by Tami Dane
“Well ...”
Mom gritted her teeth, but at least she didn’t go back to packing. She slumped onto the bed, yanking me down next to her. “Okay. You wanted to hear the whole story? I’ll give you the whole story. In a nutshell, your father is a two-timing cheat.” She stopped.
After about twenty seconds of waiting for the rest of the story, I asked, “That’s it? That’s the whole story?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Are you sure he’s been unfaithful?”
“He admitted it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Mom crossed her arms over her chest and gave me an I-told-you-so look. “You want to tell me now that I’m being delusional?”
“I guess not.”
She went back to packing. “Don’t worry. I won’t stay with you for long. That bastard is going to pay through the nose.” She patted her flat stomach. “None of us are going to want for anything.” She flopped the top over the suitcase and zipped it shut.
I dragged it—oh, my God, heavy!—off the bed and wheeled it down the hallway to the stairs.
Ugh. Stairs!
Mom snorted and gave it a shove with her foot. Down it went, flipping end over end down the steps. It landed with a thump at the bottom, just as the object of my mother’s rage rounded the corner.
He looked at the bag.
He looked at us.
His eyebrows squished together.
“Yes, I am leaving you,” Mom yelled. “My lawyer will be in touch.” Head held high, she stomped down the staircase. I followed her, watching my father watch her. A dozen expressions crossed over his face. I couldn’t name them all. Didn’t even try.
“Is it true?” I whispered. “Did you cheat on Mom?”
“I wish there were something I could say to make this better” was his response.
It was as close to an admission of guilt as I needed. I shook my head and followed Mom outside. When I caught up to her, I took the suitcase from her and hauled it to the car. It went into the trunk, Mom went into the passenger seat, and away we drove.
Mom cried all the way to my apartment.
By three in the morning, my head was pounding so hard I was seeing stars.
I could hardly walk from being so exhausted.
And all I wanted to do was climb back into my cozy bed and go to sleep.
But my mother was standing in the middle of the living room, prancing around in her wedding gown, and screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs.
The neighbors were all letting me know how unhappy they were about Mom’s outburst. Some were banging on the adjoining walls. Others were pounding on their ceiling (my floor). Some had gone to the trouble of knocking on my door. I answered to find six furious men and women crowded in the hallway.
“I’m very sorry. I’ll get her settled down immediately,” I said, risking life and limb by poking my head out to deliver my apology. I closed the door, slid a help-me look at one stressed-out, sleep-deprived Katie, and then rushed to my mom’s side.
“Mom.” I waved my hands in front of her face.
“I don’t give a fuck what you need,” she shrieked in the general direction of the window. “You stay the hell away from me and my baby!”
“Mom, who are you yelling at?”
“The fucking bird!”
“Bird?” I checked the window.
There was a blackbird sitting on a tree branch. Had I been too hasty in dismissing the possibility that Mom could be a target of our unsub? I went to open the window, but Mom stopped me.
“It’s dangerous,” she warned.
“I’m ... going to shoo it away for you.” I wanted to get a look at that bird. I needed to get a look at it.
Mom literally pried my fingers off the window frame. “Don’t open the window!”
“I’m only going to open it a little—”
“No. Not even an inch. Not even a half inch.” Mom banged on the window; then she yanked the drapes shut. “That thing will get me. It’ll take my baby. Just like it did to those other women.”
“How could you ... ?” My gaze wandered around the room. I’d left some files sitting next to the couch. She wouldn’t have.
Yes, she would.
She spun in a circle, looking from one piece of furniture to another. Her gaze settled on the bookshelf. “Help me move this, Sloan.”
“Oh, Mom, have you been reading my case notes?”
Struggling with the shelving unit, Mom nodded. Her gaze jerked to the pile of file folders. “I read everything. I know what’s happening.”
“Please stop that. It’s too heavy. You’re going to hurt yourself, and maybe the baby too.” I gently pulled her away from the heavy piece of furniture. I steered her toward the couch. “You weren’t supposed to see that stuff.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left it out for me to see.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying something I’d regret. “Since you know as much as you do already, you must realize that bird can’t be what we’re looking for.”
“Why’s that?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“Because all the other women were close to their due dates.” I pointed at her flat stomach. “You’re not even remotely close.”
She flattened both hands over her stomach and gave a little “hmpfh.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter,” my mother argued. “Maybe she just prefers mothers who are closer to their due dates. Maybe any expectant mother will do.”
“That’s possible. Sure. But for some reason, I doubt it. So far, the unsub’s MO hasn’t changed. You can check yourself. Every victim was within two weeks of her due date. Yours is months off. A serial killer doesn’t generally change her MO after killing for so long. We think this one may have been killing for many years. Decades. Every single victim we have tracked down was at least thirty-six weeks pregnant.” Figuring none of us would get any sleep until that big mangy blackbird outside left, I went back to the window and knocked as hard as I could. It didn’t budge. Even I had to admit, it seemed to be staring at us.
This was tough, discerning whether Mom’s worries were a manifestation of her paranoia or truly worthy of concern. But the more I thought about it, the more I believed it was a matter of her psychosis than reality.
Mom pulled a blanket over herself and let her head fall back. “I don’t believe you. I think she’s waiting for me to go to sleep. She’s going to suck out all my blood and steal my baby. We need to make sure all the windows are shut and locked.”
“Okay, Mom,” I said, deciding I’d get to bed a whole lot faster if I humored her rather than argued. “We’ll lock the windows.” With the help of Katie, I made the rounds checking and double-checking all the window locks. Meanwhile, Mom dumped lines of salt on every windowsill in our apartment. She also put one in front of every door.
“The salt keeps them away,” she said.
“Did you read that in those papers too?” I asked, hoping maybe she’d stumbled upon something I hadn’t, like the name of the creature we were trying to track down.
“No. It’s something my mother told me when I was growing up.”
Her mother, like mine, was schizophrenic. Along with the advice about the salt, which I’d never heard before, she’d also been the recipient of such sage counsel as, “Make sure you wear tinfoil on your head when you go outside, so that you’re safe from space alien transmissions.” That one, Mom had shared with me.
However, I’d long ago decided a bit of foil wasn’t going to save me from aliens. But to this day, my mother has been known to wear a little scrap on her head somewhere, usually hidden in her hair.
In summary, there was no convincing the woman of anything.
Finally, with great effort, I got Mom in bed. She insisted I sleep with her, so I did. She was snoring long before I fell asleep.
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death—that is heroism.
&nbs
p; —Robert Ingersoll
18
Someone was following me. He was a he ... at least, I was pretty sure of that. And he was driving a black sedan. That’s all I knew at this point. It was early, predawn, too dark to get a good look at his face. When we stopped at a light, he managed to keep his face hidden in shadow.
I toyed with the idea of driving to the police station. Instead, I called Gabe.
“What’s up?” Gabe asked, sounding awake and alert, and surprised to be hearing from me so early.
“Please tell me you’re back in town.”
“I’m back in town.”
“And tell me you weren’t sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. Why?”
“Good. I’m being tailed.”
“Where are you?”
“Down the street from your place.”
“I’ll be waiting outside.”
“Thank you.” I kept checking the rearview mirror as I drove, wondering if my stalker would give up. He didn’t. He followed me right to Gabe’s place.
Gabe was standing on the porch when I pulled into his driveway. Before I had the seat belt off, he was loping toward the black sedan, parked on the street.
I got out and started toward Gabe.
“It’s your father,” he said. “It’s a good thing I met him last week, or he’d be on the ground right now. Unconscious.”
Wow, did I feel stupid. “Oh, shoot. Sorry about that, Gabe. I didn’t recognize the car. He usually drives a Navigator.” I peered inside the open window. Sure enough, it was my father.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Gabe asked, looking uncertain. “I was going to head to work early.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be in shortly. I owe you for this one. Sorry.” I shooed Gabe away with an apologetic smile.
Dad waved. “Didn’t mean to cause any worry. But it’s reassuring to see you’re aware—”
“Oh, I’m aware, all right.” When my father unlocked the door, I opened the passenger side and sat. “What’s going on? Why are you tailing me at five-thirty in the morning?”
“I need to talk to you. About your mother.”
“Now?”
Dad shrugged. “Why not? You’ll be busy later. So will I. Can you think of a better time?”
“Fine. What do you want to talk to me about? I’m not thrilled to be in the middle of your problems.”
“I just need one small favor.” From the look on his face, I was guessing his definition of “small” would probably not coincide with mine.
“What ‘small favor’?”
“I just need you to get her to come to the country club, where we’re going to be married.”
“You mean where you were going to be married. Past tense. You cheated on her. She’s not going to marry you now.”
“Please, Sloan. Bring her to the country club?”
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
“Tell her you’re taking her golfing.”
“Neither one of us plays golf.”
“Then tell her you’re taking her for lunch at the club.”
I glared at him.
He gave me a goofy grin. “Please, Sloan? After everything, you don’t owe me a thing. I realize that. But I’m asking you to do this for your mother’s sake.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you want me to take her there?”
“I need to talk with her.”
“She’s going to make a scene.”
“I’m prepared for that.”
Silence.
I thought about it for at least sixty seconds. Maybe longer. As much as I wanted Mom out of my apartment, I didn’t like what my father had done. And I wasn’t going to encourage Mom to go back to him. As the old saying went, “Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“To be honest, I don’t want to be a part of this. I don’t condone what you did, and I don’t want my mother thinking I do.”
He nodded.
He sighed.
He stared out the windshield. “I understand.”
Assuming the conversation was over, I reached for the handle. But I hesitated for some reason. “You made a really big mistake. Do you realize that?”
He didn’t speak, just nodded. Finally he said, “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?”
“Your TV show. I found someone who loves the idea. I set up an appointment for you and Elmer to meet with her.”
“Really?” Now that was good news. Great news. “Thank you.” Naturally, I felt indebted to him after this.
He pulled a business card out of his pants pocket and handed it to me. “The time and date are on the back. She asked for you to call if you need to reschedule.”
“Thank you.” I fingered the card. Inside I battled with myself. A part of me wanted to smack the man in the head and scream at him for being such a fool. The other part could see the pain in both their eyes. Did I want my little baby brother or sister being raised like I was? By a single mother who periodically became lost in her own bizarre world? If nothing else, my father might provide some stability for the child—something I wished I’d had growing up. “I’ll see what I can do about Mom. But I’m going to make it clear to her how I feel about what you did.”
“Thank you, Sloan.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a cheerful expression. “I can understand why you don’t trust me. But I swear to you, I have only your mother’s well-being and safety in mind. She’s all I think about. Your mom. The baby. You.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have cheated,” I blurted out. Then, “I’ll call you if she agrees to come. But I’m not lying to her. I’m not tricking her into going anywhere. If she comes, she’ll know it’s to meet you.”
“Fair enough.”
“Bye.”
Feeling conflicted, I stepped out of the car. Gabe was there, at my side. I gave him one look and he tossed an arm over my shoulder and steered me toward his house.
“You look like you need a drink. Or three.”
“It’s not even six in the morning... .”
“Coffee, then. I’m not taking no for an answer.” He half-walked/half-nudged me up his front walk and into his house. This was the first time I’d been in his place. It was bigger than the typical bachelor pad. Considering who his father was, Senator Wagner, that was no surprise. It was very nicely decorated, with modern furniture and tasteful but contemporary accents. The den he eventually led me to was slightly more cozy and inviting than the other rooms. The furniture was more substantial; the seating was cushy. “Have a seat.” He turned on the ginormous flat-screen TV hanging on the wall, handed the remote to me, then went to the kitchen, which was open to the den at one end.
“What’ll it be?”
“Coffee. Lots of it. I thought you were going to work early?”
“I was. But then an old friend of mine looked like she could use some help. So I decided I’d stick around, just in case.” He filled a mug. “Sugar? Cream?”
“I think I’ll go with black for the first round. Thanks.”
“Black it is.” He handed the full mug to me.
I sipped. Good coffee. “Delicious.”
“Thanks. Do you want anything to eat? Bagel? Muffin?”
“No thanks.” I sipped again while he poured a cup for himself.
He sat beside me, tossed an arm over the back of the couch, angling his body to face me. “Are you as frustrated and irritated by our case as I am?”
“Probably more,” I said after taking another drink. “I can’t help wondering where the babies have gone.”
“Do you think they’re alive?”
“They were all within a couple weeks of their due dates, meaning they would probably survive if they were delivered, as long as there weren’t any complications. But unexpected things happen all the time. If one did need some support, it would require specialized equipment. IVs. Incubators. Respirators. Would our unsub go to such lengths to keep an infant alive or ... ?”
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br /> “Assuming she would, because I don’t want to think about the alternative, who would have access to those kinds of things?” Gabe asked.
“Only employees of hospitals. And we’ve already checked all the local hospitals.” I sighed.
Gabe sighed too. He set his mug on the glass-topped coffee table. He took my hand in his.
Alarms started ringing in my head.
My heart started thumping against my breastbone.
My face started burning.
“Sloan, I’ve been waiting for this chance for so long—”
I tried pulling my hand away. “Gabe, please don’t. We should get to work.”
“We aren’t kids anymore,” he continued, ignoring my protest. “We’re adults.”
“Adults with complicated lives.” I twisted my wrist to the right.
“Yes.”
“Adults with responsibilities.” I twisted it to the left.
“Of course.”
“Adults with other priorities.” I jerked my arm. Still, my hand didn’t pull free.
“Adults with needs.” With his other hand, he cupped my cheek and stared into my eyes.
“Adults with ...” The words flew from my mind as Gabe’s mouth inched closer. I knew what was happening. I had no doubt he was going to kiss me. And my brain was 100 percent sure it didn’t want that. But my body, everything but the gray matter in my skull, decided to roll out the proverbial red carpet. My pulse quickened. Parts of my body tingled. My thoughts centered on the sensations buzzing and zapping along my nerves.
His mouth hovered over mine. His breath puffed over my lips, which felt too dry. I moistened them and let my eyelids shut out the sight of those amazing, mesmerizing eyes of his.
“Sloan, if I kiss you, I won’t be able to stop,” he whispered.
“Don’t kiss me then,” I answered.
“I want to.”
I wanted him to. Maybe. No, I didn’t. Yes, I did.
“Neither one of us needs this now.”
“Don’t speak for me. You don’t know what I need,” he said. Generally, you’d expect those words to sound defensive, maybe even angry. But not this time, not now, not coming from a man who seemed to be on the verge of losing control.
