Critical Pursuit (20 page)

IT SEEMED LIKE
the entire city of Long Beach woke at once and dialed 911. EOW didn’t come until almost five o’clock. Brinna and Jack worked the shift through with no time for breaks.

Jack wasn’t ready to go home to an empty house with a head full of questions after he’d changed into civvies. He waited for Brinna until she stepped out of the locker room.

“Hey,” she said, “you look like death. What are you doing out here?”

He held out a book. “You left this in the glove box. I figured you wouldn’t want to lose it.”

Brinna shook her head and took Milo’s journal. She probably shouldn’t have brought it along, but she’d hoped for a chance to read more of it, to find better answers. “Thanks. I guess I’m as tired as you are. This would have disappeared in a heartbeat.”

They fell into step toward the parking lot.

“You want to head to Hof’s, have breakfast, and talk about this? We didn’t get our lunch break.”

Brinna took a second to answer. The subdued mood she’d been in earlier when she told Jack about the journal seemed to have dissipated. “Thanks, but I’m beat. Maybe tonight?”

“Sure, bring it. Hopefully tonight will be a little quieter.”

Jack watched her truck leave the parking lot, wishing he could shut the questions out of his mind as easily as his partner seemed able to.

* * *

Brinna drove home wondering if it was a good idea to talk about all the religious stuff in Milo’s journal with Jack
 
—or anyone, for that matter. It was Milo’s personal journey. His final journey.
And he gave it to me. I can’t ignore the numerous references to my mom.

Once home, Brinna leashed up Hero and took him out for a run. During his forced inactivity with no patrol time, she noticed he’d put on a little weight.

During the run, Brinna was aware that, for the first time she could remember, missing kids and errant sex offenders were not forefront in her mind. Milo’s death and the questions she had about it overshadowed the hunt for Nigel. Catching Nigel was important, but Brinna knew nothing in her own life would be settled unless she could find some answers about Milo.

Why did you talk to my mother and not me?

She knew that the only way she’d get an answer to the question
 
—if there was an answer
 
—was to talk to her mother. And she dreaded that option almost as much as she had dreaded going to the hospital to see her father.

When she got home, Brinna fell into bed, expecting sleep to come quickly, hoping it would quiet her troubled thoughts for a while. But nothing happened. Her ceiling fan sounded like a tornado wind; her pillow felt lumpy; Hero was a bed hog. Every little thing got under her skin. After tossing and turning for an hour, she gave up and hopped into the shower.

The water cooled her off and took away the clammy, sticky feeling but didn’t relax her enough to go to sleep. After pacing her living room and downing a tall, cold iced tea, Brinna realized she couldn’t put off the talk with her mother. As much as the thought made her cringe, she knew she’d have to go to the hospital.

I’ll have to face my father again,
she thought and groaned, not wanting any kind of repeat of the last visit. If her dad wanted a fight, she’d just have to bite her tongue and let him vent, she decided.

* * *

Once she stepped through the entrance of Long Beach Memorial, she felt the same sense of foreboding that enveloped her the day she’d come with her brother.

Nothing good happens at hospitals.

She’d dressed for the outside temperature in shorts and a tank top and shivered in the air-conditioning. Rubbing the goose bumps on her arms, she stepped into her father’s room and heard her mother and Brian speaking in hushed tones. Her gaze traveled to her father’s bed. It was empty. Fear shot through her like an electric current.

“Where’s Dad?” she asked.

Her mother met her worried gaze and smiled. “He’s downstairs having some tests. He’ll be back shortly. I know he’ll be happy you came to visit again.”

Brinna felt a measure of relief that surprised her. She didn’t want to face her father, but neither did she want to ponder the possibility she’d miss him when the cancer ran its course. She forced her thoughts to the reason for her visit.

“Actually, I came to talk to you.” She sat on the edge of her father’s empty bed and looked at her mom.

“Me?” Rose’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

“I think this is where I go get a soda or something.” Brian stood. He kissed Brinna on the forehead. “Good to see you again.”

After he left, Brinna faced her mother’s questioning expression. “I wanted to talk to you about Milo.”

Rose’s expression softened and she nodded. “I should have realized. Brinna, I’m so sorry about Milo. With everything else going on, I just forgot how hard this must be for you.”

Brinna felt a lump rise and wished she had a cup of hot, strong coffee to swallow it down with. She cleared her throat. “He talked to you; you knew. Why didn’t you tell me?” Brinna hated the emotion in her voice.

Rose left her chair and sat next to her daughter on the bed. “He begged me not to tell you. He said he would, in his own time. I’m sorry he didn’t, but I gave him my word that I wouldn’t steal his thunder.”

“When, uh . . . How many times did you guys talk?”

“Just a few. He called me after he’d been diagnosed. And
then once or twice after that. There was no regular pattern to it.”

“Why you?”

“Because he knew where I stood on things. As you so often point out, I preach a lot.”

Brinna managed a choked chuckle.

Her mother continued. “He knew I believed in God and heaven. He wanted me to explain why I was so sure God was real and that there was a better place waiting after death.”

“And you told him? All that stuff you’ve been telling me for years?”

“Yes, all of it.”

“He believed you?”

“That I don’t know. The last time we talked, he seemed to have a measure of peace in his heart that he hadn’t had before.” Rose took Brinna’s hand. “I had no idea he was going to take his own life. If I had, I would have done everything in my power to stop him.”

Brinna nodded, unable to speak. Her mom had answered her questions but it didn’t help. Would she ever understand why Milo made the choice he made?

JACK PACED
a familiar path in his living room. The question of eternity blazed in his mind. Vicki’s eternity, Heather’s eternity, and his own.

He’d told Heather Bailey’s dad that the little girl was in a better place. The consolation was thrown out by reflex, and it kept echoing back to him.

Jack had flipped through Milo’s journal before giving it back to Brinna and realized that the man had experienced a true spiritual renewal. Milo found peace with God before his final act. He confessed a belief in a good, merciful, and eternal God. And he was certain he would be in a better place after death.

Brinna had been succinct in her reasoning. It was clear to her: if there was no God, there was no heaven. No better place after death.

Either I believe it . . . or I don’t.

Jack picked up a photo of Vicki. He’d taken it while they were on their last anniversary trip. She sat on the beach in
Hawaii, smiling toward the camera with beautiful blue water in the background. Jack remembered the smell of her suntan lotion, the temperature of the water, and the feel of the breeze on his skin.

He remembered Vicki saying that Hawaii was probably a lot like how heaven was going to be. She’d told him that she looked forward to the day they could actually sit at the feet of Jesus.

But you went without me.

He felt the tears come and put the picture down to rub his eyes. The foundation of their faith had been Christ’s saving grace and the hope of an eternity with him.

Was Vicki really in that better place? Sitting on the couch, Jack pounded his thighs with his fists. He was caught in an impossible situation. He wanted to deny God because Vicki was taken from him so horribly. But to deny God denied heaven and meant Jack could never again gaze upon his wife.

“God, God, God! For so long I believed in you and I served you. But you took the most precious part of my life away!”

He got up and walked to the bedroom and leaned against a wall, staring at the bed. Fists clenched, biting his lower lip, Jack fought the tears. His back slid down the wall until his butt hit the floor.

I can’t cry anymore. I’ve cried too much. It’s time to resolve issues instead of wallowing in grief.

If God wasn’t real, if there wasn’t a heaven, then where was Vicki? The only image that ever gave him peace was the image of her in a place where he would eventually join her.
In his darkest thoughts, when he considered taking his own life like Milo had, the upside of that was that he’d go to Vicki.

He realized that as hard as he tried, there was no escaping God. There had to be a God, and Vicki and Heather had to be at peace in heaven. He didn’t want it any other way.

The road to reconciliation with God would take longer than an afternoon of contemplation, but he knew he’d eventually find that road and reconcile with his God. He wanted the peace back, the peace he knew Milo had found. The peace he used to have when he felt the presence of God in his life.

BRINNA PACED
her father’s empty room, smacking a thigh every so often with an open hand.

“How did I let Mom talk me into waiting around for Dad to get back?” she mumbled under her breath. The memory of their last fight stuck in her mind the same way the antiseptic smell of the hospital stuck in her sinuses.

I may be willing to put the past behind us,
she thought,
but I can’t picture Dad caving on anything. Rocky Caruso never backs down.
She checked her watch and turned to the door, contemplating flight.

Too late.
She could hear the approaching wheelchair and see the turn of the knob. Unclenching her fists, she wiped sweaty palms on her shorts as the door swung open.

“Brinna.” The tone of her father’s raspy voice betrayed surprise. As the nurse pushed his chair past Brinna to the bed, he smiled.

Brinna stepped back as if pushed and drew in a deep
breath.
Is he really glad to see me? Or is this just a product of his medication?

The nurse helped her father get from the chair to the bed. Brinna looked away, somewhat chastened by his weakness. Once the nurse completed her task, she nodded to Brinna and left the room.

Brinna faced her father, arms folded, but stepped no closer to the bed. “Mom and Brian went to get coffee,” she told him, still suspicious of his good humor. “I said I’d wait here until they got back.”

His eyes and expression brightened more than she thought possible. “I’m glad.” He shifted in the bed, wincing with the effort but flashing another smile when he got settled.

Brinna chewed a thumb cuticle, feeling as uncomfortable as she would if she were in front of an oral board. What could she say to this person before her masquerading as her father? Something in his eyes tied her tongue.

“About the other day . . .” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about the things I said. I . . .” His voice trailed off, and Brinna found hers.

“Forget it, Dad. Today is a different day.”

Rocky brought a hand crisscrossed with thick blue veins to his chin and nodded. “A different day.” He nodded toward the newspaper on his nightstand. “For you, too. Different and better.”

Brinna frowned and stepped to the bed. “You mean there’s something good in print for a change?”

When he nodded, she snatched the newspaper off the nightstand, wondering if the shooting board’s findings had
reached the morning edition. “
Times
Reporter Accused of Falsifying Stories,” blared the headline.

“That reporter who saw you shoot
 
—” Dad cleared his throat
 
—“guess he didn’t really see.”

Brinna skimmed the text. “Wow,” she mumbled, half to herself. “They’re comparing Clark to Jayson Blair.” She whistled softly in wonder, feeling tension ease, finally reading good news after days of bad. “He’s been suspended, and a lot of his prior work is being reviewed for accuracy and truthfulness.”

She folded the paper and slapped her hand with it. “I knew he was off when he claimed the kid never fired a shot. He hid too far under the dashboard to see or hear anything.”

Her father leaned back in bed and gripped his blanket. “I knew you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Brinna stared at her father. In twenty-six years she couldn’t remember his ever saying anything supportive. It was more of a shock than his smile had been. “You mean that?”

“Of course.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “In spite of all we’ve argued about over the years
 
—” his hoarse voice broke, and for a minute Brinna couldn’t breathe, much less speak
 
—“I am proud of you. I know you do a very good job.”

Maggie’s words echoed in her memory, and Brinna knew her friend had been right. All these years she’d wanted her father’s approval, and now she had it while he lay dying. Words escaped her. Her throat felt as if someone had just applied a carotid restraint.

“We need to settle things between us, in the time we have left.” He opened his eyes, and a tear leaked down his cheek.
“You think I never wanted you, that I’d hoped for a boy and was disappointed when you came along. You’re wrong. A daughter terrified me.”

Brinna blinked back her own tears and fought the burning in her throat. She could feel the solid protection she’d built around her heart cracking. She opened her mouth to say something, but her father waved her quiet.

“I feared I couldn’t take care of you or protect you properly.” His face was flushed with the effort of so many words, but Brinna couldn’t quiet him. “Boys were different
 
—easier somehow, I thought.”

Rocky shifted in the bed again and grimaced. “That day, when you were six and they told me what happened
 
—” he choked on a sob and ran his hand across his nose
 
—“my worst fear was realized. I couldn’t take care of my baby girl.”

Brinna felt paralyzed, terrified that if she moved, she’d lose it. She twisted the newspaper in her hands.

He blinked and more tears fell. “Can you forgive me for letting that happen?”

“I never blamed you, Dad, not for anything,” Brinna whispered. She bit her lip and sniffled, not trusting herself to say more.

Rocky went on. “I’m your father. I should have protected you
 
—”

“Dad, stop.” She stepped forward and took his hand.
Like I wanted to protect Heather and every other missing kid?
“The only person responsible for what happened to me was Nigel Pearce. I know that now more than ever. You don’t deserve any blame.”

He leaned his head back into the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut. The strength in his hand as he gripped Brinna’s surprised her. “I would have killed him with my bare hands.”

Brinna bit her lip as the remaining bit of Kevlar around her heart shattered like ice on concrete.

“I know, Dad; I know,” she whispered. “I feel that way every time a kid gets abducted. But we can only take responsibility for what we control.”

She sat on the side of the bed gripping his hand and holding his gaze. The warmth she saw in his water-filled eyes erased a lifetime of bitterness and hurt.