And no more crunching numbers. Ever. But he could at least find her a better place to wait for her parents' and her sister's passings so they could all be reunited for eternity.
And then he could make Devina pay a thousand times over.
On the bedside table, there was a white alarm clock, another magazine - In Touch this time - and the remote to her little white television. He had the feeling that even though she was in college, she came back on a lot of weekends, and a peek into the closet confirmed this. Given the number of blouses and pants and skirts and dresses, it didn't look like the thing had been mined for favorites, but instead was on the ready. Plenty of shoes on the floor.
He left the bureau's drawers alone, because he wasn't sure which one held her ... underthings, as it were. Probably either of the top two, but he was not running the risk of guessing wrong. He was a voyeur here already, because he'd come not in hopes of finding something that helped him help her. God knew, there was nothing on earth that could do that. Instead, he'd just wanted to ... be close to her.
Right. Fine. This was the sort of shit that Ad and Eddie were worried about.
On that note, it was time to go. Again, he didn't know how long he'd been here. Could have been two minutes or two hours, and the last thing he wanted was Sissy's mother feeling like she had to knock on the door to see if he was okay or whether he'd already left.
He wasn't going to take anything, even though there was a temptation to hold on to an object, a focal point ... something of Sissy's. Her family had lost too much, however, and he wasn't about to graft anything more from them.
Jim took a last moment to look around, and then he made himself leave. Out in the hall, he closed the door and listened. Sissy's mother was in the room across the way, talking quietly, her voice cracking.
Jim took the stairs down and waited discreetly in the foyer by the front door. Leaning to the side, he looked into the living room at the pictures by the big windows. The one that grabbed him and got his feet moving was a close-up of Sissy. She wasn't looking at the camera, but off to the side, and she wasn't smiling. She was deep in thought, and the expression on her face was nothing girlish, everything ... survivor.
She looked iron willed.
"She had no idea the camera was on her."
Jim straightened and glanced at her mother. "No?"
Mrs. Barten came over and picked up the frame. "She always smiled if she knew there was a camera around. When her father took this, she was watching her teammates in a game - she played field hockey. She'd sprained her ankle and she was on the bench ... and she wanted to be out with them." The woman looked over. "She was tougher than she appeared to be."
As their eyes met, Jim took a deep breath and thought, Thank God - that was going to keep her sane until he got to her.
Mrs. Barten tilted her head to the side. "You're different from the others."
Time to go. "I'm just like everyone else."
"No, you're not. I've met more officers, detectives, and agents in the last three weeks than I've seen on Cops over the course of my whole life." Her stare narrowed. "Your eyes ..."
He turned to the door. "Detective DelVecchio will be in touch - "
"I want to give you something."
Jim froze with his hand on the knob and thought, Bad idea. He was too hungry for whatever she had to offer. "You don't have to."
"Here."
As he turned around to give her a "no, thank you," he found her reaching behind her neck. What came forward in her hands was a delicate gold chain.
"She wore this every day. I found it on the counter in her bathroom - she'd taken a shower and forgotten to put it back on ... anyway, take this."
Dangling from the chain was a delicate winged bird made of gold. A dove.
"Her father gave it to her on her eighteenth birthday. It was part of a set."
Jim shook his head. "I can't. I'm - "
"You will. It's going to keep your eyes the way they are now, and our family needs that."
After a moment, he brought his hands forward, replacing her