by Mary Cantell
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Dwayne McCall headed back to Don’s apartment to retrieve the inhaler. He thought about the story his brother relayed to him involving the little girl and remained on the fence about reporting him as a possible Peeping Tom. How could he report his own brother? His conscience fought with him the whole way until the voice of Erlene Wilson from command broke in on the radio.
“Radio to Two-twenty.”
“Two-twenty.”
“Assistance needed at Queen’s Park Plaza apartments. Building B.”
“Copy that.”
What’s going on at Don’s apartment building?
When Dwayne pulled up in front of building B, two other police cars, flashers on, were already parked. He flung open the door and ran across the lawn toward the building.
“What’s going on?” Dwayne asked colleague Cliff Gilson, who stood at the outside door.
“Hey, Dwayne,” he replied. “Got a report on the Peeping Tom.”
“Peeping Tom?”
“Yeah, we’re going in.”
“What are you going in for? You got a search warrant?”
“Yep.”
“What for?”
“A telescope.”
The apartment superintendent stood at the front door to Don’s apartment holding a large ring of keys. Dwayne knew the authorities smelled something afoul with his brother. However circumstantial the evidence of a telescope was, there would be no certifiable evidence of anything without the pictures. Or the negatives. Were there negatives? Where was the camera? Dwayne tensed at the scene in front of him.
“Here it is,” said the superintendent in a thick middle-eastern accent as the correct key finally fit. He opened the door.
Two officers, Frank Myers and Joe Tremont, led the way inside. Dwayne followed closely behind and tried to mentally assess the situation. How much trouble could his brother be in? For what could he possibly be held accountable? He had his own suspicions after seeing the telescope; though, instinctively, it just didn’t add up. His brother was not a Peeping Tom.
Dwayne pulled Joe aside. “So what’s the telescope prove? Anything?”
Joe looked at him squarely. “Peeping Tom. Intruder. It’s a catalyst for other criminal behavior, you know that. Like weed can lead to heroin. I think the Sergeant is putting him or whoever it is together with the recent break-in on Bellevue. Said he thinks they could be the same person.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, but the Sarge says the guy’s been followed back here a couple of times after being sighted in the woods.”
Dwayne’s heart sank when Frank lifted and tagged the telescope.
“Looks like this thing has a camera, too,” Frank said.
“If it’s attached, it’s part of the telescope. We can take it,” said Joe.
Dwayne pulled Joe aside. “Joe, I gotta tell ya something. This guy isn’t who they think he is. This guy is my brother.”
Joe eyed him. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, I’m not. I know my brother. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Joe shrugged. “It’ll all come out in the wash. We have orders to retrieve this evidence.”
“Who gave you guys the tip off?”
“About what?”
“That there was a telescope in here.”
Joe shrugged again. “I heard Seitz talking about it. Said he saw it himself.”
Dwayne silently cursed himself for the whole thing. If he had come alone to pick up his brother’s belongings, this never would have happened.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Somebody said…” Lacy’s words came out slowly “…I was adopted.”
Lissa swallowed hard. She stood and walked toward the window, wishing she could keep walking, but then thought better of it. She’d never leave her precious daughter’s side—not for a very long time. She turned toward Lacy. “Is that why you left the party…because someone said you were adopted?”
“And other stuff,” she mumbled into the pillow.
“What, Lacy?” Lissa’s voice turned soft.
“Some of the kids and Becca, too…they were laughing. And that mean girl was there.”
“Mean girl?”
“The one who tried to cut me off coming home from school. She’s Becca’s cousin.”
Lissa glanced at the detective who was taking notes. He nodded at her to continue.
The incident with the girl came back in a flash. Lissa wanted to speak to the girl’s parents back then, but there was no way of knowing her name. Now she might have the chance to do just that.
“Was I…adopted?”
Lissa’s pulse raced. She swallowed again, dreading the question. Several times in the past she pictured in her mind’s eye the scenario of having to explain Lacy’s background to her and the history of her adoption. She imagined telling her child the unvarnished version of what happened. Much of it paralleled the real-life task of when she explained to Lacy the facts of life when she was just six. This time, Lissa knew it would be different. The story would be personal; its impact, visceral.
Now, Lissa imagined the distinct opposite reaction from Lacy than the time she shared the facts of life with her over dinner at a quiet table in the corner of Sizzler’s steakhouse. Lissa’s imagination flashed with the possibility of Lacy quickly dissolving into tears at the realization she was not her biological child. Witnessing Lacy’s hurt would drive a stake into Lissa’s heart. She always dreaded the day when she would actually have to tell her child the harsh truth.
Lissa moved away from the window and sat on the edge of Lacy’s bed. She wanted to share the back story of her life with Lacy for so long, but there was always something holding her back. The timing was never right. First, when her beloved sweetheart, Jason, had been a casualty of war at thirty years old, killed in the line of duty, the stress became so overwhelming it was all she could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Lacy wasn’t even old enough for school. To shatter her innocence with something she possibly couldn’t comprehend made Lissa reticent to even broach the subject. In due time she repeated to herself until the years passed, one-by-one. Now her daughter wanted to know and approached her on the topic. She wanted to crawl into a hole. The embarrassment for Lacy had been all her fault. How could she make this right for her daughter?
“Lacy, I need to tell you something. It’s something that I should have told you a long time ago. I wanted to. I really did. But—but there was so much going on—all too quickly—and, well…” She paused to think how much she was getting through to the child, who focused on her with barely an eye, sometimes closing it with the rest of her face pressed into the pillow. In mid-sentence Lissa’s throat went dry as though she were performing on stage and had an unexpected case of stage fright. “I need to tell you—” she choked and then let out a series of dry coughs. Without any immediate relief, she got up and searched her purse for a lozenge. Finding an old Hall’s cough drop at the bottom of her purse, she wiped if off with a fresh tissue and popped it into her mouth before sharing the story from nearly ten years ago…
~1996~
“Liss? Hi, it’s me.” Before Lissa could say anything, her cousin announced, “Guess what? I’m pregnant.”
“You’re…wait, what? Really?”
“Uh huh. The doctor just confirmed it.”
“That’s great news, Maria.”
“Not really.” Her words fell flat.
“Why?” Lissa asked, perplexed by her cousin’s lack of enthusiasm.
“Let me put it this way. I’ll probably be raising the baby on my own.”
Shocked with the blunt pronouncement, Lissa tried to make sense of it. Her cousin had dated Hank Maloney since high school. Everyone assumed once he settled down, he’d marry Maria. Hank couldn’t seem to find steady work for long and if he did, somehow, he always managed to get fired. Her relationship with him over the past nine years ran like an on again, off again cycle. After all this time, no one in the family understood why they wer
en’t yet married—or even engaged. Lissa felt the burden her favorite cousin bore, if only vicariously, and wished for both of them that things could be different. Being married, Lissa desperately wanted a child, and now her cousin, unmarried and alone, was going to be a mother.
“So what’s going on with Hank? Have you told him?”
“No, I haven’t told anyone yet.”
“What do you think he’ll say?”
“Hank, pffft. He’s not the kind of man who even wants to be married. He’d probably make an even worse father.”
She ached for Maria, who always managed to pick the wrong man. Now approaching thirty, she held on fast to the only man that paid her any attention. Lissa kept her envy at bay. Yet she couldn’t quite fathom how she and her husband, Jason, couldn’t conceive while her out-of-wedlock cousin now found herself with child. What was God thinking?
As the months went by, Lissa did everything she could to help her closest cousin. With her Aunt Celia’s recovery from knee surgery slowing her down, Lissa stepped in to help, and with Jason on another tour of duty, she had the time to invest. Between occasional errands, shopping, cleaning, taking care of organizing her baby shower including registering at the Babies “R” Us store and being a general right-hand gal, Lissa would have the opportunity to bond with not only her cousin but the new baby as well.
By the eighth month of her pregnancy, Maria began to feel sharp pains in her abdomen. A visit to the doctor led to a diagnosis of a disorder that included high blood pressure, and several tests indicated too much protein was in her body and neither enough calcium or magnesium. A diagnosis of preeclampsia came and soon led to more serious complications. Within a week, she was rushed to the hospital for a preterm delivery via Caesarian section.
Lissa and her mother, Anne, drove together to the hospital where the family convened. They anxiously waited for the baby’s birth; the time couldn’t go by fast enough. It seemed the hands on the wall clock were fueled by molasses.
“Where’s Hank?” Lissa said, staring out the window. Three stories up from the main entrance, she had a clear view of the hospital parking area and the long curving driveway that led into the complex. The sun began to set, leaving a long shadow on the adjacent grass hill. “There’s still no sign of him.”
“Frankly, I don’t think there will be,” her Aunt Celia said with a sigh.
Her sweet, diminutive aunt held a distant look of pain in her eyes that told enough of the story. She didn’t understand him and neither did anyone else.
“I told her from the start he was no good.” She shook her head. “But getting through to Maria is impossible sometimes. Charlie and I both tried.” She threw her arms into the air. “He’s a bum. I don’t know what she sees in him.”
A stab thrust into her gut as if it were her own life hanging in the balance of an absentee father-to-be. What’s wrong with that guy? How awful for Maria. She moved out of the waiting room to get a change of scenery and paced from one end of the bright fluorescent hallway to the other, hoping something would change by the time she returned. Hopefully, Hank would prove them all wrong and come running down the hall. Back and forth she went until the boredom of it all led her right back into the waiting room.
When she returned, a tall doctor in scrubs stood talking to them. His face bore a solemn expression. Maria died on the delivery table.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lissa watched Lacy shift under the covers. Her child was still struggling. Her whole world had done a one-eighty. Vulnerable to more onslaughts, she had to protect herself somehow—even to put some distance between them. Despite this, Lissa leaned closer to Lacy and laid a light hand on the pillow wedged between them, testing the waters of her closeness. “Are you hearing what I’m sharing with you, Lace?” Her words, soft and sweet.
A muffled reply came from behind the pillow, and Lissa took it as a yes. Lissa gently lowered the pillow and pulled it away from Lacy’s face. Her mouth was set in a firm line, and her eyes were overly bright as though laced with tears that hadn’t quite fallen. Lissa held her arms open and Lacy leaned into them.
“There, it’s okay,” Lissa said as Lacy sobbed. “Go ahead, let yourself grieve. It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Lissa rocked her gently as she had so many times before when the child was sick or had gotten injured playing outside. This kind of hurt would be harder to mend. Lissa wiped Lacy’s face with the back of her hand.
“What happened to her boyfriend?” Lacy later asked.
“Hank? We don’t know, honey. No one has seen or heard from him since.”
Lacy grew silent.
“But that’s how I got you. You weren’t my baby, but you are still part of my flesh and blood. You understand that, right, honey? You’re the best thing that came out of that tragedy.” She reached across to hold Lacy’s hand. “And your daddy, before he died, adored you to pieces.” She smiled her best smile and kissed Lacy on her bandaged forehead. Lissa brushed the tears from her own face and continued to hold Lacy. “I love you, baby,” she whispered. “And I always will.”
Lissa lovingly gazed at her daughter and, once again, fondly remembered Cousin Maria. Just then, her Aunt Celia appeared in the doorway with Uncle Charlie right behind her.
“Oh, hi,” Lissa said, waving them in. She got up and gave each of them a warm hug. “I’m so glad you came.”
“Is she all right?” Celia asked in a hushed voice.
“Yes, yes, the doctor said she’s going to be fine.”
Celia moved to Lacy’s bed and smothered her with kisses. “How are you, honey? You had us all so worried.”
“Hi,” Lacy said, her voice soft.
“When she’s well enough, I want her to come visit us—both of you,” Celia said to Lissa.
“Oh, Aunt Celia, that would be great. I’m sure she’d love to.”
“For a long weekend…or maybe to the mountains…”
“Anywhere she can be safe,” Uncle Charlie added, decidedly.
While everyone stood around her bed, another question hung in Lissa’s mind. She struggled whether to bring it up in front of the others and wondered if it were better to wait until later when her daughter was feeling up to par. Though now seemed just as good a time as any.
“Lacy, honey,” Lissa began, treading lightly. “I understand you wanting to run away from an uncomfortable situation, I really do. But there were other ways you could have handled this without getting into a stranger’s car, right? You know how I feel about you talking to strangers, let alone getting into their cars.”
“But Mom, it wasn’t a stranger’s car.”
“So you’re saying you got into a car driven by someone you knew?”
“Yes, Mom. It was my friend, Mr. McCall.”
“Mr. McCall?” she repeated. The only McCall she knew was Donny McCall from school.
“What did he look like? Was he wearing a baseball cap?”
“I think so, why?”
“Donny McCall?” Lissa said, eyeing Brian questioningly. “Remember him, Brian? He went to our school and was a year younger than we were. Short little kid with the freckles?”
Brian pondered a moment while Lissa turned back to Lacy.
“I’m wondering why he would want to pick you up, Lacy?”
“He drives a taxi, Mom. He waved at me.” She paused. “The ride was my idea. I asked him to take me home.”
The yellow taxi.
Chapter Forty
All but a few thin strips of light pierced through the blinds and fell across the room like daggers. His head and arm were bundled in heavy bandages resembling a horror movie mummy-like figure. The other arm bore contusions the color of ripe plums. Lissa stepped softly across the room in the manner of approaching a sleeping lion with Brian and Detective Hastings behind her. Don McCall lay quietly in bed. A nurse stood at his bedside.
“How ya doing there, Mr. McCall?” she asked with one hand on her hip.
“Could use more pain killers,” h
e replied in a husky barely-there voice.
The nurse handed him a large pill along with a cup of water. “Here, this should help.”
“Is it okay to come in now?” Lissa asked the nurse, who turned and nodded quickly.
Lissa moved slowly toward his bed. “Hey, Donny. How are you doing?”
“What are—?”
“We heard what happened,” Lissa said, turning to Brian. “You remember Brian Pickering from school, right?”
“Hey, Don,” Brian said with a nod.
“Right now, I’m so loaded up on pain killers, I couldn’t tell ya who my nurse was.”
Brian grinned. “It’s okay, buddy. Don’t sweat it.”
“How are you?” Lissa asked.
“Seen better days, but I guess I’ll make it,” he said, groggily.
“I’m so sorry, Donny,” she said, “I…um, we—all of us—just want to thank you.”
“Thank me? For what?”
“For Lacy.”
Donny drew a questioning look. “Huh? I—I don’t know what ya mean.”
Lissa looked over at the detective who stood off to the side by the bathroom door. “This is Detective Hastings. He’s been leading the search party looking for my daughter, Lacy. She’s been missing for—oh, I don’t know—it seemed like an eternity to me—”
The detective’s phone rang.
“Then we got word she was found safe and sound. Hopefully, she’ll be more sound in a few days.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was in an accident. Your accident. In the cab.”
A curious look came over him.
“My accident?” he said, attempting to process her words. “You mean, the little girl who…was your daughter?” He frowned. “Oh, hell on earth. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean any harm. I just—”
“Shhhh…we know, Donny. It’s okay.” Lissa patted the bed sheet to assuage him. “Thank you for wanting to help her. I appreciate it with all my heart. She told us all about you.”
“How is she? Is she all right?”
