(2002) Chasing Darkness

by Danielle Girard

  Sam shook her head. “Tell him I’ll call him later. I’ve got to go, Aaron. What do I have this afternoon?”

  Aaron ran his finger down her calendar. “Nothing I can’t reschedule.”

  “Thanks.” She handed him her note about the crime scene team and asked him to call the Antioch P.D. for the information. She handed him the fax. “Fax this over to Nick. He’s probably got it, but I want to be sure. And I’ll try to get back later this afternoon.”

  “Don’t bother,” Aaron said. “I’ll call you at home if anything comes up, and I can always fax you there.”

  “Thanks, Aaron. I mean it.”

  “No problem.”

  As she rode across the Bay Bridge, anger rose like a hard pulse in her chest, bringing with it a question she’d often pondered over the past eight years. Why had Polly done this to her? Leaving her children to Sam without even consulting her. Sam reprimanded herself for those thoughts. Still, she wasn’t fit to be a mother. She hadn’t made the choice to have children—it had been taken from her. And now she had two of them—teens, no less. She rubbed her eyes. But it wasn’t anger she felt. It was frustration. She would never ask to be rid of the boys. She loved Rob and Derek.

  Sam thought about the hate she’d seen in Rob’s eyes at the baseball game the night before. She’d been unable to look at him. His anger was always right there at the surface—all his emotions were. She just didn’t know how to handle them.

  She’d spent so long burying emotions that Rob’s nature seemed completely foreign. Had she done something to deserve such incredible anger? Or was Rob simply angry at the world because of his parents’ deaths?

  She’d been over it a million times but was never able to come up with a solution. Had Rob been that pampered by his mother? Sam hadn’t really known Polly in the last twelve years of her life, but she couldn’t imagine that Rob could have been so spoiled that the life Sam was providing was unacceptable. And Derek was completely mellow. How could two identical brothers be so different? There was no one who could answer that question for her.

  Sam remembered the first time she’d taken the boys to the emergency room. Only six months after they’d come to live with her, Derek had come down with a fever that had persisted for three days. He’d been barely nine years old. Sam had been frantic. At the emergency room, she had struggled to fill out the forms. Did the family have a history of heart disease? Mental illness? Allergies? She didn’t know.

  It turned out he had tonsillitis. “I don’t want to treat him without knowing what he might be allergic to,” the doctor had explained. “Is there a family physician we can contact?”

  Sam had shaken her head. No doctor information had come with the boys. No set of instructions.

  “Is there a family member you could call for that information?” the doctor had asked.

  Sam could see Polly’s face in her memory—her wide blue eyes and long blond hair, as it had been when she was fifteen. Her brother’s face flashed through her memory and then her mother’s. Her father’s face came next, and she squeezed the image away. “No, there’s no one,” she answered quickly.

  The doctor had prescribed erythromycin rather than penicillin in hopes of avoiding an allergic reaction, and Derek had recovered without trouble. Sam hadn’t prayed that much since she’d escaped the South. To this day, she hoped the boys would never be so sick that she had to call anyone in Mississippi. Just the thought made her shudder.

  Sam walked out of the sheriff’s department with Rob trailing a few steps behind. Knowing the details of Rob’s arrest didn’t make her feel any better.

  He had gotten a job working for a landscaping company for the summer. He and another kid were supposed to work the afternoon at Milton Peters’ house in Lafayette. When they arrived, an hour late, Mr. Peters noticed that the boys smelled of alcohol and promptly called the police. Sam was glad he had.

  “You’ve been fired from your job,” she told Rob.

  “So what,” he mumbled, looking miserably hung over. Sam felt a twinge. She remembered that feeling. It had been a decade since she’d had a drink, but before that, hangovers had been quite regular.

  “No job, no bike.”

  Rob shot a look at her. “You can’t sell the bike.”

  “Like hell I can’t. My name’s on the title.”

  “But I paid for it.”

  “We had conditions when you got it, Rob. Do you remember them?”

  “I’ll still pay the insurance on it. I’ll get another job,” he argued.

  “I’m not worried about the money.” She turned and looked at him. “I don’t like what’s happening here. I’m not going to sell the bike yet, but you can’t drive it, not until I see your behavior improve. In the meantime, you and I are going to work out what’s going on, okay?”

  Rob started to respond when a man cursed behind them.

  Sam turned around to see what looked like a father and son standing on the sidewalk. The man was just about six feet and thick. He wore an ill-fitting pinstriped suit and cheap shoes. His suit jacket was gripped in one hand, and a gaudy red tie was pulled loose at his neck. “You idiot! What the fuck were you thinking?” The man raised his hand, and the boy moved quickly backward away from his fist, stumbling and landing on the ground.

  Sam took a step toward them.

  “Don’t, Aunt Sam.”

  She looked back at Rob. “You know them?”

  “It’s Billy Jenkins and his dad.”

  “The one you were working with?”

  Rob nodded.

  Sam studied the lines of fear in Rob’s face. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was afraid of. Had Mr. Jenkins threatened Rob?

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I want to go home.”

  Sam put her hand on Rob’s shoulder and watched the father and son. The father had pulled the son up off the ground and was cursing him in more hushed tones. They still hadn’t noticed that Sam and Rob were watching.

  Mr. Jenkins raised his fist again, shaking it in the air.

  Sam started toward them.

  “Please, Aunt Sam. Don’t.”

  This time Sam didn’t listen. Anger was rising inside her like bubbling oil. She was ready to spit. “Excuse me,” she said to Jenkins.

  He looked at her and made a noise like a low growl.

  “I’m Sam Chase, Rob’s aunt.”

  “I’m fucking busy here,” Jenkins sneered in response.

  “Maybe you could take a moment out from abusing your son so we could talk,” she continued, folding her arms and feeling her right hand on the butt of her gun.

  Jenkins took a step toward her, but Sam didn’t move. He was fat and smelled of sweat and stale booze. “I ain’t got time for your shit, lady.”

  Sam felt Rob come up behind her. “Come on, Aunt Sam. Let’s go.”

  She could sense the fear in his quick breaths. She didn’t risk turning her back on Jenkins. “Wait for me at the curb.”

  “That’s who you been hanging out with?” The man spoke to Billy and motioned to Rob, eyeing him head to toe. “That pussy? Jesus Christ, boy. He don’t look like he could hold a six-pack.”

  Billy didn’t answer.

  Jenkins grabbed his son by the ear and shoved him. “You answer me when I talk to you, boy. You been hanging out with that pussy?”

  Billy nodded.

  Sam took another step forward until she was next to the boy. “You okay, Billy?”

  Wide-eyed, Billy looked at her and then at his father and nodded quickly. “I’m fine.”

  The man took her arm and pulled her around. “Get the fuck away from him.”

  Sam twisted her arm free. “Don’t lay a hand on me.”

  The man laughed and pushed at her shoulder. “What you going to do?”

  He was like an ox. She knew that when he went down, he’d go down hard. But she knew she had to warn him first. “You ever heard of assault, Mr. Jenkins? That’s what you’re doing to your son. And if you touch me again, that’s call
ed assault, too.”

  The man let go. “How about I take out my dick and we can call it assault with a deadly weapon?” he said with a slur. He groped at his pants and took a step closer to her.

  She shook her head. “I’ve seen pinky wrestling. Don’t think it would be considered deadly.”

  “Bitch!” he spat after a moment of silence. He lumbered forward, raising his right fist to swing.

  Sam ducked out of the way and then kicked her right foot behind his left, giving him a shove that sent him flailing backward. He landed with a hard thud and let out a groan.

  She pulled out her badge and a business card and dropped the card on his gut, showing her badge. “I’m going to watch your son, Mr. Jenkins. If I see so much as a nick on that boy, I’m going to have you picked up for child abuse. Once you’re inside, I’m sure you’ll find some people who’d just love to see that pinky of yours at work.”

  The man picked her card up off his gut and stared at it. Shock had settled into his eyes.

  Sam handed another card to Billy. “Memorize my phone number. You need me, you call.” As she walked away, she added Billy to her mental list of kids to be watched. She spotted Rob watching her with a mixture of fear and interest.

  It was a look she’d never seen on his face before.

  Chapter Five

  Nick shifted in the car, the morning paper curved over the door as he worked on the crossword. It was hotter than hell and the sun beating down through the windshield was baking him. He’d read in the paper that they were now officially calling it a heat wave, but he could have told them that two weeks ago.

  Sam sat beside him not seeming to mind the fact that they were like two chickens in a Pyrex dish. In fact, she seemed to bask in the warmth. As though the hotter it was, the more comfortable she felt. He, on the other hand, was just plain roasting.

  On the street where Sandi Walters had last lived with her mother, there was no shade on the block—no trees, not even much lawn, just one house on top of another.

  Scanning the street, Nick didn’t see any adults, but the Walters’ neighborhood was alive with the sounds of children. Some rode old rusted or too small bikes up and down the street. Another group played in a sprinkler across the street, trying to find some relief from the heat, until a fat man with no shirt came out and yelled at them to stop.

  Nick focused on the crossword, trying to ignore the heat. They were following normal procedure with Sandi Walters’ murder, starting by investigating people known to the victim. And they had to tread carefully, and keep a low profile on their suspicion of possible police involvement. Sam was coordinating a team to delve into the whereabouts of officers who had been involved in the Sloan case. Most of them were still on the force. Many were still in the area. There didn’t seem to be many good leads in either direction.

  Nick felt the car shift beneath him and looked up from his crossword. Sam moved and frowned out the window. When she didn’t look over, he returned his attention to the puzzle. “Papal scarf,” second letter was “r.” He looked past it. “Court” was the next clue—three letters. “Woo,” he wrote. He glanced back at Sandi Walters’ house and then down again. “Tantalum symbol.” He wrote “totem.” The car bounced again. This time when he looked up, Sam was staring at him.

  “What?”

  “How do you stand it?”

  Nick looked around. “The heat?”

  She exhaled. “No. The waiting. Just sitting here is driving me crazy.”

  He shrugged, looking back at the crossword. He kind of liked the solitude of surveillance. Of course, now he wasn’t alone. Sam’s constant motion made it hard to relax.

  She moved again and he put the puzzle down. “You want to talk?”

  Her eyes widened. “No,” she snapped as though he’d asked her to strip right there. He turned back to the crossword. “I can’t believe I’m on a stakeout,” she said a minute later.

  He set the paper down. So she did want to talk.

  She caught his look. “What?”

  “Do you miss homicide?”

  She frowned and shook her head. “No.” She stared out the windshield. “I’m doing good where I am.”

  “Damn straight you are.”

  “And it’s better for the boys. Detective hours were so unpredictable. I need to be there for them. More even than I am, I think.”

  “You’re doing a great job with them, Sam.”

  She smiled at him, and he turned away. He didn’t remember her smile being like that last time they’d done a stakeout together. He shifted in his seat, ready to leave.

  Sam leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  He picked up the crossword again, thinking it was an easy solve compared to the puzzle sitting next to him. And a hell of a lot easier than fighting his own reactions when he watched her.

  “I’m terrible at crosswords,” she said, sitting up and glancing over his shoulder.

  He didn’t answer her. He was sure he’d already used all his good answers and there wasn’t another damn thing he could possibly say without evoking a negative reaction. Forty-seven down was “billiard shot”—five letters beginning “m-a.” He smiled and wrote “massé,” thinking about when he used to play pool with the guys from his uncle’s band. Now, when he saw a billiard table, it was usually because he was in the local pool hall hauling someone off to jail.

  Sam sighed and rubbed her temples. “How long have we been waiting?”

  Nick shrugged. “About two hours.”

  “I should’ve brought something to do.”

  He looked up, unable to keep from smiling. “You want to help with the puzzle?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t do those things, I swear.” But she pulled the paper toward her.

  He smelled her cucumber soap and the citrus scent of her shampoo. Alarms squealed through his head.

  Moving back a safe distance, he dropped the page and pointed to a clue. “How about ‘Tennyson heroine’? Second letter is ‘l’.”

  He watched as she concentrated, remembering when he’d first asked her what perfume she wore. She had waved her hand and sworn, “Nothing. I can’t stand the stuff.” And yet she was surrounded by beautiful smells, each of them reminding him that she didn’t want him—hadn’t wanted him since that one time. And it had not been enough.

  It had been two and a half years, but he could still remember it clear as day. He had brought Rob and Derek home late one night after a ball game. They were the last of six or seven kids he’d taken home, and they had insisted that he come in to see the latest video game. Sam had tried to get them to bed, but they’d insisted. “Just one more game.” They’d played for over an hour, until Sam finally put her foot down and got them into bed.

  Nick had been on his way out. He had never felt awkward with Sam. They had similar jobs, saw the same things. They’d worked together on cases before Nick had started coaching Rob’s team. They had the job in common, and they both cared about Rob and Derek. Maybe Nick cared too much. He had wanted kids of his own, had thought his wife, Sheila, wanted them too. It hadn’t worked out that way. Sheila found a man with more money, and she had his kids. Nick always felt welcome with Derek and Rob, though, like he was helping, but Sam had never acknowledged it before.

  As he passed through the kitchen, she had stopped him. She had actually touched his arm and then pulled her hand back as though he’d been on fire.

  “Thank you for being so good with them,” she said.

  He’d never seen anyone look so beautiful. And then she invited him to stay for a cup of coffee. Just a thank-you, he knew, but he felt the promise of so much more.

  She was making coffee when the phone rang. He never found out who had called. All he knew was that her face went ashen when she answered it. She dropped the coffeepot, and the glass shattered on the floor, the hot liquid burning her legs. But she didn’t move.

  The phone still pressed to one cheek, she stood there, shaking her head and whispering in the smalles
t voice he’d ever heard from a grown woman, “No, no, no.” When he finally rose from the table, the phone was dead.

  “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  But Sam didn’t speak.

  She’d just shaken her head and shivered like a child.

  Nick forgot about getting answers from her. Instead, he cleaned up the broken glass and took her to her room to change her clothes.

  But instead of changing, she simply sat on the edge of her bed and cried. The creamy skin of her neck, the scattered freckles that he imagined covered her breasts and stomach were all vivid in his mind. He tried to get her to talk about it, to tell him what was wrong, but she refused.

  “Just hold me,” she said.

  And he did. He wrapped his arms around her and she accepted his embrace. He would have stayed all night—would have stayed a week, if she’d let him. But after less than ten minutes, she composed herself and showed him to the door. Ten lousy minutes, and the next time he saw her, it was as though it had never happened. The wall was back up, and he’d never been able to bring it down again.

  Not that there hadn’t been other women. He had dated off and on, but he hadn’t found anyone that he wanted the way he wanted Sam Chase.

  And now they saw even more of each other. They went to the movies, took the boys out to dinner. Friends, she told him. He wondered if there was a more depressing word in the English language.

  He moved his head further out the window, wishing for any sort of breeze. Damn, it was hot.

  Sam grinned. “Elaine.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Tennyson heroine—Elaine.” She snatched the pen from his hand and wrote it in. Then, moving toward him on the seat, she shared the page. “What else?”

  Nick pointed to another one, watching her from the corner of his eye. Her eyes were a warm sea green, like the Gulf off the coast of Texas. He watched her frown in concentration as she focused on a problem, then the grin of excitement when she got it right.

  Beneath the hard, independent exterior, Sam hid the excitement of a child. He watched her reactions with people. Her eyes wide when people were kind, narrow and stubborn when the odds were stacked against her. What attracted him most was her passion for the job. He had seen her go after a scumbag and not let up. And yet another side of her was soft.