Danielle Steel - Malice

“Did you and your dad have a fight?” the woman officer inquired as Grace stepped into her old jeans and T-shirt. She was still shaking as though she were standing naked in the Arctic. But Grace never answered her question. “Were you mad at him?” Nothing. Silence. She wasn't hostile. She wasn't anything. She looked as though she were in a trance, as they walked her through the living room, and she never once asked about her father. She didn't want to know where he'd gone, where they'd taken him, or what had happened once he got there. She stopped only for an instant as they crossed the living room, and looked at a photograph of her mother. It was in a silver frame, and Grace was standing next to her in the picture. She had been two or three years old, and both of them were smiling. Grace looked at it for a long time, remembering what her mother had looked like, how pretty she had been, and how much she wanted of Grace. Too much. She wanted to tell her she was sorry now. She just couldn't do it. She had let her mother down. She hadn't taken care of him. She couldn't anymore. And now he was gone. She couldn't remember where he had gone. But he was gone. And she wasn't going to take care of him anymore.

“She's really out of it,” the woman officer said right within earshot, as Grace stared at her mother's picture. She wanted to remember it. She had a feeling she might not be seeing it again, but she wasn't sure why. She only knew that they were leaving. “You going to call in a shrink?” the officer asked.

“Yeah, maybe,” the senior officer said. More than ever, he was beginning to think she was retarded. Or maybe not. Maybe it was all an act. Maybe there was more to it than met the eye. It was hard to say. God only knew what she'd really been up to.

When Grace stepped outside in the night air, the front lawn was swarming with policemen. There were seven squad cars parked outside, most of them had come just to see what had happened, some were responsible for checking out the crime scene. There were lights flashing and men in uniform everywhere, and the young cop named O'Byrne helped her into the back of a squad car. The female officer got in beside her. She wasn't particularly sympathetic to her. She'd seen girls like her before, druggies, or fakes who pretended to be out of it so they wouldn't get blamed for what they'd done. She'd seen a fifteen-year-old who'd killed her entire family, and then claimed that voices on television had made her do it. For all she knew, Grace was a smart little bitch pretending she was crazy. But something about her told the officer that this one might be for real, maybe not crazy, but something was wrong with her. And she kept gulping air, as though she couldn't catch her breath. Something was definitely odd about the girl. But then again, she had shot and almost killed her old man, that was enough to push most people over the edge. Anyway, it wasn't their job to figure out if she was sane. The shrinks could work out that one.

The ride to Central Station downtown was a short one, particularly at that hour, but Grace looked worse than ever when she got there. The lights were fluorescent and bright, and she looked almost green as they put her in a holding cell where she waited until a burly male officer walked into the room and looked her over.

“Are you Grace Adams?” he asked curtly, and she only nodded. She felt as though she was going to faint or throw up again. Maybe she would die. That was all she had wanted anyway. Dying would be fine. Her life was a nightmare. “Yes or no?” he asked, shouting at her.

“Yes, I am.”

“Your father just died at the hospital. We're arresting you for murder.” He read her her rights, dropped some papers into the hands of a female officer who had walked in just behind him. And then, without another word, he left the room, with a heavy clang of the metal door that sealed them into the cell where she had been waiting. There was a moment's silence, and then the female officer told her to strip all her clothes off. To Grace, it was all like a very bad movie.

“Why?” Grace said hoarsely.

“Strip search,” the officer explained, as Grace slowly began undressing, with shaking fingers. The entire process was utterly humiliating. And after that, they took fingerprints, and did mug shots.

“Heavy rap,” another female officer said coldly as she handed Grace a paper towel to wipe the ink off her fingers, “How old are you?” she asked casually, as Grace looked at her. She was still trying to absorb what they had told her. She had killed him. He was dead. It was over.

“Seventeen.”

“Bad luck for you. You can be tried as an adult for murder in Illinois if you're over thirteen. If they find you guilty, you pull down at least fourteen, fifteen years. Death penalty too. You're in the big leagues now, baby.” Nothing seemed real to Grace as her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was led from the room. And five minutes later, she was in a cell with four other women, and an open toilet that reeked of urine and human waste. The place was noisy and filthy, and all of the women in her cell were lying on bare mattresses and covered with blankets. Two were awake, but no one was talking. No one said a word as she was uncuffed, handed a blanket, and went to sit on the only unoccupied bunk in the small cell.

She looked around her in disbelief. It had come to this. But there had been no other way out. She couldn't take it anymore. She'd had to do it … she hadn't meant to … hadn't planned it … but now that she had, she wasn't even sorry. It was her life or his. She would have just as soon died, but it hadn't happened that way. It had just happened, without intent or plan. She had had no choice. She had killed him.

Chapter 2

Grace lay on the thin mattress all night, barely feeling the sharp metal coils beneath her. She didn't feel anything. She wasn't shaking anymore. She just lay there. Thinking. She had no family anymore. No one. No parents. No friends. She wondered what would happen to her, would she be found guilty of murder? Would she get the death penalty? She couldn't forget what the booking officer had told her. She was being charged as an adult, and accused of murder. Maybe the death penalty was the price she had to pay. And if it was, she'd pay it. At least he could never touch her again, he couldn't hurt her anymore. Her four years of hell at his hands were over.

“Grace Adams?” a voice called out her name just after seven o'clock in the morning. She'd been there for three hours by then, and she hadn't slept all night, but she didn't feel as disembodied as she had the night before. She knew what was happening. She remembered shooting her father. And she knew he had died, and why. She knew that better than anything else. And she wasn't sorry.

She was escorted to a small dingy room with heavy locked doors at either end. They put her in it without explanation. There was a table, four chairs, and a bright light overhead. She stood there, and five minutes later, the door at the other end of the room opened. A tall blond woman walked in. She looked cool as she glanced at Grace, and waited for a moment as she watched her. She didn't smile, she didn't say anything, she just observed Grace for a long moment. And Grace said nothing to her, she stayed at the far end of the room, looking like a young doe about to bolt from the room, except she couldn't. She was in a cage. She was quiet, but afraid. And even in her jeans and T-shirt, there was a quiet dignity about her. There was an unmistakable quality about her, as though she had suffered and come far, paid a high price for her freedom, and felt it was worth it. It wasn't anger one sensed about her, it was a long-suffering kind of patience. She had seen too much in her short years, life and death, and betrayal, and it showed in her eyes. Molly York saw it the moment she looked at Grace, and she was touched by the raw pain she saw there.