by Mary Malcolm
In the background, someone said, “Detective Reyes, this isn’t a murder—”
I looked up to see Eli pushing his way into the house, ignoring the uniform cop as he beelined for me. “Who was he?” he asked.
“They don’t know,” I said, feeling a fresh wave of emotion. “A pervert, probably.”
The look on his face said he believed otherwise. I did, too, but didn’t want to admit as much out loud.
I wanted John. I wanted to feel his warm arms around me.
A cold draft of wind blew in, and I suddenly became very aware of my body. My nipples perked through my cami, and I crossed my arms over my chest.
Eli’s brow went up in question. “Cold?”
“A little.”
“Go change. They’re going to have some questions for you three, and I’ll have some more after they’re gone,” he said in a voice similar to the one Dee used on him earlier.
As three obedient little soldiers, we marched ourselves upstairs and got dressed.
Downstairs, some of the action had cleared. Eli and two officers remained, but everyone else was gone. I smelled coffee in the air and knew Eli must have made it. I also knew he would tell me once again not to go into work the next day.
This time he’d get no argument from me.
We sat with the two remaining officers and gave statements. No, we didn’t know who it might be. Yes, we lock all windows and doors. No, we didn’t have any known enemies.
Eli looked to me on that question, and my cheeks warmed. I hadn’t had any, at least, until this job.
I didn’t tell the officers as much. They finished up their field notes and thanked us for our time.
“Thank you,” Dee said, offering them each some coffee to go.
Once we were by ourselves, Eli sat us at the table. “Okay, Lucy, Dolores,” he said, sternly. “Tell me everything you’ve been leaving out.”
We looked to each other and back at him.
“Should I go?” Ana asked.
“No,” I said. “You need to be a part of this too.”
Chapter Eight
“So you weren’t telling Officer Reyes the entire truth,” Officer Len stated. He leaned back and his chair made a sharp sound. For a moment I thought he might slide and fall, but he righted himself and the chair scraped back into place.
“Not entirely, but it wasn’t to make things difficult. It was, well, it’s very complicated…”
****
With everyone else gone and obvious concern shining through on Eli’s face, unexpected tenderness replaced my normal annoyance and frustration toward him. Still not like I had feelings, per se, but I realized I cared for him, as a friend. He’d come here in the middle of the night to protect me. Dressed in sweat pants and a deep V-neck sweater, his muscled arms flexed as he crossed them and waited.
I’d never been into beefy men before, but I definitely saw the appeal.
I leveled with Dee and Ana about Roger showing up at the coffee house. I could tell from what they didn’t say I’d be in for a month of guilt trips, at least.
“I told you all I know about the men,” I said, looking at the three of them.
Aunt Dolores motioned for us to sit in the living room. Eli sat on the edge of a chair; the three of us women huddled together on the couch, me in the middle. The heat kicked on and inexplicably sent a chill down my back. I knew from the news it was supposed to get colder outside. At least in the thirties that night.
Aunt Dolores started. “She told you about her time in Arkansas?”
He nodded. “Not everything, I’m sure.” He leveled his gaze on me.
I took Dee’s hand for support. Ana reached for mine at the same time.
“Her parents,” Ana said, “disappeared when she was sixteen. That’s why she came to live with Dolores.”
“Yes,” Eli said. “Go on.”
I looked to Dee, and she squeezed my hand. Again, I was that lost sixteen-year-old in the hospital waiting for my parents to come pick me up.
“They should be here anytime,” one of the social workers at the hospital assured me. “The officers are on their way to your house now.”
I’d been covered in a blanket, my hair longer then, frizzy from having been swimming. At that point I was more afraid of what my parents would do when they found me than shaken up about the body. I’d been upset someone died, but I’d be in so much trouble for having gone swimming by myself.
The hospital was about thirty miles from my house, but I sat there for an eternity. The social worker flipped the TV in the room to some religious channel, and I’d done my best to tune it out. “Can I get something to drink?” I asked after a while.
Whose brainless idea was it for me to be in a hospital room anyway? I wasn’t sick; I wasn’t hurt. Pictures of Jesus praying over children hung on the walls. I didn’t need prayer. I needed my parents.
“Sure, sweetie,” she said, patting my leg through the blanket.
I know the pat was supposed to be reassuring, but it came across weirdly insincere. I wanted to tell her to go away. She irked me. Her voice reminded me of a yappy Chihuahua. Her hand a limp, dead fish.
The flowery design on the curtain somehow annoyed me as much as the social worker.
When she came back, she paused to talk to someone outside. They talked in hushed voices but, c’mon, it was a curtain not a wall. The other person told her my parents hadn’t been found yet.
At the time I didn’t know what that meant for me. When she came back in, she vaguely smiled and handed me a root beer. “There you go, sweetie.” She patted my leg again but didn’t say anything about what was discussed outside.
“Where are my parents?” I asked.
“On their way, I’m sure,” she said, lying through her teeth.
I knew then, I wanted to hit her. I was sixteen, not a child. I didn’t need to be protected from the truth. “They aren’t coming, are they.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement.
My parents hid from society for most of my life. Whatever they’d hidden from was bigger than anything they’d ever told me and certainly not something they’d want to share with the police.
By the time I finished, I couldn’t look at Eli. “Two weeks after they disappeared, social services finally located Aunt Dolores, and I came here to live.”
“And I’ve loved havin’ her ever since,” Dee said in an unquestioningly protective tone.
Ana squeezed my other hand. “So we don’t know why her parents hid, or what the secrets are, but they are big enough to abandon their amazing daughter over.”
“That’s why I don’t like Lucy to tell a lot of people about what she can do,” Dolores said. “It makes her unique, sure, but that uniqueness brings a certain amount of curiosity. And if whoever is after her parents knows about her ability”—she paused to look at me—“well, they might think she can lead them to my brother and Lucy’s mom.”
Eli leaned back. “Do you think someone knows? That Roger guy, perhaps?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. If Roger knew where my parents were, that meant a few hours ago I might have blown my only shot at finding them.
Aunt Dolores pinched her lips and made a smacking sound. “I don’t know, but someone was here. Peeping Tom or worse, I don’t like it. Not one bit. And I’ll tell you,” she said, looking right at me, “that John guy is nice enough, but we don’t know that he didn’t tell anyone. And you…” This time she leveled her stare at Eli. “I know you’re a cop, but how many people at the precinct have you told simply because it was interesting?”
“None.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“I swear.” He held up a hand. “Scout’s honor. I haven’t told anyone about Lucy other than she is part of the investigation.” He ducked his head a little. “This is one of the first murder cases I’m working on as a detective. I only transferred over from robbery last month, and I dismissed Lucy at first.” With that, his cheeks reddened.
“You tol
d me as much,” I said. “And you apologized.” Though his full disclosure in front of Aunt Dolores and Ana surprised me.
“Thing is,” he said, “I still want to make a good impression. So if I start off talking about a girl who can essentially read minds being my source on the inside, I’m going to look like an ass.” He looked at Dolores. “Excuse my language.”
“Pfft.”
“Speaking of which”—he pulled a paper out of his pocket—“Bonnie Kent was cleared. She has an alibi. I brought this anyway.”
“I don’t read minds.” I took the paper and glanced without reading. “What is it?”
“A transcription of the interrogation. I thought you might like to look it over later and see if anything stands out to you.”
“Thanks.” I shoved the paper under my thigh, and we all sat not talking for a few moments. The clock on the mantel ticked and another branch scraped across the window.
With everything that had happened, I didn’t want to go back upstairs. I was scared. Times like this made me want my mommy. Dee did her best, but I missed my mom’s arms around me.
Eli seemed to read my mind. “Listen, ladies. I’m sure you all want to get back to sleep, but I feel strange leaving you tonight knowing what happened. I mean, for Christ’s sake, the guy climbed a tree to peek in. That’s just creepy.”
It was.
“We can’t ask you to stay,” Ana said, though the way she said it came across as please don’t leave us with some strange pervert waiting to break in.
“The hell we can’t,” Dee interjected. “Why don’t the girls come share my bed, and you can sleep in Lucy’s room,” she directed.
I thought about the clothes scattered all over my floor. About my private notebooks that I never shared with anyone.
I thought about Big Blue: a vibrator Ana gave me on my twenty-first birthday. I’d never used it, but if Eli snooped around and found it I would never be able to face him again.
“Why don’t we grab pillows and blankets and all sleep down here? We can start a fire. It’ll be nice. Like when we were younger,” I said, looking at Ana.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I’d like that.”
“I’m too old to be on the floor,” Dolores grumbled. “But so long as I get the couch, I’m okay with that.”
Eli stood. “It’s settled, then. Need help getting anything?”
Dolores looked him up and down. “I’m sure you’ve started a fire or two in your day.”
“I’ll get it going,” he said, rubbing his hands together as if the friction from his palms alone could start the spark.
I pinched Aunt Dolores’s side. I knew what she meant. The dirty old bird.
****
Even with the fire crackling and me squished cozily between Ana and Eli, I couldn’t sleep. At first I tossed back and forth, but eventually I settled on staring at the back of Eli’s head and the reflection of the flames against the wall.
“Still can’t sleep?” Eli asked, quietly.
“Did I wake you?”
He turned to face me. “No. Ana did when she snored.”
“She is pretty loud,” I whispered back, smiling. In the quiet of darkness, I needed to be open with him, or maybe I needed to give a voice to the fears gripping my heart. “I feel like my whole life is changing, and I can’t even get my fingers wrapped around it long enough to hold on. You know the Serenity Prayer, the one for people in twelve-step programs? I feel like there are so many things I cannot change right now that even God couldn’t grant me peace.” Saying it out loud made my heart ache.
“Sounds scary,” he said, his words a warm swallow of whisky to calm my nerves.
I nodded, vulnerable and exposed but not quite as alone. Everyone who knew the truth about how I ended up with Dee was in this room right now. Or at least the truth as I knew it. What if things were different? It wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought about why my parents disappeared.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Eli asked.
“Thinking about my parents.” And what the police told me after I’d left the hospital.
About how the police found the weapon by our house.
About how my parents may have killed that man.
“You must miss them a lot.”
I nodded.
“Ever thought about trying to find them?”
“All the time. But then I figure if they wanted to contact me they know where to look.” The words trailed and my stomach turned.
Why hadn’t they tried?
Eli’s brow cinched, and he reached forward to cup my cheek. Tears clogged the back of my throat at his intimate, sweet touch. “I’m sure your parents think about you every day.”
I wanted to believe him. But that would mean they, in fact, did have some horrible reason they needed to stay away.
“No one could love you the way your parents must have and not, do you understand?”
I nodded. His palm heated my cheek. He caressed my chin with his thumb before tucking his fingers behind my head. At his motion, I leaned forward and accepted his warmth. He wrapped both arms around me, and I laid my head against his chest. On my side, pressed against him, I felt perfectly safe. I fell asleep.
****
The next morning, I awoke to the smell of bacon, coffee, and blueberry muffins. Everyone was in the kitchen by the time I arrived, including Ana, whose idea of waking up early was noon. The breakfast laid out also included eggs, fresh fruit, and something not seen in Dee’s house since I came to live with her: butter. She was a margarine-only gal. “Who shopped?”
“I did.” Eli turned from the counter with a cup of coffee in hand. He blew before taking a sip. Legs crossed, leaning against the counter like that, his shirt pulled tight over his muscled chest, gave me early-morning naughty thoughts of what he might look like without that shirt.
Thoughts I’d rather reserve for John.
Ana didn’t seem to have much trouble imagining Eli without that shirt, either, because from the moment I walked into the room she hadn’t taken her eyes off him.
“Eli brought food and cooked breakfast,” Aunt Dolores said. “And he comes from money.”
I ducked my head and laughed. So she was on this again. “Is that right. Well, perhaps you two could go out to dinner sometime.”
Eli grinned behind his cup. “I’m not sure I’m man enough for her.”
“I’m not sure anyone is man enough for her.” Ana picked a blueberry out of her muffin and popped it into her mouth.
Grabbing a muffin, I slathered it with butter before taking a bite. It was delicious, and it was like I saw a new layer to him.
“He cooks.” Aunt Dolores held up a muffin. “He baked this.”
“You already said that.” She’d always told me I should find a man who cooks on account I avoid the kitchen like the plague. Dee gave me a dirty look for eating over the counter, so I sat next to Ana at the table. I placed a little of everything on my plate and dug in, surprised by how famished I was. After the stressful night, I’d expected none of us would have much of an appetite, yet from the looks of their plates, I wasn’t the only one who woke up hungry.
Eli sat next to me, and the heat from his body threatened to burn a hole into my thigh. Or maybe I imagined it.
Last night hadn’t been imagined.
“So any word on our mysterious midnight Lothario?” I asked, devouring nearly an entire egg in one bite.
“Well, I doubt he came here to seduce the three of you, but other than that, nothing. At least I haven’t heard anything.” He grabbed a slice of bacon from the plate. “Maybe when I go in later. Usually information like that takes time. Most likely we won’t find out anything unless there were prints and they were in the system.”
I deflated at the news. Not that I wanted to know the guy spying on us was in the system or anything, but it would be nice to know something.
For now, either some pervert or some unknown baddie existed out there and wanted to hurt me and I had no idea who.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Eli asked, and I swear I saw our intimacy conveyed in his soulful eyes.
I took a bite of the muffin to avoid answering. As open as I’d been in the middle of the night, in the dark with only the firelight as a witness, today I kind of wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. Just like my parents.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m thinkin’,” Aunt Dolores piped up. “I’m thinkin’ we need to have better security around here. I’m talkin’ flood lights, window bars, alarms, the whole nine yards.”
“So you’d want to live in a police state?” Ana asked. “Bar yourself against intruders, act as a prisoner in your own home rather than trust that this was a rare, once-in-a-lifetime event?”
“Better than waiting around to be pillaged in my sleep,” she threw back.
“No one wants to pillage your dusty ol’—”
“Whoa, ladies.” Eli held up his hands as if to direct the traffic of their words. To me, he asked, “Are they always like this?”
“Yes. Unfortunately.”
They both shrugged, though neither conceded to being wrong.
Eli turned the attention back to me. Again. “I’d tell you not to go to work today, but that didn’t work so well for me yesterday. Are you going in?”
I shrugged. “No, I suppose not. It’s been a long week. Tomorrow’s Friday and I might as well call in sick and take a long weekend. At the rate I’m going, it isn’t like I’ll have this job long, anyway.”
He sent me a get over it, someone’s trying to kill you frown.
“I mean, between constantly calling in sick because bad things are happening, or because of the bad things happening, I’m either going to lose the job, or my sanity or my life. Whichever way, I don’t think calling in sick is going to hurt me in the long run.”
With that, I stood and went upstairs.
Lying on my stomach on the bed, I pulled a stuffed animal that I’d had for as long as I could remember—Ellie the Elephant—against me and squeezed it tight. My journals lined the bottom of my bookshelf, and from where I lay they looked like a perfect picket fence. The place where I kept my real self barricaded from the world.
The door opened and shut, and I didn’t have to turn to know Ana came in. Instead of sitting on her bed, she curled up next to me. “Your life sucks right now.”