Lisa Gardner - Touch & Go

“Ashlyn!” Myself, stepping quickly between my daughter and my husband, as if that might keep Ashlyn safe.

Justin’s face, already terribly misshapen, had taken on the color of eggplant. Steam should have been pouring out of his ears. Certainly, every blood vessel in his body appeared ready to burst.

“Don’t you ever speak to me like that, young lady!”

“Or what?”

“Stop.” My voice came out too shaky. I cleared my throat, forced myself to sound more forceful. “Both of you. Take a second.”

Ashlyn, turning on me now. “Why? You afraid I’m going to tell him about your drug problem.”

“What?”

I wanted to laugh. I understood it would be wildly inappropriate. But the sheer rage on my daughter’s face, followed by the sheer bewilderment on Justin’s. I wanted to giggle. Except I was pretty sure the first hiccuping laugh would lead straight to tears.

Ashlyn, still on a rampage: “Jesus Christ, Dad. She’s been stoned out of her mind for months now. The glazed-over eyes? The way you ask her a question and it takes a full minute before she answers? I mean, come on, Dad. It took me two weeks to figure out she was abusing prescription painkillers. I’m a kid. What the hell is your excuse?”

Justin, officially too stupefied to speak. Me, a hand now clasped over my mouth because, heaven help me, any second now, I was going to burst into hysterics.

“I mean, really. You’re out all the time with your new girl. Mom’s doped out of her skull. Of course I decided to have a little fun. Even took a tumble in your bed. Not like you two are using it.”

Justin lunged. I got my arms around his waist, not that it really mattered. He weighed twice as much as me and, even bruised and battered, moved like a freight train. He roared something. Maybe that he would kill him, the mythical boy. And Ashlyn screamed something. Maybe that she hated him, her own father.

He was swatting at her. Trying to get at our child. Our own baby, who just hours before had been pregnant with a baby of her own, and I felt this incredible pressure build behind my eyeballs. A pain beyond any pill’s ability to deaden. A hopelessness beyond any wonder drug’s ability to lift.

Then, I was in the fray. Digging in my heels, shoving back at my husband, heaving, heaving, heaving as I screamed at the top of my lungs:

“You stupid idiot! I didn’t want your money. I didn’t want your house. I didn’t want your precious business. I just wanted you to love me. You stupid, stupid asshole. Why…couldn’t you…just love me?”

Our legs tangled up. Justin went down hard, hands over his swollen face. I fell to my knees beside him. Pounding his shoulder, sobbing hysterically, while Ashlyn wept next to the bunk beds.

“And it wasn’t just her, was it? There were other women, too. Lots of others. Jesus Christ, you are just like your father. And now I’m just like my mother except popping pills instead of cigarettes, and we were both supposed to be better than this. What happened? God, Justin, what happened to us? How did we become exactly the people we never wanted to be?”

I couldn’t stop hitting him. My rage was a feral beast, finally off its leash. I hated my husband. I hated my life. But mostly, I hated us, the ways we’d both failed, proving ourselves human, when so long ago, we’d been sure we’d rise above all that. Mortals were fallible. We’d been in love.

At the last second, I saw my husband’s shoulders shake. I saw the tears on his cheeks, the defeated bow of his head…

I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw my arms around him. I held him close, promising forgiveness I wasn’t sure I had in my heart to give, but for now, this moment… If he would just be all right. If we could just pretend to be a family…

Ashlyn joined us on the floor, her arms around both of us, damp cheek pressed against my neck. “I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Justin moaned. We cried harder.

“Oh, for the love of God.”

Z stood in the open doorway, staring at us as if arriving at the scene of a car accident.

“You people…” He couldn’t complete the sentence.

And I agreed with him. We defied description. What kind of family behaved like this? What kind of people loved one another, and hurt each other anyway?

“Three P.M. tomorrow. Not soon enough.” Z stopped shaking his head, stabbing a finger at me instead. “You. Off him.” Another finger, pointed at my daughter. “You, too. Stand and present.”

Ashlyn and I climbed shakily to our feet. Z stared at us harder. We threw our shoulders back, assuming the posture of good soldiers. He grunted his approval. Then, his gaze went to Justin, now uncurling on the floor.

“Whatever happened, I’m sure you deserved it. Ladies. With me.”

We started walking forward just as Justin rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Wait.”

Ashlyn continued marching, but I stopped. I couldn’t help myself. I’d loved this man so much of my life. The afternoons at the firing range, our first home, the birth of our daughter, the way I used to wake up and find him watching me so intently.

All those moments when I know I had really, truly seen him. All those moments when I know he must’ve really, truly seen me.

“I didn’t realize,” Justin murmured. “What was going on with Ashlyn, with you… I didn’t realize. And Ashlyn’s right. I should’ve. A good man, an attentive father… I fucked up, Libby. That’s on me. When we get home, if you want a divorce, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even rip up the prenup. House, company, whatever you’d like, I won’t fight you. In fact, you can have it all. It’s the least you deserve and shame on me for not realizing that sooner. But I wish… I would miss our family, Libby. I would miss us.”

I waited for him to say more. But he swallowed instead, choked up.

I thought of all the things I could offer in reply. Forgiveness. Acknowledgment of my own crimes. Or more importantly, that I missed us, too. Had for months, and no pill in the world had been able to fill that void. All the nights I had wandered down to the darkened basement, my hand pressed against that closed bedroom door, willing my husband to feel my presence, to open his door to me.

I said: “How many other women, Justin?”

“You’re the only one I’ve ever loved,” he said.

Which told me enough.

I turned away from my husband and walked toward my captor instead.

Chapter 29

WHILE THE BOSTON COPS AND FBI went to work on strategizing possible ransom scenarios, Tessa and Wyatt decided to follow up with Anita Bennett. In her house, surrounded by pictures of her family, hopefully, including her youngest son, who might or might not be Justin Denbe’s half brother.

Being the local, Tessa drove. Wyatt resumed his easy sprawl in the passenger’s seat, except this time, he was scowling.

“You don’t look happy,” Tessa ventured at last, threading her way from Storrow Drive to Route 2 toward Lexington, Massachusetts.

“I’m disgruntled.”

“Personally or professionally?”

“Professionally. I don’t have a personal life to get disgruntled about.”

“Really?”

“I like carpentry, making things with my hands. Other than that, I work a lot. No wife, no kids, no girlfriend.”

“Okay.”

He turned, regarding her steadily. “You? How does the life of a corporate investigator compare with your days as a state trooper?”

“Better hours, better pay,” she said.

“But do you love it?”

It took her a bit to answer. “I like it,” she said at last. “For my daughter’s sake, that’s enough.”

She could feel him watching her from the passenger’s seat. Not speaking. Not scrutinizing. Just…being.