The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) (20 page)

In books and movies, it always seems like the pregnant mother develops this instant, important connection with the fetus, or zygote, or whatever. Not only do they become obsessed with talking about baby stuff, but they become obsessed with the baby itself. I, on the other hand, still mostly thought of the thing as one of the facehuggers that eventually pops out of human chests in the “Alien” movies. It was just...
in
there, growing, leeching off my oxygen and food. I rarely even felt it kick, because, as my OB had explained, my placenta was on the front wall of my uterus, creating a buffer between me and the baby. It had to kick me awfully hard just for me to notice.

So despite months of waiting, that special connection just hadn’t happened to me. Toby, on the other hand, was completely smitten with the life form in my body. It made me feel horribly guilty... and kind of jealous, too.

“Lean? Did you hear what I just said?” Rory demanded, interrupting my thoughts.

“Yes,” I said automatically.

“Oh yeah? What did I just say?” Rory had her hands on her hips, total mom-style. I looked back at her and grinned.

“I’m sorry, Ro, I have no idea. I was watching my husband play with booties.”

“I was not!” Toby protested, dropping the infant puppy slippers he’d so obviously been playing with. “But listen, what do you think about doing the nursery in puppies?”

“Omigod that’s adorable!” Rory cried, before I could say anything. I nodded in agreement, but no one saw it—Rory was ripping the scan gun out of my hand to erase a bunch of stuff we’d already scanned, so she could go back to pick out the puppy-themed items. She and Toby chatted about wallpaper colors and borders, and I followed behind.

A dozen scans of baby paraphernalia later, I checked my watch and saw it was time to go pick up Nate. Finally.

“Honey?” I said, and Toby turned to look at me, a grin still on his face. I couldn’t help smiling back as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Listen, Toby, I love the puppy idea. But I did promise Nate I’d give him a ride home. Do you mind if I duck out? Anything else you guys find is awesome.”

His smile flickered. “But we’re only like halfway down the list. Couldn’t Nate take the bus?”

“He could,” I allowed, “But it would take him a long time and I already promised. And he’s just got so much on his plate at home, I want to be, you know, reliable.”

“Lena...” He paused, gently untangling my arms and holding my hands in his. “Don’t you think you’re spending a little too much time with this kid?”
 

Rory raised her eyebrows, sensing a Conversation. “I’m just going to run back and see what else they have with puppies,” she said, holding up the scan gun. She scurried off.

Don’t be defensive,
I told myself.
Be calm and reasonable.
“Does it seem like too much?” I asked lightly. Go, me.

“Well, it’s just ...I mean, I know his stepfather doesn’t have all that much time, and then who knows where Nate will end up, if he’ll even stay in Chicago. He’s a great kid, but I don’t want you to get your heart broken because you can’t spend time with him anymore.”

“Maybe I could still see him, in like a Big Brother Big Sisters kind of way,” I suggested carefully, as if it was just occurring to me. Frankly, it hadn’t crossed my mind that I
wouldn’t
see Nate after Tom passed away.

“Maybe,” Toby said doubtfully. “But we’re going to be awfully busy with the baby. You don’t want to make promises now that you won’t be able to keep later.”
 

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” I’d be so busy trying not to think too much about the baby that I hadn’t thought too much about the future, period. For a moment I entertained a fantasy in which my father adopted Nate and he showed up at all family events, with his eager smile and shy sense of humor. Then I came back to reality. My father was in his sixties, and very comfortable staying in the small world of the comic book store and the apartment above it. He was a wonderful man, but not in a position to take on a teenager. I focused back on my husband. “That’s definitely something to think about, babe. But for just tonight, I did promise a ride home. Are you okay with that?”
 

“Yeah, I guess,” Toby said, disappointment plain on his face. I gave him a hug and a kiss and went off to hug Rory, too.
 

“Ro, thank you so much for helping out with this. I’m really sorry to bail on you, but it helps knowing I am leaving this project in very capable hands.”

“You’re welcome,” Rory said. She looked more surprised than anything else. I think she found it hard to believe that anyone might
not
be enjoying themselves at Babies R Us.

I drove back downtown, feeling like I’d just discarded a Halloween costume, and parked in Rory’s spot behind Great Dane. My father and Nate were both behind the register, both buried in comics. I grinned. “Hi, Dad,” I kissed his cheek. “I see you two are keeping a vigilant eye out for customers.”
 

“Vigilant,” Dad muttered agreeably, turning a page. “That’s why we have this bell.” He pointed to an antique silver hotel bell on the desk. Right in front of him. I rolled my eyes.

“Nate, you ready to go?”

“Yep.” Nate tore his eyes away from an issue of the Amazing Spiderman and hopped off his stool, grabbing his backpack.
 

“Bye, Daddy.” No reaction from my father. I paused. “By the way, Dad, the baby’s a hermaphrodite.”

“Uh-huh.”

 
“He-she also has two heads. We’re going to name him-her Cerberus and sell him to the circus.”
 

“Uh-huh. You two have fun.”
 

Sigh. My family.

On the way to his house, Nate used my phone to call Delilah Harker for a progress report. As part of the “Nate hanging out at Great Dane” plan, she’d agreed to check in on Tom Christianti on Wednesdays and Saturdays– more to make sure he was still breathing than anything else. Nate flipped the phone closed and shoved it back in my purse for me. “No change,” he muttered. “But Delilah said hi, and you should call her about coffee next week. Decaf for you.” Then he fell silent. As if to echo Nate’s mood, the first raindrop smacked thickly into my windshield. It had been sunny only a few hours earlier, but now more and more drops splashed down, a torrent of sudden water. A cloudburst, my father called it.

I glanced over at my passenger to see if he’d comment on the sudden rain. The kid looked shrunken, exhausted, and miserable, leaning into the car door like it might be the only thing holding him up. I guess he had changed out of his Halloween costume, too. He’d lost a little weight since we’d met, and I wondered how much he was eating.
There’s no one looking out for him,
I realized.
 

I hadn’t pushed him to talk about Tom or his situation since I got back. I’d gotten the impression that he wanted some time to mourn for Jason –not for the man himself, who’d by all accounts been kind of a dick, but for the possible outcome that he might have represented. Nate needed to say goodbye to the version of his story that ended with living with his father.

But enough time had passed; maybe he was ready for a little push. “Nate...how are you doing with all this?”

Shrug. “Better now, I guess. At least I know that the foster care thing is inevitable. It was much more complicated when there was still this...hope.”

“Do you still think about Jason?” I ventured over the sound of the pattering rain. I wasn’t going to admit that I still did. There was nothing that I could have done differently to make sure Jason Anderson could be there for Nate. I knew that in my head, but I kept running through scenarios anyway.

“Yeah, all the time.” Nate fidgeted with his seat belt, staring out his window. “I mean, I know he couldn’t have been the world’s greatest dad or anything, but he might have been a pretty cool guy. We might have had some stuff in common. I could have...I don’t know.”

He grew quiet, and I bit my lip, torn. I had new information from Starla, after all. If I told Nate about Jason being in Chicago, he’d find out that his dad had been a useless jerk. But if I didn’t tell him, Nate might spend his life longing for a great father who had never really existed.
 

I made a decision.

“Listen, Nate...I got this visit today.” I told him about Starla’s trip to my office, and what she’d said about Jason being in Chicago.

“He was here?” Nate said disbelievingly. “Like,
in town
? And he didn’t try to find me?”
 

I got a little choked up at the heartbreak in his voice, and I couldn’t respond right away. But Nate answered his own question. “Of course he didn’t. I’m still in the same house, it’s not like he would have had to try very hard. Fuck!” He leaned forward and pounded one fist against the dashboard.
 

“Nate!” I exclaimed. I’d never heard him swear. We were in the middle of a crowded city street, but I pulled the Jeep into a loading zone, turned on the hazards, and looked over at the kid. He was breathing heavily, anger and frustration radiating off his skinny frame.
 

“I don’t understand any of this!” he yelled, his voice breaking with emotion. “Who
was
this guy? Why didn’t he want me?”

“Oh, Nate.” I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned over, doing my best to get my arms around him. Nate buried his face in my neck, hugging me back. I felt hot tears run down into my neckline, but I held still, feeling my own eyes burning.
 

“Why did he have to die before he could tell me?” he sobbed. “Why did they have to kill him
now
?”

“I don’t know, baby,” I said softly, feeling completely inept. Was this what motherhood was like? Watching a child in terrible pain, unable to help? This was what Rory and Toby and everyone were so excited about? Because it seemed pretty shitty to me.
 

I let Nate cry for a few minutes, knowing it was about more that just Jason visiting Chicago. The poor kid had been holding too much together for too long. After a while his crying subsided, and I stretched an arm behind the seat for my car box of tissues. As I did, I happened to look over Nate’s head, out the back window. Another car had pulled over shortly a few feet behind us, framing raindrops in its headlights. Sunset was nearly an hour away, but the sudden rainclouds had darkened the sky just above us. I squinted at the other car. A sedan.

“Thanks,” Nate mumbled, taking a tissue out of the box. “I’m really sorry about that.”

I shook my head, trying to focus on the boy in front of me. “You don’t have to be sorry, Nate. Everyone’s entitled to fall apart now and then.”
 

Goddammit, that wasn’t just a sedan. That was a beige Toyota Camry.

Awkward, I reached down below my legs for the special lockbox in the car where I keep my gun when I’m driving. Legal or not, people can get very nervous about seeing a driver with a shoulder holster, and you don’t want a gun bouncing around if you get into an accident. Unfortunately, being pregnant made it pretty difficult to get into the box.
 

“What are you doing?” Nate asked curiously, watching me squirm. Oh, good, I’d distracted him.
 

I finally managed to pull the gun out. I checked the clip and made sure the safety was on. “Being paranoid,” I replied casually. “Stay right here, okay?”

“Okay...”

I grabbed a sweatshirt out of the backseat, covered the gun with it, and stepped out into the rain.

25. Congratulations Are In Order

I was drenched instantly, the ugly blue dress sticking to me like scuba gear. I ignored it, holding the shirt-wrapped gun against my chest. There were maybe twenty feet between me and the Camry. I was tempted to beeline straight for the driver’s door, but if this person actually wished me harm, he or she could just floor it. Instead, I circled the Jeep to the curb first, nodding to some pedestrians hurrying along the sidewalk who looked at me like I was nuts.Then I approached the car warily.
 

He waited until I was three feet away, already starting to peer into the windows, trying to see through the rain. Then he twisted the steering wheel toward me and pressed the gas. I leapt clumsily up on the sidewalk, but he jerked the wheel back on to the road, the Camry’s wheels kicking up water that splashed against my knees. Not trying to actually kill me, not with people on the sidewalk to witness. I cursed fervently, stepping back into the street to watch the Camry race away. Then I slogged back to the Jeep.

“Lena?” Nate said uncertainly. He’d grabbed a stadium blanket from my backseat –I keep a lot of crap back there– and now he handed it to me.
 

“Thanks, I said, mopping off my face.
 

“Was someone following us?” he asked. Sharp kid.
 

I nodded and held up a hand to stave off Nate’s questions. “Just let me think a second, okay?”
 

I was certain that the driver of the Camry was the same guy who’d attacked me in Los Angeles. Since I’d gotten back more than two months earlier I’d taken nothing but office work: background checks, anti-fraud investigations, due diligence for a couple of small law firms. Ruby had been handling all my surveillance work during the pregnancy, and even the group of Matt Cleary supporters who cropped up to harass me every March had backed off. No, this had to be Jason Anderson’s killer. I simply hadn’t pissed anyone else off.

The rain tapered off, as suddenly as it began. “Oh, sure,
now
it stops,” I said absent-mindedly. Jason’s killer had wanted to scare me. He could have just pulled away the second I’d gotten out of the Jeep, but he waited to pull the stunt with making me think he was going to run me down. I shivered. Why? And why today?

Because Starla had come to my office, of course. She had shown up, and maybe an hour later I’d spotted the car. Which meant—

“Oh, shit,” I whispered. I didn’t know if he’d been following me or Starla, but now he’d seen us together, after he’d warned me in LA not to keep investigating Jason Anderson. He would most likely make the logical conclusion: that I’d taken Starla’s case.