Miss No One, Mark Ayre [romantic love story reading .TXT] 📗

Abbie. "You called this the Self-Loathers club, and isn't that the truth? I gave in and let my wife take that job, and now she's gone forever. I'll hate myself for the rest of my days. If not for my daughter, the rest of my days might already have run out."

He bowed his head, and the tears began to fall. With a deep breath, he almost pulled them back. Raising a hand, he wiped his eyes and tried to shake off the sadness.

"I understand you'll never stop grieving your wife," said Abbie. "I know because, like Ana, I lost my sister. That was a decade ago, and it still hurts every day, so, yes, you will always hurt. But you must hold onto the truth that this is not your fault. You and Leilani made this decision together. The only people responsible for what happened are the people who killed her. You'll grieve, but you must hold on to the knowledge that you are not to blame."

Abbie's speech got the tears going again, and Ndidi was drying his eyes once more as she stopped. He forced himself to look from the carpet to the three women in the room.

"Maybe I'm not to blame for her death," he said. "But how ashamed would she be if she could see how I've behaved since? She risked everything and paid the ultimate price in her attempts to lock up corrupt officers. Hammond, at least, is dead, but I'm working with the other three. And that isn't the worst of it. At least I'm doing that to save Isabella. I was meant to be a good cop. I was supposed to be beyond reproach."

Now he pressed his forehead into his palm and twisted his hand as though trying to wear away skin and skull. Abbie supposed he had a guilt headache, and he was trying to force it out.

Ana and Christine looked confused.

"You attacked Gary," said Abbie, "then allowed Evans and Franks to talk you into making him give a false witness statement. You didn't know about Isabella then. You were acting only out of self-preservation. Even if you did it for fear Isabella would have to grow up with her mother gone and her father in prison.”

Ndidi nodded. "Attacking the boy was bad enough. Inexcusable. But forcing him to bear false witness was worse. I may not have taken any cash, but I did accept a bribe. Force Gary to lie, and you'll avoid suspension or incarceration. That’s what they said. In agreeing, I became a corrupt cop."

Abbie rose, collecting Christine's glass from the floor.

"A moment of weakness," she said. "Write it off, forget it. Now’s not the time for any of us to wallow in self-pity but to find inner strength. You're worried your wife might not be proud of your actions since she disappeared, well do something that would make her proud. Do what you set out to do. Save your daughter."

She moved to the kitchen and offered another round of drinks.

"No booze, mind," she said. "Christine, this is the end of the road. We'll save Isabella, and you'll go home. You'll be honest with your boyfriend and your family about your drinking problem. You'll seek help. None of us need be defined by the mistakes we've made in the past. Doing the right thing today, saving Isabella, isn't about redemption. It's about making the right choice and making that right choice the first in a long chain of right choices. Over the years, we'll make more wrong ones, some crap decisions, but that's okay. We're only human, after all. What matters is making more good than bad. What matters is that, in the end, our pile of laudable actions so dwarves our pile of foul ones that the latter stack is invisible in the shadow of the former."

Having poured the drinks, Abbie brought them through and handed them out.

"Today, we forget our problems. Today, we have a single focus, and that focus is Isabella. Are we all agreed?"

Everyone agreed, then Abbie's phone began to ring. She hesitated before pulling it from her pocket.

"Sorry," she said. "Back in a moment."

Already feeling positive, Abbie turned into the kitchen and couldn't help but smile when she saw Bobby's number on screen. This went against her own battle cry, that Isabella was their only focus today, but she could not stop her finger from drifting towards the answer button.

A five-minute conversation. That's all Abbie would allow, and that couldn't hurt, could it?

She pressed answer. Put the phone to her ear.

"Hey, Bobby. Missed me, did you?"

"Hello? Is this Abbie?"

It wasn't Bobby. Abbie's stomach dropped.

"Speaking," she said. “What's going on?"

"My name is Doctor Taylor. You were listed as the emergency contact in Bobby's phone. I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Thirty-Three

"You have to go. There's no question."

Abbie was in the kitchen, her eyes closed tight, her phone still clutched in her hand.

"What did the doctor say, exactly? If he's stable, I mean..."

"Ana, you can't be serious."

Deep breaths. In and out. Anxiety crawled up and over Abbie like an army of insects. They were everywhere. The doctor's words were rattling around her mind, growing louder with each rotation as though trying to drown out Christine and Ana's argument.

"We've not even heard from Orion yet, and don't know when we will."

Severe smoke inhalation. 

"I'm not saying she shouldn't go. I'm saying it's worth considering the situation."

Sedation. Bobby is on oxygen. We're taking good care of him.

"There's nothing to consider."

The prognosis is good, but nothing is certain.

"Well, it's her decision."

"No. It isn't."

Abbie opened her eyes. Until the last comment, the argument had been exclusively between Ana and Christine. They were standing in the small kitchen corner with Abbie. Ndidi had remained in the living room, seemingly staring into space on the sofa, taking nothing in.

"You can't tell her what to do," said Christine. "You can back right off, Ndidi."

"Detective Ndidi," he said. "And you don't know what I'm going to say, so why don't you back off?"

He had risen