“Sure.” He got up. “Max, I’m sorry about the situation with Emma. But we are friends, we will always be friends. I knew something was wrong, you talked to me different, but I didn’t make the connection. Forgive me.”
“All is forgiven,” she said. And she meant it. Another weight lifted off her heart. “I mean it. I’m going to call Nick, tell him I’m not coming tomorrow. Meet you in the restaurant? An hour?”
“See you there.”
*
Max’s cell phone rang Friday night after she returned from dinner. It had been really good to connect with David again.
“Max Revere,” she answered.
“Hi, it’s Lucy Kincaid.”
Max sat down at her desk and smiled. “I’m glad you called.”
“It was a zoo in Glendale after we arrested Danielle Sharpe, and then you left the next morning. I felt bad I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.”
Max didn’t tell Lucy that she’d negotiated a copy of the transcript from Lucy’s hostage negotiation with Danielle. She wasn’t going to use it—she’d promised Andrew she wouldn’t—but it gave her a new insight into how she investigated cold cases.
And great insight into Lucy Kincaid. There was more to her story, Max was certain, but for the first time she was okay with letting it go.
“Sean and I had breakfast before I left, while you were debriefing and doing all the boring paperwork.”
Lucy laughed. “Definitely not the fun part of my job.”
“What now?”
“Back to work—well, I’m not on call, so I have a couple days. Dillon’s here—he flew in this afternoon after the verdict and is going to stay for the weekend.”
“Tell him I said thank you. Again. He sealed the conviction.”
“He said it was three things—his testimony, the computer expert who confirmed that Blair Caldwell had read articles about Justin’s murder on her work computer, and the fact that her husband didn’t return to court after Dillon’s testimony. The jury noticed.”
“John knew from the beginning, but he was in denial. He wanted me to prove that she didn’t do it, to give him peace.”
“I figured that. Have you spoken to him?”
“This afternoon. He’s picking up the pieces. His sister is coming to town, they’ll sell the house, he’s been offered a job in the Pacific Northwest. He isn’t going to just get over his son’s murder.”
“No, he won’t. He doesn’t want to hear that it’ll get easier, but there will be a time when he’ll wake up and his first thought won’t be Peter. It’ll take time. Years, perhaps. The sorrow will always be there. But he’ll learn to find joy in his life. There will be balance, and that’s really all any of us can hope for.”
“Is everything okay with you? Your work?”
Yes, she was prying. But she was curious, and a bit concerned. Lucy was instrumental in solving her nephew’s murder and preventing the death of another young boy; she didn’t deserve to be raked over the coals by a boss who didn’t know what she’d accomplished.
“I’m fine.”
Talk about a vague answer! But Max didn’t press.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Lucy continued.
“As you told me, I’m an open book.”
“Sean is a private investigator and rather exemplary at his job. You told him about how your mother disappeared. You have a lot of information on your Web site as well.”
“I’ve never kept it a secret. I recognize that one of the reasons I’ve chosen this job—to solve crimes for other people—is because I can’t solve the mysteries in my own life. I’ve never lied to myself about it.”
“Sean has a lead. But we didn’t want to send you the information he uncovered without asking if you really want it.”
Max’s heart skipped a beat. “A lead? What kind of lead?”
“You told Sean your mother never wrote to you after your sixteenth birthday, and shortly after that she stopped withdrawing money from her trust account. She was legally declared dead seven years and three months after your sixteenth birthday—seven years after the last withdrawal she made from her trust—so Sean dug around and found out where she was living after April first.”
“She withdrew the money in Florida, but I lived with her for ten years. She would withdraw the money then immediately leave. Why, I don’t know. I thought at the time so that my grandparents couldn’t track her. But I’ve wondered if she was running from someone else. Or just running from herself.”
“She bought a car in Florida the day she withdrew the money. She bought it under a false identity. The car was found abandoned in Virginia two weeks later.”
Max’s stomach twisted in knots. She had looked into her mother’s disappearance, but she’d never truly devoted a lot of time or energy. Maybe part of her didn’t want to know the truth. Could that be? Could it be that Max herself didn’t want answers to the one question that had driven her for so long?
“Max?”
“I’m here.”
“Sean didn’t get this information strictly legally. I know what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t.”
Lucy laughed, though there was no humor. “Max, do you really think you intentionally thwarted yourself?”
Maybe Lucy Kincaid really could read minds. “Yes.”
“Maybe you could have found it. Maybe not. This was sixteen years ago. And Sean is—well, let’s just say he would say he’s the best in the business.”
“It sounds like he is.”
“Do you want the information he found?”
Did she? Did she want to know the truth about her mother? Why she left her when she was ten, why she never returned, never called, and sent her a birthday card every year until she disappeared off the face of the earth?
Would the answers give her closure? A sense of peace? Justice?
Except … if she was murdered, that meant there was a killer out there. And even after sixteen years, that killer needed to be found. And prosecuted. Justice had to be served. Because no matter how selfish and irresponsible Martha Revere was, she didn’t deserve death.
“Yes, Lucy. I’d like the information. And thank you. Thank you both.”