Dangerous Lies (30 page)

“I told him I’d kick his ass if he threatened me again.”

She sighed, vexed, but I thought I saw a gleam of pride in her eyes. “That’s no way for a lady to behave.”

“You’re right. Empty threats are very unladylike. I should’ve just kicked his butt on the spot.”

This time she reached out and squeezed my hand. “Wouldn’t we all like to.”

“Carmina? Can I ask you a question? It’s personal, so I understand if you don’t want to answer.”

“Mmm?”

“My bedroom. Who did it belong to? Before I came, I mean.”

For a half second, the soft squeak of the rocking chair halted. Then it started up again, though not quite as slow or steady as before.

“My grandson. Nathaniel.” She took an absent sip of lemonade. “His favorite color was blue. Bet you couldn’t guess.”

“You must miss him.”

“Oh, I do. He was a firecracker. Told the funniest jokes. Whip-smart, too. He’d debate anything with me. Even if he didn’t believe his argument, he’d defend it with everything he had, just for the sake of the debate. Was a daredevil, too. Wasn’t anything he wouldn’t try, so long as he was fifty percent sure it wouldn’t kill him. Once, I came home to find him and Chet—” She broke off abruptly.

“What were they doing?” I prompted softly.

Her voice heavier and strewn with sorrow, she said, “They were on the roof. Two stories up. They were taking turns doing flips off it. They’d pulled one of those big trampolines close to the house and were using it to land on.” Wiping away tears, she chuckled. “About made me wet my pants. And that while dressed in full police blue.”

“I bet you were a good grandmother.”

Her smile fell away. “He’s dead, Stella. A year ago.”

“I know.”

“Chet?”

“No. One of the women from church. I wanted to hear the truth from you. Do you mind if I ask about Nathaniel’s parents?”

“My daughter, you mean.”

“Where is she?”

Her face cramped with anguish. “I’ve made mistakes, Stella. I wasn’t a good mother. My daughter abandoned Nathaniel the day he was born. I did right by him, but I failed her. She was sixteen years young when she had Nathaniel. She was addicted to horrible things. Drugs, alcohol, boys. I was always at work. My career was important to me—the most important thing. She fell in with the wrong crowd. I punished her. I grounded her. Rules—I enforced every one in the book. I was a cop, and a damn fine one. I wanted to make her fall in line. But I never did the one thing she needed. I never listened. I never showed up for her. I was never around. Don’t you see? I expected her to grow up just fine without my love. It’s no surprise she left. It’s no surprise she never came back.”

I digested her confession slowly. I tried to reconcile this negligent version of Carmina with the strong, clearheaded woman I’d learned to care about so deeply. It was difficult to think Carmina had anything in common with my mom. Absent, unloving, selfish—those were not words I could imagine using to describe Carmina. It hurt to see any similarity between her and my mom.

But the fact that she was being honest made it hard to hold her mistakes against her. How many times would I have forgiven my mom if she’d only told me the truth? Carmina was not the same woman she was describing to me. Stern and duty driven, yes. But not harsh, callous, and negligent. Unlike my mom, she’d changed. Her past and her future were not the same.

“What became of your daughter?” I asked.

“Angie? The last time I saw her, she was giving birth to a baby boy. The next morning the hospital called to say she’d vanished, and what did I want done with the baby? You can’t know how many times I’ve wished she would come back. I need to apologize and make amends. More than that, I need her in my life. But I was never there when she needed me,” she brooded into her lemonade.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. We’ve all got our troubles, haven’t we?”

The phone rang.

Carmina started to ease out of her rocker, but I jumped to my feet. “I’ll get it.” I was trying to help out around the house as much as possible, especially with her weakened heart. I didn’t want her back in the hospital.

I grabbed the phone in the kitchen. “Songster residence, Stella speaking.”

“Estella? Is that you? Is that really you? Oh, baby! I’ve missed hearing your voice.”

I went still. Utterly still.

“Baby? You there? Say something to your mama,” she chided me. “I’ve waited so long to talk to you. I can’t wait another minute!”

Panic fluttered in my throat. I’d made up my mind to call my mom, but on
my
terms. I hadn’t planned for this. Caught off guard, I couldn’t control my emotions. I hadn’t seen her since the night of the murder. The night I was whisked into the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service and blissfully, blissfully separated from her. I’d managed to all but forget about her. And now here she was, causing months of buried anger and resentment to flash to life in an instant.

I found my voice. “Why are you calling?”

“Why on earth do you think, silly?” she went on, her voice as sugary and bubbly as soda. “I’m
aching
to catch up! Anyway, can’t a mama call her baby just because?”

Just because? I didn’t believe it for a minute. “I can’t talk. I’m busy,” I said flatly.

Disappointment swept into her voice. “Too busy for the woman who endured twenty-four hours of excruciating labor to bring you into the world? They pulled you out with forceps. Most painful thing I’ve ever endured. Getting a case of the wobbly-woos just thinking about it.”

“I’m on my way out the door,” I said in that same bland tone. “I have to go to work.”

“Now, hold on a minute, Estella. I’m not finished. I called for a reason.”

That’s more like it.

“What’s this nonsense about you testifying against Danny? Those detectives from Philly came to see me. At least one of us was smart enough to tell them to eat dirt. You can’t do it, Estella. I won’t let you. It’s dangerous business. The men Danny works with? Believe me when I say they aren’t to be taken lightly. They’re bad men, sweetheart. Real bad.”

“And you let them into our life.”

If my remark rattled her conscience, she recovered quickly. “It’s in everybody’s best interest if you tell that frog-faced prosecutor from the federal courts that you’re scared silly of Danny, and while you appreciate the government’s protection, your life means more to you than their conviction.”

“They’re protecting me because I agreed to testify. That was the deal. It’s the reason they’re protecting you, too.”

“Oh, darling. Don’t let them hustle you. This is the U.S. government, for crying out loud. They aren’t going to leave an itty-bitty seventeen-year-old girl at the mercy of a powerful cartel, even if you refuse to testify. And that’s what you’re going to do. Refuse,” she said, the last word coming out almost threatening.

“Do you even care about me?”

“I— What? What kind of question is that? I’m your mother. What do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to save your life.”

“Has there been one moment during all of this that you actually thought about me first?” I asked, my chin trembling.

“What are you getting at, Estella?” she said irritably. “If you have something to say, come out with it. Right now.”

“I’m your daughter. You should be protecting
me
, not Danny. He doesn’t care about you. Don’t you get it? You were his income source. He let you believe whatever you liked about him, because he wanted your money. He didn’t love you,” I said, my voice pitching higher at the ludicrousness of the idea. How could she not see what I saw? How could she be so desperate and blind?

“I should have known you’d refuse to listen.” She cut me off, sounding flustered and indignant. But beneath that, in some small, human way, I heard her shame. For one moment, I thought I might get through to her. Deep down, a part of who my mother once was still struggled to survive, and I clung to it. “You never listen. Not to me. I did everything for you, gave you the best money can buy. . . .”

I covered my face with my hand. I swallowed the unwanted and wavering tickle in my throat. It hurt, hearing her gloss over the real issue. Why couldn’t she just confess her mistakes? I wanted an apology. I wanted my old mom back! I thought about telling her, but my anger was ebbing away, leaving hollow heartache. I felt completely drained.

I said, “I can’t listen to this. I’m done. Don’t call back.”

“You listen to me. Do
not
testify against Danny. For once in your life, listen to your mama. This is not a man you want to cross. If you step foot in that courtroom, he will find you. He will use every resource in his organization to hunt you down and he
will
kill you. He knows people. Violent, nasty men—”

Men she allowed into our life. Into
my
life.

Trembling, I hung up.

I would not let my mom follow me here, to my haven. I would not let her make me more afraid than I already was.

*  *  *

That night, I dreamed of Danny Balando. I woke up panting heavily, sweat drenching the back of my nightshirt. I told myself it was just a dream, I was safe here, he’d never find me. But no amount of rational talk could calm my trembling.

Light spilled under the door.

“Stella?” Carmina said, knocking lightly.

“I’m awake.”

She came in. “I heard you cry out.”

“I had a nightmare.”

“Trigger?”

“Danny Balando.”

Still fragile from the heart attack, she lowered herself with care to sit on the bed. As she patted my knee, her fingers were blissfully cool to the touch. “Have you talked to anyone about the nightmares? I’ve heard you cry out more than once.”

“No. I live with them.”

“Would you like to talk to me?”

I met her eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“In my experience, sometimes you have to flush the bad stuff out before you can heal. Getting it out hurts, but it’s better than holding on to the poison.”

I thought about this. “I could go back to the beginning. I could tell you about my mom.”

Carmina spread her hands as if to say the stage was mine; she would listen as long as it took.

I don’t know how long I sat there, trying to find the right words. I harbored so much anger at my mom, it should have been easy to let it spill out. I felt filled to the brim with that anger. But when confronted with the option of getting it out, it seemed I’d buried it deeper than even I knew. Carmina was right. It was poison. It was in my system; it had taken root.

“She drank before, at social events, or she’d have a glass of red wine before dinner,” I began slowly. “But during the divorce, she started drinking a lot. Sometimes right after she woke up in the morning. I think she drank to forget how sad she was. I don’t think she was still in love with my dad, or mourning the loss of him. It was more personal. She saw the divorce as an attack on her, as a personal failure. My dad was cheating on her, and the divorce was his way of saying she wasn’t young enough, or beautiful enough, or good enough for him anymore.”

“How do you know your dad was having an affair?” Carmina asked.

“Affairs. Plural. My mom hired a private detective to follow him. There were photographs.”

“She shared them with you?”

“She wanted to hurt him. He wasn’t ashamed to admit his indiscretions to her, but she thought he’d be humiliated if I knew.” I paused, remembering that awful night when my mom had dragged me out of bed well after midnight. I was already awake—I couldn’t sleep through the shouting—and she marched me right up to my dad and shoved the photographs at us, demanding that he explain himself to me. He hadn’t. Without looking at me, he walked out, slamming the front door behind him. The next day, he had his assistant come by to collect his clothes and a few other personal belongings.

“When I agreed to testify against Danny Balando for the prosecution, the U.S. attorney’s office offered to put my dad in WITSEC with me. After all, he was family. He declined. He didn’t want to quit his job, and WITSEC doesn’t allow you to do the same line of work after you’re relocated. They told him I’d never be able to contact him again, not in person, not through e-mail, nothing. I guess he was okay with that.”

Carmina guided my head down against her shoulder. She said nothing, but I could feel a change in her breathing. It was slow and deep, and troubled.

“My mom started hanging out with a woman named Sandy Broucek right after the divorce. My mom complained the only friends she had were the ones she’d met through my dad, and who still moved in his social circles. She wanted to break away from that world and make her own friends—the old friends were polite to her face but gossiped bitterly behind her back.

“She was on meds for depression, and when she went out with Sandy and her new friends, she’d come home smelling like pot. Then she started abusing prescription drugs. She and Sandy talked about a dealer they called the Pharmacist. I don’t know if he was a real pharmacist, but prescription bottles of OxyContin labeled for other people started popping up around our house. She tried to hide them, but I knew. After a while, she stopped talking about the Pharmacist and I stopped finding prescriptions. Somehow she met Danny. He became her new dealer and gave her heroin. She was really happy at first. In the days after she’d had a night out with friends, she’d laugh and joke with me. She seemed interested in my life. She was depressed, but the drugs masked it. I think she thought they made her the person she wanted to be—happy, fun, relaxed. But she was none of those things. She was still depressed, and the drugs only distorted her perception of herself for a little while.”

“It was easier for her to drink and do drugs than face her problems and get help,” Carmina said.

“After her initial happiness, things got bad. I tried to get her help. I drove her to the city early every morning to wait in line at the methadone clinics. Methadone was supposed to help her get off heroin. The clinics were in bad parts of the city, and we’d wait outside, in the cold or heat, surrounded by unwashed, desperate-looking people. Sometimes fights would break out in line and I’d beg my mom to leave, but she had to have enough medicine to get through the day.