by Jason Pinter
Rachel was taken aback by the question. She’d been so curious about Myra’s life that it hadn’t occurred to her someone would want to know about hers.
“I . . . I’m not sure what there is to say.”
“Really? That’s it? Come on, shin-kicker. Kids?”
“Two kids,” Rachel said. “Eight and three.”
“Smart?”
“Sharp as a knife. My son, he’s the older one, he memorizes things on the spot. Reads like there’s no tomorrow. Loves fantasy books. If it has a dragon or wizard in it, he’ll read it. And my daughter, story time could last for weeks. She just sits there, rapt. Even makes up her stories. I picture her writing books of her own one day.”
Myra smiled. “That’s lovely. Do you have . . . someone in your life? Someone whose shins you kick instead of mine?”
Rachel looked at the ground. Guilt and fear and shame and anger welled up inside of her. “I did,” she said. “And he was taken from me.”
“He was sick?”
“Not exactly.”
“Left you?”
“No.”
“Oh,” Myra said. “Oh, I’m sorry, Rachel.”
“I don’t remember you ever calling me Rachel.”
“Rachel, shin-kicker, Blondie. It’s all protection. Armor. It’s important that a lot of the students in class wear that armor so they feel protected. When you’re wounded, like we all were, you need time to heal. But once you’re strong enough, you don’t need it anymore. You haven’t needed it for a long time, Rachel.”
“My name’s not Rachel. But you know that.”
“And mine’s not Myra. But you know that too.”
They continued down the street in silence. Rachel wanted to ask the question so badly it was tearing a hole in her throat. But she’d already crossed a boundary, told Myra about her life. And as far as she knew, she was the only one in class Myra had confided in. It made Rachel feel special, important. Hearing Myra tell Rachel she was strong—the compliment gave her wings. It made her think that after all the horrors, everything that had come so close to breaking her and her children, she was finally mending. And perhaps even coming out stronger than ever.
“You can tell me,” Myra said. “Your name. If you think you’re ready.”
“I’m not sure if I should.”
“Suit yourself. I’m Evie.”
Rachel looked at Myra—Evie—and felt her breath catch in her throat.
Evie.
Such a nice, pretty, simple name. The kind of name Rachel could have named her own daughter. The kind of name that might belong to a girl she could see her son bringing home before prom.
Evie.
“Well?” Evie said. “You are?”
Then, just as she was going to speak the word, without any warning, a man came up from behind Evie, looped his right arm around her throat, and held a penknife against her neck.
Rachel recoiled in horror. Evie froze and gritted her teeth but remained calm. He dug the tip of the knife into the soft flesh of Evie’s neck. Rachel looked around for help, but the streets were empty. There were no lampposts on this stretch of town. The night covered the crime.
The man had a goatee that looked like a messy black O and a jagged scar running down his right cheek that looked like a poorly stitched-up knife wound. He smelled like shoe polish, and his deep-blue windbreaker was two sizes too big. A bracelet made from brownish-yellow Tiger Eye beads looped around the wrist of the hand that held the knife. The beads clinked together gently. Rachel could not take her eyes off them. They looked oddly pretty, soothing and spiritual in a way their owner was not.
“See my pocket?” the man said. He nodded to the open pocket on the left side of his windbreaker. He looked at Rachel. “Money, jewelry, and cell phones. You, put them in there.”
Rachel nodded and unzipped her gym bag. Her hand shook as she removed her wallet. She cursed her luck; she’d just gone to the ATM before class, and a wad of twenties jutted out. The man’s eyes widened when he saw it. His lucky day.
“Please, sir,” Evie said. She began to sob. She raised her hands as if in surrender. “I have a family. I don’t have any money. Please, let me go.”
Rachel was shocked; she’d never heard Evie so much as whimper or complain, let alone cry. It was like she’d morphed into a completely different person.
“Shut up,” he said. “You, Blondie, get her money and put it in my pocket. Waste my time, and I’ll give this cunt a new mouth below her old one.”
“Please, Mister,” Evie bawled. Her hands continued to rise. “I have a sick daughter. She has epilepsy. My husband has a bad heart. Please.”
There was less than a second between Rachel thinking That isn’t true and Evie grabbing the man’s knife hand and pulling it against her chest, holding it in place. The whole time she’d been babbling, she’d been slowly raising her hands until she could get into the right position.
The man bucked and struggled, trying to free his knife hand, but Rachel could tell that Evie was stronger, angrier, and more in control.
Finally, when the man gave her an inch of room, Evie slid her head underneath his armpit and, still holding the wrist of his knife hand, wrenched herself free and pulled his arm behind his body. The Tiger Eye beads rattled against each other. Then, without hesitation, Evie wrenched his arm in a counterclockwise direction until Rachel heard a gruesome snap.
The man howled and dropped the knife. Then Evie kneed him in the groin, and he fell to the ground, sobbing, clutching his broken arm.
Evie picked up the knife and kicked the man onto his back. His head smacked off the pavement. Tears streamed down his face. Rachel watched, frozen, unsure of what to do. And suddenly terrified of Evie.
Evie straddled the man, pinning his shoulders to the ground with her knees. She placed the blade against the man’s throat.
“This is what it feels like,” she said, her voice calm. Even. “How do you like it?”
“Please,” the man sobbed. “Please, just let me go.”
“Not a chance,” Evie said. There was a spark of insanity and determination in her eyes that frightened Rachel.
“Evie . . . ,” Rachel said. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure he never does this again.”
“We can call the police,” Rachel said, plaintively.
“If you think we’re the first ones he’s done this to, you’re insane,” Evie said. “And if you think we’ll be the last, you’re naive.”
Evie moved the knife to the man’s groin. Point facing downward. His eyes widened. Tears and mucus poured down his face. Rachel looked at his maimed arm. The sound of the Tiger Eye beads rattling on his wrist echoed in her ears.
“There has to be another way,” Rachel said.
“One day you’ll be faced with a choice like this,” Evie said. “And you’ll sleep well at night knowing you prevented something terrible from happening to someone who couldn’t defend themselves.”
“Please,” the man said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I need a doctor. I need help.”
“You’ll need two different types of doctors now,” Evie said. She switched her grip on the knife and raised the blade until it was hovering a foot from the man’s crotch.
“Evie,” Rachel said. “Please stop.”
Evie looked at Rachel, confused. “Stop what? This man would have slit my throat without hesitating. Wouldn’t you, you sick freak?”
The man shook his head and whimpered, “Nuh—no. I just wanted money. I got nothing. I was hungry.”
“Spare me the sob story. Something tells me you’ll think twice next time you see a woman walking down the street.”
Evie raised the knife again, but as she went to plunge it into the man’s skin, Rachel tackled her, sending her flying to the ground. The knife skittered away. The man saw his chance, got up, and ran off like a wounded dog.
Evie sat up and watched him flee. Then she looked at Rachel.
“You dumb bitch,” she said.<
br />
“I couldn’t let you do it,” Rachel said, panting. Her shoulder hurt where she’d driven it into Evie. The woman was solid muscle.
“Couldn’t let me? You know what that bastard is going to do, right? You think this is going to stop him? No. He’s going to lick his wounds and get back in the hunt. And next time, he might go after someone who can’t take care of herself.” Evie jabbed Rachel in the chest with her finger. “And that’s on you.”
“So killing him is the answer.”
“Can’t say whether I would have killed him. Depends how fast EMTs got here. But it sure as shit would have put a hitch in his future pursuits.”
“He would have gone to the cops. You’d be in prison.”
Evie laughed. “The cops? You think he would have gone to the cops? And said what? ‘Hey, Officers, I tried to cut this girl’s throat, but she stabbed me in my tiny dick; can you please arrest her?’ Besides, guy like that probably has a rap sheet a mile long. He wants to spend time in a police station like I want to spend time in a piranha tank.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to maim him.”
“And nobody ever gave him the right to hold a knife to my neck. Here’s your last lesson, Blondie. Nobody gives you the right to protect yourself. People take things from you. Nobody gives them permission to do it. They just take. But if I take that man’s pride and joy, he’ll never hold another knife to a woman’s throat again. But instead, he’s out there. And who knows who’s next. You protect one, or you protect none.”
The words hit Rachel like a punch to the stomach, her memories flooding back.
You protect one, or you protect none.
She thought of her husband. She could hear her son’s screams, could feel how helpless she had been that night and so many nights following. And how so many people who had promised to protect her family had merely let her down.
Evie stood up. She kicked the knife into the gutter.
“Don’t come to class tomorrow. I don’t want to see you back at that gym. There are things you need to learn that I can’t teach you.”
Evie walked away, leaving Rachel panting on the sidewalk. One thought ran through her mind as she watched Evie round the corner and disappear.
I never told her my name.
CHAPTER 24
Today
“I’m a little tired of hanging out around here,” Rachel said. “Don’t get me wrong. The food choices are impeccable. And I love the smell of bad coffee, cheap cologne, and stale cigarette smoke. But I think after this I’d be OK not setting foot in the Ashby police station for the rest of my life.”
Rachel sat across the table from Detectives John Serrano and Leslie Tally at the same table as the night she’d shot Christopher Robles. Lieutenant George himself had offered to watch the children in his office.
“And as much as we love your company,” Tally said, “I think you’ve been involved in enough police business over the last week to last you a lifetime.”
Rachel laughed. A fake laugh. “Oh, Detectives,” she said. “If you only knew.”
“So let’s go over this one last time,” Serrano said. “You say you did not make an anonymous phone call to the PD switchboard about Nestor Aguillar and Stefanie Steinman.”
“No, I did not,” Rachel said. Serrano nodded. He knew she was probably lying, but whoever had made the call had run the number through half a dozen masking sites, so the call appeared to have come in from Vladivostok, Russia.
“All right. Fine. And just so it’s on the record: after receiving that tip, Detective Tally and I contacted you to warn you about the potential criminal intentions of Steinman and Aguillar. We removed your daughter, Megan, from class prior to the end of the school day. Officers Lowe and Chen watched Megan at the station. When we confirmed the presence of Steinman and Aguillar, we had you exit Bennington Elementary School carrying the lifelike CPR doll, which doubled for your daughter.”
“Correct.”
Tally continued. “Body cams confirm all of this and that both suspects were armed with loaded weaponry. Aguillar and Steinman are currently being held and charged under Illinois state law, section 65, graph 2, which states that the law prohibits carrying a firearm into a building, onto property, or in a parking area under the control of a preschool or childcare facility, including any room or portion of a building under the control of a preschool or childcare facility.
“Wally Shaw, our computer forensics examiner, is just starting to go through Aguillar and Steinman’s emails, texts, phone records, and social media posts. My guess is that by the time he’s done, we’ll have them on quite a few more charges, including premeditated attempted murder. The only light of day they’ll see in the immediate future is the prison yard.”
“Do you think that’s it?” Rachel said. “I know they were friends of Isabelle and Christopher Robles. I imagine they might have more friends.”
“We’re going to have twenty-four seven surveillance on both you and your children for a good while,” Serrano said. “Detective Tally and I are overseeing it personally. And without going into too much detail, we’re also going to be paying very close attention to Isabelle Robles and everyone she speaks to over the next few weeks. With Aguillar and Steinman locked up and the police on high alert, she’d have to be pretty stupid to try something.”
“With all due respect to the deceased,” Rachel said, “Christopher Robles didn’t seem like he swam in the deepest end of the smarts ocean.”
Tally replied, “And we have some dedicated officers going through all of Robles’s associates. We’ll have eyes on every one of them.”
Rachel nodded. More out of acceptance than satisfaction. She could only do so much.
“Can I ask you something?” Serrano said.
“Sure.”
“All this,” he said, “didn’t have to happen.”
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.
“You first contacted us with the information about Constance Wright’s death. It was very clear that you wanted to be found but wanted us to jump through some hoops to find you. You have a gift for misdirection. Now, to be frank, without that information, I don’t know where the investigation might have led. You helped us.”
“Is that a thank-you?” Rachel said.
“I’m not finished,” Serrano said firmly. “But after that. Going to the press conference. Following Robles home, conniving your way into their living room. All of that led to Robles breaking into your house. Where your children sleep. And that led to this, two people showing up at your daughter’s school armed to the teeth.”
“I’m not sure what the question is, Detective,” Rachel said.
“I’d like you to come with me somewhere. I have something I want to show you.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “What about my kids . . .”
“They can come too. It’s nothing dangerous, I promise. Actually, I think they’ll have fun. But there’s something you need to see. Trust me.”
“All right . . . ,” Rachel said.
Serrano led her to the lieutenant’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
He opened the door. Rachel breathed in and smiled. Megan was sitting on the floor licking her fingers, which were covered in dust from a shredded bag of Funyuns. Eric was in a plush chair playing on an iPad, beeps and boops coming from whatever game he was engrossed in.
“I hope you don’t mind the Funyuns,” Lieutenant George said. “I wasn’t sure if the little one had any dietary restrictions.”
“She’s unfortunately not restricted from junk food,” Rachel said. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Please, don’t mention it. Your daughter is quite the conversationalist. Your son, well, let’s just say I’ve had better conversations with my shoe.”
“Eric, did you hear that?” Rachel said. Eric did not look up. She sighed. “OK, kids, playtime’s over. Let’s go.”
They got up and marched out of the office. The lieutenant tousle
d Megan’s hair as she walked past, and she giggled.
“Be good, young man,” he said to Eric. Eric nodded and slunk past.
Rachel extended her hand.
“Lieutenant, I . . .”
Lieutenant George shook her hand and waved her off. “Please. Don’t mention it. They can tell their friends they were in protective custody. They’ll be the coolest kids in their class for a day or two.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said. Lieutenant George smiled, and Serrano closed the office door behind them.
The kids put on their coats, and they followed Serrano out to the parking lot.
“Where are we going?” Eric asked.
“I’m not sure,” Rachel said.
“I’m scared,” Megan said. “I want to go back to the loonant’s office.”
“Lieutenant,” Rachel corrected.
“Whatever,” Megan replied. “It was warm in there.”
“I promise you that in a few minutes, you won’t even think about the cold,” Serrano said, turning around. He knelt down to speak to Megan at eye level. “As a matter of fact, I’m taking you to the place where you can make the absolute best snow angels in Ashby.”
Megan’s face lit up.
“Mommy, can we?” she said, her face glowing with excitement. Rachel laughed.
“I guess so, sweetie.”
“I bet mine are better than Eric’s,” she said.
“Snow angels are stupid,” Eric said glumly.
“You’re stupid.”
“Let’s settle this: best snow angel gets to be an Ashby PD deputy for a day,” Serrano said.
That got Eric excited.
Serrano unlocked the Crown Vic, and the kids slid into the back seat. He motioned for Rachel to get in the passenger side.
“Can you tell me where we’re going?” she said.
“To see the angels,” Serrano replied. “Just trust me.”
Rachel hesitated, then got into the front seat. Serrano turned on the car, and a voice piped in over the stereo.
Home is behind, the world ahead,
and there are many paths to tread
