Ridley Pearson - Chain of Evidence

He had no flowers to leave her. He had brought her nothing. He owed her nothing-that was how he felt about it. But he stopped at the foot of her grave anyway, because he couldn’t pass it up. He needed her. He needed that connection to the woman who had birthed him, to the person, however god-awful it had been. She was down there, under the snow and grass and earth, and Dart felt grateful for that. We are all where we belong , he thought.

He felt his throat constrict, and he cursed her for maintaining any hold over him, any power. How dare she! His eyes brimmed with tears and he wanted to hate her, but he could not.

He reached down and placed his cast in the snow, leaving an unexplained print behind. He closed his eyes and he hated her briefly, but it passed.

“I forgive you,” he whispered, the tears beginning to fall. Met with an unsettling silence, and the distant sound of the Interstate’s overpass.

He stood and walked away, dragging his face against the shoulder of his coat, cursing his weakness.

He followed his own prints back through the deep snow, painfully aware that there were no other prints to follow. It’s okay , he thought, glancing over at the wall that bore Zeller’s name.

Abby had kept the engine running. Kept things warm. Mac slept in the backseat.

She was driving. Dart was no good with the cast.

“You all right?” she asked, reaching over and touching his face lightly, wiping away one of his tears.

“Better,” answered Joe Dartelli. All right was still a little ways off.