot tighten in her throat. Dignity. That would be nice. Her life was constantly being dragged through the gutter and newspapers. She had to find a way to get past it all. To move on.

“I’m about to bury two husbands in one week. I think that might be a record.”

“Christ. I can’t believe what you’ve gone through.” He scrubbed his hand through short gray hair. Neither of them was young anymore. “I’m glad you didn’t have to go through it alone.”

She smiled and patted his hand. “So am I. Thank you.”

They sat in silence for a little while. The clock ticked and people moved around them, but it was like they were together in this odd little bubble. She was going to miss this man who’d accidentally become her friend.

“Maybe,” she said cautiously, “when this is all over, we could go away on a trip. A
platonic
trip,” she added.

“I’d like that.” His eyes crinkled at the edges. “Where to? Sun, or sand?”

She looked down at the floor and thought about all she’d done with her life and all she wanted to do. “Maybe we could go wherever the whales are,” she said quietly.

He swallowed thickly and then stood. “I’d like that.” And then he walked away.

Anna came out of the interview room to intense bright sunshine. She blinked at the light and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t know the last time she’d slept, and worry for Brent gnawed at her brain. She couldn’t believe they were holding him, that they could revoke his parole whether he’d committed a crime or not.

She was so furious she wanted to hit something, but so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She wasn’t going to let them do this. She wasn’t going to let Brent suffer because he’d saved her life.

Her mouth was dry, so she begged a coffee off the cop behind the desk. He seemed friendly enough, but she refused to be charmed by anyone in a uniform, even one with Italian good looks. She still wore Brent’s T-shirt, along with some borrowed pants, and looked like she’d been dragged through a forest of thorns backward by her hair.

“Where’s Brent?” she asked for what felt like the millionth time.

“Still being held,” the officer told her as he handed her an RCMP mug. He looked worried, which couldn’t be a good sign. “Holly told me to tell you to stay strong. She was ordered in for questioning. Finn’s being held too, but he’s not on parole so he’ll be released soon, I think.”

“Is Holly here?” Anna needed to lean on those connections of Brent’s if she hoped to keep him out of prison.

He nodded. “But they’re making her and her father take a backseat on this investigation. They are both too involved, and there’s a lot of media exposure on this one.”

Crap
. She’d hoped those links would smooth Brent’s way. “None of this is his fault.”

The officer was quiet for a moment. Then he leaned closer and said quietly, “You need a bargaining chip.”

She frowned as his dark eyes probed hers. She didn’t have any bargaining chips. She had nothing.

“Hey, Chastain. I need you to go out on patrol,” someone shouted from four desks over.

“Right.”

“Your mother’s in the waiting room,” the man, Chastain, said.

Anna stared at him in shock. “She’s here?”

He gave her a dark-eyed smile. “She’s been here all night, waiting for you.”

Anna nodded and bit her lip. She’d thought she’d be sedated in the hospital.

“If you don’t want to see her, I can sneak you out the back,” he offered.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” The kindness almost broke her. She wanted fire and rage and some rigid law enforcement persona she could hate.

“Because you and your mother have suffered enough following a grave miscarriage of justice.” He pointed in the direction of the waiting room.

Anna braced herself. She’d spent a lifetime running away from emotion, and now it was time to face it. When she got to the room, her mom was laid out across four chairs, fast asleep, wearing green scrubs. She went over and knelt beside her. Stroked her hair.

Her mom’s eyes opened slowly, but they weren’t cloudy. They were sharp and clear.

“Anna,” she said on an exhale.

“Mom.” Anna smiled.

Katherine sat up, a little wobbly. “Are you all right?”

Anna sniffed and nodded, but her eyes filled. Katherine dragged her into her arms and Anna bawled like the world was ending. All the grief for her father, Brent, her past, poured out of her and her mother just held and rocked her in a way she hadn’t since Anna had been a little girl.

“I’m so very sorry, sweetheart.” She kissed her hair and squeezed her tighter. “I’ve failed you.” She sniffed. “And Davis. I let you both down so very badly.”

“We both let Dad down. Ed fooled us all,” Anna said quietly when she was able to speak again. Then she braced herself. “There’s something else I want to tell you. Malcolm raped me before the prom.”

Katherine had been pale before, but now she went sheet white. “That’s why you tried to kill yourself?” Her lips were bloodless. Anna worried she was going to pass out.

“Yes.” Finally, it was out. It was done.

“Oh, my Lord. That animal. That perverted little disgusting swine.” Katherine shuddered. “I never liked him, but I never dreamed he’d…did he attack you at home?” Her mom’s eyes were wide.

Anna rubbed her mother’s cold hands. “He probably would have, but after I tried to kill myself he backed off. Plus, I told him I’d written a letter to Papa and that, when he got out, he was going to kill him.” It had felt good to scare the crap out of her attacker. Malcolm had a healthy respect for his own hide.

“But you didn’t tell your father, did you?”

Anna shook his head. “I should have. He died thinking I tried to kill myself because of what we thought he’d done. Even though he was innocent, it must have torn him apart.”

Katherine covered Anna’s hands with her own. “You were right not to tell him—it would have eaten him up with grief the whole time he was in prison. If he’d known about Malcolm, he would have killed him.
I
want to kill him. The revolting freak.”

“Do you think I should press charges? It’s just my word against his, and it happened so long ago.”

“It’s not about that, Anna. If you can bear to do it, it’s about standing up in court and getting it all out there in the open. Even if they don’t convict him, people will know. And there may be others.”

Anna had thought of that too.

“The same way I’m going to stand up in court and shout from the rooftops that the police officers who investigated that theft from the city were incompetent.” Katherine’s voice got louder. People were starting to look their way. Anna bet at least one of the voyeurs was a reporter. Katherine got up and paced. “I’m going to sue the city until that measly million dollars looks like chump change.”

That was it!
Excitement sparked inside Anna and she kissed her mom’s cheek. “Keep making a racket, Mom.”

Her mother grinned. “I’m enjoying it, actually.” This, from the woman who’d been avoiding the spotlight her whole life. “Where are you going?”

“To find Brent’s lawyer. And see if the threat of a long, drawn-out, and
very
expensive lawsuit is enough to get the man I love some good old-fashioned justice.”

The Mounties held him for three days, then suddenly—inexplicably—he was free to go.

Laura claimed she didn’t know why, but he didn’t believe her.

Anna had been forced to return to the States and answer questions about finding Peter’s body. It had been nine days since he’d seen her. Nine days since the shooting. He clenched his fists. What he wanted was to get on a plane and fetch her back. But they wouldn’t even let him in the country and she’d told him during several phone calls that they both just had to be patient.

Pah!
Him?
Patient?

He could be patient.

Maybe.

The last few weeks had taught him many things, and one of the most important things was how to trust again. He had his brother and Holly. Brent would never doubt their loyalty again. And he had Anna. Just as soon as those assholes in Minnesota figured out she was nothing but a victim in the whole crazy saga.

Something else he’d learned over the last few weeks was self-forgiveness. Not only for his father, but for Gina too. They hadn’t been right for one another. He’d loved her, but not with passion. Not enough to make a life together. He’d never lied to her. Never wanted her to get hurt. And he’d have done anything to save her. The fact she was dead wasn’t his fault. The ache in his chest was beginning to ease, along with the guilt and age-old feeling of self-disgust. Eventually, with time, that too would heal.

Jack Panetti had identified the one surviving mercenary as the guy who’d carjacked him and then shot him in the back. That fucker was going down on federal charges of murder of a police officer, kidnapping, and attempted murder. He’d fessed up to a whole lot of bad, from the charity being a cover for illegal mercenary activities, to Davis catching them moving their ill-gotten gains, and them trying to find Anna to get it back. Illinois had abolished the death penalty, so the guy was going to get a taste of many, many years in prison. Brent hoped the guy enjoyed it as much as he had.

With a little help from Jack Panetti’s IT guy, the cops had found all the money. Now the US and Canadian authorities got to fight about who kept it. Davis had been wrong about them stealing money from the charity—they’d simply been using the foundation as a smoke screen to obscure their dirty dealings. Feds had just linked a recent assassination of a high-level American diplomat in Yemen back to Rand and his crew, and the shit was hitting the fan. Thankfully, Davis’s name had been cleared, both in this investigation and the one that had put him inside in the first place. His record was going to be expunged.

Brent had received notification that his parole officer had changed and he was back to reporting every two weeks, which went in the plus column. But somehow his identity had been leaked to the world, which was a pisser. He’d missed his NYC exhibition, but got an e-mail from a woman in South Dakota asking if he’d recently given some watercolor paintings to her four children. He’d had his agent write back to prove provenance and tell her to insure them for at least ten grand each. His agent was pissed with him, but all the publicity and his apparent “hero” status in the media had increased the value of his artwork, which had mollified the guy slightly.

Hero
status. That was a kicker. He’d never pretended to be a hero.

He stared at the water.

The waves fizzled to a stop at his toes.

Thankfully the cops hadn’t found his weapons or hidey-holes. After he got back, he made sure all guns were dumped far offshore, never to be seen again. He was done with all that. He just hoped it was done with him.

He looked at his house. The bodies were gone. Glass cleared up. He’d had a professional cleaning crew come in as soon as the cops were finished, removing blood and guts and pretty much every stick of furniture that might have a bad association for Anna. The windows were still out—they had to be custom-made and replaced. And the place was looking pretty damn bare, but at least it was still standing, bullet holes and all.