"Hello, Kate. Have you been offered anything to drink?"
"I've got coffee, thanks."
"And you, Jules, did you eat breakfast?"
"I'm not hungry, Mother."
Ah, said Kate to herself, so that's how it is.
What a world lay in those four words, a minor salvo in the bitter civil war between mother and daughter, a family of two turned in on itself in dependency, infuriated at itself. The four words brought with them a flood of memories, of battles and uneasy peace treaties made all the more terrible by the love that lay beneath. Kate drained her coffee cup, still standing, and held it out to her partner with a smile that felt pasted on.
"Thanks, Al, that was great." He handed it to Jules.
"Put it in the sink, would you, Jujube?"
"Anything you say, Altercation."
When the child had left the room, Jani spoke quietly, with surface nonchalance. "Before I forget, Kate, Rosa Hidalgo would appreciate it if you could stop by before you leave today. Nothing terribly urgent, merely a question that arose concerning one of her young clients."
"But what —" Kate stopped, surprised at the stillness in Jani's posture, the urgency in her eyes. "Sure, be glad to," she said easily, and Jani relaxed and held Kate's eyes for a split instant longer, in warning, before nodding her head in an informal leave-taking and disappearing back into her study. Jules stood in the doorway and watched her mother's retreating back, glowering with suspicion.
"Shall we go?" Kate suggested.
"Have a good time, Emerald," Al said. Jules roused herself.
"I'll try, Allegheny."
"Be home by midnight, Pearl." He stifled a yawn.
"Or you'll turn into a pumpkin, right, Alcatraz? And by the way," she said as a parting shot, "I don't think pearls qualify as jewels."
He laughed and closed the apartment door behind them. On the stairs, Jules dropped the joking attitude as if it had never been and turned to Kate.
"What did she want?"
"Who, your mother? Oh, at the end there. She didn't want anything," Kate said easily. "Had a message from Rosa downstairs, probably about a case she asked me about a while back. Why?"
"She's always talking about me to people."
"That's hardly surprising; you're an important part of her life. It would be a bit strange never to mention you, don't you think?" Kate knew that her face gave away nothing - there were too many hours of interrogation behind her to let her thoughts be read by a twelve-year-old. Even this twelve-year-old.
"That's not what I mean."
"No? Well, in this case, I don't think your suspicions are justified. Your mom probably just thought it was a private message, that's all."
In silence, Kate and Jules walked down the two flights of stairs, Kate feeling absurdly on trial, as aware of the child's inner turmoil as if she could see it on a screen: Which side was Kate on? Kate wondered if it mattered, knew that it did, knew furthermore that she wanted Jules to trust her loyalty, and realized that she'd be a damned fool to get herself between child and mother, with Al Hawkin standing over it all. Have to watch your step, Kate.
Still in silence, she started the car and drove the half mile or so to the park with the swimming pool. Jules walked away onto the grass, and Kate trailed after, to the shade of a tree on a low rise. Jules settled down as if sitting in a familiar chair. Kate sat down beside her.
"This is where you used to meet him, you said?" she asked after a couple of minutes.
"His father used to beat him. Did I tell you that?"
"No, you didn't, but it doesn't surprise me. A lot of runaways come from abusive families."
"He's dead, isn't he?"
"He may be. But in all honesty, Jules, I think the odds that he's alive somewhere are considerably higher."
"Did you ever read Peter Pan?" Jules asked abruptly.
"Peter Pan?" Kate wondered where this was going. "Not in a very long time."
"I hate that book. It's detestable. I read it again last week, because I was thinking about something Dio said, and when you take away all that cute, cheerful stuff they put in the movies, you see it's about a bunch of boys whose parents throw them away, or anyway don't care enough to bother looking for them when they get lost, who get together to try and take care of each other, only to have another group of grown-ups try to kill them all. What's the difference between a pirate and a serial killer, or a drug pusher, or a… a pimp, I ask you?"
Kate was shocked, though whether by the words or the ferociously dry eyes, she could not have said.
"Um, what makes you think —"
"Oh, get real, Kate. I'm not stupid, you know. I do read." She jumped up and stalked off to the chain-link fence around the swimming pool and stood with her fingers hooked into the wire, staring at the lesson going on in the water. Kate followed her slowly, then leaned with her back against the fence, facing the opposite direction.
"You having problems with your mom?"
"I suppose."
"Most people do, at one time or another. She loves you."
"I know. And she has problems. God, who doesn't?" she said with a bitterness beyond her years.
"We don't," said Kate lightly. "Not today. Today is not for problems. Come on."
They spent the next few hours at the shooting range, and Kate considered that she had done the job well, acquainting Jules with the intricacies of the handgun (a borrowed .22 and Kate's own heavier .38) to the point that Jules could hit the target a respectable number of times, and further, she kept the girl at it until she began to show signs of boredom with this, her mother's bugbear. Ravenous, they ate hamburgers, went to an early movie, ended up, of all places, at a bowling alley, and arrived back at the apartment at 10:30 that night, disheveled, exhausted, and reeking of gunpowder, sweat, hamburger grease, popcorn, and the cigarette smoke of the alley. Jules jabbered maniacally for twenty minutes before she began to flag, and then was dispatched to bed. Jani went to make coffee.
"You gave her a good time," said Al, approving and amused.
"She's a nice kid. And tell Jani I think the fascination with guns will fade, now she knows they're just noise and stink."
"How's Lee? Do you need to call to tell her you'll be late?" Hawkin knew the routine as well as Kate did: Call in whenever you're away.
"No, I don't. She's… she isn't there."
Hawkin looked up quickly. "Not in the hospital again?"
"Oh, no, she's doing fine. Or I guess she is. She's up at her aunt's."
"Still? It's been weeks."
"Five weeks, not that long. She writes. She's okay, getting her head straight." That she could admit this much to Al Hawkin was an indication of how very far she'd come since they first began to work together. However she added, "Don't say anything, around the department."
"No," he said, but he watched her closely-for a long minute before he stood up to get himself a drink. Kate thought vaguely of leaving.
"I've asked Jani to marry me," he said abruptly. "She said yes."
"I did wonder." She grinned. "I'm very happy for you, Al. For both of you."
Al Hawkin and Jani Cameron had met a year and a half ago, only days before Lee had been shot in the culmination of the same case that brought him to the Cameron door. Since then, Al had paid court to this woman with all his might and every wile at his command. "Laid siege" would describe it more accurately, Kate had occasionally thought over the months. A very polite and solicitous siege, true, but for all the chivalry, there was an underlying single-minded determination that made the final result inescapable.