Vanish

Jane blinked at the pair of blue eyes smiling down at her over a surgical mask. Everything is not fine, she thought. My husband should be here. I need him.

And stop calling me Mom.

“When you feel the next contraction,” the doctor said, “I want you to push, okay? And keep pushing.”

“Someone has to call,” said Jane. “I need to know about Gabriel.”

“We have to get your baby born first.”

“No, you need to do what I want, first! You need to-you need to-” She sucked in a breath as a fresh contraction came on. As her pain built to a peak, so did her rage. Why weren’t these people listening to her?

“Push, Mom! You’re almost there!”

“God-damn it-”

“Come on. Push.”

She gave a gasp as pain brutally clamped its jaws. But it was fury that made her bear down, that kept her pushing with such fierce determination that her vision began to darken. She did not hear the door whoosh open, nor did she see the man dressed in blue scrubs slip into the room. With a cry, she collapsed back against the table and lay gulping in deep breaths. Only then did she see him looking down at her, his head silhouetted against the bright lights.

“Gabriel,” she whispered.

He took her hand and stroked back her hair. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember what happened-”

“It’s not important now.”

“Yes, it is. I need to know.”

Another contraction began to build. She took a breath and gripped his hand. Clung on to it like a woman dangling over an abyss.

“Push,” the doctor said.

She curled forward, grunting, every muscle straining as sweat slid into her eyes.

“That’s it,” the doctor said. “Almost there…”

Come on, baby. Stop being so goddamn stubborn. Help your mama out!

She was on the edge of a scream now, her throat about to burst. Then, suddenly, she felt blood rush out between her legs. Heard angry cries, like the howling of a cat.

“We’ve got her!” the doctor said.

Her?

Gabriel was laughing, his voice hoarse with tears. He pressed his lips to Jane’s hair. “A girl. We’ve got a little girl.”

“She’s a feisty one,” the doctor said. “Look at this.”

Jane turned her head to see tiny fists waving, a face pink with anger. And dark hair-lots of dark hair, plastered in wet curls to the scalp. She watched, awestruck, as the nurse dried off the infant and wrapped it in a blanket.

“Would you like to hold her, Mom?”

Jane could not say a word; her throat had closed down. She could only stare in wonder as the bundle was placed in her arms. She looked down at a face that was swollen from crying. The baby squirmed, as though impatient to be free of its blanket. Of its mother’s arms.

Are you really mine? She had imagined this would be a moment of instant familiarity, when she would stare into her newborn’s eyes and recognize the soul there. But there was no sense of familiarity here, only clumsiness, as she tried to soothe the struggling bundle. All she saw, looking at her daughter, was an angry creature with puffy eyes and clenched fists. A creature who suddenly gave a scream of protest.

“You have a beautiful baby,” the nurse said. “She looks just like you.”

TWENTY-TWO

Jane awakened to sunlight streaming through her hospital window. She looked at Gabriel, who slept on the cot next to her bed. In his hair she saw flecks of gray that she’d never noticed before. He wore the same wrinkled shirt from last night, the sleeve flecked with bloodstains.

Whose blood?

As though he’d sensed her watching him, he opened his eyes and squinted at her against the sunlight.

“Good morning, Daddy,” she said.

He gave her a weary smile. “I think Mommy needs to go back to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“This may be our last chance to sleep in for a while. Once the baby’s home we’re not going to be getting much rest.”

“I need to know, Gabriel. You haven’t told me what happened.”

His smile faded. He sat up and rubbed his face, suddenly looking older, and infinitely tired. “They’re dead.”

“Both of them?”

“They were shot to death during the takedown. That’s what Captain Hayder told me.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“He came by last night. You were already asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m trying to remember. God, why can’t I remember anything?”

“I can’t either, Jane. They used fentanyl gas on us. That’s what Maura was told.”

She looked at him. “So you didn’t see it happen? You don’t know if Hayder told you the truth?”

“I know that Joe and Olena are dead. The ME’s office has custody of their bodies.”

Jane fell silent for a moment, trying to recall her last moments in that room. She remembered Gabriel and Joe, facing each other, talking. Joe wanted to tell us something, she thought. And he never got the chance to finish…

“Did it have to end that way?” she asked. “Did they both have to be killed?”

He rose to his feet and crossed to the window. Looking out, he said: “It was the one sure way to finish it.”

“We were all unconscious. Killing them wasn’t necessary.”

“Clearly the takedown team thought it was.”

She stared at her husband’s back. “All those crazy things that Joe said. None of it was true, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“A microchip in Olena’s arm? The FBI chasing them? Those are classic paranoid delusions.”

He didn’t answer.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He turned to look at her. “Why was John Barsanti here? I never got a good answer to that question.”

“Did you check with the Bureau?”

“All I could get out of the deputy director’s office is that Barsanti is on special assignment with the Justice Department. No one would tell me anything else. And last night, when I spoke to David Silver at Senator Conway’s house, he wasn’t aware of any FBI involvement.”

“Well, Joe certainly didn’t trust the FBI.”

“And now Joe’s dead.”

She stared at him. “You’re starting to scare me. You’re making me wonder…”

A sudden knock on the door made her jump. Heart pounding, she turned to see Angela Rizzoli poke her head into the room.

“Janie, you’re up? Can we come in and visit?”

“Oh.” Jane gave a startled laugh. “Hi, Mom.”

“She’s beautiful, just beautiful! We saw her through the window.” Angela bustled into the room, carrying her old Revere Ware stockpot, and in wafted what Jane would always consider the world’s best perfume: the aroma of her mother’s kitchen. Trailing behind his wife, Frank Rizzoli came in holding a bouquet so huge that he looked like an explorer peering through dense jungle.

“So how’s my girl?” said Frank.

“I’m feeling great, Dad.”

“The kid’s bawling up a storm in the nursery. Got a set of lungs on her.”

“Mikey’s coming by to see you after work,” said Angela. “Look, I brought lamb spaghetti. You don’t have to tell me what hospital food’s like. What’d they bring you for breakfast, anyway?” She went to the tray and lifted the cover. “My god, look at these eggs, Frank! Like rubber! Do they try to make the food this bad?”

“Nothing wrong with a baby girl, no sir,” Frank said. “Daughters are great, hey Gabe? You gotta watch ’em, though. When she turns sixteen, you be sure to keep those boys away.”

“Sixteen?” Jane snorted. “Dad, by then the horse has left the barn.”

“What’re you saying? Don’t tell me that when you were sixteen-”

“-so what’re you going to call her, hon? I can’t believe you haven’t chosen a name yet.”

“We’re still thinking about it.”

“What’s to think about? Name her after your grandma Regina.”

“She’s got another grandma, you know,” said Frank.