Bad Blood (Maggie Ryan Book 8)

by P. M. Carlson

  “She thinks it was best for you. Even so, she’s mourned for you every day for sixteen years.”

  “Some mourning! She’s known where I was since my third birthday. My third birthday! And she never did a thing!” Her voice had a shrill edge, and he could see her fighting it, trying to regain her casual tone. “Anyway, she didn’t even meet you till I was three!”

  “Okay.” He grinned a little, letting her deflect the attack a moment. “You’re right, I can only vouch personally for the last dozen years.”

  “Yeah. Well.”

  “But I’ve seen her writing letters to you, visiting your neighborhood every year, ignoring friends to sing ‘Eentsy Weentsy Spider’ to a four-year-old girl when you were four, or discussing Tolkien with a twelve-year-old when you were twelve. Because of you, Ginny. When Sarah was born she clobbered the poor nurse who tried to take her away to be weighed. Because of you. You’ve been in her heart and mind every single day.”

  She looked at the floor then, and turned her back on him awkwardly. He pulled the sheet from her mat and tossed it to her, and she set Kakiy down and shrugged it around her shoulders. Roughly, trying to hide her confusion, she said, “There were two reasons, you said.”

  “Well, the second is probably insignificant in comparison. It has to do with me.”

  “You don’t like straight hair,” she suggested in a brittle voice.

  He didn’t smile. “Ginny, I love Maggie. And I won’t let myself be used to hurt her.”

  She looked down at the mat again. She seemed nunlike: the smooth, severe drape of the sheet like a white habit, her black hair fanning back from her brow like a veil. A pilgrim, searching for grace. “Okay, I apologize,” she said with obvious effort. “You’re right, I shouldn’t try to drag you in. It’s nothing to do with you. Except, you make her happy.”

  “I wish I could help, Ginny, but I don’t know how.”

  “I don’t either.” The blue eyes flicked up at him, clouded with confusion. “I thought if I found her it would straighten everything out. But it’s worse, it’s all worse!”

  “You thought you could forgive her.”

  “Yes.” Slowly, the nun shook her head. “But she doesn’t want my forgiveness. She’s not sorry. You say she grieves, but she says she’d do it again! I just don’t understand.”

  She was so young, so very very young. Nick rubbed his hand helplessly over his head. “Yeah. Maybe I should let you think things over for a little.”

  “Maybe.”

  He hurried down the stairs. Behind him, Tchaikovsky rolled on, rich cellos and violins in melancholy harmony. Nick wondered if he would ever know harmony again.

  But as he changed into his jeans he did feel a grudging flicker of empathy for that slimeball Alain.

  Maggie, her hair damp from a shower, was in the kitchen helping Sarah make biscuits. “Gotta talk a minute,” Nick said to her.

  The quick blue eyes, so like Ginny’s, checked his face and registered alarm. But she dusted off her hands and said breezily, “Back in a minute, Sarah. Just keep stirring,” and followed Nick up into their bedroom.

  He told her bluntly, “We just had the big seduction scene, Maggie.”

  “The what?”

  “Ginny just invited me for a quick roll in the hay.”

  “What do you mean? She wouldn’t—oh, God, she still thinks she’s half whore, I should have—well, damn it, why didn’t you shut her up? Stop her?” The blue eyes were ablaze.

  “Stop her? Are you kidding? I turned …”

  “Yeah, stop her!” She was striding angrily around the room. “You’re the adult, right? You ought to be able to change the subject, something!”

  “Maggie, listen, damn it! I turned my back for an instant to change the tape, and when I looked back she was naked!”

  “What?” She paused, facing him. “That fast?”

  “Doesn’t take long to get out of a leotard. You’ve been known to be pretty nimble that way yourself, lady.” On much happier occasions.

  “Yeah.” She raked her hand through her black curls.

  “Believe me, there was no way to change the subject. The subject was all too obvious.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing to do but try to patch things up.”

  “You really didn’t see it coming?” The question was almost wistful.

  “Maggie, you know I would have been away in a flash.”

  She touched his arm. “Yeah, okay. I know.”

  “Although there was something—well, here’s the sequence: you go downstairs hugging Sarah, Ginny looks daggers at you, I try to make conversation while I’m changing the tape, I turn around, and there she is.”

  “I see. Of course. Goddamn it.” She sat down limply on the big blue-and-white bedspread. “I’m the one who should have warned you, after what I had to tell her today. Shot down her pet illusion. No wonder she’s furious at me.”

  “Loves you too.”

  “Yeah, I know. And thinks she’s like me. Teenage whore. Thinks I seduced a married man, so it’s in her blood, right?”

  “I see how she might have thought so before. But she’s met you now.”

  “She’s been dealing with ugly possibilities all her life. It’ll take a while to shake them off. Rape, incest, prostitution—she doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t know where she came from…” She shook her head.

  “Yeah. It’s hard for a kid to figure out.” Nick half-sat, propping himself against the dresser near her.

  “Yeah.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her forehead on her hands. “I mean, to a little kid mothers are mythic for a while. Perfect. All-powerful, all-loving, all-protective, all-giving. It’s hard to grasp that mothers are regular human beings, just bumbling along as best we can in a very unyielding and unfair world. When I was Ginny’s age I was only just beginning to understand that. The myth tells us that a woman who relinquishes her child is the ultimate Bad Mother. The ultimate evil.” She looked up at him mournfully. “It must be a real smack in the face when the all-powerful doesn’t keep you. When the all-giving doesn’t give to you.”

  “But youdid!”

  “Yeah. More than any human should ever be asked to give. But she’s not thinking of human realities, she’s thinking about that perfect mythic mother we all wish we’d had, and that evil mythic mother she thinks she got. Nick, she’s still so young! Of course she can’t understand. May not understand for years.”

  “Probably not.”

  “If only …” She frowned down at the design of the spread, tracing it with her finger, then glanced up at him again. “I’m sorry you have to put up with us, Nick. Do you think she’ll be after you again?”

  “Not that way. I gave it to her straight. Said I wouldn’t be used to hurt you, and that you’d never reject her anyway, no matter what.”

  “Good. What did she say?”

  “Well, she’d been pretending to be, I don’t know, the thorougly modern young woman. So what if it wrecks people’s lives? If it feels good, do it. Even had herself half convinced. But when I hit her with the truth she was honest enough. Admitted I really wasn’t part of it. Admitted it was more a test for you.”

  “Yeah. She’s honest at the core, Nick. Even when it’s painful.”

  “I know.” Nick hesitated; he didn’t want to hurt Maggie further, but something else had to be said. He began cautiously, “Maggie, I value her imagination and mind too. She’s bright, and talented, and beautiful, and she’ll be a terrific woman.”

  Maggie smiled at him, her eyes shining. “Oh, Nick, I know! She’s wonderful! I’m so grateful to those people for doing all the things I couldn’t do for her!”

  “Yeah, right. But she still has a lot of demons to wrestle down. And I’m worried about our kids.”

  Maggie shook her head, so promptly that he knew she had already considered this problem. “No. She won’t hurt the kids. She’ll find ways to test me again, sure. She’s angry because I’m not the perfe
ct mythic mother. But even if she’s furious and full of hate for me, she’ll see them as fellow victims.”

  This was a lost cause, he could see. She was as fiercely committed to Ginny as she was to Sarah and Will, as she was to him. He sighed. “Maybe. She sure didn’t see me as a fellow victim.”

  “Nah, you’re a big guy, you can take care of yourself. And she’s more likely to try to rescue the kids than hurt them.” Maggie stood up again and touched his arm lightly. “But I am sorry it’s turned out to be so difficult.”

  “Yeah. Wish she’d waited a few years before she came looking for you.”

  “We Ryans aren’t very good at waiting. But I am sorry.”

  “Oh, hell.” He took her gently by the shoulders to kiss her. “You told me this came with the package. And I wouldn’t change the package for anything in the world.”

  She squeezed him gratefully. “Yeah.”

  “Let’s check on Will while we’re up here, okay?”

  He was asleep but restless. Maggie tested his rosy forehead with a gentle bony hand. “A little feverish. Just like Sarah two weeks ago,” she said sadly. “We’re in for it again.”

  Kakiy was sitting now on Will’s windowsill, an icon of serenity among the toys and tumbled sheets. Nick and Maggie went down the stairs, hand in hand.

  Sarah’s biscuits had been thoroughly mixed. They got them into the oven and sent her upstairs to wash her hands and face. Nick lifted a lid and saw creamed chicken simmering in the pan.

  In a moment Ginny appeared at the kitchen door, dropped her backpack to the floor, and leaned wearily against the door frame. “I give up,” she said.

  “Give up?” Wary, Maggie perched on the oak table.

  The girl looked exhausted, but she was watching them both closely. “Yes. You win. I can’t take it. I have to go back home and think about things a while.”

  Nick could see that it was a blow to Maggie, but she said steadily enough, “You’ll come back?”

  “Maybe. Not soon.” She waved her hand airily. “I might set fire to your house.”

  Nick and Maggie exchanged a quick glance, just a fleeting flicker of shared amusement and pain, but Ginny caught it. “Shit, you tell her everything!” she burst out.

  “We’re partners,” said Nick.

  “Yeah. I know. Wedlock,” said the girl bitterly. “And I’m out of wedlock. Locked out. Right?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Maggie. “You and I are bound together too, Ginny. Like it or not, it’s forever.”

  Their gaze held for a moment, then the girl looked down and nudged her backpack with her toe. “Yeah. That’s what I have to go home to figure out. I seem to be freaking out here.”

  “Okay. But I hope you’ll come back when you can.”

  “Yeah. Listen, I’d better call Mom and tell her.”

  “Sure.” Maggie moved aside readily so Ginny could reach the phone, but Nick could see that she was lanced with the pain of this second parting. She was right, of course, there were problems aplenty that still needed to be worked out. But as he opened the cabinet to get out the plates, he had to admit that he, like Ginny, could use an intermission. No one spoke while the girl dialed.

  Someone answered immediately.

  “Hi, Mom,” said Ginny with forced cheerfulness; then her hand clenched on the receiver. “A murder? The day I left? Are you kidding? … Mom, that’s impossible!” Ginny licked her lips. “My friends here won’t want to talk to the police! And why should the police care where I am anyway? And what do …” She halted, staring in bewilderment at the silent receiver. Maggie had pressed down the cradle to cut the connection.

  “Hey!” Ginny said furiously. “What the shit are you doing, Maggie? I’ve got to talk to her! She says there’s been a murder!”

  “So I gathered. But I thought you didn’t want your parents to know you’d searched for me. Therefore, you get off this phone.”

  “But—” Realization dawned. “You mean they’re tracing the call?”

  “They might be. For murder they might be. For someone the police want to talk to. And so you and I are going to find a public phone booth right now, a little closer to Philadelphia.” She bounded toward the front door.

  “Oh, God. I see. Okay.” Frightened into docility, Ginny dashed after.

  Maggie, at the coatrack, called over her shoulder, “Nick?”

  “I know.” He stood abandoned, holding a plate at the kitchen door. “If anyone asks, I’ve never heard of Ginny. And I’ll keep an eye on poor old Will.”

  “And the biscuits come out in three minutes. Thanks, love. See you in a couple of hours.”

  Then they were gone.

  XI

  The car was a black Camaro, quicker and smoother than Buck’s car. Ginny was astonished at how skillfully Maggie wove through the city expressways, across the bridges, and down the New Jersey Turnpike, slackening speed only when a police car was near. Maggie made her repeat the fragment of conversation with Mom, then fell silent, except to say as she missed a pickup by inches, “Pardon the recklessness, but if they were tracing that call we have to move fast to the phone we’re going to let them trace. Make them think there was a mistake on that one. Though I think we hung up soon enough.”

  “God, I hope so.” The traffic came in knots, and right now they were slipping around vehicles of every shape, cutting through split-second gaps between cars, weaving among the trucks and semis to the next open stretch. The sky was darkening. It’s all a dream, thought Ginny, it can’t be real.

  But she knew it wasn’t a dream. In her dreams the people ran from her, flew away. They didn’t claim to love her, or grieve for her. They didn’t confuse her so much. Damn.

  In about an hour they pulled into a shopping mall near the Trenton exit. “This should be close enough. Philadelphia’s just across the river,” said Maggie, cruising past the plastic-roofed walkway until she spotted some phone booths. She parked nearby. “Call collect.”

  Ginny did. The air was cold in her nostrils, smelling of exhaust and a nearby hamburger place. She found she was hungry.

  “Will you pay for the call?” The operator sounded sleepy.

  “Yes. Oh, yes!” Mom’s eager voice.

  “Go ahead.”

  Ginny took a deep breath. “Hi, Mom. Sorry about the interruption. Ran out of change.”

  “Ginny, please, come home. I’ve been crazy—wait, don’t hang up, please!”

  Ginny felt a pang. Mom didn’t deserve this pain. She was loving and accepting. Everything Maggie only claimed to be.

  “Hey, Mom, I didn’t mean to scare you. I told you I was okay.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I just naturally worry when you’re away.”

  Ginny repeated, “I didn’t mean to scare you. But please, tell me about this murder!”

  “It’s serious, Ginny. We think your Philadelphia friends should be willing to sign a statement, you see, for evidence that you were there.”

  “Mom, they just can’t. I won’t drag them into this. I mean, why is it so important? Who was killed?”

  “Mr. Spencer. Do you remember him?”

  “Spencer?”

  “He was playing bridge the day you left.”

  “Oh, Gram’s friend! Sure, I remember him.”

  “Well, he was murdered, Ginny.”

  “God, that’s spooky! I just saw him, Thursday afternoon!”

  “Where?”

  “At the bridge party. Where else?”

  “Yes. Well, he was killed not long after he left this house.”

  “What happened?”

  “They don’t know, exactly. Mrs. Gallagher took him home, and he was fine then. But he was found around seven-thirty or eight that night. In the bushes by the library. He’d been stabbed, Ginny.”

  Ginny shivered. “God! Poor old guy.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Mom, I still don’t understand. Why do they want to talk to me about it? I didn’t know him, Gram did. And he was still in the house w
hen I left for, um, Philadelphia.”

  “Well, the police are very thorough, Ginny.”

  “Sure, I know. But there has to be more to it than that, Mom. Come on, tell me.”

  Mom said carefully, “Well, you see, Ginny, the problem is, he was stabbed with a pair of scissors. They found them in Buck’s car.”

  “Buck’s! My God!” A whisper of cold was running down behind Ginny’s breastbone.

  “Yes, but that’s not the worst thing.”

  “What do you mean? What could be worse?”

  “Ginny, they were your scissors.”

  “And that’s all she knew?” Maggie asked.

  They were sitting at a table made of wood-grained plastic in the mall hamburger shop, eating hamburgers and fries from yellow foam trays that impersonated plates. Maggie had taken one look at Ginny’s bloodless face when she emerged from the phone booth and had steered her to the nearest source of food. Ginny didn’t feel so dizzy anymore, but the shock had given way to a growing panic. She shook her head violently.

  “That’s all! Somebody got my scissors out of my room and stabbed that poor old guy! The body ended up at the library, but he could have been killed anywhere, she says. The scissors were in Buck’s car. But Buck was with a couple of friends at the time of the stabbing.”

  “How do they know they’re your scissors?”

  “Easy. My name is scratched onto the blade, so they won’t get mixed up with Mom’s.”

  “I see.”

  “And the police think that’s why I disappeared! Jesus, why did I ever come here?”

  The other blue eyes widened innocently. “Hey, wow, that’s it, all right! That’s our major problem! Figuring out why you came!”

  “Lay off, Maggie! They want me for murder! Murder! Don’t you understand?” She looked wildly around the green-and-yellow restaurant. “And here I am, miles from everyone, and I can’t defend myself!”

  “That’s better.” Maggie’s voice was cool, tugging her back from the edge of panic. “Now we’re zeroing in on the problem. But you might keep your voice down. Remember, you’re half French.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” asked Ginny in spite of herself, and then felt like a fool. Maggie could play her like a fish, she thought helplessly. Any reference to her origins diverted her from anything else. No matter how serious.