by CJ Lyons
After being attacked in her own home last month, she’d gotten a gun permit, learned how to shoot, and now carried the Para Carry-9 with her whenever she was out alone. At first she’d felt conflicted—after all, she’d seen and treated enough gunshot wounds to know the danger a handgun posed. But somehow it all seemed different when it was her own life on the line.
Lydia turned the corner from Penn onto Merton Street, gripping the nine-millimeter. Instantly the noise of the city traffic was muted by the thick growth of evergreens. There were two houses here at the corner, then her house, which sat alone down a long tree-lined drive at the end of the cul-de-sac. As she passed from the last glow of light from the houses and headed toward her drive, a dark form stepped out of the bushes in front of her. A flashlight clicked on, blinding her for a moment.
Lydia’s grip on her gun tightened. She brought her free hand up to shield her vision from the light. Adrenaline raced through her, finding her fear and replacing it with a calm certainty that reminded her of how she felt when a fresh trauma came in. Her senses sharpened as she identified the sound of a man breathing, the fact that he held nothing in his hands except the flashlight, and the stench of his cologne: coconut, rum, and Iron City beer.
“Pete Sandusky, put that light down,” she ordered. She kept her hand on her weapon, but as her fear and adrenaline fled, it was more about having something to hang on to than being prepared to use it. Pete was harmless, physically at least.
“Hey, Lydia! About time.” The light flicked off. “I’m freezing my balls off out here.”
“Glad to see you’re doing your part to protect the future survival of the species.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny. Listen, you need to fill me in on what’s going on. What can you tell me about Karen Chisholm’s death? The police haven’t officially released her name, are just saying that a woman was assaulted and then died at Angels, but my sources tell me it was Karen and she was murdered.”
“What sources?”
He smiled, moonlight reflecting off his brilliant white teeth. Too bad they were a bit crooked, marring the image. “I’m in negotiations with someone who can get me photos of her body. Said it was a real freak show. But I need confirmation before I invest that heavily. Know what I mean?”
“Pictures?” Lydia would have ignored Pete, told him to go to hell, but she remembered the photos Nora had taken as part of the rape kit.
“I saw the cop on duty back there.” He jerked his head toward Angels and the cemetery. “So the assault actually took place on top of a grave?” He seemed excited as he pulled out his digital recorder. “And this graffiti? Was it gang related? Or maybe a satanic cult? Were there multiple attackers?”
“No comment. Put that recorder away. I’m not giving you anything for the record.”
He shrugged and repocketed the recorder. It was still running, Lydia was certain. Pete wasn’t one to worry about little things like off-the-record.
“Who’s selling the photos?” she demanded.
“Lydia. You know me better than that. I never reveal my sources.”
“Fine. I’ll tell the police that you have stolen crime-scene evidence.”
“I don’t have anything. Yet.” They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Pete surrendered. “Guess I’m barking up the wrong tree here. I’ll hunt down Nora Halloran.”
“Nora?” Lydia tried to play it cool, like she didn’t know Nora was intimately involved.
“Nora. My source says that after Karen died, she said words to the effect that she had somehow caused Karen’s death. Did something go wrong in that OR?”
Amanda finally found time to make it back downstairs to the pediatric floor. She had just begun obtaining Narolie’s history when she saw a familiar shadow lurking at the door. “Tank, what are you doing here? You could be contagious!”
“The nurse said I could take my monitor off when I go use the john—I just decided to find one down here.” Tank sounded defensive but didn’t meet her gaze. He scuffed his slippers. Somehow, despite all the people parading in and out of his room, he seemed lonelier than Narolie.
“Hello there,” Narolie said, sounding like the perfect hostess. “Please come in. I’m Narolie Maxeke.”
“I’m Tank.” He looked around the room. “Wow, you get this place all to yourself? Way cool. What are you in for?”
Narolie frowned. “That is what Dr. Amanda is working to discover. She is the best doctor I have met.”
“I know.” Tank seemed aware that he’d said too much and quickly covered with, “She’s okay for a doctor, I guess.”
“Tank, you need to be back in your room,” Amanda said, although it was hard to be annoyed with him, even if he had broken all the rules. Poor kid seemed so lonely. “You shouldn’t be wandering the halls without a mask on—you don’t want to make anyone else sick, do you?”
“Shit. I forgot. But I feel fine, really.”
“Still, we can’t take a chance.” Tank was standing at the end of Narolie’s bed, far enough that contagion shouldn’t be a worry. But Amanda wasn’t going to risk it. “Sit over there, across the room in that chair, and you two can talk while I go find you a mask.”
To her surprise, Tank obeyed her without question. “Is this okay?”
Now a good eight feet separated the two—and three was all that was required per CDC protocols. “That’s fine. I’ll be right back.”
Amanda left as the two teens from different planets began chatting. No surprise that by the time she returned it was obvious Tank had fallen under Narolie’s spell. She let them talk a few more minutes, gratified by the relaxed expressions on their faces as they compared the merits of The Scarlet Letter, which they were both studying. Finally she handed Tank his mask. “Time to go.”
He started to plead for more time, and then his shoulders slumped in defeat. “It was nice to meet you, Narolie.”
“Please come visit me again, Tank. I enjoy your company,” Narolie said, her eyes downcast as if embarrassed by her admission.
Amanda ushered Tank out into the hall. For the first time since she’d met him, Tank smiled. “I can see her again, can’t I? She’s cool, for a girl, I mean. Smart, too.”
Amanda couldn’t stop her grin of delight as she accompanied Tank back up to his PICU bed. Wouldn’t Mrs. Trenton love this budding scenario?
Tank seemed to read her thoughts. “You won’t tell my mom, will you? She has enough on her mind.”
Like driving Amanda crazy. Silk sheets!
“No, of course not.” They reached the threshold to the PICU. Tank hesitated.
“Can I hang with you?” he asked. “Just for a while. I don’t like this place, it’s creepy.”
“Are your parents coming back tonight?”
He looked away, his shoulders trembling as if he were holding something back. “Everyone keeps lying, saying my dad’s at work. He’s not.”
His voice was so low that Amanda could barely hear him. She moved them away from the doors, down the hall where they’d have more privacy. “What happened, Tank?”
“I’m not supposed to tell.” He fought to bring his gaze up to her face. “You know that rich guy in New York, the one that took like fifty billion dollars from people? My dad worked with him. Guess he was going to be in trouble or something, because he left. No one knows where he went.”
Amanda took Tank’s hand. “Tank. I’m so sorry.”
He focused on a crack on the wall, tracing it with his finger. “Mom’s kind of lost it—she can’t tell anyone, but there’s like no money left. We even had to move in with my grandfather.”
His lips narrowed into a pale, single line. “I hate him. But now he and my mom are fighting. Over me. He says she’s not a fit mother. Says she’s why my dad left. Wants a judge to take me away from her. So she has to watch every move she makes. And that turns her into this wicked witch I don’t even know anymore.”
“It’s okay, Tank. What’s important is getting you better.” Amanda did
n’t know what else she could offer him.
He tugged his hand free from Amanda’s to swipe it across his eyes. “Don’t even know why I told you all that. Nothing anyone can do.”
His sigh echoed from the wall and died as they turned back to the PICU.
16
“Nothing happened, Pete.” Lydia stared the reporter down. “Nora didn’t do anything wrong. No one did.”
He merely grinned and shrugged his surrender. “Guess we’ll see about that. See you around, Lydia.”
She watched him walk down to the corner and disappear into the darkness, then finished the short walk to her house. The winter night held the small Craftsman cottage in a tight embrace. In the distance, a few twinkles of light from the upper floors of the medical center could be seen, and the only other light came from the flickering glow of the TV in the front room.
Fighting a tinge of irritation—Trey couldn’t have turned the porch light on?—Lydia drew close enough to see him lying on the couch watching TV. Not ready to go inside yet, she circled around through the dark carport where her vintage Triumph motorcycle was parked. She’d inherited the bike from one of the first people she’d met in Pittsburgh—Mickey Cohen’s legal assistant. Now the Triumph represented freedom, escape.
She could see well enough in the dark to make out the sleek silhouette of the classic motorcycle. Unable to resist, she swung her leg over the seat and sat there. How easy it would be to speed off into the night, anonymous, unfettered, leaving everything behind.
Was this how Maria had felt when she fled her old life? This gut-pitching feeling of terror and excitement? Anticipation of new places, new choices, new challenges—like when Lydia left L.A. to come here to Pittsburgh. Or had it been more like a chance to erase the past, start over, nothing weighing her down?
Except for a child. A child Maria had never abandoned. That had to count for something. But sitting in the dark, straddling the Triumph, Lydia couldn’t deny the anger she felt toward her mother. If she’d meant so much to Maria, why had Maria lied to her?
The door into the house opened and Trey stood there, framed in the warm light spilling out from the kitchen. “Why are you sitting in the dark like that?” he asked, his mellow baritone shaded with annoyance. He was wearing sharply creased slacks, a pale blue dress shirt, and his good wool overcoat. “We’re late. Are you ready to go or do you need to change?”
Shit. “It’s Thursday.” Lydia dismounted the motorcycle, the flash drive jammed into her jeans pocket digging into her hip.
“Of course it’s Thursday. The kids were hungry so Mom had to serve dinner, but she said she’d wait dessert for us.” He stepped to her, bundling her in his arms and giving her a quick kiss. Then he snagged her hands in his. “You’re freezing. Why didn’t you wear your gloves?”
All the better to hold her gun in case the man who killed Karen came after her. Or was waiting to ambush her when she got home. Or broke into her house and tried to kill her like that maniac a few months ago.
But she couldn’t say any of that—Trey didn’t know she’d bought the gun, much less had begun carrying it with her when she left the house. He thought that his moving in with her was protection enough. Like a peace-loving, huggable teddy bear of a man could stop a killer.
“I forgot them,” she lied.
He rubbed her hands between his, sharing his warmth as he led her out to his truck. “I don’t wonder, day you guys had over there. Is Nora okay?”
There was no answer to that. Who knew? Instead Lydia climbed into the truck as Trey held the door for her—despite the fact that he knew perfectly well that she could open it herself. That was just the kind of guy he was.
“The porch light burned out,” he said as he drove them to Regent Square and his parents’ house. “But we’re out of lightbulbs.”
“Top shelf of the pantry.”
“Oh. Guess I didn’t look hard enough. I was checking the basement and carport.”
It was still awkward, the give-and-take of sharing a living space. Or maybe it was Lydia who made it that way—she wanted Trey there, loved having him there, but sometimes it felt like a lot of work.
“I wasn’t sure if they’d crack out in the cold, so I put them in the pantry.”
“Right. Surfer girl isn’t used to our winters.”
“I just want to see the sun again.” She stared out her window at the colorful Christmas lights that adorned most of the houses, trees, and yards that they passed. “When does the sun come back?”
“Wait until your first good snow. You’ll love it.” They pulled up to his parents’ two-story colonial, parking behind a Dodge Caravan and an Explorer with a Proud Parents of a Beechwood Honor Student bumper sticker in the back window.
Lydia jumped out before Trey could walk around to get the door for her. Damn, she’d forgotten the kids would be here. She couldn’t walk in with a loaded gun in her pocket. She pulled the Para Carry-9 out, released the magazine, and removed it. Trey arrived in time to see her yank the slide back to clear the bullet from the chamber.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
“It’s safe now,” she answered, securing the ammunition in the glove compartment and zipping the now-empty compact nine-millimeter into her inside parka pocket.
“That’s not an answer. What the hell are you doing carrying a handgun?”
Trey’s obvious horror surprised her. After all, he’d grown up around guns, in a family of cops. Before she could answer, Ruby, Trey’s mother, opened the door, releasing several squealing kids into the night. They ranged from four to ten and raced down the walk to be the first to greet their uncle, whom they leaped on like he was a human jungle gym. A few shyly hugged Lydia as well.
Trey laughed and made fake groaning noises like Frankenstein’s monster as he hauled two hanging on his legs and one on his back across the porch. “Hiya, Mom,” he said, almost losing the girl on his back as he leaned over to kiss Ruby.
“Kids, let Trey and Lydia get their coats off and some food in them before you ambush them,” Ruby commanded, and the children scattered. “Lydia, how are you?” she asked, giving Lydia a warm hug. “I heard on the news there was trouble over at Angels today.”
“Good evening, Ruby,” Lydia said. The last thing she wanted to talk about was Karen’s murder. “Sorry we’re late.”
“Denny had his ear glued to that darn scanner, so we knew Trey would be home on time.” Trey’s father, Denny, was a retired Allegheny County deputy, and Trey’s two brothers and one of his sisters had followed their father into law enforcement. “But I guess there’s never any accounting when the ER’s going to get backed up, is there?”
Ruby’s voice was tinged with disapproval. Of course she’d immediately picked up the tension between Lydia and Trey—the woman was a walking radar.
Lydia and Ruby had an uncertain relationship. Ruby had made it clear that she liked Lydia, but she also seemed to realize that Lydia had some hard edges—sharper than anyone, especially Trey, appreciated.
They shed their coats and joined the rest of the family around the large dining room table. Patrice, Trey’s other sister, began serving apple dumplings, complete with hot caramel sauce and ice cream. The men talked about the holes in the Steelers’ offensive line, while Ruby refilled coffee cups for the adults and milk for the kids. “Trey, Lydia, do you want me to heat up the London broil?”
“Maybe after, Mom,” Trey said, digging into his dumpling. “You know what they say: life’s too short, eat your dessert first!”
The kids laughed at that. Lydia took a bite of her dumpling. Much better than any roast. “Did you make these?”
“I did,” Patrice said. “Enrollment is pretty low at the dance studio, so I have plenty of time on my hands.”
That rolled into a discussion of the economy, but Lydia couldn’t help but notice that Ruby’s glance kept returning to her. And Ruby didn’t look happy.
“So, Lydia,” she finally said, setting her cup down onto her
saucer with a clink. “I’m so glad you’re going to join us on Saturday for our annual cookie bake.”
Lydia held back her groan. She’d totally forgotten that Trey had volunteered her to help the “girls” bake the Christmas goodies.
“I’m looking forward to it,” she lied.
“We were sorry you missed Thanksgiving. Can we expect you for Christmas dinner?”
There was a sudden hush as all eyes turned on Lydia. All except Trey. He seemed fascinated by the remnants of his dumpling, leaving Lydia to fend for herself.
She glanced at him, saw the hunch in his shoulders, the way he gripped his spoon, and realized how much her answer meant to him.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m working Christmas Eve but have Christmas Day off, so we should be here.” As soon as the words were out, Lydia’s nerves twanged with anxiety. Now she was committed to a full day of smiling small talk, exposing herself to their questions—Patrice, in particular, always took every opportunity to probe Lydia’s “mysterious” past—and enduring their patience when she made the inevitable faux pas. Like almost bringing a loaded gun into a house filled with kids.
Trey reached for her hand under the table and gave it a gentle squeeze. His shoulders were relaxed, his smile now wide and genuine, so she guessed it was worth it. She didn’t have to force her smile as she met his gaze.
“Trey, did you get your tree put up yet?” Patrice asked.
“We’re not getting a Christmas tree,” Trey answered.
“Why not?” Ruby asked, her tone slicing through the dinner table chatter surrounding them.
Lydia jumped in—better that she take the hit than Trey. After all, it was her decision. “It’s silly to kill a beautiful living thing and bring it into the house to watch it die.”
Another thud of silence. The children looked at her, eyes wide, mouths open. “How’s Santa going to know where to put your presents?” one asked.
“Mommy, our tree’s not dead, is it?” another wailed.