Too Close to Home (23 page)

Gran screamed. An agonized scream.

I crawled, still gasping, to my sister.

Blood spread outward from the hole in her chest.

Aunt Lucy was already on her knees, pressing her hands against the wound. Trying to stop the flow of blood. For a moment, she turned her face toward me. And in it I saw the hopelessness I already felt.

My grandmother was just standing there, staring at us.

“Call an ambulance,” Aunt Lucy said. “Hurry!”

Gran went to make the call, but I knew they’d never reach us in time.

“We heard the shot,” Aunt Lucy said to me. “Katie ran in to help you. And I followed her.”

“You see,” Katie whispered breathlessly. “I
am
brave.”

“Yes, I know you are,” I said as I cradled her head in my lap. “You’ve always been brave. Ever since you were little. When you saved me.”

She smiled at that. Pale, pink foam dribbled from the corners of her mouth. And I knew that this time the blood filling her lungs—not her asthma—was robbing her of oxygen.

“I know you kept the secret,” she gasped. “You didn’t tell anyone that Gran killed Momma. So I’ll tell you another secret. One that even Gran doesn’t know. She said just to leave her. Out in the woods. But I was brave then, too. I went back all by myself. I found a good place for her.”

And the stress, I realized, had triggered an asthma attack. She must have used her inhaler and then lost it. Next to our mother’s body.

Katie died in my arms.

Aunt Lucy was sobbing, huddled in beside me, when Gran walked from the bedroom. She stood in front of us with the gun that had killed my sister still in her hand, dangling again at her side.

“It was an accident,” she said softly. “I never meant—”

Aunt Lucy lifted her head, her voice making her next words an accusation.

“And Lydia?”

“I did what I had to,” Gran said, and the old defiance—the old strength—returned to her voice and stiffened her back. “She said you hadn’t given her enough money. That she needed at least ten thousand dollars or she’d take the girls away from us. Because that’s what she thought they could earn for her once they were properly broken in.”

I hadn’t known I could hurt so much inside.

Hadn’t thought I could hurt any more that I already did.

I was wrong.

“Katie overheard me talking with Lydia. Arranging a meeting. And she followed me. Saw what happened. But she understood that I had to do it. Lydia was a terrible mother who didn’t care about her children. She had to be punished.”

I recognized the words. Remembered that Katie had said something much like that the night she’d murdered Missy. A year after she’d witnessed our mother’s murder.

That was when I decided that our family legacy—a legacy of lies and murder—would end here.

As gently as I could, I shifted my sister’s body onto the carpet. Then I stood, stepped forward and took the gun from my grandmother.

She didn’t resist, didn’t even seem to notice.

“I’m arresting you for murder,” I said.

That was when Gran laid her sinewy hands on my arm. Grasped me with her strong fingers.

“You’ll destroy the Underground,” she said urgently. “Think about the women, Brooke. The women will suffer.”

I shook my head, though I knew that she was right. But I also knew that my grandmother was insane. I prayed that a good lawyer could prove just that. And perhaps save her life.

“I don’t have a choice,” I said.

“I’ll give you one,” Gran said. She released my arm as she turned her attention to my aunt. “You’re a good girl, Lucy. And Brooke is still young. You help her make the decisions she needs to. In the meantime, I’m going to take a walk in the park. The breeze on the bluff will be lovely right now. And the view of the river always makes me feel so peaceful.”

Then Gran turned her back on us. On the gun I held. On her daughter. On her granddaughters.

I took a step forward, knowing what she intended.

Aunt Lucy stopped me.

“Let her go, Brooke,” she said in a voice that was rough with tears. “Let her go.”

Gran held her head high as she walked down the long hall. And she kept talking, giving us directions. Guiding the Underground.

“Katie’s death was an accident,” she said, “caused by a stupid, arrogant old woman. Your Gran thought that your prisoner was escaping. Thought that you couldn’t do your job. So she picked up the gun you’d made him drop and she tried to help you. By pulling the trigger. But you didn’t need an old woman’s help to stop a dangerous man. A man who was beating your Gran, trying to make her tell where the hotel’s cash was hidden. You shot him. Because you’re strong enough to do the right thing.”

At the top of the stairs, she turned toward us again. Just for a moment. And then she gave her last directions to the new leadership of the Underground.

“Brooke, that old gun of your grandfather’s has been used plenty. I think it’s time it was retired. Somewhere no one will ever find it again. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“And, Lucy, you take down that old painting of my grandmother’s. Put your foot through it before you shove it up in the attic. There’s another old picture up there that’s about the same size and almost as ugly. It’ll look real nice in that spot. Maybe, when things settle down, Brooke can fix that old hole in the wall.”

My aunt, who was now standing beside me, sobbed. And nodded.

Gran turned away.

“Forgive me,” was the last thing she said to us.

The investigation went quickly. And Maryville gossip was kinder than usual. Even the most malicious could find little about the events at the Cherokee Rose Hotel that were anything besides tragic.

The day after the funeral, I invited Chad to dinner. Because he was my friend. Because he’d stood by my side through the investigation and had held me as the coffins were lowered into their graves.

I’d gone into the kitchen to put a chicken in the oven.

He’d remained outside, celebrating the fall-like weather by chucking tennis balls to Possum.

I heard him laughing, and the pure joy of that sound drew me to the window.

Highball was napping on a sunny patch of grass, oblivious to the game that was taking place. Possum was barking enthusiastically, bouncing in front of Chad, encouraging him to throw the tennis ball again. Chad pitched it into the meadow and the young dog ran after it, putting his nose down and zigzagging to track it through the grass. Then he pounced on it, barked with pleasure and carried the ball back to Chad.

And the whole process began again.

I turned away from the window. Back to dinner preparations and the bleak thoughts that had plagued me through the night and that I’d carried into the day.

There were two new graves in the town cemetery.

Thirty-seven male bodies had been removed from the ravine, their deaths now being officially investigated as mob hits. As was the death of the single female victim.

A victim who only Aunt Lucy and I knew was also my mother.

She would be buried somewhere at state expense, in an unmarked grave. No more accessible to me in death than she had been in life. She would never be more than a scrap of childhood memory, a woman whose strengths I had never glimpsed, whose weaknesses I would never understand.

Which left Missy.

For sake of the Underground, she would have to remain where I had left her. Unburied, but not unmourned. And never forgotten.

“Forgive me,” I murmured, echoing Gran’s words. “It’s the best I can do.”

That was when I forgave myself.

And gave myself permission to be happy.

I opened the back door and called out to Chad.

My dearest friend. An irreplaceable companion.

I wanted nothing more than to grab his hand, to laugh with him as we ran through the house together. To tease him as he followed me into a warm shower and then murmur lovingly as his soap-slick hands moved over my body. I wanted him back. Wanted to reestablish the intimate bond we’d once shared and that I so desperately missed.

But that would have to wait.

Because the truth needed to come first.

I sat him down at the kitchen table.

“I want to tell you a story,” I said. “About human monsters. And people who fight them.”

I ignored the confusion I saw in his face. Began my story with two little girls left alone with a stranger. Ended it with one of those girls all grown-up and finally willing to take a chance.

A woman ready to trust the man she loved.

B
right lights glowed against the gently falling snow. From the young woman’s vantage point at the window of the rest stop on I-57, the procession of taillights disappearing in the distance reminded her of a string of red Christmas lights. Christmas, she thought with a smile as she softly rubbed her protruding abdomen. They would both be safe by Christmas. She stood for a while longer, watching the lights, ignoring the ache in her back and the soreness of her feet.

At least, she thought, that kind of hurt was normal for a pregnant woman. Not like the other—

She shook her head, not wanting to think about that. Instead, she walked carefully across the linoleum floor, now slick with melting snow, and settled onto the bench near the entrance to the women’s room. For a fruitless minute, she attempted to rearrange the oversized, faded red flannel shirt she wore as a jacket so that it covered most of her belly. She gave up when
the shirt covered all but a triangle of her double-knit maternity top. Its faded floral print was in shades of lilac-and-pink, and it was loose enough to hide the roll of fabric and the large safety pin that rested on the swell of her belly and kept the stretched-out pink sweatpants from dragging beneath her feet.

Ugly,
she’d thought when she’d first seen the outfit she now wore. It was the top layer of a bag of clothes a lady from the church had dropped off at the apartment back in September. I’ll never wear that, she’d thought at the time. Taylor will get a job and stop drinking and then we’ll be happy again. Like we were when we got married. We won’t be needing this kind of charity. But she’d been well brought up, so she’d smiled and thanked the woman for her help, invited her in for a soft drink, and made sure she was gone long before Taylor came home. Taylor hadn’t liked her having folks over to the apartment, and she’d done everything she could to keep Taylor happy.

Now, she smiled again, genuinely grateful for the woman’s help—the woman’s stubborn persistence—and the warmth of the ugly outfit. For a while, she concentrated on the stream of holiday travelers moving in and out through the rest stop’s double doors. Most of them stood for a moment, brushing snowflakes off their coats or stomping their feet on the heavy rubber mat as their eyes moved around the big, open room. She watched, hoping that the kindest looking of them would notice her and smile. But each pair of eyes swept past the pregnant young black woman, usually seeking instead the appropriate restroom. Some travelers spent a few minutes in front of the long row of vending machines before making their selections and going back into the weather to continue their journeys.

An hour later, almost 10:00 p.m., and the crowd of travelers had thinned to a trickle. The young woman stood slowly,
pressed her hands into the small of her back and stretched. Then she visited each of the vending machines in turn, entertaining herself by imagining what she would buy if she found money in one of the change dispensers. She decided on the hot chocolate and, when the machines yielded no coins, dug through her pockets, hoping that somehow she had overlooked a few quarters. When she discovered she hadn’t, she shrugged and turned her back on the food.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been hungry, but she regretted the loss of the money she’d so carefully saved and kept hidden from Taylor—almost twenty dollars in ones and loose change. But Taylor had shown up unexpectedly. She’d heard his key, heard the door catch on the chain, heard him shouting in an alcohol-slurred voice for her to open the g-d motherfucking door right now or he’d fucking kill her.

She’d snatched up her flannel shirt and run out the back door, leaving everything else behind, deciding in a heartbeat what she’d been agonizing about for days. A car would be waiting, they’d told her. It would wait for her on Monday and Wednesday and then again on Friday. At 6:00 p.m. All she had to do was make the commitment to begin the journey. On Monday, she’d been sure things between her and Taylor would be better, if only she tried harder. By Wednesday, she hadn’t been sure, so she’d retrieved the money from a hole in the mattress and hidden it underneath the torn lining of her purse. Just in case. On Friday, with Taylor at the door, she’d known she had no other choice.

She’d run to the subway station, keeping to the back alleys just in case Taylor followed her. In her panic, she’d left her purse behind, but she knew how to get onto the subway for free, especially at rush hour. She picked up a discarded transfer from the sidewalk near the station, waited until a
CTA bus disgorged a load of passengers, and joined the crowd transferring onto the subway, impatiently pushing past the ticket agent who took the transfers without giving them a second glance. In the commuter lot at the end of the line on the Blue Route, she looked for the green mini-van parked next to the
Chicago Tribune
newspaper box. They’d promised her it would be there. And it was.

Mary’s stomach rumbled as she walked away from the vending machines, and she wished that she hadn’t already eaten the Christmas cookie that the woman had given her when she’d dropped her off at the rest stop. Beneath the wrapping of white tissue and red ribbon, the cookie was shaped like a Christmas tree. It was the size of both of her hands held side-by-side and was covered thickly in green icing. Tiny multicolored candies brightened the icing and, at the top of the tree, there was a star. She had eaten the star last, eaten it as she’d looked up at the night sky through the rest-stop window and said a prayer for herself and her baby. And a little prayer for Taylor, even though that made her feel guilty.

She wandered over to the big state map anchored to the brick wall behind a layer of Plexiglas. A red dot marked a spot on I-57 south of Kankakee, Illinois.
You are here.

Here.

What would happen if no one came for her? What if the woman who had visited her hospital room and offered her this chance to escape had lied? What if she had to go back to Taylor, who would know she had tried to run away? Would she live through the next beating? Would her baby? Mary wished her mama was still alive. She wished she knew where her older sister had disappeared to. She wished she knew someone she could call for help. She folded her arms tightly
around herself and prayed again. Hard. And she hoped that God wasn’t too busy to give a poor pregnant black girl an answer to her prayer.

A gust of cold air blew through the rest stop as someone new came in. She shivered and turned toward the doorway, hoping for salvation. And was disappointed. A tall white man walked in, the wind whistling through the open door with him. For sure, he’s not the one, she thought. All the people who’d helped her were women.

The door swung shut behind him as he paused, running a hand through his crew-cut red hair, brushing away a layer of clinging snow. Mary noticed that a nasty scar—the kind she’d seen inflicted in a knife fight—snaked along the side of his jaw.

He wore an nice leather jacket, a thick flannel shirt and worn jeans, and Mary immediately figured him for an undercover cop. Or maybe just an off-duty cop. But a cop for sure. Something about the way he stood there, quiet like, and looked around the room. For a moment, his eyes rested on her, and she noticed they were green. Cop eyes, she thought. Hard and mean.

As his gaze moved on to examine the rest of the room, she began worrying that he might decide she was breaking some law, might arrest her for loitering or maybe even accuse her of doing something like selling drugs. She bent her head so he wouldn’t think she was staring at him, and kept her eyes on his booted feet as they crossed the room.

He stopped just a few feet from her, stood in front of the map.

I should get up and go into the women’s room, she thought. Wait there until he leaves. But she was afraid that would make him even more suspicious.

He began whistling “Silent Night.” Then, midsong, he abruptly switched to the chorus of “Jesus Loves Me.”

The woman who’d brought her as far as the rest stop had
told her that was the signal. The person whistling those songs would be there to help her.

She caught her breath, looked down at the tattered sneakers that covered her feet, and was suddenly afraid, suddenly indecisive. Easy enough to trust a woman. But a man? A white cop? She’d be a fool to trust him, she told herself. He might hurt her worse than she’d already been hurt.

Maybe going back wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Taylor’d been drinking enough that he hadn’t even noticed she’d been gone. Or maybe he would hit her, but probably not as hard as the last time. Besides, she deserved a beating for running away and getting him mad. She should have known better.

Then her baby moved, its tiny heel or knee or elbow tapping an odd, fluttery rhythm within her. A reminder of why escape was so important. Two weeks earlier, Taylor’d beaten her so bad she’d almost lost the baby. She took a deep breath, lifted her head and spoke softly.

“I’m Mary.”

“Well, hi there, Mary,” he said. “My name’s Chad.”

His words were accented by a soft, down-home drawl and the smile that brightened his face made his scar seem not so ugly.

“I’m here to take you down south. To a place called the Cherokee Rose,” he continued. “My wife and her aunt run the place. They’ll take real good care of you. Find you a nice place to raise your baby. A place to call home.”

Then he stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around her.

“By the way,” he said, “my wife’s pregnant, too. Doc says it’s going to be a little girl.”