The Common Thread (3 page)

She didn’t really need the marijuana, just as she hadn’t needed the heroin or cocaine she’d once abused. They’d offered an escape for her, a much needed safe place to get away from the misery of her life. What she needed now was to escape her stress. She needed to manage it, to control it before it controlled her.

Katie was tired. Exhausted, actually. She loved her job and couldn’t live without her paycheck, but the forty hours she put in at the clinic didn’t leave many for other things. Homework, laundry, shopping, cooking, and just hanging out with her kids all took time. In the end, she sacrificed her sleep, but when she did crawl into bed at night—after cleaning the house and folding the laundry and packing the lunches for the next day—she slept soundly.

Having Billy back in the house was disrupting her routine, and she hadn’t slept well in days. She’d retired early tonight, and now she feared falling back to sleep would be difficult. She’d learned the universal truth of motherhood very quickly, when Chloe was a newborn and Billy invited friends over to party late into the night.
No matter what time the mom goes to bed, the kids will still be up early.

Leaning against the clapboard siding of her north Philadelphia apartment, she pulled her knees up close and studied the street below. Too much activity for ten at night. Girls looking for men, boys looking for men, dealers looking for customers, kids looking for trouble. They were walking, standing, cruising slowly on bikes and in cars, unconcerned about anything but satisfying their own needs. The pedestrian traffic always increased on nights like this, when it was too humid to stay comfortably indoors. No one in this neighborhood had air-conditioned homes. Some of them probably didn’t even have homes.

In other neighborhoods people were in bed, their windows closed, soothed by the gentle humming of those cooling machines. Their kids were asleep, too, not running in the dangerous streets. And no drug dealer named Simon Simms had just parked his car next to their house. As she looked down, she could see the roof of his oversized SUV. The car was parked illegally in the alley beside the house, and Katie wished someone in the neighborhood cared.

Tapping the ash off her cigarette, she thought about Simon for a moment. He’d been a part of Billy’s life since before she came along, a shadowy figure who always seemed to lead Billy into the fire, then pull him back out before he was too badly burned. Katie knew Simon since she’d been with Billy—almost fifteen years—but she didn’t quite understand the scene she’d witnessed—

Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of gunfire interrupted her thoughts. She’d heard it enough in her lifetime to recognize it. Bang! Bang! Two shots rang out in rapid succession, not from the street below her, where a shooting wouldn’t have surprised her, but from behind her. In her house.

She jumped to her feet, dropping the lit cigarette, and crouched in the window, preparing to hop through. Her kids were in there, asleep in their room, and she had to get to them to make sure they were safe, to protect them.

As she looked up, about to ease her head through the opening, she screamed at the sight before her. Simon stood at the top of the stairs, a gun in his hand. He looked toward her still form in the window, and before she could scream again, he raised his arm and pointed the gun at her. The shot hit the window frame just above her head, and she jumped back as the wood splintered. She didn’t have to look to know he was coming for her. She could hear his heavy footsteps on the wooden floor of the hallway, perhaps fifteen feet from where she stood. She didn’t have time to think, just to act, and her survival instinct guided her.

She’d learned in the streets to trust her instincts, and they told her to run. She might have stayed and pleaded with Simon, or tried to rationalize with him. In the past, she’d done that when men with guns came looking for Billy. This time, though, something was different.

Giving no thought to her bare feet or nearly naked body, she ran to the edge of the roof and jumped, landing on her hands and knees about five feet down on the roof of Simon’s car. If he didn’t kill her, she’d have to thank him for parking there. Another bullet whizzed by her, but it wasn’t even close. Turning, she saw he was shooting from the bedroom window, standing inside and leaning out, and from that angle he didn’t have much chance of hitting her. She leapt from the car’s roof to the hood as glass shattered in the car parked at the edge of the alley.

Like Billy, Simon was a big man, but it wouldn’t take him long to negotiate the window, and then she’d make an easy target. She winced as she landed on the broken macadam, the sharp edges cutting the tender flesh of her feet. But she willed her legs to move, pushing them, ignoring the pain, trying to keep close to the wall of the house, in the shadows. She could hear him behind her, and from the sounds she guessed he was now on the roof of his car, but she didn’t dare turn to look. A fraction of a second could be the difference between life and death, and she didn’t intend to die in this dark alley on this night.

She had to keep moving, to get out of that alley. With her feet bare, she couldn’t compete with Simon in a foot race. If she could reach her backyard, though, she could disappear into the shadows, out of sight, out of his line of fire. She knew the alley like the back of her hand. It was where Chloe roller-skated and Andre rode his bicycle, where they kicked a soccer ball and shot baskets. When they were in this alley—or out of the house anywhere—she was with them. Children couldn’t be left alone on the streets.

In the dim light of a clouded moon she could make out the lines of each fence, each hedge, and the few garages and storage sheds that lined the route. She could see them even with her eyes closed, though, from all the times she’d chased a ball or child down the path she now ran. She reached the rear of her house, and the light from her kitchen reached out to caress her, briefly exposing her. A loud bang pierced the night, and the bullet lodged in the railing guarding her back-porch steps. She reached the bottom step and another shot rang out, hitting an unseen target in the distance.

How many bullets in his gun?
She mentally counted the shots. Seven! He had to be running out. If she kept running and he kept missing, maybe she’d be safe.

Making a sharp left turn into the blackness, she zigzagged into her backyard, scraping her arm on the shrubs that formed the border. She trimmed them herself and knew the landscape well enough to negotiate in the dark. Grateful for the cool, soft grass she suddenly found beneath her feet, she picked up speed, hurdling the low brick wall that marked the rear edge of her modest-sized yard.

The bullets had stopped flying. She landed with a thud, but the noise was muted by the unmistakable sound of Simon’s SUV screeching behind her. She could see the car’s headlights scanning the alley. There was no hedge here, just the low brick wall that marked the property’s edge. If he positioned the car in just the right spot, he would have a direct line of sight to her hiding place. The car stopped well before that place though, and she fought to catch her breath as she flattened herself against the wall, counting on the darkness to conceal her position.

His footsteps were heavy, even in the soft grass, and Katie could hear them growing ever closer. Then she heard his voice, chilling, taunting. “Katie! Come out, come out, wherever you are! I know you’re out here somewhere. I’m goin’ to find you!”

Now she forced herself to be still, afraid that even the noise of breathing might be enough to alert him to her presence. In the silence that followed his threat, she heard a sound. Then a light came on to her left, at the home of her elderly neighbor, Nanette Arlington, and the old woman walked out into the night.

Eighty years old and weighing not much more than a hundred pounds, she was an easy target standing there, illuminated by the bulb above her head. Katie knew that Nan couldn’t see into the darkness, but the aging process hadn’t affected the woman’s hearing.

“Go on,” Nan yelled into the dark. “Don’t be making any more trouble! I called the police and they’re coming, so you just better get goin’ before they get here.” As if on cue, Katie heard a sound she’d feared most of her life—police sirens. On this night, though, they were like a song to her ears. Simon wasn’t stupid enough to stick around and let the police see him.

After a second, Simon’s deep laughter broke the quiet. “Katie, I gotta be goin’ now. But I’ll be back for you. Don’t you go talkin’ to the cops, or I’ll get those kids of yours when I come back.” Katie heard him running, and then the car door slammed and his tires squealed as he sped away.

It took a few seconds to control her breathing and will her muscles to stop shaking. As she lay there in the grass, hidden in the shadows, the sirens grew louder as they drew nearer. In another minute, police would flood the area and she’d be safe.

She hadn’t had time to think, but now as she sat there, she did. What the hell was going on? Why would Simon shoot at her? Had he shot Billy? Those first two shots had rung out from the first floor, and she hadn’t heard a peep out of Billy since Simon’s arrival. Either he was incapacitated or dead, but Katie feared it was the latter. Simon had been on a mission tonight, and it wasn’t to maim. It was to kill.

At least her children were safe. Simon hadn’t lingered on the second floor long enough to find them asleep in their beds, and other than the two shots on the first floor, he hadn’t fired except when he’d aimed at her.

She needed to see them, though. She needed to hug them and reassure them that they were fine. She needed their hugs to confirm that she was fine. Jumping up, she was pleased to see that her legs still worked. She turned and ran back through her yard, back to her children. All the gunfire would have awakened them, and they’d be frightened. She’d discussed many safety tactics with them, but never what to do under these circumstances. Hopefully, they were hiding under their bed and not exploring the house. If her suspicions about Billy were correct, she didn’t want Chloe and Andre to see him.

As a single parent raising children in a poor neighborhood, Katie faced many challenges. Teaching them was easy, for they were both bright and sweet kids, still at an age where pleasing their mother was a priority. Loving them was as natural as breathing to Katie. If her love could only protect them from the violence and pain the world served as a main course, Katie could rest and sleep at night. But it couldn’t. She didn’t trust anyone to care for them. In her time on the streets she’d heard stories of young girls and boys abused by coaches and priests and scout leaders, and she saw the results. Self-esteem shattered, spirits deflated, lives destroyed. That wouldn’t happen to Chloe and Andre. She’d spent eight years protecting them, exhausting her body and her mind and her bank account, but it didn’t matter. They mattered. She’d do whatever she needed to in order to keep them safe.

As she reached the stairs, sweating, heart pounding, knees shaking, the first police car arrived in the alley, pulling to a stop just where Simon’s SUV had been parked toward the front of her house. She could already see the flashing lights of another car, approaching in the alley from the opposite direction.

As she stared into the eerie glare of the police lights, another thought occurred to her. What if the police thought she’d shot Billy? If he was wounded, or dead, would they believe her when she told them Simon had shot him? Or would they look at her criminal record and arrest her, so they could pronounce the case closed?

In thirty seconds, the police would surround her. She didn’t have time to get in and out again while dragging two small children. If they caught her, she’d most likely be arrested. Even if the charges were thrown out later, the police would handcuff her now, drag her away while her children cried. Then they’d take them away to foster homes, where evil people might harm them. Or where Simon Simms might find them and make good on his threat.

No, she decided. She couldn’t go back in the house, even if it meant abandoning Chloe and Andre. If she was free, she’d find a way to get to them. She’d protect them and keep them safe. But if the police threw her into a jail cell, she’d be powerless. Jumping from the porch, she retraced her steps as the lights from the approaching police vehicle came closer. Running at full speed again, she raced toward the protection of the shadows. After that, she wasn’t sure what she’d do, but she’d figure out how to survive. She always did.

If the police had looked they would have seen her racing through the yard, but instead, they pulled directly to the back porch and stopped there. Nan’s clothesline, filled with the day’s laundry, provided an excellent cover and an excellent opportunity. Katie would need a change of clothing. A woman wandering the streets in a shirt and underwear was bound to draw attention, even in Philadelphia, and she didn’t want any attention right now.

How an eighty-year-old woman who lived alone could fill the entire clothesline was a mystery to her, but Katie was happy for the cotton shorts and shirt she borrowed, and most grateful for the socks. The short adventure in the alley had ripped up her feet. Sitting in the grass, she pulled the shorts up over her legs and sucked in her gut. Even though Katie was petite, the shorts were about two sizes too small. She was able to pull and stretch the elastic waist up over her hips. She’d look trashy, but that was better than the alternative—crazy. The top fit a little better. It was still a size smaller than Katie would have liked but a huge improvement on the paper-thin one she’d been wearing. The socks, though, were just right, and as she pulled them onto her tender feet, she wished for a pair of shoes. Then a thought occurred to her. Nan was a fanatically clean housekeeper, and she often kept her Crocs on the porch to prevent tracking dirt into her kitchen. Looking over her shoulder, she crept up the stairs. Sure enough, just next to the door, Nan’s shoes sat waiting for her.

She grabbed them and turned, but before she could take a step she was startled by the sound of the door opening behind her. Nan poked her nose through. “Katie, what kind of trouble are you in?” she demanded, her voice a barely audible whisper.