Maternal Harbor (32 page)

Teagan shifted on the floor of the vacant living room without taking her eyes from Alness’s brick house across the street.  The North Precinct squad car still hugged the curb.  The neighborhood had been quiet except for a few kids straggling back to school after lunch.  Now, a beefy guy pumped by on a racing bike.  Legs too short for the pedals, he heaved his weight back and forth, belly jiggling rhythmically, his shadow bobbing on the street, spread wide by the early afternoon sun.  After he disappeared, a beagle pulled a gangly master around the far corner and stopped to sniff and leave scent on the trunk of an aspen.

Their normalcy added to Teagan’s grief.  Her wrenching decision was made, but she continued to gaze beyond the window.  An hour had ticked away since the squad car parked, and an officer went inside to guard Levi.  In the eternity of those sixty minutes, she struggled against her inherent need to protect Charlie, and her duty to turn herself in to the cop across the street.  How could she give herself up and convince him to protect Levi and also make sure Jimmy was safe.  At least a social worker and a cop guarded Charlie, but they weren’t a match for Erica.

Would she come for Levi first or go after Charlie?  That was the question and the gamble−two boys, two locations.  How to choose?

Bryan kept an eye on her from where he leaned against a wall in the empty stagnate room.  “Sitting there bent in a knot won’t help a thing.”

“
Go to hell,” she said without twisting around.  She could care less about his reaction.

A chick-a-dee family flitted into the branches of a red maple in the far corner of the yard.  Teagan rested the palms of her hands on the glass for a moment, and then stood.  “Okay, I’m ready.  Let’s go.”

“Go?”

“
Across the flippin’ street.”   

Instantly, Bryan stood beside her.  He reached to touch her shoulder, but her look made him withdraw his hand.

Teagan gritted her teeth.  With each step away from the vacant house, her son seemed more lost.  She would be arrested.  Where would he be?  She staggered and clutched for Bryan’s hand.

He caught hers.

Teagan returned his squeeze, and they crossed the street to the rambling house.  Lush multi-colored ivy trailed from brick planter boxes that lined the rim of the porch.  Steel rods grated the leaded-glass door and windows, a secure house in a safe neighborhood; if there was such a thing.

Hand in hand, Teagan and Bryan stepped onto the planking of the deep front porch.  She pushed the door bell.  A chorus of distant chimes sang somewhere in the interior.  Impatient to the edge of insanity, she tried to twist the doorknob.  It didn’t budge.  She shoved the bell again and tried to peer inside.

“They’re probably on the back patio,” Bryan said.

From behind the house, high-pitched screams erupted.

Teagan vaulted over the brick planter and dashed around the side.  A cedar privacy fence stood between her and the screams.  Gate to the right.  Locked.  She grabbed the top of the fence, hoisted herself up and peered over the top.

A barbeque smoked on a patio.  The officer was on the ground, struggling like a deer on ice to get up.  A Taser gun lay not far from him.  Florene and her four daughters, hands in the air, faced Erica, screaming.  Four sobbing toddlers clutched their mother’s legs.  Levi wailed in the cradle of Erica’s left arm.

Weapon aimed at the crowd, she stepped through a gate into the alley, disappearing to the left.

Teagan dropped from the fence and raced back to the street, sprinted across the blacktop, and dashed past the vacant house to the Jeep.

Bryan caught up.

“
You drive!”  She tossed the keys.  Bryan snatched them and they jumped into the Jeep.  He backed from the carport and highballed down the alley.

Florene and her daughters spilled out onto the street, yelling and pointing up the street at a battered tan car.  A couple blocks ahead, it disappeared around a corner. 

“
Go,” Teagan yelled.  “Don’t lose her.”

The Johnsons jumped back.  The Jeep zoomed by; the speedometer needle jiggled on fifty at the corner where Erica turned.  Bryan crunched the brakes, spun the wheel.  Tires squealing, they skidded left around the corner.  He cranked the steering wheel and narrowly missed jumping the curb.

Up ahead, Erica slowed to the speed limit.

Teagan gripped Bryan’s right leg, squeezing hard.  “Back off!”

“She has Levi!”

“
She’ll lead us to the foster care where Charlie is and to Jimmy!  Stay out of sight.  Thank God, she didn’t see us.”

Bryan eased up.  “How in the hell can that bitch take a baby?”

“Believe me now?”

He scowled at her.  The question had hurt.  Teagan should say something, but couldn’t find room for his feelings in the midst of her anguish.  She concentrated on the car ahead.  “Erica always drove a Mercedes to the clinic, never a junk heap.  None of us even knew she was a cop.”  She strained to see.  “I can’t make her out.”

Bryan pulled Teagan back against the seat.  “Don’t let her see you.”

She slid down, keeping her head barely high enough to peer over the dash.  The revolver rested in her lap, the Mauser touched her feet.  “How could the Johnsons just stand there screaming?”

“Not everyone reacts instantly like you do.”

Were his words ones of criticism or praise?  She didn’t care.  Feisty, quick-tempered and toughness came from a childhood on the docks; those instant reactions would help defeat Erica.  “I can’t believe that she got into the alley without me seeing her and jumped the cop.  I had a direct view of one opening and the whole front street.  It’s like she knew.”

“She’s a cop.  Probably knows lots about keeping out of sight.  And certainly knows how to use a Taser.”

Up ahead, the Nissan headed south, took a right turn onto Northgate Way.  Eight blocks later, it merged into I-5's thick northbound traffic.

Bryan stayed well back as they followed the Nissan’s nerve-racking leisurely pace.  Silent, tormented miles slid away.  Teagan watched every car, every curve, praying that nothing happened to stop Erica from leading them to the boys.  She groaned, “It’s like she’s on a flippin’ Sunday drive.”

“
I’m not in any hurry either,” Bryan mumbled.

Teagan clenched her teeth.  He didn’t want to catch Erica, face whatever battle lay ahead.  She clamped her lips, refusing to give in to panic, staring hard at the rear end of the Nissan, scraping the handle of the Colt with her thumbnail.  She felt Bryan’s eyes on her, and she slanted a look at him.  “Is it so hard to understand that I’ll kill to protect Charlie?”  Her voice trembled.

Bryan returned his attention to the road in time to brake for an Audi that cut in.

“
See,” Teagan muttered.  “We’re not going fast enough for that guy either.”

Bryan sighed.  “Do you have a particular plan in mind?  Or are you just going to rush her with guns blazing?”

She felt foolish under his questioning, realizing full well the chance she was taking.  “I know this is stupid, but stupid all I have.”

“
As soon as we find the boys, we call the cops.”

“
You’d trust Charlie to a SWAT team?”

“
She just disabled a cop.  How in the hell can we stop her alone?  Besides, every officer in this city is checking for an old tan Nissan.  I’m just hoping the Johnsons gave them a great description.”

Teagan hadn’t thought of that scenario.  More pressure built into her flayed emotions.  She slapped the seat, hard enough to sting her palm, hard enough to jab a pain up from her wrist.  “Where’s she going?  A foster home can’t be this far away.”

Then it hit her.

She grappled with the knowledge.

“Erica already has Charlie!”

“
You can’t know that.”

“
I know it as sure as I’m sitting here.”

“
Call the detective.  Tell him we’re trailing Erica and she already has the babies.  Do it
now
.”

Swearing, Teagan grabbed the phone.  The little screen was blank.  She shook it.  “The battery’s dead!”  She pressed the window button.  The glass zipped down, and she tossed the phone out.

Bryan jerked the wheel.  “Are you nuts?”  The Jeep rocked to the left and hit the warning nubs.  The rapid whomp-whomp-whomp lasted until he regained control.

A gray pickup loaded with chrome and big tires sped up on Bryan’s side.  The young guy inside gave him the finger.

Bryan shrugged at him.

The pickup raced away.  In no time, it caught up to the Nissan and dodged in front of it.

Teagan gripped the dash and held her breath, expecting to see them collide.  Brake lights flashed on the Nissan and the pickup raced away.  She collapsed back against the seat, heart beating like surf against cliffs.  She pressed both hands on her chest.  “I don’t know whether to swear or be thankful.”  The words were no more out of her mouth when a patrol cruiser sped from behind, overheads lit up, strobing red, blue, white, red.

“
Oh, God,” Teagan cried.  “He’ll spot Erica.  She’ll never let him take her.  She’ll kill the babies in the car!”

The officer sped past the Nissan and chased the pickup, disappearing into traffic.  The right blinker on Erica’s car began to flick.  The tan car worked right and blended between two semis, worked right again and flowed onto off ramp leading to Richmond Highlands.

Bryan followed west into steep tree-covered, residential hills.  Three blocks ahead, the Nissan disappeared around a corner.

Teagan beat at his arm.  “Don’t lose her!”

Bryan sped to the intersection and veered hard to the right.  No sign of the Nissan.

“
You lost her!”

“
Look!  Up the hill, to the left.”  Bryan slowed enough to make the turn, and then shoved down on the gas.  The Jeep raced up the steep slope.

“
I see her,” Teagan said.  “Slow down.”  Then air rushed back into her lungs, the relief so enormous her sides hurt.

Bryan eased off and kept the car just in sight, as they meandered through side streets where narrow driveways disappeared into concealing foliage.  With each turn, Teagan chewed her lip until the back end of the Nissan showed again.  Her Charlie was in sight.  Helplessness flooded her body.  Her thumbnail drummed against the Colt’s handle.

They broke around a curve and the street split in two.  No sign of Erica.

Bryan slammed on the brakes.  “Which way?” 

“She’s in one of the driveways!”  Teagan bailed from the Jeep and snatched the Mauser from the floorboard.  Packing the rifle in one hand, the revolver in the other, she dashed for the closest of several private roads that dropped sharply downward.  A low house squatted behind a solid hedge of laurel.  No sign of the Nissan.  She hightailed back to the street.

The Jeep was parked on the berm and Bryan stood in the middle of the road.

She ran past, but he caught her arm.  “We do this together.  One place at a time.  Understand?”

Teagan passed him the Mauser.

They ran across the street and down a curving driveway.  Trees and bushes hid everything from sight except the garage.  He reached the building first, checked in the window and raced back.

“
Nothing,” he reported, and they dashed away.  Two more driveways splintered off the street.

“
Van coming,” Teagan shouted.  They sprinted into the next opening, just in time.

Erica carried Levi and Charlie to the cottage, a baby balanced in each arm.  It had been tricky picking them up in the car until she figured out how to use the tightly wrapped receiving blanket to drag and lift.  At the door, she dropped her shoulder enough to get a hand on the knob.  “Derek, here we are,” she sang and waltzed inside, twirling in joy.

The pewter urn of ashes guarded Jimmy in the middle of the broad table.  The empty baby bottle rested on the pillow by his round cheek.  He slept.  His tiny chest rose and fell in the sweetest way.

“
We have to hurry, boys.  Derek is waiting and a Jeep was trailing us.  Probably Teagan.  But we don’t need much time to slip away.”  She strode to the open door and checked the long, sloping driveway.

Half way up it, some guy with a rifle raced for the house.  Teagan beside him.

“Iska, who is he?”

It doesn’t matter.

Erica leveled her 9mm at them, then zeroed in on Teagan.  “Why couldn’t the bitch just stay away?”  She squeezed the trigger.

At the same time, the guy shoved Teagan, sending her sprawling into the bushes.  The bullet struck him high in the left shoulder.

Erica re-aimed for Teagan, but she had disappeared.

The guy staggered two steps, fighting to stay on his feet.  Stiff-legged and upright, he tried to aim the rifle one-handed.  Then he caved and crumbled to the ground.  As soon as he turfed, Erica tucked the Glock in her waistband, rushed to the table, scooped up the babies and stuffed them into the wicker basket.