The Off Season (30 page)

“And you couldn’t be here. That must have been upsetting for you.”

She nodded. “For the first time in my life, I was really failing. Failing my child and my husband—
both
my families. And then the voices started, when I was alone.” Her throat closed, but she had to go on. He had to hear all of it. “Voices telling me I should’ve known I couldn’t do this. That for all my training and my education, my marriage to a man from a long line of achievers, I was only going to end up one of those crazy women you hear of, hurting their own children. That I was every bit as messed up as the woman who left Annie and me out by that dumpster.”

She was shaking now, shaking so hard she felt as if she’d fly apart. It was all in the records, how Doug had eventually caught on as she’d grown increasingly paranoid and manic. How he’d first taken off some time, then finally made the tough call to have Christina hospitalized after she’d started talking about how much happier and better off everyone would be without her. Talking about going to live out on the streets, the way she’d been born to, or ending her pain—everyone’s—by flinging herself off the High Five Interchange into rush-hour traffic.

Though her eyes remained dry, she felt herself crumbling inside as she confessed how her mom and Annie had had to be told the reason she wasn’t able to return home for her father’s funeral. Even after she’d been sent home with Doug following five days of treatment, she would need close supervision, and in-home help with Lilly for the next few months to make sure she didn’t relapse.

“And after I self-reported before my return to work, there was this humiliating meeting before the medical board, where I had to produce evidence I wasn’t still too crazy to see patients.”

She suspected she would have faced the same scrutiny here in New Jersey if Shoreline hadn’t been so desperate to get a doctor to fill their emergency-department shortage. As it was, she’d been watched carefully until her supervisor saw for himself that she was capable of handling even the busiest of shifts.

“You weren’t crazy,” Harris told her, taking her hand and raising it to his lips to kiss it. “From what I’ve read, postpartum depression’s a chemical thing, triggered by hormones from the baby’s birth. That, combined with stress and grief, no sleep, and—”

“And with whatever mental illness is really in my DNA,” she finished, pulling her hand away from his.

He shook his head. “So that’s why you hired a private investigator two years ago. You wanted to know.”

“I
had
to,” she insisted. “It wasn’t just random curiosity, either. I had to know whether I was—whether Lilly could be safe with me. Whether I should risk whatever had led my biological mother to abandon us. Because there was something wrong with her. I know that. Something more than drugs—it’s right there, at the edges of my memory.”

“But you never found a trace of her, never heard a thing?”

Until my daughter spoke to me using her words
—or the cruel words she’d given Renee every opportunity to plant in Lilly’s mind. “That’s true,” Christina said.

“Did you ever consider that your mother might’ve been suffering from postpartum depression, too?”

“Please don’t sugarcoat it, Harris. It wasn’t just postpartum depression. It was full-blown psychosis I was diagnosed with, bad enough to send me to a mental hospital.” The words, after all, were right there on paper. Words that meant that Lilly would never have a biological sibling. Because whatever the doctor had said about going forward
with proper support and supervision
, she couldn’t force herself to take such a risk again. And Doug had been even more adamant that there would be no more children.
What if you were to pass something like this on? Or even hurt the children?

“All right, then,” Harris said with a nod of agreement. “Postpartum psychosis. Annie was only a few months old, then, right? Your birth mother could’ve been hearing voices herself. Maybe she abandoned you to keep herself from doing worse. Did you ever think of that? That she might’ve saved you both that night.”

Coming to her feet, Christina started pacing. “You weren’t there. You don’t know. It was so damn cold and dark, and Annie—no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep her warm.”

Raising his head from his paws to watch her, the greyhound gave a plaintive whine.

Harris grimaced. “I’m not saying it was a good decision. But maybe, in her state, it was the only one she was capable of making.”

Christina had never thought about it that way. Had never allowed herself to feel compassion, let alone appreciation, for the woman who had left them that night.

“Especially if she was self-medicating with street drugs,” she added, “like that woman claiming to be her told my sister.”
Or could that have been Renee, too, somehow altering her voice?
Because now that Christina thought about it, she remembered that even on the baby monitor, the woman’s words had sounded strange . . . as if they might have been digitally altered.

Altered to disguise a voice she and Annie would’ve recognized at once?

“The important thing,” said Harris as he came to his feet, “is that you and Annie were saved, that you had a better life. And when you were sick, Christina, you got help, and you’re better. You’re fine.”

A bubble of bitter laughter erupted. “You know I’m not fine, Harris. I’ve never felt less fine in my life.”

He winced. “I didn’t mean—I only—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, knowing there was nothing he or anyone could do to ease her pain. “I should’ve told you my history from the start. Told you all of it before you—before we—”

“Yeah, you should have,” he agreed. “It’s made my job tougher, your keeping things to yourself.”

“At first, I didn’t trust you,” she explained. “And then I thought—I worried you might think I was hearing things again, th-that you’d report me to child welfare, try to get my daughter taken from me.”

He went to her and folded her into his arms, stroking her hair and back and shoulders. “I would never do that.”

She pulled away, pain from the arm she’d left free of its sling shooting to her shoulder. “Don’t lie to me. If it came down to Lilly’s welfare, you’d do your job. You’d have to. And I couldn’t live with that. It’s the one thing I could never—”

“Shh. Don’t talk like that, please—”

“Or what? You’ll have me committed?”

“I’m not your enemy. I swear it. And I wish you’d consider that maybe, more than most people, I understand what it’s like to go through something like—”

“Just tell me,” she interrupted, raising the papers in her shaking hand. “Who gave these to Renee? And what could she hope to achieve by bringing them to you?”

He blew out a tired sigh, his handsome face lined with regret. Or was that the same heartbreak she’d seen in Doug’s eyes as he’d emotionally backed away from the bond they’d shared before her illness? “I’m willing to bet that it was money. And you aren’t gonna believe who paid her off.”

As Zach Fulton passed the little café where they used to meet, tension knotted in his shoulders at the sight of her vehicle parked a few doors down. What the hell was she doing back in this pissant little town? Christ, she must have texted him to meet her. Instantly seething, he went to work extracting his phone from his jeans. He’d
told
her they were through with this place. And she must be smoking crack if she thought he’d waste another precious hour holding the hand of some chickenshit bimbo, especially now, with the window of opportunity about to slam down on both their heads.

But there was no text, no voice mail, no missed call from her number. Why else would she be back in here, if not to meet him?

He weighed his options, feeling the pressure to get out of there, to figure a way to finally finish things—to finish both of his targets—without getting himself thrown in prison. Or did cop killers get death row in Jersey? But then, he’d almost rather die than end up rotting behind bars while that gutless bitch soaked up the spoils of his ideas and his courage—something that could happen if he didn’t keep reminding her that there could be no turning back. She’d forfeited that right, just as she’d forfeited the right to flaunt and tease and entice him with her body. It was damn well
his
body now, every curve and crevice bought in blood and flame. He had earned the right to use it—to use her—whenever and however he chose, no matter how these last few times had scared her. Especially when he’d pulled out his knife and used it to saw off an eight-inch lock of her hair.

He kept it in his pocket, wound around the knife’s haft, a reminder of the power he would never back away from. A power he would use to take down anyone who stood in his way. Hadn’t he already learned that a man with a knife could move far faster than a cop could pull out his gun . . . at least from behind?

His mind made up, he waited for the light to turn green before grabbing the first available parking spot. Halfway out of the car, he froze when he caught sight of a pair of uniformed officers striding toward the café’s door, their backs already to him. Lean and hard-muscled, the tall male cop hesitated, then glanced over his shoulder, as if some sixth sense had warned him how close he was to danger.

Zach tightened his grip on the knife’s handle, still inside his jacket. His muscles coiled as he weighed his options: jump back into the car and take off, or make a run straight at this bastard?

The cop, though, looked right past him before returning his gaze to his partner. Even taller, the slimmer officer pulled open the door and held it for the guy with an
after you
wave and a mocking half smile.

A woman,
Zach realized, surprised both by her height and how freaking hot he found her, with those big, green eyes and high cheekbones. What would it be like to dominate such an Amazon, to unpin that shiny, dark hair, grab a handful, and force her to her knees before him? Preferably still dressed in those blues she was wearing—or at least she’d start out dressed before he used his knife to slice away her uniform.

As the fantasy unspooled, her partner hesitated and said something he couldn’t make out, though the smart-ass edge in the cop’s voice carried well enough. An exchange followed.
Flirting,
Zach thought. He felt sure of it, even from this distance. Something was going on between these two. The male cop was aching to slip his nightstick between those long, lean legs. He was working her, set on charming her over some coffee and the daily special.

That was it, Zach told himself. Their visit here was nothing but a coincidental meal break. The bitch—
his
bitch—hadn’t arranged to meet up with them here. She wouldn’t dare do that to him, as deep into this as she was.

Climbing back into his car, he pulled out his phone. But he didn’t try to reach her—couldn’t—not with some instinctive apprehension gnawing at his gut.

Is she just about to call me, beg me to meet her here? Or would she have the fucking nerve to hook up with some other guy, right under my nose?

A blaring horn jerked his head toward the street, where a delivery truck slammed to a stop, courtesy of some idiot bicyclist who’d darted out between two parked vehicles. He shook his head in disgust, thinking the truck driver should’ve run down the Lycra-wearing yuppie—a thought that burned to ash when the truck rolled away from in front of a car he hadn’t noticed.

The white Crown Vic was a mess, coated with grime and eaten up with salt corrosion just behind the wheel wells, but its light bar and its markings sent alarm jolting up his spinal column—markings telling him those hadn’t been just any cops he’d spotted. They were
Seaside Creek Police
.

Which meant the cops’ presence here couldn’t possibly be random.

“Goddamn it,” he said, sweat popping out like a rash beneath his jacket and stocking cap. Adrenaline blasting through him, he fought to steady his breathing, fought to convince himself she hadn’t called them. Hadn’t arranged to meet the two of them here, setting him up to be arrested.

But in his head, Zach saw her tears, silent tears on her face when he’d sawed at that lock of her hair. Like a mist rising off the water, words floated back to him from a previous conversation.
You’ve gone way too far. As always. That’s why, this time I’m done. With you.

Rage flashing over him, he bailed out of his vehicle, no longer caring about being caught. Not caring about anything but punishing her unthinkable betrayal. A few steps, and he caught sight of her through one of the café’s windows, her face in profile as she sat talking. She was wiping at tears with a fistful of tissues as she spoke to the Amazon cop across the table from her. Probably sniveling over how he’d abused her,
forced
her into a plot to—

But wait, where was the male partner?

Looking around wildly, knife clutched inside his pocket, Zach reminded himself it didn’t matter where the cop was. Nothing mattered except the bitch thinking she could get away with talking to the cops about him, could get off scot-free with all the money
he
deserved.