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“You mean, take the time to be kind?”
“Yeah. That.” Now, he was the one clearing his throat. “Just do that, and we’ll be aces. And I’ll see you soon.”
“I love you, Dad,” she said. “And can you tell Quinn—can you tell her—”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“That I’m glad she didn’t die.”
He had to blow his nose himself, back in Quinn’s room. After that, he stretched out on the plastic-covered window seat beside her bed, put his head on the pillow the nurse had left, and thought,So am I, Janey Rabbit. So am I.
* * *
He wasn’t feeling nearlyas loving the next day. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”
Was Quinn in bed in their hotel room, where he’d finally got her at two o’clock in the afternoon, after a night in hospital and too much time today talking to cops? No, she was not. She was, in fact, standing up and pulling on her stretchy trousers, then grabbing her bra, wincing, and asking, “Can you do this for me?” in her stuffy, scratchy voice. “My ribs are pretty tender.”
“Which is why,” Beckett said, “you should be inbed.”He got the bra fastened—he was better at unfastening, but there you were, life lessons—and pulled her tank over her head, because otherwise, she’d try to do it herself.
“It’s Christmas,” she said.“Tomorrow.You have to get home to the kids. How sad will they be otherwise? And my parents, too. I thought my dad was going to cry on the phone. I’ve never seen my dad cry. I need to get back there so they can see I’m OK.”
“I don’t think they’re going to be too reassured,” he said. She had two fully black eyes now, and the bruising on her throat had turned a mottled black, red, and blue. And then there was the metal shield over her nose. They were going to get some startled looks in the airport, that was sure.
“Thanks for reminding me,” she said. “Good thing I have a week off work. But because of the time difference, we can fly on Christmas Eve and get back on Christmas Eve. Well, Christmas morning, but before the kids wake up. We have those seats again, which means I’ll be lying down in bed, exactly like you wanted. I’ll be fine.”
“With a broken nose,” he said. “How’s that going to feel at altitude?”
“I’m so much better, though. I’m a fast healer. See, I can even talk again! Also, pain meds. For today, at least. And tonight. After that, we’ll see.”
“You can’t talk that well,” he said. “You still sound bloody awful.”
“So, again, this will be better. I’m on the plane, hydrating, not able to talk anyway because of the engines, and watching movies. Resting.” When he would have argued, she stepped into him, put her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder, and asked, “Could you just hold me a minute? Gently?”
He did it. Of course he did. He also muttered, “This isn’t fair play.”
He couldn’t see her smile, but he could hear it, scratchy voice and all. “I know. But I need it. I don’t want to be here, that’s the truth. In Australia. Thinking about Abby’s parents. Samantha’s parents. It’s so terrible for them. Maybe I shouldn’t feel sorry for them, but I do. I almost wish we hadn’t found out, but you couldn’t have stood that. Always wondering, and the police thinking it was you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I wish I could talk to them. Let them know I’m sorry.”
“But you’re the last person who can,” she said. “At least now. They’re going to have to get through this, to feel it and process it, and that’s not going to be fast. I know we’ll have to come back for the trial, if there is a trial, though I can’t imagine Samantha not pleading it out, if they do that here. There’s too much evidence for any kind of defense but insanity, and there’s no way you successfully plead insanity when you worked the night before as an air-traffic controller.”
“Unless they can’t use the recording,” he said. “Because you didn’t have her permission to record it. They’d still have her assault on you, and maybe the Xanax, if Victor talks, but—”
“Didn’t I tell you?” she asked. “Queensland is the only state in Australia with one-party consent for recording.”
“You’re joking. You knew that?”
“Of course I did. I looked it up. Why else would I have said that we could give the recording to the police if we found out anything?”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, good.” Samantha would pay, which Abby may well not have wanted and he was glad of all the same, but most of all—there’d be no question what had happened to her. It was awful, knowing. It hurt. But it had hurt more not knowing.
“But right now,” Quinn went on, “I don’t want to be in the middle of this anymore. I just want to get away. Do you feel that, too? I want to go home and have Christmas with my mom and dad and the kids. I want to watch them open their presents, and have … cocoa, and …” She raised a hand to mop at her eyes. “Now I’m crying. It’s the drugs, or the pain, or …”
“You can cry,” he said. “I told you. I’ll hold you as long as you need me to, and I’ll be glad to do it.”
“Then please,” she said, “unless you need to stay here for—for Abby—to put something to rest with her, to visit her and tell her how sorry you are, maybe—can we just go home? Maybe it’s insensitive, wanting to be a happy family when I know how you’re feeling, and when Abby’s parents are—”
“No,” he said. “You nearly died. I nearly had to watch it happen. We’ve done enough, and Abby’s not somewhere else. That’s not her, in the ground. She’s in me, if she’s anywhere. She’s in her work. In her kindness and her—”
