Uncharted Fate

by Racette, Cynthia

  “Jeff?” she mumbled, trying to take in his tall form. She realized with a start, he looked worried and grim, and she panicked. “What is it? What happened? Is Cam all right?”

  “Nothing happened. Cam is at the apartment, totally safe. May I come in?”

  “Oh . . . sure. Why are you here? Did you forget something?”

  He walked past her and sat in a chair, not on the couch. She sat across from him, peering at him, fuzzy-eyed. “It’s two AM. What’s going on?”

  Jeff leaned his elbows on the chair arms and chewed his knuckles. He hated to tell her. Anna was only recently pulling herself together, and this might undo everything she’d managed to accomplish the last few months. It could destroy her. Her confidence where her kids were concerned would be shot. There was no choice, though. He looked up and watched her with an anxious eye, trying to infuse some of his strength into her by a kind of desperate telepathy.

  “This is going to sound like a soap opera, but I have to say it anyway. I’m concerned about how you’ll feel about me after I tell you what I have to tell you. Please, whatever happens, remember how much I love you. No matter what else happens tonight, remember that, sweetheart.”

  He winced to see her visibly taken aback. “You make it sound as if something awful is going to happen. What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

  “You’ll remember how much I love you?”

  “Of course. Tell me what’s going on. Please. It can’t be that bad.”

  “It’s worse.” He saw how agitated she’d become and knew he had to take the plunge. “All right. There is no easy way to say it. Mallory is on drugs.”

  “What?”

  “She’s been smoking marijuana and possibly heroine—for some months now.”

  Anna sat, still as a rock on the sofa as Jeff continued, “She’s been smoking it on a regular basis, pretty much every day, I gather.” When Anna didn’t say anything, he stood and moved to sit next to her, his hand on her trembling arm. “I know it’s hard to accept something like this, but-”

  “Hard to accept?” She turned on him like a mother panther. “More like impossible.” Her eyes went dark with anger. “How can you say something like that? You have no way of knowing. How dare you!”

  “Cam told me about it after we left here. We talked a long time.”

  “Cam? How would Cam know?”

  “The night I helped Brian put a coat of varnish on the tape cabinet, Cam and Mallory were in the rec room listening to some music. She was acting spaced out-”

  “No.” She jerked back around, her fists clenched on her knees as if to stop them from shaking. “My daughter’s never acted ‘spaced out.’”

  “Cam said she was, the first night he met her. I believe him.”

  “He’s wrong.”

  He grabbed her arm and tried to get her to look at him. She wouldn’t budge. “Anna, she admitted it. She told him she’d smoked a joint after school and one in the bathroom while he was here.”

  Anna was shaking so badly he was afraid she was going to faint. Instead, she swung wildly toward him. “No, it can’t be. Why didn’t we notice anything at supper if she was that ‘spaced out?’”

  “We didn’t pay much attention to her. I probably should’ve noticed something was wrong—I’ve done training. I was so busy enjoying your company that night, though, I barely noticed anyone else. As for you, you simply haven’t been looking for something like this. You didn’t expect it, thus you didn’t see it.”

  “No. She couldn’t be doing something like this every day without me noticing it. You’re wrong. Cam’s wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

  “Has she been any different the last few months?”

  Anna wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked in her seat. “If anything, she seems less truculent. I figured she was getting over her grief.”

  “It may be she’s been masking it with dope. Cam said she told him she smoked pot because it made the pain go away for a while.”

  “Oh God,” she moaned, leaning forward and clutching her sides. “I can’t believe this is happening. She’s a good kid. Her father’s accident has thrown her, but basically she’s a good kid.”

  “I’m not saying she isn’t. Good kids get into trouble with drugs, too.” He squeezed her forearm. “She’s a young girl who has been unable to cope with the pain of her grief. It doesn’t mean she’s bad. It means she needs help.”

  “Why didn’t Cam say something earlier? Why did he wait this long?”

  Weary, Jeff leaned his head back on the sofa. “He was trying to help her without involving us. He was hoping if he confronted her with it, she’d stop. She promised him she’d stop.”

  Anna’s head sank in despair. “I take it she hasn’t stopped?”

  “No. From what Cam says, I’m afraid things have gotten even worse.” He could feel her tremble beneath his fingers, and when he tried to put his arm around her shoulders, she stiffened and drew away. He sensed that in some subtle way, he'd just become the enemy, a threat to her and her family. She’d become the mother panther. With no small twinge of regret, he removed his arm. What would she do when he told her the rest?

  “Cam confronted her again tonight,” he continued. “She didn’t deny she was still smoking pot pretty heavy. He warned her one last time if she didn’t stop, he’d tell me. She became upset and told him she didn’t think she could stop now. She’s up to three or four joints a day—a couple before school, after school, and more after supper to bolster her high. She’s gotten some unusually strong stuff at school a few times lately, and it’s made the situation even worse.”

  “Oh, no.” Anna stood and started to pace in front of him as he watched, his worry growing. “This is incredible. What am I going to do?”

  He stood, too, and braced himself against the front of the sofa. She’s not going to like this. She’s not going to like it at all. “I’m going to arrest her for possession.”

  “What?” She spun around, her mouth open in disbelief. “Are you out of your mind? She’s my daughter. And she’d be your future stepdaughter if I’d accepted your proposal tonight. How could you do something like that?”

  “I think it might be the best thing to do for her under the circumstances,” he reasoned.

  “Why? Because you’re a cop? Are you that dedicated to your precious duty you’d turn in the daughter of the woman you say you love?”

  His face hardened. “You know it’s not anything like you described. Or you should.”

  “How can you expect me to know anything right now? I’m surprised I know my own name.”

  “You should know me better than that.”

  “Obviously, I don’t!” she shouted, her nose an inch from his face. “Maybe that's why I didn’t agree to marry you tonight. We don’t know each other well enough to get married. And it was never more obvious than it is right now. I’m glad I said no.”

  He felt the blood drain from his face. Her angry words hurt him deeply. He needed to make her understand. “We’re straying from the point. I think arresting Mallory will be the best thing for her.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I am thinking of her, Anna, I swear it. I’m trying to help her and you, damn it. Listen.” He stuffed one hand in his pocket, and held the other out to her. “Cam gave her a chance to quit on her own. Either she didn’t want to or she couldn’t. I suspect the latter. She admitted tonight she didn’t think she could quit anymore.”

  “You don’t have to arrest her.”

  “It may be the only way we can make enough of an impression on her to get her to stop.”

  “She can do it if I help her.”

  “I don’t think so. She’s tried on her own and failed. If we wait, we take the chance we’ll find her sprawled across her bed someday, OD’d
on something.”

  Anna paled. “You don’t know that’ll happen.”

  “And you don’t know it won’t.” He stuffed his other fist in his pocket. “I think we should get her in here and talk to her.”

  “Now? It’s after three.”

  “I don’t care what time it is. I want her in here.”

  “No. You’ll scare her.”

  “She needs to be scared!” he yelled, raising his voice for the first time.

  “No.” Anna crossed her arms in defiance.

  Jeff did the only thing he could think of and shouldered her aside, heading for Mallory’s bedroom. Anna ran after him and tried to grab his arm, but with grim determination he kept going. He pulled Mallory’s door open. “Mallory? Mallory, wake up. We need to talk to you.”

  Mallory woke with a start and skittered to the far side of the bed. Her long blonde hair tangled in disarray around her wide-eyed face. Her pale green sleep shirt hiked up her slender legs, making her seem so young and innocent. Jeff pushed through the regret coursing through him.

  “Come on out to the living room, Mallory,” Anna said, edging past Jeff in the doorway.

  He nodded when Mallory’s gaze flicked to his. “I think you’d better.”

  Mallory looked anxiously from Jeff to her mother, then she seemed to realize there was no choice and slithered off the bed. Running past Anna, she crouched on one of the living room chairs, pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging her legs. Jeff saw the look of dread that pinched her face.

  Anna sat on the arm of the chair and reached out to brush away the wisps of hair hanging in Mallory’s eyes. She took a visibly deep breath. “Have you been smoking pot?”

  Mallory nodded, silently, not looking at her mother. But she shot an accusing look at Jeff, which he caught.

  “Why, honey?” Anna asked her daughter. “Why would you do something completely unlike you when you’ve always had strong feelings against drugs?”

  Mallory shrugged, her body language radiating hostility.

  “You’ve got to talk to us sometime,” Anna reasoned. “How did you get started on it? Who gave it to you? Answer me.”

  “Terry.” Mallory huddled down deeper into herself.

  “I should have known.” Anna jumped up and paced back and forth in front of Mallory, who hid her face against her legs. “Why did you take it from her? You knew better.”

  Mallory shook her head, grinding her forehead into her knees. “I felt so awful after Dad died. It hurt and it hurt and it hurt. Terry told me pot made her feel better after her dad left, and she talked me into trying it. And she was right. For a while, it did make me feel better.”

  “What about when you came down from the high?” Jeff asked.

  “Then I’d smoke another one.” Defiance bloomed in scarlet splotches over Mallory’s pale cheeks as she glared at Jeff.

  “Did you ever try anything stronger?” he asked, pressing her.

  “A few times I got some pills and once I tried coke. Coke was awesome.”

  Anna stopped in the middle of the floor and swung around to face Mallory. “Cocaine? You used cocaine?”

  “Only once. It’s way expensive.”

  “If you could’ve afforded it, you’d have tried it again?”

  “I dunno. Maybe. It was just yesterday, actually.”

  “Merciful heavens,” Anna mumbled, collapsing on the edge of a chair.

  Jeff cringed. The fact that Mallory had escalated her use of drugs after talking with Cam last week about quitting said a lot about how deep her addiction went. His mouth was dry and he tried to swallow but felt like choking instead. He was more frightened for this poor girl than ever. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve to hide what he was feeling.

  Jeff walked over to stand in front of Mallory’s chair, his hands on his hips, and gave her a prolonged look. “How long did you figure you could get away with this sort of thing, especially since Cam knew?”

  “Cam ratted on me. I don’t ever want to see him again.”

  “Cam probably saved your life, you little fool. I asked you a question. How long did you expect to get away with this?”

  “Now you're beginning to act like a cop,” Mallory sneered, sitting up to give him a hateful glare.

  Jeff leaned over and slapped his hands on the arms of her chair, towering over her. “I am a cop. And you’re not about to forget it, because I told your mother I’m arresting you for possession of marijuana.”

  Mallory’s mouth fell open in shock, her eyes going round as saucers. “No, you can’t!”

  “I can and I’m going to. With your shoplifting stunt, you'll no doubt end up in juvie. The longer I stand here talking to you, the more convinced I am it’s the only way we have a chance of getting through to you.”

  “Please, Jeff. Don’t do this,” Anna pleaded, pulling on his arm. Mallory started to cry. “Mallory will stop. I know she will. Won’t you?” Anna turned to her daughter with hope in her eyes. Mallory nodded vigorously, tears streaming down her face. “See?” She tightened her hold on his arm.

  “She told Cam she didn’t think she could stop. I think we’ve got to force her to for her own good.” He pushed Anna’s hand away and headed for the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” Anna asked.

  “To find some evidence. And if I find anything, I’m taking her in.”

  “Wait,” cried Mallory. “There’s nothing there. When I found out Cam was coming over, I flushed everything down the toilet.” Her voice sounded terrified.

  Jeff hesitated a moment, then turned back to continue up the stairs.

  He heard Anna gasp behind him. “Don’t you believe her?”

  “Frankly? No.” He tossed the words over his shoulder. “An addict will lie like a horse thief to save his skin.” He kept going until he stood in Mallory’s bedroom.

  Anna ran after him. “She’s not an addict. How can you say that? And get out of there. Mallory said there’s nothing in her room and I believe her.”

  “I don’t.” He started pulling open drawers, and looked in them, under them, and around them. He went to the closet and started going through the contents, adept at knowing where and how to look.

  Anna tried to pull him away. “Get out of here, Jeff. I mean it.”

  “No. I have to do this,” he said, shaking her off. "If you insist, I'll get a warrant but I'll be back before you can contact your lawyer. You might as well just give me permission now because it's going to happen, one way or another."

  "All right. Go ahead. Do it now and get it over with."

  Standing in the middle of the mess accumulating on the floor, Anna watched, hands on hips, as he attacked the items on Mallory’s desk. "I may never speak to you after this incident."

  “I’ll have to take that chance.” Now as angry as she was, Jeff turned his attention to the bookshelf over her bed, leafing through the books and throwing them on the bed as he finished with them.

  Anna pivoted and fled, her heavy breathing audible from where he stood. He heard her stomp down the stairs to the front door. He imagined her leaning back against it, her arms crossed in front of her as she tried to work through her fury.

  He regretted having to do this to Anna and Mallory, but he knew from experience that the sooner an addict could get help, the better their chances for recovery. He also knew he was jeopardizing his chances with Anna, but right now her daughter needed his help and he could only hope Anna would understand that when she had time to think.

  Part of why he was doing this was because of the cop in him, but mainly it was because he loved Anna and her family so much he was willing to lose Anna if it meant helping Mallory. He'd faced many tough choices in his years on the force, but this one, above anything he'd ever had to do before, was the hardest of all
. His stomach churned so badly he was afraid he was going to vomit, but he kept going.

  Ten long minutes later, Jeff came out of the bedroom and stood, hands in pockets, facing Anna and her daughter. “It’s clean.”

  Mallory, visibly frightened, started to leap out of the chair to leave. Anna stopped her with a sharp, “Don’t even think about it.”

  Anna turned on Jeff. “She told you that you wouldn't find anything,” she snapped.

  “Only because your daughter dumped everything earlier.” His angry eyes targeted Mallory and trapped her, trembling, in her chair. “I won’t arrest you tonight because I can’t without some kind of hard evidence, but you listen to me.” He jabbed his finger at her for emphasis. “If I ever, ever even suspect you’re on something when I come here again, you’ll be down at the police station so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

  Anna’s next words made his blood run cold. “I don’t think you need to worry about him catching you here, Mallory. He won’t be coming back.”

  Jeff spun to face her, dismayed at the hardness in her eyes. The mother panther had roared. “You don’t mean that. You’re upset.”

  “I do mean it. Anyone who would arrest the daughter of the woman he claims to love must be a little sick. He can’t really know what love is.”

  “I’d arrest my own son if I thought it was the only way to keep him from killing himself. That’s love.”

  “Your distorted view of love, maybe. At the moment it’s making me ill to even look at you.”

  “It’s your thinking that’s distorted around her,” Jeff shouted, pointing at Mallory, whose head was swiveling back and forth as she watched them yell as if they were competing in the finals at Wimbledon. “I think you’re right. I ought to leave.”

  “Good. Good-bye.” Anna stepped away from the door and Jeff stalked through it without another word or glance at Anna. She slammed the door behind him.

  Chapter 16