Risky Baby Business

by Debra Salonen

  She watched his taillights bounce over the speed bumps then disappear out of sight.

  After a fortifying lecture from her mother and Zeke, Liz accompanied the detective next door. Although she would have preferred to file a complaint and let the police handle it, Yetta had convinced Liz that she wouldn’t feel a sense of closure unless she participated in the meeting.

  “Is this your son’s bike?” Liz asked when Crissy opened the door.

  “Oh, my gosh, you found it. I just called in a report to the police. Eli said he forgot his lock and someone stole it while he was in the library.”

  “The library?” Liz choked.

  Crissy frowned and looked from Liz to Zeke. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

  Zeke showed his badge and asked if they could speak with her and her husband.

  “I guess so. What’s this about?”

  “Is your son home?”

  “No. He’s spending the night with a friend.”

  Zeke didn’t say anything, but his serious demeanor obviously unnerved Crissy. She ushered them inside and pointed toward the scrupulously neat living room. “Have a seat. Elijah’s in the den.”

  Eli? Elijah, Junior?

  Crissy returned moments later with a six-foot version of the boy who had started this whole debacle. Once the two were seated and introductions had been made, Zeke described the events of the evening.

  “No way. Not Eli,” Crissy’s husband roared. The look he gave Liz clearly called her a liar. She had no doubt where his son’s antipathy stemmed from.

  “Are you sure it was Eli, Liz?” Crissy asked, her voice thin and whiny. “You don’t really know him. You could be mistaken. Maybe the kid who stole his bike—”

  She stopped, no doubt realizing how desperate and ridiculous she sounded.

  “There’s another witness who identified your son,” Zeke said. “Let’s get something straight here. Ms. Parlier is the victim. She’s well within her rights to press charges—and I’ve encouraged her to do so, but she’s hoping to spare your son a trip to juvenile court. It all depends on how you handle this.”

  Crissy turned to her husband. His brow was crinkled and his expression fierce. Liz’s intuition told her this man harbored a deep-set hostility toward women. He had yet to make eye contact with Liz.

  “He’s just a kid,” the man said, his voice a deep rumble that was nowhere near as soothing as David’s bass.

  “A kid with a serious problem,” Zeke added.

  “I just want to see him get some help,” Liz said.

  Crissy’s look seemed to say she agreed with Liz, but her husband was already making noises about hiring a lawyer to fight the charge. He even muttered something about proving Liz was to blame. “What do you expect from someone who has Eurotrash living with her?”

  Zeke stood up and took a step closer to Crissy’s husband. He didn’t have a gun in his hand, but somehow he managed to look just as threatening without one. “Like I said, Liz is the victim here. The victim is the one who has all the rights, not your twisted little brat who doesn’t know how to behave in polite society. If you were smart, you’d join him at the shrink’s.”

  The man lost some of his bluster. “Kids are kids. They talk trash. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Or maybe it does. Are you willing to take that chance? This might be your last opportunity to turn this boy around. Are you going to blow it because your ego is on the line?”

  Crissy reached out and took her husband’s hand. To Zeke, she said, “What do we do?”

  Zeke sat down. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Pay attention. If any of this doesn’t get done, your son is going to find himself spending a night—maybe longer—in juvie.”

  Liz listened to the agenda Zeke laid out for the couple. Their son would apologize to her in the morning, face-to-face. He would give Zeke the names of his friends, whose parents would also be informed of their sons’ activities. The three couples and their sons would visit Zeke in his office, no later than Thursday. At that time, they would give him an item-by-item accounting of what repercussions had been decided upon, in particular, what community-service projects and counseling the young men would be participating in. He ended his lecture with a warning. If Liz or her roommates were negatively affected in any way by this unfortunate incident, he would return…and he’d leave his good manners at home.

  Liz kept her gaze on the ground as they left. She was glad to have the confrontation over. Despite Zeke’s threat, Liz would bet her relationship with Crissy—and the homeowners’ association, which had elected Crissy president—was going to deteriorate. From bad to worse.

  She closed the door behind her with a grateful sigh, but she knew the evening wasn’t over yet. “It went better than I expected,” she told her mother and roommates, who eagerly awaited a full recap of the confrontation. “Thank goodness Zeke was there. I don’t think I had enough fight left in me to take on Eli, Senior. The smaller version was bad enough.”

  Her mother gave Zeke a smile that Liz hadn’t seen in a long time—not since her father’s stroke, in fact. The look in Yetta’s eyes held a certain satisfaction, as if life were starting to make sense again and this man was helping.

  The pounding in her head intensified. Liz wanted her mother to be happy, but she really couldn’t deal with any more emotional upheavals tonight. She was too tired.

  “Thanks for your help, Zeke, I’ll keep you posted,” she said, letting her mother know it was time to leave. “And for the record, I’d like you to call off your search for info on David Baines. He’s a decent guy who went out of his way to help a relative stranger. That makes him okay in my book.”

  Zeke and her mother took the hint and left a few minutes later. Lydia and Reezira settled down in front of the television. And, Liz was finally free to escape to her room and her computer. To visit India and Prisha. Where her heart was safely waiting.

  Chapter 6

  “Dammit, Liz, if you don’t get off your duff and get over here in twenty minutes, Kate and I are coming to your house to roust you out of your funk ourselves. And let me warn you, blackstrap molasses and cod-liver oil will be involved.”

  Liz laughed out loud for the first time in a week. A week? She couldn’t believe seven days had passed since her confrontation with her neighbor’s son and his friends. “Isn’t that what Dad used to threaten us with when we were slow getting up in the morning?”

  “Exactly. Neither of us is sure how much of each to use or which end it goes in, but we’re willing to experiment if it helps you get back on your feet.”

  She laughed again. “You’re crazy.”

  “And you’re not. So are you coming to Mom’s?”

  Liz considered the steps involved in that sort of undertaking: shower, finding and putting on clothes, lacing shoes, locating the key to her car, driving said car through morning rush-hour traffic…no, the whole thing made her slightly queasy. “Next week. I promise.”

  “Kate,” Alexa called to someone apparently well across the room from her. “You find the molasses, I’ll get the cod-liver oil. See you shortly, sis.” Then she hung up.

  Liz groaned and placed the phone back on the receiver on the wall of her kitchen. Her roommates, who were eating breakfast at the table across from her, stared as they chewed their highly sugared cereal. Liz had done her best to try to introduce healthy food into their diets, but Lydia and Reezira possessed firm opinions about what was “good.” Marshmallows and peanut butter were their favorite choices. The soy milk they poured over the brownish clusters was their concession to Liz.

  “They come?” Lydia asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Good,” Reezira said. “They need shoot you.” She demonstrated by holding a pretend syringe to her arm.

  A shot in the arm. “Somebody should,” Liz muttered.

  She looked down at her pink Betty Boop pajama bottoms. She’d been wearing them for a couple of days now. Two? Three? She wasn’t sur
e. With the curtains closed and twenty-four-hour cable, a person could easily lose track of time.

  But she’d done more than watch TV. She’d filled out every page of the adoption application. She had researched several adoption agencies that had been recommended by some of her online contacts. She’d talked to Jyoti—even though the cost of a phone call to India was a luxury she really couldn’t afford. Thankfully, Jyoti had eased Liz’s worries. Prisha was doing better. Still not totally out of the woods, but she was breathing easier and sleeping through the night again.

  If only I were. The nightmares that had troubled her immediately after the rape had come back. This time there were more men involved in the violation. Different ages. Different colors and nationalities. She fought them off valiantly and usually managed to wake herself up before anyone touched her, but the fear lingered.

  “I guess I’ll take a shower,” she said, trudging down the hall to her room.

  She was just tucking a gray University of Nevada, Las Vegas T-shirt into her shorts when the doorbell rang. Her sisters never rang the bell.

  Her pulse quickened as she hurried, barefoot, to the foyer, where Lydia was standing with the door slightly cracked. She was talking to somebody. Liz couldn’t see the person, but she could tell by Lydia’s body language something was wrong.

  She walked to the door.

  “Oh, Liz, there you are. I was hoping you were home.”

  Crissy. No wonder Lydia was tense. “My car is in the driveway. Where did you think I was?”

  Crissy glanced over her shoulder. “Um…yes, well, that’s just it. Your car hasn’t moved in days and I was worried. After what happened, I mean. You’re okay, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine. Just working from home. Was there anything else?”

  She looked uneasy. “Um…no. Not really. Eli is back with his mother. Did your policeman friend tell you about the punishment we came up with for the boys? They worked all weekend at the church where the um…confrontation took place. Mowing, weeding, painting an old storage shed.”

  Liz had heard, but she didn’t care. “That’s nice.”

  “And we made Eli give his bike to Goodwill.”

  Liz recalled the moment when David passed her the bike. Their hands had touched for a brief second. She’d thought about him a lot since that night. He’d promised to call, but he hadn’t.

  “Um…Liz, I don’t know if I said how sorry I am this happened. My um…husband has strong opinions about certain subjects. It’s how he was raised. I…I don’t always agree with him, but I’ve made it a point not to interfere with how he talks to Eli. I’m only the stepmother and—”

  Liz cut her off. She was sick of excuses. “You could be a positive influence in your stepson’s life. You could stand up for yourself, for women, for your daughter.”

  Crissy’s face crumpled like a scolded child’s. “But I’m not strong, like you.”

  “You’re as strong as you choose to be.” Why was she wasting her breath? Crissy didn’t get it. Maybe she didn’t want to get it. A sudden wave of fatigue made her sway.

  Lydia reached around her for the door. “Go now. Leez busy.”

  Reezira helped Liz to the couch. “I bring tea. Your tea. Taste funny, but good for you,” the earnest young woman said.

  Liz was still sipping the strong hot beverage when Alexa’s car pulled into the driveway. The calming herbs had helped settle the jitters that made Liz feel like she might jump out of her skin. She was finally ready to admit that David had been right about post-traumatic stress. The confrontation with the boys had opened the door to the devastating memory of what happened to her in Iraq.

  One brief but loud knock preceded the arrival of her sisters and their mother. “Whoa, she’s dressed. Mom, you can put the fish oil away,” Alexa said, shedding her sun hat. She dropped her designer shades on the hall table.

  Yetta, who was carrying a purse large enough to be called a carpetbag, set the heavy-looking thing down and rushed to where Liz was sitting. “I made them bring me. This is serious, dear. You’re not yourself and I’m worried.”

  “Why? I was a little shook up. Surely that entitled me to a couple of days of doing nothing.”

  Reezira frowned. “She fights. In dreams. Bad.”

  Liz hadn’t realized she’d been sharing her nightmares with her roommates. The fact caught her off-guard and left her feeling exposed. “The attack brought back memories. Bad memories. Something that happened when I was overseas.”

  Kate and Alexa exchanged a look that Liz knew well. All four sisters at one time or another communicated without words. They were connected deeply, whether they liked it or not. Hadn’t that been part of the reason Liz had fled to New Zealand after the rape? She’d known if she came home one or more of her sisters would have figured out what was bothering her. Her shameful secret would have come out.

  Alexa sat down beside her and took Liz’s hand. “Tell us. We’re your family. Your blood. You hurt, we hurt. Secrets are divisive. Didn’t we learn that with everything that Grace went through?”

  Liz looked into her sister’s brown eyes, so like her own. “I was attacked during one deployment. Two men. One held me down while the other…raped me. A patrol came by or the second one would have done it, too. I was dazed and bleeding. I had to crawl out of the ally where they dragged me. The military patrol didn’t see me. I couldn’t cry out because they’d bruised my windpipe. I would have died from blood loss, but the Jeep backed up. I never found out why.”

  Unburdening herself turned out to be easier than she’d believed possible. In the company of five women—five very different women, she found sanity, sanctuary and compassion. The two women who had experienced the worst of men—and life—relayed their own horror stories. Not in a competitive way—”My wounds are deeper than yours.” But rather the way good friends share problems and support each other—”I understand your pain because I’ve felt it, too.” Her sisters cried. And gave Liz hell for keeping her secret to herself so long. Her mother, in her divine wisdom, stayed silent, her comfort reaching Liz on a deeply subliminal level.

  “The bottom line is,” Alexa said later, when they’d switched from tea to wine, “you did the right thing last week. You stood up for yourself. For Romani and for women. You didn’t let those little commando brats get off free.”

  Yetta nodded. “Alexandra is right, but you need to talk to Zeke. Find out if what that Crissy woman said is the truth. Were the boys punished and, more importantly, are they getting counseling?”

  “What I want to know is, is the dad getting counseling?” Kate muttered. “Bigotry that deeply ingrained goes back generations.”

  Liz saw her roommates look at each other, and she realized she hadn’t even considered how this ordeal might have affected them. They hadn’t been outside lately, listening to their music and sunbathing—two of their favorite pastimes.

  “All right, Mom, I’ll go see Zeke at his office.”

  “Tell about black car,” Lydia said.

  “What black car?” Liz asked. The two woman were avid window watchers. Keeping an eye on what was happening on Canto Lane entertained them and made them feel safe. They knew the neighbors’ vehicles and also knew when strangers came around.

  “Two men. Black car. Look in old truck,” Reezira explained.

  Liz frowned. She’d had them keeping an eye out for David’s truck and he hadn’t been around in days. “Do you mean David’s?”

  “Night you and boys…” She made a fighting gesture with her hands. “David—” she stroked a pretend mustache above her lips “—inside with mean lady.”

  “Crissy?”

  Lydia nodded. “We hear…” She mimicked the hideous screech the glove compartment door of David’s truck made. “We look. Different man. No hair. Go in black car.”

  “Why on earth would anybody break into David’s truck?” Liz wondered aloud.

  Her sisters looked each other. “Doesn’t he lock it?” Kate asked.

  L
iz pictured him reaching inside the open window on the day they’d had tea together. “His truck is so old I’m not sure it has locks.”

  Alexa chimed in. “Even if a person wasn’t worried about someone stealing his car, there’s the whole identity-theft thing. Insurance papers could tell a lot about an individual.”

  Liz agreed, and suddenly got a nervous feeling in her belly. “That’s a good point. I’ll bring it up when I see him.”

  “Speaking of which,” Alexa said, grinning, “we think you should ask him over for dinner. I can’t remember the last time Liz went on a date, can you, Kate?”

  Liz ignored the pair’s good-natured teasing. Every Gypsy knew that strange men in black cars were never a good omen.

  “Whaddaya think, Boss? It’s him, right?”

  The man behind the wraparound dark glasses surveyed the evidence laid out before him. He wasn’t impressed. They’d gotten no fingerprints from the handle of the shovel their operative had taken from the gardener’s truck, and the envelope stolen from the glove compartment had only revealed a post office box registered to one D. Baines. Their lab guys had managed to pull a partial off it, but the similarities in the sworls of the supposedly late Paul McAffee and a man named David Baines were far from conclusive.

  David Baines had moved to Vegas six months after Paul McAffee died in an explosion that destroyed an empire. My empire, the man in the sunglasses added under his breath.

  Was there anything about this coincidental timing that linked Baines and McAffee? Not really. Logic said such a leap seemed extreme. Foolish.

  But Vincente Aurelio Conejo had never allowed logic to blind him to possibility—even after he changed his name to Ray Cross. If he had, he’d still be selling bootleg prescriptions out of the back of his van. No, Ray was a go-with-the-gut kind of guy. He took risks and followed his instincts. He never played by the rules, unless the rules worked in his favor. His renegade attitude had helped him amass a fortune.