“I’m assuming you have everything you need for the moment,” Reyes said to Carson.
She started to protest, but one look at the determined expression on Reyes’s face convinced her otherwise. “I’ll need both of your statements first thing—”
“She needs to get home,” he said to Uncle Bob, his tone brooking no argument.
Ubie nodded, offered another quick nod to Agent Carson, then walked over to open the door for Reyes, who he sat me inside, his movements gentle, unhurried. His profile was so strong, so amazingly perfect, it was hard not to stare. I wondered if I would ever get used to his exquisiteness. To his blinding perfection. Prolly not.
“Yes,” I said, repeating my answer in case he didn’t hear me the first time.
Despite the time lag, a charming set of dimples appeared at the corners of his full mouth. “You already said that.”
“I know. I just wanted to make sure you heard me.”
“Just remember that feeling a moment.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he motioned Ubie over to us.
“Would you mind obstructing the view?” Reyes asked him. Ubie’s brows slid together in concern, so he explained. “She is going to start healing immediately. This has to be set.”
I gasped when I realized he was talking about my ankle. It felt engulfed in flames, but it was nothing I hadn’t been through before. Still, the thought of Reyes setting it—of it being set at all—filled me with terror.
Uncle Bob nodded and shifted his weight until his body was blocking the view of the officers on-site.
I gripped Reyes’s arm, clawing at him as he slid off my boot. He almost brought me out of my seat as Ubie peeled off one hand and took it into his. After studying my lower extremities, a feat I couldn’t bring myself to do, Reyes glanced back at me, his deep mahogany eyes sympathetic when he said, “Bite down.”
Fear spiked like a nuclear explosion in my head. “Maybe we should—”
A sharp pop sounded in the small space, and the pain that shot through me evoked a gasp loud enough to turn the heads of those around us. Reyes’s arms were around me instantly, and I clutched on to him, buried a scream in his shoulder as the pain—a pain that had risen so high and so fast, I’d almost passed out—ebbed. When it reached a level tolerable enough for me to trust myself not to cry out in agony, I eased my hold. Only then did I realize Uncle Bob still had my hand, his thick fingers engulfing mine until all that was visible were my fingertips.
22
On a scale of one to stepping on a LEGO,
how much pain are you in?
—SIGN IN HOSPITAL
Two days after the incident that would come to be known around the world, or at least around the office, as the Great Silo Tragedy, I quite bitterly hobbled to the entrance of the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility, crutch in one hand, case file in the other. Cookie had managed to track down what happened to Miranda. She got a copy of the case file. It explained what had happened to her, why she’d chosen to haunt a cable car, and what became of her abusive mother.
I had a funeral to get to later in the day, but this morning was set aside for one woman and one woman only: Miranda’s mother. The woman who had abused her daughter so severely, the girl could not escape the mental repercussions even in death.
I needed to know. What she did to her daughter was unconscionable. I needed to know if she felt remorse of any kind. If she took responsibility for what she’d done. If she knew how severely her actions had affected her gorgeous child. If she cared. How anyone could do such a thing was far beyond my realm of understanding. Did it take a sociopath? Or simply an utter bitch?
I pulled some strings, namely the one I had wrapped around Uncle Bob, and had him call the women’s detention center to set up an interview. He told them I was a consultant working on a case for APD and needed to question Mrs. Nelms about an old case. Which would explain why I was sitting in front of a large pane of glass, waiting for Miranda’s mother to arrive.
She was in prison, thankfully, for her daughter’s death, but she’d never admitted to any wrongdoing. The court transcripts showed that she’d professed her innocence even after a jury of her peers had convicted her. Even after a judge had sentenced her to fifteen years in prison. She’d probably be out on parole in a couple more years. If she failed my test, I’d be waiting.
A large woman stepped into the room. I was surprised. In the mug shot from her arrest record, Mrs. Nelms was painfully thin, the lines of her face hard and cracked like the plains of an unforgiving desert. She’d gained weight while in the big house and cut her horrendously bleached-out hair. She now wore it short and didn’t look so much like a crack addict as the stalwart matriarch of a Russian girls’ school. Neither look was appealing.
She sat in front of me, her regard curious as she picked up the phone. I did the same and, wanting a clean, unobstructed read off her, said one word only.
“Miranda.”
Outwardly, she blinked and waited for me to get to my point. Inwardly, her defenses rose. Her pulse quickened. Her muscles tensed.
“Did you kill her?” I continued.
She pressed her lips together so hard, they turned white. When she finally spoke, it was with a vehemence I hadn’t expected. “I did not kill Miranda.”
I forced myself to be still as a wave of shock rushed through me. She wasn’t lying. Not completely. But I knew from Miranda’s crossing she had been horribly and unforgivingly abused by this woman. I went over the case file in my mind. They’d found Miranda’s body in the Sandia Mountains, almost directly under the path of the tram. She was too decomposed when they found her to determine an exact cause of death, but the evidence pointed most strongly to blunt force trauma to the head. She had two cracks in her skull. Either could have caused a subdural hematoma. Either could have caused her death. She also had ligature marks on her ankles and wrists and multiple discolorations along her skin suggesting massive amounts of bruising.