“I can’t see your face.”
He released his hold of the bottle, grabbed his Glock, and shoved the barrel into his mouth. Between his sobs and desperate cries, he began to squeeze the trigger. Two pounds of pressure, his eyes closed, hoping to see her face. Three pounds of pressure, his mind was filled with the horrible images of her face pressed against the bank window. Four pounds of pressure, he saw a flash in the corner of his eye. He quickly turned his head as his finger delivered the full five pounds of pressure needed to fire the Glock.
He remembered nothing when he woke. His ears still held the ringing and his left side of his jaw and face felt as if they were on fire. He saw doctors and nurses standing over him, assuring him that “everything will be okay, Derek.” He slipped in and out of consciousness, each time trying to remember what he had seen that made him turn his head as the bullet left the chamber and blasted its way through his left cheek.
He woke again to see his mother sitting by his hospital bed and his father leaning against the far wall.
“Oh Derek,” his mom said. “Everything is going to be just fine. Mom will see to that.”
Derek was in the hospital for only four days until he was released. His parents willingly agreed to have Derek stay with them until he was fully recovered and assured the hospital that they would make absolutely certain that Derek attend everyone of his sessions with his psychologist. Beyond having three of his molars blasted out of his head and an exit wound scar on his left cheek, Derek was amazingly uninjured.
“I know you don’t feel it son,” his father told him the afternoon they brought Derek to their Columbus Ohio suburban home, “but you are one lucky buck. Now, you know I’m not good at talking about feelings, but if there’s anything you want to talk about, you just let me know. Anytime. And that goes for your mom, too.”
The sessions with the psychologist were an embarrassment for Derek. He knew full well that he was inches away from killing himself and survived only because of a slight head turn.
“I don’t know what I saw,” he said to his psychologist. “Maybe I didn’t see anything and just chickened out. I don’t know.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t turned your head?” she asked, slowly twitching a pen held in her hand.
“I don’t know yet, but I think I’m still here for a reason.”
“Let me help you find that reason, Derek.”
Three months of sessions later, and Derek was cleared to return to the police department.
“I know this won’t be easy on you, Cole,” his Lieutenant said on Derek’s first day back to the police department. “But I can tell you without question that everyone here is on your side and is as happy as hell that you’re back. Now, if there’s anything you need, you just let me know.”
“I quit,” Derek said, finding his lost smile as the words effortlessly came from his mouth. “I came back today just to let you know that I quit.”
“Cole, Derek, hold on a minute. Maybe you need some more time. Time to think this through.”
“I had all the time I need, Lieutenant. What I don’t have is my wife. And though I know that your protocols and procedures didn’t put that bullet through her brain, they allowed it to happen. I can’t work for a place that puts policy before people.”
“Now Cole, you are starting to sound like someone that we need to be careful of. You’re not planning…”
“I’m not a criminal, and I’m not insane,” Derek interrupted. “I won’t bother you or this department at all. I know what I want to do with the rest of my life and believe me, I won’t be any concern of yours, this department or any of your policies or procedures. I have no issue with anyone in this department, or on any police force across the country. I just can’t be a part of one anymore. I can’t be part of something that I blame for Lucy’s death.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
He was very good at keeping things in their proper places. Didn’t matter what needed to be put into place; tools, information, or people: everything needed to be in their right place. The moment after the shock and disbelief of what Michelle Mix had told him had worn off, he started putting things where they belonged.
The first matter to attend to was to understand how something like this, something like his son, could have happened.
“Explain to me,” he said to a trusted doctor friend of his, “to what extent genetics can play in the development of a baby.”
“A tremendous extent,” the doctor answered. “Be more specific.”
“I’ve read about children being born missing limbs or organs. Does some birth defect like that indicate a weakness in the gene pool?”
“Not always. The human genome is fragile. Many things can go wrong during the fetus’s development. Many things. In fact, the vast majority of us are born with an alteration from the original genes. Fortunately, most deviations are not severe enough to be called a ‘defect.’”
“So my twins, being born with only one heart, that doesn’t necessarily indicate that my genes are faulty?”
“Nor does the condition of their birth indicate that your wife’s genes are damaged. What are you getting at?”
“Is it possible,” he continued ignoring the question asked, “that the other baby born alongside my son, Thomas, was nothing more than a genetic error?”
“I would have a problem calling the other baby an error.”
“But is it possible?”
There were so few people he trusted and even fewer that he felt were strong enough to warrant his trust. He had built his empire, though considered small to some titans, based from his uncanny ability to read people. To judge them worthy of his trust. Weaknesses were quickly identified and, if needed to strengthen his position of leverage, exploited. When he discovered a strength in someone, strength in a trait or skill that exceeded his own, he formed a partnership.
His wife, strong as she was in her compassion, was little more than a convenience for him. She agreed that her place was beside him, smiling, supporting, looking her best, and keeping quiet when she should. From her, he drew comfort knowing that his son was being cared for and shielded from the mass of morons that filled the earth. But she could not be trusted beyond what she had been vetted for.