His Pretend Baby

by Theodora Taylor

  5

  HERE was all Sam wanted by the time she got home to her cozy two-bedroom cottage (conveniently located directly behind Ruth’s House Indiana): lots of love from her dog, who she could already hear on the other side of the door, panting in excitement over Sam’s arrival. She’d let the sweet girl get in a few licks before she settled down with the next two things on her list: a HUGE glass of wine and an old episode of Veronica Mars.

  She’d recently splurged, downloading all three seasons to the Apple TV device Josie bought her for Christmas, and she’d been enjoying re-watching her favorite television show from back in the day—this time without any commercial interruptions. Maybe tonight she’d watch the one where Veronica kisses the good guy cop (who eventually went on to play Schmidt in New Girl) at the school dance after taking down members of the Russian mafia.

  Sam thought of Marco, the real life good guy cop she was sort of, kind of, maybe seeing a little bit. He’d also kissed her. A few days ago on the their third takeout date after work. And it had been nice. Really nice. It hadn’t set her on fire like the kiss with Mount Nik, but in all fairness, she’d been wearing her jacket and distracted by the prospect of having to get up early to lead a Mindfulness Class at Ruth’s House.

  She put her key into the lock. Yeah, that episode of Veronica Mars would help her put what happened with that super intense Russian hockey player in perspective.

  But just as she was about to turn the lock, her phone went off, the screen lighting up with a 3-1-7 number.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively, thinking the Russian might have tracked her down somehow, despite not knowing her name.

  “Sam from the party, is that you?”

  It was a child’s voice. A boy’s voice. The one she’d met earlier. And he sounded scared.

  “Hi!” she said, trying to hide her alarm. “Is everything okay?”

  “No!” he answered. “Some bad men are here. Knocking on the door. Telling Papa to let them in.”

  Sam’s heart went tight with fear for the boy. “And is he…?”

  “No, he’s yelling for them to go away! But I don’t think they’re going away. They’re yelling about some money for drugs. I think he was supposed to sell them but he used them instead. They are Russian, like us.”

  She hadn’t known the little boy was Russian. Just like Nikolai Rustanov, she thought to herself. But he’d claimed not to know any children when she’d asked him about it. Had he been lying or was this a case of coincidence? Like how all black people didn’t know each other, and neither did all Russians?

  It didn’t matter, Sam decided. There was a way bigger matter at hand.

  “Okay, listen to me carefully…” She paused realizing she still didn’t know his name, even though he knew hers.

  “Pavel,” he supplied on the other side of the line. “My name’s Pavel.”

  Wow, he hadn’t been kidding about the Russian stuff.

  “Okay, Pavel, I need you to go somewhere and hide. Somewhere good, not under a bed or in a closet. Like in a cabinet if there’s one you can fit into. Stay there until I come for you.”

  There came the sound of a lot of shuffling, and then Pavel whispered, “Okay, I’m hiding.”

  “Good, good, Pavel,” she said, allowing herself a little breath of relief. “Now just give me your address and I’ll get there as quickly as I can.”

  “Just you. No police!” Pavel said. “Papa will be very angry if you bring police.”

  “Fine, no police,” Sam lied, knowing full well she was going to be calling Marco as soon as she got off the phone. But she didn’t want Pavel to freak out about the possibility of police coming to his home, especially before he let her know where he was.

  “Pavel, I need your address. I can’t help you if I don’t have it.”

  Silence, and in the background she heard the muffled sounds of a door crashing open and angry voices, speaking in a hard language she guessed to be Russian.

  “They’re here,” Pavel whispered. “They’re inside.”

  * * *

  Sam knew it would be bad even before she decided to go in on her own. The house she was now parked in front of looked even more neglected than Pavel, with peeling paint and boarded up windows, all telling Sam that the little boy’s current residence might not exactly be “on the books,” with a proper lease agreement and all that. It also explained why Pavel didn’t seem to have much access to water for a bath or a shower. No, Citizens Energy Group wasn’t running water through this place for sure.

  A shiver of fear ran down her back as she took in the dilapidated building. A home invasion had obviously taken place. The door at the top of the cracked, grey cement steps was standing halfway open, despite the fact that it was deeply cold outside and the house wasn’t in one of Indiana’s best neighborhoods. She should know… it was just a few blocks from Ruth’s House, and she’d purposefully chosen the downtown Indianapolis location for its proximity to both upper and lower class neighborhoods. This one definitely qualified as the latter.

  Sam got out of her car anyway. She couldn’t just not go in. Poor Pavel was in there somewhere and Marco still hadn’t returned any of the messages she’d left him on the way over, even though this was technically one of the neighborhoods he was supposed to be serving. She’d also put in a call to the local police department, but they hadn’t seemed all that excited about the prospect of coming out to one of Indianapolis’ worst neighborhoods based on a phone call she’d gotten from a kid she’d just met at a party.

  No, she had to go in there herself. But Sam wasn’t a complete idiot. She wouldn’t go in without Back Up.

  She came around the car to the sidewalk and whistled, “Hey, Back Up! Come with me, girl!”

  Her dark, grey Staffordshire Bull Terrier immediately leapt through the open passenger window of Sam’s Prius. She bent down to scratch behind her ears. “Good girl,” she said. “But try to look a little more menacing, okay?”

  Back Up just smiled up her, tongue lolling out, not realizing she was giving Sam the exact opposite of what she’d asked for. Thanks to a lot of misinformation and idiot breeders, rescue dogs that looked like Back Up had a bad reputation as far as the media and the general populace was concerned. But after being impregnated several times as an incubator dog for a dog fighting ring, then left out on the street still bleeding from her last pregnancy—thank God a rescue org had found her—Back Up now seemed way more interested in meeting new friends she could lick than tearing anyone limb from limb. If she had any blood thirst in her whatsoever, she was doing a good job of hiding it behind a perma-grin and an eager-to-please attitude.

  But with her wide, square face, she looked mean enough from far away which meant she got the intimidation job done in a pinch. Sam led her to the house’s front door, hoping if anyone was inside, they’d run as soon as they saw Back Up.

  “Hello? Is anybody home?” she said as she came through the door. “This is Sam McKinley from the Indiana Police Department and I have a very dangerous, completely rabid dog with me—”

  Sam stopped short. There was a blue-eyed white man with blond hair and a long-sleeved Indiana Polar t-shirt, sitting on the couch—no, strike that—there was a body sitting on the couch in an Indiana Polar t-shirt. Slightly slumped over to the side with a hole in its head.

  Bad teeth, crazy hair, hollow eyes. Meth was written all over the scene. An addict and possibly a dealer, judging from the professional holes in his body. There were two of them, she realized upon closer inspection, one in his head and one in his chest, right above the image of a mean-looking polar bear with a hockey stick.

  A rap lyric about never getting high on your own supply floated through Sam’s head, even as her stomach flipped over on itself.

  She might have stayed there, rooted to the spot in horror, if Back Up hadn’t chosen that moment to rush past her, nose down, probably searching the house for any incriminating food she might get into. She did have her priorities.

  And
Sam was grateful for the distraction as she turned her face from the scene, wishing like heck she could just run out of there like any sane person would upon getting hit with the sight of a dead body. This scene was triggering all sorts of bad memories for her. But she’d told Pavel she would come for him. Sam shook off a major case of the willies. Pavel had sounded so scared on the phone. She couldn’t let him down.

  But where was he?

  As if in answer, a whimpering sound came from the kitchen. Sam could see Back Up sniffing around a set of cabinets, below what would have been the kitchen sink before someone pulled it out completely. But the cabinets still remained, and Back Up had obviously caught the scent of something… or someone.

  Someone small enough to fit inside a cabinet.

  Sam knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her composure if Pavel was dead, his small body stuffed inside the cabinet underneath the sink, but she headed towards where Back Up was sniffing anyway.

  She took a deep breath and bent down to open the cabinet door… then let out a huge sigh of relief when she found Pavel inside, staring at her wide eyed, a burner phone clutched tightly in his small hands.

  “Pavel! Thank God!”

  This time when she reached for him, Pavel seemed more than eager to come to her. But then Back Up ruined the moment by charging straight at the little boy, her mouth open wide.

  Pavel shrank back into the confines of the cabinet, his eyes squeezing shut with fear. “Don’t let it eat me!”

  “Sit, girl,” Sam commanded, pointing to a spot behind her.

  Back Up whimpered piteously, but did as commanded.

  “Good girl,” Sam told her, before turning back to Pavel. “Sorry about that. I love her, but she’s never met a person she didn’t want to lick. I’m always like, ‘Calm down, girl, let a person get to know you first!’”

  Pavel peeped over Sam’s shoulder, suspicion in his eyes, which she could now see were blue, like those of the man on the couch. Clearly it was his mother who was black.

  “She just wants to lick me? Not eat me?” Pavel asked.

  Sam let out a wry chuckle, despite the situation.

  “No, she would never eat anybody. She looks mean—that’s why I take her places with me, but the truth is she’s as gentle as they come.”

  Back Up started in with a series of high-pitched whines, so loud, Sam had to look over her shoulder and admonish, “Back Up, he doesn’t want to get licked. Not everybody’s into that, okay?”

  Back Up once again whimpered, hanging her head in such a dejected fashion, one would think Sam had just kicked her.

  Sam turned away from her dog back to the boy. “So is it just you here? Is your mother out?”

  Pavel shook his head solemnly. “No, she’s dead. We all used to live together, and we were happy for a little bit. But she started using again, so Papa did, too. But she died a year ago.”

  Sam stared at him in mute horror. So young and now he’d lost both his parents.

  Pavel blinked, and peered over her shoulder at Sam’s now sullen bullie. “That’s a strange name, Back Up.”

  “Actually it’s kind of a joke from this TV show about a high school detective called Veronica Mars… ever seen it?”

  Pavel shook his head.

  “Yeah, it’s probably a little above your viewing level. How old are you again?”

  “Eight,” Pavel whispered.

  Another pang of regret on his behalf went through Sam. Two addict parents, and now he didn’t have any family left.

  “Yeah, eight’s too young. Maybe when you’re thirteen.” Sam broke off and looked around like she was just now noticing they were in a house with the body of his last remaining parent dead on a sofa in the other room. “So it looks like some bad stuff went down with your dad before we got here.”

  The little boy clamped his lips together and nodded.

  “The other Russians came through the door. They were yelling really loud, but I kept on hiding like you told me, even after I heard some loud popping sounds.” His eyes filled up with tears. “They were gunshots, weren’t they? Like on TV? Papa… he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Sam had to fight off her own tears, her heart was hurting so bad for Pavel. Memories of her own mother’s body lying lifeless on the floor flooded her mind and it took her a few tries before she could say, “I’m really sorry about what happened to your papa.” Then she said, “Looks like he was an Indiana Polar fan, too.”

  The boy nodded. “Papa says I’m going to be a great hockey player when I grow up. It’s in our blood.”

  “No way! That’s so cool!” Sam replied, even though she didn’t know all that much about hockey beyond the pushy player she’d met at tonight’s party and one viewing of The Mighty Ducks when she was around Pavel’s age. “Maybe we should get out of here and go somewhere we can talk some more about hockey.”

  He peeped over her shoulder again. “The bad guys aren’t out there any more?”

  “Nope,” Sam answered. At least not for now. But Sam continued to keep it casual, like she wasn’t afraid for both his life and her own. “I’m starving. Are you hungry? We should go get something to eat.”

  It must have been a while since Pavel had last eaten, because he rubbed his stomach at the suggestion, even though his expression remained wary.

  “You want me to come out?” he asked.

  “Yes, I really want you to come out,” she answered. “My knees are starting to hurt a little in this squat and all I had to eat for dinner were party appetizers. I could really use a good meal.”

  Pavel frowned, seeming to mull Sam’s invitation over. Then he said, “If she really wants to lick me, I guess she can.”

  It took a moment for Sam to realize they were now talking about Back Up. Though really, she sensed, it was more about Pavel wanting to make sure Sam could be trusted. He was testing what she told him, to make sure she wasn’t a liar. He wanted her to prove Back Up didn’t intend to do him any harm.

  Thankfully, unlike her story about starving when she’d actually wolfed down a sandwich on the way to the Hockey Ices Cancer event, this claim was true. She reached out behind her and motioned to Back Up. “Here girl, Pavel wants to meet you.”

  Back Up didn’t need to be told twice. She jogged right on over and pushed her square nose into Pavel, slobbering the dirt off the boy’s face with such enthusiasm that he started to giggle.

  “Calm down, Back Up,” Sam told the dog, tugging on her collar and pulling her back. “Don’t overwhelm him with the love!”

  But Pavel didn’t seem to mind at all. He crawled out of the cabinet and hugged Back Up around the neck in the way of a child who loved dogs but didn’t have one. He petted her large head and got several more face licks as a thank you.

  Sam watched him interact with Back Up, her heart continuing to break for the traumatized child who actually looked like a carefree little boy when he was with her dog.

  Pavel looked up at her and said, “Can I hold her leash when we leave here?”

  Normally Sam would have said no. Back Up was a lot of dog to handle, even for a full grown adult like herself. But in this case…

  “Sure, sweetie, just hold it right here,” she said, placing Pavel on her left side, squeezed between her and Back Up. She placed his smaller hand in the middle of the leash and took the upper part for herself in her left hand. Then she began to walk them out of the apartment, using her body to block the sight of the boy’s father as they walked by the couch.

  Pavel didn’t have to be told not to look. He kept his eyes on Back Up, stroking her short fur as they walked out of the house, leaving the body of his dead father behind.

  6

  “WHAT’S this I hear about you taking custody of a kid in some dead meth head case?” Marco demanded two days later when she opened the door to her cottage.

  Sam looked over her shoulder at Pavel who was on the couch, with Back Up’s large head in his lap, watching an episode of Peg + Cat on her small flat screen.

>   She was officially his guardian now and it looked like someone had finally gotten around to telling Marco Gutierrez, the cop who’d been flirting with her since she’d opened Ruth’s House Indiana which happened to be located right on his beat.

  Kismet, he’d said when they’d had their first takeout date a couple of Saturdays ago. He often had to work weird hours for his beat, and she often did the same for Ruth’s House. They were kind of a no-brainer, he’d told her with an endearing smile. He also had dimples. Just like her. Just like the good cop from Veronica Mars.

  But he didn’t look all that happy with her right now, and there was no trace of dimple action to be seen on his face.

  Sam winced and stepped outside to talk to him.

  “Please keep your voice down,” she said as she closed the door behind her.

  “Why the hell did you bring the kid home with you? And why am I just now hearing about this from the station social worker and not from you?”

  “Marco, don’t get mad,” she said. “But yeah, I’ve signed on as his guardian until further notice.”

  “This isn’t a shelter case,” Marco pointed out. “The social worker said there was maybe some neglect but no domestic violence.”

  “I know that,” she said. “But I’ve decided to help him as much as I can.”

  “What, by teaching him to meditate and do yoga whenever he’s feeling sad about his addict dad getting shot?” Marco asked, his voice incredulous.

  Sam decided not to take that question personally. She’d read all the research on how much a good mindfulness practice and yoga could help traumatized kids, but she was well-aware it might sound like a bunch of woo-woo nonsense to people who didn’t spend a lot of their spare time looking for ways to further help women and kids coming out of bad situations.

  She was also aware how Marco felt about drug dealers of any kind. He’d been nothing but kind to the women he’d referred to Ruth’s House, but if any of them had a boyfriend or husband into the bad stuff, he’d come down hard as an anvil, especially if they came by the shelter making threats.