Then he yelled at her: “You been fucking up my whole life, you little whore! All you do is screw up!”
Moni cupped the phone against her mouth with both of her hands because one alone couldn’t hold it steady. Her wobbly legs dumped her body onto the chair.
“There is no child,” she said weakly.
“Bullshit. I know a lot more than you think.”
“Have you been watching me?” A chill passed through her body. Her father didn’t own a blue pickup truck like the one outside Mariella’s school, but he could steal anything on wheels.
“You know I’d never violate my restraining order against children,” he said, referring to the child abuser boundary laws. “But I got a pal who keeps tabs on you. If you won’t show me some respect and keep me dialed in on your life, I have other ways, believe me.”
“Another way named Darren, huh? I got his message. So I guess he’s casing me out.” After seeing the note her ex had left outside her house, she had figured as much.
“He told me you brought home this little Mexican girl the other week. I put two and two together and figured that’s the girl the TV showed you carrying from the murder scene. Jesus Moni, she’s not a puppy. What are you doing?”
Moni never asked for a dog because she knew how her father would treat it every time it so much as sniffed his prized football game day recliner. He didn’t trust her with an animal, just like he didn’t trust her with a child.
“This girl is scared and vulnerable,” Moni said. “She doesn’t have another person on earth who’ll care for her. She needs me.”
“A single-parent household is no place for a child like that.”
That’s funny because Moni had wished so many times that her father would leave so her mother could raise her alone.
“I’m 32, dad. I’m ready for this. Mom was a lot younger when she had me.”
“Yeah she was. I knocked her up in her dorm room,” he said with a bullfrog chuckle. She winced at the thought of her parents doing the nasty. She imagined that her dad didn’t even take off his football helmet or shoulder pads. “Your mother could separate her work from her home life. You can’t. If you’re gonna stop the asshole who ruined my lagoon, you can’t be raising a child.”
“I told you! I can handle…”
“And from what I understand, this girl’s got problems. Everybody knows she’s the survivor. It’s all over the damn TV. So what you got is a crazy killer who knows this girl’s seen his face.”
“Thanks for reminding me. That’s why she needs special protection. I’ve got…”
“What’ve you got? A gun and no guts to use it? Shit, Moni. You’ve been on the force more than ten years. How many suckers have you shot?”
She didn’t reply. They both knew the answer. It didn’t bother Moni because it showed she used discretion-a word her father wouldn’t recognize.
“There’s a target on that child’s back and, as long as you got her, the target’s on you too. The lagoon man has a hunger and I smelled it out there today. That girl belongs to his lagoon and he’s coming to take her back. You can’t stop it, so you best get outta the way.”
Moni could hardly breathe. The only matters she trusted her father’s judgment in were ones like these-understanding the deranged. The killer inadvertently let Mariella get away once. He’d come again, but this time, his manipulation of the lagoon and its creatures had grown stronger. If two brothers trained and equipped for hunting couldn’t stop it, what chance did Moni have?
But she had made a promise. If she couldn’t protect Mariella, no one would.
“I’m not afraid of it,” she said in a somber tone.
“Uh-huh.”
Moni shook her fist. “I said I’m not afraid of that motherfucker! Let him come. Let any gator or bird or whatever the hell he’s got come. I’m ready for it.”
She wished she could see his face during his brief pause. Moni hoped he looked shell-shocked. More than likely, he was displaying that yellow-toothed condescending smile.
“You keep telling yourself that, kid. Keep telling yourself… but don’t forget what I said. He ain’t gonna stop.”
He hung up. Moni already wished she could forget.
Chapter 14
Moni came for Mariella about a half hour before school ended. She burned the time by driving in a slow circle around the perimeter of the boxy brick classrooms and portables. She saw a few other parents waiting for their little ones, but she didn’t spot any suspicious characters or trucks with drivers using binoculars.
The moment Mariella saw Moni, the girl flew into her arms with a big hung and buried her face into her shoulder. It counted as the most gratifying experience of her life. She finally felt like a real parent. On the flip side, that love came packaged with a ton of anxiety.
If Moni could believe Mrs. Mint, Mariella’s day had been as calm as the detective’s had been chaotic. She completed her written assignments perfectly and kept to herself. The Buckley boys teased her, but the little Zen master didn’t pay them any mind. Her teacher said Mariella had been mesmerized watching Snowflake, the class’s white mouse.
No wonder Mariella didn’t get along with Tropic the cat, Moni thought.
Tropic brushed his red furry body against Moni’s leg when she entered her house. Mariella hunched over and reached for the cat a little too forcefully. Tropic scampered off and hid behind the wooden knee-high statue of an elephant with a Zulu warrior shield across its back.
“Cowardly kitty! You need a magical elephant to protect you from a little girl? Come on, Tropic.”
Mariella knelt down and waved Tropic over. Cocking its head curiously, the cat didn’t lift a paw. The girl looked up at Moni and shrugged.
“I know. Tropic is being silly.” She offered a hand and helped Mariella up. “I bet he knows you’re friends with a mouse. Cats are intuitive like that.”
She got over the rejection in a heartbeat. The girl took her drawing papers and colored pencils out of her backpack and stood before the sliding glass door that led to the patio deck out back. Moni understood the unspoken message and let her out. Mariella sat on her knees in her usual plastic yellow chair and laid out a clean piece of paper on the glass table. She grabbed the purple pencil first. She didn’t color. She stared at it.
“Where have you seen purple like that before?” Moni asked with a hint of nervousness as she thought of the tumors and glowing eyes. For once, she felt relieved that Mariella wouldn’t answer her. “Maybe on a pretty flower?”
Mariella drew a purple flower. The petals were precisely even and symmetrical. She sketched a heart underneath it and handed it to Moni.
“Ah, for me? Thank you!” She held the precious paper up and made sure the girl saw her beaming approval. “I’ll hang it in the kitchen with the others.”
Keeping the girl on the patio in the corner of her eye, Moni took her backpack and went into the house. When she pulled out a few other drawings that Mariella had made at school, she came across the gator picture. She couldn’t help but notice it because it didn’t look anything like the others. The lines around its scaly body and stubby claws were rigid. It didn’t have cartoonish features like Mrs. Mint had said. The gator had jagged teeth-meat rendering teeth.
Moni remembered the crime scene photo with the divots of flesh torn out of Robbie Cooper’s arm. That creature had caught him in a death grip and dragged him below water. She felt a little hand on her back and jumped.
“Oh! Hi.” She patted Mariella on the shoulder.
The girl offered her another paper. This one had writing: I am eight years old.
“Very good, baby.” Moni placed the gator drawing face down on the kitchen counter so she could avoid voicing her opinion on that one. Mariella must not have noticed because she smiled proudly.