CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Twenty-five minutes later, Kate sat alone in a small office on the third floor of the FBI field building.
It was an office she had commandeered for privacy in the past, and, in the years since her active span as an agent, it had still remained mostly unused from what she could tell.
She was using it to hide out while the chaos of Robert Fisher's processing continued down the hall.
The overhead light was off, leaving only the glow from her phone screen to illuminate the tears streaming down her face as she stared at the series of text messages from Allen.
With trembling fingers, she typed a response: "I'm so sorry. Got caught up in an arrest. DeMarco and I caught the killer and time got away from me. I'll be home as soon as paperwork and processing is done. I love you, and I'm sorry for not texting sooner."
She sent the message and immediately felt a fresh wave of tears threatening to overwhelm her.
The case was closed; Robert Fisher had confessed to all three murders, and justice would be served.
He had provided detailed information about his methods, his timeline, and his motivations.
There would be no trial, no lengthy legal proceedings, no question about his guilt.
He had surrendered completely once confronted with the reality of his situation.
But Kate couldn't wipe from her head the image of Robert's broken expression when he spoke about his son Brandon, or the way twenty years of grief had poured out of him in Janet Klein's living room… of how she’d nearly sympathized with him.
Kate's phone buzzed with a new text message, and for a moment her heart lifted with the hope that Allen had responded with understanding and forgiveness. But when she looked at the screen, she saw DeMarco's name. The disappointment she felt added another layer to her emotional exhaustion.
"Come to my office when you can. Local PD found Janet Klein and brought her in. We need to talk to her."
Kate dried her eyes and took several deep breaths before leaving the small office and walking down the hallway to where DeMarco was waiting.
Janet Kelin was sort of a missing piece to this whole thing.
Just because they had caught their killer in the form of Robert Fisher did not excuse likely manslaughter at the hands of a drunk driver.
She came to DeMarco's office and found the door partially opened. She peered in, and DeMarco looked up from her desk as Kate entered. Apparently, she easily noticed the redness around Kate's eyes.
"You okay?" DeMarco asked gently.
"I will be. I sort of broke a promise to Allen. But I’ll be fine once I get home. Let's get this done so I can go home to my family."
DeMarco nodded and got to her feet right away.
They made their way in silence down to Interview Room B.
There, they found a very frazzled and confused Janet Klein sitting alone at a metal table with her hands folded in her lap.
When Kate and DeMarco entered the room, Janet looked up with an expression of resignation mixed with relief.
"Ms. Klein," Kate said as they settled into chairs across from her. “I’m Special Agent Wise, and this is Agent DeMarco. We need to ask you some questions.”
“They told me you caught him… the man who killed those women.”
“Yes. We have him in custody right now. But as for you… well, we need to know about what happened twenty years ago. About Brandon Fisher."
Janet's shoulders sagged as if she had been carrying a tremendous weight that was finally being acknowledged. "I was wondering when this day would come. I've been expecting it for two decades. That man… is he his father?"
“Yes,” DeMarco said. “Now, can you tell us what happened the night Brandon was killed?" DeMarco asked.
Janet was quiet for a long moment, staring at her hands before looking up to meet their eyes. "I was driving that night. Eleanor, Jennifer, and I had been drinking wine at Romano's, celebrating Eleanor's promotion at the library. We were all tipsy, but I thought I was okay to drive."
Kate watched Janet's face carefully as she continued her confession.
"It was dark, and Brandon came out of nowhere.
I don't think he saw our car, and I definitely didn't see him until it was too late.
The impact was horrible, and I think we knew how bad it was right away.
But…we'd been drinking, and we panicked.
We were scared, and we made the worst decision of our lives. "
"You left the scene without calling for help," Kate said.
Janet nodded as tears beginning to flow down her cheeks.
Her reaction wasn’t all too dissimilar from what they’d seen out of Robert Fisher an hour or so ago.
"We drove straight to Eleanor's house and sobered up fast when we realized what we had done. We talked about going back, about calling the police, but we were terrified. We convinced ourselves that maybe the kid was okay. There were lots of houses around… maybe he got help… or something.”
"But you knew that wasn't true," DeMarco observed. “You just said that yourself.”
"Deep down, yes. We knew we had hit him hard, and we knew leaving him there was wrong.
But we were cowards." Janet wiped her eyes with a tissue.
"We agreed that night never to talk about what happened, to never see each other again.
But Eleanor suggested we stay in touch, to make sure we all kept the secret.
It started just as a weird weekly hang-out, and somehow it became the book club. "
And there it was—the puzzle taking its final form and creating a picture no one had really expected.
"Eleanor thought that if we met regularly, we could monitor each other's emotional state and make sure nobody was going to break under the pressure of keeping the secret.
We figured that if we appeared to be just friends who enjoyed reading together, nobody would suspect we had any deeper connection. "
"How did Robert Fisher find out about your involvement?" Kate asked.
Janet's expression grew more pained. "Eleanor couldn't handle the guilt anymore.
About six months ago, she told me she was going to confess to Brandon's father.
I begged her not to do it, told her it would destroy all of our lives, but she said she couldn't keep living with the knowledge of what we had done. "
"So she went to Robert Fisher's house and told him everything," DeMarco said.
"She promised me she would only tell him about her own involvement, that she wouldn't give him our names.
But she called me afterward, crying, saying she had accidentally mentioned me by name and had slipped up about the book club.
" Janet buried her face in her hands. "I knew it was only a matter of time before he figured out who else was involved. "
Kate studied Janet's broken demeanor and felt a complex mixture of sympathy and revulsion. This woman had helped kill a seventeen-year-old boy and had spent twenty years living a lie, but her remorse appeared genuine, and her suffering was obvious.
Janet looked up with desperate hope in her eyes, a strange sort of longing that actually made Kate feel uneasy. "Could I please apologize to him again? Please? I… even after what he'd done… I took his son from him."
Kate shook her head firmly. "That would be a very bad idea.
Robert Fisher just murdered three women because of his anger about what you did to his son.
Putting you in the same room with him would be dangerous for everyone involved.
He did, after all, come to your house tonight with the intention of killing you. "
Janet seemed to understand this, nodding slowly as the reality of the situation sank in. She closed her eyes and began speaking in a whisper that grew gradually louder.
"Dear God, please forgive me for what I did,” she prayed. “Please forgive me for killing that boy and for lying about it. Please help his father find peace somehow, and please help the families of the women who died because of my cowardice…"
Kate felt an overflow of emotion watching Janet's desperate prayer. The weight of everything that had happened, the chain of tragedy that had started with a drunk driving accident and culminated in three elaborate murders, suddenly felt too heavy to bear. It made her think of her own family and the tricky balance she’d been wrestling with over these past few months.
"DeMarco," Kate said urgently, standing up from her chair. "I need to go home. I need to go home right now."
DeMarco looked at Kate's face and immediately understood that her partner was struggling with something deeper than professional fatigue. "Of course. Go. I'll handle the rest of this."
Kate left the interview room and walked quickly through the field office.
She was basically marching, trying to keep in the tears until she at least got out to the parking garage.
The elevator ride to her car felt endless, and by the time she was driving through Richmond's dark streets toward home, she was crying so hard she could barely see the road.
How much blame could she really place on Robert Fisher?
If someone had killed Michael in a hit-and-run accident and then covered it up for twenty years, would she have the strength to pursue justice through proper legal channels?
Or would she be tempted to take matters into her own hands, to ensure that the people responsible paid for destroying her family?
The questions tormented her as she drove, because she knew in her heart that she couldn't honestly say she would handle such a situation any better than Robert had.
The love she felt for Michael and Melissa was so fierce and protective that she could imagine herself becoming just as consumed by the need for revenge if someone harmed them and escaped punishment.
When Kate finally pulled into her driveway and saw the warm lights glowing in the windows of her house, she felt as though she was returning from a journey that had lasted much longer than a single day.
She rushed through the front door and found Allen standing in the living room, holding Michael, who was dressed in his pajamas and clearly ready for bed. Michael saw her first, and his little eyes lit up at the sight of his mother.
“Momma! Hey!”
"Kate," Allen said, his expression immediately shifting from concern to relief when he saw her face.
Kate crossed the room without saying a word and wrapped her arms around both of them. She held them as tightly as she could without hurting Michale. The entire time, tears rolled down her face freely.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered against Allen's shoulder. "I'm sorry for not keeping my promises. I'm sorry for not texting you. I'm sorry for putting work ahead of us."
Allen's free arm tightened around her. "It's okay. You caught the killer. That's what matters. You saved at least one life, right?"
"No, it's not what matters," Kate said, pulling back to look at both Allen and Michael. "What matters is this. What matters is us. What matters is that I have you two and Melissa, and I never want to take that for granted again."
Michael, who had been watching Kate with the serious expression toddlers sometimes wore when trying to understand adult emotions, reached out with one small hand and gently patted the top of her head.
The gesture was so tender and understanding that Kate felt her heart might break from the overwhelming love she felt for this little boy who somehow knew she needed comfort.
Yet at the same time, a small chuckle rose up out of her heart.
"I love you both so much," Kate said, fresh tears starting as Michael continued his gentle patting. "I love our family, and I promise to do better at showing you that."
Allen pulled them all closer, and the three of them stood in their living room holding each other while Kate felt the terrible weight of the day's events finally beginning to lift.
Outside, the world continued with all its pain and injustice and tragedy.
But inside their home, surrounded by the people who mattered most, Kate found the peace that had eluded her throughout the long, dark day.
And she was nearly certain that she was done with the Bureau… that she never wanted to break another promise to her family again.