When Aaron learned about Skillings’ serious injuries, he stopped asking anxious questions about the pursuit. He went silent. This time, someone he knew had gotten hurt. Moni recalled the first time she learned that police work was no rumpus adventure. She had stood over the flag-draped coffin of a 24-year veteran and then watched his sobbing wife and kids receive the flag. Luckily, they wouldn’t need that for Skillings now, but Moni knew either one of them could have been body-bagged after that chase. The pelican might have struck the wrong car.
With the Lagoon Watcher still lurking in the dark, body bags with the names Moni and Mariella on them might yet get filled with their cold, stiff contents.
“Will you come by again after I pick Mariella up from school?” Moni asked.
“Sure. Why don’t I come in the morning and meet you after you drop her off? You sound a little shaken up. Maybe you should call in sick.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t you have class in the morning?”
“I have lab with Dr. Swartzman. I can blow it off.”
“Hold on there, slacker. Don’t make me bring you in for cutting class,” she said playfully. It didn’t escape her that if he came by after she dropped the girl off, they would be in her house alone. That playa better check himself. “But for real, there’s a ton of evidence you and your professor need to go over. I’m sure the pelican that attacked Nina was infected, but you better make sure. And there’s more stuff from the marina explosion, so, put your work in and then come by.”
“Alright.” He sounded bummed that he didn’t have an out from his studies. “But this time, I’m stopping for pizza first. And with extra pepperoni.”
“Okay, I can live with that. I’ll see you… tonight.” She ended the conversation with a smile-a total 180 from where she began it.
Moni kept Mariella under her watchful eye that afternoon. The girl tried going outside to the back porch, but she wouldn’t let her anywhere near the water. She felt a chill every time the girl walked by the rear sliding glass door. She still hasn’t replaced the screen that the infected snake had destroyed.
She had Mariella sit on the coach, where she breezed through her math homework in a few minutes.
“Good job, baby.” Moni smiled warmly. “Every time I finished my homework, my momma used to give me a Popsicle. Would you like one?”
The girl nodded eagerly. Moni took one each of the four flavors out of the freezer and let her choose. To her relief, Mariella picked strawberry and not grape. Not that it would have meant anything if the girl had showed a tendency for purple since she has nothing wrong with her, Moni thought. Tropic the cat stretched with his back arched and placed his front paws on Mariella’s lap as he begged for a lick of the treat. A cat can avoid its owners all day, and then it sees them eating and all of a sudden it’s their best friend. The girl extended a gooey red finger for the purring feline.
Just then, the doorbell rang. Tropic bolted to Moni’s bedroom before he scored a taste.
“Save some room. That must be our friend, Aaron, with the pizza,” Moni said. The girl didn’t seem all that thrilled, but at least she didn’t run away like Tropic.
Keeping her eyes on the sliding door, Moni undid the chain and swung open the front door. “I’m glad you could…” When she saw those deceptively charming brown eyes and that dimpled chin, she nearly swallowed her tongue.
“Make it? Well I sure am too,” said Bo Williams. Inviting himself in, Moni’s father stepped through the doorway before she could regain her faculties, and slam it in his face. He spun around and guided the door firmly closed. “You’re looking mighty fine for someone who’s been in a car wreck.”
She shrank from his gaze and avoided meeting his eyes. “I got cut up a bit pulling the other officer out.” Moni held up her bandaged hand in the hope that he wouldn’t beat on an injured woman. Her memories of her bruised mother’s pleas for mercy told her that it wouldn’t make one bit of difference. When her mother had blocked the entrance to Moni’s room, he had shoved her. Moni remembered hearing her mother’s head thud against the wall and then her mother’s soft sobs as her father penetrated her room. Then he came to her closet.
“I saw you bleed’n on TV and figured I oughta come over and make sure you’re okay.” Her father’s bushy eyebrows arched into his crinkly forehead in an expression of sincerity fit for a vulture.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” She started backing toward the couch so she could shield Mariella from the man who had left a scar on her life; Mariella had enough lasting wounds.
“I see you’ve got company.” His eyes shifted toward Mariella. He strolled toward her. Even at 51, Bo Williams had retained much of his burly frame from his days as a linebacker. His skin had gotten as wrinkled as an old leather sofa, but he still had sturdy muscles under there. The man walked with a slight limp from a sore hip. Too bad Moni couldn’t outrun him with her back against the wall-a position he always caught her in.
“I reckon this is my new granddaughter.” He leaned over and put his hands on his knees. A smile crossed the prickly hairs of his unshaven face. “I’m Grandpa Bo. What’s yer name sweetheart?”
The way he eyed her like a tasty new chew toy made Moni’s stomach curdle. She stepped in front of Mariella and shielded her from his gaze. The girl grabbed a hold of her leg.
“You’re not supposed to come within a thousand feet of children,” said Moni, reminding her father of the terms of his release. “Your parole officer would nail you if he knew you were out here.”
“You’re probably right. Why don’t you give him a call?” He gestured with both hands toward her phone on the counter. Then he crossed his arms and flexed his biceps. “Go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”
Seeing the threatening message behind those words, Moni wished prisons didn’t have weight sets. She didn’t move a toenail.
He father nodded in satisfaction. He trotted over and sat on the couch besides Mariella. Instead of using common sense and fleeing, the girl stared at him curiously with her hands in her lap.
“I asked for yer name.” he said. “Are you fix’n to answer?”
Mariella provided her usual response. She looked at Moni hoping that she’d answer for her. No. She couldn’t let her father know anything about the girl. Even the newspapers haven’t printed her name. She didn’t need him showing up at her school and asking for her.
“Not much for jabbering, are ya? That’s not such a bad thing.” He struck Moni with a gaze that made her feel covered in earth worms. “My kid was way too loud. She didn’t know when to shut up.”
Her father had told her to shut up when he whipped her over and over across her bare arm with his leather belt. He nearly crushed her wrist with his grip so she couldn’t get away. She couldn’t stop screaming and crying. He had told her to shut up again, but Moni didn’t stop until her throat burned so bad that she couldn’t utter a sound.
She stared at the fist-sized bull head belt buckle her father had strapped over his jeans. Moni reached for Mariella. The girl took her hand and followed her away from the couch toward the kitchen.
“Where you think you’re going?” He sprang off the couch and took center stage in the middle of the living room. They couldn’t make a break for either door without running into him. She couldn’t get her gun either because she had left it atop the bookshelf full of African warrior art. “After all I did for you-you treat me like some kind of leper. You wouldn’t have gone to that fancy police academy without my money. I put you up your whole life. I put a roof over your head by bust’n my ass every day in a sweaty garage. I’ve been working since my pa died. I supported my little sisters. It never stops with you women. How long I gotta keep break’n my back?”