True Blend (23 page)

“But don’t you see? I can’t stop living because of this. I have to keep moving forward with Grace. We keep busy with the gowns and playing and gardening and walks. Simple things that keep her engaged. That keep reeling her back to me. Because it seems like she’s getting worse and I can’t let her see a
new
fear. She can’t be afraid to live. So
I
have to keep living.”

“And I don’t have to like it. If it were up to me, I’d keep you both inside with those bars on the windows where I know you’d be safe.”

Amy leans on the railing, watching Grace in the yard.

“At least you have George. He was worried sick when he tracked me down at that little Tudor out on Old Willow Road. You and Grace mean the world to him.”

“He wants to move in with us so we won’t be alone.”

“Don’t tell me you said no.”

Amy reels around and eyes her friend. “Don’t
you
tell me how to live, Celia. Please. Did you lose your husband, your income and your child? I’ve hardly been able to open my shop these past weeks. And for God’s sake, you don’t even have a child. You have a dog. You really aren’t in a position to tell me how to live my life.”

“I’m not telling you how.”

“Aren’t you though? Don’t work alone. Stay home. Padlock your doors. Live with George. Come on, already!”

“Listen. You have to be really careful with this stalking now. And whether you like it or not, I care and I intend to check up on you all the time.” With tears running down her cheeks, Celia looks out at Grace and Sasha in the shade, then back at Amy. “You’re my best friend, who I love very much, and I really don’t want anything more happening to you. Okay?”

“I’m sorry.” Amy sits in the chair beside Celia. “I didn’t mean what I said. I just get so darn mad at all of this.”

“I know,” Celia agrees, swiping her tears. “We’re all on edge. It’s only because we’re worried.” She squeezes Amy’s hand, then. “About
you
.”

The sensation comes again,
again
, with the feeling of someone’s hand pressing around hers. She collects Grace and her sand pail and heads home to her sketch pad to draw the feeling into an image. Her pencil shapes the scene as viewed from above. Two hands, the pressure, the warmth, and what? What? The lead pencil point shades his knuckles with short hatched lines, clearly defining the hand. Fading lines, scars, dark lines, all shaping something apparent but not visible yet. She uses a tissue to blend the hatched shading, studying the hand on top of hers as she does. Something is lodged in her memory, some silent detail that screams to be remembered.

*  *  *

“What happens now?” George asks Detective Hayes. He hadn’t told Amy that the detective called him earlier to stop in for fingerprints. One issue to handle was enough.

Hayes opens a folder on his desk. “Routine stuff. They’ll be scanned and digitally encoded. But since the girl’s shoes came back with clear prints, we need to compare them with the prints of anyone who came in contact with the evidence. We’re coordinating a separate fingerprint file on the case. The FBI is, too. Everyone’s got a hand in this one.”

“And my prints will be a part of the file?”

“You returned Grace that day. If the prints on the shoes aren’t yours, or her mother’s, they may be solid evidence in a future conviction.”

“And how accurate is this computer search stuff?”

“If the suspects have a criminal record, ninety-eight to one hundred percent. No two people have identical prints, so we’re looking at a high degree of consistency. Your prints will be keeping company with the best, George. An FBI database stores digital images of millions of people along with their criminal history.” He looks from a copy of the prints to George. “If they have one. Some records are in the system temporarily, like yours. And Amy’s. As part of an investigation. They’ll be deleted once this is done.”

George holds out an open hand. “What about scars on the prints?”

Detective Hayes turns the fingerprint images toward him. “See the white line? Scars are the easiest patterns to decipher in a print. But they change over time; they thicken, they heal, so they’re unreliable as a source of identification. It’s the ridge pattern on your skin that stays the same. The computer creates a spatial map of your ridge pattern and converts it into a binary code. When it’s scanned in, the entire system can be searched for identical prints. And if they match the print lifted from the shoe, that avenue is closed.”

“You mean to tell me that the guys who pulled this off left prints? Wouldn’t they wear gloves?”

“You’d think so, but after twenty years of doing this, I can tell you one thing for certain. Someone always slips up.”

*  *  *

“I know what you’re doing,” Amy says when he walks into her kitchen later that evening.

“You do?”

“Yes.” She takes the DVDs from George’s hand. “Bugs Bunny cartoons?”

“For Grace.”

Amy looks at George and smiles. “Thanks.” She holds up the next. “Runaway Bride?”

“Chick flick. You know, with bride stuff. For you.”

“And Marty?”

“Have you seen it?”

“No.” She reads the back of the movie box. “Ernest Borgnine?”

“He plays a butcher. Lives in New York with his mother.” George waits until Amy looks up at him. “All his brothers and sisters are married, you know? And his customers come into the shop, and his friends, and they always ask him
Marty, when you getting married? Your brother just had a nice wedding. When you going to find a girl?
And this Marty, he’s a little overweight, in his thirties, and one day he comes home from work and his mother tells him he should go dancing at the Stardust Ballroom. She says her nephew told her they’ve got a lot of nice tomatoes there.”

“Tomatoes?” Amy walks into the living room and slips the Bugs Bunny disk into the DVD player.

“Sure. You know.” George follows her and sits in the club chair. “And he meets a nice girl there. She’s a little plain, kind of shy. And they hit it off. But then everyone panics about him being involved with a girl. His friends feel deserted and tell him he found a real dog. His mother’s afraid she’ll have to live in an apartment with a new daughter-in-law and says she doesn’t like the girl. And poor Marty, he starts to listen to everyone. Until finally, well, never mind.”

“What? What happens?”

George picks up the newspaper. “Never mind, I said. You’ll have to watch and see. Now sit with Grace and Bugs Bunny, would you?”

“George.” Amy crouches beside him in the club chair and speaks quietly while Bugs Bunny hatches a scheme. “I do know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re bringing all these movies so you’ll have to stay with me half the night watching them. You don’t want to leave me and Grace alone.”

“So?”

“We’re okay. I can take care of myself and Grace.”

“I don’t doubt that for a minute. But I can take care of you, too. And I like to watch movies. It would help if you’d subscribe to a movie service, though. My DVD options are getting limited.”

“Oh, you did all right.” Amy watches the rascally rabbit dancing across the television screen. Grace and Bear and a pail of seashells line the sofa. “Tomatoes?” she asks after a moment, still crouched beside the chair.

George just looks back, not saying a word before leaning over and kissing her mouth.

“What’s the matter, George?” she asks when she pulls back a little, her hand rising to his face, stroking his cheek.

“You’re kind of cute,” he whispers. “That’s all. Now go sit with Grace.”

Amy does, curling her legs beneath her on the sofa, and George lifts the newspaper. But he can’t read a word. He can’t leave Amy. Beneath the reading lamp, behind the open newspaper, he shakes his head. He can’t stop loving her.

Twenty

AMY TURNS THE PISTOL IN her hand and draws a finger along the barrel. A week passed since she learned someone is stalking her. Like an old-fashioned scale, her mind has gauged a gun against a dog, back and forth, one side sinking lower in favor, then rising as the other’s benefits weighed heavier. During that week, Grace, Celia, George, and her walking-partner Sara Beth all kept her occupied. Her parents phoned daily. Someone is always with her, but in the end, that type of personal protection will stop. In the end, everyone has to live their own lives. In the end, she needs something she can count on, right away. She can count on a gun.

“The nine-millimeter is our most popular handgun, even though it’s not the best manstopper,” the salesman explains. “If you’re looking to use it for self-defense, you might want to use jacketed hollow point ammunition.”

“Jacketed hollow point?”

“Right. It mushrooms upon impact. You’ll get less penetration but it does greater tissue damage because of the larger diameter of the expanded bullet. Commonly used for self-defense.”

“I see.” Amy’s slender fingers tuck her layered blonde hair behind an ear and what she sees is this: a jacketed hollow point pumped into the men who assaulted her and Grace one fine morning. Her hatred for them grows as Grace’s silence lengthens. Would the day have gone differently if she had been armed? If she slipped her hand into her purse and pulled out a nine-millimeter semiautomatic and trained it on the man holding her daughter? Or took her own hostage, her gun holding prisoner the man who reached for Grace’s shoe? Would she have won a show of wills then? But Detective Hayes mentioned the kidnapper holding a forty-five caliber weapon. “Do you think I need something larger?”

The salesman points out forty-fives in the case. “You really shouldn’t overpower yourself with more gun than you can comfortably handle. The nine-millimeter is a good choice. With the right ammunition, it’ll have sufficient knockdown power. You can always trade up in the future.”

Will this never end? Will she always be trading up, considering gun models, taking lessons? Will she need a weapon concealed on each floor of her home? What would be effective to store in the pantry? The basement? Will Grace need to be trained in weapon use one day? Will she come to carry a gun as easily as a cell phone?

Amy glances around the shop, the pistol in her grip following her gaze. Bob, her salesman, is reaching into the case and pulling out various nine-millimeter handguns. Bob. Such an innocuous name. Friendly. Approachable. Bob sells weapons that disrupt and impair the blood supply carrying oxygen to the brain. That disrupt the central nervous system. That break bones and the skeletal structure. That cause neural shock.

“Now, Amy, is it?”

“Yes. Bob.”

He sets four different nine-millimeters on top of the display cabinet. All the shop’s weapons are visible behind glass, much like the precious gems at a jewelry store. They spin out before her on tiers of enclosed, softly illuminated shelves. Lethal guns lie at a precise angle, muzzle to handgrip, in a circular case that gives the optical illusion of infinity. A full array of black and silver and brown wood winds across the shelves. Her eye returns to the blacks. Black looks serious; it holds no fancy allure, no shiny details, no mistaken intention.

Bob slides a gun closer to her. “Keep in mind a couple things as you narrow down your selection. These are all nine-millimeters. Since you’re thinking about self-protection, consider the circumstances under which you might discharge it. In a violent confrontation, you
won’t
be cool, calm and collected. Stress and fear screw up your motor skills and it’s damn easy to fumble with too many controls.”

“Well. There are more controls on some of these than on my microwave. What do they all do?”

Bob’s hands move in sync with his words, pointing out the various knobs and levers and slides. “You’ve got a magazine release, slide release, safety levers, takedown levers. And on models like this one,” he sets a black and silver gun in her hand, “the controls are ambidextrous. One of each on each side.”

“It’s a little confusing.”

“The one you started with has only the magazine and slide release. It’s very simple to operate under duress.”

Amy reaches for that gun.

“One more thing. Position yourself with it as though you were going to shoot. We have to check the trigger reach.”

“Like trying on a pair of gloves? See if my fingers fit?”

“Pretty much. Go ahead and reach your finger to the trigger.”

Amy wraps her fingers around the weapon and tentatively holds her arms straight out. “How can you tell if it fits?”

Bob takes her hand in his and turns her arm for a better look at her fingers curled around the weapon. “Not bad. If the first pad on your finger engages the face of the trigger, the fit’s good.”

Amy tips her head, checking the fit. “I’ll take it.”

“You don’t want to try any others?”

“No. I want this one.” She sets it down and pulls her Connecticut Pistol Permit from her purse. “I need the gun and anything else necessary. Ammunition, a gun safe, maybe a holster of some kind, cleaning supplies.”

“Okay, I just have a couple forms you need to complete. And what about training?”

She pulls a pen from her purse. “Where would I do that?”

He slides a glossy brochure across the counter. “The indoor firing range is down the street. You’d want a combination of classroom and live firing instruction. I’d advise a basic safety course followed by a defensive handgun course. Some of the classes pack a lot of punch in a few hours.”

Without basic training, the weapon is no good to her. Amy turns it over in her hand. The pad of her thumb runs over the dotted black polymer grip. Sara Beth is babysitting Grace and so she needs to get back home, under the pretense of returning from a special therapy session. There are all kinds of therapy, after all. Physical, psychological, social. She considers the gun, needing to control it physically first. Psychologically, too. So the defensive lessons on the firing range will be her therapy now. Therapy preparing her so that next time, she’ll be ready.

“I can sign you up for the lessons here. We’re part of the same facility.”

“Okay, Bob. That will work out just fine.”

*  *  *