Covet (Splendor Book 1)

by Janet Nissenson

  So they would move again, packing up the few clothes and household goods they owned, and start over again in another city in the Southwest – Santa Fe, Yuma, Sedona, El Paso. Gillian loved the desert, loved the dry, hot climate, and insisted she never wanted to live anywhere else. She had never stopped to think how difficult each move was on her child, how hard the already shy and introverted Tessa had to struggle to fit in at each new school.

  And as Tessa grew older and more observant, she began to realize that it wasn’t just creative reasons that prompted her mother to move them around so frequently – especially over the past few years when Gillian barely wrote at all. More often than not the reasons they would just pick up and get out of town were because Gillian owed money to someone and didn’t have the cash to pay them back. Or because she was suddenly anxious to get away from a boyfriend who’d become a little too demanding. And there had even been a few times when a social worker had started nosing around, usually after Gillian and Tessa had spent some time living in a homeless shelter.

  Tessa hated to think about those times – the days and weeks when they had had no recourse but to stay in a shelter. Those stays had more often than not occurred when Gillian had been in a downward spiral, stuck in one of her depressive phases, and hadn’t been able to work. Tessa had been wary and intimidated by some of the other shelter occupants, and had stuck to her mother’s side like glue, even though Gillian hadn’t been in any condition to offer her much protection or reassurance.

  Social workers and outreach volunteers had always seemed to be present at the shelters, interviewing occupants and doing what they could to get them into permanent housing and finding other services for them. It had been rather obvious that Gillian was in dire need of a mental health professional, and wasn’t in any shape to take proper care of Tessa. There had been talk of placing her in foster care while Gillian sought treatment, and Tessa had been terrified that she would be separated from her beloved mother and never see her again. She’d also overheard nightmarish stories from other shelter occupants about what had happened to their own children during their time in foster care – everything from molestation to physical abuse to neglect – and Tessa had begged her mother to get better so that she wouldn’t be subjected to such horrors.

  Somehow or other, she’d managed to avoid being placed into foster care over the years, and now that she was old enough to hold down a part-time job and had learned by trial and error how to manage their little household, Tessa vowed silently that she would find a way to continue taking care of herself and Gillian.

  When your mother would slip into a depressive state without warning for days and weeks at a time, you learned quickly – even as a six year old – how to feed and dress yourself and get to and from school each day. By the age of eight Tessa had learned how to do the laundry, was taking out the trash, and washing the dishes. At twelve, she’d figured out how to write a check so that the rent on whatever apartment or room they were living in wasn’t late again and they weren’t threatened with eviction. By fourteen she’d more or less taken over all of the day to day chores, paid the bills, did the grocery shopping, and tried – mostly in vain – to get Gillian to take her meds. Now at the age of sixteen she was more parent than child, fully responsible for a mother who’d suffered from severe bipolar disorder ever since Tessa could remember, all while going to school and working two part-time jobs.

  But she didn’t mind – not really – even though so much responsibility meant that she wasn’t free to enjoy all of the normal things teenagers experienced. Like dating, or going to high school football games and dances, or simply spending time chatting on the phone or texting her girlfriends – girlfriends that didn’t actually exist. Tessa was too busy to find time to cultivate relationships – not to mention still incredibly shy – and she was always cautious about letting people find out too much about her personal life.

  She was always one of the first to arrive at school, and the little Toyota compact was one of only a dozen or so cars parked in the student lot. The ten year old car had been a gift of sorts to Gillian a few years back from a boyfriend she and Tessa had lived with for several months. Gillian had once been quite successful at wheedling things from men – clothes, jewelry, money, apartments. She had been not just extraordinarily beautiful but charming, flirtatious, and fun-loving, a combination that most men had found irresistible. But when a manic phase had really taken hold, she’d often been out of control, and the men she’d met had been unable to deal with her wildness, deeming her crazy and suddenly keeping their distance. And that had usually been when she would pack up her things, grab Tessa, and hightail it out of town.

  The hallways were largely empty when Tessa entered the school building, as was the cafeteria. Very few of the students ate breakfast here, the vast majority of them coming from well-to-do families who didn’t have to rely on their children receiving reduced cost meals from the school district. For Tessa, however, the supplemental meals were a godsend, even if some of the menu items didn’t always look particularly appetizing.

  She hurried through her breakfast – French toast with yogurt and fruit – before pulling out her geometry book to cram a final few minutes of studying. Fortunately, the unsettled feeling she’d woken up with seemed to have settled down, and she hoped that her superstition about Wednesdays would prove to be unfounded this time around.

  Tessa kept her head down and didn’t make eye contact with any of the other students as she made her way to geometry, her first class of the day. She had become adept at making herself as invisible as possible over the years, figuring that if she didn’t draw attention to herself no one would delve deeper into her private life and thus determine that Gillian wasn’t in any condition to raise a teenager. Tessa made sure she was at school every day, always on time, and that she never cut class. She was diligent about turning in her homework, keeping quiet in class, and generally flying under the radar. Kids like her who stayed out of trouble weren’t the ones who normally got called to the principal’s office, or gave teachers or counselors cause to start poking around into their personal business. And it was more important than ever, given Gillian’s rapid descent into total darkness, that no one – students, teachers, social workers – ever suspected how bad things were for Tessa at home these days.

  She was startled, therefore, when Logan Dunbar – the really cute guy she’d admittedly had a secret little crush on since the first day of school this year – sat down at the desk to her right and grinned at her broadly.

  “Hi, Tessa,” he greeted. “Ready for the test?”

  Tessa could only gape at him for long seconds, startled that he even knew her name, and even more so that he seemed to be going out of his way to speak to her. Not only was Logan a hunk – tall and rangy with longish dirty blond hair and mischievous green eyes – but he was definitely one of the most popular guys in their junior class. He played on one of the sports teams – football or maybe soccer, she wasn’t exactly sure – and always seemed to be surrounded by a group of both guys and girls, of which he was the undisputed leader.

  Aware that he was gazing at her expectantly, Tessa felt her cheeks grow hot and she mumbled almost incoherently, “Um, I, uh, think so. I hope it isn’t going to be too hard.”

  Logan winked at her. “I doubt it. At least, not like the last one. Man, I sweated bullets taking that test, thought for sure I was going to flunk it.”

  Tessa struggled mightily to dream up a witty reply, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth at the moment so she only smiled in return. Logan’s twinkling green eyes roved over her curly blonde hair and flushed cheeks, before dropping to the swell of her breasts beneath her thin cotton T-shirt. When he lifted his gaze back up to her face, his eyes had darkened noticeably.

  “Hey, tell you what,” he offered. “If we both survive today’s test, we should celebrate a little. You want to go out with me this Friday night to the movies?”

  Now she was completely flabbe
rgasted, and looked around in disbelief to make sure Logan wasn’t trying to prank her around his friends. But no one else was paying the slightest bit of attention to either of them, so she knew he was being serious.

  “F-Friday?” she stammered. “Um, I’ve got to work on Friday. I don’t get off until eight.”

  Logan shrugged. “That’s not so late. We could catch a movie at nine or even ten. How about it?”

  Tessa bit her bottom lip uncertainly. Normally she dashed home right after work to check on Gillian, to make sure she was okay after having been left alone all day. But maybe – just maybe – her mother might be able to rouse herself for once so that Tessa could have a bit of fun. She’d talk to Gillian tonight – or at least try to – and keep her fingers crossed.

  “Maybe,” hedged Tessa. “I – that is, my mom hasn’t been feeling very well for the last couple of months so I don’t like to leave her alone at night. But, um, let me talk to her tonight, okay? Can I let you know tomorrow?”

  Logan was grinning again, the twinkle back in his green eyes. “Sure, no problem. I’ll get your phone number then, too, okay? Looks like class is getting ready to start now.”

  Tessa had to force herself more than usual to concentrate on the geometry test, given her near-giddiness at having just been asked out on a date by the Logan Dunbar. She kept fighting off the urge to steal a sideways glance at him, knowing how vital it was that she did a decent job on this exam.

  Fortunately, the exam was definitely easier than the dreadful one she’d received a D on two weeks ago, and she felt marginally confident that she would score at least a little higher on this one. She finished the test with a few minutes to spare, and was able to go back and re-check her answers, satisfied that all of the studying she’d crammed in had helped.

  And when the test had been turned in and the class dismissed, she couldn’t help but think that the unsettled feeling she’d woken up with this morning had all been for nothing. The day, it seemed, was definitely looking up. After all, the dreaded geometry test hadn’t been anywhere near as awful as she’d feared, and the guy she’d been crushing on for two months had not only noticed her but asked her out on a date. In her P.E. class fourth period, it turned out to be swim day, her favorite sport. And the cafeteria even managed to serve a decent lunch today – chicken chow Mein with vegetables.

  But what Tessa didn’t realize, as she sailed through the afternoon in higher spirits than she’d been in for weeks, was that this particular Wednesday was far from over.

  Chapter Two

  “Ready to head home, Tessa?”

  Tessa glanced up and smiled at her co-worker Peter Lockwood. “Just need to grab my bag from the locker and I’ll be ready.”

  For the past few months she and Peter had had something of an unspoken agreement to walk out to the parking lot together when their shifts were finished for the night. It made Tessa feel more secure, even though she was always careful to park in a busy, well-lit area of the mall.

  They rarely spoke during the short walk from the Old Navy store where they both worked to the parking lot. After the first few times he’d rather casually walked out with her, Peter had begun to park his own car as close to hers as possible. For a time, Tessa had wondered if the quiet, introverted Peter liked her, and was trying to work up the nerve to ask her out. But now, more than five months after she’d begun working at the store, Peter had never once indicated that he had any sort of romantic interest in her, and they had yet to have what Tessa would deem a real conversation.

  Peter worked the same shift as she did – four to eight, Monday through Friday – and mostly worked back in the stock room unpacking and sorting merchandise, while Tessa was a cashier. They would nod and say hello in passing, and occasionally make polite conversation, but she sensed that he was even shyer than she was, even more of a loner, and he seemed very content to keep to himself as much as possible.

  But she was grateful for his nightly escort out to her car, though she doubted Peter’s slight frame would intimidate any would-be muggers. He was around the same height as she was, maybe even an inch shorter, and as lean as a greyhound. She’d never seen him wear anything but baggy jeans, simple T-shirts, and a pair of high-top Converse sneakers. He had shaggy light brown hair, almost long enough to brush his collarbone, and a small gold hoop in his left earlobe. Some of the other employees thought him weird, or kind of geeky, but to Tessa he’d always been kind and she felt something of a kinship with him, understanding his aloofness and obvious difficulty in making friends.

  “Well, here we are again. Drive safely, okay?”

  She nodded as she unlocked the door to her car. “You, too. Have a good one.”

  They said virtually the same thing to each other every night, and Tessa noticed that Peter always waited until she was safely buckled inside before he got into his own car. As she drove off, she wondered idly where he lived or went to school, knowing that she’d never seen him in her own neighborhood or around campus. She knew that he was a year older than she was, and was due to graduate high school next year, but that was just about all she knew.

  Her tummy began to rumble with hunger pains as she drove, and she reached into her backpack, rummaging around until her hand closed over a protein bar. At a traffic light she tore open the wrapper and took a bite. Usually she tried to eat a small snack after school before her shift at the store began, but she’d stayed at school longer than usual to finish up a homework assignment in the computer lab. She had lost a few pounds over the past couple of months, largely due to the stress of taking care of her mother and the apartment, all while working two jobs and trying to keep her grades up.

  But when just over a mile remained until she arrived home, the rumbling in her tummy only increased, despite the bar she’d just consumed. And this time Tessa knew the unsettled feeling had nothing to do with hunger. Rather, it was that all too familiar sensation of dread, the fear that something bad was about to happen. She had just about convinced herself that she’d been imagining things this morning, especially since the day had gone so well overall.

  And then, as she turned the corner onto her street, it became all too apparent why she’d been right all along to have a very, very bad feeling about this day.

  Even through her closed up car windows she could smell the acrid, pungent odor of smoke, could still see ribbons of the ugly black stuff spiraling into the night sky from what had been the apartment complex. Wooden barricades that had been hastily put in place, plus a variety of emergency vehicles, prevented her from driving any further down the block, and she quickly pulled into a parking space before sprinting from her car towards the disordered scene.

  It was like something out of a nightmare, she thought wildly, or some sort of disaster movie. Firefighters were still spraying water over the smoldering flames, though it appeared that the fire had more or less burnt itself out by now. What had been a twenty four unit apartment building had been burned to the very foundation, and from first glance it didn’t appear as though a single stick of furniture had survived the blaze. A variety of other emergency responders – police, paramedics, additional firefighters – were milling about the scene, trying valiantly to prevent anyone who wasn’t authorized from crossing the barricades. Amid the chaos, Tessa also noticed a couple of news crews and a large red and white vehicle with the Red Cross emblem emblazoned on its side.

  Wildly, she looked around for her mother, recognizing some of the other tenants as well as the apartment manager among those wandering about the scene. It was the latter to whom Tessa made a beeline, figuring that Mr. Sharma would surely have some idea of where Gillian might be. But when she saw the expression on his kindly face as she approached, her heart began to sink with each step she took. She had initially worried that the paramedics on scene would have taken one look at Gillian’s state of mind and immediately had her whisked off to the hospital for a psychological evaluation. But now, from the look on Mr. Sharma’s face, her worry quickly morphed into f
ull blown panic.

  The wizened little Indian man placed a comforting hand on Tessa’s shoulder as he shook his head sadly. “Tessa, I am so sorry. Such a terrible, terrible tragedy this all is. It happened so quickly, spread so fast, that it’s a wonder more of the tenants didn’t get hurt.”

  Tessa felt tears well in her eyes, and her legs began to tremble as she fought off a rapidly rising sense of panic. “Mr. Sharma, where – where is my mother? Did they take her somewhere? Can someone help me find her?”

  Mr. Sharma opened his mouth to speak, then gave a brief shake of his head. “Better that you speak to the policeman over there. He’s been looking for you, and can give you the information you need.” He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. “I am so sorry, my dear.”

  But as she would have pushed him for more information, he turned to speak to one of the firefighters, leaving Tessa no other recourse but to approach the uniformed police officer that Mr. Sharma had pointed out.

  “Ex-excuse me,” she began haltingly as the youngish, dark haired officer glanced up from the clipboard he’d been studying. She was relieved to notice the kind, compassionate expression on his face. “I, um, was told to ask you about my mother. By Mr. Sharma, that is. The apartment manager.”

  The policeman nodded. “Right. Would you possibly be Tessa Pedersen? From Apartment 3H?”

  “Yes, that’s me. I – I just got home from work, and I’m trying to find my mother. Her name’s Gillian Pedersen. Do you know where she might be?” asked Tessa, not even trying to disguise the panic in her voice.

  The young officer hesitated, glancing around the hectic scene uncertainly. “Uh, was there anyone else living in the apartment besides yourself and your mother? Or do you have another family member you can call?”

  She shook her head. “No, to both questions. Only the two of us in the apartment, and no other family. We just moved here in the spring.”