Chapter 12
Billie was still asleep when her cellphone rang the next morning and she grabbed quickly to answer it, thinking that Alex might have been arrested, and Mickie was calling her for help.
She had dreamt about her all night, and woken half a dozen times.
Jason had pulled her close to him and held her, hoping to reassure her.
She was afraid that somehow Mickie would be implicated and arrested too.
It was not impossible, depending on how much she knew.
But the voice at the other end was unfamiliar and stirred a distant chord of memory, and as she came fully awake, Billie realized it was Charlotte Carter, her friend Tom’s mother, calling.
She wondered if she was in California calling to say hello, and then a ripple of fear ran through her as she sat straight up in bed.
Jason was in the shower, getting ready for work.
“Mrs. Carter, are you okay?” Billie asked her kindly.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “I got your number from your dad. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. Is everything okay?” There was silence at the other end, and she realized that Tom’s mother was crying, and she didn’t need to be told the reason why.
There was only one reason why Charlotte Carter would call her.
Tears sprang to Billie’s eyes and she felt as though the air was being squeezed out of her, and she couldn’t breathe.
“I know Tom would want me to call you,” Charlotte said through her tears.
“He was killed last night, somewhere in Syria. I don’t think they told me where.
I can’t remember. They were on stealth maneuvers at night, to capture the home of a terrorist leader, and a land mine exploded.
Tom was killed instantly. They said he didn’t suffer,” she said.
“He died a hero’s death.” It seemed to comfort Charlotte, but it didn’t comfort Billie.
Tom had been her soulmate for twenty-one years, and still was, even though she hadn’t seen him in a year and a half and hadn’t known where he was.
“I’m so sorry,” Billie said through her own tears. “I loved him so much. He was the best person in the world. He was the only friend I had growing up.”
“I know, and I was so sorry when your mom died. She was a good person too. They’re going to try to send what they can home when they clear the area.
But they don’t know when that will be. We’re not going to have a funeral.
We’ll have a memorial service when we have him back.
I just wanted you to know. I hope you’re all right, Billie.
If you come out this way, please come and visit us. We don’t want to lose touch with you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Carter, you won’t.” Tom was twenty-four years old, Billie had just turned twenty-three.
His parents were older than hers. They had had Tom in their mid-forties as a late surprise.
And he was an only child. She knew that his parents were close to seventy by now. Her parents had been much younger.
“We always hoped you two would get married one day, when you grew up. You were such good friends.”
Too good to want to ruin it with romance, so they never had.
Romances didn’t seem to last, friendship did.
It seemed safer to both of them not to risk what they had.
They had always agreed on that. He was like her brother and she was his soul sister.
Now he was gone too. All the people she loved were being taken from her one by one.
Her mother five years before, now Tom. Mickie had said she didn’t want Billie in her life, and Billie believed her.
Mickie didn’t want or need anyone, except Alex, for his money and the opportunity he gave her, until she learned the truth.
And her father didn’t care about her, and never had.
It made Jason even more precious, and she was pining for Tom when she and Charlotte hung up.
Jason saw her face when he came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around him. Her face was gray, she was so pale. Her eyes were huge and she was crying and couldn’t speak or put down her phone. She was still holding it in her hand when Jason came and sat on the edge of the bed and held her.
“Was that your sister?” he asked, hating Mickie for the pain she caused Billie, and she shook her head, and couldn’t speak through her tears for a minute.
“It was Tom’s mother. My friend . . . Tom Carter, he was killed on a mission in Syria last night,” she said, and choked on a sob again.
“I’m so sorry.” Jason didn’t know what to do to make her feel better. He went to the kitchen and brought her a cup of tea a few minutes later and she took it gratefully and sipped it, and set it down next to the bed.
He waited while she dressed and he drove her to work, and promised to call her later.
She hadn’t even been able to talk to Tom in the last year, but she thought of him all the time.
And now he would just be a memory and she would never hear his voice again.
The thought of it was nearly unbearable.
Tom had been the only decent part of her childhood other than her mother.
She kissed Jason in front of the hospital, and jumped out of the Jeep.
She told him she was okay when he called her at lunchtime, and she was in bed with her clothes on when he came home from work.
She knew she just had to get through the days now until the pain was less acute, something she could live with.
She had been through it with her mother, but she had forgotten how agonizing grief could be.
Every memory she had of Tom was vivid. Every moment of their childhood came back to her.
Every prank they played and the jokes they told, the trees they climbed, the streams they swam in, the cows they chased and horses they rode.
The only prom they ever went to and she had to wear an old dress of her mother’s because her father wouldn’t buy her a new one, even though he bought a new dress for Mickie for prom every year, because she was the prom queen and beautiful.
Her father thought Billie was small and insignificant and didn’t matter.
Tom told her she looked gorgeous in her mother’s ugly dress.
She remembered the times they got drunk together, the science homework she did for him and the essays he wrote for her.
He would have been at her college graduation if he could have been, and she had been so proud of him when she saw him graduate from West Point.
Every moment of their years together was sharply etched in her mind and on her heart.
Never to be forgotten and forever loved.
Later that day, Joe McCarthy, the head of the crime section at the L.A. Times and Jason’s boss, had called him to his office. Jason assumed he’d gotten more damning information on Alex Addison, and he went to Joe’s office promptly after the call.
“More news?” Jason asked, slipping into the chair across the desk from his boss. “Did they get the warrant signed?”
“It’ll take a couple of days.” Joe smiled at him. “I’ve got good news and bad news. I just got a call from upstairs,” which meant senior management.
“The police aren’t dropping the case, are they?” Jason looked horrified.
“Definitely not. You’ve done a great job on this investigation.
It’s not over yet, and I’m sure you’ll write a terrific piece on it.
Prize-winning stuff.” Jason was touched by what he said.
“The bad news for me is it’ll be your last piece for the crime section.
They want you to follow this to the conclusion, but after that you’re done. ”
“I’m being laid off?” Jason was shocked. He knew they were making cutbacks, but he hadn’t expected them to include him.
“No,” Joe said. “They’re moving you to politics, and kicking you up to senior reporter, with an office of your own.
You could run that section one day, if Jack Bailey would ever retire.
” The head of the political section was the oldest department head at the paper, a famous old reporter with a column of his own.
“They tried to steal you a year ago and I wouldn’t let them, so my apologies if you stayed in the crime division longer than you wanted.
You’re a damn fine reporter, Jason. You’ve already done a great job with this investigation and we’re just getting started. ”
Jason was stunned by the news of his transfer and the promotion.
It was what he’d been dreaming of for three years.
Joe said, “I think Addison will plead when he gets a deal and it’ll wrap up pretty quickly.
You’ll be upstairs very soon. Congratulations!
” He held out a hand and shook with Jason, who was ecstatic.
He thanked Joe profusely and went back to his desk in a daze.
Jason told Billie about the promotion that night, and despite her grief over Tom, she was happy for him.
On Friday morning, Dan Kelly called Jason to tell him that Alex had been arrested and was in jail.
He had been seeing patients when they came for him and took him out of the house in handcuffs, and his patients and staff had stared at him in silent disbelief.
Kelly didn’t say if Mickie had been there or how she’d reacted.
Maybe she was out, shopping for some event.
The police were going to be searching the house and taking evidence with them.
They had kept one office person to open the supply closet doors for them.
They had to call a locksmith to open some of them, since only Alex had the combinations.
They were sending all the substances to the police lab for analysis, since none of them were marked, and they would all be evidence.