Archer Mayor - The Dark Root

He turned to me, surprised-and I thought a little relieved. “You sure that would be okay?”

“You’ve got a lot on your mind, especially with the baby due. Good time to step back a bit-not be so wrapped up in the job. Maybe Sammie’d be interested. You think she’d take it?”

He laughed. “In a heartbeat.”

I got up and walked to where the hillside fell off sharply to the railroad tracks and the near shore of the river, a hundred feet below. That was it, then. Life would resume for us all again, if in modified form.

At least almost-for there was loss lingering still, and a few things left I had to set right.

The Lee residence looked much as it had the last time I’d seen it-abandoned, neglected, in mourning, sitting among its tidy neighbors like a scream in the night no one wanted to acknowledge.

Amy Lee sat next to me, tired and wan, her face reflecting the ethereal glow from the dashboard’s instrument lights. Unmolested and in good health, she’d been found in Da Wang’s stronghold in Montreal by Lacoste and his people. It had taken time for them to confirm her identity, and for me to get to her and vouch for her. The paperwork to bring her back had prolonged things further, forcing me to precede her back to Brattleboro. An INS agent had finally picked her up at the border and driven her here in his car, rather than having her ride a bus, as was standard.

I’d intercepted her at that point, not wanting some anonymous federal employee delivering her home. My motives were also self-serving, of course. Having visited both Tony in the hospital, where he was fully recovering, and Dennis’s family at their home, I was engaging in a quest of sorts, taking an inventory of my world, making sure that what was left of it was secure and in place and on the road to recovery-reestablishing that the differences between me and Truong Van Loc were as broad as I’d once imagined them.

Amy looked over at the still house, its few lights barely glimmering from behind tightly drawn curtains.

“You okay?” I asked her, anxious that this reunion, of all things, should go right, and that this young voyager between cultures-a victim and a beneficiary of both-should recover. For all our sakes.

“I think so,” she murmured.

The door to the house opened, spilling light onto the shaggy lawn, and the outlines of two small, slightly bent people reached toward us. Amy, hesitant no longer, bolted from the car and ran to them, her own shadow melting into theirs. Slowly, as a group, weakened by exhaustion, happiness, and jittery relief, the three of them slumped to their knees in the grass, their arms intertwined, their heads buried in each others’ hair.

I stood by the car, smiling inanely in the darkness, rewarded at last by some palpable measure of success. All the misery and loss that had led to this one, small embrace was by no means a total redemption, but what I was seeing at least gave it some meaning.

I was getting ready to leave when Thomas Lee’s pale, oval face turned to look at me. He slowly disentangled himself, and came over.

For a split second, I was apprehensive. The police had meant nothing but trouble for this man, whether here or in the country of his birth, and despite the joy of his daughter’s return, I was braced for the worst.

He stopped short of me, his expression shaded and hard to read. Then abruptly he stuck out his hand. In the dim light, I could just see the glimmering of tears on his cheeks. “Thank you, Mr. Gunther, for keeping your word.”

The handshake was warm, and firm, and brought with it the measure of peace I was seeking. “Thank you, Mr. Lee.”