Luke. Maddie. Conceived of a lie, they were still the only point of light she had. If something happened to them … The shudder started at the base of her spine and shot up between her shoulder blades. Surprisingly it bolstered her. She would fight the demons of hell to keep her children safe.
Should she call the police? Risk Brian’s threat? Could he take the children? It happened all the time, faces of missing children on posters at the grocery store. Did she think this podunk town’s police department could find them? Besides, it was too late to call, now that she’d cleaned up all the evidence.
What then? She stroked her face with her palm, looked up at the corkboard. What a joke. Tomorrow she would install keyed dead bolts. And then another thought came to her. Daddy’s gun.
12
YOU DO NOT GET A MAN’S MOST EFFECTIVE
CRITICISM UNTIL YOU PROVOKE HIM.
SEVERE TRUTH IS EXPRESSED WITH SOME BITTERNESS.
Henry David Thoreau
CAL PULLED OPEN HIS DOOR, only mildly surprised to see Rob back at his place. “Hey.” It was mid-morning, and Rob was on his forty-eight hours off. After last night, he looked ready to speak his mind. Cal pulled a second mug from the cabinet and filled it with coffee. He handed it over, then leaned against the counter. “If you’re here for answers, I’m clean out.”
Rob sent him a look Cal couldn’t decipher. Anger? Disappointment? “I thought you were finished with self-destruction.”
Cal looked into his cup. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You and Laurie.”
Again, he was only half-surprised. That Rob chose to discuss Laurie instead of his quitting the department was an example of their noncommunication these days. “So?”
“So I thought you’d learned.”
Cal swirled the coffee in the cup, then sipped again. “Can’t help it.”
Rob puffed the air out through his lips, kicked aside a chair, and sat down.
Cal took the opposite chair at the small table. “How’d she look to you?”
“Gorgeous, sweet … and deadly. For you, anyway.”
“Why?”
“Come on, Cal. She’s a fortune hunter.”
“No, she’s not.”
Rob was unrelenting. “The kind who takes you for what you’re worth and walks away.”
“Well, I’m not worth much, so what have I got to lose?”
“I don’t mean money.”
Cal shoved the cup aside. “What then?”
“Your pride, your manhood. Your soul.”
Cal sat back. “What soul? I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”
“Well, I think you’d sell yours for another shot at Laurie.”
Rob still knew him after all. Cal frowned. “You’re probably right.”
“Forget it. Forget her.”
Cal pressed his thumb over the dried dribble of coffee on the side of his cup and tried to rub it away. Yeah, sure. Forget the sound of her laugh, the beauty of her smile. Forget her silky hair between his fingers and the touch of her lips on his. Forget all their history, and the hole only Laurie could fill.
“Cal. You gave it your best shot—stood up to her old man, gave her a shoulder to cry on. She walked all over you and then walked out. Keep it that way.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Why?” Rob crowded the table, palms flat.
“She needs me.”
Rob shook his head, disbelieving. “You have to believe that, don’t you?”
Cal slid back the chair and stood. He dumped the rest of his coffee into the sink and rinsed the cup clean. Need and duty merged too closely to separate sometimes. Did he imagine Laurie’s trouble because he needed to be heroic? Was Rob echoing Laurie’s own accusations? Did he need someone to save to prove he still could?
“You’ve got it all wrong.” Rob’s voice took on an edge. “You hold on where you should let go, and punk out where you ought to stay.”
So here it came, what Rob really meant to say. Cal rinsed the coffee from the sink.
Rob slapped his palm on the table and stood up. “You think I want to partner with Perry? You think I’d trust him with my life?”
Cal stared into the drain.
“Why can’t you just get over it, Cal? It wasn’t your fault!”
Cal turned. “Tell that to Ashley Trainor.”
“Ashley Trainor is dead! We can’t save them all.”
Cocking his head, Cal saw the air starting to change, heard the buzzing in his ears. “Get out, Rob.” He gripped the counter. “Get out.”
Laurie took one last look around the kitchen in the morning light to make sure she hadn’t missed any of last night’s mess. Except for the corkboard nailed to the window, the room looked clean and innocuous. She went to get the children.
Her mother’s face was puffy with a pinkish splotch on one cheek, her eyes hooded. Had she been crying? “The children are out back. Some of the neighbors came over.”
Laurie passed through the hall to look out into the yard. Luke and Maddie were chasing about with three other children. With a smile creeping to her lips, she watched them play. It was good for them to have playmates. She turned and saw her mother watching her. The expression was hard to place; envy, regret?
Laurie knew all about regret. And that brought back last night’s tension. How could she broach it without alarming Mother and revealing more than she wanted to? She folded her hands. “Mother, I’d like to borrow Daddy’s gun.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “What for? Is something wrong?”
Laurie waved a hand. “I’d feel safer about being alone with the children if I had it just in case.”
And now the frown. “If you were home with Br ian, you wouldn’t need a gun.”
The absurdity struck her. If not for Brian, she wouldn’t need a gun. “I don’t want to discuss that.”
“No, of course not. What could I know about keeping a marriage together?”
Laurie swallowed a bitter lump. Oh, Mother had kept her marriage together, never interfering with the dictator’s desires—and sacrificed every ounce of joy for all of them. Yes, Mother could tell her a lot. Pretend the drugs never happened, the infidelity, the shady deals. Your place is beneath your husband, under his heel. Laurie did not need to hear anything Mother might say.
Her mother turned, went to the built-in walnut desk beneath the kitchen phone, and pulled open the drawer. She took out the handgun. “It’s not loaded.”
Laurie joined her, took the gun, and felt its weight. She’d never touched it. Daddy had kept it locked in his bed stand. When had Mother moved it to the kitchen? Was she afraid as well, living alone? “Why don’t you keep it loaded?”
“This is Montrose, not L.A.”
Laurie didn’t agree, but then, her threat was tangible. She could buy bullets at the hunting and fishing store on Breams Road. “Do you mind if I borrow it?”
“Take it.” Mother started to close the drawer, then stopped and took out a thick manila folder.
“What’s that?”
Her mother hesitated, then handed it over. “Some things of yours.”
Laurie set the gun on the table, sat down, and opened the hasp of the folder. She shook out a stack of papers. They were drawings and writings she’d done as a child. Her mother had collected and saved them? She looked from sheet to sheet: the house they’d lived in before this one, the horse she’d always wanted in a field of flowers, herself with two little girls. Laurie stared at that picture. She had drawn herself in her favorite yellow sundress, but each of the other girls was in pink and they all had wings. “What’s this?”
Her mother leaned. Her mouth tightened, and Laurie expected her to say “How would I know?” But she said, “You with your sisters.”
“My sisters?” Laurie stared.
“There are a lot of those. Sometimes they’re boys.” Her mother’s voice softened. “One of the babies was a boy.”
Laurie flipped to the next pic
ture. Sure enough, this time the three winged children were boys. But they were girls again in the next, four of them and they were all up in a tree. She looked at her mother. “I don’t remember drawing these.”
“They’d come in a rash. We’d bury a new one, and the drawings would start again, then dwindle.”
Laurie almost thought her mother’s lip quivered. She laid the pictures down and studied her mother’s face. “Was it very hard? Losing them?” She was ashamed she’d never considered it before. She wasn’t even sure how many babies her mother had lost.
The eyelids tinged with natural blue and brown hues came down over her mother’s eyes. Her lashes were thick, but not as dark as Laurie’s. Her cheekbones were well defined but not prominent. She was a lovely woman. “The hardest part was how your father took it.”
Laurie turned away from her mother’s face and squinted up at the corner, where a cobweb had escaped notice. It shocked her to see it. An imperfection in Marjorie Barton’s kitchen? “I don’t remember him grieving.”
Mother shook her head with a sigh. “No. He was embarrassed. The thought that we could produce anything less than perfect …” She folded her hands tightly.
Laurie noted the pale brown spots flecking the blue-veined hands. She looked up into her mother’s face. Why was she telling her this? They’d never spoken of the babies; at least Laurie couldn’t remember doing so.
“You’re lucky to have two perfect children.”
Laurie stood up and walked to the window. Were Luke and Maddie perfect? Wonderful, yes. Bright and healthy, but perfect? “No one’s perfect, Mother.” Is that what Daddy had expected? She had to be the perfect one, just because she lived? She walked back around the table and sat down. “How did they die?”
Mother stretched out her fingers and pulled at the base of her middle fingernail. The nails were narrow ovals, except the one that came down into a hangnail point at the base. “The twins were stillborn. We don’t know why. The next failed to develop a proper digestive system. He lived one day. The last was badly malformed. She lived the longest. Two weeks. Your father was terrified she might survive. After that we stopped trying.” She looked up. “But we already had you.”
“Was I first?”
Mother nodded. “I was nineteen when I had you.”
“No complications?”
Mother shook her head. “Nothing to indicate every other birth would be …” She sighed.
“And they never figured out what the trouble was?”
Her mother pulled a poem from the stack of papers. “I was never told any reason.” She held out the paper. “You wrote this in second grade.”
Laurie took it. “ ‘Mother.’ ” M—is for Marjorie. O—I love you. T—too bad the babies died. H—heaven is nice. E—everything will be all right. R—really truly, I promise. Laurie looked at the precise, wellformed letters. Someone must have helped her spell. “Not much of a Mother’s Day card.”
“It was the best thing I got.” Her mother’s voice quavered. “Just knowing someone cared.”
Laurie’s throat tightened. Mother had been so unapproachable. How could anyone show they cared? But maybe she hadn’t always been. Maybe she had grown that way with each passing grief. Laurie didn’t know what to say.
Her mother stood up. “You can take all that with you.”
“Don’t you want them?”
“I’m cleaning things out.”
Why did it hurt? The real surprise was that any of it ever meant enough for Mother to keep them in the first place. Laurie slipped all the papers into the envelope and tucked it under her arm. She stashed the gun into her purse. “I have to work at four. I’ll bring the children back then.”
Mother nodded. “They’ll need baths. I can do it here.”
Laurie nodded. “All right. I’ll bring Maddie’s bath toys.”
“Don’t bother. It clutters things up.”
Laurie bit her lip against her argument and went out the back to get the children. She couldn’t afford to antagonize her mother when she needed her help. Again, she realized how ill-prepared she was for this new stage in her life. Single-parenthood was no problem with unlimited funds and a nanny. It was a whole different picture now.
Especially with a madman trying to scare her witless. Laurie shoved the thought away. Sooner or later Brian, or whoever it was, would have to show himself. Then she’d explain she didn’t have the drugs and that would be it. If not, Daddy’s gun would dissuade them.
She caught Luke and Maddie by the hands as they ran over and chased each other around her legs. “Come on, you two. I’ll race you to the car.” She buckled Maddie into her car seat, made sure Luke was fastened, then headed for Roy’s Shot and Tackle.
“Mommy?” Maddie kicked the heel of one pink canvas tennis shoe against the toe of the other. “Why is Grandma sad?”
Laurie glanced back. “Why do you think she’s sad, honey?”
“Her mouth is like this.” Maddie trapped her lips between her fingers and pulled the edges down.
It looked more like a duck, but Laurie got the picture. “Well, it’s just …” What was it? A lifetime of nothing to make her smile? A permanent dissatisfaction? The joy sucked out of her by a chronically critical man? The pain of lost babies? Mother was a dry husk, stubble left behind in a harvested field. Laurie experienced something she hadn’t felt before: compassion. Compassion for her mother.
“I don’t know, honey. But maybe, between us …” She glanced into the rearview mirror at Luke in the backseat. “Between all of us, maybe we can help her learn to smile.”
Luke nodded. “I told her a joke.”
“What joke was that?”
“A joke Cal told me.”
Laurie almost winced. Was it appropriate? Did Luke tell Mother where he’d gotten it? She shook her head, annoyed. She had to stop thinking that way, disparaging Cal for who he was. “What was the joke?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Duane.”
“Duane who?” Maddie said simultaneously with Laurie.
“Duane the bathtub, I’m dwowning.”
Laurie smiled. Leave it to Cal to resurrect something so old and make it new for Luke. She shouldn’t have doubted him. “Did Grandma like it?”
Luke shrugged. “She said I did need a bath and made me wash my hands.”
Laurie sighed, her newfound compassion waning. “Well, I liked it. Did he teach you any others?”
“Yeah. He told me a bunch when we were cleaning the fish the day he … jumped on Maddie. Mommy? Why did he jump on Maddie?”
“I’ve already told you, Luke. He thought she was in danger.”
“But why did he hold his head and cry?”
“He wasn’t crying. He was … I don’t know exactly what it was. Do you remember the time you had the bad dream about the dragon? How you came into my room and you were shaking?”
Luke nodded.
“It’s like that. Maddie reminded him of something, something scary that happened.” Laurie parked in the small paved lot outside the store. She could get what she needed and maybe something little for the kids. The store was not large and the only thing she saw for children was a wire bin of brightly colored plastic balls. She distracted them with that. “Go look at those bouncy balls. Which one would you like?”
Quickly, she laid the handgun on the counter. “Could you please get me whatever kind of bullet this takes?”
The man looked at her quizzically.
“It’s my daddy’s gun and I’m not sure …” Why was he looking at her that way? “My father’s dead, and my mother gave it to me for protection.” Her voice shook.
Maddie’s tennis shoes slapped the tile floor as she ran back. “I want the pink one.”
Laurie turned as Maddie grabbed her legs. “I want the pink one, and Luke won’t get it.”
Maddie wasn’t tall enough to see the gun lying on the counter, but Laurie shielded her anyway with a turn of her b
ody. She sent a quick glance to the clerk. “Please just get me what I need.”
Luke stood next to the wire bin that held the iridescent plastic balls. From the corner of her eye, Laurie saw the sporting goods clerk sorting through the boxes of bullets. She took Maddie’s hand and walked her back to the ball bin.
“I don’t want pink.” Luke’s face was firm, too much like Brian’s.
“How about green?” Laurie lifted the ball out of the top of the bin and bounced it on the floor. Maddie swiped at it, missed, and chased it down the aisle. “Help her, Luke.” Laurie returned to the counter.
The clerk pushed the gun toward her. “This is a Smith and Wesson .38 special, takes a .38 158 grain hollow point shell. Do you know how to load it?” He looked more than a little nervous. Did he think she planned to use it on him? What was so odd about a woman needing a gun for protection? But she felt nervous herself as she shook her head. She’d never touched a gun before.
He opened the box of shells. “Let me show you.”
She watched first, then did it herself under his direction. Then he put the loads back into the box and handed her the empty gun. He moved to the register with the box of shells and rang it up. “That’ll be twelve dollars and twenty cents unless you want that bouncy ball.”
Twelve dollars! Laurie sighed. “Yes, I want the ball.”
Luke ran up with it clutched between his arms. Laurie paid, then asked, “Where would I get dead bolts?”
Again that quizzical look. In a town like Montrose he must think her paranoid.
“There’s a hardware store down the street.”
Laurie drove until she found the store, then brought Luke and Maddie and the ball inside. She chose keyed dead bolts and the tools the package said were required. She paid and went out. Luke and Maddie bounced the ball between them. “Hold it in the parking lot, Luke. You need to watch.”
She took Maddie’s hand. Why had the man at Roy’s Shot and Tackle made her feel so uncomfortable? Or was it her own tension that unnerved him? No matter. She had what she needed now, and she was not a freak, only a woman protecting herself and her children. As she pulled the car onto the twin lines of concrete that formed her driveway, Laurie looked at the house with a fresh ghost of fear. What would she find inside?
Twilight Page 17