CHAPTER 37
Megan watched the entire movie with her head resting on Rachel’s chest. They laughed and squirmed and ate enough popcorn to sate an entire theater. Eric spent the majority of his time playing some game where sprites with battle-axes massacred other sprites with larger battle-axes. But still, he stayed. She couldn’t remember the last time the three of them had watched a movie together. For one hundred minutes, Rachel forgot about Constance Wright, Detectives John Serrano and Leslie Tally, the Drummonds, Sam Wickersham, and Darien.
The popcorn feast had Megan wired. After the movie ended, she frantically wrote six more pages in a new Sadie Scout story, reading it to Rachel as she went along. Rachel sat on the carpeted floor of her daughter’s bedroom, a smile plastered to her face as Megan created tales of Sadie Scout’s bravery in the face of danger.
“Sadie always gets the bad guy,” Megan said. “I know it’s not always like that in real life. But I can do whatever I want in my stories.”
“Yes, you can,” Rachel said, kissing her daughter good night. She tucked Megan in, then went to see Eric. He was typing on his computer, focused.
“Still working?” she said.
He nodded without turning his head from the screen. “Paper on ancient Mesopotamia due next Wednesday.”
“You know I’m proud of you.”
“For what?” he said.
“For working so hard. For being you. You’re the best son a mom could hope for.”
“Dennis Lewiston’s dad got arrested a few years ago,” Eric said. “He was a dentist. Dennis said it was bogus, but I found the newspaper article. They said he was doing things to his female patients while they were unconscious. He lost his medical license and spent two years in Pinckneyville. Dennis said the other inmates did stuff to him while he was inside. Now Dennis and his dad don’t talk.”
“Eric, that’s terrible. What made you think about that?”
He shrugged, the kind of shrug that let her know he knew exactly why he’d thought of it. “Dennis’s dad got arrested. You got arrested.”
“Eric, that was a big mistake. And I was released right away.”
“Dennis said his dad’s arrest was a big mistake, too, and now he said his dad probably has two assholes.”
“Eric!” she shouted. “I will not have you talking like that.”
“Why not?” he said. “You’ve been telling me what to say and who to be for so long now. Telling me to move on past Dad. But you haven’t moved on past Dad. You have his picture in the basement, but you won’t allow us to have his picture in our rooms. You’re a hypocrite.”
Rachel didn’t even know Eric knew what that word meant. But he’d used it correctly.
“Yes. Yes I am,” she said. “And I’m sorry.”
Eric seemed unnerved by her honesty. He’d expected a fight, not a white flag. Rachel took a seat on the floor next to Eric’s chair. He swiveled to face her. He didn’t seem to know how to react, looking down at his mother in such a way.
“When everything happened back in Darien,” Rachel said, “my world collapsed. Like yours. I didn’t know how to handle it. All of a sudden I’m alone with two young children to raise, after being with your father pretty much my whole life. And not just two children to raise but figuring out how to move on after one of the most awful things imaginable. I know what it did to you. What finding him like that did to you. It changed my outlook on everything. Protecting you and your sister became my only priority. That doesn’t mean I always did the right thing. But I tried. And I’m still trying.”
“I know you are,” Eric said softly.
“And now you’re old enough to see that I make mistakes. We live strange lives, our family. I think it was a little bit easier on Megan. She was so young. She didn’t have the memories you did. But you, you’re one of the smartest kids I’ve ever met. And to be here, now, after everything . . . your father is smiling at you from up there. He’s proud of you just like I am.”
Rachel saw a tear slide down her son’s cheek.
“I miss him,” Eric said. “I miss him so much it hurts.”
Rachel stood up. Wrapped her arms around her son. She could feel the wetness of his face against her arm, and she remembered the day she’d taken him home from the hospital, so impossibly tiny but so beautiful. His skin slightly bluish, as his blood circulation began to mature. Just the slightest scruff of blond hair. He’d always had her hair coloring. But the proud chin, bright eyes, and high cheekbones—those were his father’s.
“I miss him too,” Rachel said. “Every single day. And I promise, from now on, we’ll find a way to properly remember him.”
“I’d like that,” Eric said.
It took every ounce of strength she had not to weep.
“Finish your work and get some rest, sweetie,” she said.
“I will.” Rachel turned to leave. “Hey, Mom?”
“Yes, hon?”
“Please don’t get arrested again.”
Rachel laughed. “I’ll do my best.”
When both children were asleep, Rachel went down to the basement. She switched on the monitor bank. It was the same feed that was connected to the television in her room and simultaneously displayed a dozen cameras throughout the house. She watched her children sleep for a minute, then turned to the job at hand.
Since she’d left Serrano and Tally, Rachel hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Christopher Robles. She had assumed Robles had gone to the press conference and subsequently attacked her in order to protect Isabelle and Nicholas. But she couldn’t shake the look he’d given her when she bumped into him leaving the bathroom at the Drummond house. Like he knew something, had seen her snooping around. But now, with Nicholas in prison for the Albatross conspiracy, Rachel had a hard time believing Robles would have been willing to kill to hide simple financial impropriety on his brother-in-law’s part.
She thought back to the night he broke into their home. Robles had been muttering under his breath. She’d dismissed it before as the rantings of a drugged-out lunatic, but now . . .
Rachel booted up the Microsoft Surface Studio desktop, upgraded with an Intel Core i7 processor, thirty-two gigs of RAM, and two terabytes of built-in memory. She also had six wireless Seagate external hard drives with five terabytes of memory.
Each hard drive contained files from one calendar year. She opened the drive containing files from the previous month and selected the folder “SecCam.”
Inside the folder were hundreds of video data files, each marked with a date. She found the folder marked the day of Robles’s break-in and opened it. There were twelve files, each corresponding to one of the home’s security cameras. She opened seven of the files. Seven different videos popped up on the screen, each from a camera recording a different part of the house.
She enlarged the video from the kitchen feed and scrubbed it to 9:29 p.m. About two minutes before the gunshot. The feed showed Robles skulking around outside the property, looking for a way in.
Rachel opened the other six videos and brought them all to 9:29 p.m. Then she pressed play.