Protector (59 page)
Authors: Laurel Dewey
Tags: #Police Procedural, #Denver (Colo.), #Mystery & Detective, #Psychic ability, #Women detectives, #Crime, #Suspense, #Women Sleuths, #Children of murder victims, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural, #Espionage
“No we don’t,” Emily said succinctly. “We made a deal. Remember?”
Jane caught Kathy’s prying eyes staring at her. It was as though Kathy was laying in wait until Jane said or did something that warranted a call to the Sheriff. Jane opted for a different approach. “Well, we don’t know what Kathy’s mom has to say about the idea. She may have other plans with her family for the holiday weekend.”
“We don’t have any plans, Mrs. Calver,” Heather said, looking at Jane with the same hateful appearance Jane had noticed on other occasions.
“Well, Heather,” Jane said, regarding the brat with equal hostility, “it’s really up to your mother to make that decision. Not you.”
“Perhaps we should talk about it, Heather—” Kathy said.
“There’s nothing to talk about!” Heather snapped back at Kathy. “Emily invited me and my friends to a sleep over and we’re going to go!” Turning to Emily, Heather smiled a sugary grin. “Do you want me to bring CDs so we can dance?”
“Yeah!” Emily said, totally blown away by Heather’s offer.
“Hey, you wanna see the cutest new lipstick I found?” Heather asked Emily. The two girls ran down the center aisle, leaving Kathy and Jane in an awkward moment.
“If you can’t handle this,” Kathy said with a snippy sound in her voice, “we can just forget about the whole thing.”
Jane regarded Kathy’s comment as almost a street dare. “Oh, I can handle it.”
Emily floated ten feet above the carpet for the next three days in excited expectation of Saturday night. By contrast, Jane was emotionally hugging the ground, waiting day and night for any word from Lisa.
Emily dug through the attic and came up with a halfway decent sleeping bag. By Friday night, Emily was wired and unable to sleep. She dragged herself out of the bedroom and stood at the threshold of the living room. The television was on mute. Jane sat on the couch in the semi-darkness pensively looking through the various newspaper clippings that featured Chris and Jane’s photos on the front page.
“I can’t sleep,” Emily said, her back wedged against the living room doorway. Jane nonchalantly stashed the clippings back into the files and replaced them into her leather satchel. “Can I watch TV with you for a while?” Emily asked.
“PBS is the only station that’s coming in right now. And it’s begging time!”
“Begging time?”
“They’re doing their annual pledge drive. So it’s not too entertaining.”
Emily sauntered over to the couch. She glanced at the clock. “Hey, you know what? Tomorrow at this time, I’m going to be sitting in this living room with Heather and her friends. We’re gonna be dancing, telling ghost stories and having fun!”
“Uh-huh,” Jane said in a dubious tone.
“How come you can’t be happy for me?”
“I don’t trust Heather,” Jane stated.
“You don’t trust anyone.”
“That’s true. You know why? Because most people have motives.”
“I don’t and you don’t either.”
Jane couldn’t argue with that. “So you and I are exceptions to the rule, but—”
“Maybe Heather is too!”
“Emily, I don’t know what she wants from you, but it’s very obvious to me that her intentions are not pure. I can’t understand why you don’t see it! I mean, she’s staring you right in the face and serving you a line of bullshit.”
Emily shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe I don’t want to see it. Is that so bad?” She plopped onto the couch and motioned to the TV. “They’ve gone back to the show.”
Jane looked at the screen. “Hey, that’s the Three Tenors!” She clicked on the sound. “See that heavyset guy to the right? That’s Pavarotti.” Jane was drawn into the moment, a fact that didn’t escape Emily’s watchful eye. The orchestra swelled into the heartfelt strains of “Nessun Dorma.” For a painful second, Jane was transported back to her mother’s bedside on the day of her death. The camera zoomed in on Pavarotti as he sung with heartfelt emotion.
Emily was equally drawn into the aria. She quickly recognized the evocative melody as the same one that played on her Starlight Starbright projector. “Do you know what the words mean?” Emily asked.
“Yeah,” Jane said, her eyes still fixated on the screen. “He’s talking about a princess, alone in her room. She’s watching the stars, trembling with love and hope.” She waited until Pavarotti began the second verse. “He’s saying, ‘But my secret lies hidden within me . . . no one shall discover my name . . . Oh, no . . . I will reveal it only on your lips when daylight shines forth! . . . And my kiss shall break the silence that makes you mine!’ ” The orchestra performed the interlude as Pavarotti took a step back from the microphone. Jane leaned forward. “Watch him. Watch his eyes.”
Emily stared at the screen, completely transfixed by the moment. Pavarotti moved back to the microphone. “What’s he saying?” Emily urgently asked.
“Depart, oh night! . . . Set you stars! . . . At dawn, I shall win! . . . I shall win!”
Pavarotti sang out the final dramatic words, his face etched with frightening passion. “Vincero! . . . Vincero!” Jane’s eyes welled with tears as the audience let out a thundering ovation. “I shall win,” she whispered to herself.
Emily finally drifted off to sleep and Jane carried the sleeping child to her bed. But the niggling disquiet inside Jane’s mind kept her awake long into the early morning hours. Nothing but test patterns filled the TV screen and she had a throbbing headache from going over the case files. She lit a cigarette and paced between the kitchen and living room, checking the locks on the doors with an obsessive fervor. Jane took another hard drag. Paranoia. Chris’ mantra echoed, “Just because people call you paranoid does not erase the fact that certain other people aren’t out to get you!” She was beginning to see the truth of that statement.
She looked across the living room to the old radio console. It was late enough, she told herself as she walked over and turned on the dial. Sure, it was a long shot but Jane spun the dial across the waves of static in search of Tony Mooney’s soothing voice.
“Welcome back . . .”
Jane couldn’t believe she found the show and pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming again. She twisted the knob to get the best possible reception. Even so, it was like listening to someone talk amidst a sand-storm.
“Hello again to all you denizens of the predawn madness,” Mooney said in his characteristic cadence, albeit buried beneath a blanket of poor reception. Jane settled down on the carpet and pressed her ear to the speaker. Mooney’s voice briefly broke through the incessant whirring and static. “In honor of the upcoming Independence Day celebration, we’re continuing our discussion tonight on that elusive thing we all crave . . . freedom. Ah, sweet freedom. What really is freedom? They write anthems to it in notes no one can sing. They tease us with the notion as religion, politics and society chain us to the status quo. So where does freedom really live, my friends? Does it lie outside ourselves or is it born from within?” Mooney’s voice faded into a cloud of dissonance, reemerging only briefly. “The reality, my friends, is that most do not taste freedom until the moment of death. But it is the fortunate who can savor the sweetness of true freedom while living.” His baritone voice gradually drowned in a wave of static, “Are you free? Or are you waiting for death to give you wings?”
Jane stared at the radio as her blood turned cold.
“Wake up!” Emily said excitedly, poking Jane in the chest.
Jane awakened with a sudden jerk. “What?”
“It’s Saturday!” Emily exclaimed, jumping up and down with glee.
Emily’s manic joy continued throughout the day as she counted down the hours until seven o’clock when Heather and her friends would arrive. She busied herself by cleaning her room several times, rearranging the living room to accommodate the girls’ sleeping bags and getting all the junk food ready for the group.
“Where are you gonna be tonight?” Emily asked Jane in an insistent tone.
“Oh, I thought I’d sit in the living room with all of you—my Glock in one hand and the remote control in the other,” Jane replied, dripping with sarcasm. Emily wasn’t quite sure what to make of her statement. “I’ll either be in the kitchen or my bedroom. And I promise I won’t listen to one word you say to each other.”
By the time seven o’ clock rolled around, Emily was about ready to collapse in anticipation of her guests’ arrival. She sat perched in the chair near the front living room window, watching the road for Kathy’s car. “They’re here!” Emily yelled, almost falling over as she leapt out of the chair.
Jane moved toward the front door. “For God’s sake, calm down! Listen to me,” Jane tried to corral her. “You’re really wired but you have to remember not to let anything slip out of your mouth by mistake.”
“Yeah, yeah! I know! I know! They’re getting out of the car!”
“Emily, did you hear what I said?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t let Heather talk you into doing anything you don’t want to do!”
“I won’t! Can I please open the door?” Jane stood back as Emily flung open the front door. “Hi!” she exclaimed, her enthusiasm pouring out onto the front porch.
Four girls filed into the living room, followed by Kathy and Heather.
“Hello, Patty, sweetheart!” Kathy said, softly touching Emily’s chin. Turning to Jane, Kathy’s voice took on a more distant tone. “Hello, Anne.”
“Hello, Kathy,” Jane replied with a sugary sweet flavor to her voice.
“Girls! Girls!” Kathy said. “Make sure you’ve got everything you need out of the car! Mary, do you have your eyeglasses?”
Mary, a freckled-faced, red-haired kid, turned to Kathy. “They’re in my bag.”
Kathy sidled up to Jane and spoke quietly. “It’s not easy keeping track of all the girls’ personal possessions, not to mention their likes and dislikes. But I do! I know every single one of these girls inside out.”
Jane glanced over to Emily, who was showing one of the children where the bathroom was located. “Every girl in this room?” Jane asked, alluding to Emily.
Kathy kept her face forward with a phony smile pasted across it. “Every single one. I know what they love . . . I know what they fear.”
Jane turned to Kathy, contempt shooting from her eyes. “Is that right?”
Kathy faced Jane, matching her contemptible glare. “Yes. And every girl here has been taught to tell her parents anything she sees that scares her or makes her sad.”
“How ironic,” Jane said with a smirk. “I’ve taught Patty the same thing.”
Kathy observed the girls as they chatted amongst themselves and arranged their sleeping bags. “Perhaps I should stay for a little bit until the girls get settled.”
Jane opened the front door. “Oh, now Kathy, if I’m not allowed to hang with them, you sure as hell aren’t. See you in the morning!”
Kathy addressed the girls. “Girls, listen up!” The chatter gradually ceased. “I’m leaving now. Mrs. Calver will be available if you need anything. Since she doesn’t have a telephone, I’m going to leave my cell phone right here.” Kathy pulled out her phone and set it on the side table by the couch. “Now, that’s not for play. That’s only for emergencies. You dial 9-1-1 and then you call me, okay?” Jane bristled as Kathy held court, obviously sending out a loaded message. The girls nodded their heads. “And remember, girls!” Kathy continued. “What are the rules when someone knocks at the front door? We only let them in if they are someone we know or . . . ?”
All the girls, except for Emily, chimed in. “Someone we trust.”
Kathy let out a breath of air and turned to leave. “Happy sleepover!”
The girls plotted out their various sleeping locations across the living room carpet. Jane closed the front door, locking both the handle and the dead bolt.
Emily looked up at Jane. “Mom? Haven’t you got someplace to go right now?” Her eyes urged Jane out of the room.
“Why, yes, Patty. I do. I’ll be in the kitchen if anyone needs anything.” Jane pulled out a cigarette from the packet in her shirt pocket, lit it and sauntered down the hall to the kitchen.
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