Daddy Soda (A New Hampshire Mystery Book 1)

by Mira Gibson

  Cody’s face flushed. The very idea of her in the house with Dale probably made his blood boil. He seemed to keep a lid on it and countered with, “Three days a week with Judy isn’t enough?”

  Kindly and to get him on her side, “Candice needs someone around her who has the care and stamina to make her feel safe and get her to open up. What are you doing?”

  Cody had smacked his satchel down on the foot of the bed and was roughly tearing it open. As the lid fell back to the comforter, she joined him and stared down. Inside was a small arsenal of weapons. She counted five, noting two GLOCKS of varying calibers, a revolver, and a few handguns she wasn’t familiar with.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Hannah, I’m dead serious. I was going to insist and that was before I knew you were reckless enough to volunteer yourself to live in that house.” Cody selected one of the GLOCKS and put it in her hands. “That too heavy for you?”

  She didn’t so much hold it as cradle in her palm like a dying bird.

  “Come on, grasp it. Is it too heavy?”

  “It’ll have too much kick,” she commented, gradually getting on board. “Pass me that revolver.”

  “It won’t kick back like you think,” he argued. “Plus it’s got twelve rounds. You can miss a few times and still manage to protect yourself.”

  As she popped the clip, letting it slide out for brief inspection then slapping it back up, Hannah shook her head. “Recoil on the larger calibers takes too long to recover from. 43’s no good.” She shoved it back at him then selected another GLOCK, examined it in the same discerning manner, noting, “45’s no good.” Shoved it at him, plucked a third, eyed it. “Pistol’s better,” she said with an air of approval. “19mm Walther P99?” she asked when she recognized it, shot him a smile that broadened when she saw he was both impressed and slightly horrified. “I don’t like the German’s enough,” she said, denouncing it, as she passed it back. Cody kept returning weapon after weapon to his satchel, trying to keep up. “Ah,” she said, edge of humor in her tone, “38 Special, seven rounds, no risk of jamming, barely a breath of recoil.” She tucked it down the back of her pants. “Thanks for the revolver.”

  Baffled, he said, “No problem.”

  She pulled her suitcase, lumpy as it was, to the floor and rolled it to the doorway.

  “How do you know so much about guns?”

  “I grew up with them,” she shrugged. “When Dale came into the picture he brought more than a few with him. I was eleven at the time. Mom didn’t want me accidentally blowing my head off or hers so she made him teach me to respect and handle them.”

  “And you never mentioned it to me?”

  “What? Brag? Build myself up to look cool in high school? I didn’t want the attention.”

  It wasn’t the easiest pill to swallow, but Cody choked it down, closing his satchel. Then he offered her a box of ammo, which she found funny. She wasn’t going to war, but she took it nonetheless, dropped it in her purse, and told him she needed to check the bathroom in case she’d overlooked an item.

  The sink was bare, the shower stall empty except for the motel’s tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles and a flat bar of soap that had cracked when she'd ran it over her chest that morning. When she returned Cody was ready at the doorway.

  “Leave it open for the maid,” she instructed, passing through with her suitcase in tow.

  He did then took over the task of carrying the bulky thing down the stairs. The wheels clanked against the landing and Hannah stepped down, told him she needed a minute to settle her bill.

  She turned stiff when the clerk swiped her debit card, and didn’t release her breath until he shot her a confirming smirk and handed it back. After thanking him she met Cody, who’d been waiting with her stuff just outside the door.

  “Did you get a chance to look into convicts with snake tattoos?” she asked, grabbing her suitcase handle and starting for her Taurus.

  “That’s the other reason I stopped off,” he said. “I pulled up seven.”

  She wasn’t sure how encouraged she should be. “That’s not a lot, right? You can look into them?”

  “Yeah and it shouldn’t take long.” He didn’t sound thrilled. “We can’t get our hopes too high. It’s possible our guy isn’t in the system.”

  “A meth addict not in the system?” She grinned post-humorously. “I doubt that. Even Kendra came up.” As she fished her car remote out of her purse and unlocked the trunk, Cody hoisted her suitcase then set it in the bed for her. “Keep me posted?”

  “I don’t want you at that house.”

  “See you later, Cody.”

  He lingered. His gaze slipped to her mouth and she realized he was standing a bit close, but with dusk falling all around them it didn’t feel intrusive. It felt right.

  He stepped in, but seemed to think better of it, saying softly, “I’ll call you.” Then he opened her door and waited for her to get settled behind the wheel.

  After shutting her door, Hannah held his gaze and started backing out. She kept her eye on him in the rearview as he climbed into his truck and turned the engine.

  Damned if it wasn’t getting hard not to reach for him when he stood near her like that. Hannah squeezed the brakes and assessed the stream of traffic flowing through Route 12, tapping her thumb against the wheel as she waited.

  It’d felt good shoving the revolver down the back of her pants like a bona fide bad ass, but it was hardly practical in terms of driving so Hannah leaned into the steering wheel, pulled the revolver out then wriggled it deep within her purse.

  As she hit the gas, merging in-between a beat-up Volvo and a crawling semi, she felt a sudden knot twist in her gut.

  It’d be a long six days at the shack.

  ***

  No one knew where Dale was.

  Mary worked her magic on dinner, nursing her beers like offspring, while Hannah had struggled to pull her weight - her sister barking out ingredients which Hannah was only slightly more familiar with, Hannah hunting through cabinets for them feeling the urgency, Candice letting out that low tone at intervals that seemed to underscore the pressure Hannah was under, scrambling to bread chicken that was too damn slippery. All the while, she stole glances at Mary, trying to see through her thick veneer of foundation, too pink to match her neck. The girl beneath hadn’t been acting like the one who’d called her days ago. The anxiety she’d conveyed for how rough and unmanageable Dale had become wasn’t lining up quite right compared to the girl who’d smacked him, claimed a rifle, and conquered him. She held a certain command over the household. She didn't seem to need Hannah's help with her father.

  But the inconsistency didn’t lessen her awe of Mary. If anything it strengthened it.

  Sitting on the sofa, they ate bread-baked chicken, creamed corn, and salad, which Hannah had done a better job on. The TV was blaring some show about rich ladies who were married to important men and kept ripping each other’s weaves out because of it. Candice was present enough to keep shoveling food into her mouth and when a furious Italian woman overturned a table, grunting like the Incredible Hulk, she laughed right alongside her sister.

  After dinner they migrated to Candice's room where Hannah sat cross-legged on the bed, watched Mary twirl a curling iron, sucking up their youngest sister’s hair until it was tight to her scalp, and reflected on the evening. It had seemed so normal on the surface, but felt so sad deep down.

  Letting the ringlet fall, Mary moved on to the next lock, as Candice felt the warmth of her curly side.

  “Looking good, Mama,” Mary told her, as she brought a canned beer to her mouth, taking advantage of the pause.

  Candice smiled, big teeth bared for all the world to see. She was slowly coming out of the thick shell she’d been hiding in.

  Glancing at Hannah, Mary said, “I can do you next,” as she released the ringlet.

  “My hair’s curly enough.”

  “It’s wavy,” she corrected, settin
g the iron on the nightstand to maneuver Candice towards her so she could get the final bits without craning around. When she took up again, she told Hannah, “You could use a trim around your face. Maybe get some bangs going, shorter fringe along your cheeks.”

  Curious, she asked, “What would that do?”

  “Your eyes angle up at the outer corners, see, just like mine, but you got those high cheekbones. Good lines. But the way your hair is all one length, it hides the shape.” Finished with Candice, Mary looked at Hannah, gaze passing through her like an anvil. “Whose face do you have?”

  Her odd phrasing seemed to carefully conceal darker interest and Hannah felt her breath quickening in response.

  “You don’t look like Mom,” she clarified, “except the eyes.”

  “My dad, I guess. I mean of course.”

  Mary's eyes turned to ice.

  “What’s he like?”

  It occurred to Hannah the girls hadn’t heard about her father through Kendra, hadn’t been warned not to ask like she’d been.

  “I really don’t know. Never met him.”

  “He in New Hampshire?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You never went looking for him?”

  “I don’t know his name.”

  Mary leaned back on her palm, started rocking her leg, eyeing her with God like power.

  “That bother you?”

  It did. Immensely. But Hannah had never had it in her to go looking. When she didn’t respond except for a quirk of her mouth Mary tapped Candice’s leg, her frigid expression warming.

  “Get you in bed now.”

  The little girl stood from the bed, but couldn’t stop crushing her curls in her hand so Mary selected a pair of cotton shorts and an old tee shirt fit for sleeping from one of the dresser drawers and took to yanking Candice’s clothes off and replacing them with the kind of lackluster authority you’d except from a hospice nurse.

  Hannah felt a twinge of embarrassment during the brief moment Candice stood naked but for her underwear -skinny limbs, pale and flat chest without a hint of development. She tried not to look in case the child felt shame, but judging the glances she’d stolen Candice appeared more or less oblivious and was soon dressed for bed.

  “Sleep on your side or you’ll wreck your curls,” Mary instructed, pulling the covers back for her sister to slide in. Hannah was quick to her feet to make room. Then Mary leaned in close to her ear and whispered something Hannah couldn’t hear.

  Keeping out of the way, Hannah walked into the hall, as Mary pulled the blankets to Candice’s ear, arranged her curls on the pillow, and turned off the light.

  As soon as Mary shut the door and joined her in the hall, Hannah thought she caught the sound of Candice’s feet pattering across the floor.

  “Let’s hang out in my room,” she suggested.

  Hannah followed her, but heard the distinct scrape of metal against metal then pattering feet again.

  Candice had locked her door.

  Mary wasted no time setting her desk chair in the center of her room then rummaged through a plastic bin that was serving as a nightstand, and produced a pair of hairdresser’s scissors.

  “Do you trust me?”

  The answer came fast and hard, but only in her mind - no, and as an afterthought Hannah wondered why that was.

  “Come on, I know what I’m doing. And you can have yourself a drink.”

  Awkwardly, she smiled at the girl, who held the blades up to catch the light.

  “She doesn’t care, you know.”

  “Candice?”

  “Yeah, she doesn’t even notice if you drink around her.”

  The fact that Mary had sensed her craving was unsettling. And in defense, she nearly pointed out that drinking around Candice wouldn’t exactly set the best example, but she didn’t think offending Mary would help matters.

  “Well, you can drink in here,” she said easily.

  “What makes you think I want to?”

  She shot her a clever smirk. “Girl,” she milked the endearment with a who are you kidding smile. “Your back pocket’s bulging.” As she braced the chair back, welcoming Hannah to it, she added, “Come on now, we’ve got the same blood running through our veins.”

  Hannah had to laugh, because deep down the sudden exposure made her feel strangely small.

  “I like your top, by the way.”

  Chided then quickly complimented?

  Hannah knew when she was being manipulated, but wondered if that’s what skilled mother’s did, orders wrapped in praise so you could feel good about obeying. As she lowered into the wooden chair, pulling her flask free from her back pocket, she had to admit part of her felt good, like she was pleased to make Mary happy.

  Mary leaned in close and studied her features, as she moved Hannah’s hair, bringing it forward with her fingertips, scissors shooting straight up like a deadly ring.

  “You handled Dale real well last night,” she commented, straining to eye her flask, twist the top off.

  Mary stepped back to assess how she’d framed Hannah’s face, visualizing where to cut, as Hannah puffed out a short exhale to part her hair and fit her flask through to her mouth. She tipped it up without moving her head, draining a long haul, then lowered it to her lap.

  “Tell me about that guy,” she prodded, while carefully hooking the blades under Hannah’s wall of hair. As she snipped and clipped and shaped bangs and fringe around her sister’s face, she explained the leap she’d made. “When it comes to Daddy, you don’t think. You just do. But I’ve never seen him pull something like that. So why’s he hate him? You said you’d tell me.”

  “I used to be friends with Cody,” she started.

  “Friends? You ever fuck him?”

  It was enough of an indication of where Mary was at with boys that Hannah needed another sip to feel comfortable with the direction this conversation was heading.

  Mary paused for her to knock her flask back.

  “It was a bad night all around,” she went on.

  “So yes?”

  “Christ, yes, Mary. He took me to prom. Stupid as I was I’d built it up in my head.”

  “Prom or fucking?”

  Reluctantly, “Both, I suppose.” Hannah sorted through the best way to filter the nightmare so Mary would never hear the worst of it. “I was crying when I finally got home. Dale did the math. Went after Cody.”

  Mary straightened up and it wasn’t to evaluate her progress.

  With one eye, hair blinding the other, Hannah met her gaze.

  She sank into one hip accentuating her many curves in a way that made Hannah realize men, all men, probably desired her sister regardless of her young age. Then her brow knit, which Hannah read as concern, for Cody or herself she couldn’t be sure.

  “Did he hurt him?”

  Hannah drew in a breath and let the explanation out with it. “I really don’t know. I never wanted to see Cody again. I ignored him for the last two weeks of school then he graduated. Never crossed paths with him again until now.”

  “Why were you crying?”

  “It was just a shitty night.”

  Mary eyed her as though she could pull the details if she stared hard enough, but there was no way in hell Hannah would confide. After a moment of Hannah's silence, Mary got the message and eased the scissors to her forehead, snipping along the other side of her face.

  Out of the spotlight, Hannah’s heart started pounding at the impulse that was now taking hold.

  “Dale’s drinking and all,” she began, working up the nerve, “is that what those locks are about?”

  Mary stopped snipping, her face instantly long and drawn, dead eyes staring out, the tip of the blades incidentally pointing at Hannah’s eye too close for comfort, taking her breath away. The question seemed to make Mary recede into a dark corner of her mind.

  It reminded her of Candice.

  From the front of the house she heard the door bang, slamming and bouncing off t
he frame, slamming again, Dale cursing and tripping and cursing louder.

  In response, Mary barreled down the hall after him, Hannah watching her go until she turned out of view. Alert, she listened hard, straining to hear over the rapid thuds of her pounding heart. Suddenly, she was eleven, twelve, thirteen all over again, a frightened animal hoping the bear wouldn’t find her. Terrified of what he might do if he did.

  But Mary had it handled. He raised his voice, she raised hers louder, and the crescendo gave way to murmuring.

  She heard a muted thud that conjured images of Dale dropping into a chair at the kitchen table. Then a ceramic plate clanked down followed by the crack and faint hiss of a beer can opening.

  Dale slurred out a subdued, “Thanks, girl,” as Mary padded up the hall. Returning, she closed her door all but an inch, and grumbled an aggravated sigh.

  “Drank too much,” she softly announced, as she grabbed her scissors from the dresser top. “I always keep a bowl of mashed potatoes for him in the fridge. It’ll soak up the alcohol. He’ll straighten out.”

  Hannah didn’t want to point out that the beer she’d given him might work against that strategy, but the thought vanished from her mind when Mary started laughing as a means to shed the tension that shrouded her.

  When her laughter died out, Mary took to fluffing and shaking Hannah’s hair to see where it naturally landed then lifted and snipped, lifted and snipped, again and again, as cut hairs fluttered all around her and settled on the hard wood floor.

  “Man, I am good,” she said, admiring her work. She handed Hannah a mirror and smiled down at her. “Damn foxy, I’d say.”

  Hannah almost didn’t recognize the woman staring back. She looked... pretty. Not at all childish or blunt, her bangs were feathered softly around her eyebrows and the sides hugged her cheekbones in a way that accentuated the lines of her face. The trim flattered her, but also made her feel strangely lost within the power her features implied.

  Then groaning came through the wall. It surged into a scream, Candice’s high-pitched wails slicing through Hannah’s chest in fits and starts.

  Mary’s suddenly alarmed expression cleared and she ordered, “Get to the hall and make sure he doesn’t come down.”