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NATALIE PHONED me from the women’s shelter the next morning. Cissie had had an especially rough night and clearly needed more time to heal. “I think I’ve talked her into staying a little longer, but she needs a few more things from home, one thing in particular. Any chance you can drop them off?”
I said, “Of course!” and Natalie recited a list.
As soon as we hung up, I realized why my gut felt clenched. Invading Ronald territory was not a good idea. Especially not alone.
Eric answered my call with a hangover groan. Yesterday hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park for him either.
I explained my assignment, adding, “If you’re willing, a little backup would be greatly appreciated.”
Eric took a moment to rub his whiskers and clear his throat.
I couldn’t fault him for stalling. If the neighborhood spy alerted Ronald someone was in his home and Ronald happened to be working nearby...
“Yeah, sure. What the hell,” Eric agreed anyway.
We would simply have to get the job done before anything awful could happen.
“Aspirin?” I suggested to see if I was right about the hangover.
“Oh yeah.”
***
WHEN I ARRIVED at Chelsea’s forty minutes later, my daughter was emptying the dishwasher. Sipping black coffee at the kitchen counter, Eric flinched when two pots she was putting away clanked.
“Sorry,” Chelsea told him.
“De nada, Coach.”
To complement his stage-fright therapy, Will Miller had advised the singer to secure a voice coach. "No point in being mentally ready if your instrument isn't tuned!" was how he put it. Already invested in Eric’s success, Chelsea was also convenient, and affordable. She made certain of it. Seeing the two of them interact so comfortably confirmed that the arrangement was working out well.
Yet I fell silent and clenched my teeth anyway. Exactly why I could not say. Nobody could prove Eric had done anything wrong, but I still felt uneasy around him.
So the problem was probably me. Now and then I tend to be overly suspicious. And maybe I haven’t quite shed my lioness instincts when it comes to my cubs. Logic insisted that Eric had no earthly reason to shove either Chelsea or me down a flight of stairs, and I was a logical person. Right? Up to me to give him the benefit of a doubt.
“Shall we go?” he suggested, resting his empty mug on the counter.
“Why not?”
The most inconspicuous route to the Voight’s backdoor was a gap in the hedge. After we squeezed through, I retrieved the key I’d been told was on a nail inside the gardening shed while Eric surveyed our surroundings.
He halted just inside the kitchen door. “What’s that smell?”
I hadn’t noticed anything different from the day before, but now that he mentioned it...I lifted the lid of the trash can at the end of the counter.
“Roses.” About a dozen battered red ones mingled with the kitchen garbage. Also, a nearly empty Gordons gin bottle sat on the table where it hadn’t been before.
Eric had moved on. “What’re we looking for?” he wondered as he regarded the mess.
“Diapers, breast pump, stuff like that.” I didn’t mention the special item. Don’t know why.
“Sorry I asked.”
He held one of the trash bags I’d brought along as I gathered a fuzzy blue elephant from the Pack N Play, a couple of light baby blankets, pacifiers, Cissie’s phone charger. The living room had been righted somewhat—the glass swept off the floor, the lamps set out of the way—yet the broken coffee table remained, and the stuffed chair and other items were still displaced enough to give the room a disturbing vibe. When I mentioned that most of what I needed was upstairs,” Eric said, “Thank goodness.”
Heated by the summer sun, Baby Caroline’s room was thick with odors, stale air, used diapers, the cloying fragrance of lotion. I ransacked the dresser we’d brought up from the basement with the haste of a thief.
Eric rocked on his heels and overlooked the street. “The spy left,” he remarked with a lift of his eyebrow.
“Do you think he saw us?”
A resigned shrug. “Dunno. His wife went, too.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t warn Ronald.”
Another careless shrug. “So speed it up.”
I collected an envelope Cissie had hidden under the diaper pail, the primary reason I was here rather than at Kmart buying inexpensive replacements for whatever Cissie needed. Along with a small stash of cash, the envelope contained Cissie’s mother’s diamond engagement ring, which Natalie agreed Cissie would never see again if Ronald was clever enough to find it. I surmised that it represented her only keepsake and perhaps her only financial asset, too.
I tucked the envelope inside my waistband under my shirt.
Next, clothes for Cissie.
Her side of the joint closet was surprisingly sparse, making me wonder whether Ronald's control over his wife included a bare-minimum budget. Disliking the man more and more, I grabbed shorts and t-shirts as fast as my hands allowed and tossed them to my accomplice.
Eric reverently placed each item in the second bag. If Ronald was on his way, Eric didn’t seem to care. Indeed, he seemed consumed by enough dark thoughts to fill a cave.
As we hustled back through the hedge and approached my car, naturally, my inquisitive nature forced me to ask, “So. How's it going?"
Eric stopped short. "What do you mean ‘it?’"
I tilted my head. Breathed. "Oh, just everything in general."
Eric dropped the bags into the trunk. "Like am I depressed about my grandmother? Or how do I like going to a shrink?"
I fixed him with a stare. "Just trying to break the tension. If I'm getting too personal, why not say, 'Everything's fine,' like everybody else."
"Everything's fine," he snapped, stepping into my space. "My grandmother's still dead; and Cissie, the sweetest woman I ever met, has bruises all over and three broken ribs from that sonovabitch she married. I can't find a job doing jack shit; and you and your daughter want me to sing, for God's sake. So, yes, everything's fine. Thanks for asking."
Eric slammed the trunk shut. Then he surprised me. “You know what he calls her at work, don’t you?”
“No.”
“The Blonde Bitch.”
“That’s...that’s...How did she find out?”
“Company party. Somebody’s wife pulled her aside and told her. Cissie said she’d been having a really good time up until then.”
Waving his head, Eric set off across Chelsea’s front yard toward home, and I just managed to thank him before I would have had to shout it for all the block to hear. He was still shaking his head when he disappeared inside.
I went in to say a quick good-bye to my daughter. Best to leave before the spy came home and saw it again. Ronald would connect my car with Cissie’s missing clothes in a heartbeat.
Chelsea seemed to have something to say, but when I asked, “What?” a little too abruptly, she waved me off.
We hugged good-bye, but then she told me to wait a second and ducked back into the kitchen.
When she returned, she handed me a brown lunch bag. “Here. Eric left this for you.”
Inside were the mysteries I’d bought for Maisie.
“Thanks.”
Chelsea still seemed preoccupied, so I asked again, “Anything else?”
“No. Never mind. Go!”
I went.