“Deal.” D.D. snapped her phone shut, turned to Alex. “More questions for Lightfoot,” she reported. “Starting with his real last name.”

Which shouldn’t have been too hard, except when they reached the main ward of the hospital, Lightfoot had disappeared.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Greg.

“Why didn’t you ever ask?” he replied.

We were huddled at the interrogation table, confined to the classroom, under another detective’s watchful eye. The nanny detective was on the other side of the room, eating pizza and reading files. That gave us the illusion of privacy, though he probably had crack hearing and was writing down every word we said.

“I would’ve understood,” I said. I sounded petulant, even to me. Greg’s secrets angered me. I was the one with baggage. He was supposed to be an open book. Now I had to face the fact that Greg had his own tragic past, and was still a better-adjusted person than me.

Greg regarded me thoughtfully. “Why?”

“How can you even ask? Your family history, my family history. You could have told me about your sister. I would’ve understood!”

“Why?” he asked again. “For me to presume to know what you’re feeling, for you to presume to know what I’m feeling…” He shrugged. “Isn’t there some quote: ‘All happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’?”

“Anna Karenina. Only line of the book I read. But still…” I sat back, hands tucked in my front pockets, still scowling. “Most people know who their families were, or what their families were. But we don’t. Our family history remains a question mark. Was your father that bad or was your sister that ill? Was my father that bad or did the drinking make him that ill? We don’t know. We’ll never know. And that kind of not knowing really sucks.”

“I miss my parents,” Greg said after a moment. “My dad was a good dad to me. My mom was a good mom. I wish they could see me now. I wish they could know that at least one of their kids got it right.”

I nodded. I thought that, too, the few times I allowed myself to think of my family. Would my mom be proud of me? Would Natalie and Johnny appreciate my work with troubled kids? Maybe, when I’d graduated from the nursing program, they would’ve cheered for me. And maybe, when I saw success with my first disturbed child, they would’ve liked to hear my stories from work.

I should’ve gone to dinner with Greg. He was a good person. The decent guy who didn’t get the girl, because most girls, including me, were stupid about things like that.

“I don’t want you feeling sorry for me,” he was saying now, voice grim. “I don’t need your pity.”

“Not what I was thinking.”

“I mean, look at the kids here. Most of them don’t have fathers. Most of them don’t have involved caretakers of any kind. That’s life. If we expect them to get over it, we can, too.”

“You should come to my place,” I said. “In two weeks. I’ll be saner then. The dust will have settled on this mess. I’ll fix you dinner.”

Greg blinked. Paused. Blinked again. “Your place?”

“I don’t have roommates. And we have unfinished business.”

His mouth formed a soundless Oh. It made me feel better about things. But then Greg narrowed his gaze, studying me intently.

“Think you’ll really be saner?” he asked. “Think the dust really will have settled?”

“Hope so.”

“Why don’t you let go, Danielle? It’s been decades for you and, speaking strictly as a friend, each anniversary you get worse, not better. Is it that you ask too many questions, or not enough?”

“I don’t know. Maybe…” I sighed. The nanny detective still seemed preoccupied. What the hell. I bent my head closer to Greg’s and whispered: “For the longest time, I didn’t ask any questions. I was angry and content to stay that way. But this time around… I’ve starting thinking about that night. Remembering. I was the one who brought my father’s gun to my parents’ room. I was fed up. My dad was… doing things. I wanted it to stop. My mother forced me to give her the gun. She said she’d take care of things. She promised me.

“Next thing I remember is my father standing in the doorway, blowing out his brains. I always thought it was my fault. I had confessed to my mother. She had confronted my father. He had gone berserk. Had to be my fault, right? But now… I don’t know. My aunt says there were problems in the marriage, things that had nothing to do with me. And I’d swear the clock read ten twenty-three when I left my parents’ room. The police didn’t arrive until one a.m. That’s two and a half hours later. What happened? My parents fought? My mother confessed to an affair, tried to kick him out? Two and a half hours is a long time. Two and half hours…”

I shook my head, confused. “I always thought the central question of my life was whether my father spared me because he loved me that much, or because he hated me that much. Now I wonder if my entire life doesn’t boil down to two and a half hours when I was hiding under the covers of my bed.”

“Danielle-” Greg began.

“Remember the deal: no pity.”

“And dinner in two weeks.”

“Yeah, dinner in two weeks. No roommates.”

He grinned. It eased the tightness in my chest, made me want to touch the bruise I’d left on his jaw.

“I’m not good girlfriend material,” I reminded him. I heard the edge in my voice. “I’m gonna try. It’s time to forgive. Time to forget. But this is new territory for me. I’m better at being angry.”

“Danielle-”

“My family’s dead. I’m still alive. I need start doing something with that.”

“Are you done?”

“Okay.”

“Danielle, how long have we known each other?”

“Years.”

“Five, to be exact. I’ve only been asking you out for the past two. You can be angry, Danielle. It’s nothing I haven’t seen. And you can be sad, because it’s nothing I won’t understand. And if you want to learn to forgive and forget, I’m happy to help with that, too. Maybe I’ll even learn something along the way. But you don’t have to change, Danielle. Not for me.”

“You’re a brave man.”

He smiled. “Nah, but I’m solid. Just am. And solid’s not glamorous and it’s not for every girl. But I’m hoping it will be enough for you.”

“I’ve never done solid. For me, solid will be glamorous.”

“So two weeks-” Greg began, then stopped. He sat up, sniffed the air. “Do you smell smoke?”

I paused, sniffed. At first, I smelled only cheese and pepperoni, but then… “Yeah, I do.”

Suddenly, the smoke alarm split the air. I covered my ears, pushing back the chair.

Greg was already climbing to his feet, the detective, as well.

“You two, stay put-” the detective began.

Greg cut him off. “Not a chance. After that episode earlier this evening, most of these kids are heavily medicated. They’re not walking out of here. We’ll have to carry them.”

Greg headed for the door, placing his hand against it. “Cool to the touch,” he reported. He flung it open. Tendrils of smoke were wafting down the hall and we could hear the rapid patter of running feet.

Definitely not a drill. Greg and I looked at the cop. The cop looked back at us.

“First kid you see,” I informed the detective, “grab him or her and get down the stairs. Fourteen kids to go, and we’ll be right behind you.”

We got to work.

Karen led the charge. We found her positioned before the ward’s front doors, checklist in hand, wire-rimmed glasses askew on the tip of her nose. I still couldn’t see the cause of the smoke or feel any heat, but the hallway was noticeably hazy, smoke curling around Karen’s feet as she read off each child’s name in a firm, tight voice.

Ed stood nearby, preparing to take the first group of kids, a groggy trio Cecille was herding down the hall. She had them walking single file, their hand on the shoulder of the child in front of them, just as we’d practiced. The kids, still wearing pajamas, stumbled along, too tired to do anything other than what they were told.