The Off Season (28 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Though her rest was light and often broken, Christina mostly slept as the police went about their business. At one point around dawn, she climbed out of bed to check the window, praying it would all be over. That they would have disappeared and left her to wake up from this awful nightmare. To pretend, for as long as she could, that her mother was still coming home.

Only four more sleeps,
she heard herself telling Lilly. Except the voice was in her head, and Lilly was out cold, curled against Annie.

Outside, she saw SUVs and cruisers, at least three of them, bearing the markings of the Seaside Creek Police Department. And a single white van, the kind with solid side panels rather than windows for the cargo area. A man shut the back doors, revealing the words
South Jersey Regional Medical Examiner.

Christina’s stomach spasmed, and she tasted bile.
They’ve put her in there. Inside that cold van, in a body bag, her corpse a block of ice.

Except it hadn’t been really, had it? More like half-frozen meat.

Running for the bathroom, Christina made it barely in time. Long past the point when her stomach had been emptied, she stood there, fighting off the impulse . . . and the images of a stranger’s face—

That’s it. It’s someone else. Some poor woman Mom asked to house-sit, some poor soul whose features were so battered that even her own family, whoever they are, will scarcely recognize her.

The rational side of Christina’s brain understood what she was doing. But the wounded child in her clung to the lie long enough for her to escape into a deeper sleep.

By the time she woke alone, the window showed that it was daylight. She spotted a sliver of a blue sky with those high, wispy clouds she associated with the coldest days of winter.

But the eaves were dripping, and as she watched, a small icicle lost its grip and plummeted to earth. As she made her way back to the window, she saw it was a true thaw. Snow remained, but only patches, and the police and ME’s vehicles had melted away, too.

There were strangers’ cars outside, though. Two that she could make out. Hearing voices from below, she hastily dressed in the same clothes from yesterday, raked her fingers through her tangled hair, and went to check on Lilly.

She found her daughter in the dining room, eating a bowl of cereal. Dressed in a fresh outfit, she looked up at Christina, her innocent blue eyes shining. Someone had combed her silky blonde hair and tied it in short pigtails. “Gramma house,” she said.

“Yes, sweetie, we’re at Gran—at Grandma’s house,” Christina affirmed, fighting her way past a spasm of grief. Over the past two years or so, she’d had far too much practice acting normal, after her illness and her father’s death, and then Doug’s—but this? How would she survive it, even for her child’s and her sister’s sakes?

“Annie?” she called, thinking her sister must be nearby, since surely the two-year-old hadn’t gotten her own cereal or trekked down to the basement fridge for milk.

But Lilly was pointing at the framed painting hanging opposite the family photos. The painting of the abandoned lighthouse out on Willet’s Point, standing tall and proud against the storm-whipped waves.

“Gramma’s house,” she repeated, sending chills rippling through Christina.

From behind her, an unfamiliar female voice said gently, “Hey there, Christina. Annie called and asked me to come over.”

Turning, Christina recognized her sister’s longtime friend and coworker, Kym Meador, a slender woman with a long, black ponytail and a tiny silver nose ring. Even at this hour, her eyeliner was thick and dark—possibly tattooed on. Reinforcing this opinion, the colorful, inked plumage of some exotic bird peeped out of the scoop-neck sweater she wore with knee-high boots and jeans as tight as leggings.

“Of course,” Christina said, relieved her sister hadn’t asked a stranger. “Hello, Kym. And thanks for coming at this hour.”

“Well, first of all, it’s like eleven thirty, but it doesn’t matter. Annie can always count on me, any time of day or night,” Kym said, stepping close to hug her fiercely. “I can’t tell you how very sorry . . .”

When she choked up, overcome, Christina nodded. “I know,” she said, fresh tears blurring her vision as she stepped back out of range of any more well-meant hugs. “I can’t believe—it doesn’t feel real. Where’s my sister?”

Kym glanced down at Lilly, who was chewing a mouthful of cereal while intently studying the painting of the lighthouse.
Gramma house.

Shaking her head, Kym said, “She took Max out for a walk. She said she needed some space, but she’ll be back soon.”

“How is she doing?”

Kym shook her head. “It’s hard, so very—first your dad’s cancer and now this. It isn’t right. It isn’t. Your mom—she was this amazing person, running her own business, taking in two babies who’d been—”

Christina looked away, a rushing noise in her ears drowning out the rest. Of course Annie would’ve confided to her closest friend about their background. It’s what people did; they shared intimacies. Well, most people, anyway. Christina herself had never wanted her girlfriends’ pity. Or maybe she’d sensed, even in the days when she and Renee had been practically joined at the hip, that the queen bee might one day turn against her, then wield her secret as a weapon. But what did it matter anymore? What did anything matter, with their
real
parents both gone, leaving her, and Annie, too, utterly alone?

“There’s coffee,” Kym said. “I brought a thermos. Or if you’d rather, I’ll get you some cereal, or I think I saw some—”

“I don’t want anything,” Christina said reflexively before her head pounded out a message of caffeine deprivation. “Or maybe just the coffee, thanks. Black would be fine.”

“Sure thing,” Kym said, leaving through the doorway that would take her to the living room. The living room where Christina and Harris had made love what now seemed like a century before.

Remembering, she felt sick. Sicker still when she glanced at the room’s second doorway, to the kitchen, which was now blocked by a yellow
X
of crime-scene tape. As the door at the back of it, the one leading to the house’s rear porch, would surely be, too.

Shifting her gaze, she looked to Lilly, who stared at her with solemn eyes, her mouth turned downward and the tip of her nose red. “Mommy sad,” she said, the sorrow in her voice a reminder that whatever they were told by the adults around them, children of her age soaked in ambient emotions the way green houseplants absorb toxic chemicals.

I want my mother,
Christina ached to say.
Need her.
But instead, because she
was
a mother, she explained, “It’s okay to miss people sometimes, even when they live in heaven.”

Brightening, Lilly said, “My daddy in heaven.”

“And now Grandma is there with him, and he’s showing her around, helping her to—”

“No!” Her daughter shook her head, her small face turning stormy. “We go find Gramma. Get her. Bring her home.”

Late that afternoon, Christina sat on the edge of her mother’s bed, fighting to control her breathing. Freshly showered, she’d rummaged through the closet until she’d come up with a faded pair of jeans and a Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt from her mom’s slimmer days. But slipping into the clothing had nearly overwhelmed her, with the faint traces of her mother’s lightly floral perfume permeating the fabric, along with memories that could never be erased.

At least she’d have clothes of her own when Annie came back. Unable to bear being in the house, her sister had volunteered to take Lilly to the closest shopping mall, forty minutes away. There, she’d promised to purchase necessities for all three of them, using the freshly activated emergency replacement credit card Christina had had delivered to the house.

And why shouldn’t I pay? It’s my fault, every bit of it. If I hadn’t come back, we’d still have a mother . . .

The officer she’d spoken to earlier had tried to reassure her, telling Christina she shouldn’t jump to conclusions so early in the investigation. But what else could she think, with nothing missing from the house?
This was meant to punish me, to destroy me completely. To shatter any hope of rebuilding my life in Seaside Creek.

“Well, you’ve won, whoever you are,” she said aloud, pulling out her phone and going through the contacts until she found the name she wanted. Throat tightening, she thought of what she would be giving up, what she would once more have to go through, if she went ahead and did this. But nothing compared to the image her mind conjured, of Annie or even Lilly left the way she’d found her mother. Christina couldn’t bear to think it.

“Thank you so much, Dr. Chambers,” she was saying a short time later. “I—I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

“Thank
you
, Christina,” her former supervisor answered, his West Texas twang as familiar as it was reassuring. “You just let us know when you’re back home, and we’ll get you in to sign the paperwork with HR.”

Back home.
As she ended the call, the words were like a wasp’s sting, the pain radiating from her heart. Because whatever it was to her, Dallas would never be home, with its own set of bad memories. But it was a known quantity, at least, the last place she’d felt safe.

And so very alone . . .

Someone tapped at the closed bedroom door.

“Is that you, Kym? C’mon in,” she called, tucking the cell phone into her back pocket and opening the door.

“Chief Bowers is here to see you,” Kym said as Max pushed past her, prancing and wagging with happiness to see his mistress. “Can you come downstairs? He called earlier, but when I told him you were showering, he just said he was on his way.”

“Did he—did he mention what he wanted?”

“No, but he’s brought pizza, and don’t tell me you aren’t starved by now. You have to be.”

Christina sighed, but realized her aching head and shakiness meant her sister’s friend was right. She needed to make herself eat something, and right now a cheesy slice sounded like less effort than any other option.

“All right,” she said, “and thanks, Kym. Thanks for giving up your day. You’ve been—you’ve been a godsend.”

“I really haven’t done all that much. Cleaned up a bit, answered the phone.”

“I’ve heard it ringing off and on all day.”

“Word’s gotten out. Your mother’s friends—they’re all in shock, of course, and wanting to know what they can do. I’ve made a list for you downstairs.”

“I couldn’t bear it, talking to them all, so thank you.”

“I’m glad to be here. Anything for An—” Cutting herself off, Kym shook her head. “Never mind. That’s not important. What’s important is this isn’t just pizza. It’s Pennisi’s.” She smiled enticingly, naming a little hole-in-the-wall dive many of the locals swore by.

In the back of Christina’s mind, something clicked into place. Something that made sense of her sister’s recent behavior, but this was no time to have that conversation.

Downstairs, they found Harris waiting in the living room, staring at the unlit fireplace. Was he thinking about last night, too, wondering what he’d gotten himself into—and how to extricate himself from their personal relationship while still doing his job?

She couldn’t help wondering how to tell him she was packing up her daughter and turning tail to run south the moment she could. Or maybe she was wrong about Dallas, where trouble could find her again all too easily. She had money enough to buy a name change, erase her tracks, and find a new life for her and Lilly somewhere the person out to destroy her would never think to look.

Looking up, his eyes found hers, the compassion in them hitting her with such force, she had to look away. Oh, how she was going to miss him—miss ever again having anyone who would look at her that way.

“How are you?” he asked, the familiar rumble of his voice resonating in her bones.

Unable to speak, she merely shook her head, wishing he would come hold her yet somehow relieved when he kept his distance.

“Pizza in the dining room?” asked Kym. “She hasn’t had a bite all day,” she said to Harris, “so whatever you’ve got to say, that has to come first.”

Nodding in answer, Harris said, “That works for me. I got half plain cheese, half Italian sausage and green peppers. Hope that covers everybody.”

“Sounds great. Thanks,” Kym said as she led the charge.

“There are paper plates in the bag. I brought some iced tea, too.”

Christina’s stomach squirmed, but once she started eating, her body took over the operation, chewing without tasting. They ate in utter silence, Kym sitting while both Harris and Christina stood by the table.

Halfway through a second slice, Christina’s gaze strayed to the painting, her mind replaying her daughter’s troubling words. As she stared, her vision swimming, the image came to life, waves beating against the lighthouse and the wind whistling past the column. A female silhouette moved past one of the windows.

Gramma house.

She caught Harris studying her, his forehead furrowed with concern. Taking a deep breath, she put down the half-eaten slice and drained her cup in the hope that the caffeine and calorie infusion would kick her brain back into gear. And that the shock she’d suffered last night hadn’t tipped her into a form of madness from which there would be no coming back.