by Mary Logue
She took a deep breath and said, “I’m pregnant.”
What she said was so close to the last thing he had imagined that Chuck didn’t even know what the words meant. He scrambled to say something and ended up asking, “With a baby?”
Bridget actually giggled. “I sure hope so.” He moved in to hug her, but she stopped him by putting out her hand. He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “Do you want to have a baby, to be pregnant? I thought you weren’t sure.”
“I wasn’t sure. I’m still not completely. But after all I’ve been through, I’d kinda like to see what it looks like.”
“WHY’D YOU TAKE the sister?”
“She was there.” Red turned down the TV with his big toe. The real question was, why had he bothered to tell Hawk what had happened?
He was stretched out on the couch, watching Oprah ask smart questions of dumb people. She should have him on her show sometime. God, a real ex-convict and full-time dealer. That would blow people’s minds. The phone had been resting on his stomach.
Hawk’s voice came out of the receiver again. “You fucked up.”
“I went to a lot of risk to take her. Hell, I’m in deep shit now. She can ID me. I left her for dead, but she rose again. Saw it in the paper today.”
“You fucked up. How did that little girl get away from you?” “She should try out for the Olympics. One hell of a sprinter. Right into the woods. It was like the ground ate her up.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then Hawk’s voice boomed out: “You didn’t catch the girl. But you let her see you. You took the sister, which was the stupidest idea in the world. Then you didn’t finish her off. And she knows what you look like and probably everything about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You got a fucking big mouth, that’s what I mean. You can’t keep your trap shut. You keep your pecker in your pants?”
Red scrambled up off the couch, and the phone fell off his chest and hung down to the floor. “Shit. Of course I did.”
“Didn’t get a chance, huh? She took off on you.”
Red said, “Let me explain.”
“That’s what I want. I want you to explain. That will make it all better. Especially after you say you’re sorry.”
So Red told him all that had happened when he had tried to catch Meg and ended up with Bridget. At the end of recitation, the voice on the other end of the line said slowly, “I want you to disappear.”
Red didn’t say anything.
Finally Hawk cleared his throat on the other end of the line and asked, “Did you tell her about me?”
CLAIRE SQUATTED IN the dirt, weeding her garden. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the sun was a full orb in the sky. She needed the quietness of the plants simply being green and new to settle her. Landers had helped her plant most of the perennials; many of them had come from his garden. The hosta were amazing, their spears of new growth twirling out of the ground with green delight. She could see ferns just starting to push up, their fronds all tightly curled, like little green fists aimed at the sky.
She sat back on her haunches and looked around her—her small house snugged into the bluff, the black walnuts and maples that sheltered it. She had thought she was safe down here. But yesterday had proved her wrong. She had tried to run away and hide in this small town, and it hadn’t worked. That was clear. The two people she loved most in the world had almost been killed by this evil that haunted her. Why didn’t they just come after her? Was the answer that they wanted her to live? For what? What would she be worth without her sister, her daughter? The question she didn’t want to face was, what could she have done that was so horrible that someone wanted to completely demolish her life while leaving her trapped in the ruins?
She had checked in with the Prescott police this morning and would go up and review their information later on today. They had gathered a lot of evidence from the scene of the assault: shoe prints, tire tracks, bullet slugs. The fresh, wet earth of April held prints easily. Now, if they could just match them up with something. No pickup truck had been reported missing that matched the description of the one the kidnapper had been driving.
She returned to her weeding. The soil crumbled under her fingers, so soft and sweet from the spring thaw. Many of the weeds she pulled out of her garden, she ate. Landers had taught her to recognize purslane, the loopy succulent that grew everywhere, and lamb’s-quarters, the silver-green plant that tasted like spinach. But it was too early for either of them, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to tackle nettle soup, although Landers claimed it was one of his favorites—a spring tonic, he had called it.
A hand landed on her shoulder, and she flew to her feet, knocking Meg over as she stood.
“Mom, it’s me.”
“I see it’s you.” Claire reached down and hoisted up her daughter, still in her nightgown. She had let her sleep in this morning.
“What about school?” Meg asked.
“I decided you could skip school for a day. It’s the weekend tomorrow. You needed the rest.” Claire bent down and hugged her daughter. “You want some breakfast. Something special like pancakes.”
Meg nodded her head, then looked serious. “I need to tell you something, Mom. I think it was the same guy.”
Claire couldn’t stop her intake of breath, even though she had guessed as much. “The same guy?”
“Yeah, the same one who ran over Dad.”
“BRUCE, I HAVE a question for you. Have you had any luck tracking down the pickup truck? You know they got the tread marks; we could match it now if we could just find the frigging truck.” Claire spoke close to the phone. Meg was upstairs playing dolls.
God, she was a bulldozer sometimes, but he did love to hear her voice, Bruce thought as he leaned back in his chair and took his time to answer. Then, as if she had called him to chat, he said, “Hi, Claire.”
“Hi, Bruce.”
“We’ve got almost nothing on the truck—maybe a dark color, that’s not enough.”
“Are you going to give me a hard time here?”
She had a real edge to her voice. She didn’t need him to be pushing her. “No, last night was pretty awful. I checked this morning’s listings of reported stolen vehicles. Nothing that sounds like our buggy.” There was a pause, and a thought occurred to Bruce: “You’ve checked with Prescott?”
Claire told him what they had found.
Bruce thought maybe, if he played his cards right, he would get to see her again tonight. “I have an idea. Why don’t I pick up some Chinese takeout and come down, and we can sit down and go over everything that they’ve gathered?”
Claire’s answer was all too quick. “Not with Meg around. I don’t want her to be involved, and I need to spend time with her right now.”
Bruce reluctantly said, “I understand.” He would not win Claire by competing with her daughter. “How about on Monday?”
Claire said, “Great. Monday would be good. I think I work the late shift. You want to come down for breakfast? Could you bring some bagels?”
He definitely liked the sound of that. Claire in the morning, cream cheese and bagels. Maybe things were starting to work out the way he wanted them to. “Sure. Have the coffee brewing.”
BRIDGET KEPT A hand on Chuck’s thigh as they drove down the river. She had never been a clinging woman, but she didn’t seem to want to let go of him. The sun was blaring away above them, and a light spring breeze was stirring the new growth of leaves in the trees. It was a gorgeous day, and she felt as if a piece of winter ice had lodged in her chest. Maybe it was still in her shoulder, a sliver of bullet they had been unable to extract from her, but wherever it was, it left her feeling cold and scared.
This morning, they had done an ultrasound on the growing fetus. They let her see it on the monitor, a small mass inside her with a beating heart. Even though she wanted to have it now, she was surprised at how little affection she had for it. This growing organism would defin
itely have to prove itself. Her wounds ached; she felt sick to her stomach again. Because she was pregnant, she couldn’t just dope out on pain pills until she felt better. She had to be a brave mother already.
“What if I’m not a good mom?” she asked Chuck.
“Are you planning on beating our child?” Chuck smiled at her.
“No, what if I neglect it?”
Chuck grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Listen, I’ve watched you with Jester. You lavish attention on him. Why would you do less for your kid?”
Bridget thought about that Maybe she had been going at this all wrong. Maybe she should just imagine she had a young animal growing inside of her, a wonderful new creature that no one had ever seen before—part horse, part wolf, part human. She could handle that. She would love such a being. She felt better already thinking of this growing life as utterly new. Her child didn’t have to be like anyone else’s kid. It couldn’t possibly be.
“I want to see Claire.”
“Of course.” Chuck swerved to move around a truck. “I knew that. I can read your mind.”
Bridget saw the pullover where Red had made her start driving the truck, where she had seen the gun for the first time and realized what danger she was in. The air swam with needles. “Chuck, I was really scared last night.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. I thought it was going to. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Chuck wrapped an arm gently around Bridget and pulled her even closer than she was already sitting. “I don’t know how, but you got through it.”
He turned the corner without disengaging from Bridget, and they cruised up the hill to Claire’s house.
They found Claire sitting on the front steps of the house. She told them Meg was inside, sleeping. “Again. She’s exhausted. How are you, Bridge?”
“I feel like pure poop.” Bridget sank down next to her sister and leaned her head on her shoulder. Claire rubbed her neck, and Bridget felt all she needed to tell her well up inside like her like a dammed river. She needed to get rid of Chuck. She had remained vague with him, hadn’t give him any information about the guy. She trusted Claire to take care of that bastard. Didn’t want Chuck to go off half-cocked.
Bridget looked up at Chuck and said, “Could you go get us some ice cream down at the Fort? I really feel like ice cream.”
Chuck looked surprised and then smiled and said, “Sure. You going to be all right?”
“Hey, my sis is a cop. Of course I’m going to be all right.”
When he had left, Bridget turned to Claire. “I remembered what happened. I can see the guy clearly now. He told me everything while we were driving. It came back to me this morning.”
“Did you tell anyone? The cops who were there?”
“No, I don’t trust anyone but you.” Bridget leaned forward and held her head in her hands for a moment, then emerged and said, “Claire, you have to get rid of this guy. He’s a mean fucker, and he’s not going to stop until he’s killed us all.”
Claire looked at Bridget and said, “What do you know, Bridget?”
“First of all, he blames you for fucking up his life.”
“How so?”
“I guess you had him thrown into jail on a minor offense about six years ago, something to do with beating up a hooker, and as a result he got raped in jail. He’s never forgiven you.”
“Six years ago. God, I was just working the street then. I didn’t think it would be anything from so long ago. We’ve always thought it had to do with this drug gang.”
“I think it’s both. I think he’s dealing now. I know he was high on coke yesterday.”
They both sat silent for a moment, then Bridget started laughing. “Do you remember when we were in our early twenties, I think just getting used to the idea that we were on our own and someone could actually hurt us, and we were sitting at the table in your apartment, and we decided to try to scream?”
Claire stared out over the yard and then slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think I remember that.”
“I keep thinking about that. I couldn’t scream when I was with this guy, there was no one to hear me. It wouldn’t have done any good.”
“But it sounds like you ran like hell.”
“I did. But I need to know this guy isn’t around anymore. I don’t want to have to start practicing my screaming again.” Her voice quavered, and she ran a hand down her face.
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“Can you find him?”
“I think so.”
“Can you put him away again? I’d really like him to be gone before the baby is born.”
“I promise, Bridget.”
Bridget picked up a pebble from the sand and then picked up a bigger rock. “I don’t think he’s in this alone. He told me he’s got connections in the police force. And then he said something about a guy named Hawk.”
25
Are you sure it’s all right?” Fred asked again as he pushed the door open.
“Of course I’m sure. It’s yours now. Or ours. Your brother’s dead, and you’ve inherited his house. It’s about time. Who’s going to keep us out?” Darla pushed Fred so he would keep walking forward. He hadn’t wanted to come up to the house, and Darla had had to force him. He was still afraid of Landers, even though he was dead.
Fred looked across the street at Claire’s house.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s the one who said we could go in the house. You leave her alone, Fred. Don’t go hanging around her house or anything.”
Fred walked into the kitchen and sat down. “I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to like it. Sit still and watch TV for all I care. I’m going to look for that damn paper. He told you he wouldn’t sign it, didn’t he?”
“Yes, I told you he did.”
Darla stood in the middle of the kitchen floor with her hands on her hips. “It still makes me mad just thinking about it. What right did he have?”
“Well, the way I see it is—”
“Don’t start, Fred. We’ll be here all day. Just sit, and I’ll look.”
Darla wanted to do more than look, but now was not the time. She would come back on her own and take this place apart slowly, throwing away all the memories that Landers had gathered so carefully over the years. It would be a pleasure. But for the moment she wanted to be sure that nothing remained that could tie Fred and her to Landers’ death.
Darla looked where she knew Landers might keep such a document; after all, he wouldn’t have hidden it, no reason to. Landers had always been very organized, so she looked on his desk, in the drawers, in his file cabinet, but she found no sign of it. The wastebasket was empty, the shelves were clear of clutter. She started to feel desperate. The police had already been in here; maybe they had picked it up already. But why? Would anyone even know what it was? Would they figure out the connection?
She didn’t know why she had brought Fred with her. He wouldn’t sit still. He wandered around, picking up framed pictures and putting them down. Finally he stood and stared out the window, looking at Claire’s house. “I see her out there in the yard. With her daughter.”
“Fred, I warned you.”
He stared out the window, the way she imagined him gazing in on women when he went for his long walks at night. There was no lust on his face. She never felt the peeping was sexual with Fred. He had just always felt so left out of everything—it was the way he caught up with the rest of the world. It was his secret time.
She had never bugged him about it because she thought it was rather innocent, as long as he didn’t get caught. That’s when the trouble started. If he stood in the dark and stared at people, he captured something. If the women were naked, so much the better, he saw more of them.
He turned and looked at Darla. “I think they have a pheasant over there, a baby pheasant.” He turned back to the window, and his hands were moving in front of him as if they were holdin
g something.
Darla sank down into a chair and held her head in her hands. “You leave them alone, Fred Anderson.” She lifted up her head and stared at him. “You leave them alone, or I’ll call our son and tell him what you’re doing.”
RICH HAD BEEN putting off walking up to Claire’s, but not in a bad way, more the way he would eat his cake first, and then the frosting. All through the day, he had felt the promise of seeing Claire and Meg in front of him. He caught himself humming a tune as he fed the pheasant, and when he sang the words to himself, he realized the song was “Penny Lane,” by the Beatles. The song was both unbelievably sweet and from a time in his life when he had been truly happy. The truth of the matter was, he hadn’t felt this giddy since he had been a teenager.