by Ninie Hammon
Bailey ached to see her face clearly.
Finally, Bethany peeked out through her own hair in her face. Just peeked at Bailey, then buried her face again.
Meanwhile, María kept up a non-stop narrative about how everything was fine, that Bethany was fine, that Mommy was fine that nobody was going to hurt her.
Bailey didn’t listen to the words. Because some of them cut to the bone.
What had she expected? In truth, what had she wanted? Had she wanted the little girl to pine away for her “real” mommy, to miss her every day, to love her and never forget her and long for her return?
Of course not. She had wanted her little girl to be happy.
Which meant, of course, that she would come to think of María as her mother. Bailey had always known and accepted that. Okay, she had known it, but some part of her had never accepted it and never would.
Some selfish, self-absorbed part of her had wanted Bethany to miss her and yearn for her mommy.
Clearly, she had not. She had bonded to María, and that was good, it really was — admit it, that was the very best outcome imaginable.
Bethany had a mommy who loved her and she loved her mommy.
It was just that Bailey wasn’t that mommy.
“How would you like a glass of orange juice?” María asked.
Bethany nodded her head, which was only discernible because her black curls bounced.
María looked at Bailey.
“It’s in a bottle in the refrigerator. Would you …?”
“Sure.” Bailey leapt to her feet, crossed the room, rooted around in the cabinets until she found a glass, took the orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured it into the glass. She’d only taken a few steps back into the room when María told her.
“Not that glass. She can’t hold that — it’s too big. One of the small plastic ones on the lower shelf.”
Well, duh … a big heavy glass.
So much she didn’t know. So much … so much.
If she let it, she would be overwhelmed by how much.
She got the orange juice in the right glass, went back into the room, knelt in front of where María cradled the little girl and held it out to her.
Bethany looked at the class, shot Bailey a glance, shook her head violently and buried her face back in María’s shoulder.
María took the glass from Bailey’s outstretched hand.
“Here, sweetheart. It’s the kind with pulp, you know, hunks of oranges in it the way you like it.”
Bethany instantly sat up. She used the back of her hand to wipe the tears off her cheeks and then held out both hands and took the plastic glass.
Of course the other glass was too big. What was Bailey thinking?
She took a big drink.
“S’good, Mommy. The orange chunks tickle my tongue.”
Bailey’s heart almost burst out of her chest in love and longing.
But she grabbed her emotions in an iron grip.
She stepped to the couch, on the other side of María, not beside Bethany, and sat down.
“I like pulpy orange juice, too.” She spoke to María, seemed to ignore Bethany. “What kind do you get?”
“Huber Farms. I liked Sun Gold better, but they don’t carry it at the Super Save store where I shop now. This is the best I can do. Bethany, honey, hop down out of my lap so I can get a glass of orange juice.”
“I wanna sit wif you.”
“Fine, you can sit with me on the couch as soon as I get some orange juice.”
María peeled the little girl out of her lap, set her on the floor, got up and started toward the kitchen. Bethany leapt to her feet and cried “Mommy!” while following on her heels, casting a fearful look over her shoulder at Bailey as she left the room.
Bailey had to get a grip, had to … Oh there was so much, so much. With Bethany, she had to get from here, which was roughly, “Don’t get near me, Scary Stranger, or I’ll cry” to “Okay, I’ll sit in the same room with you if you don’t touch me.”
At least that far.
With María, she had to get from “My sister I thought was dead is alive and I don’t even know how to think about that” to “Sure, I’ll drop my life, quit my job” — did she have a job? — “and run because if I don’t a psychopath will kill me.”
And she had to cross all that distance now. Right now. There was a Nutcracker clock counting down — tick, tick, tick.
T.J.’s phone rang and caller ID identified Dobbs.
“You lonely?”
“Of course not. These two dogs are better company than you ever were. What’s going on?”
Dobbs hadn’t wanted to stay behind, probably felt a little guilty about “wimping out” on the rest of them.
“Me and Brice is sitting out here in the car waiting and Bailey’s been in there with her sister for more than an hour now. Far as I can tell from here, the roof ain’t blown off the building yet, so there’s that.”
“I just heard from Al Zankoski.”
That was a non sequitur. Zankoski was a thorough investigator who didn’t let complications like “private information” and “sealed records” and such stand in the way of him finding out whatever tidbit of information he’d been hired to collect. He wasn’t cheap, but he had located María’s address with so little effort he hadn’t even charged Dobbs for the information. But what else—?
Dobbs answered the question before T.J. had a chance to ask.
“I asked him to see if he could locate one Sergei Wassily Mikhailov.”
“You what?”
Brice looked up, surprised, at T.J.’s explosive response.
“Why would you do a danged fool thing like—?”
“Don’t get your panties all in a wad. I just told Al to see if he could find the man. Not invite him to join the Rotary Club.”
“Why?”
“What’s the harm?”
“Harm? You’re joking, right? If he finds out Bailey’s—”
“The feds told Bailey they’d find Mikhailov, that they were ‘all over it.’ That was four days ago. Maybe it’s just me, but that seemed like an awful long time — I was afraid he’d bailed again, gone back to Russia.”
“Did he?”
“Nope. Mikhailov is in Boston. At least he was two days ago. It wasn’t like he was in hiding or anything, either. Al said his operative saw the guy on Saturday, eating lunch with a group of people in that restaurant Bailey mentioned, Little Moscow. Right out in plain sight.”
“If Zankoski could find him, why couldn’t the feds?”
“I think that’s a question somebody needs to be asking.”
“At least he ain’t been spooked, ain’t got no idea they’s a lion on the tall grass ready to pounce.”
“That lion had better pounce quick. This guy stays on the move, a high-stakes gambler who goes all over the world chasing a game.”
“Which explains the Nautilus.” T.J. turned from the phone and spoke to Brice. “You’s right about them private rooms where Mr. W. Maxwell Crenshaw charges a couple hundred grand for a seat at the table.”
“As usual, this was a quick update,” Dobbs said, “with a full report to follow. I’ll send it to you when I get it.”
Dobbs hung up and T.J. told Brice what he’d said.
“The federal marshal needs to know what Bailey’s up to. He needs to know that his star witness … his only witness—”
“We done been all through this. We here to keep that painting of Bailey’s sister from coming true. Ain’t no way to explain a thing like that to the law.”
“I’d bet your pension—”
“Why’s ever’body always so willin’ to wager my pension—?”
“I’m betting there’s a reason why Marshal Jordan hasn’t busted the guy. If he’s not even hiding, then why—?”
“That there’s the good news. Means he don’t suspect nothing. We got time to swoop in here, grab María and Bethany and get them back to West Virginia. Then we don’t
have to tell that marshal what we doin’. We can tell him what we already done.”
“And find out why he’s dragging his feet.”
With his phone still in his hand, T.J. sent Bailey a text.
Chapter Nineteen
When María returned to the living room from the kitchen, she carried Bethany on her hip and a glass of orange juice in her other hand. She didn’t sit down on the couch, but in a recliner chair opposite it, so she was facing where Bailey still sat in the floor.
She had to let Bethany slide to the floor as she sat, but the child never let go of María. The moment she sat, Bethany climbed back up into her lap and looked at Bailey as if she thought Bailey might bite her.
The look broke Bailey’s heart.
There was a beat of silence, then they both spoke at the same time.
“Bailey, I—”
“María, I—”
They stopped, and Bailey grabbed the conversational ball and headed downfield with it.
“María, honey, I know this has to be hard for you.”
“Hard?”
Obviously, the word fell woefully short of what it had been meant to describe.
“And I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. But it’s not my fault. I didn’t ask to watch a monster shoot Aaron down in the street.”
Bailey hadn’t realized she would choke on the words, but they were full of such anguish she could barely get them out. Clearly, her distress also upset Bethany. She cringed back into María’s lap.
“Bailey, I don’t think we ought to talk about—”
“I don’t either. I don’t want to. But we have to because you have to understand what’s happening.”
“Okay, I get it. The police or law or marshals or whatever kept you away, wouldn’t let you come back, made you pretend you were dead, I get that part.”
“Good, then—”
“But you don’t get that walking in here like this … poof, ‘here I am.’” She looked down at Bethany possessively and the child snuggled closer in response. “We, Bethany and I … we need to sort all this out, we need some time to—”
“That’s just it. There isn’t any time. There’s a madman out there named Mikhailov who shot Bethany’s daddy and would gladly kill her, too.”
The little girl squeaked out a tiny cry and looked with terror-filled eyes at María.
“Somebody shoot Bethy? I don’t want somebody shoot me.”
Bailey never dreamed the little girl was that verbal, would understand something like that at three and a half. She’d stepped in it again. Bethany put her thumb into her mouth, huddled against María and began to cry.
“Bailey, stop it! You’re scaring her to death.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …” Her emotions were getting the better of her again and she had to sound less like a raving lunatic and more like a loving sister … and mother.
“María, you have to listen to me.” Clamping down on her emotions now made her sound cold and severe. Well, maybe that’s how she had to sound to get María to listen. “Talking and discussing and explaining will have to wait until later. Later when … I have a beautiful home … there’s a lake and a puppy and right now you have to pack a bag for you and Bethany — just the essentials, we’ll get whatever else you need later. I have a chartered plane waiting—”
“A plane? Fly? Bethany can’t fly anywhere. She has an ear infection, the change in pressure—”
“Fine, we’ll take the rental car, then. How doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is you have to come with me right now. You are in terrible danger if you stay here.”
Bailey could see María was emotionally backing up from the whole thing so frantically she was about to trip over her own thoughts.
“That’s crazy. We’re not going to … what, just pack up and leave? Just like that?”
María’s reaction was transmitted with every syllable of her body language to the little girl. Her … mommy … was scared, and that terrified Bethany.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“I’m sorry I’m frightening you. I—”
“Then stop frightening us. Stop it! Stop all this talk about grabbing a coat and a change of underwear and dashing out into the night.”
“But that’s what you have to do. You have to—”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. But you have to—”
The escalation of their voices hadn’t yet reached shouting, but it was close. Bethany looked with huge, frightened eyes from María to Bailey and back to María. Then she burst into tears. Not just crying. Sobbing.
“Nooooo,” she cried, shaking her head and squealing, “I don’t wanna to go. I wanna to stay here. Mommy, make dat lady leave us alone.”
Bailey watched María grab hold of her own emotions then. Hugging the child tight to her chest, she began to rock her back and forth, smoothing her hair out of her face as she did.
“It’s okay, baby.” She looked pointedly at Bailey. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Did you not hear a word I said about Mikhailov? You think he won’t hurt you because … what? You think you can just put a Band-Aid on your navel and that’ll keep you safe?”
María froze at the reference.
Jessie wonders how she is ever going to get any sleep in a room with a little girl whose breathing sounds like a drowning water buffalo. She’d slept in houses where some of the other kids snored, but none of them had ever made a sound like María did just breathing.
After teeth brushing, good night perfunctory hugs — she hated that part, the awkward part in the beginning when you had to act like the foster parents and the other kids were your real family when the truth was you couldn’t even keep all their names straight yet. The hugs were the worst. Two flagpoles, exchanging embraces.
She supposes in the foster parents’ eyes they have to do the everybody-hug-everybody bedtime ritual to make the place seem warm and secure, like a real home. What they accomplished instead was making it seem phony and artificial. Later … weeks, months off in the future, such a routine would likely feel at least mildly comforting. The first night, it’s awful.
So, she is glad to escape to the room she shares with María, whose bedtime is an hour earlier because she’s younger and Jessie figures she’ll already be asleep.
As soon as Bailey slips between the sheets, she hears the tiny, wheezy voice speak out of the darkness.
“Would you close” … wheeze … “the closet door?” Wheeze. “Please … I’m” … wheeze … “scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“There’s a … a suck-your-guts in there.”
“A what?”
“A suck-your-guts.” Wheeze. “It’s a kind of demon.”
Surprisingly, Jessie has heard the word before. All she knows about it is that it is some kind of scary monster thing, and that the word isn’t “suck-your-guts.” It’s “succubus.”
“A lady demon” … wheeze … “behind the clothes.” Wheeze. “She waits until you’re asleep” … wheeze … “and then …”
“Then what?”
“She comes out and …”
“And what?”
“She does it through your belly button.” Wheeze.
“Does what through—?”
“First, she pops your belly button off.”
“Like a lid on a soft drink?”
“Kinda.”
“Then?”
“She’s like a mos” … wheeze … “qui” … wheeeze … “to!” The more upset María gets, the more she wheezes.
“A what—?”
“Mosquito!” Wheeze. “She puts her nose” … wheeze … “in the hole” … wheeze … “and sucks out your guts!”
Jessie doesn’t laugh. In fact, she doesn’t even feel like laughing, though such a ridiculous little-kid fear is humorous. She just feels sorry for the little girl.
“Well, we better fix that!” She hops out of th
e bed and goes down the hall to the bathroom. She’d seen the box in the cabinet when she’d gotten out the communal tube of — gag! — Crest toothpaste.
Back in the bedroom, Bailey stands beside María’s bed.
“Pull up your pajama shirt.”
“Why?” Wheeze.
“So we can keep the succubus from sucking out your guts.”
María’s eyes are huge, but she slowly lifts up the shirt of her pink pajamas.
Jessie rips off the paper wrapping, pulls off the tabs and affixes the big Band-Aid over the top of María’s navel.
“You’re good now!”
María looks down at the Band-Aid.
“But can’t she …?”
“Oh, no. Band-Aids keep your blood inside you. That’s why you put one on when you skin your knee or something like that. They’re made to keep your guts inside, too.”
“Oh,” is all María says.
Then Jessie goes to the door, flips off the light switch and crawls between the cold sheets that smell pleasantly of fabric softener.
The voice comes from the darkness.
“Did you put a Band-Aid on your belly button?”
“I don’t need one. When you’re twelve years old, you’re a big kid. Succubuses only go after little kids.”
From that moment on, Jessie doesn’t act like a little kid anymore. She’s a big kid now.
The voice is so soft she can barely hear.
“Are you … sure?” Wheeze.
“I’m sure. You can trust me, María.”
Into the silence that followed, Bailey said as quietly as she could and still be heard over the crying child.
“You can … trust me, María.” She sobbed out the words. “I … love you. You’re in danger here. It’s worse than … there’s more that I don’t have time to tell you about right now. Please, please let me get you and Bethany somewhere you’ll be safe.”
She didn’t say anything else after that. Felt suddenly flat, like all the air had drained out and there was no way to pump it all back in again.
María kept her head bowed over Bethany, rocking her back and forth, smoothing her hair, speaking quiet nonsense. When she finally did look up, her cheeks were again slathered with tears.