Fireside

by Cate Culpepper

  She was interrupted by a loud metallic buzzing from the entry.

  Abby sighed. “Not again.”

  The kitchen door slapped open and Cleo emerged, crunching an apple. She jerked her chin at Mac. “She broke something and set off our alarm?”

  “She’s innocent,” Abby said, “I’ve watched her every move.”

  “Hokay.” Cleo speared the apple in her teeth and jogged toward the entry.

  Abby turned back to Mac. “We’ve just installed a new alarm system, and there are bugs to work out. This is the second time it’s been triggered by ghosts, somehow.”

  The strident buzzing cut off, and Mac’s awakened nerves tried to settle again.

  “Hey? These are real specific ghosts.” Cleo came to the doorway, frowning. “The panel says a switch was thrown manually by someone in the east wing.”

  “Hm.” Abby tapped her thighs. “This isn’t good. Ginny’s in East Four, and one of her children is diabetic. If she’s been careless with his meds again…”

  “I’ll get coats.” Cleo disappeared down the hall.

  “We need to check, Mac.” Abby moved to a door in the far wall and returned seconds later carrying a small satchel. “Please make yourself comfortable. We should be back soon.”

  For a moment Mac was mightily tempted. She looked with longing toward the laid hearth and smelled the tantalizing spice of cider beginning to waft from the kitchen, and then she felt Cleo’s measuring gaze.

  “I wanted a tour of the grounds.” Mac zipped her jacket shut. “Might as well start with the east wing.”

  “Well, at least you’re already frozen.” Abby shrugged into the coat Cleo held ready for her. “You’re welcome to join us. Cleo, get a scarf, your cough is bad tonight.” She opened the front door as Cleo snagged a muffler from the closet.

  “Abby, don’t lock it,” Cleo growled. “You lock us out again, Abigail, my right hand to God, Vivian will make you shimmy down the chimney—”

  “Instead of letting Cleo break a window,” Abby told Mac as they stepped off the front porch. “Which set off the alarm the first time.”

  “Ah.” Mac nodded.

  Cold blasted Mac as they moved quickly out of the glow of the porch light—or as quickly as they could, wading through snow drifts—around the side of the house and into the darkness beyond. The wind rose, blowing the light snowfall into dizzying spirals.

  Cleo broke ground for them, her short, powerful legs kicking a path clear toward the long building ahead. Hooded lights burned over the four apartment doors of the east wing, but they did little to push back the murk.

  “The west and east wings both have four units, Mac.” Abby’s shoulders were hunched against the chill. “One, two, and three bedrooms. There’s space enough for fairly large families, as well as single women. We’re full most of the time, of course, though we have one vacancy now.”

  “Can’t we brief her later?” Cleo was breathing hard, sending out clouds of vapor. “Show her a nice brochure or something?”

  “The average stay is sixteen months,” Abby continued serenely, “but we can contract up to two years. We prioritize women from outside the county, whose abusers are so persistent they need to put plenty of space—”

  “Abby, she’s going to quit in the morning anyway,” Cleo growled, putting out a quick hand to steady Abby when she slipped. “After you amputate her frostbitten feet.”

  Mac trotted beside Abby, grinning. She liked Cleo.

  Abby stepped up to the boarded walkway fronting the four east wing units. Mac glanced to her right, then stopped the other two with a low whistle. She waved them to her and spoke softly.

  “The alarm might have been hit by a mother worried about a sick kid.” Mac lowered her voice another notch. “It might also have been thrown by that skinny man over there who’s trying to pry open a back window with a crowbar.”

  Abby straightened. “A man? Where?”

  “Hush, Abby.” Cleo frowned at Mac. “What did you see?”

  “There’s a guy behind the first unit. I saw him as we stepped on the porch.” Mac spoke calmly, but her heart punched in her chest. “He’s jimmying the window with a crowbar. I didn’t see any other weapons, but I only caught a glimpse.” She touched Abby’s arm. “Hold it, you can hear him.”

  The man’s hoarse grunts were clearly audible, even over the growl of the wind. He was weeping.

  Cleo threw a look down the stretch of doorways. “Degale and Waymon are in One. They’re here. Everyone’s in tonight, except Terry, in Three. She took her little girl to see her cousins. They’re signed out till morning.” She slapped at her pockets. “My damn cell, of course, is charging on my desk.”

  “All right.” Abby rubbed her forehead. “Ideally, we’d get everyone out, but I don’t want the kids milling around in this mess. They’re better off behind locked doors, at least until we know what this man’s up to. Agreed?”

  “Yep,” Cleo said. Mac nodded.

  “Cleo, go back to the house and call the police.”

  Cleo glanced at Mac. “Abby—”

  “We’re off the 911 grid, Cleo. We haven’t time to tell Mac where the phone is, much less how to direct them to us, if need be. Go on, now.”

  Cleo blew out air explosively. “Okay, but no heroics here.” She pointed at Mac. “You try to impress this girl with some grandstand play and get her hurt in the process, newbie, I’ll skewer you on a stick. You two be careful.” She jumped off the porch and loped back toward the house, muffling a coughing fit in her scarf.

  Mac cleared her throat. “Take my jacket, Abby. If you sneeze tomorrow, I’m a dead woman.”

  Abby pressed a hand to her mouth. “Please don’t make me laugh now, I’m in the midst of my first prowler. If we botch this, Cleo will lord it over us forever. I’d just as soon both of us went back with her, but we can’t very well stroll off if this guy’s trying to break in. We’ll do what we can, all right?”

  Mac nodded. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  Abby drew a deep breath and stepped off the porch. She reached back and touched Mac as they approached the rear of the building, keeping well away from its corner. Mac stayed close behind her, in crisis mode now. She knew how to use an adrenaline rush.

  Before she even saw the man, his muttering told her he was drunk. The rotgut fumes wafting toward them as they rounded the corner confirmed it. His language, what little Mac could understand through his slurring, told her he was enraged as well.

  “Bitch lied. Right to my face. You lied right to my face…”

  Abby stopped several yards from him and Mac took stock. There was a single arc lamp mounted high on a pole in the corner of the yard, but its stark illumination faded before reaching the end of the building. Mac saw well enough to know they might be in trouble.

  The man was skinny but tall, and his long arms were wired with muscle. He was in shirtsleeves in this weather, further evidence of his state of mind. He knelt in two feet of snow, his chin covered with dark stubble, his eyes glowing red. Tears streaked his face, either from distress or cold. He gripped a long iron crowbar, trying to fit its forked end under a windowsill. He wasn’t steady enough to hold his target, and the grate of steel jerking across wood set Mac’s teeth on edge.

  “You gonna talk to me, Terry!” The iron thudded back into the sill. He was blitzed, but still coherent. Mac wished he’d downed a few more shots; then they’d only have a sodden mumbler to deal with.

  “Good evening,” Abby called pleasantly. “My name is Abby, and I work here. I need to speak with you. Would you please put that iron down for a moment?”

  The man hardly registered their presence, turning his head briefly before focusing again on the window. “Bitch lied. Walked out. Walked fucking out. I told her I’d kick her ass she do me like that…”

  “Terry isn’t here.” Abby held her medical bag loose at her side, and Mac wondered if there was anything in it heavy enough to make a decent club. “Do you understand me? Terry’s not
here, but if you’ll put the iron down, we’ll try to help you.”

  “Screwed me up!” The man swept the bar in a sharp arc toward them, and Mac and Abby stepped back in tandem. The bar never came close, but the momentum of the swing knocked the man off balance. He smacked back against the building and sat sprawled in the snow. “Screwed me up,” he roared again.

  “Then don’t get screwed now.” Mac mirrored Abby’s conversational tone. She kept her voice kind but firm. She moved a few cautious steps sideways, into the man’s field of vision. “You’ll be screwed again if you’re arrested for breaking that window. You’ll have to find some other way to handle this.”

  He blinked at Mac, panting.

  Mac thrust her hands in her pockets. “If you break that window, the cops will cart you off to jail. You can’t see Terry and your little girl if they lock you up. You need to see them, right?”

  She caught Abby’s slight nod out of the corner of her eye, and returned it. Willing her shoulders to relax, Mac waited until Abby stepped quietly into the shadow of the building. All they needed was time.

  “Lied to me, I’m gonna break her head.”

  “It’s lousy she lied, but you know this won’t work.” Mac eyed the bar still clenched in the man’s hand and kept her distance, but his eyes were focusing now. He was listening. “It’s freezing out here, man. You don’t have any gloves. Your hands have to be killing you.”

  “Cold,” the man moaned. He scrubbed his free arm across his face. “Bitch won’t listen. I told her a hunnerd times, I told her I wouldn’t do nothing. She don’t listen. She took my kid.”

  “Terry’s not here now, but I’ll see her tomorrow.” Mac lifted her chin. “You want me to talk to her for you, Jim?”

  “Jim?” The intruder blinked at Mac. “Thass not my name. Ray’s my name. She don’t listen. She got law. Fuckin’ cops.” Tears coursed down his ravaged face, but he remained seated, and the bar stayed on the ground by his side. “Fuckin cops gimme papers.”

  Mac’s gaze darted to Abby. Great, at least there was a restraining order on this guy. “What do the papers say about your daughter, Ray?” She slapped her pockets. “Damn, I forgot my smokes. You have any smokes, Ray?”

  “Ain’t got nothing. Ain’t got no woman. Ain’t got no kid.”

  Ain’t got no crowbar, Mac thought. Ray dropped it in the snow to rub his face with both hands. She took a slow step forward and hunkered down on her heels, her hands dangling between her knees. She could still move quickly in this position, but her relaxed stance made her look harmless. Her voice became a low drawl. “You know Terry better than me. What do you want me to tell her tomorrow?”

  “You tell her to talk to me!” he bawled. “She took my kid. Cops gimme papers. I come home, she’s gone. No one say where. Shit, I ask ’em. Took my kid. I couldn’t find nothing. I got nothing, but I told her I break her head, she run from me.”

  Easily the dullest conversation Mac had had in months, but at least it was two-way now. She wanted to keep him talking, to turn him toward function and away from feeling when she could. Her back was killing her, but she wasn’t about to sit in the slush with this guy; it would be too hard to get up fast, and her height might seem threatening if she towered over him. He wasn’t processing anything she said, but he was talking, responding, and the iron stayed on the ground at his side.

  Mac saw the first flash of blue and red light splash across the ground. The police had followed procedure for a silent approach. She tensed to rise quickly if she had to, but either the wind covered the sound of the patrol car, or the man was far enough gone to be indifferent. “We can tell them you stopped when we asked you to,” Mac told him. “You be cool, Ray, and we’ll tell them that.”

  “I dint do nothing.”

  Mac sighed, then looked up sharply at the sound of a new voice.

  “The cops are here, Abby!”

  A thin woman leaned against the far corner of the building, hidden in shadow. The man’s head twisted toward her.

  “Gonna talk to you, Ter—”

  Damn, Mac thought.

  The man was scrabbling to his feet so she rose too, keenly aware of the crowbar. He left it on the ground. She heard Abby’s indrawn breath somewhere near and the man was sliding, flailing in the snow as he tried to stand erect. Mac took his arm, either to restrain him or steady him, trying to distract his fixed attention from the woman at the far corner.

  The clinical part of Mac’s mind registered that he didn’t attack her, that the push was instinctive, he just wanted her out of the way. She would have recognized deliberate violence, she’d known it before, but then the difference was academic, because both his huge hands were on her chest, and he gave one powerful shove.

  Mac was airborne and then she landed, slam, flat on her back in the snow. She slid a good ten feet before coming to rest, snow gritting beneath the collar of her jacket.

  There was a thwacking sound, and a guttural groan. Mac thought of Abby, and alarm sluiced through her. She lifted her head and saw the man huddled on his side against the wall, his hands cupping his groin, and Abby just lowering her boot.

  Then there was a blur of navy blue windbreakers and shouting, and Mac heard a child crying. Cleo was back, and the two officers with her were doing a dandy job of cuffing the guy, so Mac rested her head in the snow again and looked up into the trees.

  “Maybe Virginia does suck,” she mumbled.

  “What was that?” Abby crouched beside her. “Mac, how are you?”

  “I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”

  “You’re sure? How’s your back?”

  “Stiff,” Mac admitted. She tried a tentative flex. “But nothing’s newly wrenched.”

  “All right, then. Grab an arm. Carefully, please.”

  Mac took hold of Abby’s braced forearm and climbed to her feet. Her back griped but it didn’t scream. She was okay. Abby patted her down thoroughly, brushing off clumps of wet snow. She was Mac’s hero in that moment, this diminutive doctor and her flashing boot.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Mac said.

  Abby’s face lost its grim cast and she smiled up at her. “Think nothing of it, Counselor.”

  “Well? Well? Well?” Cleo was plowing toward them, and it seemed the only word she could bark in her urgency. She gripped their arms.

  “We’re fine, Cleo,” Abby assured her. “You dropped your scarf,” she added.

  “Anyone hurt over there?” Both police officers knelt by the man huddled on the ground, and one trained a flashlight on their faces.

  “We’re okay.” Mac nodded at their captive, who was groaning softly, his face in the snow. “How about him?”

  “He’ll be frisky again in a few hours.” The cop snapped off his flashlight and slid it into his belt. “Looks like he got kicked in an anatomically sensitive location.”

  “I am a doctor,” Abby said. “Thanks for coming so quickly, gentlemen.”

  “Our dispatch said we got a real rude summons from y’all.” The other officer rose and adjusted the bill of his cap, grinning. “Some shrieking harpy called in something like, ‘Get your ass out here now now now,’ screamed over and over.”

  “It worked.” Cleo pulled a sheaf of papers out of her pocket and passed them to him. “Here’s a copy of his wife’s restraining order.”

  They watched the two officers lift the dazed man from the snow and half carry him to the patrol car parked yards away.

  “Well, ladies, we got a clipboard to fill out.” The cop looked at Cleo. “Want to do the honors?”

  “Sure, I can give you the basics.” Cleo wrapped her jacket tighter around her waist, but not before Mac saw the gleaming grip of a handgun lodged in the belt of her jeans. “Abby, you and the newbie want to do something about our breathless audience over there?”

  Mac turned and saw a huddled group standing in the shadows at the far end of the building, three women and assorted kids. The revolving dome light of the cruiser reached them faintly, highlighting th
eir fixed stares.

  “Oh Lord,” Abby murmured, then slipped her arm through Mac’s. “You did ask for a tour, Mac. Care to meet a few of our guests?”

  “I’d be pleased.” Mac’s pulse had resumed a bearable rhythm, and she figured she could make a suitably composed first impression. She braced herself to absorb a fusillade of new names and faces.

  They kicked through the snow to the back of the far apartment, and the group loosened and straggled as they approached. Mac sidestepped two kids tumbling in the slush and turned to meet an explosion of babble.

  “Who was it? Was it Benny? It didn’t look like Benny.” A small woman had one toddler perched on her hip, and another clenched her hand.

  “It wasn’t Benny, Ginny, and he’s been taken care of nicely.” Abby’s tone was soothing. “Apparently, he’s Terry’s husband.”

  “She’s not here, but okay, how did he find us? This place is supposed to be secret, you said, so how did he find us? Did someone tell him where—”

  “Lordy, Ginny, can’t you cork it?” The black woman next to Ginny grinned at Abby. “These girls handled him fine.”

  Abby tapped the baseball bat perched on the woman’s broad shoulder. “Degale, dear, pray tell, what were you planning to do with that?”

  “I was planning to whap a skinny white man upside the head,” Degale said. “If Legs here couldn’t sweet-talk him out of busting my window.” She turned friendly eyes on Mac. “She did pretty good, though. I didn’t get to.”

  “That she did,” Abby said. “This is Mac Laurie, ladies. She’s our new counselor.”

  Degale enfolded Mac’s cold fingers in her large palm. “Nice to meet you, Mac Laurie.”

  “Same to you, Degale.” Mac shook her hand.

  “Where you hail from, Mac?”

  “New Mexico and points west.”

  “They stack ’em high in New Mexico,” Degale observed.

  “That they do.” Mac smiled.

  “And this is Ginny and her two youngest,” Abby went on. “And back there is Jo.”