by Elle Casey
CHAPTER NINE
Wandering the halls of the maternity ward and trying to find clothing gets me exactly nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere; I did find a pair of scissors, which made it easier to remove my and Baby Tee’s hospital bracelets. They have a warning system in place that alerts the nurses when a baby leaves the ward with one of those bracelets on. Just cutting it off doesn’t work, though, because that’s what any baby stealer would do; the system rings an alarm when the bracelet isn’t removed properly.
But there is one benefit to working with criminals: they do tend to become experts in defeating locks and systems that act like locks, and they’re not shy about sharing their skills. All it takes is a fork from my breakfast tray to create a bridge for the signal between the two cut ends, and the system stays in place while my baby goes free. I hide the rigged bracelet behind a dusty machine I know they haven’t moved in ages by the layer of grime it has on it.
Lucky for me, once I make up my mind to go, two things happen that work in my favor: a couple of grandparents show up to see their grandchild and get buzzed in, and a woman down the hall starts yelling like crazy during her labor, pulling most of the nurses away from their station. I’ve got a wide-open door and no one to watch the cameras.
I’m ready in the hallway with my purse over my shoulder, stuffed with all the things for the baby they stocked my room with, so when the door swings open wide to let in the two old fogies, I walk right out with my head held high. The grandparents are too excited to see their new grandchild to pay me any attention. I get a couple strange looks when I walk through the lobby, but no one stops me . . . the crazy lady in the hospital robe carrying a newborn out the door.
When I get to the curb at the hospital’s front entrance, there are two taxicabs parked there. I walk up to the first one and bend down to look at the driver from the passenger window. “Hey there.”
The old man pulls himself from his newspaper and gives me a bored look. “Hello.”
“I need a ride to the Right Way Tow yard.”
“You have a car seat for that baby?” He goes back to his paper.
“Uh, no. But I’m going to buy one.”
“You steal that baby?” He looks over at me, tipping his head down to see over his glasses.
I look down at myself, annoyed over having to explain my situation again. “Do I look like a baby stealer, or maybe like a girl who gave birth to the baby and wants to get the hell out of here because she’s sick and tired of people treating her like a welfare case?”
He puts the paper down and gets out of his car. “Get in,” he says, as he walks around to the trunk.
I bite my lip. Is he playing a game? Will he lock me in while he calls over hospital security?
His trunk goes up and the car jiggles as he moves something inside. Then the trunk goes down, and he walks around to the far side of his car with a baby seat in his hand. “You gettin’ in or not?”
I move as fast as I can to the back seat and slide in. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.” I feel nauseated over how scary this is all of a sudden. Any second someone from the ward could realize I’m not there and call down looking for me. My heart hammers in my chest as I wait for the driver to strap the seat in. I’ve been scared a lot of times in my life, but it was always just me I was afraid for. Now that Baby Tee is part of the mix, I’m finding it a lot more difficult to handle.
“Ready to go?” he asks.
I nod as I strap the baby in. I have no idea what I’m doing. The cabbie hesitates outside the car and then opens the door again, assisting me with the buckles. “He’s got to ride facing the rear until he’s bigger. When you buy a seat, read the directions carefully about that, you hear?”
“Yes. Thanks. I got it.” I tuck the baby’s blankets in around him, stroking his soft little face with my finger as the driver gets into the car.
He looks up into his rearview mirror at me. “We goin’ to the tow yard or the baby store first?”
I hold Baby Tee’s hand and think for a few seconds. The regular me would say tow yard. I need to get the hell out of town. The other me, the one who just gave birth, knows better. “Baby store.”
“Good girl.” He nods at me before starting up the car and driving out of the hospital’s valet area.
I don’t need this stranger’s approval, but it sure does feel good to have it. I stare at Tee’s face the entire way over to the store, plans and outcomes swimming through my head.
CHAPTER TEN
The cabbie drops me off at the tow yard’s office. I try to pay him with the remaining cash in my wallet, but he won’t take it. He says he has grandchildren, and he can’t imagine his daughter having to manage them alone wearing a hospital gown. He moves me to tears, not only with his generosity but with the reminder of what a bad place I’m in right now.
As I’m sliding the car seat and pack of diapers I bought toward the tow yard’s office door with Baby Tee in my arms, an SUV pulls up to the curb. It’s one of those big ones like you see federal agents driving in the movies, with black-tinted windows. My heart skips a beat until I see the driver get out and come around to the curb. She’s a couple inches shorter than me and about twenty pounds lighter.
I expect her to walk past me into the office, but she doesn’t; she stops right in front of me, invading my personal space. That’s when I recognize her. Toni. This is Thibault’s sister, the woman I saw in the hospital yesterday. What in the hell?
“You’re Tamika,” she says. No preamble, no hello, no nothing. I recognize her voice now, too.
“So? What’s that got to do with you?” I hold my baby tighter against me. If she even thinks about touching me, I’m going to make her wish she was never born.
“Thibault asked me to come over here and help you out.”
I frown. “What? Why would he do that? And how did he know I was here?” I’m getting a creepy feeling over this.
“Because he thinks he’s a superhero, and he can’t resist a damsel in distress.” She looks up at the sign above our heads. “It wasn’t difficult to find you. You got your car towed and you left the hospital in a cab. A bunch of people saw you. It’s not like wandering around in a robe and slippers is going to escape notice. So where else would you be going but here?”
I let that simmer in my mind for a little while before I respond. “I guess you’re right. You can tell your brother that I don’t need his help, but thanks for the offer.”
“Will do.” Toni salutes me and starts to walk away.
Her easy dismissal of the whole thing bothers me. It shouldn’t, since she’s giving me exactly what I asked for, but it does. “Is he going to be mad at you for leaving me here?”
“Probably,” she says, opening her door.
“And you don’t care?” I say loudly so she’ll hear me over the car.
She rolls down the passenger window to talk to me. “I do care. But sometimes my brother does stupid shit because he’s too busy fighting ghosts to realize what’s actually going on, so as his sister, I have a duty to piss him off when necessary.” She starts to roll the window up.
“I’m not a charity case, you know!”
The window closes and she starts to pull away.
I stand there watching her go, the car getting smaller in the distance. This is the last I’ll hear of Thibault Delacroix, and there’s a piece of me that’s sad about that. He’s a good guy. He sent his sister out here to look after me, and she did it, even though she didn’t want to and she’s completely rude. That says a lot about what kind of man he is, that people would have that kind of loyalty to him. It’s not the same kind of loyalty Pavel gets, the type that’s based on the fear of suffering a horribly painful death. The kind Thibault inspires comes from love. My heart aches a little, imagining what it might be like to be a part of that. I lean down and kiss Baby Tee’s face, proud that he carries this man’s name.
Down at the end of the street, the brake lights of the SUV go on
. The car idles for a long time. I should go inside the tow place and get my car, but I’m too intrigued about what Toni is going to do next.
The reverse lights come on and the SUV comes racing back, faster than I imagined a car could go in reverse. It screeches to a halt next to me and rocks a few times before settling in. The stink of burned rubber assaults my nostrils.
I wait for the next crazy thing to happen, but I’m left disappointed. Toni stays in the vehicle and her windows remain rolled up. I shrug and turn around, taking the shopping bags, car seat, and the baby into the tow yard office. I don’t have time for games right now.
The woman at the counter doesn’t even glance at me. I stand in front of her and bounce the baby a little as he starts to whimper. Then I clear my throat.
“Can I help you?” she says in a voice that tells me she smokes a lot of cigarettes in a day. She doesn’t look up; a pile of wrinkled pink forms has all of her attention. She’s wearing reading glasses that have a chain on them made of a long string of tacky turquoise and yellow beads.
“Um, yeah.” That’s why I’m standing here. “I’ve come to bail my Toyota out.”
She sighs. “What’s the tag number?” She pulls a form out from under the counter, picks up a pen, licks the end of it, and waits for my answer, her hand poised and ready to write.
“I’m not sure. It’s a nineteen eighty-nine? Corolla? Green?”
She looks up at me, drops her head down to see me over her reading glasses, and lets out another long sigh. She slides the form to the side and reaches over to drag the pile of pink papers to her. Licking her thumb, she looks at me expectantly. “When was it brought in?”
“Yesterday. Morning. It was facing the wrong direction in front of a coffee shop called Lotta Java.”
She starts to page through the forms and then stops, putting down the paper she was holding. “Oh, yeah. I remember that one.” She stands up straight and puffs out her chest a little. “Already released it.” She backs away from the counter, like she’s going to leave.
“Already released it? What does that mean?” Dread fills my heart. This can’t be happening.
“It means what it means. It was already claimed.”
I can feel my ears going hot as her meaning sinks in. My car is gone. I’m stranded. “By who? That’s my car!”
She gets a funny look on her face. “I don’t want any trouble.”
As soon as she says that, I know what happened. Pavel.
“How could you?” Tears well up in my eyes. They’re the angry kind. The I-want-to-kick-a-hole-in-the-wall kind.
“If you have a problem with it, you can talk to the owner: Andreas Polotnikov.” She looks at me, nodding once. The man’s name tells me everything I need to know about this place and how fruitless my pleas will be . . . how dangerous it would be to raise a fuss and get the attention of another Russian man who rules with an iron fist.
The door opens behind me, but I ignore it. “Yeah, okay. I get it.” This woman’s as stuck in the shit as I am. “Just so you know, you gave my car away to a criminal, and now I’m totally screwed.”
“Need a lift?” someone behind me says.
I recognize her voice, so I don’t bother turning around. “Nope. I’m fine.”
The old woman looks over my shoulder at the woman standing behind me. Toni. “Yeah, I think she does.”
I want to scream, but I can’t because it’ll wake the baby. I turn around slowly, nudging my packages out of the way so I can face Toni. “I don’t need your help.”
“You got a car?”
I grit my teeth, hating the answer I have to give. “No.”
“You got a place to go?”
I imagine catching a cab to my apartment for about a half second before I nix that idea. That’s exactly what Pavel will expect me to do, go home and gather my things. Either he’ll be waiting or that traitor Sonia will, and they’ll block me from leaving. Any dream I had of getting my freedom will be gone in an instant.
“No. But I can find a place.”
“You know what happens to homeless mothers and their kids?” she asks, her hip cocked, her arms crossed over her chest.
“I can imagine.” She’s trying to push my buttons, but I won’t let her.
“They split them up. Social services comes in and takes the kids away. You’ll be lucky to get supervised visitation.” She looks at me, from my feet to my head. “You look like an escaped mental patient. You think a hotel is going to give you a room? Don’t even try to play that game. You’re smart enough. You know they won’t.”
I open my mouth to tell her where she can get off talking to me this way, but I’m interrupted by the lady behind the desk.
“She’s right, you know. Happened to my niece. She didn’t get her kid back until he was two. Two years. That’s a lot of time missed.”
The thought makes me sick to my stomach. I look down at Tee’s face and can’t imagine some stranger taking him from me, feeding him formula with bottles, rocking him to sleep in their arms, and putting him to bed in their house. Not my house, their house.
I’ve only ever been this desperate once in my life, and that’s what got me here, standing in this tow yard’s office wearing a hospital robe and disposable slippers with a newborn baby in my arms. I need to make a better choice this time.
“What do you want from me?” I ask Toni. “Because I’m not in the mood for any games.”
“No games. I’m just doing my brother a favor, that’s it.”
“And what’s your brother got to do with anything? With any of this?” I gesture with my elbows at my stuff on the floor, the old woman, the mess that is my life.
“I already told you. Ghosts. He fights them every day.”
I don’t like her cryptic answer, but even more so, I don’t like the idea of being so vulnerable. Maybe I can take some of the help they’re offering without going all in. I have a baby to think of now; I can’t be concerned with always being such a nice person. I have to be more selfish—do what needs to be done for myself and Baby Tee.
“Fine. You can give me a ride.”
“A ride where?”
I sigh out in annoyance. She’s so pushy. “I’ll figure it out on the way.”
Toni moves forward, and I jump back to avoid her. She leans down and grabs my shopping bags, glancing up at me with a funny look on her face. “Jumpy.”
“Don’t make such sudden moves and I won’t have to be.”
Toni shrugs and turns around. “I’ll be in the truck waiting. Don’t take too long.” The door slams shut behind her, the bell on the handle banging sharply against the glass.
“Good luck, honey,” the woman at the counter says, for the first time her voice sounding not so harsh.
“Yeah. Thanks a lot.” I walk out the door, wondering what kind of trouble I’m getting myself into by accepting Toni and Thibault’s offer of help, while at the same time knowing it can’t possibly be anything worse than what I’d suffer at Pavel’s hand.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
So, where to?” she asks. We’re still parked in front of the tow yard office. The longer we sit here, the more panicked I become. Pavel will send someone here to intercept me once he realizes I’ve left the hospital. I have to leave. I’m in the back seat with the baby, and it feels like I’m sitting in a fishbowl. The tinted windows offer me little security.
“Just drive.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She pulls away from the curb as someone in a restored Camino pulls up behind us. I look out the back window as a man exits his car. He’s got a distinctive double-headed eagle tattoo on his upper arm that marks him as one of Pavel’s friends. I break out in a cold sweat as I realize how close we came to meeting him face-to-face.
I look at my new friend from between the front seats, wondering if she noticed the guy. She’s driving without flinching or looking in her rearview mirror.
“I need to pick Thibault up from the hospital,” she says. “Mind if we swing by and get
him on the way to your place?”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” My place. I don’t have a place anymore. My mind is racing. I’m without a car now, too, so until I get some wheels and some clothing, I’m completely vulnerable. I want to cry angry, rage-filled tears, but I don’t bother. There’s nobody in this car who’s going to give a hoot about my problems. Toni’s made it clear she’s not a fan.
Thibault’s waiting just outside the glass doors of the hospital as we pull up in the valet area. He’s on crutches, and he’s got a white coffee mug with something sticking out of it hooked through a finger.
Toni rolls down the passenger window. “Hurry up.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he says. When he reaches the door, he opens it and maneuvers himself in, hissing when he bumps his knee. “Son of a . . .” Once he’s settled, he twists in his seat and looks at me, a slight smile on his face. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Yeah.” I have nothing to say to that. I’m embarrassed to be here, hating the feeling of being at the mercy of strangers. Practical strangers, anyway.
Thibault twists back around and taps the dashboard. “Let’s roll.”
“How’s your leg?” I ask after a couple stoplights. The silence is too awkward.
“Fine.”
“I heard different,” Toni says.
“You don’t need to worry about it,” he says to her.
“I’m happy to give you my insurance information,” I say, remembering how focused Toni was on that when she was visiting him in his room. I don’t want her still thinking it’s my boobs that inspired Thibault to be nice to me.
“Good. I’ll get it from you when we drop you off.” She glances at me in the mirror.
“No, we won’t,” he says, glaring at his sister. He turns to me. “I told you . . . my insurance is handling everything.”
Toni and I both sigh at the exact same time, equally loudly.
