His mind churned, something clicking into place. Something impossible, perhaps. “Do you think she was saying ...”
“Do-over,” she said softly as she turned and met his eyes. “She might have been sayingdo-over.”
He frowned, trying to make the connection between the crime Cami had lived through when she was only a teen and the one that had been committed against Cyrus. Her son. “If that was it,” he finally said, “then there’s a connection between your mother’s and sister’s murders, and Cyrus’s kidnapping.”
“Yes. But I have no idea what. The only connection between the two is ... me. But how does Cyrus come into something that happened so long ago? Even I didn’t know with certainty that I was pregnant when my mother and sister were murdered.”
Rex took a sip of wine as he looked out over the gently swaying trees. An owl hooted, and somewhere he heard the distant sound of coyotes baying at the moon. “Could your mother have been made the same offer you were? The offer of a do-over?”
“Of what, though?”
He thought about that. “I guess if it was similar to the offer made to you, it’d be to do something differently that happened in her past. Maybe to make some move that would stop the crime you experienced?”
She sipped at her wine and gave her head a small shake. “By all her accounts, though, my mother had a happy childhood. My grandparents were wonderful people who were a big part of our lives until they passed away of natural causes when I was in high school.”
“Unless something happened that she never told you about. People often try to put bad experiences out of their mind entirely. To pretend they didn’t occur at all.”
She was quiet as she appeared to think about that. “No. My mother, she wasn’t ... she wasn’t a secretive person. And she was happy and well adjusted. I don’t know. Her having this secret life doesn’t track.”
“Okay. What about your father?”
“It was my mother who said the words, though.”
“Could your dad have told her if he’d received such a call? Like the one you received?”
“Yes. It’s possible. Or she intercepted a message meant for him?”
“He was a judge. He had to have some enemies, right? Solely by what he did as a job.”
“I don’t know ifenemiesis the right word, but yes, of course. I’m sure there were those who were bitter toward him for his judgment in their case. I can’t imagine any judge who doesn’t have at least a few of those. But the police investigated that. They looked into any threats or accusations or recent cases where the convicted made statements denigrating him, or even the system at large. I was ... sort of disengaged mentally at the time. But it seemed like they did their due diligence looking at that angle.”
“So the police never came up with any possible motive beyond evil and opportunity?”
“That’s what it looked like. It seemed like those men randomly chose us. They were seen on camera following my mom and sister in a public place. They obviously tried to avoid cameras, but they were clearly discussing them.” She paused, obviously recalling what she knew. “But then the things they said in the midst of ... the crime. They mentioned that the point was that my dad saw us being tortured.” She turned and looked at him. His heart felt hollow whenever she spoke of what she’d experienced. He almost didn’t want to hear about it because he hurt for her. But she had survived it. If she could do that, he could certainly withstand her memories. “Whatpoint, though? If it was random, if they simply spotted my mom and sister out shopping and decided they wanted to rob and abuse them, there wouldn’t be apointother than that. Also, they used my name. I mean, there could have been other ways they’d learned that. They went through our safe, and there were things on the calendar on the fridge that referenced my name, but ... I don’t know. It jarred me at the time.”
“What did the police say about those things?”
“That I misremembered what was said. I wasn’t considered a good witness. I was traumatized. Maybe I—”
“Don’t doubt yourself, Cami. You were there.”
She met his gaze, and for a moment he thought he saw tears shimmer. But then he realized it was just the stars, mirrored in her eyes. “You’re the first person who’s ever said that to me.”
He felt sad about that, but glad as well that he’d said it and it’d meant something to her. And he wondered if she had anyone in her life who she felt comfortable discussing her memories with when they came up. And if not, how painful must that be?
They were both quiet for a moment as he moved his mind back to what they’d been discussing. “The man who died ...”
“The one I killed?”
“Yes. Who was he? His identity didn’t provide any information?” He could’ve looked up the case over the years. He’d thought about it on occasion and rejected the idea. There were so many shows and specials about the crime, but he ignored them and felt guilt about that for some inexplicable reason. But he told himself he deserved to leave that all behind because, initially, it had derailed his life trajectory. He could see now that the army had been the best place for him. He’d grown personally and cognitively far beyond what he might have had he just gone to college.
“If anything, his identity added credence to the theory that it was random. He was a lowlife named Collin Smith, but he went by Trig for reasons that were never made clear to me. The other man he called AJ, who got away, was never identified. But Collin Smith dabbled in drugs and all kinds of petty crime. He had an arrest record dating back to when he was Cyrus’s age. The police searched his home, and looked at his phone logs, but nothing came of it. There was simply no evidence it was premeditated in any way.”
“Hmm.” He thought again for a moment. Her memory suggesting the point was that her dad was tortured seemed very important. “What about situations similar to yours?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if your dad seeing his wife and daughters tormented was the goal, it might point to revenge. Something happened to someoneelse because of him, and so those men were hired to give him a taste of his own medicine.”
