Gotcha!

by Fern Michaels

  Not seeing any fabric or color that caught her eye, she found the remote and channel-surfed for ten minutes. When none of the television programs captured her attention, she turned the TV off. She flipped through the latest edition of The Informer. Josh was doing an excellent job, but the stories didn’t capture her attention, as they once had. Frankly, she thought they were silly and a waste of time. Why the sudden change of heart? She’d almost died because of that paper and that total idiot, Rodwell Archibald Godfrey—behind his back, they referred to him as Rag. He’d kidnapped her, locked her in a tiny closet, tied to a chair, while he waited for his ransom money to be delivered. As it turned out, her mother was the owner of The Informer, something that was unknown to her at the time. Clearly, Rag was also unaware of that minor factoid. It had been a horrifying experience for everyone, as well as one of the principal reasons she and Chris had moved to Charleston.

  Now, for the past month, she’d been having trouble sleeping, only to be completely wiped out during the day. She thought of going downstairs to the kitchen to warm up a glass of milk, but she didn’t want to risk waking Chris. He’d worked so hard, and their new venture required his legal skills, making sure all their documents and contracts were legal. But he continued to tell her he wanted to be a farmer, and she now believed him. She remembered his telling her this when they had lived in Los Angeles, but she hadn’t believed him then. Of course, they had only been friends at the time. And he was her stepbrother, but not in a gross way. Her mother and Garland were married for a short period of time; Chris had been away at college; she’d been a teenager, spending time with her girlfriends, shopping, going to the movies, gabbing. Before she knew it, Garland had passed away. She and her mother, whom everyone called Toots, had moved into the house, which her mother would share many years later with Abby’s three godmothers.

  Finally Abby started to get drowsy, and she turned out the light and curled up beneath the sheets. She drifted off to sleep quickly.

  Octavia knew her time was coming soon, but prayed she would have a few more weeks left before she had to tell Mr. Clayton. He’d been sending for her since she’d been thirteen years old. She’s tired, so tired, and it ain’t even half day gone. Her belly hurts, an’ her feets swollen, but she cain’t stop ’cause there’s so much work to do. She hates workin’ in the big house. Ever’ day she tries to upset the Missus in hopes she’d send her back to the field with her momma and sisters, but she says she be a “special” girl, and Octavia doesn’t know what she mean by that. She dropped a fancy china plate yesterday, an’ the Missus just tell her to clean up the mess, but Octavia might only be fourteen and three months, but she know the Missus knows she’s with child. She seen her lookin’ at her belly, she watches her, an’ Octavia is scared, but not so scared that she’s gonna stop tryin’ to get back to her home with Momma. The little cabin ain’t too big, but it be better than some other plantations have. They got real wooden plank floors, an’ their house is made of the same bricks Mr. Clayton’s got. They got a real fireplace, too. The beds is straw, an’ the coverin’s plenty soft, ’cause Momma cleaned them an’ rinsed them in hot water, an’ she put dried magnolias in the straw so’s they’d smell good, too. Her back is hurtin’ real bad, and she knows this ain’t suppose to happen now. Her belly ain’t big enough yet. How she wishes she could slip away to see Momma. She’d know what was ailin’ her, an’ what to do.

  Octavia is gonna go see her momma tonight. After the Missus and Mr. Clayton go to sleep, she’ll slip out through the kitchen door. Soon as she finishes her duties, she’ll go. She hopes Mr. Clayton doesn’t want to visit her tonight. She hates him. He crawls on top of her like she’s an animal. Them sounds he make scare her, too. His breath is hot, and smells of tobacco. No, he’d been to see her last night. Maybe Telly would get a visit tonight. Telly was only twelve and four months. Octavia felt sorry for her, but she couldn’t stop Mr. Clayton from crawlin’ on top o’ her any more than she could stop him from crawlin’ on herself. She prays every night that he would die. She knows it’s wrong to pray for bad things, but Mr. Clayton is a mean, bad man. He likes to use the whip on the men workin’ in the fields. Her daddy had thick, ropy scars on his back and arms from Mr. Clayton’s whip. Momma would cry when she see them. She’d rub lard on his wounds an’ make a poultice that stunk to high heaven, but Daddy said it helped the cuts heal faster. Octavia knows as soon as he be healed, Mr. Clayton will rip him open again. And Mr. Clayton will laugh. She hates him, an’ she hates the baby in her belly. A sharp pain rips through her back. She grabs the kitchen chair to keep from keelin’ over. She takes a deep breath, an’ the pain eases up. As soon as the pain’s gone, she turns to head upstairs to turn down the beds, an’ another pain hits her in the belly. She falls to her knees, pressing her hands against her, thinkin’ this will stop the pain. Sharp, searing pain in her back comes again. Tears fill her eyes, an’ she bites the sides of her mouth to keep from screamin’ out.

  In the midst of her pain, she calls out, “Momma, I need you. Please, Momma, help me.” Takin’ a deep breath, she lets it out slowly, thinkin’ her pain’s all gone, when she feels another pain, this one worse than ever. She wants to push hard like she has to go to the bathroom, but she cain’t. Rolling on her back, she puts both legs against the chair legs. She don’t care no more. She pushes and screams. An’ she pushes again. This time she feels like her woman part is tearin’ in half. She screams again, not carin’ if Mr. Clayton or the Missus hears her. She really hates him now and begs God to make him dead right now! She prays for his death and prays for her own as she gets hit with another sharp pain, hot like a kitchen knife got stuck in her belly. She bears down again, this time so hard she feels the veins in her head an’ neck gettin’ so big.

  Another push, an’ she feels something warm and damp between her legs. She tries to push herself up with her elbows so she can see. Another pain, and she screams and screams and screams. Again, she feels something warm and wet between her legs, something heavy. Her body gots sweat ever’ place. She tries to push herself up, when she hears a soft sound, like a baby cryin’. She struggles to see what lies between her legs an’ sees a baby, but it ain’t right. It’s got an arm missin’.

  “The devil!” she cries out. She’d just given birth to Mr. Clayton’s devil.

  No!!!

  Abby bolted upright in the bed. Trembling, she turned the light on. Chris ran into the room. “Are you okay?” He cradled her in his arms. “I heard you screaming.”

  “Oh, Chris, I had a terrible nightmare. My God, it seemed so real.” Abby pushed herself up in the bed and leaned against the headboard.

  Chris cradled her against his chest. “Want to tell me about it?”

  Abby took a deep breath. “There was this girl, a young girl. She was . . . she was a slave. In the dream, she was scared and so alone. She kept calling for her mother. It was so sad.”

  She stopped. Something in the dream was so familiar, tugging at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t place exactly what it was. “She was having a baby! Alone. She was all alone! Chris, there is something in the dream that I should know, something I’ve actually seen, but I can’t pull it up.” Abby wrapped her arm around Chris’s waist. “Sorry I woke you.”

  “Hey, I’m glad you did. That sofa is not meant to sleep on. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “You looked exhausted, and I knew that if I woke you, once you showered, you’d be wide-awake, so I let you sleep.”

  “And here you are in bed without me for the first time since we’ve been married, and you had a nightmare. What does that tell you?”

  “Not to go to bed without you?”

  “Yep. Now, since I’m up anyway, I’m going to take a shower. You want to join me?” Chris nuzzled her ear.

  She gave a half laugh. “Not now, sorry.” She glanced at the bedside clock. It was almost five o’clock. “I tell you what. Why don’t you get your shower, and while you’re doing that, I can make us some breakfast. I
won’t be able to go back to sleep anyway. If I get tired during the day, I’ll have a nap.”

  Chris kissed her cheek and ruffled her hair. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mrs. Clay.”

  As soon as Chris said “Mrs. Clay,” she stopped midthought. “Chris, wait. Listen, I know this is . . . strange, but has this place always been called Clay Plantation?”

  Standing at the chest of drawers, Chris pulled a pair of boxers out of the top drawer. “Good question. Why would you ask something like that?”

  She didn’t know, but she somehow knew it was important for her to find out. It was the dream. The man in the dream. The man the young woman hated, the man she wanted to die. “Just tell me, has the plantation always been referred to as the Clay Plantation?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, it has, but then again, it’s been around a few hundred years. It’s possible that it had a different name at some point before the Clays owned it. Is it important?”

  Abby’s reporter instincts were at play. Instincts she’d scoffed at earlier. “I’m not sure. It’s something in the dream. I don’t know.”

  “Well, don’t worry your pretty little head off. Now, woman, get your little rear end downstairs and fix that breakfast you promised me.”

  Abby grabbed her robe off the foot of the bed, careful not to wake Chester, who was still sound asleep at the foot of the bed. “Some guard dog you are,” she said as she walked out of the room.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Abby started a pot of coffee. Her mind kept straying back to her dream, and it was silly. Damn, Abby, it was simply a dream. Weird? Yes. Strange? Yes. She opened the refrigerator. “What to make?” she asked herself aloud.

  “Ruff!” Chester gave his low-sounding morning growl.

  “You want some grub, old boy?”

  Chester walked over and stood by his dog bowl. Abby had chicken breasts left over. She chopped half of one, threw it in the microwave for a few seconds to get the chill off, then scooped the chunks of chicken into his bowl. Mavis had started doing this for Coco and Frankie. Chester had been over a few times and received the same meal. Now Abby had to bribe him with chicken breasts just to get him to eat his dog food. “You are so spoiled,” Abby said, leaning over and rubbing him between the ears.

  She grabbed a carton of eggs, a chunk of bacon, and a can of buttermilk biscuits out of the refrigerator. Usually, she loved the smell of coffee, but for some reason it gagged her now. She would swear she smelled a chemical smell coming from the pot. She lifted the carafe up to her nose. “Yuck.” She took a chamomile tea bag out of the canister, filled a mug with water, and popped it in the microwave. She usually loved her coffee, but not today. She felt shitty, like she was coming down with the flu. The last thing she needed now. With all that she and Chris had going on, she didn’t have time to get sick.

  Hurrying now, she removed a skillet from the cupboard, turned on the stove, and tossed several strips of bacon in as soon as the skillet was hot. She cracked half-a-dozen eggs into a bowl, added a splash of milk, and then, with a wire whisk, beat the mixture until the yolks were no longer in evidence. She’d seen this technique used on some cooking show, with the chef saying that the eggs would be much fluffier. It worked, so she’d been using it ever since. She heated another skillet, dropping in a tiny bit of butter. She stared as it sizzled and turned a creamy light brown. She poured the egg mixture into the skillet, then remembered the biscuits. “Oh, the hell with it. We can have toast.” She took the can of biscuits and put them back in the fridge.

  Chester ran through the doggie door, scaring her. “Darn, boy, you scared the bejesus out of me.” She hadn’t even heard him go out.

  “Hey, I thought you’d have the table all set with the fine china and cloth napkins. What’s this?” Chris asked. He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  “You smell good. And you’re lucky I’m making your breakfast. Don’t get used to it, either, because I promise not to make this a habit. If my memory serves me correctly, you used to exist on mint chocolate-chip ice cream.”

  Chris kissed her head, then poured a cup of coffee for himself. “You’re not having your coffee?”

  “It smells weird to me. I’m having tea.” She removed her mug from the microwave and dropped the tea bag in the hot water. “Does it taste okay?”

  Chris took a sip. “Excellent.”

  “You can’t smell that chemical smell? Like iron or something?” Abby asked as she stirred the eggs, then removed the bacon and placed it on a paper towel to drain.

  “You’re imagining things, Abs. This is perfectly fine. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t drink it.”

  She just nodded and set about finishing breakfast. She took two slices of wheat bread, put them in the toaster, then removed the eggs from the pan. She dabbed at the bacon with another paper towel, put four slices on Chris’s plate, together with most of the eggs, just as the toast popped up. “Good timing, if I say so myself.”

  Abby put Chris’s plate in front of him. “Remember, do not get used to this.”

  She took her mug of tea to the table and sat across from him. Chris dug into the food like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. She smiled. She loved this man.

  “How come you’re not having anything?” he asked between bites. “You think the food smells weird, too?”

  “No, I’m not hungry. Must be coming down with the flu or something. I can’t seem to shake this.”

  “You need to rest.”

  “Yeah, well, tell that to . . .” She wanted to say “that poor girl in my dream,” but she didn’t. Still, she couldn’t shake the dream. There was something about the man in the dream. The girl kept calling him something.... Mr. Clayton! She’d called him Mr. Clayton in the dream.

  “Chris, are you sure this place didn’t go by another name?” she asked again.

  “Not that I can remember. When you live in one of these old places as a kid, it’s almost an embarrassment. I remember thinking, when I was a kid, why couldn’t I live in one of those Mc-Mansions that all my friends lived in? Of course, I was too stupid to realize the history, and too young to appreciate it. Why don’t you ask your mother? She lived here, too. She might know.”

  Abby brightened. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that? “You’re a genius. Thanks.” She took her tea into the living room. Her mother was an early riser. She glanced at the big grandfather clock. It was ten to six. Her mother was up. She grabbed the portable phone and took it back into the kitchen. They were going to get a phone installed in the kitchen, if it was the last thing she did. The house was old, but there had been many updates throughout the years. Unfortunately, a phone jack was not one of them.

  She sat back down at the table. Chris took his plate, rinsed it, then put it in the dishwasher. He refilled his cup and came back to the table. “You going to call Tootsie?”

  “Yes.” She punched in her mother’s number.

  “Abby Simpson-Clay, what are you doing up so early?” her mother asked. No “hello.”

  Caller ID is killing the pranksters, Abby thought.

  “Well, I just finished making breakfast for my adoring husband. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up early, and Chris was up, so here we are. Mom, listen, I know this is going to sound odd, but do you recall the Clay Plantation being called something else? I’m talking way back in the day, when those slave quarters were in use.”

  “Let me think a minute. Hmm, I don’t really know. I have some of Garland’s papers stored away in a box somewhere. Seems like there were several documents that were connected to the plantation. Why do you want to know? You’re not thinking of changing the name, are you?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Abby wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell her mother about the dream just yet. It kept clinging to her; it was as though she were supposed to remember something from the dream for a reason. She just didn’t know what it was.

  “I can look for that box, if it will help.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Would you mind if
Chester and I came over and looked through it with you? He’s needing a doggie love fix anyway. And I’m sure Coco and Frankie could use a Chester fix.”

  “Come on over. We’re on our third pot of coffee. I’ll make a fresh pot for you.”

  “No, Mom, really, I’m drinking tea today. I think I have a bug, and coffee isn’t agreeing with me right now. I’ll be over in half an hour.”

  “Okay, dear.”

  “So, what did Tootsie have to say?”

  “She didn’t know, but she has a box of your dad’s things at her house. She said she thought there might be some papers in there connected to the plantation. I’m going to take a look and see if there is anything in there. Chester, do you want to take an early-morning walk to see Coco?” Hearing the magic word Coco, the shepherd rushed out through the doggie door.