Lisa Gardner - The Next Accident

" – weeks in the hole. No one to brag to, no one to boost your ego, no one to rape when you realize you're never ever going to even touch a woman again."

"Do me a favor, fed. Next time you listen to my tape, picture your daughter's face for me. Oh, and give your second daughter a kiss. Because someday, I'm gonna find a way out of this joint, and it makes me real happy to know that you've still got one daughter left."

"One last time," Quincy said tightly, his gaze locked on his blinking security system, "how did you get my unlisted number?"

And Sanchez drawled, "Unlisted? Not anymore."

Quincy had no sooner set down his phone, than it rang again. He snatched it back up.

"What?" he demanded harshly.

There was a moment of silence, then his ex-wife's uncertain voice. "Pierce?"

Quincy closed his eyes. He was unraveling. He would not unravel. He would not permit himself to do such a thing. " Elizabeth."

"I was wondering if you could do me a small favor," Bethie murmured. "Nothing major. Simply run a background check. You know, as you did before."

"Your father hiring more contractors?" Quincy worked on loosening his grip on the phone and taking a deep breath. His father-in-law had built an addition on his home last year. He'd made his only daughter call her ex-husband to request background checks on the entire crew. According to his former father-in-law, it was the least Quincy could do.

"The name is Shandling. Tristan Shandling."

Quincy found a piece of paper and wrote down the name. His heart was finally beginning to slow, the darkness receding at the edge of his vision. He felt more and more like his former self, and not some beast about to burst its chains. The red digital counter still glowed on his answering machine. Fifty-six messages. Something had gone wrong. He would deal with it, however, as he'd dealt with everything before. All in good time.

"Time frame?" he asked his ex-wife.

"Ummm, no rush. But soon. I think he has a place in Virginia if that helps."

"All right, Bethie. Give me a few days."

"Thank you, Pierce," she said, and for once it sounded as if she meant it.

Quincy didn't hang up the phone right away. Neither did she.

"Have you… have you heard from Kimberly lately?" he found himself asking.

Bethie seemed surprised. "No, but I'd assumed that you had."

"Ah, so we're equally shunned."

"Maybe she tried to call you when you were gone…" Bethie's voice trailed off. She seemed to realize how that sounded and added hastily, "I tried to reach you earlier in the week, but you weren't home and I didn't feel like leaving a message."

"I was in Portland visiting someone. An old friend." He wasn't sure why he offered the information, and the minute he did, he wished he could call it back. An old friend? Who was he trying to kid? When Bethie spoke, however, she didn't sound angry or tense, which surprised him.

"Maybe I should pay Kimberly a visit," she said. "She's just an hour away, I could tell her I was in the area. It's been a month."

Quincy almost said no, then caught himself. Once, Rainie had accused him of taking his job too far. Even in his personal life, he showed up, gave his expert opinion, and left.

"Perhaps Kimberly just needs some space," he tried neutrally.

"I don't know why. We're the only family she has left. Frankly, I thought she'd strive to be closer to us, not further away."

Quincy rubbed his temples. "Bethie, I know that you're sad. I'm sad, too."

"Pierce, you're speaking to me as if I were five."

"We tried so hard for her. I know we don't always agree on each other's role as a parent, but we both loved Mandy. We wanted the best for her. We would've… We would've given her the world if such a thing were possible. Instead she got drunk, crawled behind the wheel of her vehicle and killed two people. I love her. I miss her. And some days… Some days, I'm just so angry."

He was thinking of Sanchez's call again, and the way his hands had fisted and his body had gone rigid. He was still angry, he realized. He was furious in places way down deep where it would take years to weed it all out and begin to feel normal again.

"Bethie," he tried one last time, "don't you get angry, too?"

His ex-wife didn't speak right away. Then she asked quietly, in a strange tone, "Pierce, do you think if someone gets an organ transplant, that maybe they get more than just the other person's tissue? Maybe… maybe they also get part of the other person's being, some part of her soul?"

"An organ transplant is a medical procedure, nothing more."

"I thought you would say that."

"Returning to Kimberly for a moment – "

"She's angry, she needs space. I got it, Pierce. I'm not as dumb as you think."

"Bethie – "

The phone clicked off. His ex-wife had hung up on him.

Quincy slowly recradled the cordless phone on its base. And that, he thought tiredly, concluded one of the more civil conversations of his day.

Five minutes later, Quincy sat down at the kitchen counter. The scrap of paper with Tristan Shandling's name had been pushed aside. Now, he had out a fresh spiral notebook and three black ink pens. He pressed the play button on his answering machine.

Then he began the two-page list of all the nice felons who'd called his unlisted telephone number simply to wish him dead.

The light on his security panel indicated his system was fully operational and armed. He watched it for a long time, thinking of Kimberly, remembering Mandy.

Shortly, he went into the front room he used as an office. He dug through a stack of cardboard boxes marked Criminology: Basic Theories, until he found a small cassette tape labeled "Miguel Sanchez: Victim Eight." The original tape sat in an evidence storage locker in California. This was Quincy 's personal copy, used in several of his classes.

He placed the tape in an old cassette recorder. He hit play. He sat alone in the dark, while his office filled with sounds of a young girl's pleading wails.

Amanda Johnson, fifteen years old and eight long hours from death.

"Noooooooooo," she cried. "Oh God, nooooooooooo."

Quincy put his head in his hands. And he knew he was in trouble, because one month after his daughter's funeral, he still couldn't weep.

Motel 6, Virginia

"Who is Miguel Sanchez?"Rainie asked an hour later. She was propped up against the headboard of her mud-brown motel room, having just treated herself to a late dinner of pecan waffles at the nearby Waffle House. The Motel 6 had been highly visible from the highway and seemed as good a stopping point as any. Besides, at fifty dollars a night, no one could question her expense account.

She'd found the motel. She'd found the neighboring Waffle House. She'd eaten her waffles alone, thinking of Officer Amity's take on the accident scene and wishing she didn't have a chill. Then she'd wasted ten minutes watching other diners, burly, working-class men out with their girls. In some cases, tables crowded with entire families. She was three thousand miles away from home. Funny how nothing seemed that different.

She'd walked back to the motel knowing she should call Quincy and deliver a report on her day. Instead, she'd turned on the TV and perused the modern miracle of fifty-seven channels and still nothing to see. She told herself she didn't have much to report, anyway. Besides, she didn't want to seem anxious to hear Quincy 's voice.

She wanted to ensure that she was treating this as business, purely business. Quincy the client.

There had been nothing good on TV. She had spent the day in a strange state thinking, this is where Quincy lives, and she had been anxious to hear his voice. She'd called. And it had taken her all of one second to realize that she should've called sooner. Quincy sounded tired, nearly flat, as if he had no emotions left. She had never heard him sound like that before.