Dead Letter Day (30 page)

I knew damn well that I didn’t have to have the baby at all. While I blanched at the thought of what this fetus might do to any doctor attempting to abort him or her, I knew it could still be done. I was all about choice. This was mine, though. I already admired the spirit this stubborn little collection of
cells inside me showed. I’d do anything I could to blow the flame of its being higher and not to snuff it out.

My mother’s hands covered her mouth and there was no way to miss the tears springing to her eyes. “And Ted?”

I squirmed. I wasn’t sure what to say about Ted. I couldn’t help but notice that even with all the talk of “our baby” and being together and having each other’s back, Ted had yet to get down on one knee and make an honest woman out of me. “We’re talking.”

“What does that mean?” My mother’s hands were off her mouth and palm down on the table now. Her tone was a little sharp.

“I’m not sure, Mom. He…he kind of freaked out when I told him. He’s a little better now, but he hasn’t really said too much.” He hadn’t either. He’d been all warm and cuddly, but there had been no talk about what we were going to do or how or anything else. It was, to be honest, wildly un-Ted-like. Then again, he’d been decidedly un-Tedly through all of this.

Mom’s eyes narrowed down to slits. I knew that look. I’d seen it before. It didn’t bode well. “We’ll see about that!”

I reached across the table and put my hand over hers. “No, Mom. Give him some time. We didn’t plan this. It’s throwing both of us for a loop.”

She put her free hand over mine so my hand was the meat in a little mom hand sandwich. “Here’s the thing, dear. This doesn’t get to be done on your timetable or his. Not anymore. If you’re keeping this baby, your schedule is now the baby’s schedule.”

“And we have like seven months before the baby needs to take over that.” Although even I knew that wasn’t precisely true. Wasn’t it the baby’s schedule that was making me need to sleep for eight hours a night? Wasn’t it the baby’s
needs that were making me devour meat and crave vegetables? It was already taking over my life. What would it be like when it was on the outside of me and could actually scream and kick to get its way?

“Are you getting medical care?”

“Not yet, Mom. This baby is special.”

“All babies are special, Melina.”

I knew that. We are also all gifted, just some of us open our presents later. I’d heard that all before. “I mean really special, Mom. It can already do things.”

Obviously the Medusa effect on my mom’s face was gone because her eyebrows climbed right up to her hairline. “Like what?”

“Like, uh, zap people.”

“How do you know it’s the baby?”

“Because I’ve never zapped anyone before in my life.”

“Could it be a new power? You said you had some new things happening?”

“Yes, but they’re all more like other levels to skills I already had. This is totally new.”

“Hmmmm.” She chewed on her lip.

“Mom?”

“Yes, Melina?”

“Did I do anything when I was still, you know, inside you?”

Mom got very still. “It was a long time ago, Melina.”

That wasn’t a yes or a no. “I know. I’m betting you remember at least pieces of it.” Like I’m pretty sure she’d remember if she shot lightning bolts out of her fingertips even if it had been even longer ago. It wasn’t something you forgot.

“Well, this is going to sound crazy,” she said.

I glowered at her. “Really? That’s what you’re going to lead with?”

She laughed. “Okay. Maybe not as crazy as some of the things you’ve told me recently. Still, I never really told anyone about it.”

“Tell me now, okay?” I was dying.

“You used to glow.”

“Like a light?”

“Sort of like when you shine a flashlight through that real thin skin between your fingertips. I’d turn out the light to go to sleep and could swear I could see my stomach glowing.” She laughed. “Your father thought I was nuts. He never could see it.”

“That’s it?” It was hardly a lightning bolt from the fingertips. It wasn’t even finding good parking spaces or smelling like cookies.

“That’s it. Sorry. Was that not what you were looking for?” She grimaced.

What had I been looking for? Proof that somehow this baby I was carrying was going to be greater than the sum of Ted’s and my parts? What baby wasn’t? “No, Mom. It was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.”

She beamed. Then leaned in toward me and whispered, “Do you want to go shopping for maternity clothes?”

NINETY VERY LONG MINUTES AND TWO COMPLETELY ridiculous smock tops with giant bows on the back later, I was back in the Buick and ready to take my search for Paul to the next level.

Inge had him. I was sure. The question was where. There was also the question of why, but it seemed secondary. There’d be plenty of time to ask her why after we got Paul. I wasn’t even sure how to begin my search. He wasn’t at her shop. He wasn’t at her home. I would have
sensed him when I was there. Where else could she have stashed him?

Meredith called before I started driving in circles in my frustration.

“I think I may have figured out something about Inge’s sons. Can you come over?”

“I’m already in the car. I’ll see you in ten.”

Meredith lived in a loft in midtown. I got there in ten and then cruised for parking for another five minutes. I looked down at my stomach. “Perhaps you could have some of your daddy’s parking luck, too. It would help.” I knew it was a coincidence, but just then I saw a Suburban pull out of a space half a block ahead of me on my side of the road. At least, I think it was a coincidence. Regardless, I patted my stomach and said, “Thanks. Strong work there, fetus.”

Meredith buzzed me into the lobby of her ever-so-modern glass-and-steel building and I took the elevator up to the seventh floor. She was hanging out of her doorway, beckoning for me to hurry when I got out of the elevator. “You’ve got to see this. Come on.”

Inside her apartment, she hustled me over to where her laptop sat on a coffee table by the couch. She clicked a button to wake it up and then turned it toward me.

I was looking at a page about Ulfhednar. “I can’t even pronounce that. What are they?”

“Just read,” she said and sat back on the couch.

Ulfhednar were warriors. They were kind of like berserkers, but instead of taking on bearlike qualities, they took on wolflike qualities, but more likely just wore wolf skins. Just in case I wasn’t sure from their entirely unpronounceable name, the page told me they were Norse.

“No one said anything about anyone wearing wolf-skins,” I said, pushing the computer back at her.

“I know, but we have reports from two people who saw humans with wolflike qualities, but that weren’t werewolves. Put that together with that shrine to Frigga in the back of Inge’s store and you have to consider that there are Ulfhednar around.” Meredith looked very smug.

“What do Ulfhednar have to do with Frigga?” The connections were too fragile yet.

She sighed. “Frigga is Odin’s wife. The Ulfhednar are associated with Odin. Inge worships Frigga. Maybe Frigga is helping her out somehow.” Meredith snapped her fingers. “Frigga is a weaver! She could have woven that silver net to snare Paul.”

“That’s another thing. Why the hell do they have to snare Paul? What does he have to do with any of this?” I still wasn’t completely sold.

“I don’t know. Not yet. But there are too many little things stacking up here to ignore. Don’t you think?”

I did think. I just didn’t know what made sense. “So what do the rest of the werewolf pack have to do with this?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe all the maneuvering in the Pack is just a distraction.” She tapped the pen she was holding against the tablet of paper where she’d been taking notes.

“Like some kind of smoke screen? Who could set up something like that?” It was possible. It seemed tricky.

She shook her head. “Not deliberately. There’s always maneuvering in the Pack. You know that. Someone’s always jockeying for position. It’s one of the things that makes Paul so different from the rest of them. He’s happy where he is. Or was.”

“That whole calming-influence thing.” I chewed on my lip. Had I let myself be distracted by what was essentially standard operating procedure in the Pack? “Fine. Let’s focus on Inge, then. Where the hell would she have him?”

Meredith’s face fell. “I don’t know, Melina. I just don’t know.”

WE DECIDED THAT OUR NEXT STEP WAS TO TAKE A GOOD hard look at Inge’s kids. If they were Ulfhednar, at least the mystery of who bit Michael Hollinger and ransacked McMannis’s garage would be solved. Maybe watching would help me figure out what connection there might be to Paul, as well. Was Inge forcing him to give them wolf lessons?

Whatever it was, was going to have to wait. I’d dumped my responsibilities at the dojo on Sophie and T.J. for long enough. Ulfhednar stalking was going to have to wait for tomorrow.

I pulled into the parking lot and did a double take. My mother’s Volvo was parked there already. What was she doing here? She never—and I do mean never—came to the dojo. It wasn’t precisely that she disapproved; it was simply a part of my life that she’d never understood. My mother prefers to stay away from things she doesn’t understand. Yet here she was, sitting in her car, right in front of it.

When I was little, a lot of what I learned at River City Karate and Judo was a secret from my mom, which had been exciting. When I was a teenager, it was a place to escape her. Okay. It had still been a place to escape her in my early twenties. This place was mine. Mine and Mae’s.

My first instinct was to go park a block away and sneak in the back, but it wasn’t like she wouldn’t see me once I got inside, what with the big plate glass windows on the front of the place. Plus, we had been breaking down a lot of barriers between us. Maybe it was time to at least ease this barrier down a few notches.

I parked right next to her and she was out of her car like a shot. “Melina!” She trotted around the car and hugged me.

I allowed it. I am not a hugger. I don’t know if I was cuddly before I was three, but I know I wasn’t after. I was not the kind of little girl who snuggled into her parents’ laps or held hands walking down the street. I had a very defined sense of personal space. My mother had generally respected that. Now, however, she had both her arms wrapped around me, trapping my arms at my side, and I’m pretty sure she was sniffling.

“Mom, are you okay?” I asked.

She gasped in a wavery breath. “Fine. I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about…about what you told me at coffee this morning.”

Oh, that. The knocked-up thing. I should have known there would be repercussions.

“I’m fine, Mom. A little tired. That’s all.”

“I know. I know. And I’m sure you know everything you need to know. You kids are all so clever today and everything’s on the Internet. Still, I thought you should read this. It explains a lot of stuff.” She thrust a copy of
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
into my hands.

“Mom,” I gasped, turning the cover toward myself. No one at the dojo needed to know yet.

She glanced around and then whispered. “Is something watching? Something that might steal the baby?”

“No, Mom. I’m just trying to keep this quiet for as long as I can.” I wasn’t exactly sure how the parents were going to respond to Sensei showing her integrity, self-respect and discipline by getting knocked up out of wedlock. I had some doubts it would be good for business.

She nodded quickly, brushing at her cheeks. Dear Lord, was she crying? “Oh, sure. Got it. Who knows?”

“Ted. Norah. You. Grandma guessed. I didn’t tell her,” I added quickly.

“Grandma guessed. When?” Her eyes went wide.

“Last Friday night.” Wow. That seemed like months ago. It had only been a few days.

Mom’s lips tightened. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me. My own mother.” Then her face softened and she brushed at my cheek with the back of her hand. “And my own daughter.”

“Mom,” I pleaded. “Can we take this down a notch?”

She took a step back. “Sure. Absolutely. But read the book, okay? It’s stuffed with good information. And call me if you have questions. I’ve done this twice, you know.”