The Mortician's Daughter: Three Heartbeats Away

by C. C. Hunter

  “You saw her?” His voice sounds liquor raw.

  I nod.

  “She told you, didn’t she?” He shifts in his chair, and right then he looks older than he ever has. His shoulders are curved, lines of despair age his face. He looks worn, hurt, guilty.

  Tears blur my vision. “She said she blamed you at first, but then she told you it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I went out and drank that night. I yelled at her. If I hadn’t…”

  “She fell off that porch. You didn’t push her. It wasn’t your fault.” As much as I hurt for him, I force myself to do what I came to do.

  I reach over and grab the bottle and hold it out. “But this is your fault, Dad. Mom said you stopped drinking when she told you it was either her or the bottle.”

  I swallow. “I can’t do this anymore.” My voice cracks. “I can’t stand by and watch you kill yourself. So now I’m telling you. It’s me or the bottle, Dad. It’s time you prove that you love me as much as you loved her.” I keep my shoulders square. I don’t look away. I need him to know I’m serious. “I don’t have a plan, where I’ll go, how I’ll support myself, but I’ll get a job if I have to.”

  I set the bottle back down. “I checked my phone before I came in here. There’s an AA meeting Monday night, seven o’clock, only a mile from our house. I’ll have dinner ready at six, and we can eat, then go. I’ll be there for you, Dad. I’ll hold your hand. I’ll stay up late talking you out of drinking. I’ll support you in any and every way I can. But you either go with me to that meeting or I won’t be there in the morning.”

  I spend the rest of the day with Hayden. He holds me, lets me cry, makes me laugh, kisses me silly, and even in the flux of all this hurt and pain, he makes me happy. We check to see if the reporter has posted anything else about Shane’s case. He hasn’t.

  I leave his place at eight that night, and I go to Kelsey’s. We lay in her bed, and I tell her everything, just like I told Hayden. I cry again, too.

  And like Hayden, she listens, she cares. But Kelsey always is a little more of a devil’s advocate. “When are you seeing her again?”

  “I don’t know if I am,” I say. “But if Dad chooses the bottle instead of me, I might have to.”

  “You could stay here, but you should see her again. I know today probably hurt more than it healed anything, but I think it’ll get easier.”

  “You don’t understand,” I say. “Nothing she told me changes things.”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t change anything. But she’s right, too. She’s still your mom. And I’ve heard you talk about her all this time. You loved her, or at least a version of her. It’s partly because of what I knew you felt for her that I didn’t give up on my mom. I think you owe it to yourself to get to know her. Maybe you won’t be able to forgive her, but I don’t think you can judge that by one visit.”

  At seven the next morning, I’m woken up by the dead cold. Bolting up, I gasp for air, but it’s so cold my lungs reject it. Shane sits on the edge of my bed. Has she lost her patience? Is she here to push me to confront my mom? Is she back to the throwing-knives stage?

  But one look at Shane’s expression and I sense I’m wrong. She’s almost smiling. “What is it?”

  “They’re there. They’re looking for my body.”

  “Who? What?”

  “The police. Two detectives.”

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “Have they caught him?”

  “I don’t think so. But they’re looking for me, so they must know who he is, right?”

  I grab my phone and text both Hayden and Kelsey the news.

  Thirty minutes later, we’re pulling up at Delicious Donuts. There are only two cars in front of the building. Neither are cop cars. There’s no sign of an emergency. No flashing lights or police tape, nothing one would expect if there was a body being found.

  We go into the donut shop, and the usual girl at the counter greets me and takes our order.

  Parking ourselves at the table I’ve dubbed mine, we sit, drink our coffees, but none of us eat our donuts. We stare, we wait, and I pray this means it’s over.

  Twenty minutes later, nothing has happened.

  “Do you think they can’t find the body?” Kelsey asks.

  “I don’t know. All Shane said was they were looking for her.”

  Suddenly, the sound of sirens starts blaring. A police car, lights flashing, races down the street, but it doesn’t stop at the building. We all look at one another.

  The sirens fade, then get stronger. Then stop. Five minutes later, Hayden runs to the restroom.

  Kelsey and I sit there, our gazes locked across the street, when suddenly I hear a helicopter flying nearby.

  “There’s my donut buddy. And with company,” a male voice says behind me.

  I turn. Coach Ericson, a coffee and a bag of donuts in his hand, is standing there.

  He smiles, and I swear he’s looking at Kelsey’s breasts. “Two of the sexiest girls in our school.”

  Kelsey glares up at him. “I wonder if Principal Hall will find that comment appropriate when I share it with her.”

  Leave it to her to lay the cards on the table.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” He walks off.

  Hayden comes back out. “What happened?” he asks, then looks out the glass front at the helicopter hovering low in the sky.

  Before either Kelsey or I can answer, shouting echoes from the back of the store. We look around, but whatever is going down must be happening in the back rooms. More sirens start blaring out front. All of us gasp when a police car comes to a squealing stop in Delicious Donuts’ parking lot.

  Their car doors swing open. Two officers get out, duck behind the doors, and point their guns toward us, toward the shop.

  “What the hell?” Coach Ericson’s voice sounds behind us.

  Then bam, I think I know what’s happening. I’m pretty sure the cops are after a killer. And unfortunately, he’s in here with us.

  “Get down,” one of the officers yells.

  The sound of chairs scraping, clattering to the floor, fills the donut shop as all three of us do as we’re told. At the same time, two more police cars squeal into the parking lot. Then a loud popping sound echoes behind us. And it sounds like gun.

  Kelsey screams, and Hayden wraps his arms around both of us. I look back, expecting to see Coach Ericson with a gun. Praying he’s not intent on shooting anyone.

  My eyes widen when the man standing in the middle of the shop, gun in hand, isn’t the coach.

  It’s the manager, J.T. His eyes are round, wide, and crazy-looking. Appearing desperate, his gaze shifts, left, right, then down. Down at us. Down at me.

  “You,” he seethes. “You’re behind this, aren’t you? You were snooping.”

  He lowers his gun, points it right at me. It’s the second time I’ve had a gun pointed at me in my life, and this time is as unpleasant as the first.

  One second, I feel paralyzed. The next, I’m tearing across the room, getting away from Hayden, away from Kelsey. Because if he shoots me, he might…

  “No!” I hear Hayden yell, but I don’t listen.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I say to J.T.

  He snarls. “You bitch.”

  Everything goes in slow motion, and I’m aware of every nuance of what’s happening around me. I see it all. The cops outside the window, their guns pointed. Coach Ericson hiding under a table. More cops rushing through the front door.

  But can they get here fast enough?

  J.T. lifts his gun, puts his finger on the trigger.

  “Nooo!” Hayden comes flying across the room. Kelsey follows. But before they reach J.T., the gun explodes.

  I stand there, the pop ringing in my ears, waiting to feel something.

  Am I hit?

  Not hit?

  Am I dead?

  I see J.T. being tackled by Hayden. The gun becomes dislodged from his grip and
hits the tile. My gaze follows the weapon as it skids across the floor.

  When I look back, Hayden has the man down, and Kelsey, on her knees beside him, is punching J.T. Voices bounce around the shop. The police are suddenly surrounding us.

  “You okay?” a police officer’s voice sounds right in my ear. “Are you hit? Look at me. Look at me!’

  I don’t do as he says. Instead I look down at my pale blue shirt. My mom’s favorite color. There’s no blood. There’s no pain. Snap out of it!

  “Not hit,” I say.

  One officer grabs the gun from the floor. Two more officers go to where Hayden is holding J.T. down. Kelsey continues to hit the man, in his face, on his arm. Wherever she can land a punch.

  “Enough,” another officer says to Kelsey in a calm voice.

  “He tried to shoot my friend,” Kelsey screams.

  “I know.” The officer carefully pulls Kelsey up from the floor. “But he missed. And we’ve got him now.”

  I’m still feeling pretty numb when I’m aware Hayden is standing beside me. “You’re okay. God, I thought…”

  I nod. And I think I breathe for the first time.

  He pulls me into a hug that goes on for twenty seconds.

  “You coward,” I hear Kelsey yell.

  Hayden and I pull out of the embrace. Kelsey is standing there glaring at Coach Ericson, who’s still hiding under the table.

  “You had to have seen him first, and you did nothing.”

  Coach crawls out. “I…I didn’t see him. I didn’t.”

  Hayden looks down at him still on the floor. “So why were you curled up in a fetal position under the table?”

  Kelsey takes a defensive step forward. The cop who pulled her off the manager jumps in front of her.

  In her eyes, I see it. She’s not completely thinking straight. I grab her arm and pull her in for a hug. “It’s okay,” I say.

  She falls against me and starts crying. “I thought he was going to kill you.”

  “He didn’t,” I say, but suddenly I’m crying, too.

  Hayden puts one hand on Kelsey’s shoulder and one on mine. It almost becomes a group hug.

  Like the night at Kelsey’s, when the police learn we’re underage, our parents get called. I hate being seventeen.

  We all get questioned. I hate being questioned. But at least none of us have to go to the hospital. It’s that thought that keeps me grounded.

  Somehow both Kelsey and Hayden know to keep the manager’s “snooping” comment to themselves. Coach Ericson doesn’t mention it, either. I think he was too busy trying to save his own ass to even hear what happened.

  Mrs. Parker, Kelsey’s mom, and my dad all sit in a booth, listening as the police finish asking us questions. I can tell Dad’s sober, much to my relief. I had imagined him showing up drunk and getting arrested for driving under the influence.

  One of the officers looks familiar. I think he showed up when Dex was shot, but he doesn’t seem to recognize me or Kelsey.

  It’s still an hour before we’re free to leave. Mrs. Parker suggests we all go out somewhere to eat. While she was the most panicked of the parents, she recovered the quickest.

  “Just a hamburger,” Mrs. Parker says. “There’s a Whataburger next door.”

  “I did skip breakfast,” Kelsey’s mom says.

  I think Dad’s going to turn the invite down, but Mrs. Parker is persuasive, and I watch Dad cave. He even picks up the bill for everyone’s lunch.

  As we leave Whataburger, Kelsey insists on driving her mom home, scolding her that she hasn’t been cleared to drive.

  “Well, stop getting shot at, and I won’t have to,” Mrs. Macon counters.

  I insist I’m going to spend the afternoon with Hayden.

  Dad frowns in disapproval. Mrs. Parker’s face stays neutral.

  Dad gives in but motions for me to walk him to his car. “You sure you can drive?”

  “I’m fine.” I hold my hands out to show him I’m not shaking.

  He frowns. “No, you’re not.” He lets out a big gasp of air. “I cannot understand how in less than four months, you’ve been stalked by a rapist, almost shot by a drug dealer, and now shot at by a man who may be a serial killer. How can you explain this?”

  “Bad luck? At least I didn’t get hit this time,” I say with humorous undertones.

  “I’m serious, Riley. What am I supposed to think?”

  I drop the humor defense. But I can’t seem to find another one. It’s not as if I can tell him the dead got me into two of those jams. Then an answer, an honest one, rolls off my tongue. “You should think I need someone to watch out for me.” I lift my chin. “And that someone should be my father, if he can stay sober.”

  He exhales. I exhale. Then I take the initiative and I hug him. He’s warm and smells like his aftershave, Old Spice. For one second I’m transported back in time to being young and believing he was a superhero.

  “I love you. Please be home tomorrow afternoon.”

  He hugs me back but remains silent.

  Hayden and I spend a blissful day together. First we go to the park and lay on a blanket and talk. Talk about everything, my mom, my dad, his stepdad, Shane, and then we talk about nothing. Because just being with each other is like giving our souls a pep talk or a hug.

  Then we go back to his house and Mrs. Parker hugs us. “Mom,” Hayden says, “you’re getting as bad as your grandmother.”

  She laughs and lets us go. Then she leaves to go to dinner with a girlfriend. Hayden and I end up in his bed. We don’t take things too far, but it’s far enough that it holds a promise that it’ll happen soon.

  The sound of a car passing brings us up for air. He looks at me and suddenly starts laughing.

  “What’s funny?” I ask.

  “I just remembered something else.”

  “What?”

  He drops his forehead against mine but keeps his weight on his elbows. “You promised you’d be bad with me if I’d wake up from my coma.”

  I grin. “Duh. Isn’t getting shot at bad enough?”

  He rolls me on top of him. “I love you, Riley Smith.”

  I don’t hesitate. I wrap my hands around his neck. As crazy as things still are in my life, this… Hayden and me, it’s right. I’m a better me with him. “I love you, too.”

  Monday morning when I wake up, Dad’s already gone. He’d been in bed when I got home last night, too, so I don’t know if he was drinking or not. As I fix myself some breakfast, my phone dings with a text. I pick it up, thinking it’s Hayden or Kelsey. It’s not.

  Mom: Is there any way I can see you today? I have something I want to give you. It belonged to your grandmother.

  I stare at it for several seconds. I hear Kelsey telling me “She’s still your mom.” I also remember my promise to Shane.

  I type in Meet me at the Daily Diner on Main Street at ten.

  Mom: Thank you.

  Thank you.

  I’m at the diner at nine-thirty. I spend the time searching online and reading all the news about the arrest and the evidence. I’m shocked to learn three bodies were found. Shane is one of them. One of the bodies was found in the man’s house—in his freezer—that backed up to the commercial building. Because Shane’s always so cold, I suspect that might have been her. Two other females were buried in the back of the property. They haven’t released their names, but one of them is believed to be the suspect’s mother.

  Mom shows up ten minutes early. I turn off my phone when she scoots into the booth across from me.

  “Hi.” A smile brightens her face.

  “Hi,” I say, not nearly as emotional this time as I was before. It offers me a little hope that one day I’ll visit her and get to know her without feeling hurt and abandoned.

  She smiles. “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I found this and thought you might like it.” She pushes a small box over to me. “It belonged to your grandmother.”


  I open the box and pick up the necklace. It dangles from my fingers. The chain is gold, as is the pendant. I drop it in my hand and pull it up closer to see what’s on it.

  “It’s a Saint Benedict emblem. It is believed to keep the evil spirits away. My mom believed in it. She said she wore it because my father had spirits always hanging around. She gave it to me when she found out I was hearing voices.”

  “Is she still alive?” I ask, curious about my grandmother.

  “No, she…” Her voice catches just a bit. “She passed away a couple of months ago.”

  I look at her, and I can see the grief still in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” Sorry that she’s hurting.

  “Me, too.”

  “Did I ever meet her?” I ask.

  “No. When I met your father, I was estranged from my family. My father was…a drunk. A mean drunk. Mom was the typical wife of her generation. She stuck by her man, even when he was wrong. I didn’t see my mom again until after he died, but we’d gotten close those last five years.” She paused. “She talked about you. I showed her a picture. If you’d like, I can bring you some pictures of her.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Why I want to see a picture of someone I never knew is puzzling, but I do. Maybe it’s the need to know where I came from. The need to know what I missed out on. Maybe even the need to know the woman sitting across from me.

  I look back at the necklace, then up. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I remember the other reason I’m here. “You have a brother as well,” I say. “Samuel?”

  “Yes. On top of being a mean drunk, my father was a womanizer.

  I hesitate to find the way to say this. “You know, the woman Samuel was engaged to, Shane Casey, she—”

  “You know her?” My mom frowns.

  “Yeah.” There’s a beat of silence, then I say, “She’s dead.”

  Mom leans in. “Really? How? I…”

  “She was trying to sell the wedding dress she bought for her and Samuel’s wedding when she met the killer.”

  “Wait.” Mom holds up a hand. Fear rounds her eyes. “Did you know her before, or only when…”