“I tried to trace you both a few times—on our department computer—but I didn’t have any luck.”
“I wish I’d known you would talk to me. Maybe I’d have called sooner.”
“Why would you think I wouldn’t talk to you?”
“Well . . . I didn’t exactly protect you like a big brother should, did I?”
Mattie was dumbfounded. “Protect me? You took the shit, Willie. It was you and Mom who took most of the blows.”
“I should’ve stopped him from hurting you, Mattie Lu. I should’ve figured out a way to stop him.”
A cold thread was starting to knot in Mattie’s stomach. “He didn’t hurt me that bad.”
“How can you say that? I know how he’d visit you at night. I saw how shell-shocked you looked in the morning.”
Mattie’s stomach clenched, and she fought a wave of nausea. “I—” Her throat closed, and she couldn’t utter a sound.
“I’m sorry, Mattie Lu.” Willie sounded like he was struggling to speak, too. “I’m sorry that I had to bring that up, and I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you.”
“You—” Mattie cleared her throat and forced the words out. “You have nothing to apologize to me for.”
Willie sniffed, and in the silence that followed, Mattie could tell he was crying. She pressed the phone hard against her ear, her other hand pressed to her stomach. Holding on, she rocked forward and back.
“Can I see you sometime?” Willie said. “I mean, would you come out to L.A. and see me? I don’t think I could ever come back to Timber Creek. But I’d like you to meet Tamara and her kid, Elliot.”
“Maybe.” Mattie swallowed hard. “I don’t get much time off, but I’ll look into it.”
“You can call me any time. On this number.”
“Yeah.” She needed to get off the phone. Now.
“Well, then . . . bye.”
“Good-bye, Willie.” She disconnected the call. A sob from somewhere deep inside jolted her, making her body jump. She clamped a hand over her mouth and bent forward. An icy fist had delivered a sucker-punch to her belly. Robo rose from his bed and padded over to nudge her arm with his wet nose.
Hoarse with pent-up tears, she said, “Let’s go for a run.”
She put on sweats, gloves, and running shoes. Stooped like an old woman, she walked to the hook where she’d left Robo’s leash. Over and over, she told herself, Don’t think, just run. Don’t think, just run.
Mattie sat on a rocky outcropping at the top of T-hill with Robo sitting next to her, panting like crazy and blowing a cloud of steam into the cold air. She’d run with him matching her step for step until she’d decided to quit for his sake. The sky had cleared and a nearly full moon lit the landscape. Below her, lights from houses and streetlights defined the boundaries of Timber Creek.
She and Robo had climbed the sloping backside of a sheer stone wall, and now she sat with her legs dangling over the edge. She picked up a rock that filled her palm and threw it as far as she could. It clattered as it hit the rocky terrain of the hill, and then rolled down, creating a small avalanche of clattering stones that rolled with it.
A chill breeze blew from the northwest, and Mattie shivered. As was typical, Robo bobbed his head and sniffed, examining whatever scent the wind carried. She took off her glove and buried her cold fingers in the soft fur at his throat.
“Thanks for coming with me,” she said softly. “I guess you didn’t have much of a choice, did you?”
Robo continued to sniff the air for a few seconds, and then lay still and alert, head up, paws out front. Mattie stroked one of his paws, picked it up and held it for a while in her hand, the connection warm and comforting. He touched her hand with his mouth—one quick, wet touch—and then he lifted his face to the wind again.
She didn’t know what visits Willie was talking about, but while she ran, vague memories had come in flashes. One so sharp, it cut her to the core. “If you tell, I’ll kill your mother.”
Shame washed over her in waves. She struggled to remember exactly what happened, but all she could imagine was a frightened little girl. Someone else? No—me.
Willie’s words, meant only to heal, had ignited an awful tumult inside her. What was she supposed to do with this pain? She bent forward and wrapped her arms across her middle, quaking like an aspen leaf.
Suck it up, Cobb. Coach’s words from her days of cross-country training came back to her. Ignore the pain. Keep running. Go farther and faster than you ever believed you could. Each footfall drummed that into her head, year after year.
In her job, she worked with victims; she didn’t consider herself one. She wouldn’t allow herself to become one. Willie’s words didn’t have to change her life. She’d sealed off these memories before; she could do it again.
Mattie threw another rock out into the air, listening to it clatter down below in the shadows where it was too dark to see what kind of following it gathered. She could hear the stones clacking against each other.
“We’d better go home, Robo. It’s way too cold to sit up here.” She stroked his velvety muzzle while he played with her fingertips, the contact making him sneeze. “We’ll have to walk. I don’t think I could run one more step.”
Mattie picked her way down off the backside of the outcropping, letting Robo lead. She figured he could see the rocky path better than she could. On her way down, she thought about her father being killed in prison. And for the first time, it made her glad.
Chapter 19
Monday
After tossing and turning most of the night, Mattie finally fell asleep sometime during the early hours of the morning. At six o’clock, Robo nudged her awake, eager for his morning run. Never mind that they’d returned from running their legs off only a few hours before.
“Let’s sleep in,” she told him. “Go back to bed.”
She watched him circle before lying down and cradling his head on his front paws. He noticed her watching him, and when their eyes met, he raised his head to stare, ears pricked forward. She didn’t know if she had the energy to deal with him, so she pulled her quilt up over her face to escape the chill in the room as well as his laser-beam gaze.
The radio alarm went off, broadcasting the six o’clock weather report. “This storm has passed through and milder temperatures will return for a few days. But by Thursday, another front will organize from the north, bringing snow to the lower elevations. Stay tuned for details on what you can expect.”
She hit the off button and tried to settle down under the cover again. Thoughts of her conversation with Willie circled in her mind, picking up where she’d left off during the night.
Her cell phone rang. It was no good; she might as well get up. Snaking one arm out from under the warm quilt, she picked up the phone and checked the caller ID. Mama T. She connected the call.
“Good morning, mijita. Did I catch you sleeping?”
Their little joke warmed Mattie’s heart. “You won’t catch me sleeping, Mama. How are you this morning?”
“Fat and sassy. Will you come for breakfast?”
She pictured herself sitting at the table discussing Willie’s phone call, and her spirits sank. “No thank you, I can’t make it today. I have to go into work early.”
“I have your favorite. Breakfast burrito with green chili.”
Despite her typical appetite for anything generated in Mama T’s kitchen, this morning the very thought of food nauseated her. “Everything you cook is my favorite. You know that.”