Bleeding Darkness

by Brenda Chapman

  “Take a seat and a guard will bring Rose to you. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the guard is listening in on your conversation through the mic under the middle of table. I don’t expect any trouble, but you can signal the guard for assistance at any point. I’ll return in twenty minutes to take you back to the front desk. Remember, no touching.”

  Kala took a seat facing the guard and thought about the last time she’d seen Rose. It had been over a year ago in the rundown apartment where she and her twelve-year-old daughter Dawn were living. Kala had spent months tracking them down but the reunion hadn’t lasted long. A week later, Rose took Dawn and joined a new boyfriend to hold up a liquor store before fleeing into the west. The police picked them up in the prairies and Kala became Dawn’s guardian because there was nobody else. Rose had refused to see her or Dawn before or after sentencing … until now.

  She heard the door behind her open and waited as a guard escorted Rose to the seat across from her. Kala was surprised to see Rose dressed in regular clothes — a blue sweatshirt, jeans, and running shoes — having envisioned an orange jumpsuit as seen on television prison shows. Rose was skinnier than she remembered, her cheeks hollowed out and grey strands in her long black hair. She kept her eyes downcast, hands folded in her lap.

  “How are you doing?” Kala asked. She wanted to reach across the table and hug her friend, but knew she could not.

  Rose didn’t say anything for a few moments. She kept her head lowered but finally said, “Three squares a day. Who can complain?” She raised her eyes to look at Kala and for an instant, Kala saw the cocky grin that used to come so easily. It didn’t last long. “How’s my kid?”

  Anyone who didn’t know her would think that she didn’t care all that much, but Kala knew otherwise. “Dawn is good. Maybe I could bring her next time?”

  “No!” Rose shook her head and lowered her voice. “No, not here. I don’t want this place tainting her and I sure as hell don’t want her seeing me locked up.”

  “I think it would help her if she saw you. She misses you.”

  “Has she said that?”

  “Not in so many words, but she’s struggling, Rose. She’s keeping everything in. She sees a counsellor but hasn’t opened up.”

  “She is my kid. Tough to the end.”

  “Well, sometimes tough is just hiding a whole whack of hurt.”

  “I never said it wasn’t.” This time, Rose lifted her eyes and stared into Kala’s. “I need to ask you a favour.”

  “Name it.”

  “My ex, Dawn’s dad,” she spit out the word, “I heard that he got early parole but seems nobody thought to tell me. I need you to find out when he got released and track where he goes on the outside.”

  “If you told me his name, I’ve forgotten. What was he in for?”

  “Bastard’s name is Paul Dumont but the only one who still calls him Paulie is his mother. Everyone else calls him Fisher because it was all he ever wanted to do when he was a kid. Fish for pickerel or lake trout and he was good at it. Too bad he ever left the bush. Fisher got fifteen years for dealing drugs and B & Es in North Bay although I think the judge gave as long a sentence as he could because he assaulted a cop when they tried to arrest him. Last I heard he was in Millhaven.”

  “Okay. I’ll look into it. Anything else?”

  “Fisher’s bad news, Kala. Not the murder-your-sister kind of bad news, but he can’t hold a job and if there’s trouble anywhere to be found, he’s right smack in the middle of it. I need you to keep him away from Dawn.”

  Kala felt a coldness spreading through her. “Has he threatened to do something?”

  Rose dropped her eyes and stared at her hands. She spoke without emotion, as if she’d long ago given up on anything turning out in her favour. “Fisher doesn’t threaten. He sneaks up on you when you least expect him and robs you blind.” She raised her eyes to Kala’s. “The only thing I got worth stealing is Dawn. I need you to make sure he doesn’t get his hands on her.”

  chapter three

  Tristan opened the door for Vivian and helped her manoeuvre a pile of snow that had drifted onto the driveway. “Watch your step,” he said as he let go of her arm. “I’m not sure if your high-heeled boots were the best choice for this trip.”

  She laughed. “I’ve been wearing high-heeled boots since I turned thirteen, and that’s not going to change. Bring it on, winter.” She spread her arms wide and tilted her head to look at the sky before turning her face to smile at him. Her black hair curled over her shoulders and glistened with melting flakes.

  He watched her step her way carefully up the snowy path to the front door of his parents’ house before he hauled their suitcases out of the trunk. The snow had gotten heavier as they pulled into Kingston, a result of the lake effect. He was glad he didn’t live here anymore and wasn’t looking forward to the next few days. He’d promised Vivian they’d be back in Edmonton by the weekend, but really, the promise was for himself as much as her. She had no idea how much he hated this damn town and the memories. He’d always downplayed the worst of it.

  Her footsteps were filling in with snow already as he tromped up the path. He entered the front hallway and dropped the suitcases. Vivian was sitting in the chair, taking her boots off with Clemmie jumping up and down, pawing her leg. Adam was bent over the dog, trying to pull him off, apologizing and telling the dog to get down at the same time. Vivian yanked off her boot and opened her arms to let Clemmie into her lap. “It’s okay, Adam,” she said as the dog licked her chin. “Seems I haven’t lost my touch with animals.” They both turned to look at Tristan.

  “Hey,” Adam said and closed the space between them to give Tristan a hug. “Good to see you, although not the best circumstances.”

  “No, but we knew this day would come. I’m just sorry Dad won’t get to see his new grandchild.”

  “That’s right,” Adam said, letting go of him and turning to look at Vivian. “You’re what, four months along?”

  “Four months and two weeks, but who’s counting? I’m getting a little bump.” She rubbed her stomach through the fabric of her blue coat and smiled up at Adam.

  Tristan felt the familiar nugget of happiness in his chest, still finding it hard to believe that he was going to be a father. He’d almost given up waiting for Vivian to be ready for a child, but she’d surprised him with the news in October. He’d been ecstatic since she told him that the ultrasound two days earlier confirmed that they were having a boy. Looking at his wife now, even more beautiful in pregnancy than before, he wanted to hold on to this moment. He wanted to forget that he’d felt their marriage slipping away as late as the summer before and the jealousy that consumed his waking hours and disturbed his sleep. He asked, “Where’s Mom and Lauren? She texted me that she arrived last night.”

  Adam nodded. “Lauren got here yesterday late afternoon. The two of them are at the hospital and with any luck they aren’t fighting yet. I was on my way over when I heard you pull up.”

  Tristan said, “Viv wants to lie down for a bit, but I’ll be right behind you after I get these suitcases upstairs. My old room, I’m guessing?”

  “Yeah. Mom replaced your single bed with a double.”

  “Only a double?” Vivian frowned and set the dog on the floor before she stood up. She straightened the folds in her plaid skirt. “The way you flail around, Tristan, a king is barely large enough.” She paused. “I thought Mona and Simon would be coming with you, Adam?”

  “Mona called this morning and she’s booked a flight to Toronto for later this afternoon even though I asked her not to bother yet. Simon will stay with her sister. She’s renting a car and will be here around suppertime.”

  Tristan stopped with his foot on the first stair. “Is Dad that bad?”

  Adam nodded. “He hasn’t got much longer. Maybe a few days at the most. He keeps slipping in and out of consciousness.”

  “How’s Mom taking it?”

  “Stoically, of course. I
t’s how we roll, remember?”

  “There’s not a McKenna born who shows fear or pain.”

  “Although we’ve been known to drink away our worries,” said Adam. “Tristan, why don’t I wait and we can go to the hospital together?”

  “Yes, why don’t we go in one car?” Vivian asked.

  “I thought you wanted to lie down,” Tristan said, pausing with a suitcase in each hand.

  Vivian turned her luminous eyes on him. “If your father’s that close to the end, I should make an effort to see him now. Give me a few secs to freshen my face and I’ll be ready to go.”

  Tristan shrugged at Adam, letting him know that as far as women and decisions went, it was best not to question. Especially not when the woman was pregnant.

  David opened his eyes and turned to see out the wide rectangular window on his right side. The snowflakes were falling thick and fast and he licked his lips, trying to imagine the taste and the soothing cold on his skin. Would he experience such sensation on the other side? He’d know soon enough.

  “Your father’s awake.”

  Evelyn’s face came into focus. He shifted his gaze and Lauren’s face leaned in next to his wife’s. Lauren. He’d wanted to tell her something but his mind couldn’t corral the thought. He tried to move his mouth.

  “Get him some ice chips.” Evelyn’s voice. The tone she used with Lauren but not the boys. The books on raising kids had said not to show favourites, but Evelyn hadn’t gotten the message. His extra attention to their daughter to try to balance the scales had only thrown gas on the fire. Just one more regret on a long list.

  “How’re you doing, Dad?” Lauren rubbed the ice chips on his lips and he tried to smile.

  “Hanging … in.”

  He felt her hand on his forehead for a moment and then Evelyn manoeuvred Lauren a few steps back out of his line of sight. “The boys are coming by soon. I’m still checking with the doctor to see if I can bring you home now that I have so much help.”

  He managed to say, “That would be good.” Good, but not likely. He knew he was never leaving this bed except in a body bag. He was quite certain Evelyn knew it too. Her greatest strength had been twisting the truth to protect her version of the world. Not letting in any of the ugliness. Problem was that hiding from the truth had ruined them all.

  At the bottom of it, he knew that he was to blame. Would he make the same choices today? Would he stay silent about what he’d done?

  He closed his eyes and let himself float away.

  Zoe tucked in his sheet before she stretched out on the bed next to him. Her matted dark-brown hair trailed over the side of the bed and her eyes, the colour of walnuts, were wide open, watching him. Blood dripped from the gaping wound in her neck, staining the white blanket underneath her a shocking crimson. Her delicate hand slipped inside his large, rough one.

  “Am I dreaming or is this real?” he asked himself. This could not be real. He turned his face sideways and kissed the top of the girl’s head, which was snuggled against his chest.

  “No point coming back to haunt me for what I did after all this time,” he said. “I did what I did for a reason. What would be the point of laying blame?”

  He expected some sort of argument but got nothing from her. She lay still next to him, as deeply asleep as Lauren used to be when she was a baby and had drunk a bottle of warm milk. The girls had been inseparable friends from grade school on. Zoe petite and dark-haired, Lauren tall and slender with blond-streaked curls. How many times had he heard them giggling in Lauren’s bedroom or watched them walking arm in arm down the road?

  Lauren and Zoe. Zoe and Lauren.

  I loved you both

  As my own.

  Two little peas in a pod.

  Arms linked and faces shining

  Until death did you part.

  “I’m going to get some late lunch,” Lauren said. She’d had enough of walking on eggshells with her mother and could do with a smoke and a vodka tonic. Make that three vodka tonics.

  “Tristan will be here soon. Don’t you want to wait until you’ve seen him?”

  No mention of Vivian, as usual. “That’s okay. I’ll see them back at the house later today.”

  “Well, suit yourself.” Her mother’s face was wearing her tight, pinched look and Lauren waited for the other shoe. “You always do,” Evelyn added, her eyes spoiling for a fight.

  There was a time when Lauren would have engaged with her mother’s rebuke, but she knew the battle would end up a draw and leave her feeling lousy. She picked up her purse from the floor and stretched herself to full height. “See you later,” she said with fake gaiety. She beamed a smile even though the effort cost her.

  She took the elevator and found her car covered in a layer of snow at the back of the municipal parking lot where the snow had drifted. After swiping off the thick coating on the windshield with her arm and waiting for the car defroster to blast out hot air enough so she could see, she worked her way over to Princess Street and continued south toward the waterfront. The snow had tapered off to a light sprinkle but the roads were slick with ice and she drove slowly. She took a left on Wellington and was lucky enough to find a parking spot near the Iron Duke.

  She pushed open the door and took a stool at the bar in front of the long line of beer taps. She ordered a tall vodka with lots of tonic and ice, knowing she had to pace herself. The bartender set the drink on a coaster in front of her.

  “You look familiar,” he said.

  “I used to come here a long time ago.” She took a sip, deliberately keeping her eyes down, swirling the liquid in her glass as she set it back on the counter. She sensed he hadn’t moved and tried to think him away.

  “Lauren? Lauren McKenna?”

  She slowly raised her eyes. Stout. Grey stubble and kinky hair. It took a few seconds for her to place his eyes. When she did, she grinned. “Hey, Clint. How’ve you been?”

  “Well, you know. Trying to stay out of trouble. I started working here a couple of years ago. You were in Toronto last I heard.”

  “Still am. I’m home because my dad’s not doing well. He’s not expected to be with us much longer.”

  He frowned. “Sorry to hear that, Lauren. I always liked your old man.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  He moved away to talk to a waitress and returned to fill glasses from the beer taps. “Is Adam flying in?”

  “He’s here and Tristan and his wife Vivian are en route.”

  “Tristan got married?”

  She understood the surprise in his voice. Nobody could imagine her brother moving on after Zoe. To the rest of the world, her family’s lives had been frozen in that one horrific moment in time. In her case, they weren’t far wrong. “And they’re expecting their first baby.”

  “Wow.” The silence following his exclamation spoke volumes. “Is she from here?”

  “Edmonton. It’s where they’re living now.”

  “Well … good for him. Couldn’t have been easy.”

  Clint moved to the other end of the counter with some relief, Lauren imagined. She should have been used to the stilted conversations and awkward eye shifts as people searched for the right thing to say. Problem was, there was no right response when faced with a murderer’s family member. To be fair, Tristan hadn’t been charged with Zoe’s murder, but that didn’t stop anyone from believing he got off only from a lack of evidence. Hell, for a lot of years, she herself had half believed he’d done it.

  chapter four

  It was going on 9:30 when Lauren left the Duke and got into her car. She’d drunk the first three vodkas quickly and enjoyed the buzz while sipping on a fourth and fifth, chatting up the two men on the barstools next to her. The better-looking one had suggested she return with them to their hotel near the waterfront, and she’d considered it for all of half an hour. Before her cheeseburger arrived and the alcohol started to wear off. She’d lingered over two cups of coffee after they left and then been surprised to find h
ow long she’d spent in the pub. She certainly hadn’t set out to kill the entire afternoon and evening there.

  She looked around the darkened street at the layer of pristine white snow glistening on the sidewalks and roadway like spun sugar in the light from the streetlamps. Errant flakes drifted through the air in their lazy tumbles to earth. She’d missed supper and her mother would be pissed off, no doubt, but the thought of facing her family en masse over a meal had been more than she could bear this evening. Adam had called while she was still with her mother to say that Mona was flying in early. She’d be there by now, forming a tight unit with Vivian to make Lauren feel the outsider. Even now, with night firmly in place, she found herself reluctant to go home.

  She drove through the nearly empty streets toward the harbour and turned west on King Street, catching glimpses of the lake between buildings, the moon full with the stars pinpoints of light scattered in the blackness above. She drove the route on autopilot, skirting past Kingston General on her right where her father lay dying while driving parallel to the waterfront. At Portsmouth, she turned right and continued on past St. Lawrence College, crossing Bath Road and entering her own hood, the streets and trees as familiar to her as breathing even after all the years away. Instead of turning left and winding her way onto Grenville Crescent, the street where her parents lived, she kept going a few blocks more and turned right on Elmwood with another quick left onto Hillendale.

  Zoe’s house was halfway up on the right, a Victory white storey-and-a-half with red shutters and a sloped green roof. The siding looked greyer than she remembered and the shingles were blackened in places, much like on her parents’ house, but not much else had changed. Lauren slowed and drove to the end of the block where she made a U-turn in front of the aging apartment building and doubled back, sidling up next to the curb across from the Delgado house and turning off the engine and headlights. She sat for a moment, staring straight ahead and stilling her breathing.