Lullaby and Goodnight

by Staub, Wendy Corsi

  What a shame she only lived a few minutes longer to regret that fatal move.

  What a pity tiny Erica, dozing peacefully in her Ethan Allen crib as Wanda fell to her bloody death, won’t have a mother.

  You could have taken the baby. . . .

  No. You couldn’t have.

  You’ve already got a baby of your own on the way, a baby who’s going to come into this world, one way or another, before this day is over.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “This is crazy,” Jody mutters to her partner as they stride through the misty autumn rain falling over a sea of gray slabs, green grass, and a scattering of early fallen yellow leaves.

  “You’re telling me this is crazy, Langella? I’m the one who said we should just forget it.”

  “We can’t just ‘forget it,’” Jody retorts. “Three women who saw Dr. Lombardo are either dead or missing. Derry Cordell might have been a victim, not a killer. This nurse might really have a break in the case, Sam.”

  “Or she might be a nut job leading us on a wild-goose chase.”

  “Nut job?” She smirks. “I thought you said she was a loony tune.”

  “Nut job, loony tune . . . same—”

  “Wait.” Jody stops walking and consults the scribbled note in her hand. “We were supposed to turn back there to get to the plot where we’re supposed to meet her.”

  Sam grumbles as they backtrack, and grumbles again when they reach the designated grave site to find it occupied solely by the dead.

  “So where is she?” he asks with a scowl, looking around.

  “I don’t know.” Jody gazes down at the twin granite markers of the plot Nancy cited.

  These stones are much smaller than the surrounding ones. Each is etched with the words Beloved Son and the image of an angel with an infant in its arms.

  “What does this have to do with anything?” Sam asks after briefly scanning the rectangular slabs.

  Jody doesn’t reply, absorbed in reading the carved dates that depict the tragic deaths of two young brothers, Gianni and Paolo Zaterino.

  They were born a little over a year apart, more than ten years ago.

  And both died the same day they were born.

  Jolted into awareness by an intense wave of pain, Peyton opens her eyes with a gasp.

  For a moment, all she can think about is the agonizing contraction that has clenched her stomach, so intense she’s afraid she’s going to die.

  When she can no longer stand it, the tide of pain begins to ebb.

  That’s when she realizes she’s not in her bed.

  She’s not in her apartment.

  Wanda.

  A wave of emotion washes over her to replace the physical pain with grief, uncertainty . . . fear. She closes her eyes again, dragging her hand toward her belly.

  Protect the baby.

  Snippets of truth have begun to emerge through the haze of dread and confusion.

  Wanda is dead.

  Tom was after me.

  Rita was trying to save me.

  Rita!

  She opens her mouth to call her friend’s name, but her voice is a feeble croak, her mouth oddly dry.

  She tries to swallow, but doesn’t have the strength. She’s too weak to move again, barely able to lift her eyelids. And when she accomplishes that, she can’t turn her head to see what’s around her.

  After a moment, she realizes that she can, however, shift her pupils to the left and then the right, looking for Rita, looking for clues.

  Where am I?

  White.

  Everything is white.

  Walls, ceiling, blinds on the windows.

  White.

  Peyton manages to snatch a vivid detail from the elusive fragments whirling in her mental maelstrom.

  Hospital.

  Rita was taking her to the hospital.

  Hospital.

  Good.

  I’m safe now, she tells herself lethargically, closing her eyes again. The doctors and nurses will take care of me and the baby, just like before.

  Rita will take care of us, too.

  Before she can drift back to blissful oblivion, another fierce ache takes hold within . . . along with the sudden memory that somebody was in a cab, following Rita’s car. . . .

  “Where did you leave the boys?” Jarrett remembers to ask, after they’re settled into a cab heading uptown to the police precinct near Dr. Lombardo’s office.

  Her thoughts preoccupied, it takes a moment for Anne Marie to process the question, and another few to remember the answer.

  “They’re with Karen,” she tells her husband, who nods. She doubts he knows exactly who Karen is. But he trusts her judgment. And he believes her.

  That means more than anything else now.

  When she called him and told him what she’d read in the paper, and that she was certain Heather’s disappearance was somehow connected to Dr. Lombardo, he didn’t ask questions. He told her to get on the next train to Grand Central, and he’d meet her on the platform.

  She spotted him before he saw her. The moment she caught sight of him, intently searching the crowd of disembarking passengers, something stirred to life within her.

  Jarrett isn’t perfect, but she loves him. And he doesn’t always show it, but she knows he loves her.

  When this is all over, Anne Marie promises herself, she’ll remember to tell him both of those things.

  Maybe she’ll be able to start living again, after all these years.

  “All right, Mrs. Nueves,” the detective says, reading over the last of his notes. “Is there anything else you can tell me about this Rose Calabrone? Anything you can remember that might help us to locate her?”

  Mary shakes her head, utterly spent. She looks at Javier, seated beside her on the couch.

  His eyes are downcast, his slumped posture signifying utter defeat.

  But he didn’t protest when she called him to tell him what she’d seen on the news. He just listened, then told her he’d be right home.

  He made it to the door moments before the police arrived.

  “Mr. Nueves?” the detective asks from his seat adjacent to the couch. “Is there anything you can add?”

  Javier looks up at him, simultaneously laying a hand on Dawn, asleep on Mary’s shoulder.

  “Are you taking our daughter away?” he asks.

  Mary opens her mouth to protest that she isn’t their daughter, but the detective says it first, firmly.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Nueves. She’ll be placed in temporary foster care until we can confirm that she belongs to Allison Garcia. I’m sure the family will want custody in that event.”

  It’s Mary who falls apart first, and Javier who does the comforting.

  “Lo siento, Javier . . . lo siento,” she says over and over. “Please forgive me.”

  “You did nothing wrong,” he manages to tell her, before he, too, loses his grip on his emotions.

  And they cling to each other on the sofa long after Dawn has been taken away.

  The window is small.

  Small, with blinds.

  Peyton closes her eyes to rest for a moment, then opens them again, struggling to focus.

  Blinds.

  They’re drawn.

  Plain beige curtains hang on either side, suspended from a metal rod above.

  She closes her eyes again, trying to remember.

  Were there blinds in the hospital? Curtains? Were the windows this small?

  This just . . .

  It doesn’t feel right.

  There are no nurses here. There’s no equipment.

  And no sounds.

  No beeping monitors.

  Or doctors being paged.

  Clattering carts rolling down the tiled corridor.

  Is there even a corridor?

  At last, Peyton summons the strength to turn her head.

  She sees only more white wall.

  With supreme effort, she turns a little farther, and is rewarded with the edg
e of a door.

  The invisible, pitiless fist begins to tighten its grip on her insides once again.

  “No . . .” she whispers, petrified of the hurt.

  Focus on something else.

  Focus on the door.

  A plain, white door.

  It’s closed.

  Ouch. Oh God. Make it stop. Take me away from here.

  The door.

  Think about the door.

  Something about the door.

  She can’t bear the pain. She’s beginning to slip away . . .

  Oh!

  It isn’t the kind of door that you’d find in a hospital.

  It’s the kind of door you’d find in a house.

  She’s fading fast.

  Is she in a house?

  The door is opening.

  Wait, she commands herself, as unconsciousness swoops in to save her from another wave of pain.

  Don’t sleep yet . . .

  See who’s on the other side of the . . .

  Anne Marie thanks the young police officer and sips lukewarm water from a small paper cup.

  “Better?” Jarrett asks, seated beside her at the table in the claustrophobic interrogation room.

  She nods, still feeling overwhelmed by emotion. Just coming into the station brought it all back: the shock when her daughter failed to come home, the anguish of the futile search, the frustration with authorities who wanted to write Heather off as a runaway.

  But that was then. This is now. This is different.

  The young officer, summoned by Detectives Jacobs and Antares when Anne Marie began to feel faint, hastily takes his leave, closing the door behind him.

  “All right, Mrs. Egerton.” Antares, the less patient of the pair, leans forward again. He rests his elbows on the table, poised to listen to whatever else she has to say. “Let’s go back to the day your daughter disappeared. Where were you?”

  “I was at work—my day job, at Macy’s in the mall,” she says reluctantly, waiting for the inevitable look of disapproval.

  Single mother holding down two jobs; latchkey kid left to her own devices.

  No wonder the kid got herself into trouble, the detectives are thinking. “Trouble” in this case meaning not just pregnant, but murdered.

  They’re assuming that if Anne Marie had been around more to keep an eye on her daughter, she’d be alive today.

  I don’t blame them. I’ve always believed the same thing.

  She sips more of the tepid water, wrinkling her nose at the unpleasant, silky taste, and puts the cup on the table.

  “You were working at the same mall your daughter visited that day,” Jacobs prods.

  “Yes. She stopped in to show me the little outfit she had bought for the baby at Gymboree.” Choked up, she can’t speak for a moment. How well she remembers the little yellow outfit with its matching cap.

  “Look, Mom,” Heather said, grinning. “Can’t you just see the baby wearing this?”

  Yes. Yes, she could.

  Jarrett squeezes her arm gently. “You okay?”

  She nods.

  The detectives are waiting silently for her to go on.

  After exhaling shakily, she does. “Heather asked if I wanted her to wait around and drive me home when my shift was over, but I told her to go ahead and I would take the bus because I was working later than I expected.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I always took the bus, and I didn’t want her out on the road. It was icy.”

  “No,” Antares says, “I meant, why were you working late that night?”

  “Because somebody called in sick and they asked me to stay. It was my night off at the restaurant so I said yes. I was taking every extra shift I could, saving up money for . . .”

  Again, emotion gets the best of her.

  “For what, Mrs. Egerton?” Jacob asks.

  “For a christening outfit for the baby. I wanted to buy a special one.” She’s crying now, burying her face in her hands, thinking of Kelly Clements, wondering if she was ever christened, thinking of all the milestones Heather missed in her daughter’s life.

  There’s a brisk knock on the door.

  “Yeah?” one of the detectives calls gruffly, and Anne Marie hears it open.

  She looks up to see the young police officer standing there again.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a man out here who says he has urgent information about a woman who might have been abducted today. She was also a patient at that Lombardo’s practice.”

  The detectives are already on their feet.

  “Who’s the man?” Antares asks.

  Anne Marie hears the reply just before the door closes. “Says he’s a friend of the woman’s, and his name is Gil Blaney.”

  If only he’d hurry and call back.

  He must have gotten the messages by now.

  If he hurries, he might be able to get here before their child is born.

  That would be good. Then he’ll be able to help me get rid of her.

  It would be nice, for a change, not to have to be the one to lug the body, still bloated with all that pregnancy fluid, onto the wheelbarrow. The ground is muddy today, making it harder to push the thing down to the edge of the pond, where the stack of concrete cinder blocks is waiting.

  He doesn’t know the ritual, but it’s not all that complicated.

  Haul her into the little rowboat, take her out to the middle, weigh her down, and drop her in so she can sink into the depths with the others.

  Except the first, Heather.

  And Derry Cordell.

  Although, she wasn’t a donor.

  Neither was Wanda Jones.

  Fitting, then, that their remains will rest elsewhere. The pond is strictly reserved for donors.

  Funny.

  That’s actually kind of funny.

  Maybe I should make a little memorial stone for it someday.

  Here lie the wicked, whose progeny have been rescued.

  But then some trespasser might stumble across it and get suspicious.

  Not that it will matter.

  We’ll be long gone by then, the three of us. We’ll be a family at last, living far away from here. Maybe we’ll go to California. Or Europe. I’ve always wanted to go to Europe.

  A fitful whimper escapes the next room.

  Oh well. Time to put the knife aside and get back to the patient.

  At the sound of footsteps moving through wet grass, Jody looks over her shoulder.

  Dr. Lombardo’s nurse, Nancy, is making her way toward the detectives.

  Jody sees Sam’s hand rest briefly on the holster concealed beneath his jacket as he calls, “Why are we here, Nancy? What’s this about?”

  “I needed you to see it for yourselves, so you’ll believe me.”

  “What are we supposed to see for ourselves, Nancy?” Jody asks as the woman comes to a stop a few feet away with a shudder.

  “The graves.” She pauses, then reaches into her pocket.

  Jody instantly goes for her gun, as does Sam.

  But Nancy has merely pulled out a packet of tissues, using one to dab at her teary eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice quavering. “I haven’t been in a cemetery since . . .” She pauses, takes a deep breath, goes on. “Since my mother died suddenly, the week before Mother’s Day. She and I were really close. We lived together, my whole life. It was a heart attack, and I found her—” Her voice breaks.

  Jody looks at Sam, who shrugs, nonplussed. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to prod the nurse along, but Jody cautions him to wait.

  “I don’t have a husband or children, and Mommy . . . she was all I had. It’s hard for me to talk about her, even now.”

  Having lost her own mother last year, Jody is struck by the poignant sorrow in her voice.

  But Sam is getting impatient, gruffly asking, “What about the graves, Nancy? What did you want us to see?”

  “All these years, she’s been talking about her sons, John and
Paul. The surgeon and the pediatrician.”

  “Who, Nancy?” Jody asks, trying to follow

  Caught up in her meandering tale, the woman has knelt on the soggy ground to touch the small granite stones, running her fingers over the letters.

  “She lost them the day they were born, both of them. Maybe that’s what put her over the edge. Maybe that’s why she lied about everything—being a mother, being married. She doesn’t have anyone at all. She lives alone. Her neighbor told me her husband left her years ago for another woman. He’s remarried, has a family of his own. I guess that’s why he left her. Because she couldn’t give him children.”

  “Who are we talking about, Nancy?” Jody repeats, her heart pounding.

  “Rita. Rita Calabrone.”

  “It’s okay, sugar pie,” a familiar voice croons, and Peyton opens her eyes again to see Rita standing over her bed.

  “Thank God,” she murmurs. “What’s wrong with me? I feel—”

  “Shhh, I know.” Rita pats her arm. “You’re in labor.”

  Labor.

  “It’s too soon,” Peyton grunts, trying to gather her thoughts as a strong contraction wracks her body.

  “No, it’s early, but the baby can survive just fine if you deliver now. Here, sit up and drink this . . . it’ll help ease the contractions.”

  “Wait,” Peyton moans, writhing. “No.”

  “Try to breathe.”

  “Make it . . . stop!”

  “Don’t fight it,” Rita says abruptly in an oddly harsh tone.

  “If you fight it, you’re going to hurt worse. Just let it happen.”

  “Ow . . . o www,” Peyton howls, trying to focus, but unable to think of anything but the searing pain.

  “Come on, don’t waste your energy on crying. You’re not a baby, you’re having one. Just breathe, and get through it.”

  She breathes.

  And she gets through it.

  When the contraction subsides, she sips from the steaming cup Rita holds up to her lips. The liquid is bitter.