The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) (31 page)

“Is it gross?” he asked curiously, and I choked on a laugh, shaking my head and wiping my face.

“No. It’s not.”

“‘She’?”

“I don’t know why, I just think it’s a girl.”

He grinned at me. “Come on,” he said, putting his arm around me and picking up my bag. “Let’s go home.” He kissed my forehead. “We have a lot to talk about.”

And so we did. Back at the apartment, Toby and I curled up on the couch, a deliriously happy Toka between us, and started to talk. And talk. I apologized for quite awhile about taking the case again without telling him, and he said he was sorry for giving me an ultimatum in the first place, which was sweet of him. Then he looked me square in the face and asked me if I wanted this baby, period.

I tugged on Toka’s ears for a few minutes, collecting my thoughts. “I’m
scared
about having this baby. I’m scared for all those reasons we talked about in the hospital. Plus all the things every other new mom in the world is afraid of, which, sidebar, are not small. That I can’t handle the pain of labor, that I’ll drop the baby, that I’ll never sleep again.”

He nodded, watching my face, and I took a deep breath. “Okay. That’s all true, but I realized that there’s something else, something on top of that. Or underneath it, or whatever. After what happened with Cleary, I’ve always had this sort of calm spot, when I get in trouble. Or maybe more like a dead nerve, where I just didn’t...care. Didn’t care if I died.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand. “No, let me finish first. I lost something after Cleary, lost the fear of dying. And I’ve been marching into these situations, with Amanda Rink and with Ruby at the hotel that time, all my cases, and part of me didn’t care if I didn’t make it. Which is probably crazy unhealthy as a human being, but as a cop, there’s like, this grim satisfaction to it. Like, ‘screw you, Cleary, I’m not afraid to do this. You didn’t make me afraid.’” Tears pricked my eyes, annoying me. I was so tired of the crying. Lucky I could blame it on hormones. “I know this sounds all backwards, but after Cleary I wasn’t afraid anymore, and now I am again, and I don’t know how to handle that.”
 

Toby was silent, watching my face. “But you haven’t actually answered my question.”

Man. What a lawyer. “I don’t know how to say it right. I mean, I think the idea that every woman should want babies is crap-” I paused, thinking it over. “But being with Nate, spending this time around a kid, has reminded me of something big that I had kind of forgotten about. A long time ago, before Cleary, I always wanted this baby. I want to have this adventure, to be this person to someone. And I want to do it with you.” There. That was about as sentimental as I could get, and damn if Toby didn’t seem to realize that, because he didn’t press me any farther. Instead he hugged me against him, kissing my hair.
 

“You know, I really need to start spending some time with this Nate kid,” he said thoughtfully. “He seems to really tame some of your crazy.”
 

And I laughed.

Epilogue

Toby and I went to Tom Christianti’s funeral in July. My bruises had finally faded, and I’d borrowed an old maternity dress from Rory, hoping the black would do something to disguise my bulging figure. Toby laughed at me and told me it was a lost cause, but I pretended not to agree.
 

It was a beautiful service, though poorly attended. A few of Nate’s teachers and classmates were there, and Bryce and Ruby came, which was nice of them. But three-quarters of the pews in the church were empty. Tom had been fading away from life for a long time, and there just weren’t many people left who knew him well enough to mourn.

At the cemetery, I fanned myself with the program – the temperature was in the high 80’s – and looked over at Nate, huddled in his too-small suit closest to the casket. He seemed to have grown two inches in the months that I’d known him. His eyes were a little red from crying for Tom, and he had a resigned, sad way about him. But his shoulders were straight, and his head was up. For the first time since I had met him, Nate appeared relaxed. The other shoe had finally dropped, and there was a relief in that.

When it was over I gave him an awkward pregnant-lady hug. “Are you ready?” I asked him, ruffling his hair.

“Yeah,” he said, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked at me and smiled a little. “Let’s go home.”

That’s right. Reader, I adopted him. Well, we did, Toby and me. And Toka, actually, who seemed to genuinely believe that Nate was a present we’d brought home for him.
 

I know, I know – it probably should have been the obvious solution from the first day I’d taken him to Great Dane. My dad teases me all the time about how dense I was, but to be fair, for the longest time it just never occurred to me. If it had, I would have thought I wasn’t good enough to be Nate’s mom. That he deserved someone smarter, more experienced. Less…broken.

Even now, I have my doubts. But I wanted a good life for Nate, and dammit, I didn’t trust anyone else to make sure that he got it. The trip to Los Angeles had taught me that for better or worse, in my heart Nate Christianti was mine. And all the rest would work itself out.
 

When I’d first pitched the adoption to Toby I had been so nervous, just absolutely terrified that he’d say no or that I’d spend days arguing with him and
then
he’d say no. But Toby had just pulled me close, given a teasing smile, and said, “Hey, what’s one more kid?” Then he’d shown me the legal documents he’d been bringing home from work, about how to adopt a non-relative.
 

Part of me still worried that he was gearing up for a trade: insisting that since we were adopting Nate, I needed to give up my job. But Toby wasn’t manipulative or conniving like that.
 

And if he was, I would kick his ass.

The three of us trooped in the door around sunset, still in our sweaty funeral clothes. Nate and Toby ordered me to go lay down while they made dinner. It made me happy to see them teaming up, even if it was against me. The two of them were still a little shy around each other, even after a dozen meetings with Nate’s social worker. I knew they’d be fine, though. They were so alike in all the right ways.
 

We ate in the Big Glorious Kitchen, with the baby doing merry backflips beneath the table like she wanted to get in on the action. It was a quiet meal, and when we were finished Nate put his fork down, scooted his chair back, and stuck his belly way out, to imitate mine. Then he folded his arms across it, gave me a smile with only a little sadness in it, and said, “So…what’s next?”

Acknowledgments

The Big Keep
had a long journey from my keyboard to what you hold in front of you, and it never would have made it without a lot of support. Of the load-bearing variety.

While I was distracted with other projects, Krista Ewbank was the one to occasionally say “Hey, whatever happened to Lena?” and remind me not to get so far into my supernatural stories that I forgot my favorite P.I. My deepest gratitude also goes to Denise Grover Swank, who convinced me that Lena was worth backing and went so far as to help format the finished novel. Thank you, as well, to my editors Richard Ellis Preston, Jr. and Cyndi Bantz, who fixed it so my retinas weren’t burned from typos and inconsistencies.

Much thanks and love to my patient cover design team: mastermind Roberto Calas, photographer Elizabeth Kraft, and her model Michelle, who put together the beautiful image you saw online or on the front of this book. You guys take “above and beyond” to a special new level. Thank you as well to Jason Martell, who swooped in at the last minute with the one element we were missing, and even remembered to take the bullets out first.
 

My everlasting gratitude goes out to my family, who have never faltered in their belief in me, and my husband Tyler, who always has my back, especially right when I’m pulling out my hair. Thank you to the entire Westmarch team for your help, advice, and general ego-propping. You guys are a huge part of what makes this job fun – and also what keeps me goofing off on Facebook instead of writing. In the long run I figure I still come out way ahead.

About the Author

Melissa Olson was born and raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and studied film and literature at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. After graduation, and a brief stint bouncing around the Hollywood studio system, Melissa landed in Madison, WI, where she eventually acquired a master's degree from UW-Milwaukee, a husband, a mortgage, a teaching gig, two kids, and two comically oversized dogs, not at all in that order. She loves Madison, but still dreams of the food in LA. Literally. There are dreams.

Learn more about Melissa, her work, and her dog at www.MelissaFOlson.com.