He nodded, though even that simple action seemed to take too long. “I’m fine. Fine. Thanks. ” Gripping the package, he pushed through the glass door and went outside.
It had started to rain, big nickel-size drops that splashed his face. He glanced longingly toward Zoe’s.
No. He wouldn’t go that way. He’d finish out his rounds and head home. Izzy and Annie were waiting, and he didn’t want to disappoint them. Taking a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders and kept moving down the street, his hand resting lightly on his baton. With each step, he felt better, stronger.
He returned to his patrol car and got inside, ducking out of the hammering rain. He reached for the radio, but before he could say anything, a call came out.
Domestic disturbance on Old Mill Road.
“Shit. ” He answered the call, flicked on his siren, and headed out of town.
When he reached the Weavers’ driveway, he knew it was bad already. Through the falling rain and the curtain of trees, he could see the distant red and yellow blur of lights. He raced up the bumpy road, his heart beating so fast he couldn’t draw an even breath.
The mobile home was surrounded by cars—two patrol cars and an ambulance.
Nick slammed the car in park and jumped out. The first person he saw was Captain Joe Nation, the man who had given Nick a place to live all those years ago.
Joe was walking out of the trailer, shaking his head. The long black and gray braids he wore swayed gently at the movement. Across the clearing, he caught sight of Nick, and he stopped.
“Joe?” Nick said, out of breath already.
Joe laid a thick, veiny hand on Nick’s forearm. “Don’t go in there, Nicholas. ”
“No . . . ”
“There’s nothing you can do now. Nothing anyone can do. ”
Nick shoved past Joe and ran up the muddy driveway, splashing through the puddles. The door fell away beneath his shove and crashed against the wall.
Inside, several people were milling about, searching for clues in the green shag carpeting. Nick pushed past them and went into the bedroom, where Sally lay on the bed, her thin floral dress shoved high on her rail-thin legs, her face bloodied a
lmost beyond recognition. A red-black blotch of blood seeped across her chest and lay in an oozing puddle across the wrinkled gray sheets.
Nick skidded to a stop. It felt as if pieces of him were crumbling away. He knew he was swaying like an old Doug fir in a heavy wind, but he couldn’t stop. He was thrown back suddenly to another time, another place, when he had had to identify a similarly beaten body . . .
“Goddamn it, Sally,” he whispered in a harsh, fractured voice.
He went to her, knelt beside her bed, and brushed the bloodied, matted hair away from her face. Her skin was still warm to the touch, and he could almost believe that she would wake up suddenly and smile and tell him that it was nothing.
“Don’t touch her, sir,” said someone. “The evidence . . . ”
Nick drew his shaking hand back and got awkwardly to his feet. He wanted to pull her dress down—give her that final dignity at least—but he couldn’t. No one could do anything that mattered for Sally anymore. Now it was time for detectives and photographers and pathologists.
He turned blindly away from the bed and stumbled through the cluttered trailer, emerging into the rainy day; everything looked exactly as it had ten minutes ago, but nothing felt the same.
Joe came up to him, pulled him away from the trailer. It felt strangely as if it were years and years ago, back when Joe had met a skinny, freezing fifteen-year-old boy at the bus station in Port Angeles. “There was nothing you could do, Nicholas,” he said. “She didn’t want our help. ”
Nick felt the life slowly, inexorably draining out of him. Buried images of another night, not long ago, were oozing to the forefront of his mind, images that were also stained in blood and violence and tragedy. He’d spent eight months running from the images of that night, burying them deep in his subconscious, but now they were back, killing him. “It’s too much,” he said, shaking his head. “Too much. ”
Joe patted his back. “Go home, Nicholas. Go home to the little girl who loves you and your beautiful house on the lake and forget about this. ”
Unable to move, Nick stood there, gripping the butt of his gun, standing in the rain, knowing there was only one thing that could help him now.
Nick hadn’t shown up for dinner again.
Annie had tried to pretend it meant nothing. She’d made a great show of cheeriness for Izzy, but she knew that the child wasn’t fooled. No amount of cookie dough or knock-knock jokes could make Izzy stop looking outside. . . .
Annie held the girl in her lap, gently rocking back and forth in a rocking chair on the porch. She hummed a quiet song and stroked Izzy’s silky hair.