She was talking about her father on a personal level, something he had yet to hear from her. The few times she’d mentioned her father, it had been in the context of work.
“Your parents had a good marriage.” She looked up at him, surprise lighting her eyes. “I could hear it in your voice.”
“They did. There were a lot of people who thought they didn’t have a good marriage. But, they…clicked. They were so independent, but when they were together, you could see it. With Dad’s job, he was gone a lot, but they never seemed to have anything beyond the usual marital problems. Both of them had high stress jobs but they seemed to make it work.”
“Your mother wasn’t an FBI agent, right? What did she do?”
“Heart surgeon. She was considered one of the best in the country at the time. Still. You mention Selena Gutierrez Callahan in some circles and they know her name. A lot of her papers are still studied at the top med schools.”
He heard the pride in her voice and noted it was different than when she talked about her father. “But you didn’t go that way.”
She shrugged. “Not my thing. Too icky.”
He ignored the fact that she was an FBI agent, and she saw lots of icky things. He wanted to know more about her parents, about the people who raised her. “Then your mother died.”
She looked away and put his dish in the dishwasher.
“Maria?”
She looked up at him.
“What happened to your mother?”
She sighed. “They kept it out of the papers, but…one of Dad’s old cases. He escaped from a maximum security prison.”
“And?”
She didn’t say anything at first. He was almost afraid she wouldn’t tell him, but he waited and was rewarded. “He broke in the house and killed my mother. After that, Dad was never the same. He always saw it as his fault.”
“Where were you?”
“One of the reasons Dad blamed himself. We were at a hockey game. We stayed overnight in Vancouver then came back the next morning. It was something we did a lot because he was gone so much.”
“You two found her?”
She nodded. “The next morning. Symthson was waiting for us.”
“Jesus.” Just the thought of the scene she’d seen at the age of twelve sent chills racing through him. And he knew the Symthson case, knew the man had been a sadistic killer. He raped and tortured his victims before he finally killed them. “Your father killed him?”
“It was him or us. No choice.”
She said it matter of factly, and that was probably the only way she could deal with it. Seeing something like that would be horrible for an adult, but for her, it must have been horrific. He didn’t really know what to say. As a cop, he had handled all kinds of grief from victims, but this was different. It had never been so personal before. He barely knew her, but he felt the pain of her past as if he had known her at the time. He couldn’t even fathom what it must have been like for the two of them. Her father had been a proud man. To have lost his wife in such a way would have been almost too much to handle. Before he could think of something to say, she broke the silence.
“I think we need to cross-check all those officers on the cases. Something might click. And we need to look at Lisa’s altercation. It might be a red herring, but you never know.”
Her movements were brisk and economical, but he sensed the fragility beneath them. He slid his hand down her spine, and she looked up at him with a smile. It reached her eyes, lighting her up from within. He was beginning to realize that he really didn’t understand her. Three days earlier, he had judged her to be cold, but just this little glimpse into her background told him just how fragile she was. The hard exterior was there, but beneath it he knew there was a soft woman lurking.
“Yeah, why don’t we do that?”
She turned off the water and walked into the living room, and he followed her. Rome had a strange feeling that he would be doing this for a lot longer than either of them expected.
· · · · ·
Maria looked over the next report, then rubbed her eyes. The words were blurring together, and she couldn’t seem to make them make sense.
“What’s the matter?” Rome asked.
She glanced up at him and then back down at the report. “Just starting to get a headache.”
He smiled as he set down his papers and laptop and then slid onto the couch beside her.
“Turn.”
She realized she’d played into his hands, but she wasn’t going to fight it. Not when the reward was so wonderful. He settled his hands on her shoulders and started to rub her aching muscles.