Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [701]
Then he stopped and looked as if he was listening for something. Gwen listened, too, hoping it had been the elevator. Maybe it was someone in the hall. She couldn’t hear a thing over the pounding of her heart in her ears.
He tilted his head, still listening, and then he smiled again. “The banging. It’s gone.”
Of course it was gone she wanted to tell him. It was inside her now.
“You shouldn’t have made me dredge up all those memories, Dr. Patterson,” he said, shaking his head.
She couldn’t believe it. He was really going to do this. She couldn’t swallow and it hurt to breathe. Her knees threatened to go out from under her. If she fell would he shoot her where she lay? Even his eyes—though they stayed on hers—they had gone somewhere far away. Should she make a run for it? What did she have to lose? Getting shot in the back or between the eyes, what did it matter?
“You didn’t fix it,” Campion said and Gwen couldn’t help thinking how much he sounded like an executioner, her executioner. “I gave you all those chances and you couldn’t help.”
“James, you don’t want to do this,” she said, but, again, he didn’t seem to hear her.
“I forgive you,” he told her and then he pulled the trigger.
The pain seemed to blossom, spreading throughout her body. She didn’t even remember falling, but from the floor she saw James Campion put the gun in his mouth and fire one more shot. That was the last thing Gwen Patterson saw before everything went black.
CHAPTER 85
M’s Pub
Omaha, Nebraska
Maggie had never believed that confession was good for the soul. As far as she was concerned, nothing much came from it, other than wasted time that could be better spent elsewhere. There was no such thing as closure. Everyone had past baggage they carried around, some just a little heavier than others. She had never talked about her mother’s drunken binges with anyone other than Gwen. What good did it do to relive those miserable times? Without effort she could easily conjure up the hot, sour smell of whiskey breath from her mother’s boyfriends trying to slam her small, twelve-year-old frame into the corner for a kiss or a “quick rub,” as one had put it.
Instead of sharing the gruesome details, she simply told Sister Kate, “Let’s just say my mother’s suitors were not always the most polite of gentlemen.”
Sister Kate nodded as if she understood the entire situation from that brief statement. “How old were you?”
“Twelve, thirteen. By the time I was fourteen she finally made them get hotel rooms. Of course, that wasn’t until one of her men friends suggested a threesome.”
“Ah, I see,” Sister Kate said, but without alarm or surprise. “Which left you all alone?”
“It felt like a blessing at the time,” Maggie confided. She didn’t need all her years of studying psychology to self-diagnose that being alone as a child and associating it with freedom from harm had certainly overlapped into her adult life.
“Did you ever think,” Sister Kate said, “that might be one of the reasons you joined the FBI?”
“What exactly do you mean?” Maggie had no intention of this turning into a shrink session.
“Maybe it’s a way for you to be that knight in shining armor who comes to the rescue—the one who never came to your rescue as a child.”
Maggie took a sip of her wine when she really wanted a gulp. She was beginning to realize this conversation would take more than one glass of wine unless she could turn it around soon.
“So what about you?” she asked. “You said your grandfather had rescued you from what I believe you said was a particularly difficult situation?”
“I suppose it wasn’t all that different from your situation. It was the year I turned eleven. He was a friend who my parents trusted and respected—revered, actually, is a better word. They’d invite him one Sunday every month for dinner.” As she told Maggie her eyes began to wander across the street again. “My mother always fixed pot roast, with potatoes and those little carrots, because it was his favorite. And after dinner he’d volunteer to take me upstairs