Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

“They sent two of you all this way, did they?”

“This investigation crosses both state and international borders. A number of different agencies are involved.”

“And you think it all leads to my wife.”

“We think she’s key to the case.”

“And this concerns me how?”

Two men and too much damn testosterone, thought Jane. She stepped forward and DeBruin frowned at her, as if not certain how to rebuff a woman.

“We’ve come a long way, Mr. DeBruin,” she said quietly. “Please, may we speak to Millie?”

He eyed her for a moment. “She went to pick up our daughter.”

“When will she be back?”

“A while.” Grudgingly he opened the front door. “You might as well come in. Some things need to be said first.”

They followed him into the farmhouse, and Jane saw wide-plank floors and massive ceiling beams. This home had history in its bones, from the hand-hewn banister to the antique Dutch tiles on the hearth. DeBruin offered them neither coffee nor tea, but brusquely waved them toward a sofa. He settled into the armchair facing them.

“Millie feels safe here,” he said. “We’ve made a good life together on this farm. We have a daughter. She’s only four years old. Now you want to change everything.”

“She could make all the difference in our investigation,” said Jane.

“You don’t know what you’re asking of her. She hasn’t slept through the night since your first phone call. She wakes up screaming. She won’t even leave this valley, and now you expect her to go all the way to Boston?”

“Boston PD will look after her, I promise. She’ll be perfectly safe.”

“Safe? Do you have any idea how hard it is for her to feel safe even here?” He snorted. “Of course you don’t. You don’t know what she went through in the bush.”

“We read her statement.”

“Statement? As if a few typed pages can tell the whole story? I was there, the day she walked out of the bush. I was staying at a game lodge in the Delta, spending my holiday watching elephants. Every afternoon, we were served tea on the veranda, where we could watch the animals drinking at the river. That day, I saw a creature I’d never seen before come out of the bush. So thin, it looked like a bundle of twigs caked in mud. As we watched, not believing our eyes, it crossed the lawn and came up the steps. There we were, with our fine china cups and saucers, our fussy little cakes and sandwiches. And this creature walks up to me, looks me straight in the eye, and says: ‘Are you real? Or am I in heaven?’ I told her, if this is heaven, then they’ve sent me to the wrong place. And that’s when she dropped to her knees and started weeping. Because she knew her nightmare was over. She knew she was safe.” DeBruin gave Jane a hard, penetrating look. “I swore to her that I’d keep her safe. Through thick and thin.”

“So will Boston PD, sir,” said Jane. “If we can just convince you to let her—”

“It’s not me you need to convince. It’s my wife.” He glanced out the window as a car pulled into the driveway. “She’s here.”

They waited in silence as a key grated in the lock, then footsteps pattered into the house and a little girl came running into the living room. Like her father she was blond and sturdy, with the healthy pink cheeks of a child who lives her life in sunshine. She gave the two visitors scarcely a glance and ran straight into her father’s arms.

“There you are, Violet!” DeBruin said, lifting his daughter onto his lap. “How was riding today?”

“He bit me.”

“The pony did?”

“I gave him an apple and he bit my finger.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to. That’s why I tell you to keep your hand flat.”

“I’m not giving him any more apples.”

“Yah, that will teach pony a lesson, hey?” He looked up, grinning, and suddenly went still as he saw his wife standing in the doorway.

Unlike her husband and daughter, Millie had dark hair and it was pulled back in a ponytail, making her face appear startlingly thin and angular, her cheeks hollow, her blue eyes smudged by shadows. She gave their visitors a smile, but there was no disguising the apprehension in her gaze.

“Millie, these are the people from Boston,” said DeBruin.

Both Jane and Gabriel stood to introduce themselves. Shaking Millie’s hand was like grasping icicles, so stiff and chilled were her fingers.

“Thank you for seeing us,” said Jane as they all sat down again.

“Have you been to Africa before?” Millie asked.

“First time for both of us. It’s beautiful here. So is your home.”

“This farm’s been in Chris’s family for generations. He should give you a tour later.” Millie paused, as if the effort to keep up even trivial conversation exhausted her. Her gaze dropped to the empty coffee table and she frowned. “Did you not offer them tea, Chris?”

At once DeBruin jumped to his feet. “Oh yah, sorry. Completely forgot about that.” He took his daughter’s hand. “Violet, come help your silly dad.”

In silence Millie watched her husband and daughter leave. Only when she heard the faint clang of the teakettle and water running in the kitchen did she say: “I haven’t changed my mind about going to Boston. I suppose Chris told you that.”

“In so many words,” said Jane.

“I’m afraid this is a waste of your time. Coming all this way, just to hear me repeat what I told you on the phone.”

“We needed to meet you.”

“Why? To see for yourselves that I’m not a lunatic? That everything I told the police six years ago actually happened?” Millie glanced at Gabriel, then back at Jane. The phone calls had already established a link between the women, and Gabriel stayed silent, allowing Jane to take the lead.

“We have no doubt it happened to you,” said Jane.

Millie looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and said softly: “Six years ago, the police didn’t believe me. Not at first. When I told them my story, from my hospital bed, I could see the doubt in their eyes. A clueless city girl, surviving two weeks alone in the bush? They thought I’d wandered away from some other game lodge and gotten lost and delirious in the heat. They said the pills I took for malaria might have made me psychotic or confused. That it happens to tourists all the time. They said my story didn’t ring true because anyone else would have starved to death. Or been torn apart by lions or hyenas. Or trampled by elephants. And how did I know that I could stay alive eating papyrus reeds, the way the natives do? They couldn’t believe I survived because of pure dumb luck. But that’s exactly what it was. It was luck that I chose to head downriver and ended up at the tourist lodge. Luck that I didn’t poison myself on some wild berry or bark, but ate the most nutritious reed I could have chosen. Luck that after two weeks in the bush, I walked out alive. The police said it wasn’t possible.” She took a deep breath. “Yet I did it.”

“I think you’re wrong, Millie,” said Jane. “It wasn’t luck, it was you . We read your account of what happened. How you slept in the trees every night. How you followed the river and kept walking, even when you were beyond exhausted. Somehow you found the will to survive when almost everyone else would have given up.”

“No,” said Millie softly. “It was the bush that chose to spare me.” She gazed out the window at a majestic tree, its branches spread like protective arms embracing all who stood beneath it. “The land is a living, breathing thing. It decides if you should live or die. At night, in the dark, I could hear its heartbeat, the way a baby hears the heartbeat of its mother. And every morning, I woke up wondering if the land would let me live through the day. That’s the only way I could have walked out alive. Because it let me. It protected me.” She looked at Jane. “From him.”