"No," she shrugged the hands out of hers a bit too forcefully. Anything else she would have acquiesced to, but Dawn wanted her to sleep.
The hurt in the deep blue eyes was obvious, as well as the indecision in the biting of a rosy lip as Dawn leaned down to stare her in the face. "Won't you tell me? Let me make it go away," those lips begged. "You make my nightmares go away..."
She would have liked to take a shower, but that required requesting entrance to the bathroom and probably more talking. So instead, Mallory went into the wardrobe, and closed her eyes. Running her hands along the hangers, she sought the softest clothing; light and comfortable fabrics. Grasping her favorite knit cowl neck sweater, a tank top and well worn jeans, she dressed quickly. As she leaned down to dig her one pair of nude sandals out, the door of the wardrobe opened.
Dawn stood there, her face apologetic. In her hands were a hairbrush and a strange knit concoction.
"Hat," she identified while holding the offending item up. "Your hair...Your other hats won't hide it all."
Despite her prevailing mood, Mallory chuckled. "I know, my hair is hideous."
Her face brightening a bit as she giggled back, Dawn knelt down. "It's not hideous, you just ran out of dye. Are you going to pick some up?" She pushed at Mallory's shoulder. "Turn around."
Rolling her eyes, Mallory did so. As Dawn began to run the brush through her hair, she hummed a bit. It felt nice... reminding her of what it used to feel like when someone else would brush her hair. That odd feeling swirled in her chest uncomfortably, and she reached up to take the brush away. "Would it bother you if I didn't?"
Dawn gave an irritated sigh as the brush was tugged from her fingertips and plunked onto the carpet. "No, but you'd have to fix the ends. You can't go around town looking like this."
"I could just wear your horrible hat for the rest of my life," Mallory joked. It sounded hollow, even to herself.
The humor fled just as quickly as it came, and the sounds of sniffling filled the air. Dawn stuffed her hair into the cap before crawling in front of Mallory with a critical eye. "You look like... like you're twenty or something.”
Reaching into her purse for the requisite sunglasses, Mallory slipped them on. "And now?"
Dawn burst out laughing, while wiping her tears away.
Her heart skipping with fleeting happiness at the sound, Mallory hugged the girl close. The beat of her heart evened out as she cradled Dawn in her arms, and her love seemed to understand what she needed. Arms wrapped gently around her back, while hands ran soothingly up and down.
"Are you snoring?" Dawn's voice faded through the blissful silence in her mind.
_____________________________________
Of course, the co-op on this side of town was packed. Why had she forgotten that it was a Saturday morning? Dawn would be worried if this took too long.
The drive over had been painfully slow, in stark contrast to the quick escape she'd made. Just as images began to swirl in her mind, she had gasped awake, wriggled out of tightly tucked blankets, and was chased downstairs by the fiery little blonde woman.
She'd fallen asleep on the floor, and Dawn had somehow gotten her up, and into bed.
"Come back. Damn it Mallory, you're tired!" Dawn cried out the front door. "You're going to get hurt!"
She parked the Jag as near to the doors as possible, and groaned when a police cruiser parked a few spots down. Mallory waved irritably at the constable once she'd exited the car. "I know you have to follow me everywhere now, but do you honestly need to come inside as well?"
Detective Constable Stella Stewart smiled pleasantly and crossed her ankles as she leaned against the cruiser. "Don't go disappearing to London for a week and a half, and I won't have to follow you everywhere."
"And who watches Dawn while you tail me like some sort of insubordinate, errant child?" Mallory sniped, grabbing a trolley from the canopy. She knew that at least one, sometimes two cars parked discreetly off the side of the road near the driveway, ever since they had arrived home.
"I believe Dr. Sheehan's visiting at the moment, since you won't return her numerous calls. She'll be wanting to speak with you once you return," Stella reported cheerily. "Promise not to frighten any poor, unsuspecting citizens inside with your attitude, and I'll give you thirty minutes alone."
Throwing her hands up in frustration, Mallory swore the foulest language she knew before ferrying the trolley towards the building.
Stella laughed before calling out after her, "You're a school teacher with that mouth?"
Mallory lifted her hands once more in two rude gestures before walking inside the market. Thirty minutes – she had thirty minutes to get what she needed, and get out. Rushing down the produce section, she grabbed whatever looked good... which wasn't much. She wanted sweet things, her feet itching to run to the candy aisle. Instead, she forced her hands to pick up a tote of apples, a box of tangerines, some green peppers, aubergine and squash before declaring the trolley healthy enough to move on.
Up and down the aisles she went, grasping cereals without really paying attention, yogurts she thought Dawn might like, coffee, and more tea. Along with the standard Lady Grey, she plunked in a box of Scottish Breakfast tea – the more caffeine, the better.
Turning the corner to the bulk aisles, Mallory began to fill a bag with different things to make a trail mix. Her eyes began to wander the section, finally noticing that other shoppers had stopped to stare at her. An older gentleman following his harried wife quickly folded the newspaper he'd been reading, and laid it on top of his trolley before turning away. A lady ten feet away from the couple tucked her paper in between some produce in her trolley, and smiled sadly. Surely the townsfolk weren't so mercurial as to despise her as a cradle robber one week and pity her the next. What was in the paper?
Narrowing her eyes at the scene, Mallory abandoned her trolley to walk to the end of the aisle. There on the end cap of the registers were stacks of the morning post, along with The Times from London. Her face paled at the headline of The Times.
MURDERER IN OUR MIDST
Crown Reopens Investigation of Gem Traders' Deaths
Requests Transfer of Jurisdiction for Privacy of Survivor
Beneath the headline were pictures of her as a young teenager, followed by recent shots from London. Someone had been trailing her, taking pictures. Her trembling hands picked up the paper and shook the violating material. They hadn't published her current name, obviously a loss of information at the end of a paper trail.
"Privacy?" she barked. "Privacy?" She kicked the stack of papers and threw down the copy in her hands like it was a hot coal.
"Mallory?" a timid voice peeped from behind her.
Turning towards the familiar voice, Mallory's teeth bared in a mixture of grimace and growl. Claudia stood at the end of the aisle, her hand reached out in a calming manner. She was obviously on her way to a shift or was getting off of it, a stethoscope still draped around her neck. Several patrons gathered behind Claudia, either curious about the scene unfolding, or the woman they knew as Miss Moore being in the paper. Some had obviously already read it, their eyes ranging from wary, to saddened, to sympathetic.
"Don't panic, Mallie," Claudia spoke like she was soothing a spooked animal, and stepped forward from the group.
It made her hackles raise all the more. "Jesus H, Claudia. I'm fine. What do you care, anyway?" Mallory bristled. Taking deep breaths, she ducked under a register chain and sped to the front of the store.
A gentleman outside poked her shoulder and whispered, "Miss Moore? You left your groceries," he mumbled, awkwardly gesturing back into the store. "A few of us want to pay for it. Can we take it out to your home?"
_____________________________________
Claudia had just finished loading the shopping from two carts into one when she spied Mallory leaning against her Jag, yelling madly at a Constable. The policewoman was trying her best to calm the woman, but it didn't appear to be going very w
ell.
Indecision warred with fear of getting involved with what looked like a tense situation, but Claudia knew that if she couldn't hand off the groceries now, that she would have to drive them all the way over to Tollesby.
Pushing the trolley that seemed to have a mind of its own, Claudia approached the swearing teacher and the defiant looking constable. Her gut told her that she needed to say what she'd originally wanted to inside, before Mallory had looked one nudge short of a breakdown.
She approached the two with a professional stance, in case the policewoman objected, but spoke her target's name hesitantly. "Mallory?"
Even before she turned, Mallory's shoulders hunched in preparation for a wounding word. The fear of rejection was something Claudia was all too familiar with, and she recognized the reaction. She trained her face into as much calm as possible, willing the honesty of her planned words to reach her eyes.
"If you've come all the way out here to deliver another of your nasty insults, don't bother," Mallory spat without even turning around.
The constable looked infinitely uncomfortable at those words, and turned towards Claudia with a stern look of reproach.
Claudia pushed the trolley forward anyhow, and came up beside Mallory to look the unforgiving woman in the face. "Mallie, what I said to you that night was horrendous," she began, attempting to keep her voice steady. "I know that I've been very unkind to you since I met Elisabeth..."
"So, you've decided to come absolve yourself of guilt now that everyone knows what I am?" Mallory interrupted sharply, crossing her arms. "Does Elisabeth know you're here?"
Claudia withered before her, and barely whispered a 'no.'
An awkward silence hung in the air between them, especially as the Detective Constable was their audience.
Claudia felt like she was dying inside; as if she were a child again and a cold, cruel female figure was watching and judging her; belittling her. She tried to remember everything she wanted to say, but the memory of that night once Mallory left filled her mind.
Sitting at the kitchen table, the mug of peppermint tea went cold in her hands.
Only hours later, she knew that she should never have said those awful things to Mallie. Her jealousy and fear went out of control around the woman and tonight, Claudia had behaved in a way unacceptable to herself, and her standards.
Mallory Moore was beautiful... and yet, she was detached and frigid to the casual observer. Besides being threatened by the teacher's closeness to Elisabeth, Claudia was psychologically aware enough to know that Mallory's presence triggered the frightened little girl in her, and vice versa. Her seemingly inexplicable aversion to Mallory ran deeper than anyone, even Elisabeth, knew; reminding her of the emotionally unavailable mother she'd wanted so much to love her.
In turn, Mallory perceived weakness as a threat. Territorial to a fault, everything soft about her was simply... absent.
Claudia ironically witnessed every type of human sickness, both mental and physical, in her line of work. The dysfunctional families; the suicide attempts of sixteen year olds because the world had given up on them.
Sometimes the only way they knew how to cry was at the end of a razor blade.
Sometimes they killed themselves in other ways.
Pouring her tea into the sink, Claudia went in search of Elisabeth.
"We seem to bring out the worst in each other, and I just wanted to apologize," Claudia spoke firmly, but her body language betrayed her. "And bring out your groceries; you forgot them, remember?" She started hauling the bags off of the trolley to lay them at the constable's feet.
Mallory could see her falling to pieces. For one so brave on her own turf, she was acting like a scared little girl on her first day of boarding school. Still, Claudia's wounding words from that evening had cut deep, and she wasn't convinced Mallory would forgive her so easily, if at all.
For her part, Mallory regarded the groceries on the asphalt and looked back up at Claudia, probably offended that she was being expected to forgive that evening for a trolley of food.
"D-Did you want to say anything?" Claudia blushed, not having stuttered since she was a child.
Frowning at what must have been a flicker of sympathy for her, Mallory stepped forward but not close enough to intimidate her. "I know that I frighten you. It would be helpful if you could convince yourself that I am not the person you think I am... Whatever you have cooked up in that head of yours.”
While staring at the asphalt, Claudia saw a slender hand offered to her. For a second, she wondered if it was a trick, and Mallory would rescind her offer in an attempt to humiliate.
The constable cleared her throat and tilted her head towards the willowy hand that still dangled.
Taking a deep breath, Claudia reached out and took it, exchanging a brief squeeze.
Mallory took her hand back, and looked away. "Now, go away. I can't..."
"I know, Mallie," Claudia sighed, before walking away.
_____________________________________
Dawn had been nervous about letting the psychologist inside, but Dr. Margaret Sheehan's doting attitude had won her over in a short amount of time.
The kind lady sat primly on the other side of the kitchen table, sipping her tea as she took notes about their surroundings. Whatever Margaret Sheehan could see in blue painted cupboards and various knickknacks, Dawn wasn't sure.
Still, her observations didn't appear mean, or judgmental – she seemed to look around Mallory's space with a keen, curious eye and a smile that lit up the space every time her eye laid on a new discovery. When that happened, she'd sip her tea and scribble in the file some more.
It might have been endearing if Dawn wasn't presently aware that Dr. Sheehan was viewing the home as Mallory's... "gilded cage," she'd called it - analyzing every detail down to the minutest quotient. The small dream catcher from the library nook was of particular interest, and laid on the table top near Dr. Sheehan's hand. Every so often, she'd brush at a feather and give a quirky smile.
Sometimes, she would whisper, "Fascinating."
She had also asked about how Mallory was doing, and Dawn was purposefully vague in her answers. But surely, telling the doctor that Mallory was having trouble sleeping wasn't too much of a privacy issue, was it? It seemed normal under their stressful circumstances.
"So tell me about your mother, Dawn?" the doctor asked nonchalantly, studying her teacup.
Not understanding why it was any of her business, but attempting to be polite anyway, Dawn shrugged. "She was my mother."
"Do you not miss her?" quipped Dr. Sheehan, turning her gaze upwards to stare deeply. "Did she not pass away only a few years ago?"
Dawn shrank a bit in her seat at that all-knowing stare. "Two years, just. That... that was my stepmother. My father married her when I was 4. I never knew my birth mother," she rambled.
"Yes..." Margaret nodded. "Your father got a pretty young thing pregnant, and your grandparents took care of you for a few years. That is, until they set him up with Leila," she flipped through her file and made a satisfied smile at it. "She was pretty, Leila was."
Her face wistful at the memory of the woman she'd considered a mother, Dawn found herself nodding along with the psychologist, her hands splayed out into the air as she described the woman. "She was beautiful. She had the most beautiful soul, too. No matter how much Father would yell, she'd always take us away from it with stories or outings."
Dr. Sheehan folded her hands around the file and gave a pleased expression at Dawn's loosening up. "Leila McAllister was richer than Midas, too. The marriage did well for your father – a pretty, rich blonde with green eyes, loaded to the gills," she mused before closing the file with a slap.
Suddenly uncomfortable without knowing why, Dawn shifted in her seat. "I don't follow, Dr. Sheehan..."
Margaret sighed across the table. "I'm creating a pattern of intent for your father, dear. Trying to find his tick has been... quite frustrating. Once I did a little
digging of my own, some of it began to come together. Your stepmother, Leila – beautiful, blonde hair, green eyes," she slid the first photo closer to Dawn.
"Your birth mother, who I am sorry to say is also gone. Heroin is a terrible drug," she tsked as she slid a photo of a young woman across to Dawn, before looking up sympathetically. "Poor thing was easy prey for Steven Rose's promises of grandeur, according to your biological grandparents. I'm terribly sorry that I couldn't convince them to talk to you, but they want nothing to do with this case..."
"It's... it's alright," Dawn whispered, dragging the photo closer. The woman was pretty but nondescript, with big green eyes, and curly blonde hair. She pushed the photo back. There wasn't a connection there – not that she'd wished for one, until Leila had died. Leila had long been her mother, anyhow.
Peccatum in Carne: Sins of the Flesh (The Three Sins of Mallory Moore Book 1) Page 21