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Griffin remembers Cara appearing at the door of the Red Lion, glaring at him, then walking straight up to the bar and telling them he was seventeen. His anger at her intervention was matched only by her disappointment toward him. “You’re wasting your life,” she’d said, sitting him down at a table in the fast-food joint, the salt and vinegar wafting tantalizingly from the chips in front of them. “You’re smart, and yet you’re screwing up every chance you get. What do you want to do?”
“I want to be a cop,” he’d replied without thinking. Griffin thinks the alcohol must had addled his teenage brain, because it had never been something he’d thought about before. But as soon as he’d said it, it had rung true. He’d always had a strong sense of fairness, of right and wrong. He wanted a way to punish the bullies and the assholes, but preferably one that wouldn’t mean he’d end up in jail.
“I applied to the police force the next day,” Griffin says.
He looks down and realizes Jess has fallen asleep. Her face is cast in shadows by the flickering light from the television, her eyes closed, long eyelashes against her cheek. He gently moves her into a more comfortable position on the bed, and she murmurs slightly, then rolls over to her side.
He covers her with the duvet and gets up, straightening out his back with a grimace, then going into the bathroom and cleaning his teeth. Done, he places his toothbrush next to her brand-new one in the mug on the sink. He looks at it for a second: one red, one blue.
He climbs into bed next to her and reaches over and switches the television off. The whole room is plunged into darkness. It’s been a long day. Libby’s death. Finding apartment 214. Seeing the photo of Mia, the image still etched on his brain.
His whole body feels weary, but he can’t sleep. And something about Jess’s continued reaction to the police doesn’t sit right. A lot of people don’t like the cops, but her response seems more like fear.
He remembers Taylor’s comment from that first day in the hospital: “She has a record.” His laptop is still lying next to the bed, and he picks it up and opens the lid. It throws light into the room, and he looks across nervously, but she hasn’t stirred. He logs on to the system. Jessica Ambrose, he types, then selects the correct entry.
There it is. One line on the Police National Computer. An incident two years ago.
DV. ?GBH. w/intent? Vic: P. Ambrose. Detained 48hrs—sec 136 MHA. Released, no charge.
Shit.
He stares at it for a second, the acronyms easy for a cop to decipher. Domestic violence … grievous bodily harm … detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. He quickly shuts the computer, feeling a flash of guilt for the intrusion into her private life.
Griffin lies back in the bed, then turns and looks at her. Jess’s hair has fallen over her face, and he reaches across and moves it, tucking it behind her ear.
He’d always thought that sleeping with someone else after Mia would feel like infidelity. A betrayal of his wife, especially when he’s so comprehensively failed to find her killer. But this, with Jess, is different.
He cares for her, but it’s more than that. He pauses to think, but the right word stays out of reach, too much for his addled brain. He lets the tiredness take over. And then, just on the edge of sleep, he realizes.
Redemption.
She’s his salvation.
A chance to put things right.
CHAPTER
40
Day 6
Saturday
CARA THOUGHT SHE must have got one hour’s sleep, maybe two. Not wanting to disturb Roo when she got home, she lay in the spare room, staring at the ceiling. She had thought about Libby, tears rolling down her face.
She wakes to the sound of laughter in the kitchen and pulls a sweater on. She glances at the clock: it’s eight AM. Some part of her brain registers it’s Saturday, but not for her. This case must be put to bed, and quickly.
She goes downstairs. Lauren is there, making toast, nagging them to get ready for swimming. Roo sits at the breakfast table, a rare occurrence, meaning he won’t be back until late that night. He is smiling up at Lauren, and Cara remembers Noah’s words from two nights before. Lauren laughs at something he says, and hands him a mug of coffee.
Cara feels left out. A disconnection from this little scene. This is her family, yet nobody is missing her.
“Hi, sleepyhead,” Roo says as she walks in. “I didn’t hear you come back last night.”
She sits at the table and takes the coffee Lauren gives her without a word of acknowledgment.
“He killed Libby,” Cara whispers to Roo.
Roo looks up quickly, the smile vanishing from his face. He reaches over and goes to take her hand, but she pulls it away. Cara immediately feels bad for telling him, she should have handled it with more sensitivity. Roo knew Libby. She could have kept it to herself, but she’d wanted to pass on some of the misery, stop those happy little occasions of intimacy her husband was having with their nanny.
