“Mr. Bigelow wants to speak with his wife.”

“You’ll have to take that up with her lawyer, and the warden of the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, who’ll be hosting her for the next five to ten. You know, she might’ve slipped by with three to five if it wasn’t for her part in lying to have her severely injured minor son locked up. That and holding down her minor daughter while her husband pumped the kid he’d just knocked around with a sedative so she couldn’t talk. That upped things.

“Your client on the other hand…” Lee opened his file. “He’s going for the full ride.”

“We will contend that Eliza Bigelow was coerced, and due to her own injuries, inflicted by her son, was emotionally and physically compromised.”

“You can try that, but the shrink cleared her. Oh, she’s got issues, but once she decided to tell the truth, a whole lot came out. One being striking his minor son in the stomach with the son’s baseball bat after a game your client deigned to attend, and wherein the minor son had the nerve to strike out. He was eleven. That’s what we like to call assault with a deadly.”

“My client denies any and all charges. We’ve filed for another bail hearing.”

“Yeah, I got that notice. Before you do, let’s just move ahead a few years. I want to be sure your client’s fully informed you about the events taking place from December twenty-third to December thirtieth, 1998.”

Lee took papers from the file as he spoke. “How on December twenty-third of that year your client’s two minor children came home from school to find their father, once again, hitting their mother. On this occasion, the minor son attempted to stop the assault and was in turn beaten unconscious.”

“My client refutes that allegation, and in the strongest terms.”

“The minor child, fourteen at this time, was subsequently locked in his room, initially denied medical treatment for his injuries. Which included a broken nose, bruised ribs, black eyes, a concussion. The nose, the good doctor here later set, without any pain medication. The child was also denied food until the following day.”

“It’s obvious Zane is suffering from some sort of mental breakdown,” the lawyer began.

“You got kids, counselor?”

“That’s hardly relevant.”

“Humor me.”

“I have two sons, eighteen and twenty.”

“Keep them in mind when you read these. Apparently Dr. Bigelow didn’t want to miss his holiday trip that year, despite his son’s condition. I have statements from several members of the staff of the High Country Resort and Spa where the family stayed from December twenty-sixth through December thirtieth.”

With his eyes on Graham’s, Lee pushed them across the table.

“Kid was supposed to have the flu—that’s the story they told the family when they kept him locked up over Christmas. What you’re reading is the story they told the staff at the resort.”

Graham leaned over again, but the lawyer held up a hand to hold him off.

“A boy, recovering from an illness, might easily fall off his bike.”

“And here are the statements from neighbors, teachers, the chief of police of Lakeview, the minor’s aunt. How does a kid get the flu, fall off his bike, get confined to his room at the resort, and manage to fall off his skis?”

Lee shoved over more papers. “Then there’s Mrs. Bigelow’s statement confirming the beating, the confinement, the conflicting stories. And this.”

He laid a copy of Zane’s first notebook entry in front of the lawyer. “Written by a fourteen-year-old boy, in fear and pain. The details all match. That’s the night he started writing it out, Doctor Bigelow. The night Zane started documenting your systematic abuse.”

“I need to consult with my client. This interview is over.”

“You can consult with your piece-of-shit client all you want. I’m making it my mission in life to see he’s put away for the maximum sentence allowed by law. My goddamn mission.”

“I’ll bury you. All of you.”

“Be quiet, Graham. Don’t say anything.”

“You took their childhood, their safety.”

“I gave them life!”

“You gave them terror and pain.”

“They owe me for every breath they take, and it’s my decision, mine, to decide how to raise them.”

“Not anymore.”

“That boy thinks he can defy me? He’s lucky I didn’t put him in the ground.”

“Graham, enough! This interview’s over, Detective.”

“Your lawyer’s going to start thinking deal, pleading all this down. Not going to happen.” Lee jabbed a finger on the copy of Zane’s notebook page. “My mission in life.”

“I’ll have your badge! You won’t be able to get work as a fucking mall guard when I’m done.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lee switched off the record, strolled out.

It took time—justice takes her time—but in just under a year, he lifted a beer and thought: Mission accomplished.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lee drove the lake road on a spring day with the mountains greening, the wildflowers popping, and his mood high. He had a lot on his mind, decisions to make, moves to take—or not—but with the lake mirroring the happy blue of the sky, white boats, white clouds sailing, optimism was the name of his game.

Good didn’t always win, right didn’t always triumph—he’d been a cop long enough to know. So when it did, you fricking embraced it.

He rounded the turn for the lake house, pulled into Emily’s drive just as she climbed out of her truck.

Even his timing was happy.

She wore jeans with holes worn through both knees, a T-shirt the same cheerful color as the sky. And that orange hoodie she’d put on Britt in the stairwell of the hospital a year before.

He’d heard Emily call it her lucky hoodie.

Her hair streamed, dark as midnight, out of the back opening of a fielder’s cap.

He thought, with a quick jump of pleasure, she looked downright amazing.

She pulled off sunglasses, stood watching him get out of the car. Studying his face.

“It’s good news. I can see it.” Still she lifted a hand, rubbed the heel between her breasts. “But say it fast anyway, like you would bad news.”

“Fifteen to twenty. He’s being transported to Central Prison in Raleigh.”

After bracing a hand on the side of the truck, she let out a long, wavering breath, held up her other hand. “I need a minute.”

Taking it, she walked away from the truck, toward the lake. Hugging her arms in, she looked out over the water, that mirror blue. She felt the breeze, the warm balm of it blow light across her face. And breathed out again when she felt him walk up to stand behind her.

“I was going to come in for the sentencing hearing this morning, even though you said not to. I didn’t want to see him again, told myself seeing his face when the jury brought back the guilty verdicts was enough. And still, when the kids left for school, I started to get dressed to come in.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Lanny—head housekeeper—couldn’t make it in. Her kid’s sick. My backup couldn’t make it in. Emergency root canal. Lois—you know Lois—emergency backup to the backup, had another cleaning job. We had two turnovers, the daily cleaning—and yay, we’re full. Marcie couldn’t handle it on her own, so…”

She let out a steadier breath, reached back until he took her hand, stepped beside her. “I took it as a sign I just wasn’t supposed to go in, look at him one last time while the judge gave him his sentence. I even stopped thinking about it once I started scrubbing down bathrooms, changing bed linens.”

She nodded, still looking out at the water.

“Twenty years,” she murmured. “The kids will be practically as old as I am. Parole?”

“He does a minimum of fifteen. He won’t get parole easy, Emily, and not likely on the first couple tries. Put that away,” Lee advised. “He’s locked up, where he belongs. The kids are safe.”

“You’re right, and I can tell them that when they get home. Couple hours. A little more,” she added with a glance at her watch. “Do you have to go back to Asheville?”

“Not today.”

“It’s barely one in the afternoon, but … screw it. Let’s have a beer anyway.”

He went in with her. He liked the ramble of the house, and the fact it was never quite all the way tidied up. It held a lot of light and life. Throw pillows jumbled because somebody’d settled on the couch. A stray pair of shoes—Britt’s, he identified.

Back in the kitchen, what was left of a bowl of fruit—not much—a vase of daffodils—fading already—a jacket tossed over a chair, the coffeepot holding the dregs from the morning.

“I might still have some chips left. Pretzels or something.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

After pulling off her cap—and her hair, all that midnight, seemed to float up, then spill down—she tossed it and her sunglasses on the counter.