Whatever Remains (35 page)

             
“Deserve?” he said with a snort. “Since when does deserving something make it happen? I’m doing just fine right here.”

             
“Liar.”

             
He frowned. “What about you? What would you and Clara do if I left?”

             
“We’d be okay.”

             
“Yeah? And what about Ben? Someone kills the girl next door and suddenly he’s ready for commitment?” His frown hardened. “Or is that it? You want me out because you think he’s here to stay this time?”

             
She sighed. “I want both of the men in my life to see me as capable of taking care of myself. And I want them to make decisions based on what they want, not based on some made-up fragility of my single mother state.” She was starting to glare and couldn’t stop herself. “You tell me I should be showing, I should be dating, I should be single, I should throw Ben out, I should make Ben step up to the plate,” she snapped. “You sound schizophrenic. Of the two of us, who’s really wasting their talent? It’s sure as hell not me. And if you’re scared of the risk, or if all your ambition is just big talk, then fine. But I don’t
need
to be looked after. I’m not Alicia. Don’t stay here and blame it on me.”

             
Horrified, she spun away before he could comment, striding up toward the barn too fast, side burning.

             
Oh, God. Oh, God.

             
They hadn’t argued in forever. And this wasn’t even an argument; she’d gone down to offer to teach Rebecca Green’s daughter for him and had attacked him instead. All that they’d been through together, all that Ben had put her through and all the times she’d leaned on Jeremy…

             
She didn’t turn around, though. Something had wanted to come out of her, and something had.

**

“You have to put tea in it.”

              Ben closed one eye and peered down into the tiny china teapot Clara had thrust into his hands. “How ‘bout we just pretend there’s tea?”

             
She sighed at him, like she couldn’t believe he had no idea how to play this game. “No. We need
real
tea, Daddy.”

             
The backdoor opened with a click; he saw Jade’s shape from the corner of his eye. “Mommy brews tea for you?” he asked, not quite believing anyone would be that dedicated to parenthood.

             
“Just fill it up with water,” Jade said from the door. When he glanced over at her, she was leaned back against it, palms pressed to the wood, staring at the ceiling and breathing in uneven draws. Under the mosaic of bruises, her face was pale.

             
“You alright?”

             
“A little bit monstrous,” she said with a deep exhale. “But fine.”

             
He pushed back from the table, Clara’s eyes following him, and handed the teapot to Jade. She lifted her brows in silent question. “Trey called,” he explained, “right after you went out.”

             
Her hands curled around the painted china handle; she said nothing.

             
“I’m not trying to bail on Clara,” he said under his breath, “but I – ”

             
“It’s fine.”

             
He wanted to believe her. “It is?”

             
She nodded. “Trey could use your help. But,” and here came the catch, “you have to tell Clara why you can’t stay and play tea party with her.” Something about her battered countenance said
don’t push me on this one
.

             
He tipped his head to her. “Fair enough.”

**

They met at Sheila’s diner. Trey already had a table, a booth down the back wall with a good view of the door, away from the windows: a spot Ben would have picked himself. The kid was tearing into a plate of runny eggs and hamburger steak, a Coke bubbling at his elbow. He waved with his fork, still chewing, as Ben slid in across from him.

              He swallowed with a gulp and reached for his soda. “Hey.”

             
He was fizzing; he half looked like sparks might come shooting out his head like a roman candle. Ben caught a passing waitress with a wave, ordered coffee, and made Trey wait. “Considering I’m not working this case anymore,” he said when the waitress was gone, “you might want to play this cool or something.”

             
Spots of color popped in the guy’s cheeks and he threw down a shot of Coke, nodding. He took a deep breath and calmed, eyes returning to their normal size.

             
“Better. What’ve you got?”

             
Trey cut into his steak again. “I found the ex.”

             
“Where?”

             
The coffee arrived with a, “Getcha anything else, hon?” to which Ben shook his head. Trey followed her with his eyes, lifted his fork to his mouth, and said, “Huntsville. I ran Alicia through the system and fired her info off to surrounding states.” His gaze came to Ben’s, blazing with that feral cop excitement that took hold of all of them at some point. “Alabama State Patrol had an APB out for her six years ago when her husband reported her missing. And get this: the husband’s name is Griggs. When he filed a missing person’s report for Alicia Griggs, AKA Alicia Latham – that’s her maiden name – the state put out an amber alert for the two girls:
Helen
and
Gabby
Griggs.”

             
Something cold tightened on the back of Ben’s neck, flesh prickling. “So Heidi’s not even Heidi?”

             
“Nope. I had Huntsville fax me pictures; this is definitely our Alicia and her two girls.”

             
“Amber alert,” Ben said. “She kidnapped her own daughters?”

             
Trey took too big a bite and choked it down. “According to Griggs, yeah. I talked to the guy, Ben, and I swear, hand to God, he was crying when he told me the story.” He propped his elbows on the table and settled in. “So Griggs – Dan – and Alicia are married for a year before Heidi…Helen, I guess…comes along. Alicia had a hard time with, what do you call it?”

             
“Post-partum.”

             
“Yeah. That. Sobbing all over the place, resenting the baby, the whole deal. The marriage was rocky after that. Griggs worked the night shift and Alicia the day, so he admits he wasn’t exactly around a lot to see how bad she was taking motherhood. Gabby – Grace – was an accident. Alicia went off the rails after she was born: staying out, partying, disappearing days at a time. They tried to go through counseling, but it didn’t fix anything. They decided to split when Gabby was two. They separated; Griggs got an apartment downtown; one day, he goes out to the house to talk about carrying the divorce forward, and Alicia’s gone. She and the girls. And their clothes were gone too. Griggs’s lawyer had been pushing for full custody: Alicia wasn’t fit to take care of a cat. So PD put out the amber alert and treated it like a snatch job.”

             
Ben whistled. “Shit.”

             
“Yeah. So Alicia changes the girls’ names, goes back to her maiden name, and takes a job in Charlotte.”

             
“Where she then pretends ‘Heidi’ has a brain tumor.”

             
They were silent a beat, both digesting. Trey shoveled in ground steak and said, “We’ve got a strong case against Redding.”

             
“You, not ‘we.’”

             
“Right,” Trey said with a sour frown.  “But…okay; doesn’t this mean something?”

             
Ben was impressed with all that he’d managed to dig up. He was starting to rethink his mediocre-at-best estimation of Trey as a detective. Only starting to, though: the kid was still too young and green, reaching and wondering instead of knowing. As the senior detective, it was Ben’s job to nudge him in the right direction, steer him toward his own realizations, even if the slowness of the process was maddening. “Doesn’t what mean something?”

             
Trey’s brows jumped and said
duh
. “That Alicia’s batshit. Doesn’t that mean…I dunno,
something
?”

             
Ben shrugged. “Does it?”

             
“Dude.” The next bite of steak was dripping with eggs and went in angry, choked down with a cough. “I’m asking you.”

             
“That’s great. Thanks for the vote of confidence. But all I can do is tell you what I think, and you won’t get any better at sorting out those gut instincts if it’s my voice talking in your head. So; does it?”

             
“You’re picking now of all times for a teaching moment?” When Ben didn’t comment Trey sighed, setting his fork down. “Yeah; yeah, I think it does. You were the one who said that a murder brings out everyone’s crazy, right? That’s true, I guess, and we’ve seen some crazy shit with this case, but Alicia takes the cake. It was
her
kid who got killed, and
she’s
totally mental. Kids from nice, normal families get snatched all the time: perverts, ransomers, all kinds of shit. But a crazy woman just happens to live next door to a murderer? A kidnapped little girl with a fake name just happens to be murdered? That doesn’t add up. To me, anyway. It doesn’t add up to me.”

             
He reached for his Coke again. “Your turn.”

             
Ben nodded. “I agree with you. Statistically, the odds are slim that Alicia leaves her husband, steals her kids, renames them, hops from town-to-town, fabricates illnesses, frauds her coworkers out of medical donations, and then Heidi ‘just happens’ to be killed?
Statistically
, I don’t believe in the random. You get a flat tire, that could be bad luck. Or you could have been driving through the median and all the shit that collects there. Or you could have had a slow leak that you never got checked out.”

             
“Gotta tell ya, man, that’s a weakass metaphor.”

             
“Yeah, well…maybe so. But it’s true. Reckless, irresponsible actions have consequences. Alicia has lived recklessly and irresponsibly. Heidi didn’t deserve what happened to her – hell no – but the odds are in favor that with that much crazy going on, that was what killed Heidi and not Scott Redding.”

             
“So you’re saying it,” Trey said. “You think Alicia did it.”

             
“I don’t have a scrap of proof that she did. And I’m not even sure there’s proof to find. A psychiatrist would have to tell us whether she has Munchausen’s, and whether killing a child is even part of the pattern, and if he thinks that’s something Alicia’s even capable of. That’s a big leap from twisted to straight-up evil, killing your own daughter. That takes a special kinda fucked up in the head.”

             
Trey pressed his lips together into a tight, white line. “So that means what, Obi Wan?”

             
“It means that ninety-nine percent of murders in Cobb County are uncomplicated. Drugs. Revenge. Accidents. Heat of the moment. The easiest answer is usually the right one. All signs point to Scott Redding; he more than likely killed Heidi. Helen – whatever her name is.”

             
Trey exhaled noisily through his mouth. The pale daylight reaching back from the diner’s front windows painted dark bags under his eyes; he hadn’t learned how to pace himself yet, how to catch sleep when he could and eat gently in between. His steak and eggs would come back to haunt him. “I don’t like it when you play Jedi.”

             
“Nobody ever does.”

             
Their waitress passed, a tray of drink pitchers balanced on one hand. She refilled Trey’s Coke and lifted too-plucked brows at Ben in question. He shook his head and she left their tabs on her way off, apron rustling.

             
Trey mopped up a last puddle of runny yolk with a triangle of toast. “Now what?”

             
Ben shot him a questioning look over the rim of his mug. He was, in a way, enjoying this. He didn’t feel the farm – his girls – tugging at him for the moment; he was relaxed. He’d never been one for partners – he didn’t like chitchat and he hated beers and handshakes and going over to watch the game. But Trey, his little newbie, was almost…fun…to run theories with, if he let himself think such a thing.

             
“I hafta let Griggs know where his family is, right? I mean, he has to know what happened to Heidi.”

             
“She went missing six years ago,” Ben said. “And technically, she ran away; she hasn’t, so far as we know, committed an actual crime. You don’t have a legal obligation, no.”