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Caroline felt tears prick the back of her eyelids. “But I don’t really remember her. I have only vague, hazy memories of her.” She smiled at him. “But they’re all happy memories. Sometimes a song or a particular scent will bring her face into clear focus, but if I try and picture what she looked like, I can’t.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Jason said, pulling her into his arms. “I lost my mother when I was very young, too. At least you have those good memories. I couldn’t even tell you what color hair my mother had.”
She pulled back to look at his face. Although she knew his homelife had been difficult, she didn’t know the details, and her father had refused to discuss them with her.
“What happened to her?” she asked.
Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. She left us when I was just a toddler. My father refused to talk about her, and my grandmother would only say she was trash.”
Her heart constricted. “Oh, Jason, I’m sure that isn’t true. Have you ever tried to locate her?”
He nodded. “A couple of times, but I never came up with any leads on her.”
She hugged him hard. “I’m sure she had her reasons for leaving and not bringing you with her.”
“That’s what the counselors told me,” he said. At her questioning look, he sighed. “After I ended up in court, and your father decided I was worth saving, he pulled me out of Hunters Point and sent me to a residential school for troubled youths. Part of the program to rehabilitate me involved meeting with counselors every day.” He gave a huff of laughter. “I was a pretty angry kid, ergo I had a lot of counseling.”
“My father did that?” she asked. Her father had given many kids a second chance, but she hadn’t understood the extent of his generosity. “He sent you to a private school?”
“He did. Your father is the only reason I didn’t end up like Eddie Green, because back then I was doing my best to imitate him.”
“I had no idea,” Caroline admitted. “I mean, I knew that he sometimes took a special interest in juvenile offenders, and did what he could to give them a second chance, but I had no idea he did so much.”
“I’m not saying he did that for every kid,” he said. “But what he did for me changed my life.”
“What he did for you changed my life, too,” she said tenderly, gazing up at him. “I would never have met you otherwise.”
Jason chuckled. “I’m not sure if your father could have looked into the future and seen us together that he would have been so eager to help me.”
She gave him a tolerant look. “That’s not true. He loves you like a son. You heard him earlier—he always thought we should be together. He just about gave us his blessing.”
This time, there was no doubting Jason’s amusement. “He’s strung out on morphine, sweetheart. He had no idea what he was saying.”
Before she could respond, his cell phone began to beep. He glanced at the screen and then over at the two agents. “This is my office. Sorry, but I need to take this call.”
The two agents retreated to the corridor, and Jason moved to the far side of the room to speak quietly into the phone. Caroline went back to her father’s bed, surprised when she saw he was awake.
“Hey, Dad,” she said, leaning over him. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” he said weakly, giving her a wan smile.
“Go back to sleep,” she urged him. “Everything is okay, and the doctors say you’re going to be up and around in no time at all. I’d rest while you can.”
“Thirsty.”
Because of his injury, he’d not yet been cleared for solid foods and still got most of his nutrients intravenously. Caroline knew she couldn’t give him any water, but she could let him suck on some ice chips. Reaching for the cup where she kept his ice, she saw it had melted to several inches of water, which was tepid, at best.
“I’m just going to refill your ice bucket,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Scooping up his empty pitcher and his ice bucket, she got Jason’s attention, and held up both items so that he would know where she was going. He covered the phone with his hand.
“Ask Deputy Black to go with you,” he said. “He’s right outside.”
She nodded and slipped out of the room. In the corridor, she saw Deputy Black in conversation with the two FBI agents at the far end of the hall. A new guard, whom Caroline didn’t recognize, sat outside the door.
“I’m just going to refill my father’s ice bucket,” she said to the guard.
