Tommy's Mom

by Linda O. Johnston

  “Great!” Evangeline said. “And right when you’d promised, too. I figured you’d need more time, what with—”

  “I’d finished a lot before,” Holly told her hurriedly. “And sometimes it’s a good thing not to sleep well at night.”

  “How are you getting along?”

  Not wanting to talk about herself, Holly said “okay,” then countered with a question of her own. “I’ve been dying to learn more about your show—a parody of the Olympic Games?”

  “Right. We pit government workers against one another in contests like castle-building. Lifeguards use sand, street workers use concrete and sanitation workers use garbage. Everyone sings and dances—it’s a riot! You won’t believe how good Sheldon Sperling is.”

  Evangeline was right. Holly couldn’t picture the usually sedate Sheldon kicking up his heels in a musical farce.

  Could he dance now, with his injuries?

  “All proceeds will benefit the Naranja Children’s Foundation,” Evangeline finished.

  “Sounds great! But I could have dropped the costumes off at the theater. Now you’ll have to drag everything there.”

  “The high school orchestra is holding a concert there this evening,” Evangeline said. “I didn’t want to leave the costumes so a bunch of rowdy teenagers could play with them. We’ve a few stored other places from our wardrobe stockpiles, too.”

  “I understand,” Holly said with a grin. “When does the show begin?”

  “In ten days. Dress rehearsals start this week, though, so I’m really grateful for your promptness in getting these done.”

  “There are still some things in the van. I’ll get them, though I might need to make two trips.”

  “I’ll come and save you some steps.” She leaned toward Holly as if about to share a confidence. “Sometimes I go stir-crazy in this office. Too stodgy. I need air.”

  Holly laughed.

  “Ready, Tommy?” Evangeline asked. She put out her hand. Tommy hesitated before taking it, glancing toward Holly.

  Poor child. He’d never been shy before. Holly nodded toward him, then followed the mayor and her son out the door.

  In the lobby, Holly turned when she heard her name, praying it wasn’t the reporter.

  Edie Bryerly hurried toward them from a hallway that led to the Planning Department, where she worked as a secretary. The length of her slender legs seemed exaggerated by the shortness of her skirt. “You weren’t going to leave yet, were you, Holly?”

  “Not without saying hello.” Holly had called Edie earlier to let her know that Tommy and she would be at City Hall. “We’re getting the rest of the costumes from the van. Want to help?”

  “Sure.”

  Holly’s minivan was parked outside at a meter. She pushed a button on her keychain and the rear latch unlocked. Holly split the remaining costumes up among the four of them, including something small for Tommy.

  When they reentered City Hall, Al Sharp was in the lobby with Dolph Hilo. Both cops were in patrol uniforms.

  Taking a deep breath, Holly watched Tommy’s eyes widen when he noticed them. Steeling herself for his screams, she quickly bent despite the clothing she carried and freed an arm to pull him tightly to her.

  To her surprise, though he trembled, he didn’t cry out.

  “Hey, sport,” called a familiar deep voice.

  Holly looked around. Gabe McLaren strode toward them. He wore a gray shirt, a tie and dark slacks.

  He caught Holly’s gaze, then smiled at Tommy. “Looks like you’re busy, but when you’re done, how would you like to help me decide what kind of candy to keep around the police station for good little kids who come for a visit?”

  “Lollipops,” Dolph Hilo said. “Please, boss?” He winked at Holly.

  “Chocolate’s the way to go,” Al muttered, but he grinned.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to visit the station right now,” Holly interjected quickly.

  “What do you think, Tommy?” Gabe asked. “We can settle this candy issue right here, but if you visit my office I can give you samples to help you decide—if it’s okay with your mom. Do you want to come in?”

  Tommy was clearly torn. He hesitated, looking from Al to Dolph and back again. Or was it only their uniforms he was studying? Holly didn’t want to ask.

  And then, very slowly, Tommy nodded at Gabe.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, after the rest of the costumes were in Evangeline’s office, Holly took Tommy back downstairs. In the lobby, crowded with tourists from a sightseeing bus, Holly held his hand firmly as she asked, “Do you want to go see Gabe now?”

  When he hesitated, Holly said, “Would you rather go home?”

  Tommy shook his head. He tugged on her hand, heading toward the police station at the rear of the lobby.

  Holly was amazed. This seemed a giant improvement. Not only hadn’t he screamed at the sight of the uniformed officers, but he voluntarily headed toward the place in Naranja Beach that he was likely to see the most uniforms.

  A place that would remind him of missing his daddy.

  She might have been wrong about why Tommy screamed. But if not because uniforms reminded him of losing Thomas, what was it?

  She held Tommy’s hand tightly as they entered.

  “Hi, Tommy,” said Bruce Franklin, who was, of course, in uniform. “Give me five.” He held out his hand. To Holly’s surprise, Tommy let go of her and slapped his small palm against Bruce’s larger, darker one.

  “There you two are.” Gabe approached them. As his eyes caught hers, the rhythm of her heart grew erratic.

  Get a grip. He’d only invited them here as part of his campaign to help them. To help Tommy.

  “Have you ever sat in the police chief’s chair?” Gabe asked Tommy.

  He shook his head, and his eyes sparkled.

  “Come on then.” Gabe held out his hand, and the two headed for the back of the station.

  Holly wasn’t thrilled. What if her son decided he liked it there, in the chief’s chair? What if he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, become a cop?

  She shook her head in wry amusement. Tommy was only four years old. He wasn’t going to make that decision now, or even later, on the basis of sitting in some symbolic chair.

  Holly had known Gabe’s predecessor, Mal Kensington. She had even come to the station when he was in charge. But there’d been no reason for her to visit his office. The place looked like a government office. The furniture was clean but utilitarian. The desk was nearly bare.

  But Gabe had put his own stamp on the room. On the walls were plaques and photos that spoke of his accomplishments.

  Still, the place needed a little color. Holly thought of a wall hanging she’d worked on before her commission to sew the costumes for Evangeline’s show. It was a representation of the ocean, with deep blues and greens and occasional brighter colors depicting kelp and tropical fish. It would go well here, in a blank area right behind Gabe’s desk.

  Not that she’d ever suggest it to him.

  She watched with fondness as Gabe gave Tommy small pieces of candy to try, as if his opinion were of utmost importance. She’d planned on getting him straight home for a nap, but this male bonding was important for her son, too.

  It might encourage him to talk.

  She wondered, though, about allowing him to get too close to Gabe McLaren. It might be a bad idea. A very bad idea.

  For both Tommy and her.

  Holly’s eyes wandered idly over the few papers on Gabe’s desk. They settled on a file labeled Poston. It wasn’t particularly thick.

  Was that what Thomas’s life—and death—had come to? A few pieces of paper on the desk of the man who’d briefly been his boss?

  Suddenly, Holly needed to get out of there. “Tommy, it’s time for us to go home. You can tell Chief McLaren later what kind of candy you think he should keep here.”

  She watched both sets of eyes widen. Gabe’s gaze turned quizzical, then shuttered ov
er. But she owed him no explanation.

  “Your mom’s right,” he said to Tommy. “But I won’t make a decision on the candy till I get your opinion, okay?”

  Tommy nodded, then shook hands with Gabe.

  The ride home was short. Naranja Beach was a small enough town that nothing was too far from City Hall.

  Holly parked out front rather than in the garage, for she had some further errands to run later.

  After she unstrapped Tommy from his seat belt, she was surprised when he made a beeline for the front porch. He turned back to face her, a box in his arms.

  Had the mailman brought something? When she reached his side on the porch, she noticed the box was addressed to Tommy, and the return address was Edie’s. What had Edie sent? And why hadn’t she mentioned it before?

  “This is for you,” she told Tommy. “Let’s open it inside.”

  She saw excitement glimmer in her son’s eyes and knew it was all he could do to be patient for even that short amount of time.

  In the den, she used scissors to slit the tape at the edges. She rested the box on the coffee table. “Okay, open it.”

  Using a lot of effort for his small fingers, Tommy pulled the cardboard flaps up. Then he looked inside.

  He began to scream.

  “Tommy! What is it?” Holly took the box and pulled back the flaps, which had fallen back over the contents.

  She suddenly felt like screaming, too.

  Inside was a male doll dressed in a police patrol uniform. On its chest were globs of red paint that resembled blood.

  Chapter Six

  Gabe pounded on Holly’s front door again.

  He had jumped into his car immediately after her near-hysterical phone call to him at the station. Now, he’d been standing here—what? Two minutes? Three? But no one had yet answered the doorbell or his knocks.

  He sized up the door. It appeared thick and solid. It had a deadbolt. And if Holly was taking his advice, she kept the door locked at all times.

  Still, if she didn’t answer in another minute, he could probably splinter it with one good, solid kick.

  He heard a click, and then the door was thrown open.

  Holly looked frantic. Her eyes were wide and frightened, her lovely dark hair disarrayed. “Oh, Gabe.” Her voice was nearly a wail. To his surprise, she threw herself toward him.

  He’d worn his shoulder holster beneath his jacket, and he caught her in his arms at his other side. He doubted that the protection a weapon offered was the kind of comfort she craved as she pressed herself close.

  Under other circumstances, the feeling of her slender curves tight against him would have felt good. Damn good.

  But these were not other circumstances.

  “Let’s go inside,” he ordered.

  “O-okay,” Holly stammered. She was trembling so hard he wondered how she remained standing. He led her into the house, then released her to lock the door again behind them.

  He faced her. She appeared fragile, almost waiflike, in her long denim skirt and blue blouse.

  “How’s Tommy?”

  She put her head in her hands. For a moment, she didn’t reply, and by the way her shoulders shook he knew she was crying.

  He put an arm around her, but she pulled back. Her eyes were wet. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall apart. Tommy’s in bed. I just got him quieted before you arrived. He kept screaming.”

  “Let me see the package.”

  Her gaze met his, and in them he saw a mute plea.

  “Tell me where it is,” he said gently.

  She took a deep breath. “I put it in the kitchen.” She looked brave standing there, her head high, her tears stanched, her teeth chewing on her full bottom lip.

  He wanted to brush his fingers along her chin in encouragement. To touch her lips, rosy from the way she worried at them, with his own mouth, very softly, to show his support.

  Instead, he yanked his gaze away. “I’ll go take a look,” he said gruffly. He was here as a police officer this time, first and foremost. Offering comfort was secondary to this mission.

  In the kitchen, he looked around till he found the box. She’d tossed it into the sink. The open end was down, and the contents weren’t visible.

  He pulled out latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. Touching only edges of the box to avoid damaging latent fingerprints, he turned it over.

  “Damn.” Holly’s frantic description when she’d called hadn’t exactly been coherent. But it had been graphic enough. Still, the reality was a lot worse than the disjointed report.

  Yeah, it was just a doll. A male doll, dressed to look like a cop. It made Gabe’s skin crawl.

  He’d seen live cops as bloody as this representation. Dying cops. Dead cops. Brother cops.

  Cops like Thomas Poston. And Gabe’s own father.

  “I’ll get you, you son of a bitch,” he muttered. Whoever did this had clearly intended the reaction elicited from poor little Tommy. A four-year-old. What kind of filthy crud would do this to a child, remind him of how he had found his own daddy?

  Who would do it to that child’s mother, a grieving widow?

  Gabe would find out. Heaven help him, he would find out.

  He left the doll and its box on the kitchen counter. He removed his gloves and stuffed them back into his pocket.

  Holly was no longer in the entry. Nor was she in the living room. He didn’t want to call out. It might upset Tommy.

  He went up the steps. Holly stood in the doorway to Tommy’s room. She had obviously heard Gabe’s approach, for she glanced toward him. “Tommy’s still awake,” she said brightly. “I told him you were the person he heard at the door, and he’s promised to rest as soon as he’s seen you.”

  He touched Holly’s shoulder as he slipped past her into the room. It was late afternoon, and the room was filled with shadows interrupted by slivers of sunlight that slipped through the miniblind slats.

  Tommy sat rigidly beneath the covers of his twin-size bed. His back rested against the wood headboard. He was still dressed in the bright orange T-shirt Gabe had seen him in earlier that promoted Naranja Beach. His face was so grave that he looked like a mini-adult. The room smelled of crayons and baby powder.

  “Hey, sport,” Gabe said softly. He sat on the edge of the bed and took Tommy’s hand. Though the boy was swathed in blankets, his small fingers were frozen.

  Gabe considered avoiding the subject of the malicious doll. But when he was a kid, it had helped when people talked about what hurt him instead of pretending it hadn’t happened.

  “You got a nasty surprise today, didn’t you—that package you thought was a present?”

  Gabe heard Holly’s intake of breath. He turned. She stood beside him, ashen. As their gazes caught, she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. She didn’t want him to talk about it.

  “Just a second,” he told Tommy. He led Holly into the hall. “Trust me on this,” he said.

  “I don’t want him to have to think about it.” Holly’s arms were folded and her eyes glinted in steely determination.

  “But it’s something else he needs to talk out. Look, just let me tell him one thing, okay? It’ll help him.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Sure.” He hoped.

  Holly continued to stare at him. Then she nodded, very slowly. “I want this piece of crud stopped, Gabe. And I’ll do anything to help—anything but hurt Tommy. Is that understood?”

  “Of course. That’s what I intend, too.” Tearing his gaze from her scared but resolute gaze, he returned to stand beside Tommy’s bed. “That doll was really awful, wasn’t it?” he said. “It was dressed to look like a policeman, and it was hurt. Did it remind you of your daddy?”

  Gabe felt Holly, who stood beside him, squeeze his arm as if in warning. He continued anyway. “Sport, your mom thinks we should forget about that doll. Maybe she’s right. But first I want you to understand that whoever sent it is a very, very bad person
who wanted to scare you. And the best way to pay that person back is not to be scared. I’ll make sure whoever hurt your daddy can’t hurt you. And we’ll be here whenever you’re ready to talk about it, okay?”

  At first, there was no reaction. Beside him, Holly shifted, her anger and anxiety hovering around him like a cloud of black smoke. Tension squeezed the muscles between his own shoulders. Damn! Had he made a mistake? But then a tear rolled down Tommy’s cheeks. His arms slipped from beneath the bedcovers. He reached one small hand in Gabe’s direction and the other toward his mother.

  “Oh, honey,” Holly said. Moving around Gabe, she returned to the bed and grasped Tommy with one arm. The other went around Gabe, who knelt, and the three of them held each other tightly in one big, supportive hug.

  Gabe liked the feeling. Too much. It imparted sensations he didn’t want to feel. He wasn’t part of their family.

  He gently extricated himself and stood. “You need to take a nap now, sport. But I’ll be around later. I’m really up for a game of catch this evening. How about you?”

  Tommy’s head appeared from around his mother’s side. Gabe’s heart turned a somersault of pleasure at the boy’s tiny grin.

  HOLLY WAS THRILLED.

  No, she was furious. With Gabe.

  With herself.

  But mostly with the horrible person who’d left the doll, who’d most likely killed Thomas and hurt Sheldon.

  And terrified Tommy—more than once.

  This had to stop. She had to stop it. It wasn’t only police business when it continued to hurt her family. But what could she do?

  Gabe left the room, but she sat on the edge of Tommy’s bed. “Rest now, sweetheart.”

  His eyes began to droop. She stood, but waited in the doorway. And stewed.

  She didn’t want Gabe to talk to her son about upsetting things. She needed to protect Tommy.

  Except… Gabe had been right. Before Gabe had arrived, Tommy’s fright had been nearly palpable enough for her to grab it. But Gabe talked to Tommy, and her son had clearly calmed.