Authors: R. E. Bradshaw
“I’m thankful for all of you,” Mackie said, drawing everyone’s attention away from the television. “I love you all, but I think Rainey wants to talk to me, and then I need to get some rest. Nurse Ratchet is getting antsy.” He motioned toward Thelma with his head.
Everyone filed out of the room, after wishing Mackie well during the scheduled morning surgery. Thelma said she would use the time to grab a fresh cup of coffee from the canteen.
It was already Thursday, nearing one a.m., just over twenty-seven hours since Mackie’s ordeal began. He reached for and enveloped Rainey’s hand in his huge paw.
“Katie said you met Billy’s other child downstairs. So, I guess you know why Rex King hates you.”
“Why didn’t he tell me, Mackie?”
“He didn’t know. I would not have known, if I hadn’t seen her at the academy Tuesday morning. Remember, Wiley asked me to come in for a Q&A with the trainees on proper bondsman behavior?”
Rainey nodded that she did. “So, Dad never knew about her? You’re sure?”
“Billy and I had no secrets. Besides, Rex didn’t know for sure until you moved back here. Once he got a good look at you, he knew. That’s what we argued about. I told him he should tell his daughter before she figured it out on her own.”
“It won’t be long now,” Rainey said. “She’ll put it all together—the mannerisms and tastes she could never explain, how differently she looks from her cousins. She’ll want to know what happened. She’ll want it to be a love story. It wasn’t, was it?”
“No, more like a bar story. Horny people, booze, and a one-night stand—the perfect concoction for a surprise pregnancy. I suppose Rex’s wife decided to keep it to herself.”
Rainey had to ask. “Might there be more of these bar stories I should know about?”
“Like I said, Rainey, I didn’t know about this one, and I’m sure Billy didn’t either.”
Mackie took a deep breath. She could see he was growing tired, so Rainey tried to end the conversation. “You need to rest now. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss Billy Bell’s mating habits while you heal.”
“Trust Junior, Rainey. He can handle the load,” Mackie said.
It sounded like the kind of thing Rainey did not want to hear. “I’ll trust him until you can come back to work, how’s that?”
Mackie squeezed her hand, his big voice rumbling low. “You are not alone, Rainey. You will never be alone. No matter what happens, you remember that.”
“Nothing’s going to go wrong, Mackie. You have the best heart surgeon in town, and he says a positive attitude is paramount to speedy recovery, so stop talking like that.”
“I just need to know you’ll be okay if something does go wrong.”
Rainey knew what he meant. There was a time in her life when another loss may have sent her over the edge. “I’m good, Mackie. I’m in a good place. You rest now. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, as soon as they’ll let me in.” She kissed him on the forehead. “I love you Miles Cecil McKinney.”
“I love you, too, Rainey Blue Bell.”
“I’m sure Thelma would
love
for us all to go home and let them rest,” Ernie said from the doorway.
Rainey turned to her. “Ah, my galvanized friend, you don’t know how lucky you are not to have a heart.”
Katie popped into the doorway. “Sorry Ernie, she’s been watching the Wizard of Oz a lot. The flying monkeys mesmerize her and Weather. They aren’t afraid in the least. That’s somehow frightening in itself, isn’t it?”
“Good night, big man,” Rainey said, and then joined Ernie and Katie at the door. “What’s there to be afraid of? Everybody knows flying monkeys aren’t real.” She turned back to look at Mackie. “Vance Wayne could have killed him, pushed just a little too much medication during his resuscitation, and no one would have been the wiser. Vance saved countless lives in his profession. We may never know how many he killed in his obsession. That’s what frightens me. Real monsters don’t have wings and tails. They are not that easy to spot.”
#
As soon as the agent dropped them off at home, Rainey bounded up the stairs to the nursery. She did not stop to say hello to Gunny or the grandmothers, who waited up to see her. Rainey wanted to see her kids. She had to smell them, touch their hair, and kiss their cheeks. She wanted to pick them up, wake them, see them smile and know that she was home. Instead, she only patted their diapered bottoms. She stood by the cribs, listening to her children’s soft and steady breathing. Katie slipped in behind her, sliding her hands around Rainey’s waist, laying her head softly against her back.
No words. Rainey had no words to describe how she was feeling, because she never felt these emotions before. Losing her life had been a real prospect for many years. She was prepared for that. Losing a child, Rainey would never get used to that thought. She held her emotions at bay while they searched for Bladen. The time to release the stress had finally come for Rainey. She sighed loudly, and with the exhale came the first tear, slowly trailing down her cheek. The last body count from Vance Wayne’s macabre museum, the garage, and his residence was twenty-one. Each stolen life was someone’s child.
She crossed to the daybed beneath the window and sat down, pulling Katie with her. She leaned back against the overstuffed pillows, holding her wife, watching their children sleep. Mental box lids closed, horrible memories were tucked away, forced back into the recesses of her mind. The knowledge Rainey possessed, the human depravity she witnessed, new bodies tortured beyond recognition, the residual fears from staring down the barrel of a shotgun and almost being blown to bits, it all had to go somewhere. The life she lived within these walls had no room for the trappings of such evil things.
After a few minutes of silence passed, Katie whispered. “Come on, honey. Let’s go to bed. We will all be here when you wake up.”
Rainey barely heard her. Surrounded by family, safe and sound in her fortress home, she was already drifting peacefully into dreamland, where SpongeBob danced with Winnie the Pooh down a yellow brick road toward an always-happy ending.
“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Molly said for probably the tenth time since Rainey got behind the steering wheel of the Charger.
Rainey and Katie had let the grandmothers and Gunny sleep in and were feeding the herd when the Rainey’s cellphone rang. Molly had arranged a meeting with Cookie and the judge in the stalker/blogger case. She also informed Rainey that she was no longer a suspect in the Bobo Jackson murder, and the police were actively seeking the person that attempted to frame her. They could pick up Rainey’s car after the meeting with the judge, and her weapons would be returned as soon as they could be processed out. Things were looking up.
Cookie had been arrogant and obstinate in the judge’s chambers. That is, until the judge explained that her order to cease the publication of the private and intrusive pictures of Rainey’s family extended to Cookie and anyone else aiding and abetting the stalker. Molly had done her homework. She showed the judge how the same pictures found on the Triangle Lesbian Blog were being used during Cookie’s broadcasts and ended her presentation with the video of Cookie paying the stalker for the flash drive.
Rainey had remained quiet while Molly handled the show. She was seething with indignation, but resisted the temptation to tell Cookie the microphone up her ass was not a threat, but a promise. Molly was more eloquent and finished her statement to the judge with information Rainey gave her on the way to the courthouse.
“Ms. Kutter’s interference in a police investigation nearly led to my client’s death last night, and did lead to the death of a mother in front of her child. While we think there is ample evidence to show Ms. Kutter’s actions continually present a threat to my client and her family, we are not pursuing monetary damages at this time. We simply want the harassment to stop and the identity of the man seen in the video taking payment from Ms. Kutter.”
“You can’t be serious,” Cookie said. “You want to penalize me for having good police sources and disseminating information to the public. Go ahead, sue me.”
Molly was ready for Cookie. “Ms. Kutter, I’ve spoken with the legal team at your broadcast company. They are not willing to go to court on this issue. In fact, after I showed them the video of you paying Ms. Bell’s stalker, they offered to cancel your show in order to avoid that possibility.”
Cookie actually laughed. “Let’s go to court, Ms. Kincaid. I’m sure the jury will be made up of people who appreciate my candor in reporting the facts and really don’t care how I get them.”
Molly grinned, showing her dimple. This was Molly’s tell. If that dimple showed up, Molly was holding a winning hand. “Oh, did I forget to mention I also showed them the video of your drunken tirade in which you swear to use any means necessary to—and I quote—‘Fuck with Rainey Bell until the day she dies.’ You really should leave your ex-girlfriends smiling, Cookie. A scorned woman can be very dangerous.”
Molly had withheld that information from Rainey, probably to prevent her from doing something stupid, like punching Cookie in the face. Rainey could not prevent the chuckle from escaping, when she saw Cookie’s mouth hanging open and Molly’s deepening grin. Cookie was more than happy to inform them of the stalker’s name after that.
The judge also warned Cookie to remove all images of Rainey and her family from her webpage and video archives, which Cookie agreed to do. On the way out of the judge’s chambers, Cookie tried to smooth things over.
“I think you should know this guy is not stalking you, Rainey. He’s been stalking Katie since before the Y-Man case. He sends me way more pictures of her and the kids than he does of you. He’s obsessed with her.”
Rainey walked away without commenting. Her mind already racing with the information. As soon as Cookie said his name, Rainey remembered him.
Since Molly had told her chauffer that Rainey was going to give her a ride home, she was now an unhappy passenger on Rainey’s quest.
Rainey retrieved the stalker’s address from the computer in her car, while listening to her attorney rattle off all the reasons she should not go there. Molly made her last attempt to stop her in the stalker’s driveway.
“Not a good idea at all, Rainey, and you’re making me a party to it. When I left the house this morning, I didn’t think it would be the last day of my law career.”
“Stay in the car. I’ll testify that you tried to stop me,” Rainey said, opening her door.
“Suppose this guy has a gun. Katie will never forgive me for letting you go in there unarmed.”
Rainey stuck out her hand. “Then give me yours.”
“I don’t have mine,” Molly said. “We were in the courthouse, remember? They frown on concealed weapons in the judge’s chambers.”
“Okay, well, if you hear shots, call the police. Otherwise, stay put. This won’t take long.” Rainey exited the car and started for the front door. She turned when Molly opened the passenger door. “I told you to stay in the car.”
“I can’t hear the gunshots if I stay in there,” Molly said, just as the front door opened on the house.
The man who stepped out looked like a clean-cut frat-boy. He froze when he saw Rainey.
She smiled at him. “Mike—Mike Hopkins. Bet you never thought you’d see me at your front door.”
Rainey met Mike Hopkins during the investigation into the Dalton Chambers copycat murders. He was taking pictures of Rainey and Katie in the bar, the night Katie slugged Cookie in the parking lot of Feme Sole. Rainey caught him with a phone full of images he was sending to Cookie, and had let him go because he was too timid to be the killer they sought. She left him with a warning to cease taking pictures of her. The warning had evidently not been stern enough. Rainey was at his house now to make sure her next admonition would be the last she needed to deliver.
Mike panicked. He ran back in the house, slamming the door behind him. Rainey was on the move, too. She jumped the two steps onto the porch and kicked the door open, before he had a chance to slide the deadbolt into place.
Just before she stepped inside, Rainey heard Molly say from the driveway, “Well, shit!”
The quiet house was dark and smelled of decay and mothballs. The hair rose on her neck, as a familiar aroma tickled her nose. Air fresheners lined the hall floor and the steps leading upstairs. Maybe Molly was right. It probably was not a good idea to go any further. Something was bad wrong in Mike’s house.
She heard movement at the end of the hall, just as she was about to step back out on the porch and tell Molly to call 911. It was too late for that. Mike Hopkins appeared, holding a long barreled .45-caliber revolver in a trembling hand, trying to aim it at Rainey’s chest.
“Now, Mike,” she said, evaluating her would-be assailant. “That is entirely too much gun for you. The chances of you holding on to it when you fire are very slim, even slimmer than your shaky aim actually hitting me.”
“Get out of my house,” he said. “You have no right to be here.”
“Let’s talk about rights, Mike. I have a right to live my life without fear. That’s impossible to do with you posting pictures of my wife and family on the Internet, pictures taken of my private residence, illegally.”
“I never entered your residence,” Mike offered in his defense.
“No, but your camera lens did, and that is not allowed, Mike. I’ve come to give you fair warning. I’ll make your life miserable, if you continue to harass my family. What will your mother think, Mike? I remember you were concerned about her finding out what you were doing. Where is she? Maybe I should talk to her.”
“She’s in bed upstairs. She’s sick. Don’t bother her,” Mike said, becoming very anxious.
The gun shook violently, forcing him to grip it with both hands. At this point, Rainey was more worried about a wayward bullet striking Molly in the driveway than Mike actually hitting her with one.
“Why don’t you put the gun down, Mike? Let’s just talk about this. I understand that you are infatuated with Katie. She is captivating, I’ll give you that.”
“You don’t deserve her,” Mike said, his agitation growing.