“Shit,” he said. “How is she, Camden?”
“Coming along,” I said, though this felt like a lie.
“Well. You got a lotta irons in the fire, Agent,” Poulton said, his voice calming. “I read your note about the body you found last night. Feels like I should put another team on one of these cases.”
“The case in Shilohadanother team on it,” I said. “Left a sour taste in the locals’ mouths about the FBI.” I watched from the bathroom as a nurse spoon-fed my mother tapioca. “I’ll make it to D.C. this afternoon. Then come back to Texas in a week. Take a few days off at that point to be with my mother.”
“You think this gun case will be over in a week?”
The odds of both investigations being completed in a week was single digits, but I was learning that brevity was the better part of most things when it came to answering Craig Poulton.
“Leave it to us,” I said.
Poulton hesitated, waiting for more. But I kept quiet.
“When you’re ready, call for a jet instead of flying commercial,” he said. “I’ll let Olivia know.”
Poulton hung up, and I called Richie. Got a summary of what was going on in Shilo and what the plan was for the search that day.
Next, I rang up Tristan DeLillo, asking him if he had questions about the areas that I had marked on the map on the plane ride to Dallas.
All the while, I kept the door ajar, my eyes on my mom.
When I was done, I stepped back into her room and checked to see how much she’d eaten. Two cups of tapioca were empty, as was a tiny dish that had held a mandarin orange mush. The nurse took it away and nodded to me.
“You were a good eater today,” I said to my mom.
“My drink tastes funny,” she replied.
I glanced down, seeing a cup filled with water. It had been mixed with thickener.
“They’ll test your swallowing later,” I said. “Until the therapist says different, this is what you drink. For your own safety.”
“Are you leaving?” she asked.
I had to go, and I was not going to lie to my mother.
“Yes,” I said.
I turned away from her and moved into the bathroom. Stayed there a moment and ordered an Uber on my phone.
That’s when I heard it. A single word.
“Gardy?”
It was a nickname that only one person in the world used for me.
I walked back into the room. Looking down at my mother, I swallowed, but said nothing.
“You caught him, right?” she said. “The man who did this to me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I caught him.”
“Good,” she said. “There are some things—” She paused and glanced around. Was she about to disappear again? As she would before the attack, when the Alzheimer’s would take hold. “Some things you cannot leave for others to solve. Is that where you’re going now, Gardy?”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
