Low Tide (9 page)

“Now. I don’t get all that much time away from Ricky and he’s gonna expect us back at the house by 6:30.”

“Where are you?”

“Battery Park. I’m in my car by the playground. The storm came up on us.”

“Do you need me to get you somewhere? To take you somewhere right now?”

“No,” Grace answered. “But it’s really important.”

“What kind of car?”

“It’s a blue Monte Carlo.”

“Okay, I’m just a few blocks away,” Maggie said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay.”

Maggie hung up and then speed-dialed the non-emergency number for the Apalachicola PD.

“Apalachicola Police Department, this is Sgt. Frank speaking.”

“Hey, Stuart, it’s Maggie Redmond.”

“Hey Maggie, what’s up?”

“I’m meeting someone at the playground in Battery Park. It’s probably cool, but could you have one of the guys drive by once or twice anyway?”

“Sure thing. You want him to park just in case?”

“No, it’s probably fine, but it’s Richard Alessi’s girlfriend, so there’s a small chance it’s hinky. She’s in a blue Monte Carlo.”

“No problem,” Stuart answered. “Doug’s over that way. I’ll have him keep special eyeballs out for Ricky.”

“Thanks, Stuart.”

Maggie hung up, made a U-turn and headed for the park. During the five block ride, she called her Mom to let her know she’d be a few minutes late picking up the kids, who had gone fishing with her Dad at Lafayette Pier.

There were a few cars parked near the playground, all of them empty, except for a 1970s Monte Carlo. Through the rain, Maggie could make out Grace in the driver’s seat and at least one toddler head in the back seat.

She parked a few cars away, touched the grip of her .45 out of habit, and then got out. The rain was blowing sideways now, and Maggie shielded her face as she walked to the Monte Carlo’s passenger side.

She looked in the window, saw the three kids in the backseat in their car seats, no one on the floor. She opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, then slammed the door shut against the rain.

Grace looked pale and small. She had her back to her door and was still holding her cell phone in her hands. She flipped it over and over in her lap. Maggie looked back at the kids. The baby was facing backwards and apparently asleep. The little girl and boy were watching a video on an iPad that the girl held between them. They barely looked up at her.

“Hey, kids,” Maggie said anyway.

The little girl blinked at her before going back to her movie. The boy gave her the hint of a smile before putting his head back down on his sister’s shoulder.

“Hey, Grace.”

“Hey. Thank you for coming, ma’am.”

“What’s going on?”

Grace looked down at her phone for a minute and seemed to collect herself. When she looked back up at Maggie, her eyes were still wide and afraid but she was sitting up straighter.

“I need to get away from him,” she said.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to send him back to jail.” She flipped her phone a few more times. “He said if he goes back again, he’s going for a long time. Is that true?”

“Yes. How long depends on what he goes up for, but it’ll be a while. Three strikes. What do you want me to arrest him for?”

Grace looked back at the kids before answering, her voice lowered.

“He’s got something going on Thursday night. I’m not sure what yet, but it’s supposed to be something pretty big. Like, more than they usually deal with.”

“Okay.” Maggie waited.

“He works with Joey Truman and Gary Barone, do you know them?”

“I know Joey.”

“Well, they’re supposed to come over tomorrow sometime to talk about it. I’ll probably know more about what’s going on then. I could call you.”

“Okay,” Maggie said without commitment.

“But, I need to know, you know, would I get in trouble?” Grace looked at the kids again, but they were engrossed in their video. “Can you make it so I don’t get in trouble for knowing about all this stuff? ‘Cause that makes me like an accessory or something, right?”

“I need to talk to someone in the State’s Attorney’s office,” Maggie said. “But we work with informants all the time. I’m sure we can keep you out of it.”

“Can you check to make sure?”

“Yes. But why don’t you just leave? Can you take your kids somewhere?”

“Well, but Tammi and Jake aren’t mine, they’re Ricky’s kids. I can’t just take ‘em.”

“Where’s their mother?” Maggie asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Grace whispered back. “He said she ran off two years ago, but, you know…I think maybe...”

Grace looked into the backseat again to make sure the kids weren’t listening. Maggie sighed.

“Where are you from, Grace?”

“Santa Rosa. That’s where I met Ricky. He came into the Denny’s where I worked.”

“Can you go home to your family after?”

Grace smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile.

“My mom died a long time ago and my Dad’s worse than Ricky.”

Maggie looked at her for a moment.

“How old are you?”

“I just turned nineteen.”

“Why are you with someone like him?”

The girl shrugged her bony shoulders.

“I’m not pretty. I’m not even interesting,” she said. “I knew he probably wasn’t a good person, but it seemed kind of exciting at first.”

“Does he hurt you?”

“Sometimes,” she said, like it was normal. “The thing is, I can’t lose these kids. His, I mean. They need me. If he goes away, nobody else is gonna want ’em. I’ll have time to figure something out.”

Maggie stared out the windshield for a moment. Through the rain, she could just see a black-and-white cruising slowly down Water Street, across the playground. She looked back at Grace.

“Isn’t he going to wonder why you aren’t home yet, with the rain?”

“Naw. He knows I’m scared to drive in it. He’s probably just glad they’re still out of the house. But I gotta get home and get his supper.”

“Okay, look. I’ll talk to the Assistant State’s Attorney and my boss. You call me whenever you know something tomorrow and I’ll let you know what they say. But you need to be careful, okay?”

Grace nodded.

“Don’t call me if he’s anywhere around.”

“I won’t. He doesn’t even know I have this phone. I got it at 7-11. I keep it in the kids’ toy box.”

Maggie almost smiled. This child might not be well educated, but she was smart. Maggie wanted her to be okay.

“Okay,” she said, putting her hand on the door handle. “You need to get home. I’ll wait for your call, all right?”

“Okay.”

Maggie started to open the door, then glanced at the back seat and back at Grace.

“They’re not going to say anything to him about you meeting me, are they?”

“They don’t talk to him,” Grace said quietly.

Maggie wanted to get to her parents’ and hug her kids. She wanted to take these four kids with her.

“Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

Maggie got out of the car and ran for her Jeep. The rain had let up somewhat, but she was soaked through and cold, despite the temperature.

She climbed into her vehicle, started the engine, and turned on her heat. While she waited for the warmth to show up, she watched the Monte Carlo pull out and slowly turn right onto 6
^th
Street.

Maggie backed out and waited at the road for a pickup truck to pass by. As she sat there, the patrol car came by from the other direction. Maggie rolled her window down and waved and Doug Petrie, a friend from high school, waved back and went on his way.

Maggie pulled out and headed for family, warmth and normalcy.

Maggie had her right hand clamped so tightly over her mouth that she could feel the outline of every one of her upper teeth on her lip. In her left hand, she squeezed a clump of rocks and twigs.

She couldn’t seem to breathe fast or deeply enough and the air whistled out of her nostrils with every exhale.

He was kissing her neck sloppily as he crushed her spine into the dirt and rocks, and she kept herself from retching by staring up at the treetops. It was dark down there on the ground, but the late afternoon autumn sky was brilliant blue and cloudless, as though everything was alright everywhere else.

Gregory raised up onto his knees and blocked her view of the real world. He looked off to the left and smiled.

“You want some?” he asked.

Maggie bolted upright in her bed and heard Coco whimper softly beside her. She looked down at her, and let go of the handful of fur.

She grabbed her .45 and her phone from the nightstand, and with Coco at her heels, she slipped down the hall and cracked Sky’s door open and made sure she was asleep. Then she stopped in Kyle’s open doorway, soothed just a little by the sound of him softly snoring.

She walked into the kitchen, turned on the tap, and stuck her wrists under the flow.

Maggie had had the same dreams and the same flashbacks over and over for more than twenty years. Although her waking memory of the event was spotty, never, not once, had she ever remembered or dreamt that someone else had been there that day.

She rubbed a little water over her throat and face, then she turned off the faucet and stared past her reflection in the black window.

She tried to rationalize that it had just been a dream, an only partially real one, and that no one else had been there in the woods. But the moment she’d seen it, she’d known it was true.

Maggie looked down at her cell phone to check the time. It was just after 5:30. She flipped the phone open and speed-dialed her Dad. He’d never slept past five in his life.

“Hey, Sunshine,” he answered quietly.

“Hey, Daddy,” she said, willing her voice steady. “Are you going out this morning?”

“Yeah. Come on.”

L
ess than thirty minutes later, Maggie parked her Jeep at the Scipio Marina, grabbed her coffee from the console, and headed down the dock. Gray already had the engine going on his oyster skiff, and was winding the stern line around his arm.

He looked up and smiled as she approached the boat.

“There’s my girl,” he said. “Grab those tarps on your way aboard.”

Maggie picked up the gray tarps that Daddy liked to put over his lap when he was culling, then stepped aboard. Once her father had pulled forward a bit and the skiff had drifted from the dock, she pulled up and stowed the bright orange fenders and sat down across the wooden platform from Gray.

Without any further conversation, they were underway. Maggie took a deep, cleansing breath of brine, and sighed as the breeze kissed her face.

Ever since she was small, Maggie had loved going out to the oyster beds with her father. In her teens, it became her escape. For more than twenty years, any time she felt overwhelmed or upset, she’d go out onto the bay with Gray.