Дэвид Балдаччи - Redemption

“I can’t say I blame him.” She lay back and closed her eyes. “I’m so tired.” Then she snapped forward. “Oh my God, my son, where is—”

“He’s fine. He’s with child services. He knows nothing about any of this, though.”

“I... I can’t believe I just thought of him.”

And the woman did look truly stunned at her thoughtlessness, Decker observed.

“Well, you just came out of a drug coma. You can’t be thinking too clearly.”

“You’re being too kind, Decker.” She hesitated. “But I get the feeling that’s about to change.”

He stood and looked down at her. “Do you know how many people go through life without a second chance to get it right?”

“I... what do you mean exactly?”

“You messed up, Mitzi. You helped frame your father. He suffered greatly for that. He went to prison, where terrible things happened to him.”

“I know all that. I was... I was out of my mind on drugs, Decker.”

“And now you’re not. You’re clean and sober and hopefully thinking clearly.”

“What do you want me to do?” she said warily.

“How about the right thing.”

“And what is that precisely?”

“You go into court and you make a statement, clearing your father, returning him his good name, and accepting responsibility for what you did.”

“And then I go to prison? That’s what you’re asking me to do, isn’t it?”

“Well, I think I have the right to ask, considering you did your best to blow my head off back at your house.”

“I... I can’t go to prison. My son will have nobody.”

“Maybe you won’t have to.”

“How?” she said pleadingly.

“This is not a typical case. I might be able to get the authorities to make a deal. You tell us what really happened, your father’s reputation is restored, and you go on with your life.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?”

“Anything is possible. But aside from the obvious benefits to you, I think there might be something else positive in that scenario for you.”

“What?”

“You’ve been living all these years with guilt, Mitzi. Whether you know it or not. And that does something to you. It changes you. It makes you become someone maybe you don’t want to be but can do nothing to stop. Even with all the money in the world. It tears away at you little by little.”

She clutched at her sheet and glanced up at him. “You... you sound like that might have happened to you.”

“There was no might about it. I wasn’t there for my family when they needed me. Because of that, they died. I’m never going to see my wife and my daughter again, and I guess I’ve always accepted that as my penance.” Decker drew a long breath. “But that’s no way to live, Mitzi. Trust me.”

Tears were sliding down the woman’s cheeks. She reached out and clutched his hand. Not too long ago, Decker would have flinched from this contact.

Yet when Melvin Mars had put his arm around him when Decker had been at one of his lowest points here, and then Mary Lancaster had gripped his hand in the car, just wanting the comforting embrace of another human when she had felt so scared, something had happened to Amos Decker.

And it was a good thing. Because despite all the unsettling things that his mind had been doing while he was here, the ability to be hugged or have your hand clenched by another without flinching, that simple act, which just about everyone else took for granted, had brought Decker a bit closer to the person he had once been. Before he had died on a football field and woken up as someone else entirely.

So, Decker reached out his other hand and closed it over Mitzi’s.

“Will you do that, Mitzi? Will you take that step? Will you right the things you can? And finally free yourself of the guilt?”

An uncomfortably long moment passed until she spoke.

“Yes. I will.”

Bogart said, “Apparently, in addition to meddling in our democratic process, Moscow is also trying to recruit the more marginalized among us and turn them into foot soldiers on our home turf, in the hopes of breeding even more division and unrest.”

He, Mars, Jamison, and Decker were having dinner at Suds.

“So Eric Tyson and Karl Stevens were part of that pack?” asked Jamison.

“Right.”

Decker finished his last French fry while sneaking a glance at a disapproving-looking Jamison. Then she suddenly brightened and said, “Okay, you earned your junk food quota for today. But tomorrow is another story.”

Bogart said, “They found Childress in his cell, dead. It was his food. Some type of industrial chemical poison. The Russians are really good at that. They must have had more assets in the police department than just Childress. Captain Miller is currently looking into that.”

“Any word on Egorshin?” asked Mars.

He shook his head. “We think he made it out of the country the same night he fled from the Richardses. He’s probably back in Moscow by now. His two men whom we took into custody aren’t saying anything. I’m surprised they didn’t have cyanide pills in a tooth filling. We’re going to get nothing from them. But we did find other records of the ‘trainees’ who worked at the Grill. We’re using that, together with other information, to trace Egorshin’s spies around the country.”

“Well, I hope you find every last one of them,” said Mars.

“And what will happen to Rachel Katz?” asked Decker.

“Witness protection, most likely. Same for Mitzi Gardiner and her son. Gardiner gave a full allocution in court absolving her father of the murders. His record was expunged. He’s now a completely innocent man.”

“And also dead,” said Decker grimly. “So he’ll never know.”

Mars said, “Hey, man, you got to keep the faith. And my faith tells me that the man does know. He asked you to prove his innocence. And you did.”

“Just give me a few minutes,” said Decker.

He climbed out of a car that Jamison was driving, with Bogart and Mars riding in the backseat.

Bogart said, “But you are coming back with us, correct? No more detours along the way to investigate another case that pops up?”

Decker nodded. “No. I think I’ve had my fill of that, at least for now.”

“Good, Decker,” said Mars. “Because when we land back in D.C., dinner’s on me. Harper’s going to join us.”

Decker nodded and headed off down the street. He looked up to see Mary Lancaster coming from the other direction. They met in front of Decker’s old house.

“Thanks for meeting me here, Mary.”

“I assumed you wanted to say goodbye.” She glanced at the house. “But I’m not sure why here.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I wouldn’t have supposed otherwise.”

“I’ll be coming back to see you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” She looked in the direction of the car where Jamison, Mars, and Bogart were waiting. “You have a new life, Amos. Away from here. And it’s a good thing too.” She glanced at the house where Decker had suffered so much misery. “You need to be free of this place, once and for all.”

“I’m not going to do that, Mary.”

“But why?”

“You’re my friend.”

“And you’re my friend too. But—”

“And you’re going to be experiencing some things in the coming years that I may be able to at least help you with, in some small way.”

Lancaster looked down, drew out a cigarette from her pack, glanced at the smoke for a long moment, and then tossed it away.

“I’m still scared.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Most people would be. But you have Earl. And you have me.”