Unlovable (46 page)

“
You do love me, more than
she loved her booze. You would do anything for me. You’d
…”

“
I’d give up my life for
you.” A single tear ran down his face, his beautiful face, but
still he wouldn’t come near me.

I looked down at my wet clothes, maybe
the smell of alcohol was more off-putting than I thought. That was
when I noticed my bloodied hands. Each was clinched firmly around
several large chards of glass, fragments of the broken vodka
bottle. I looked back up at Seth as he walked toward me in slow
motion. I held my hands out in front of me to show him the blood.
He stopped dead next to the bed.

“
Maggie, put the glass down,
please,” Seth implored.

I looked at the handfuls of glass
again, trying to figure out why it didn’t hurt when I squeezed.
There were several large splatters of blood on my clothes and on
the floor, yet I felt nothing but the pain in my chest.

“
Why didn’t my mom love me
enough to give this up?” Pressing my bloodied hands to my chest, I
squeezed my fists around the broken chards again. I was beginning
to feel confused, losing my focus.
Stay on
task, you stupid girl
!

“
No more, I can’t take
anymore!” I told myself to calm down, except it was too late. Not
only were the past several months of chaos drowning me, but a
lifetime of stuffing my emotions deep inside and not dealing with
things was coming back, consuming me. I couldn’t catch my breath as
the room began twisting wildly. My stomach threatening to
regurgitate its content, and I fell sideways against the wall, all
the while holding the chards tight in my fists.

“
I’m here for you, Maggie.
I’ll always be here for you,” Seth vowed. He looked incredibly sad
and it broke my heart even more.

“
Maggie, hand me the glass.”
Cole stepped closer to me. If he wanted the glass, he could have
it, I certainly didn’t want any souvenirs of life with my mother.
He had such kind eyes. Why hadn’t he found someone to
marry?

“
Maggie, please.”

Before I could hand the chards over,
someone grabbed me from the rear, twisted my arms behind me, and
pressed me to the floor.

Booker!

Seth flew over the bed, and he and
Booker easily pried my hands open and retrieved the glass before I
could do any more damage. Seth pulled me up into his arms, buried
his face in my hair, and whispered my name repeatedly.

“
I’m going to throw up,” was
my only response. A trash bin appeared under my mouth, and I
followed through with my statement. I dropped back onto Seth’s
chest and lifted my head to look into his eyes, only the corner of
a plastic bag protruding from the closet ceiling caught my eye
instead.

Booker stepped toward us, following my
stare. He reached up and knocked the ceiling tile up. Several
plastic bags containing off-white powder showered down on
us.

Drugs!

“
NOOOO!” I screamed. At the
exact same moment, I felt a prick in my left hip. Cole was
injecting me with something. The room really began spinning then,
and my head dropped against Seth’s shoulder. Within moments, all
the pain stopped.

34

Seth

She’s going to be asleep for some
time, Seth. I’ll take her back to your place and stay with her
while you and Booker go talk to Hoffman.” Nodding, I scooped her up
in my arms and carried her to the car after watching Cole bandage
her hands, thankful that the cuts were minor and would heal
quickly. What was damaged on the inside wouldn’t. She felt so small
and fragile in my arms I didn’t want to put her down.

However, I had a job to do, and
interrogating Hoffman was something I was looking forward to doing
personally. Booker called in the team, even bringing in drug dogs,
and the entire trailer was searched again, but nothing more was
found. They were able to lift three very clear sets of fingerprints
off the heroin bags, and Booker ran them through the computer
immediately. One set belonged to Hoffman, he was arrested as soon
as the results came in. Another set matched the ones we’d gotten
off Bill Dreser during his autopsy, but not surprising, no criminal
record turned up.

The last set came up blank in the
database. Booker suspected Harry Dreser had used his powerful
connections to have his two sons’ prints eradicated from all
records, not unlike what he had done for their older brother
Jeffery. Even Alan’s prints from his stint in jail had mysteriously
vanished from the system.

Barbara Brown’s fingerprints were not
on the bags, or on any of the ceiling tiles. It gave me hope that
just maybe she wasn’t involved.

Maggie stirred as I lay her across the
backseat. She was still restless, despite the heavy dose of
narcotics Cole had given her. I kissed her head. “I love you,
Mags,” I said, squeezing my eyes tight.

“
Once she gets a good
night’s sleep, maybe two, she’ll be good as new. She’s suffering
from major sleep deprivation,” Cole assured me. I said nothing, but
stood in the middle of the road and watched as he drove
away.

“
Come on, Hoffman’s waiting
in the interrogation room, let’s go see what the weasel has to
say,” Booker said, patting my back. I didn’t move. My eyes followed
the taillights as they disappeared down the street.

“
Cole’s the best, she’s in
good hands,” he said softly.

My anguish quickly turned to anger,
setting my temper in full swing by the time we arrived at the
precinct. I shoved the door of the interrogation room so hard, it
flung open and hit the wall before it vibrated back at me. I
grabbed it and slammed it shut. Hoffman jumped
nervously.

The room was stark and bare, with the
exception of three metal chairs and a small beat-up wooden table.
Along one wall was a two-way mirror, with at least three agents on
the other side watching.

“
You’re looking at twenty
years,” I barked at him. “I’m going to recommend to the DA that you
get the maximum. I want your last dying breath to be from the
stench of a six by eight foot jail cell. I’m going to hang you out
to dry, you understand me?” I reached for him, fully intending on
dragging him to his feet and tossing him against the wall. For
starters.

“
Whoa, Seth. Police
brutality, however well justified, will only help get this guy off
with a slap on the wrist, something we definitely don’t want
happening.” Booker forced me down onto a chair, positioning the
scarred table between Hoffman and us. Hoffman tipped his steel
chair back and propped his dirty shoes up on the table's edge. He
laced his fingers behind his head and ran a smug expression across
his face.

Booker laughed. “Now, now Hoffman. I
didn’t mean for you to get comfortable either.” He slapped
Hoffman’s feet to the floor, it pivoted him upright with the
force.

“
So, tell me, where did you
get the drugs?” Booker asked, now propping his feet up onto the
desk.

“
What drugs?” he asked,
stupidly.

“
Your prints are all over
the stuff,” I said, leaning across the desk. “Yours and two others.
One set matched a dead guy, needless to say, he can’t be
prosecuted. The other set came up blank, which means you and you
alone are going to hang for this. Are you willing to rot for your
buddy?”

His eyes widened in fright. “I don’t
know any Dreser.” The guy was a complete idiot, I wanted to arrest
him for that alone.

“
I don’t believe we said his
name was Dreser,” Booker pointed out. “Okay, I’m tired, let’s put
all our cards on the table here. You tell us how Barbara Brown was
involved with this, and tell us where Dreser is, and we’ll talk to
the DA about going easy on you. You’ll serve seven years, maybe
five with good behavior.”

He sat soberly for a moment. “For a
lousy deal like that, I’ll only give you the scoop on Barbara.
You’ll have to do better if you want info on Dreser.” He looked at
Booker waiting for an answer.

“
Let’s hear what you got on
Barbara first, and then I’ll decide,” Booker said, pulling out a
notebook and pen from his left breast pocket.

“
Barbara was a drunk,” he
laughed. “A worthless drunk, and she treated that kid of hers like
dirt.” He leaned forward. “Man alive, is her kid ever hot! With
that sweet little face and those perky–”

I was across the desk and had the
slimy fink-rat pinned against the wall before Booker could stop me.
Two agents bust into the room and pulled me off him.

Booker hauled me out of the room. “I
don’t want you in there. Go home, be with Maggie. You’re of no use
to me like this.”

“
No, I’m okay, sorry, I have
it in control now, I swear.” I took a deep breath, forcing myself
to calm down.

Booker shook his head and
threw an arm around my shoulder. “Go home and that’s an order.” In
his best Marlon Brando voice he added, “
I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t
refuse.
” I smiled, slightly, for the first
time in days. “Trust me on this.”

He was right. I was going to blow the
whole case and needed to leave. We’d spent months trying to end
this, and I didn’t want to be the one to muck up the first big lead
we had. I grabbed my jacket, jumped in my car, and headed home.
Home to Maggie.

***

“
How much longer is she
going to sleep?” I slammed my mug of hot chocolate down on the
slate counter, shattering the cup into pieces and spilling the
steamy liquid everywhere.

Cole mopped up the mess while Booker
fixed me a fresh cup.

“
I just checked on her.
She’s stirring around some, I don’t think it will be too much
longer,” Cole said calmly. He said everything calmly, I was
beginning to wonder if anything ever got to him.

“
It’s been almost 30 hours,”
I pointed out unnecessarily.

“
She’s exhausted and she
needs sleep, lots of sleep,” he reiterated again, in the same calm
voice. It was getting on my nerves.

“
She’s going to need
counseling,” Cole said softly. “She was quite co-dependent on her
mother.” I shot up in my seat. “She’ll be fine, she’s one tough
kid. Al-anon has a great program that I think will help her. It
will probably be best if you both go so you can watch for signs of
her becoming co-dependent with you. That’s what we need to be worry
about at this point.”

Booker set a green mug in front of me
and plopped down on a stool to my right. “I’m glad we can finally
clear her mother, I think it will help.”

In Booker’s words, Hoffman sang like
an American Idol hopeful. He’d been using Maggie’s house as a
storage unit. He’d bring over a bottle of vodka, which he made her
pay for, get her mother plastered to the point where she’d pass
out, then he’d hide the stuff up in the ceiling of her closet. When
he needed to make a delivery, he’d repeat the process taking what
he needed and leaving the rest neatly hidden. Because of his long
police record, he didn’t want the drugs at his house in case the
cops caught on to the fact that he’d moved from marijuana to
heroin. He had a slick little operation going, until
now.

A scream emanating from upstairs tore
all thoughts of Hoffman and Dreser from my head. It was Maggie. I
was up the stairs before I drew in my next breath. I shoved the
door open and found her in the middle of the bed, staring down at
her hands.

“
I’m a complete loon, a
total complete loon!”

“
You’re not a loon, Maggie,
you’d been functioning on overdrive and it caught up with you.” I
stroked her hair in an effort to calm her.

“
I wasn’t trying to off
myself, I swear. I didn’t even feel the glass cutting me, because
if I did, I can guarantee you I would’ve stopped.” I could tell she
was trying to keep her voice from sounding frantic.

“
I’m sorry, Seth, you didn’t
deserve that on top of everything else.” She hung her head,
completely humiliated. “All of you didn’t deserve this. I’m very
sorry.”

Cole sat down next to her. “Maggie,
you were trying to function on only a few hours of sleep. The mind
breaks down and doesn’t perform properly. Add to it everything
you’ve been through lately, I should have insisted you let me give
you something for sleep.” He rubbed her shoulders.

“
How many stitches?” she
asked softly, tugging on a loose string from the gauze.

“
None. The cuts were
superficial. You’re quite the bleeder, though. I had to rewrap your
hands several times,” he assured her. “And, Maggie, I hope you
realize that Seth isn’t the only one who loves you. I dare say
everyone in this house loves you.” He kissed her forehead
gently.

“
Oh, and the headache I’m
betting you have is my fault.” His smile was plaited with guilt.
“It’s a side effect from the drug cocktail I gave you the other
night to help you sleep. It’s commonly referred to as a narcotic
headache.”

“
The other night? Don’t you
mean earlier this evening?” she asked, unsure. “What time is
it?”

“
It’s 1:30, in the morning.
You—you’ve been asleep for over 30 hours,” Cole said
carefully.