Celia's Puppies (7 page)

Mike came from the back of the small
storefront to find Colin wait.

“
This, my friend, is a
uniform,” Colin said. “It’s generally worn by people who work for
the government particularly military or police. Firemen wear
uniforms too.”

“
That’s your Special
Forces uniform,” Mike said. He pointed to Colin’s Green Beret which
was tucked under a band on his shoulder. “You’re
retired.”

“
Hmm,” Colin
said.

“
Are you going to get your
make-up done?” Mike asked. “Michael Moore’s a nice guy.”

“
I’m here to pick up
Sergeant Michael Roper,” Colin said. “Did you see him in
there?”

“
Very funny,” Mike
said.

Mike pushed open the glass door for Colin.
Colin stepped through the door then turned to talk to Mike.

“
How’s Jill?” Colin
asked.

“
Ok,” Mike said. “Thanks
for your help last night. Bringing Paddie was sheer brilliance.
With Paddie there, I don’t think Katy noticed the police. Did they
find anything?”

“
Yep. The handwriting on
the mirror and the cat match. The cat was strangled. But get
this…,” Colin said.

Mike stopped walking to hear what Colin had
to say. Colin pushed him forward. They walked down Saint Paul
Street toward the Cherry Creek Mall.

“
Hear that sound. There’s
a chopper waiting for you. So keep walking.”

“
A chopper,” Mike said. He
looked around at the quiet shopping district. “Here?”

“
The Jakker,” the men said
together.

“
I don’t want to go
anywhere, Colin,” Mike said. “Especially not with Zack Jakkman
flying. That man scares the crap out of me. Always has.”

“
Hmm,” Colin said. He
pushed Mike along down the street.

“
You were saying something
about Jill’s apartment?”

“
The blushing bride
destroyed the photo albums. Her prints are everywhere. They must
have thought Jill would never call the police. Idiots. We think
they did this Friday before the rehearsal dinner. What kind of a
woman helps her almost husband stalk his ex-wife?”

“
Who knows?”

“
I mean, there’s enough
evidence in the refrigerator alone to convict them of breaking and
entering, harassment, menacing, theft and destruction of property.
The cat? Animal cruelty. And that’s not to mention the rest of the
apartment or the acid in the hair conditioner.”

“
What happens now?” Mike
asked.

Closing in on the Cherry Creek Mall parking
lot, Mike saw the Black Hawk. The wind from the helicopter whipped
dust and trash from the parking lot. Mini cyclones battered the
cars and pedestrians. Cars blew their horns and gestured at two
soldiers with machine guns. Yes, the Jakker was a crazy man.

“
They’ll pick up Trevor
and his bride at DIA when they land,” Colin said. “This is a
particularly nasty piece of work, a real attack on Jill. You sure
she’s all right?”

“
She says they did her a
favor by destroying her past. Now she doesn’t have to carry it
around with her. Or that’s what she says. She’s pretty upset about
her hair.”

“
Julie would absolutely
die if that happened to her,” Colin said of his wife.

Mike stopped walking at the traffic light on
First Street. He watch a couple other soldiers jump out of the
helicopter. One of the men waved at him.

“
I think it will catch up
to her,” Mike said.

“
Well, Trevor and his gal
would do well to stay out of the country,” Colin said.

“
We can only hope,” Mike
said.

The men crossed the street toward the Mall,
and the helicopter.

“
In you go, my friend,”
Colin said.

Mike stepped up into the helicopter. While
his eyes adjusted from the bright sun to the dark interior of the
helicopter, Colin pushed him into an empty seat.

“
What’s going on? Shit,
you’re wearing your dress uniform too.”

“
Yes, Sergeant Roper,”
Alex Hargreaves said. “We have an appointment at Fort Carson. We
picked up your dress uniform at the Castle. I think Mac Clenaghan
has it.”

She pointed toward her second in command,
Captain Mac Clenaghan. He held up Mike’s dress uniform.

“
Alex...”

“
Lieutenant Colonel
Hargreaves.” The man sitting next to him hit his shoulder. “Have
some respect.”

“
Sir, I am needed at
home,” Mike said. “You know what happened to Jill
and...”

“
We would all like to be
at home, Sergeant,” Alex said. “Frankly, my better-halves are
backpacking right now.”

“
That’s right! You, Max
and John were going to the Black Canyon. How come...”

“
Because someone is being
interviewed by Oprah in less than two days.”

“
Ah crap,” Mike
asked.

“
Command would like to
have a word with you,” Alex said. “We are on fetch and babysit
duty. All week. Buckle up.”

The helicopter lifted off from the parking
lot and made its way toward Fort Carson, Colorado.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday evening — 6:00 P.M.

“
How does it look?” Jill
asked.

Sandy unwrapped the bandana Jill had tied
around her head. Sandy’s face went white from shock to red with
rage. They were alone at Sandy’s station. Jacob had arranged the
appointment with Sandy, and since her schedule was always
over-booked, she agreed to stay late to work on Jill.

“
Trevor did this?” she
asked.

“
Actually, his new wife,”
Jill said. “Or at least her finger prints were on the bottle.
Trevor used to tease me about the conditioner, so I’m sure it was
his idea. He knew how hard it was to grow my hair out.”

“
What was it?
Acid?”

Sandy picked through what was left Jill’s
hair. Jill had burns on her neck and scalp in places. Sandy had
never seen anything this awful.

“
Yeah, some kind of acid,”
Jill said. “It burned my back a little bit too.”

Jill pointed to a spot on her back. Sandy
pulled Jill’s tank top back to look at her back.

“
I wondered why you
weren’t wearing a bra.”

“
I can’t fasten it,” Jill
said.

“
Oh God, Jill,” Sandy
said. “Why didn’t you call me? I was at home.”

“
I didn’t want Katy to
know. She’s been through so much. She was so excited to be home
with her toys.”

“
Bitch and Trevor didn’t
do anything to her stuff?”

“
Not that we can tell,”
Jill replied. “She and her little friend Pat played together in her
room until late. She fell asleep. I had to wait until the police
were done. They finished up about 1:30 AM. I took Katy to the
Castle. She seemed happy to be at the Castle in the morning. The
police checked her room today. Nothing.”

“
Why did they leave her
stuff alone?” Sandy asked.

“
Honestly?” Jill asked. “I
think he’s going to try to get custody.”

“
What?”

Sandy was so disturbed by the idea that she
began working on Jill’s hair. She sprayed abundant conditioner then
tried to work her wide tooth comb through the mess.

“
He doesn’t want her
because he loves her or values her or thinks she’s an amazing human
being or...”

“
Jill. Why would Trevor
want Katy?”

“
Money,” they said
together.

“
Either child support or a
pay off. I don’t know,” Jill said. “They told Mike that he and his
bride would be arrested when they come back to Denver so... I’m
sure he’ll say it wasn’t his fault.”

“
Jill,” Sandy stopped
working. She held Jill’s eyes in the mirror. “You have to have the
doctor check out these burns.”

“
I did. Jacob put me on
his insurance plan. I went to see her today.” Jill visibly
brightened. “I even took Katy to an allergy doctor. Blane thinks
acupuncture might help. I was surprised when the doctor thought the
acupuncture was a great idea. The doctor suggested...”

“
Jill,” Sandy interrupted
Jill. Jill was chattering to avoid dealing with her own pain, her
own injury. “What about the burns?”

“
Oh.” Jill’s face dropped
with sorrow. “She gave me some ointment for the burns. Blane gave
me some Chinese stuff too.”

Sandy’s face was a mask of pain as she
attempted to work with what was left of Jill’s hair.

“
Birth
control?”

“
The pill. And about a
billion blood tests they do automatically for Lipson Construction,”
Jill said. “No IUD because I used to get those bad
cramps.”

“
You’re going back on the
pill?”

“
Yep. Trevor always said
they made me a depressed bitch but...”

“
He just said that to
control when you got pregnant,” Sandy said. “The IUD was sheer
brilliance.”

“
He never
knew.”

Jill’s eyes caught Sandy’s in the mirror.
Together, they had solved almost every problem in their lives. Jill
knew that Sandy would be able to fix this one too.

“
I’m sorry, honey. I’m
going to have to shave off most of your hair. All of the back and
most of the front. I...”

Jill’s eyes welled with tears. Giving Jill a
box of Kleenex, Sandy went to work.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday evening — 6:35 P.M.

“
How are you
feeling?”

Delphie poked her head into the room.
Sitting in a high backed chair in front of a raging fire, Jacob had
been working on his laptop. Sarah, his yellow Labrador, was
sleeping in front of the roaring fire in the ornate tile fireplace.
Sighing, Jacob set the computer on the marble coffee table in front
of him. Delphie came in the sitting room carrying two cups of
tea.

“
All right,” he said. “The
acupuncture helps with the pain but I’m so tired and
cold.”

He pointed to the fire.

“
The fire light is nice,”
Delphie said. “Even in summer.”

“
That trainer? Valerie
Waters? She had me ride the exercise bike, low speed for twenty
minutes. I thought I was going to die.”

“
It’s a long way back,”
Delphie said.

She gave him the cup of tea.

“
Thanks,” he said. “I can
only sleep a few hours at a time. But I sleep like forty times a
day.”

“
What does the doctor
say?” Delphie asked.

“
Oh.” Jacob took a drink
of tea. “I think they’re so used to seeing really sick people. If
you’re moderately ill or better at all, you’re a
miracle.”

“
It is a miracle how well
you’ve healed,” Delphie said. “You’re not even wearing your neck
brace.”

“
Only when I lay down,” he
said. “Blane’s acupuncture and herbs are the miracle. Most of my
bandages are off. The drains are out.”

Delphie gave a slight nod.

“
You seem blue, Delphie,”
Jacob said. “Is all this chaos too much? You’ve been caring for all
these kids. Are we taking too much from you?”

“
The children are a joy,”
Delphie said.

“
Clients?” Jacob
asked.

Delphie shook her head.

“
Come on, Delphinium. It’s
me. Your Jakey. What’s going on?”

“
I miss your
mother.”

Delphie sat down in a wing back chair next
to him. He held out his left hand which she took. They sat for a
moment contemplating the fire.

“
When you were… on the
other side...” Delphie started then stopped. She turned from the
fire to look at him.

“
Delphie?”

“
Your mother missed
everything. She wanted so badly for you and Jill to get together.
She loved Mike so much. She wanted Val and Mike to live their
happily ever after. And Katy? She reminds me so much of Celia. She
has her light and her temper.”

“
Yeah,” Jacob said. “I
don’t see it. When I look at her, I see Trevor’s dark eyes on her
happy, bright face. The volunteers at the zoo said she looked just
like Mom.”

“
Maybe that’s it.” Delphie
nodded as if she could see what the zoo volunteers meant. “I love
Katy, just love her and I only met her a week ago!”

Delphie wiped her eyes. They watched the
fire.

“
Your mother would have
adored that child. All of the pain, all of the work, all of the
worry, and she missed the best part.” Tears dropped from Delphie’s
eyes. “She should be here. She made all of this happen.”

“
You do her a disservice
to think she’s still not making this happen,” Jacob
said.

Delphie nodded.

“
Did you see her?” Delphie
asked.

Jacob nodded.

“
Did she...”

“
She misses you, Dad, and
us,” Jacob said. “She said you, Dad and she belonged together like
me and Jill, me and Val, Val and Mike, and Jill and Mike. That’s
what I remember. The four of us. The three of you.”

“
Does she
know...?”

“
About you and Dad?” Jacob
asked. “She isn’t upset or jealous. I think she loves both of you
so completely that your relationship makes more sense to her than
to either of you. Mom is… such a great being, so loving, so kind. I
think all of that couldn’t be held in by a physical
body.”