Rite of Wrongs Read online

  Now they were on the same page. “Yeah.”

  “Fuck,” he said, slamming a fist on his desk. “I hate it when shit turns out personal.”

  SEVEN

  Monday, 7:30 p.m.

  Back in the Juke, Miriam reached into the glove box for the flask of Sauza she kept there and splashed a half ounce into her unfinished coffee, figuring the tequila would kill off any bacteria in the milky drink she’d left sitting in her cup holder all day.

  She wasn’t sure when she’d started drinking at inappropriate times. And in inappropriate ways. She was smart enough to realize this was not healthy, this needing a crutch, though it was something she’d been doing more and more often over the past five years.

  And as much as she wanted to say she had no one to blame but herself, she blamed her ex-partner just as much. He’d left her in the lurch over nothing more than a case gone south.

  Who did that?

  “A sane person, Rome,” she muttered, checking her rearview and side mirrors before pulling out of the station’s parking lot and switching lanes.

  She was starving. She hadn’t eaten anything since the muffin she’d wolfed down at noon on her way to the crime scene. Her dad had made lasagna for the adults at Lori’s party, and she couldn’t wait. In the meantime, she lifted her cup and sipped.

  She supposed it was a good sign she still had it in her to recognize drinking wasn’t a particularly smart way to deal with her past. At least she didn’t have to deal on her own . . .

  Her dad helped, telling her often how happy she seemed working with Melvin.

  Her best friend helped, reminding her regularly of how strong she was.

  Even the man she lived with helped, the man she’d once thought she loved, leaving her weightless and breathless and exhausted enough to sleep when work kept her mind racing.

  And she was really going to need sleep before dealing with three young kids burdened with old-soul names and their father, who at any moment would lift those long crane arms and take flight. How was he going to manage his practice and take cupcakes to class parties? How could a man so devastated ever be the parent his children needed?

  Why was she wasting her emotional reserves even wondering such a thing?

  For a long moment, she focused on the traffic, watching the sprawling suburbia of Union Park contract into a tight urban landscape. She navigated onto Interstate 10 and sped past strip malls and extended-stay hotels and car dealerships and a multistoried hospital with a spire that pierced the sky. Houston. It was impossible not to love.

  After another few miles spent on the twelve-lane freeway, she exited for her parents’ neighborhood. The closer she got, the slower she drove, and when her palms began to sweat from the day’s stress—what she’d already been through and what was yet to come—she punched the call button on her steering wheel.

  “Call Nikki,” she told the Juke, then listened to her best friend’s phone ring.

  “You have reached the voice mail of Nikki Logan. Please leave a message.”

  She waited for the tone, signaling a right turn onto her parents’ oak-shaded street. “I need a drink, Nik. Call me when you get this.”

  Ringing off, she pulled into the driveway behind her father’s Volvo and her mother’s Cadillac CTS. Neither Erik’s nor Esther’s cars were to be seen.

  Oops.

  Grabbing her crossbody, her coffee cup, and the princess-printed gift bag from the backseat, she headed up the sidewalk for the kitchen door. She had only just stepped inside and pulled off her sunglasses when her mother appeared from the dining room, the detritus of popped birthday balloons and their ribbon tails in hand.

  “What in God’s name are you wearing, Miriam? This is a birthday party. Or it was a birthday party.” Her mother gave her a thoroughly judgmental once-over before throwing the trash into the can behind the pantry door. “You missed the presents, and the cake and ice cream, not to mention your niece. And your feet . . . you’re wearing booties? Is that blood?”

  “Sorry, Mom. I forgot,” she said, bending to take the protective covering off her feet, earning another gasp.

  “Flip-flops? You worked a crime scene in flip-flops?” Her mother sniffed. “And I know that’s not coffee in that cup.”

  Double crap. Miriam upended the cup, swallowing the rest of the contents, then tossed it along with the booties on top of the dead balloons. “There’s nothing in the cup at all. Feel better?”

  “No. I do not.” She pulled tight the trash bag’s drawstring ties, as if hiding the evidence of Miriam’s life of debauchery. “Why are you drinking in the middle of the day?”

  Was it? She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost eight. And I wasn’t really drinking—”

  “Miriam.”

  “Fine. Because it helps?” The words fell into the room, brittle and heavy enough to splinter when they landed.

  Her mother reached for the most damaging shard. “You know alcoholism runs in your father’s side of the family.”

  And . . . that was it. “Can we talk about something else?” Like, how messed up your other two kids are? “How was the party? Did Little Lori get plenty of swag Esther can return? I know she’s more fond of cash than store credit—”

  “Miriam!” Her mother’s voice snapped, probably because she’d stomped her foot too hard on her new travertine tile, but she pulled it together and asked, “Why are you so hateful to your sister? She hasn’t had an easy life.”

  Miriam rubbed at the throbbing ache in her tired eyes. Exhaustion had her lashing out, and wrongly so. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong target. “I’m sorry—”

  “I don’t think you are sorry.” Her mother disappeared into the dining room, returning moments later with what remained of the cake, and setting it on the kitchen’s island. She kept the barrier between them and fought back. “You’ve bullied your brother and sister since the day you were born.”

  “Bullied?” Wait a minute. “You think my worrying about the choices they’ve made”—let’s ignore mine for the moment—“is bullying?”

  “When have you ever worried about them? Except when they’ve been in your way. Think about that next time Little Lori’s birthday rolls around.” And at that, her mother spun around, leaving the room, this time Miriam knew for good.

  She stared down at the cake, a huge half sheet decorated with princesses wearing pink-and-yellow tiaras. Because being a princess was the most noble goal a girl could strive for. Or so, according to Evelyn Rome.

  Miriam’s mother had gotten her princess with Esther, her second born, who’d gone on to give her three more and a prince to boot. Erik, the oldest of the three Rome siblings, apparently shot nothing but Y chromosomes. He had five boys: two from his first wife, two from his second, one from an extramarital affair. That one was Haven, Miriam’s favorite.

  The weekends Erik had visitation with Haven—which was never the same as the other boys—and Miriam was free, she made a point to stop by and borrow her nephew. On their to-do list: Chuck E. Cheese’s. Pixar DVD marathons. Dr. Seuss puzzles spread across her hardwood floor and solved while crawling around on hands and knees. Making themselves sick on ice-cream sundaes and caramel popcorn.

  Her nieces and nephews were enough. Nothing about her life was good for kids. It was barely good for her.

  She reached into the gift bag she’d left on the island and pulled out the plush pink piglet wearing a pink tutu and tiara and waving a pink plastic wand, thinking she’d had enough pink today to last a lifetime. “Whaddaya think, pig? Cake for all?”

  She didn’t even bother with a knife or plate. She dug in with a tiny plastic fork, then switched it out for a grown-up piece of flatware. Grown-up. The thought had her snorting.

  If princesses grew up to be queens, did that mean nonprincesses got to be homicide detectives? With bloody polypropylene booties instead of glass slippers? Service weapons instead of magic wands? Kevlar vests instead of ball gowns?

  An ex-partner turned priest instead of
a handsome prince?

  She scooped up a bite of mostly icing and was licking it from the tines when her father walked in. “Is it safe?” he asked, looking at her over the rims of his tiny black reading glasses.

  “I don’t know about safe,” she said as she waved her fork in a whoop-de-doo circle. “But it’s cake.”

  And because he was a knight in shining armor at heart, Cyril Rome said, “Let me pull up a fork and you can tell me about your day.”

  She stabbed hers into the icing, chopping off a princess’s head. “I’m not sure you want to hear about it. I’m not sure I want to talk about it.” But at least her father asked. Her mother never did. Her mother never wanted to know.

  He nodded toward the stuffed animal watching them with beady eyes. “Talk to the pig. I’ll listen.”

  The shiny black gaze pulled her in. But even if it hadn’t, resisting her dad was impossible. He had always been her champion. He had never doubted her. Thinking of his unwavering support had her eyes tearing up, her throat constricting.

  “It was the kids. The victim was a mother of three. Seeing them with their father, all those blond heads together, and the five bikes in the garage, knowing one of them would never be ridden again . . .” She looked around for her coffee cup, forgetting it was empty. “I need a drink.”

  Her dad got up, dropped a pod into the coffeemaker, and set a carton of fat-free half-and-half and a box of sweetener packets on the island while the coffee brewed. Then he handed her the mug and a spoon. “No more booze. You’re a cop. And you’re driving.”

  “I’ll call a cab.”

  He shook his head and set his hands at his trim waist above his khaki chinos. “No more booze. You’re my daughter. And you’ve had enough.”

  “A day like today? There’s never enough,” she said, adding to her coffee what served as cream and sugar in her parents’ home. “I shouldn’t be talking about any of this.”

  He waved off her worry and picked up his fork. “My lips are so sealed, Super Glue wants a patent.”

  She smiled, watching him close his mouth around a huge bite of cake. Where he put the things he ate . . . “The killer. He slit the victim’s throat. Then he used her blood, or I assume her blood”—wouldn’t it be great if he’d actually made the statement with his own DNA?—“to paint a Bible verse on the wall. ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’”

  It took her dad a couple of minutes to respond; during that time she came to regret having said a word. Even with the thick skin she’d grown to deal with the day in and day out of homicide, the kids always got to her, and she wasn’t even a parent. What her dad must be thinking . . .

  He reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together. “You know your mother’s very proud of you. In her heart of hearts, she knows you would’ve been here for the party if you could.”

  Several seconds passed before Miriam’s chest eased enough for her to talk, and she still had to swallow twice to get out the words. “It would be nice to hear her say that. Instead of hearing her complain about my footwear.”

  He squeezed once, then released her. “She’s a stickler about her floors. And she never has been a fan of blood.”

  Miriam was pretty sure that was the only thing she and her mother had in common.

  EIGHT

  Monday, 10:00 p.m.

  Since the drive home from her parents’ place took a whole lot longer than her normal trip from the station, it was close to ten when Miriam pulled into one of her two assigned parking slots. Thierry used the other, and his was empty. She was still in her workout clothes, still wearing every layer of the day’s sweat, but at least her time was now her own.

  She’d bought the place ten years ago after taking the job with the UPPD. Before that, she’d lived in the Heights. The quaint atmosphere of that 1900s Houston neighborhood—her house there had been built in 1925—had fit her a lot better than Midtown.

  And as much as she missed those creaking wood floors and high ceilings, the art deco crown molding and original fireplace, she did not miss the noise from the nearby beer garden. The music. The crowds. The 2:00 a.m. drunken laughter and honking horns.

  Her place in Union Park was a first-floor quarter of an old warehouse in the industrial district. She’d bought it because it was close to everything. The station. Starbucks. Her yoga studio. The market where she bought her groceries. The liquor store where she bought her booze.

  She could walk anywhere she wanted. Except she didn’t.

  She should, she knew, but walking felt like a waste of time when she had so many stops to make and so little time to make them. She walked enough on the job as it was. She didn’t need a gadget to count her steps when her feet let her know she’d reached her quota. And after working today in flip-flops, they were definitely letting her know.

  So much for having a day off.

  Spending her downtime with dead bodies and a brokenhearted family, then with one that was just plain broken . . .

  Yeah. Not her idea of fun.

  At least after she’d helped her mom clean up—penitently wiping away smeared globs of icing from the dining room’s hardwood before attacking the floor with a mop—her dad had packed her a plate of lasagna to go, along with a quarter of Lori’s pink cake. Like she hadn’t had enough sugar to last a month, enough pink to last indefinitely.

  Standing now in her open-air kitchen, she pulled the foil wrapping from the Chinet platter and realized he’d actually sent enough for two people to eat. Though as hungry as she was . . . she shoved the whole thing into the microwave and slammed the door, programming the time and temperature so as not to burn what would be one of her best dinners in a while.

  No one makes lasagna like Cyril Rome. With a tired smile, she watched the turntable spin slowly. The smell of all those onions, all that garlic . . . thankfully, Thierry was working. She wouldn’t have to share. Probably said a lot about the dregs of their relationship that she didn’t want to. It said a lot about her hunger, too. She had it for food. She had it for work. What she had left for him was only physical.

  And even that was rare these days. Which wasn’t fair to him. Nothing about their being together had ever been fair to him, she mused, as the microwave’s bell dinged.

  That wasn’t how a rebound worked.

  And, yeah. He’d known where her head was the night they’d met in the ER.

  Dr. Thierry Greer had looked up five years ago from his examination of the man who’d tried to kill her an hour before, held her gaze, and given her a grim shake of his head.

  That was when her then-partner, who’d shot the man to save her, had walked out of her life, leaving Miriam to deal with the aftermath. The dead man’s next of kin had been on scene at the time of the shooting, sparing both her and the forensic investigator from having to make the notification. That had been the only good news that night.

  An hour later, she had barely moved. Thierry had found her sitting at the nurse’s station, her hands wrapped around a cup of cold coffee, her eyes aching and red-rimmed, her nerves so shot she’d thought he might be able to extract bullet fragments.

  Instead, he’d taken her to the doctor’s lounge and made her soup. Hot soup. Chicken noodle from a pop-top can. Microwaved in his own extra-large latte mug. He’d told her he kept it there for just that purpose. He was a big fan of soup as a cure-all.

  He’d shown up at her front door the next night with a fresh French baguette and a quart of creamy spring onion. A house call. Checking up on a patient.

  He’d stayed for three days.

  He’d been exactly what she’d needed while on leave. Smart and funny and so laid back, she would’ve thought him spineless if not for having seen him shouting orders in the ER.

  It was as if he believed that nothing in life was worth taking seriously except life itself. He’d saved many. He’d lost more. That was what it meant to be an ER physician, he’d told her. Saving everyone was impossible, he’d said.

  Without a doubt, she knew he’d
saved her.

  Soon, however, her leave had been over, and she’d gone back to work. That’s when Thierry had become what she needed while she tried to get used to working without her ex-partner, who’d turned in his resignation while she’d been getting her head on straight.

  Then working alone.

  Then with a new partner.

  She’d gone through three.

  Now? She didn’t know what Thierry was except a roommate with benefits, because five years later, they were no longer together officially, but the sex was too easy to quit.

  Enough. Grabbing a fork and the plate from the oven, she plopped into one of the kitchen table’s two ladder-back chairs. Then she reached for the expanding folder beneath her crossbody and pulled out the copy of Gina Gardner’s diary.

  The whole thing was held together with a huge rubber band; there were too many sheets for even the biggest binder clip. The first page was dated more than a decade ago, and though the journal was thick and Gina’s cursive concise, there wasn’t enough space for her to have written in it daily. Miriam hoped that meant the contents would prove to be more than fluff.

  She thumbed the ream’s edge. She supposed she could have the whole thing scanned, then do a keyword search. It would be easier and faster than manually looking for mentions of the players involved in the case. But she’d seen how often OCR software misread a standard font, much less handwriting. She wasn’t going to trust the diary to tech.

  Browsing through the pages as she ate, she caught sight of names she recognized: the children, the husband. A whole page was devoted to the day they’d brought Bongo home. She ran across names she didn’t know, too. But those were easy to identify in context as neighbors, teachers, parents of her children’s friends, friends of her own and Jeff’s.

  Returning to the beginning, Miriam pulled her notebook close to her plate and held her pen in the same hand as her fork. With her other, she flipped through the diary, not reading but skimming, looking for references to church, to religion, to Scriptures, to worship, to Sunday.

  She found nothing.