Mother May I(48)



Marshall had risen, but he seemed helpless in the face of this storm. He shook his head at me, and I felt it was permission. Permission to be, if not myself, then at least human. I took her in my arms. She was brittle and small and shaking.

“Every mother has those days. Every mother. And you loved him, and you didn’t mean it, and this is not your fault. Someone bad took him. It’s their fault. Not yours, no matter what you did or thought or said.” I wasn’t speaking to her alone, I realized. I was saying these words for myself as well.

She clung to me like a drowning person. “Is he your only son?”

“Yes,” I said. “My only son. So please, I know this is hard. But for the sake of both our boys, can you look at some pictures?”

She nodded, clutching my arm. “Stay close? I’m scared to look.”

I walked her back to Marshall, and she was so little that it felt as if Anna-Claire or Peyton were tucked under my arm. She clung, letting me guide her to the sofa, so pliable I could have walked her anywhere. I sat her back down in between us.

Marshall passed her his phone, showing her a photo I’d sent. It had been taken last year, at a firm dinner. Spencer Shaw looked out from the screen with a shit-eating dog’s grin on his face. Trey stood by him looking serious in the blue suit I liked best, the one that darkened his eyes to navy.

She stared for a long time before she said, “I don’t know them. I want to say I do. I want to recognize one of them at least. But I’ve never seen either of those men.”

I believed her. She was too messed up to lie. It did not hurl me into despair. I would have been surprised if she had recognized them. Her husband was the one we most wanted to question.

Marshall swiped again, showing her the grainy shot from my security camera.

“I don’t think—” she began, then tilted her head to one side. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve seen her somewhere? I don’t know her. But I could swear I’ve seen that face.”

She’d probably spotted the mother the same way I had. A darkness in her peripheral vision. We were the same in this, and as she clutched my hand, I became wholly myself. Bree Cabbat, raw and hurting. I swore silently that when this was over, no matter what, I would find a way to let her know what had happened to Geoff. She’d pushed me past caring if I were caught. At this point I was the only one who could end up in prison. Marshall worked for Gabrielle, and her privilege covered him, right up until the point that we kidnapped the daughter. I’d leave him out of that, too, if I had to. I would do it all and tell this poor woman the truth, and I would go to jail. I wouldn’t care, if Robert was safe.

Kelly asked, “If I don’t recognize those men, does that mean the cases aren’t connected?”

“Not necessarily,” Marshall said, and at the same time, I said, “No. Don’t worry about the men. It’s the old woman. She took them, we think.”

She stared at the picture, and Marshall mouthed, “Bree!” at me over her head, his nostrils flaring.

“Where do you think you saw her?” I asked, ignoring him.

“I’m not sure. Just, she looks familiar.”

“If I can ask a question, now,” Marshall said, tight, and then in softer tones, to her, “Your husband, is he a Ph.D.?”

She shrugged. “No. He’s a lawyer.” I felt a little flame light up in my very center. She was still talking, though the gin and pills had put a ramble in her voice. “They prefer people in the actual professions at the school. That’s their big thing. Learn from real pros, not academics who—” Her voice cut out abruptly. Her drugged gaze sharpened, and she sat up straight. “Those other men you showed me, in the suits. They look like lawyers. Are they lawyers? You think that Adam knows them?”

“That’s not the angle I’m pursuing,” Marshall lied.

Of course he was thinking it. We both were. Adam had another house, and three more kids, and alimony, and still he’d bought her this place. Not possible on a professor’s salary. His income must be bolstered, perhaps in illegal ways.

“You do!” She glared back and forth between us. “You think Adam knows them!” She got up, agitated, pacing away to the counter. She turned back to us, and when she spoke, it was the calmest, clearest thing she’d said so far. “If he made this happen, I will burn him up alive.”

“No,” I said, though Adam might well have been working with Spencer Shaw. And perhaps with Trey.

Her eyes were flat glass, no humanity in them. “I’ll burn him up alive.”

That was when we heard the front door opening. Adam was home.

She moved so fast. She was out of the room before Marshall or I was even standing. As she sprinted out of sight, a wail came from her mouth, inhuman, like a siren. Marshall took off after her, me running in his wake.

Ahead we heard a thud, then a crash. A man was grunting and yelling, “Jesus, Kelly, what the—”

I came into the foyer in time to see Marshall peel her writhing, shrieking body off her husband. Adam Wilkerson sat flat on his bottom in a heap of plastic grocery bags, one cheek bleeding from three long, parallel scratches.

Kelly flailed in Marshall’s arms, still screaming. Her husband’s mouth gaped open, and his glasses were askew. Eggs had fallen out and broken right beside him, leaching under one pant leg, so that it looked as if he’d been trying to hatch them when he was attacked.

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