Shooting Starr

by Kathleen Creighton

  As he tried to read her eyes, it struck him how tangled up with one another two strangers could get in a short period of time, under the right circumstances. He felt again that strange reluctance to let her go, a dragging weight of denial at the realization that she was going to walk out of his life forever.

  It was Mary Kelly who broke the edgy silence, hitching herself forward in the sleeper so she could look out the window. “Why’re we stoppin’ here? What is this place? Caitlyn?”

  But she already knew. C.J. opened his mouth to explain, but before he could get a word out, her head was swiveling toward him, her mouth a big round O of dawning realization, and panic and denial in her eyes.

  Caitlyn reached around and put a gentling hand on her arm. “It’s okay,” she murmured, as if she were soothing a child after a nightmare. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Mary Kelly wasn’t buying it. She shook off Caitlyn’s hand, looking like a hunted animal. Her eyes darted back and forth between Caitlyn and C.J., and her voice was high and scared. “No-I-we can’t go in there! We can’t go to the police-they’ll send us back, you know they will! They’ll lock us up and take Emma. He’ll take her away, you know he-”

  “Shh,” Caitlyn hushed her, with a warning tip of her head toward Emma, who was waking up and looking scared by all the commotion. “It’s going to be okay. I promise-”

  “It’s the best way,” C.J. broke in, meaning again to explain himself but only sounding harsh and angry with his gravel-filled voice. “You couldn’t keep on running like that, not with…” He, too, tipped his head toward the little girl, not daring to meet those big dark eyes peering at him over her momma’s shoulder. “Sooner or later either the cops are going to catch up with you, or somebody worse will. And then what’re you gonna do? Somebody might get hurt, for sure it’s going to be traumatic for her. You want her to see her momma arrested? Shot? Hauled away by force? Remember what happened to that little Cuban kid?” He was shouting by this time, and Mary Kelly just kept staring at him until finally a tear pillowed up on her lashes and slipped away down her cheek.

  Well, that did it. He said, “Aw, hell,” under his breath and turned around in his seat so he was facing forward and didn’t have to look at her or her kid anymore. Instead, he stared squinty-eyed at the windshield while his heart thumped in shallow, trip-hammer beats.

  Beside him, Caitlyn unhooked her seat belt and got turned around and up on her knees on the seat so she could look Mary Kelly eye to eye. “It’s going to be okay,” he heard her say in the kind of firm, confident way parents do when they talk to their kids. “I promise. Okay? Come on-let’s go inside. Emma, you first-give me your hand, honey. Come here to me.” She opened up the door and started backing out, showing the little girl how to climb out of the sleeper.

  C.J. cleared his throat. “Uh, you want- Maybe I should go in with you,” he said, not happily.

  Caitlyn shook her head, and that ghost of a smile, the ironic one, hovered around her lips. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to call my sister-in-law? She’s in Atlanta-could probably be here in a couple hours.”

  Her eyes zeroed in on his, flared silver for one incredible moment. Then the shutters came down and she looked away. “Thanks-we’ll be fine.”

  Emma was standing beside C.J.’s seat, peeking at him past his shoulder. He felt something nudge him there, and looking down, saw the supergirl action-figure toy he’d given her, clutched tightly in her hand. She waggled it at him, both a shy and silent thank-you and a wave goodbye. Then she scrambled across the seat and dropped down out of his sight.

  Mary Kelly followed, brushing at her cheek and moving like somebody going to her own execution. At the last minute, framed in the doorway of his truck and her face a mask of shadows, she paused. “I’m not blamin’ you, Mr. Starr, and I want to thank you for all you done for Emma and me. I truly do believe you just don’t know what it is you’ve done.” She sniffed, tried hard to smile one more time, and then she, too, dropped to the ground. The door closed with a flat and final thunk.

  C.J. sat and watched them cross the mostly empty parking lot, bathed in light that turned everything a washed-out bluish gray, like death. Caitlyn had her arm around Mary Kelly’s shoulders, and Emma was clinging to her momma’s hand and sort of hop-skipping the way little kids do to keep up. He didn’t know whether he expected them to bolt and scatter for the shadows like flushed mice before they got to the entrance or not, but he didn’t take his eyes off them until they’d disappeared inside the police station.

  He felt wrung out…drained. He couldn’t seem to talk his muscles into moving, not even enough to do what needed to be done to put his truck in gear and pull off down the street.

  Which, C.J. told himself, was maybe a good thing. Because it was probably the only thing keeping him from going after them and bringing them back. And that, he knew, would be the biggest mistake of his life.

  Chapter 3

  W hat else could I have done?

  C.J. had spent the last twenty-four hours asking himself that question and still hadn’t come up with an answer. His mind played and replayed it for him while he was churning up the interstate, like a piece of music sung to the rhythm of his eighteen tires. It was there in the background noise of his thoughts while he dropped off his load in Jersey, got new marching orders from his dispatcher, made his way down to Wilmington. Now, with an overnight to kill waiting for his load to be ready, he was holed up in a motel room with nothing but his thoughts, and he’d never been in worse company.

  What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn’t have any choice. I didn’t! Stretched out on the bed in his undershorts and T-shirt, he stared up at the ceiling and argued with his conscience. What would it have cost you to drop them off at the airport? They could have at least rented a car there. Most likely nobody would ever have known you were involved.

  Most likely…

  C.J. wasn’t all that comfortable with “most likelys.”

  The TV program he’d been watching without really seeing had ended and the eleven-o’clock news was coming on. He reached for the remote. Maybe he’d have better luck on HBO; nothing like gratuitous violence to numb the mind and quiet a restless soul.

  While he was feeling around for the remote amongst the tumble of bedspread and yesterday’s newspaper he heard the anchorman begin his intro. And then…

  “Topping the news this evening: a niece of former president Rhett Brown is in jail tonight in South Carolina on contempt charges, after refusing to comply with a judge’s order to reveal what she knows about the whereabouts of a Florida millionaire’s missing daughter. For more on this breaking story we go to…”

  With remote in hand and scalp prickling, C.J. jerked around and squinted at the TV screen. Too late. He caught only the barest glimpse of a file-photo head shot before the scene shifted to a young, slightly windblown woman correspondent standing in a nighttime courthouse square lit by old-fashioned-style street lamps, the wide empty courthouse steps behind her.

  “Yes, Tim…it’s quiet here now, but this was the scene earlier this evening, when Caitlyn Brown, niece of former President Rhett Brown, was taken from this South Carolina courthouse in handcuffs…”

  The scene was pushing, shoving crowds of reporters, grim-faced men in uniforms and suits surrounding a slender figure wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up to hide her face.

  “Ms. Brown was ordered to spend the night in jail after she refused to obey Judge Wesley Calhoun’s order to divulge the whereabouts of five-year-old Emma Vasily, who is the daughter of Florida billionaire, Ari Vasily. The little girl had been missing since Tuesday, and is the object of a nationwide hunt…”

  On the television screen, the knot of law enforcement bodies loosened to reveal glimpses of the lone hooded figure sitting in the back seat of a police car. She turned her head and looked straight into the camera, and for one heart-stopping moment her eyes flared silver.

  “The
child’s mother, Mary Kelly Vasily, allegedly took her daughter from her school in Miami Beach only hours after a Florida judge had granted sole custody of the little girl to Mr. Vasily, also granting Mr. Vasily’s request that the mother be denied visitation…”

  The young reporter stood alone once more in front of the deserted courthouse. A windblown strand of hair teased her cheek as she earnestly continued.

  “Details are still sketchy at this time, but according to police sources, around 9 p.m. yesterday Mrs. Vasily, accompanied by Ms. Brown, walked into the police station here and gave herself up. The little girl was with the two women at that time, that much is certain, but what happened after that is unclear. As nearly as we can ascertain, the child apparently left police headquarters in the custody of a woman who identified herself as a representative of family services, but it now appears that woman may have been an impostor. Here’s what we do know-more than twenty-four hours later police and social service agencies still have no idea where the child is. Little Emma Vasily seems to have vanished into thin air.

  “Just what Ms. Brown’s involvement is in the case is also unclear, but police investigators must have strong reason to believe the president’s niece has some knowledge of Emma’s whereabouts, because this morning they asked a judge to order Ms. Brown to tell what she knows. She was given until the close of court this afternoon to comply, and when she refused, Judge Calhoun ordered her to jail.

  “Mr. Vasily, who arrived this morning from Miami expecting to be reunited with his daughter, has been unavailable for comment, but at a press conference just before noon a visibly angry chief of police promised a full investigation into his department’s handling of the whole affair, and vowed to remain personally committed to finding the little girl and returning her safely to her father. Back to you, Tim.”

  A sharp pain in his chest reminded C.J. of the breath he’d taken in some time back and hadn’t gotten around to letting go. He released it in a gust of swearing and mashed the power button on the remote, cutting off the anchorman as he was launching into news of the latest statehouse scandal. He hitched himself around on the bed till he’d got his feet on the floor and reached for his cell phone. His heart tapped hard against his ribs as he punched a number programmed in the autodial.

  “Hey, bro,” he said to the groggy voice who answered. “Wha’d I do, wake you?”

  “What? Who’s that-C.J.? Naw, you didn’t wake me. I just dozed off watching the news. What’s up?” There was an audible yawn. “Where in the hell are you? Everything all right?”

  “I’m okay.” Well, it wasn’t much of a lie. “Hey, is Charly around?”

  “She’s right here. Aw, hell-you’re not in jail, are you?”

  C.J. shrugged off that conclusion and the low opinion of his own character it reflected. Where his brothers were concerned, he’d accepted the fact that it was going to take a while to live down certain escapades of his misspent youth. “Just let me talk to her, okay?”

  There was a pause, and then in a molasses-thick Alabama drawl, “Hey, C.J.-honey, how’re you? What’s up?”

  “Hey, Charly. You see tonight’s news?”

  “I’m watchin’ it right now. What part in particular?”

  “The president’s niece getting jailed for contempt.”

  “Oh, yeah. I did catch that. What about it?”

  “Well, I’m…I think I’m sort of involved. Or…I might be.”

  “What? Lord’s sake, how?”

  He told her the whole story, then waited through a thinking silence. A quickly drawn breath.

  “You did exactly the right thing, if that’s what you’re askin’. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. The police are probably gonna want to ask you some questions-that’s to be expected. If you want me-”

  “That’s not…” C.J. rubbed at his temples with his free hand. “It’s not me I’m worried about. What I was wondering…I was thinking, you know, maybe you could go up there, see if she needs anything…”

  “She? You mean the mother-what’s her name-Mary Kelly? Hon’, you know she’s probably lookin’ at kid-”

  “Well, her, and…uh, Caitlyn.”

  “Caitlyn?”

  He said a bad word under his breath. “Miz Brown, then-the president’s niece. Whoever.” He paused, but his sister-in-law didn’t say anything, so he added in self-defense, “I didn’t see any sign of a lawyer on that news footage, did you? Aren’t they usually right there, shielding their client from the buzzards? I offered, you know-to get her one. Well, hell, I’m the one turned ’em over to the cops, it seemed like the least I could do.” He’d about rubbed a burned spot on the skin of his forehead, but it hadn’t done a thing to help the pounding inside his skull.

  “Don’t you go blamin’ yourself,” Charly scolded. “Those women are grown-ups, they made their choices, one of which was to involve you in their mess. It’s not your fault their choice of getaway driver turned out to be a law-abidin’ citizen.”

  C.J.’s face stretched into a grimace nobody was there to see. “Yeah, well…I’d feel a whole lot better about that if I knew she had somebody in her corner, is all. I know she made at least one call after I told her I was turning her in, and I just assumed… But I’m thinking that must’ve been how she arranged for somebody to pick up the little girl. If she did, maybe-”

  “C.J., she’s the ex-president’s niece, for Lord’s sake. Do you seriously think they won’t have the best lawyers money can buy?” C.J. didn’t say anything, and after a moment she let out an exasperated breath. “Okay, look, do you want me to see what I can find out for you?”

  It was his turn to let a breath out in a rush of relief. “If you wouldn’t mind? I’d go myself, but I’m stuck up here in Wilmington waiting for my load. Soonest I can get there is-”

  “Best you stay out of it,” Charly said in a warning tone. “If she gives you up as the person who gave her a lift and the cops come lookin’ for you to ask you questions, that’s one thing. Otherwise, speakin’ as your lawyer and as your brother’s lovin’ wife and therefore family, I’m advising you to keep your distance. For all kinds of reasons, startin’ with the fact that if this Ari Vasily is as dangerous as these gals make him out to be, you don’t want to mess with him. And like I said, it’s not like she hasn’t got resources. She’s the president’s niece.”

  “Yeah…” His laugh was dry and bitter. “She neglected to tell me that little bit of information.”

  Charly snorted. “What did you expect her to do? Say, ‘Hi, I’m hijacking you, and by the way I’m the president’s niece’?”

  “She had plenty of time later on to tell me anything she wanted to,” he said, feeling sullen and put-upon. “She never told me a damn thing about herself. Not even her name. I only got the Caitlyn part when the other woman called her that.”

  “She was probably just tryin’ to keep you out of it as best she could.” Charly’s tone was uncharacteristically sympathetic. “I doubt she was happy about havin’ to do what she did.”

  “Spoken like a defense attorney.”

  “Which is what I am, and the whole reason you called me, sugar. And by the way, if you’re so PO’d at the woman, why are you tryin’ to help her?”

  Damned if he knew. He closed his eyes, thinking how much he wished he had a beer right now. Or something stronger. Which was just about unheard of, for him; he’d spent his teenage years watching his brother Roy battle the booze and it had left a lasting impression on him. He heaved a big sigh and said, “Just see what you can do, okay? I’m gonna be home probably late tomorrow night, but you can reach me on my cell.”

  “I’ll make some calls, but I’m not promising anything.”

  “That’s fine. And Charly…thanks.”

  He disconnected but sat where he was for a long time, fidgety and keyed-up, slapping the cell phone against the palm of his hand. He’d done the right thing, turning them in, he knew he had. It wasn’t his affair, and Charly was right, he ought to stay th
e hell out of it. So why was it he couldn’t get her out of his mind? Her. All three of them, really. Except, it wasn’t Mary Kelly’s scared brown eyes or even little Emma Vasily’s big black ones he saw whenever he shut his eyes, as if the backs of his eyelids had been tiny TV screens. Uh-uh. No, it was her face that haunted him, pale and frozen in the shadows of the back seat of a police cruiser, the silvery slash of her eyes zeroing in on him, seeming to look right into his soul with mute and desperate appeal.

  He was on I-95 somewhere south of Richmond when his cell phone tweedled at him from the no-hands holster mounted on the dash. He reached over and mashed the Receive button and hollered, “Yeah?” over the roar of highway noise.

  “C.J., honey, that you?” Charly’s voice was distant and tinny.

  His heart gave a little kick. He turned up the volume and yelled, “Yeah, Charly. What’d you find out?”

  “Couple things. First thing is, she’s still not talking. Neither one of ’em is-the mother, either. So they’re both back in the pokey, and it looks like they might be there for a while. Judge Calhoun seems determined to keep ’em where they are until they give up the little girl.” She paused.

  “And?” C.J. prompted. He kept his hands easy on the wheel, but a pulse was tapping hard against his belt buckle.

  “She doesn’t want any help, C.J.-at least, not from you.”

  “Did she say that?” He squinted at the ribbon of interstate rolling out ahead of him, though there wasn’t a speck of glare. “You got that straight from her? Not some other lawyer? You talked to her?”

  He heard the gust of an exhalation. “In a word, C.J., yeah. What she actually said was that you’d done enough.” There was a long pause before Charly added gently, “She’s right, you know. Give it up, honey. It’s not your trouble, so don’t go spendin’ any more time stewin’ about it. You got other things to worry about-which reminds me, how’s that law degree comin’? When are you plannin’ on tackin’ up your shingle here with Troy and me?”