The Blood of Seven

by Claire L. Fishback

  “You don’t need to be embarrassed,” Teresa said. “About last night, I mean.”

  “Oh . . . that.” He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at her mouth instead of her eyes. “I cleaned it up.”

  “Derrick.” She rose to her feet. He met her gaze. “Everything’s okay.”

  His brows lifted. One of them arched. An uttered huh? would have completed the picture. Teresa took tentative steps toward him and wrapped her arms around him. She gazed up at his chin.

  “Maybe we can try again tonight?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure.” He gave her a small squeeze. “I need to get back to my patient. Sorry.” He let go of her and left the room.

  Teresa frowned. He was just hungover. As far as she knew, he hadn’t drunk like that in at least a few years. She continued making calls until she had confirmed all ten appointments for the next day.

  Derrick escorted his patient past Teresa’s door. The bells clattered. He came back and stood in her doorway.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “All of your appointments are confirmed for tomorrow, Dr. Hart.” She smiled and gathered the appointment book and files into her arms. He followed her to the record room and helped her file the charts. She turned to head back to the front desk, but Derrick grabbed her arm. He pulled her into a hug. She melted against him.

  This. This was what she wanted. All this time. This version of them in which they supported each other and showed their love through actions.

  He lifted her chin with his fingertips. She winced and pulled back.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing. Sorry.” She lowered her face. There was a bruise on her chin from McMichael’s meaty hand.

  Derrick cradled her face in his palms and tilted her head back. “What happened to your chin?” He examined it with clinical eyes. She thought she’d covered it up well enough with concealer.

  “I slipped on some ice,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Biffed it good, as the kids say.”

  Do kids still say that?

  “I’m fine.” She touched his hands. He let go and looked into her eyes, concern etched around his mouth and eyebrows.

  “What is it?” Her voice came out small, uncertain.

  Derrick backed away. His hand went to the back of his neck and he turned to the door.

  “I don’t know, Teresa,” he said. His soft doctor voice disappeared. “After the kids at the cemetery, I thought maybe you got in a fight with an old man or something.”

  She sucked in a breath. He turned back toward her, a smile on his face. He let out a laugh. She relaxed. A joke. Funny.

  Derrick pulled her into a hug again and kissed her forehead. She could spend the rest of her life there. She lifted her face to his. His lips just touched hers when the bells on the front door jangled.

  “Gotta go,” he whispered. “But I’m not through with you.” He pecked her so light she wasn’t sure his lips even touched hers.

  Teresa composed herself and stepped out into the hallway. Derrick led Mrs. Grube toward an exam room. The old biddy was complaining about a pinching pain in her backside.

  At the reception desk, a stack of mail sat neglected. Teresa rifled through it. Junk mail and insurance checks. Using a knife-like letter opener, she sliced open the checks and set them to the side. She would deposit them for Derrick later.

  The community paper lay on the desk at the bottom of the pile. A four-page newsletter was clipped to the front.

  The Local Inquirer written by Brent Winter.

  Teresa scoffed. National Enquirer articles at a local level. Fun at the town’s expense.

  The front page featured a photo of Ann Logan talking to Sheriff McMichael outside Ruthie’s house. There was a second photo of her close up with her hand raised to block the camera. The story claimed Detective Logan, the catcher of the Salida Stabber, was assisting with a local “misper” investigation.

  Teresa scoffed, but couldn’t stop the pang of anxiety in her stomach. Ann Logan, the town’s beloved detective, was helping out. Of course, this was Brent Winter’s work. How credible was that? She swallowed the dryness from her throat and turned the page.

  The headline on the next page read: Local Woman Rants About the End of Days. Harmony at the Center of the Apocalypse!

  The article was accompanied by an image of Louise at the diner.

  She flipped through the rest and scanned the headlines and found an article about the correlation between the weather—days flip-flopping between snow and warm temps—and extraterrestrial activities. Another claimed the bad cell service in Harmony was part of a social experiment. She paid little attention to the content until she saw a picture of herself. Heat flushed to her cheeks. She gripped the envelope opener so hard it dug into her palm.

  Mrs. Hart lives in the abandoned funeral home . . .

  The image, though from a distance and through the trees, portrayed her coming out of the house looking over her shoulder. An article didn’t accompany the photo. She flipped through the pages and found nothing else. Just a photo with a silly caption. But still . . . If Derrick saw it—after the mud caked slippers—he’d send her back to Mountain View like he said he would.

  She remembered their strange conversation on the back porch and scowled. He was so night-and-day lately. One minute threatening her, the next pleasing her.

  Exam room one opened, and Derrick escorted Mrs. Grube out to her car. Teresa tore up the newspaper and threw it away.

  Derrick came back in, leaned on the front desk counter, and smiled at her. “Thanks for coming in,” he said. Warmth spread through her, and she actually felt herself blush. It was clinicals at Harvard Medical School all over again. “I’m really glad you made an effort.”

  Cold replaced the warmth. She struggled to maintain her smile.

  Made an effort.

  She dropped her smile.

  “What? What did I say?” Derrick asked. “I’m grateful you came in. Truly. Honestly.” He straightened and held up his hands as if in surrender. “What did I say?”

  She shook her head and tried to smile at him again, but her lips wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Tell me, Teresa. What is it?”

  “I have made an effort. The other night when you were out of town . . . Didn’t you see Maggie in our bed? I rescued her from a nightmare. I slept in the chair, so she could have our bed. I took care of her. I fed her pizza. You act like I did nothing.”

  He dropped his head back and sighed. “Teresa, please.”

  “No, Derrick. Don’t you see? You do this to me on purpose. You make me feel like an outsider.”

  “This again?” Exasperation filled his voice.

  “Yes, this again. I just want to be included. I want to be part of our family, and you deny me that.”

  “Deny you?” He let out a sharp laugh. “You denied yourself. Every time you escaped to your messed up little basement you denied yourself. Every time you chose not to come with us to do something you denied yourself. Every time you declined our invitations, you denied yourself. Maggie just wants—”

  “Don’t you bring her into this.”

  “She’s part of this family now. You agreed to adopting her. You have to accept her,” he said.

  “I don’t have to do anything.” Teresa came around the counter.

  “Stop it,” Derrick snapped.

  “No, I won’t stop it.” She took in a breath. “I won’t stop until you understand how I’m feeling. I thought we had a connection last night. I was willing to let it go that you threw up on the rug. I was willing to let that go because I thought we were getting better. I thought things were changing.”

  A cruel laugh seeped from his lips, accompanied by a hateful sneer.

  “You think an attempted roll in the hay is going to magically change the last seven years?”

  His words cut her. She stepped back.

  “I . . .” Teresa resisted the urge to go back to her usual poor-me phrases, the ones s
he used to turn their arguments around. She wanted to face this head on.

  “What can I do, then?” she asked, lifting her trembling chin.

  Derrick’s sneer dropped from his face. He probably expected the same words she forced herself to swallow.

  “I want to make you happy,” she said. “I want us to be happy again.” She took a step toward him and reached for him. He crossed his arms.

  “Dammit, Derrick. I’m trying here.” She stomped her foot. “Say something, please.”

  He met her eyes. “You’ve been acting weird, Teresa. You must be having some sort of imbalance in your brain. You’re acting—”

  “Acting what?” She stepped toward him so fast he stumbled back and fell into one of the waiting room chairs. “Crazy? Is that what you were going to say?”

  “I—”

  “Go ahead. Call them. Call the doctors. Call Mountain View.” She stormed away, flung her hands in the air, and turned her back on him. Derrick shifted. Teresa whirled around and charged in one movement. She tried to push him back into the chair, but this time he didn’t budge.

  “Put me back in,” she said, hitting his chest with flat palms. He raised his arms to block her, but she kept pummeling him.

  With each hit, he flinched. “Stop!”

  “Get rid of me. I know that’s what you want.” Her voice became shrill and screechy. “You . . . and Maggie—you don’t need me.” She raised her hands, fisted now, to strike his face.

  He grabbed her wrists and squeezed so hard her fisted hands went limp. His nostrils flared. The muscle of his jaw clenched. She twisted and wrenched, and in the process, rubbed the skin until it burned. But she couldn’t break free from his grip.

  So different than how he had held her wrists the night before.

  “Derrick,” she cried. “You’re hurting me.”

  At the sound of her pained voice, his eyes widened, and his mouth opened slightly. He pulled her against him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a demanding tone. “You were going to punch me.”

  Teresa didn’t respond. Her arms were pinned against his chest. The skin throbbed.

  When Derrick caught his breath, he swallowed hard. His voice became low and soothing.

  “You need to get back on something. Your mood swings are out of control. I’m writing you a prescription.”

  She shoved away from him and backed out of his reach.

  “I can’t fill that here.” The words burst from her mouth. “I can’t. They’ll spread rumors. The town will know.” Her lower lip trembled. “They’ll think I’m crazy.”

  His features shifted, but not in understanding—in pity. He left her in the waiting room and walked down the hall.

  “You are crazy,” she thought she heard him mutter. He disappeared into his office.

  She touched the red marks on her wrist gingerly. Her heart shattered. They wouldn’t recover from this. She was better off at Mountain View, drugged up and oblivious.

  But who would save Tiffany? Who would bring her back to them?

  The entire walk home she struggled to keep herself together. Tears stung her nose and her eyes, but she kept it in until she closed the front door behind her. She sank to the ground, taking ragged breaths and blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay.

  The phone rang. Teresa ignored it. When it stopped ringing, she rose to her feet and shuffled to the kitchen. She stared at the phone for a minute before picking it up and dialing her mother for the second time in as many days.

  “Teresa, darling,” her mother’s voice said. Teresa broke down. Thick, guttural sobs erupted from her throat. She slid down to the floor and dropped her face into her hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “H–he hurt me. He left marks on my wrists.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  Teresa got up and paced the kitchen. Sink to hallway and back.

  “You realize this is twice in one week you’ve upset your husband. Do I need to go over the rules with you again?”

  Teresa shook her head and then nodded. “Yes. Please.”

  “From the beginning. Follow along.”

  Teresa wiped a fat teardrop from her cheek and took a deep breath. Together they went through the lessons she’d learned many times over.

  “Graduate high school, get married, have children.” Her mother paused. “What did you do that wasn’t in this list?”

  “I went . . . to college,” Teresa whispered.

  “Yes. You did. As a result, your first-born child was punished.” Her mother’s voice darkened. “You didn’t follow the rules.”

  Renewed tears welled in Teresa’s eyes.

  “But,” her mother’s voice took on a happy tone again. “God has forgiven you because in your time of desperate need you turned back to Him.”

  Teresa let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The anger and hurt welling in her chest released along with the exhalation.

  “Now, tell me. What is your husband’s duty?”

  “His duty is to provide for our family.”

  “And your duty?”

  “To make sure that is all he needs to worry about.”

  “Very good, dear.” Her mother made kissing sounds into the phone and hung up. Teresa replaced the receiver and went into the bathroom.

  The sight in the mirror was frightful. Mascara streaked down her cheeks, muddled with the foundation and rouge, and made a sloppy mess of everything. She looked like a drowned clown.

  “Be a good wife,” she told her horrifying reflection. “ ‘Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives shall submit to their husbands in everything,’ ” she whispered. Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks.

  Chapter 31

  Ann snatched the lid of her dad’s lockbox open and pawed through it before realizing she needed a more methodological approach. She didn’t know what she was looking for, after all, and needed to slow down.

  Her high school graduation picture sat right on top. She wore the maroon robe and mortarboard with a gold tassel. Harmony High’s colors. The next day she had left her life in the tiny town behind her—Derrick, her dad, a future of small-town mundanity—and enrolled in the Denver Police Academy. She moved the picture aside.

  Next was a small envelope with the RSVP card for her academy graduation. Her dad had checked yes, but he’d never mailed the card. He also didn’t attend.

  Under the card were three Lufthansa ticket stubs for flights to Egypt. One of them was dated the day before her academy graduation. A tingle prickled across her scalp.

  Three trips to Egypt.

  Four.

  The stub for his final trip wouldn’t be in this box. She put them aside.

  There were three items left. All were folded sheets of paper. The first one was a grid full of letters. A standard tabula recta he probably used to solve the puzzles in the paper. The second was folded in fourths and proved to be the introductory page of an application for an adoption home study. The organization listed at the top was The Protectorate. Their tagline—“Protecting the needs of children everywhere”—appeared beneath their logo.

  Ann narrowed her eyes. An adoption agency? Raghib said they were some kind of organization of assassins or something. Not an adoption agency. Even so, why would her dad have an application for an adoption home study? She turned to the last item. The smaller paper was folded in half. Ann unfolded it to reveal a list of names in her dad’s handwriting. Some were crossed out. Ann only recognized the first name.

  Louise Marga. Louise’s name had a question mark next to it. Ann stuffed everything back into the box and shut the lid.

  Behind her on top of a filing cabinet, four handheld radios sat in their chargers. She grabbed two of them and turned them on.

  “I need to take care of something,” she said to George. She handed him one of the radios. “I’m guessing these have a long range?”

  He nodded. “We can chat from opposite ends of town on these puppies.”

  “Good. If anything
comes up, call me.” She grabbed her coat and headed out into the chilly late-afternoon.

  * * *

  Ann drove the station vehicle to Louise’s. She took the porch steps two at a time and knocked on the door. Inside, cats wailed.

  Louise opened up after Ann’s third set of pounding knocks, a little out of breath. Her long hair was up in a bun, but a few strands hung in her face, and a sheen of sweat dampened her forehead.

  “Ann,” Louise said with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “Last time I was here you said to come back,” Ann said with a smile. “Here I am.”

  “You really ought to call first. Common courtesy and all.” Louise opened the door a little further.

  Ann stepped inside. A couple of cats scattered. The little house was meat-falling-off-the-bone hot. That would explain the sweat. She unzipped her jacket.

  “Tea?” Louise closed the door softly behind her.

  “No, thanks.” Ann didn’t want a cup of eau de Louise. Louise put the kettle on anyway. Old ladies and their tea. Ann took off her jacket and glanced around. Muffled music still played behind the bolted door at the entrance to the hallway, and a seemingly different handful of cats lounged around the immediate area.

  “Take a seat.” Louise motioned to the little table in the kitchen.

  Ann moved toward the chair, tugging at the buttons on her shirt. “You torturing Eskimos in here?”

  Louise’s eyebrows shot up. “Torture? Torturing? Oh.” She laughed. “A joke. Funny.” She moved to a wood stove in the corner of the choked living room and opened the hatch. “I haven’t used this thing in years. I forgot it put out so much heat. The furnace is broken. Damn rats.” She jabbed at the glowing logs with a poker.

  Ann scanned the adjoining room before taking a seat at the table, taking note of how many cats were in there.

  “You have a rat problem with all these cats?”

  Louise laughed. “They’re worthless. Completely and totally domesticated. They couldn’t even catch flies if they had honey.” Louise closed the stove and returned to the sink. “So very nice to see you again, dear, but I really wish you would have called. I was in the middle of something.”