Relentless: Three Novels (12 page)

“A little of both,” Nikki said, startled again. Why was she afraid of Jimmy?

“Well, I’ll help you to box up what you want to keep and take it out to your truck for you,” he said. “Oh, and I finally got the attic stairs pulled down and I brought down everything from up there into the master bedroom. The unframed watercolors are faded and curled but still beautiful. If you take them to a framing shop, they can flatten them gently for you.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“There are a couple of acrylic paintings in good shape.”

“Is that everything from up there?”

He paused. “Trust me, you do not want to go up there. Spiders. And it’s dark.”

“Thanks, I’ll skip the attic,” she said, shuddering.

With the puppy scampering around and finally let out the back door into her old fenced yard to run off some steam, they spent the next couple of hours packing dishes, photo albums, cookbooks, her mom’s paintings, and a file box of birth certificates and other documents that were crumbling and yellowed.

The basement was dank and had dusty tools and crates of extra bathroom tiles and other things that she had no use for.

“You can have all of the tools and building supplies. My husband is not a handyman, despite working at a hardware store. Obviously, you are good at that stuff.”

“Cool,” he said. “Thank you.”

“It is very, very nice of you to let me come and get all this stuff.”

“It was the right thing to do,” he said dismissively.

When they were done, and the last box was packed in her husband’s truck, Nikki said, “Thanks for helping me. Let’s go into the back yard. I need to cool off before I collapse.”

They both drank cool water from the hose and then sat out there and threw a tennis ball for Rosie, who was happy to retrieve the ball numerous times. The dog drank a lot of water, too.

“You should definitely keep her,” Nikki said. “She’s going to be such a good dog when she grows up.”

“I wish I could. I don’t know where I’ll be. I’m going to lose my house at the end of the street if I don’t sell this one in sixty days. I’m several payments behind on my own house, plus the backhoe loan. If worst comes to worst, I can live in a mini-camper truck that I use for hunting. Park it at some RV park until I get back on my feet. Stay inside a down sleeping bag all winter.”

“That’s not good.” Nikki grimaced. “I have a much better idea.”

The dog climbed into his lap and he kissed her on the nose. “What’s your idea?”

“Let your house by the river with the swimming pool and the kennels at the end of the street go back to the bank and sell the backhoe at auction and just move in here.”

“Live here?”

“It’s free and clear, right?”

“Yeah, it is. But sell my parents’ home that’s been in the family for a hundred years? And live in a small rundown house where…a murder happened?”

“You and Rosie could be happy here. And you own it, free and clear. Even the taxes paid up, right?”

“Yeah, they were almost nothing.” He let out a long shuddering sigh. “I have to tell you something important, Nik-Nik.”

Suddenly, the name clicked. “You,
you
were there that day!
You!
You called me Nik-Nik, when you were trying to comfort me after my mom was killed.
You
pulled me off my mom’s body!
You
called the police.
You
did.” She held up her hands and looked at her palms. “I had blood all over me. Her blood.”

“Yeah. You did.”

“Why were
you
here?” she shrieked.

“It’s not what you think,” he protested.

She jumped up, alarmed. “Did you kill my mom?”

“I was barely twelve years old!” he sputtered in a way that made her cringe.

“Then why are you upset about living in this place if you didn’t kill my mom?”

He hung his head. “Because I think my dad had an affair with your mom in this house. And I think your dad found out and killed her because of what she and my dad did together.”

“No! My mom wouldn’t do that! My dad wouldn’t do that! I thought you were my friend. I thought you understood, but I really
hate
you now!” Nikki shouted.

“Nik-Nik!”

“Stop calling me that!” She ran inside the house, grabbed her purse, sprinted to her husband’s fully loaded truck and got in it.

Jimmy ran outside, too, but she locked the truck door and honked for him to get out of the way of Brad’s truck. When he did, she peeled out in reverse, just narrowly missing hitting him with her vehicle and managing to flatten the mailbox post.

She could hear him calling after her, “Nikki! Stop!”

She drove home like a maniac, with tears streaming down her cheeks and her whole body shaking. She walked in the door just as Brad put Katie down for a short nap. He was just softly closing her bedroom door and put a finger to his lips for her to be quiet.

“Hi, babe,” Brad said softly. “I’m going to wake her in an hour and then we can go on our picnic in the park.” And then he took a good look at Nikki. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“I went to my old house and the owner gave me the stuff out of it that I wanted.”

“What old house? What are you talking about?” Brad asked.

“From when I was a kid. From when my mom died and my dad never came home. That house is for sale and it was still full of our stuff. The owner let me take what I wanted. It’s all in your truck. He helped me pack it up and put it in there.”

He opened his arms. “Oh, Nikki! Why didn’t you
tell
me what you were doing?”

So, she went into his arms and crying against his strong chest, she blurted out the whole thing, including that Jimmy Matthews had said that her mom was having an affair with his dad. And the rest of what he had said, too. It all came out in a jumble of crying and screaming. Brad listened patiently.

Finally, when she ran out of breath and story, he held her apart from him to look at her face. “You’re a basket case, honey. All of this stuff happened, if it even happened in that way,
years
ago. None of these people can hurt you ever again. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Brad held her while she cried, and finally, when Katie woke up from the commotion she was making, Nikki washed her face and tried to calm down for the sake of her daughter. They had a picnic in the park to try to enjoy.

With horseshoes, croquet and a kite, for Pete’s sake.

Chapter Eight

Later, Nikki awoke in the middle of the night in a sudden panic. The dream she had was still fresh on her mind. She dreamed that she was a child again. She was with her mother in a huge garden and they were hand in hand in a circle. They were singing a song that was unfamiliar to Nikki. She couldn’t recall ever hearing it before. Her mother was in a long, flowing white dress with a wreath of flowers around her head. Nikki thought she looked just like a beautiful angel. The two were laughing and singing and for a moment, it seemed almost real. Then, there was that familiar feeling of dread that Nikki usually got in her dreams, the recollection that her mother was dead and had been dead for quite a while. She then cherished the time they spent in the dream because she knew it wouldn’t last.

As the two fell to the floor in the dream, Deborah whispered something into her daughter’s ear. “Only you can find my killer, my sweet girl. Call me!”

That’s when Nikki woke up. She sat up in bed and glanced at her sleeping husband. Brad was cuddled up to his pillow. Nikki covered up his bare shoulder with the blanket and then got out of bed.

Before stopping at the bathroom, she walked down the hallway to check on Katie. Katie was fast asleep in her Disney Princess bed. As Nikki looked at her daughter, she longed for her to stay that young forever, to always be her little girl, her little princess. She shut Katie’s door and headed to the hallway bathroom. She opened the bathroom door and flipped the light switch.

To Nikki’s surprise, the old toy telephone was on top of the sink. Katie must have left it in here, she thought to herself. Still, there was something eerie about the phone on the sink. Nikki got the feeling that it was as if the phone had been waiting for her. She knew it was a crazy thought, but she couldn’t help feeling that way after the incident that had happened the other afternoon. She recalled the dream and her mother’s last words in that dream: “Call me.”

After she used the toilet and washed and dried her hands, Nikki decided that she was going to use the phone again. After all, it was only a child’s play toy. Her own toy from when she was young. How could she be afraid of it when it was hers all along? And her mother’s toy phone before that?

She picked up the receiver and dialed her old telephone number again. The phone was silent, just as she thought it would be. Nikki began to take the telephone away from her ear, but she gasped at what she heard. It was in her mother’s voice, “Nikki, I enjoyed our time at the garden.”

“Mom!” Nikki said, her voice choking up. “How does this work that I can just call you on the toy phone?”

“You just have to believe, like when you were little. Remember how we played with your phone and you could hear me talking in it, even if I was not in the room?”

“Yes,” Nikki said softly, the back of her neck prickling because she was talking to a spirit. “Are you okay, Mom?”

“Yes, sweetie. I am okay.”

“Where are you?”

“I am here, yet I am not here.”

“I don’t understand,” said Nikki.

“You will only understand when your life passes away to this other place.”

She gripped the phone tightly. “Where’s Daddy? Where does he live?”

“Live?”

“Yes, Mom. After you died, I never saw Daddy again. Where does he live?”

“He’s dead, Nikki. Didn’t you know?”

“No. I didn’t.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “When did he die?”

“The same day I did.”

“How? Who? Where?” Nikki asked.

“You have to call him,” Deborah said.

“I don’t know his number, Mom. Tell me!”

So Deborah told her. Nikki hurriedly wrote it on her palm with an eyebrow pencil, because she was still in the bathroom and it was the only thing to write with.

“I have to go, Nikki. This is quite tiring for a spirit to talk on a toy telephone.”

“Mom, don’t go. Please!”

“I have to, but call me tomorrow, after you talk to your dad.”

“Wait! Why is his number different than yours?”

“Because he’s not here. He’s stuck there…where he died, just like I am stuck where I died.” Her mother’s voice trailed off and then there was a click and silence.

“Mom! Mom!”

But she was gone. Nikki looked at the number in her hand. It looked familiar but she couldn’t place it. And then, suddenly, she
could
place it. In fact, she knew exactly whose home number it was.

Nikki screamed a bloodcurdling scream and collapsed to the floor. Brad awoke from his sleep to find his wife sitting on the bathroom floor with her head in her hands, sobbing, holding the toy phone in her hand.

“Nikki, what’s wrong?” Nikki looked up and gave her husband a terrified stare. This began to worry him even more. “Nikki, are you okay?”

She couldn’t make any words come out of her mouth, so she nodded to him.

“What happened?” he asked.

Realizing if she told her husband he would think she was crazy, so she decided to make up a lie. “I saw a spider.” Brad knew that his wife was deathly afraid of spiders.

“Nikki, you’re terrified.”

“A spider was on me. It crawled up my leg as I stood up from the toilet.”

Brad gave his wife a fierce look. “Stop lying!”

“Fine, but I can’t talk about it right now!”

He grabbed the toy telephone out of her hand. “This is
over!
”

“No, I need that toy phone, Brad!”

“You’re making yourself sick over this thing, Nikki. I’m taking it away from you.”

“No, please! I have to call my dad.”

“Your dad? Your dad who killed your mom and ran off?”

“He didn’t. He’s dead! He was killed the same day as my mom!”

“How do you know this?”

“My mom told me, just now.”

“Oh, Nikki. Stop this madness. It’s nearly two in the morning and we have to get up in a few hours.”

“Don’t destroy the phone. I need it.”

“You’re ill, Nikki. Did you take your meds today?”

She bit her lip, but didn’t answer.

“Nikki, what are you thinking?”

“Exactly that. Thinking. I can’t take them and do well in school. They make me too tired and forgetful. I can’t think when I take them. Do you get that?”

“I want you to leave this toy telephone alone and take your meds until such time as you consult your doctor for the proper adjustment to your regimen.”

“Fine, I’ll call him soon. You know that the toy phone
does
contact the spirit world. You heard it yourself.”

“I don’t know what I heard.”

“Brad, you heard it that one time and you know it.”

“All I know is, you have been very upset ever since you brought that toy phone home and the other stuff from your old house, too. It stirs memories you need to forget.”

“I’m sorry I screamed.”

“You scared me out of a sound sleep, Nikki. So, next time, don’t scream like that. Just call me if you need me. I thought you were being murdered or something.”

She cringed.

“Okay, that was a poor choice of words, for which I apologize.”

Nikki nodded her head again.

More gently, he said, “Come here. Come to bed. I’ll hold you, baby, so you don’t need to be scared.” Brad reached out his hand to her and she accepted it. Hand in hand, the couple headed back to their bedroom. Climbing into bed, Brad fell right back to sleep with his arms encircling her, while Nikki stayed awake. She knew her mother was trying to reach her from beyond the grave and tell her something important. She
knew
it was her and she knew it was real.

Deborah’s murder had remained unsolved for so many years, and Nikki knew it was time to re-open the case, and the way to do that was to prove that her dad was dead. There had to be something that the police had looked past, something that only Nikki could solve and bring her mother’s killer to justice. She decided that she would go down to the police station and talk to an old high school friend who worked there. She hoped maybe he could help her.