Forty-Two

Colleen was starting to get royally pissed off. Flynn was fretful, hungry for smiley-face pancakes, though Detective Ross said that leaving the CJC was an absolute no. They were making do with McDonald’s that one of the patrols had brought in, pancakes and sausage patties, but Flynn wanted smiley faces, and just about everyone in the Homicide offices knew about it.

She was lost without her computer. Ross had taken it from her when she tried to leave the first time, before he’d locked her and Flynn in an interrogation room. She wasn’t under arrest, but she wasn’t free to leave, either. She couldn’t believe that they thought she had something to do with this crazy killer’s game.

Ewan Copeland.

The name made all the hairs on her arms stand on end. So long as she kept denying she knew him, kept playing dumb, she’d be fine. They’d catch him. She and Flynn would be able to go back to their lives.

She tried to quiet her cranky son, and waited. There was nothing for her to do. She worked on her breathing, her yoga breaths. Square. In for four counts, hold for four counts, release for four counts, still for four counts. She made a game of it for Flynn. Watch Mommy, baby. After five rounds, he began to relax. After eight, he fell asleep against her shoulder, his soft hair spiked with sweat. She held him tight against her chest, felt his small body go limp and warm as he slid into sleep. Wished she could go back to his age and do the same thing.

There was a soft knock at the door. It opened slowly and Lincoln Ross stood in the frame, a wistful smile on his face. She felt her heart leap when she saw him. She was crazy, going mad, but when his smile turned from wistful to engaging, she couldn’t help herself, she smiled back.

“The pancakes worked, I see,” he said.

“I think I hypnotized him,” she replied, and he stifled a laugh.

“It worked on me, too. I’ve rarely felt so calm while at work.”

She realized he’d been watching, waiting for Flynn to settle, before he came back to the room. She appreciated that. Ross came all the way into the room, shut the door quietly behind him.

“I need to talk to you, Colleen. Is he totally asleep?”

“He’s out. What is it? Can we leave now?”

Lincoln sat carefully in the chair across the table from her.

“Not just yet. Colleen…” He took a deep breath. She got a terrible feeling in her chest. Like something was going to pop.

She steeled herself. She’d already received the worst news a wife could get, that her husband was dead well before his time. The only thing worse would be hearing something terrible about Flynn, but she had her son in her arms, and no one else to worry about. She would be fine.

“What is it, Detective?”

He fidgeted with his hair for a moment.

“Colleen, where did you grow up?”

“Blacksburg, Virginia. Why?”

His liquid brown eyes rested on hers, and she saw his eyebrows twitch, just a fraction.

“Why?” she asked again.

“Have you ever been to Forest City, North Carolina?”

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

“I don’t believe so,” she said.

“Colleen,” he started. She shifted Flynn, buried her face in his neck. She felt the panic begin to rise in her chest.

“Colleen,” Lincoln said again. “Forest City. Do you remember anyone named Emma Brighton?”

They don’t know. They don’t know. Please, God, don’t let them know.

“I’ve never been to Forest City, North Carolina, Detective.” She raised her chin in sheer defiance and looked him straight in the eye.

“I had your prints run, Colleen. I know you’re Emma Brighton. I know what he did to you.”

The name. It brought back immediate, slavish memories, ones she’d buried so deep she’d actually convinced herself it had happened to someone else. Someone she didn’t know. A story she’d heard about, a dreadful rumor, but someone else’s rumor. The kind of things she dealt with every day on Felon E, women raped, children dying. The very people she fought for, who deserved her justice.

She felt the pancakes rise up the back of her throat. The detective was staring at her still, watching. How could she have ever found him attractive? For the rest of her life, she would see those lips form around the name, his pink tongue touching the edges of his teeth as they parted and joined. Open, close, open, close. Emma. Emma. Emma.

She was crying. How did that happen?

“Colleen? Are you okay? I’m sorry to drop this on you. But we had to know. The way you reacted when you heard Copeland’s name—”

“Don’t you dare say his name to me.”

She jerked to her feet.

“I’m leaving. Now.”

Flynn started to cry. She didn’t care, she just crushed him to her harder and bolted for the door. The detective followed, but she was quicker. She was already out and down the hallway, running blind, her hair in her face, tears shattering her vision.

She hadn’t thought of that moment in years. She’d done extensive therapy, working with a system called EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was a cognitive therapy that realigned the neural pathways in her brain so she could move forward with her life, leaving the crippled portion of her soul on the therapist’s floor, shoved with her foot under the therapist’s couch, forever left behind. EMDR allowed her to hear the word rape without cringing, without faltering. It allowed her to get married, to find enjoyment, even abandon, in her marriage bed with Tommy. It gave her a new life, one free from the crushing, horrifying memories of what happened that night. It gave her a new name, one not sullied with the stains of violence. She started over, and no one knew. No one. Not even Tommy.

With two words, that fucking detective had undone years of work.

Her arms relaxed. The door was just ahead.

Emma. Emma Goddamn raped until she bled on the carpet torn open between her privates her stomach slashed forty times with the sharpest blade he could find her virginity her sex her blood spilling on the carpet the ambulance driver screaming her stoned mother’s pitying gaze the whole world knew what he had done to her and she’d never escape the pain the screams the blood Brighton.

“Stop her,” she heard the detective yell, but the faces that turned to her were shocked, and that moment’s delay was all she needed. She scooted out the door and rushed across the street. She pounded down the ramp to the garage. She didn’t even realize that she’d dropped Flynn back in the station, by the door.

She had no idea who Flynn was.

All she knew was she had to leave, to go, to get out. Now.

The car. Right ahead. Keys…she slapped her pockets and found them. Unlocked the door. Pulled it open and sat in the seat. Emma Brighton.

The face from her past floated to the surface, the sweet smile, the curly hair. A happy girl.

Emma Brighton, before she was debased and defiled.

Colleen didn’t feel the blade slide through her throat. She didn’t feel anything at all.