Last Light (33 page)

“Hi, Alan. I’m sorry. TK couldn’t come to say good-bye—she’s already back home. But she told me to give you this.” She embraced him in a tight bear hug. “And this is from both of us.”

He clutched the bright yellow copy of
Curious George
with glee, spinning to show it to his parents.

“Hope it’s okay,” she said to Beth and Drew. “I saw a bunch of copies in his room.”

“It’s his favorite,” Beth reassured her, moving to sit beside Alan and read the book.

“Thank you,” Drew said. “For everything.”

Lucy grimaced. “Not sure you owe me any thanks. If I hadn’t involved you, you’d still have a home and none of this,” she gestured to the hospital bed and equipment surrounding him, “would have happened.”

“Maybe, but I’ve come to realize that we were, in our own way, prisoners in that house. Now that it’s gone, well, we can go anywhere, do anything.”

She thought about that. “Glad it worked out. If you ever find yourself near Pittsburgh, give me a call.” She glanced at Alan, laughing over the well-worn story. “All of you, you’re welcome any time.”

She left them and headed down to the third floor. David sat in a chair, arms draped over the railing of Maria’s empty bed, a bright orange and green afghan clutched between his hands. He didn’t look up at the sound of her footsteps.

“Happened right at sunrise,” he said as she placed a hand on his shoulder. His body shook with grief, but his voice was the same flat tone of a computer reading stock quotes. “Her favorite time of day.”

“Your father?”

“Was here. Held her in his arms—she didn’t even feel any pain, she was so happy.” He swiped at his eyes. “Thank you for that. He’s gone back, but the lawyers said they should soon have him out for good.”

“I bet she was so proud of you. Without you, none of this would have happened.”

A sigh heaved through him. “Yeah, but what do I do now? In a few weeks my father will be free, but we’re strangers to each other. And my life isn’t here—neither is his.”

“Sounds like the perfect time to start over. Get to know each other. Find a new home. You could consider coming to work for the Beacon Group.”

“I don’t know if I’d do you any good finding answers. Maybe the only thing I’m good at is asking questions. At least I thought so. Before I met the Blackwells. I was such a fool.”

“Maybe you’re not a perfect human lie detector. Doesn’t make you any less of an investigator. You got Carole Blackwell talking when no one else did. Got the truth out of both her and Caleb and on the record. Maneuvered him right where we needed him at the ag station. Without that, Drew Saylor would probably be dead, the rest of us as well.”

He frowned. “When I was working the crime beat and then when the TV network hired me, I was so damn certain I had all the answers. Now I’m not even sure of the questions.”

She glanced out the window at the horizon, so much more distant than back home in Pennsylvania. Yet, somehow the view reminded her of the morning she’d met Valencia at Beacon Falls and they’d stared over the river gorge. She’d couldn’t even dare admit it to herself, but at that moment, she’d felt utterly lost.

As if she’d left who she thought she was behind, locked away in an office at the FBI.

Now she understood. This was her chance to ask the questions important to her instead of to some nameless, faceless bureaucracy.

This was her chance to do more than solve crimes; this was her chance to bring justice to the forgotten victims.

And to do it her way.

Lucy turned and smiled down at David as he hugged Maria’s colorful afghan to his chest. For some reason, she felt not Maria’s presence, but her own mother’s.

As if this moment, this realization, had nothing to do with careers but everything to do with family and legacy and something no parent could teach, but that every parent, even misguided, narcissistic Carole Blackwell, wanted for their children.

“Not knowing the answers or even the questions to ask sounds like the perfect place to start,” she told David. “I think maybe it’s how we begin to live our own lives instead of someone else’s, don’t you?”

<><><>

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NEW! Join CJ as she returns to her medical thriller roots with Novels of
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In the chaos of the ER, functioning without sleep is a prized skill. But even Dr. Angela Rossi will admit that five months is far too long, especially when accompanied by other worrisome symptoms: night sweats, tremors, muscle spasms, fevers. Then a dead nun speaks to her while Angela is holding the nun’s heart in her hand.

“Find the girl,” the nun commands—although no one else in the trauma room can hear, the words drilling directly into Angela’s brain. “Save the girl.”

Aided by a police detective fallen from grace, Angela searches the midnight catacombs beneath the city, facing down a ruthless gangleader and stumbling onto a serial killer’s lair. Her desperate quest to save the girl leads her to the one thing she least expected to find: a last chance for love.

As her symptoms escalate in bizarre and disturbing ways, Angie realizes exactly how serious her illness is. She might be dying, but she’s finally choosing how to live…

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