Chapter Forty-One

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I have no idea when Beth will summon me back, but I'm not going to hang around and wait.

I don't work for Beth. She's going to have to yield to my timetable now.

I can't bring myself to answer Marco's text and set up drinks with him and Annie. So I email Detective Garcia and let her know I'll be there a little after 11.

I've never been to the Northwest DC police station where Detective Garcia is based, but when I walk in, the building feels familiar. It follows the blueprint of other cop shops I've visited—once to pick up a teenage client who was being held for shoplifting, another time to file a restraining order against a mother who reacted violently to my custody recommendation.

Detective Garcia meets me in the reception area by the long wooden benches that are faded and worn from the weight of the victims and accused who have rested on them through the years.

She wears black slacks and a blazer over a cream-colored blouse. Her long, straight hair is down, and she has on a little makeup.

I find myself wondering about her personal life. There's no wedding ring on her finger, but that could be a defensive technique. Detectives want to obtain information, not give it away, when they're working a case.

She leads me past two uniformed officers manning the front desk and through the low-partitioned cubicle farm in the open bay. An intense but muted thrum of energy courses through the air, along with the scent of fresh brew from an old-school Mr. Coffee. There are no plants, paintings, or family photos on display. No one wants to be looking at a photograph of their baby's sweet, gummy smile in this grim place; every cop I know has a dividing line burrowed deep in their brain, with work on one side and family on the other.

The detective leads me to her desk in the corner and pulls over an empty chair.

"How's the case going?" she asks once we're seated.

I don't answer immediately. I can't.

Centered on her neat desk is a single file folder. The name on the tab is Mary Hudson .

My mother.

The decades have faded the typed letters to a soft gray. I'm seized with a desperate yearning to reach out, to run my fingers over my mom's name.

The file isn't thick, but whatever it holds is far more than my mind has allowed me to remember about the night she died.

"Stella?"

I look up. Detective Garcia has registered my hunger for the contents of the file; I see it in the way she casually reaches out and pushes the file a few inches closer to me. But she keeps two fingers on it.

"I was asking about the Barclay case. How's it going?"

"Oh. I, ah, I can't say much. I hope to reach a custody recommendation before long, but I'm not sure when."

The detective's expression is inscrutable.

"That's too bad."

My eyebrows lift. "What is?"

"That you don't feel comfortable sharing anything. But I understand. Your files are confidential. You wouldn't want to risk anything by releasing information to me."

As she speaks, she uses those two fingers with the bitten fingernails to pull the folder farther away from me.

I should thank her for her time and stand up and walk out.

But I can't. I'm transfixed by the possibilities the file contains.

I am frantic to know why my mom left me.

If there is something in this file that indicates she didn't intentionally choose drugs over her daughter, that she was forced to inject heroin or harmed in some other way, perhaps I can finally find a bit of peace. Maybe I'll be able to rest at last.

"It's up to you," Detective Garcia says, so softly it's almost a whisper.

My stomach knots as I wrestle with the moral dilemma: Is my stronger fidelity to my young client or to the mother who once loved me?

Is my professional oath more compelling than my loyalty to the family I once had?

Detective Garcia's phone lights up, but she ignores it.

All the other sounds that have been filling my ears—a pair of officers bantering by the coffee machine, a guy shouting something in a hoarse voice in the distance, the sound of a siren wailing—recede.

I have to betray someone.

So I sacrifice Rose.

"The truth is, I think any of them could have done it." I match Detective Garcia's near whisper. "Beth, Ian, Harriet—perhaps Beth and Harriet working together. Even Rose seems like a strong possibility."

Her eyes sharpen. I swear I can feel the hitch in her energy. This revelation doesn't seem to come as a surprise to her.

I've done it. I've stepped over the edge of the precipice.

But Detective Garcia isn't satisfied. I can tell I need to give her more.

"Rose is a troubled girl. The Barclays have walls around her, but I've spoken with her therapist and teachers, and I'm starting to break through them. I can't do my job unless I look into what really happened to Tina, and I've got the access to do it. And when I have a reasonable certainty, you will be the first person I come to."

Detective Garcia nods. She reaches for her cell phone, and I see her scroll down through her contacts.

"Give me your number. I have something to text you."

I recite it and her message lands on my screen. It's a contact card for a man named Samuel Prinze.

"He used to work for the FBI. He knows about troubled kids. Tell him I sent you."

I thank her and she nods. Then she does something that catches me completely off guard.

She stands up.

I'm flooded by the sickening thought that this has all been a trap and she's about to show me out.

Then she says, "Would you mind waiting here? I have to use the bathroom. I'll be back in five minutes."

I nod; I understand the code.

The moment she's out of view, I reach for the folder and open it greedily.

I don't have time to read every page. But I can photograph them. I don't allow myself to react to the words that leap out at me: Needle marks… no ligature marks on neck… no defensive wounds… Nonverbal girl brought to station…

There's a tox report, and statements by the officers on the scene. I document it all, each click of my phone capturing another piece of evidence.

Then come the photographs.

I swallow hard against the bile rising in my throat and snap picture after picture. My hands are shaking so badly a few of them blur until I steady my forearms against Detective Garcia's desk. I don't let myself think about what I'm seeing; I go on autopilot.

Two drinking glasses with a little light brown liquid in each on the coffee table— snap .

My mother's body splayed on the floor— snap .

My mother's inner elbow, with old and new needle marks and a dried droplet of blood visible— snap .

A close-up of my mother's slack face, her eyes cloudy and unseeing— snap .

I finish and close the folder, breathing hard. Panic squeezes me in a vise. I stand up and look around wildly. The two cops by the coffee machine are staring at me now.

I have to get out of here; the walls are collapsing. I stumble on shaky legs back to the reception area, banging my hip against the sharp edge of a table's corner.

I pass Detective Garcia near the entrance. I have no idea what she sees when she looks at me.

She says something, but I can't hear it over the roaring in my head.

I burst outside, gulping in air, blinded by the sharp sunlight.

Then I begin to run.

My heart is going to explode; the contents of my purse are a ticking bomb. My boots pound against sidewalks and through street intersections until some of the adrenaline ebbs from my body. Then I bend over a bush and retch.

When I straighten up, I see I'm not far from the Washington Monument. There's a vendor selling sodas and pretzels and hot dogs a few dozen yards away, and a family—a father, mother, and daughter who looks to be two or three years old—is waiting at the end of the line.

I get in line behind them; I need a bottle of water to rinse my mouth.

I'm shaking and I still haven't caught my breath, but at least I've regained control. Water, home, shower, lunch—I mentally list all the tasks ahead of me, finding comfort in the lack of empty moments.

The mother and father are each holding one of their daughter's hands.

"Swing me!" she yells.

As her parents obey, lifting her off the ground and swaying her a couple of feet forward and back, her delighted little laugh fills my ear.

The mother looks back at me, smiling. "Sorry, she's a maniac."

"Oh, it's great," I tell her.

I look at their linked hands and my mind begins to spin, traveling back in time. It gives me an unexpected gift, one that somehow both shatters and fills my heart. My parents did this with me, too. The long-buried memory is surfacing now, like a silver bubble rising through the depths of dark water. There was a park or field—somewhere with endless green grass—and they each took one of my little hands in theirs and swung me as we walked. I can almost feel the warmth of their palms, and the pure sense of joy I felt.

Tears fill my eyes, and I know they'll overflow before I reach the front of the line.

So I bow my head and turn and walk back toward my car, the sound of the little girl's laughter growing fainter with every step.