The Row(79)

“Stacia, I need you to put down the scissors and let Riley go,” Chief Vega says quietly.

Her hand loosens on my arm, and my instincts scream at me to move away, to run, but I’m so close to getting what I’ve always wanted that I can’t back down now. “Why did you kill them?”

She shrugs and says simply, “Because they looked like your mother. And she had your father, so I couldn’t stand by without doing anything.”

And then, as if she had heard her name mentioned, my mom rushes in through the door to the police station. Her hair is mussed and her coat is buttoned wrong. Vega had obviously woken her when he called, but I’m relieved to see she looks totally and completely sober.

Mama lets out a huge puff of air when she sees me, then her eyes go to the scissors pointed at my chest—and then up to Stacia.

Then the thing I least expect happens. Mama lets out a wild snarl and leaps on Stacia. She hasn’t even hit her before Stacia drops the scissors in shock. Then Mama is on her and she punches Daddy’s mistress twice before two officers pull her off and another takes Stacia back toward a holding cell.

Stacia yells out to Mama through her already swelling lip, “You know he always loved me more. You’re just the woman that he refused to abandon. I’m the strong one. He’s always known that.”

Now that I don’t have scissors pointed at me anymore, my heart resumes a normal rhythm and I feel like I might be sick. Did Stacia really kill all those women because she loved Daddy and couldn’t handle the jealousy? I know she killed Mr. Masters because he found out. I was there to see it. What if she had just decided one day that killing replacements for Mama wasn’t good enough? What if she decided it was time to go for the real thing?

My chest burns, and I have to force my breathing to slow down so I don’t pass out. Jordan’s eyes are full of worry when they meet mine.

Mama’s knuckles are bleeding as she turns to the officers and asks politely, “Could you release me? I need to clean up this blood before I make a mess.”

I grab some tissues from a box on the desk and bring them to Mama as the officers receive a nod from Chief Vega and step away. She dabs at a few drops of blood on her right fist, wincing. Then she wraps both arms around me tight. “You, my dear girl, have some serious explaining to do.”

I laugh and hug her back. “Yes, I guess I do.”

Chief Vega walks up and taps my shoulder with Jordan right behind him. “Are you okay? That was dangerous to face her like that, but very brave.”

“I’m fine,” I say, taking a step back out of Mama’s hug, but she keeps her arm around my shoulder, and I’m glad. I need that strength to ask the question that I’m about to ask. “Does this mean—does this mean that my father will be released?”

Vega’s jaw tightens and he doesn’t answer for a few seconds. “That isn’t up to me, but I will make sure all of the evidence and Stacia’s confession are processed and presented before a judge first thing Monday morning. The rest will be up to the court and the district attorney’s office.”

My chest feels like it has a slowly filling balloon trapped inside it that he just popped. I can’t say I’m surprised by his answer, and honestly a piece of me deep, deep down feels the smallest bit of relief. Maybe they’ll just delay his execution and his release may take a while. That way I can figure out how to deal with the idea that my father may finally come home—only now I think of him less as an underdog hero and more as a cheating, lying stranger.

Chief Vega looks from me to my mom and then he lowers his voice. “I’m sorry I can’t promise anything more. I will say that this case looks very different right now than it has in the past.”

Mama looks down at me and forces a smile, but I see a tiny amount of anxiety behind her gaze.

And I wonder if she might be seeing that same anxiety in me.





34

IT’S MONDAY AFTERNOON. Jordan has been at my house for an hour, and we haven’t spoken more than two dozen words the entire time. We’re watching some old Twilight Zone episode we found online. It’s kind of creeping me out and that’s the only thing we’ve discussed. I keep worrying this could be what I’ve been afraid of all along. Maybe now that we don’t need to talk about Daddy’s case anymore, we have nothing else to talk about. My heart tells me that fear isn’t true and Jordan deserves more credit than that. Maybe something else is bothering him—whatever it is, I hate it. What does it say about us if things get awkward and uncomfortable the moment we don’t have a life or death question we’re trying to find the answers to?

Mama calls me from the other room and I jump off the couch at the first excuse to get away for a minute. It’s weird having Jordan and Mama around at the same time, but she set up some new rules while we were on the way home from the station Saturday night, insisting that we stop sneaking around.

“If you are going to date someone, you’ll do it in daylight and under my nose, young lady. You’ll do it proper or you won’t do it at all,” she’d said.

“Yes, ma’am” is still basically the only acceptable response when Mama talks to me like that.

I jog into the kitchen, where Mama sits at the table with the phone in her hands. Her skin is pale, and when I sit down, she grabs my hand. “I just received a phone call from Chief Vega.”