by Joan Kilby
Paula got to her feet, all her senses on alert. A quick glance at the playground showed Jamie pushing a toy car through the sawdust at the base of the climbing apparatus. She glanced back. Nick had taken out the thin blade and was using the tip to clean his perfectly manicured nails.
“Where’s the wire?” Nick’s gaze dropped to her blouse.
“Put away the knife before your son sees you and misunderstands,” she said calmly. “You don’t want him to think you’re a bad man.”
Nick hefted the blade loosely in his palm. He took a step toward her.
“Stop,” she said, moving backward. “You know you won’t hurt me. I’m the mother of your child.”
He affected a negligent shrug. “Actually, that means nothing to me. The boy is all that matters.”
All she could think about was Jamie’s safety. She had to remain calm and not inflame the situation. Nick had vulnerable points. She had to tap into them. She could talk him out of this, she was sure.
“Jamie adores the remote-controlled car you sent him,” she said. “I let him keep it this time.”
“Really? He liked it?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “He plays with it all the time.”
Nick hesitated then slid the knife inside his boot. “What else does he like? I wish to give him another present.”
Paula slowly let out her breath. There was still a chance she could turn this around. Nick was fond of playing games. Chances were he’d been merely trying to scare her. “Dinosaurs. They’re his favorite things after cars.”
* * *
PUT AWAY THE KNIFE, was the last thing Riley heard before he tore off his headphones and leaped from the van.
“Wait!” Detective Leonard called after him.
Riley ignored the summons to stop. He raced down the sidewalk, dodging a man pushing a stroller and almost ran over an elderly woman who’d stepped off the crosswalk.
She shook her cane at him. “I’ve a good mind to call the police.”
Visions of Paula stabbed and bloodied, and Jamie in the clutches of the criminal filled Riley’s mind with a red haze during the short stretch of street between the van and the park. Ahead, he could see Moresco standing too close to Paula. Jamie kneeled in the dirt, oblivious to the danger, alone and vulnerable.
“Paula!” Riley put on a burst of speed.
She waved her hands, shaking her head at the same time. The message was unmistakable. Stop! Go away!
Riley didn’t process that. He barreled up to her and Moresco, grasped Paula by both arms and set her aside. He wedged himself between her and Moresco.
Breathing hard, he flipped out his badge. “You’re under arrest for threatening a police officer with a deadly weapon.”
Behind him Paula groaned. “He didn’t threaten me.”
“I heard him.” Riley gripped Moresco’s wrist and twisted his arm up behind his back. “You’re coming with me, down to the station.”
“Riley!” Jamie came running over. Then stopped to glance uncertainly from Riley to Nick. “What are you doing?”
“He’s playing a very silly game.” Scowling, Moresco tugged on his arm.
“There are no grounds for arrest,” Paula hissed at Riley. “What are you doing here?”
Reluctantly he released Moresco’s arm. “No grounds? But I heard—”
“Is this the type of person you work with these days?” Moresco brushed his suit sleeve fastidiously. “I suppose this ridiculous setup was his idea.” He reached for his handkerchief from the picnic-table bench, shaking it out with a snap.
“Don’t go, Nick,” Paula said, pushing a hand through her hair. “It wasn’t a setup, honestly. I don’t know why Riley burst in on the scene. Please, stay and chat a little longer. Riley was just leaving.” She glared at him. “Weren’t you?”
Adrenaline was still pumping through Riley’s body. His hands were fisted at his side. “I heard—”
“You’re imagining things.” Paula gave him another fierce look—shut the hell up—then turned to Moresco. “He was in Afghanistan. He has PTSD. It makes him do crazy things.”
“He was listening to the wire taped to your lovely body,” Moresco said. “Nobody fools Nick Moresco twice, not even you, bella.”
Riley sat on the picnic table, confused. Had he imagined Paula’s fear, her words about a knife?
“Show me your cars before I go.” Nick put an arm around Jamie and guided him toward the playground.
Riley jumped up and started to follow.
Paula grabbed his arm and restrained him. “Nick was briefly hostile when he figured out I was wired,” she whispered fiercely. “But I was talking him around. If you hadn’t come charging in here like some bloody Keystone Kop, I might have gotten some useful information out of him.”
Out of the corner of his eye Riley saw Nick pick Jamie up. The red haze returned, blurring Riley’s vision. Pain seared through his right temple.
Paula was wrong. Moresco was taking the boy hostage.
Riley’s heart began to palpitate. Sweat broke out on his forehead and under his armpits.
Do something. Act, you coward.
He couldn’t move. His legs felt as if they were made of lead. Paula’s voice faded to a tinny distant sound. Colored flashing lights obscured his vision. He heard the explosion, saw the blood and the flying hand coming at him. He clutched his head with both hands, trying to stop the pain by pressing on his skull. He fell to his knees, collapsing forward, his arms curled over his head.
The next thing he knew, Paula was shaking him. “Riley, snap out of it. Everything’s all right.”
Slowly he uncovered his head, pulled himself upright on his knees. He looked around. Moresco had gone. Jamie’s eyes were wide, his mouth slack. Paula peered into Riley’s face, frowning. “Are you okay?”
“I thought…” His throat was dry, his heart still pounding. “I thought Moresco…”
He’d thought Moresco was a suicide bomber who had grabbed Jamie as a hostage.
“He was hugging Jamie goodbye,” Paula said then spoke into her cleavage. “It’s all over.”
Riley wiped a hand across his sweaty brow. He was going insane—if he wasn’t crazy already. The worst thing was, if Jamie had been in real danger, Riley wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it.
“Are you okay, Riley?” Jamie touched him on the shoulder, his small face troubled.
He hated the boy seeing him like this. He managed a shaky smile. “I had a bad turn. I’m fine.”
“Mum’s friend, Nick, gave us ice cream,” Jamie said. “He even knew that chocolate was my favorite.”
“That’s terrific, mate.” Riley clambered unsteadily to his feet. The migraine throbbed but at least it wasn’t affecting his vision anymore. He felt like the worst kind of fool. He couldn’t even look at Paula. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Detectives Leonard and Cadley were walking over from the van to see what was going on.
“Stay with Riley,” she said to Jamie and went to meet them.
Jamie stood with Riley, watching him unhappily as if standing guard on the lunatic. Riley ran a hand over his face. He couldn’t go on like this.
* * *
PAULA PULLED RILEY’S blue flannel shirt from her scrap bag and spread it out on her ironing board. It was threadbare but the muted blue-green plaid would look perfect pieced into her quilt.
It was late, nearly midnight. She should go to bed but she knew she’d lie awake, wondering how Riley was and thinking about how next to tackle Nick.
She ran the iron over the soft fabric, remembering how it had felt covering Riley’s strong shoulder. What would he think about her using his shirt this way? Well, he’d thrown it out. It was hers now.
Her anger had faded. He couldn’t help himself. He’d been doing what he thought necessary to save her and Jamie. Too bad Riley couldn’t save himself.
Paula took the shirt to her worktable and cut out the back of the garment. She spread it out, glancing at her quilt to see what shape would best fit into the whole. Taking up her scissors again, she carefully cut out an irregular polygon about the size of her palm.
Was Riley awake right now, too? She was tempted to call him, see how he was doing. She’d phoned after dinner but got his voice mail. Hopefully the reason he hadn’t called back was because he was working on his renovations and not because he was having another attack.
Paula pinned the fabric to the quilt on three sides then threaded a needle with blue cotton. Using the sewing machine would be easier and faster but part of the therapeutic effect of quilting was the hand sewing.
Today had been bad on so many levels. Riley had screwed up her encounter with Nick. He’d freaked out Jamie—her, too, to be honest. Seeing Riley, whom she thought of as strong and confident, reduced to a trembling mess was plain scary.
He’d frightened off Nick before she could get anything useful out of him. A few more minutes and she might have gotten Nick to agree to her plan—
Get real. Nick had her numbered long before Riley had burst onto the scene. She might have talked him out of his hostile mood but the sting operation was a hopeless cause. She should have known better. Nick was too smart and too wary to fall for something so ham-fisted.
Was he responsible for the crystal meth coming into Summerside? He kept denying it. She took that with a grain of salt, but he had to know that if he seriously wanted to be part of Jamie’s life he couldn’t risk getting caught manufacturing or dealing in drugs.
Was Riley right? Leopards don’t change their spots.
How much did Jamie mean to Nick—enough to make him go straight? Seeing him interact with her son at the playground had almost made her believe. On the other hand it was impossible to envisage Nick running an ice-cream shop in a small town and being a soccer dad.
A noise behind her made her glance around. Jamie stood in the doorway, his pajamas twisted, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “What are you doing up, mate? Did you have a bad dream?”
Jamie nodded and ran to her. Paula put the quilt aside and held out her arms. He crawled into her lap. She cuddled him, stroking his hair. He was too big to sit comfortably in her lap but she held him anyway.
“It’s all right now. You’re safe with me.”
“A dog was chasing me.” He burrowed his face into her shoulder. “A big black dog with sharp teeth.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” She hummed a lullaby she used to sing when he was younger. Gradually he relaxed against her but when she tried to release him, he squirmed back into her arms. “Do you want to look at my quilt?”
Jamie sat up, sniffing. “Okay.”
They sat on the bed with the quilt spread out, Jamie tucked in close. “Watch out for the pins. See this piece?” She pointed out a dark red with thin navy blue stripes. “That was your Grandpa’s favorite shirt. He wore it when I was going through police training. I was making my first quilt then. When Grandma threw out the shirt I took it. A piece of it is in every quilt I’ve made.”
Jamie tapped the other side of the quilt. “Here’s another bit of it.”
“I put lots of pieces in this quilt.” Stupid to get sentimental about scraps of fabric but she couldn’t help the lump forming in her throat. “He would have liked you, kiddo. Do you see any more of Grandpa’s shirt?”
Jamie leaned closer. “There! I found another one. It’s like Where’s Waldo. And another!” He twisted his face, with its gap-toothed grin toward her, seeking her approval.
“You’re good at this.” She stroked his hair off his forehead.
“Well, there are a lot,” Jamie said modestly.
“I wanted there to be lots. So that even though Grandpa’s passed away, he’s still in our life.”
“Is there any of me?” Jamie asked.
“Of course. This piece is from a T-shirt you wore when you were three years old.” She pointed out a yellow and green scrap. “And this bit with the bunnies is from your sleepers when you were a baby.”
“Tell me more.” Jamie was wide awake now, his nightmare forgotten.
She should get him to bed—he had school in the morning—but she relished these quiet times together. “This is from Grandma’s blouse. And this is from curtains we had when I was a teenager. This was from one of my dresses.” She knew the origin of every piece of fabric. Looking at them brought back happy memories and positive emotions of days past. “It’s like a story of our life.”
“What’s this piece from?” Jamie asked, touching the blue and green flannel she was sewing in tonight.
“Riley’s shirt. He left it here when he was changing the locks.”
Jamie whipped his head around to see if she was joking. When she nodded, he gave a shocked giggle. “Won’t he be mad that you cut it up?”
“It’s so old and frayed he told me to throw it out. He said I’d be doing him a favor getting rid of it because he couldn’t bear to throw it out himself.”
Jamie smoothed down the raw curling edge of the flannel. “Now Riley’s part of our story.”
Paula wanted to deny it, but her heart wouldn’t let her.
Jamie had gone quiet. “Why did Riley act weird in the park?”
She’d already explained it that afternoon, but post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t something a six-year-old comprehended easily. She tried again.
“Riley got injured in an explosion in Afghanistan. Sometimes his mind flashes to things he saw and he starts to feel scared, just like he did when the bomb went off.”
“But there was no bomb today.” Jamie scrunched his face up. “I don’t get it.”
“To be honest, I don’t fully understand it myself. I don’t think Riley does, either.” She sighed. “We don’t always know why we do what we do.”
“Do dogs know why they do what they do?”
Paula laughed. It always astonished her how her son’s mind flipped from subject to subject. “Maybe. It would be fun to know what a dog is thinking.”
“He’s thinking, ‘I’m going to find a bone,’” Jamie said, wide-eyed. “He’d dig and dig and dig…”
Paula started to stand. “Come on, matey, it’s time we both got some sleep.”
Jamie resisted moving. His smile faded and he frowned. “I’m worried about Riley.”
“Don’t worry.” Paula hugged her son, holding him close. “Riley is going to be fine. He’s a soldier. He’s big and strong.”
She led Jamie to his bedroom and tucked him under the covers, kissing him good-night again. She went out quietly but didn’t close the door all the way in case he woke up.
She tidied her quilting materials and went to bed. But she didn’t sleep. She was worried about Riley, too.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I HAD ANOTHER panic attack,” Riley said to Simone Richards two days later. It was humbling to have to admit, especially when he’d been so cocky and dismissive of therapy. But after his meltdown in the park he could no longer deny his condition was serious. “I didn’t think that would happen again, not after our last session when I relived the bomb explosion and Nabili and her students getting killed.”
Simone had a desktop waterfall trickling in the background. It was undoubtedly meant to be soothing but in his present state the noise was annoying. He didn’t want to be soothed. He wanted to be cured, damn it.
“I did tell you the trauma might lie deeper than your Afghanistan experiences,” Simone reminded him. “Can you think of any other past event that affected you in a strongly negative way?”
He spread his hands. “I’ve seen nothing as b
ad as witnessing dozens of innocent people blown apart.”
“It doesn’t have to be a violent trauma,” Simone said. “Just something that affected you deeply.”
Riley shrugged. “My mother died from breast cancer when I was twelve. I took that pretty hard.”
“Let’s explore that. Often children feel abandoned when a parent dies. They can feel angry as well as bereft.”
Riley thought back. He’d started his first year of high school. His excitement and nervousness had been overshadowed by his mother’s illness and death. “I don’t recall feeling angry. I was in turmoil, for sure. Grieving and confused.”
“At that age you might not have recognized your emotions as anger.” Simone made a note in her book. “How did your father handle her death? Did he talk to you about your feelings, encourage you to remember your mother? Or did he shut down emotionally?”
“Dad’s ex-army and old-fashioned. Very stiff upper lip and get-on-with-the-job,” Riley said. “He didn’t talk about what he was going through, but he didn’t stop my sister and me from remembering her.”
“Were you close to your mother?”
Again Riley shrugged. “She was my mother. I loved her but I took her for granted. I was twelve years old, remember?” He shifted restlessly in his chair. “With respect, where’s all this going?”
“Let’s try approaching this from another angle,” Simone said. “When did you first experience symptoms of PTSD? Those might include headaches, sleeplessness, depression, panic attacks…”
Riley leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees. “It was the night before I was supposed to give a talk at the primary school. I came down with a vicious headache that I attributed to dust from the renovations. In hindsight I think it must have been brought on by the thought of going to a primary school and associating that with Afghanistan.”
“Possibly. You mentioned renovations. What exactly had you been doing that day?”
“I think I told you I recently moved into my old family home.”