Page 37

Magnetic north kept shifting, and no one had bothered to tell Luca. Massachusetts was supposed to be a place where time stopped and memories froze solid. That was the promise of childhood homes – you left, they waited. Instead, Luca found himself in a house full of ghosts that refused to keep still.

He slouched in his mother's armchair. It was the one she'd refused to part with after his father died. He stared at the wall of family photos like they were suspects in a lineup and his own face stared back at him from a dozen different ages – gap-toothed at six, awkward at thirteen, that brief period at twenty-two when he thought sideburns were a good idea.

The kitchen was too clean. The living room too orderly. The photographs on the mantel had multiplied since his last visit. His niece's graduation. His cousin's wedding. These important moments had been caught in amber and Luca had missed them because he was busy trying to reach the Special Agent rung of the Bureau ladder.

He downed the remainder of his drink and tried to think straight. Ella always said his coffee-to-blood ratio was concerning, and right now, he'd need an industrial transfusion to counteract the caffeine buzzing through his system.

The coffee wasn't working anyway. What he needed was clarity, not stimulants.

It had been 24 hours since he’d broken into his childhood home, and he’d planned to use this period of respite to do some groundwork for Ella. The problem was that while the intention was there, Luca’s leads were pathetically thin. Once he’d fired up the database and racked his brain for anything resembling a thread to pull, Luca had found that he had absolutely nothing to go on. No evidence, no suspects, not even a working theory.

All he knew was that two of Ella's allies had been found dead, and their mouths had been sewn shut with strands of her own hair. The victims were her landlord, Julianne, and her old roommate, Jenna. Luca had never met them and knew very little of them other than their names. No information about the crimes had reached any FBI databases, and Luca thought it a bad idea to contact Washington PD directly. If Edis was trying to get this case in-house, then the last thing he needed was Luca muddying the waters, especially given Luca's current status.

So here he was, the FBI's rising star, benched and brooding in his dead dad's discount Barcalounger. Some vacation this was shaping up to be.

He tapped his phone screen again. No new messages. No missed calls. The signal here was as temperamental as Massachusetts weather. One bar if you stood in the right corner of the living room, nothing if you moved three inches in any direction.

The old hinges on the front door screamed a warning before he heard his mother's key in the lock. Her suitcase wheel caught on the doorjamb, judging by the muttered ‘son of a bitch.’ Patricia Hawkins didn't curse often, but when she did, it came wrapped in a Boston accent thick enough to cut with a knife.

Luca rushed into the hallway to meet her. ‘Surprise Ma!’

A rustling of coats, the thud of bags being dropped. ‘Luca? What on earth…?’

Patricia Hawkins was sixty-one, with silver hair pulled back in a neat bob and the compact frame of someone who'd spent a lifetime refusing to yield ground. Jamaica had turned her pale New England complexion two shades darker and sprinkled fresh freckles across her nose. She looked like what she was: a retired nurse who'd earned every line on her face through decades of night shifts.

‘That’s the greeting I get?’

‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,’ she breathed. ‘You about gave me a heart attack. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?’

‘You didn’t get my texts?’

Patricia pulled out her cell and tapped her knuckles on the screen. ‘Damn thing died on me. I’ve been in Jamaica. Why didn’t you call?’

Luca raised an eyebrow. ‘How can I call you if your phone is broken?’

His mother slapped her forehead with the ball of her hand. ‘Doh. Ignore me. All that Caribbean air has sent me loopy.’ Her arms opened automatically, and Luca stepped into them. His mother smelled of cheap soap and coconut sunscreen.

‘Did you have a good time?’

‘Great. Sorry I didn’t tell you I was going. I thought you’d be too busy with your cop business.’

‘Fair enough. Who’d you go with?’

‘Irene. Remember her?’

‘Sure,’ Luca lied. ‘How is she?’

‘Not bad. She’s always asking about you. Why are you here, anyway? How did you get inside?’

‘You left a key.’

‘Oh yes. Good memory! Is everything okay at work?’

‘Everything's fine,’ he lied again. ‘I just missed my mom.’

Patricia pulled back to examine him with narrowed eyes. It was the same look she'd used when he was ten and came home with mud on his clothes. ‘That’s not true.’

‘What? I can't visit without an ulterior motive?’

‘I’m not buying it, Chops. I’m gonna go sit down while you make me a coffee, then you’re going to tell me everything, yes?’

Luca winced at the nickname. As a baby, his hamster cheeks had earned him the nickname Chops, which had somehow persisted into adulthood. He had learned to accept that the name would probably end up on his gravestone too.

He performed his sonly duties then brought the coffee to his mom. She’d made herself comfortable on the armchair he’d been keeping warm for the past few hours.

‘Thanks, Chops. So come on. Out with it.’

‘I’m on leave,’ he said.

He could see the mental calculus behind her eyes. Administrative leave was never good news. In the context of law enforcement, it usually meant someone had died, or someone was about to.

‘Did you shoot someone again?’

‘No. A suspect fell through a table. They think I threw him.’

‘Did you?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Was he a bad guy?’ Patricia asked.

‘He killed four people.’

‘Then I don’t see a problem. No judge in the world is gonna lock you up for that.’

Luca laughed. Moms had a unique way of putting things into perspective. ‘I hope so.’

‘Tell me about this woman of yours. The one you’ve been keeping from me.’

‘I haven’t been keeping her from you. We’ve only been together a few months.’

‘A few months?’ Patricia snapped. ‘You said you were living together?’

‘We are.’

Patricia mock fainted. ‘You’re lucky it’s not 1950. You’re being… safe?’

‘Ma. Seriously.’

She checked her phone again and, to no surprise of Luca, found it was still dead. She tossed it aside. ‘I’m just saying. I might want grandkids one day.’

‘Ask me again in a few years.’

‘I will!’ she said. ‘Tell me about her. Properly. Not the quick version you gave me over the phone.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything. What's she like? Is she good to you? Are you good to her?’

Luca pulled at a loose thread on his sleeve. How to distill Ella Dark into words? How to describe a woman whose mind retained everything it absorbed, who could recall every detail of every crime scene she'd ever witnessed, who sometimes woke up gasping from dreams where the dead visited with questions she couldn't answer.

‘She’s great.’

‘That’s all I get? Great?’

‘There’s a lot to mention. I don’t know where to start.’

‘I’m here all week, so take your time.’ She stood and headed for the kitchen. ‘You eaten? I was going to make some eggs.’

‘It's almost midnight.’

‘And? Last I checked, eggs don't know what time it is. So when am I going to meet her?’

‘Are we still on that?’

‘We sure are.’

‘You can meet her whenever. You could come to D.C. if you want.’

Patricia barked a laugh. ‘Me? In the city? I’d rather sit on a cactus. Bring her up here.’

Luca knew he wasn’t going to win this battle. His mom would have made a great attorney because she had an answer for everything. The worst part was that her answers usually had merit.

‘Alright, I’ll see if she wants to come down. Have you seen her? Want to see a picture?’

‘Oh, I’ve seen her, honey. We all have.’

Luca thought he hadn’t heard her correctly. ‘I’ve shown you her? When?’

‘I saw her on the news not long ago. Something down in Louisiana? She helped put that killer on death row. Creed was it?’

The world suddenly slipped away, and Luca was transported back in time. A memory surfaced of him sitting on the sofa with Ella at home, and then being at HQ, and then searching the office for something.

Something Ella had lost.

And it had all happened right after her trip to Louisiana.

Luca grabbed his cell, found Ella's name, and hammered the screen. He ran to the back door.

‘Chops, honey. Is everything okay?’ his mom asked.

But Luca was out of the door, into the garden, desperately needing to get five bars of signal on his phone.

He suddenly knew exactly what was going on.

‘Pick up, Ell. Pick up!’