Chapter Thirteen --

 

At half past five, Doc drove Daisy home to get ready for her dinner with Mimi. He returned in time to carry the lacy cake into the walk-in refrigerator. All that was left to do was add the flower sprays and bees. We would do that first thing in the morning. And then we would make the ten-minute drive to the reception site, where we would deliver the decorated cake to the display table, for all the guests to ooh and aah.

At six, I locked up the shop and hopped into Doc’s waiting van at the curb. Just up the street, we stopped at Alforno Trattoria. The host seated us at a small table with bentwood chairs. The usual Friday crowd was chowing down on pizza and pasta. Doc and I took our time deciding what to have. Our server brought us a bottle of pinot grigio. We ordered calamari, lightly fried and served with aioli and tomato sauce, to share as a starter. I loved Doc’s way of digging in and enjoying every morsel. He kept urging me to eat, even as he stuck his fork in another tender piece. I ordered the pasta with littleneck clams in white sauce while Doc had the flounder Livornese. While we waited for our dishes to arrive, we had the house salads, served up with warm artisan bread. We talked about Italian food and wine, the Uffizi Gallery, Pompeii, and even the best ways to enjoy Italy on a budget. Doc had spent time on the Amalfi Coast as well as in Venice and Naples, and he regaled me with the highlights of his travels. I shared my opinions on the techniques of baking rustic breads and how I had always wanted to go to Lake Como. By the time we got around to dessert, Doc suggested we split a flourless chocolate ganache torte. I took a few nibbles in between sips of coffee, savoring the deep, dark chocolate on my tongue. We were just finishing up when my cell phone rang.

“It’s Carole,” I told Doc. “I hate to do this, but in case there’s an emergency, I should answer it.”

“Not a problem,” he reassured me.

“Carole, what’s up?” Before my words were out of my mouth, she started talking.

“Cady, Doug called me. He wanted to talk. You’re not going to believe this. He took the triplets and moved out of the house.”

“What? When?”

“Tonight. He said he was finished with Mimi. He caught her with another guy last week. They were making it in a car at the Metro station just outside Bowie. Cady, he was crying, saying that he totally screwed things up. He wants to move back to Connecticut with the babies.”

“This is very, very important,” I said as calmly as I could. “Does Mimi know that he’s moved out?”

“Yes. He said he called her this afternoon to tell her. She was really mad, but he said it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to put up with any more of her nonsense. Do you believe it -- she didn’t tell him she was coming to Old Saybrook to see Daisy.”

“Hold on,” I told her, muting the phone, so I could share the news with Doc. When I got done, he instructed me to find out where Mimi and Daisy were having dinner.

“I don’t know,” Carole admitted. “Daisy said she’d leave her phone on, in case I needed her. Does that help?”

“Did she say what time Mimi was bringing her back?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s interesting about Doug, I’ll give you that. What do you think you’ll do?”

“Honestly, Cady? I don’t have a clue. I don’t know how I feel at the moment.”

“That’s a healthy reaction. All the more reason to take a little time and think things through. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.” Even as Carole signed off, Doc’s phone rang.

“Yeah?” His face went dark as he listened to his caller. “Right. Right. It has to be tonight? Well, I’m in the middle of something. That’s a change in plan. No, that’ll cost you another ten grand.”

Our server brought the check, dropping it off with a smile and a nod, while Doug was on the phone. As I reached for the folio, he slapped my hand away, wagging his finger at me as he frowned. Then he went back to his caller.

“Hey, you don’t want to pay? No problem. Find somebody else to do it. Your choice. No, no. That’s my fee. Take it or leave it. Non-negotiable.” With that, he hung up. A moment later, the phone buzzed again. “What? Is that right? You have the cash tonight or the deal is off.”

Doc hung up again, looked over the bill, pulled out a credit card, and signaled our server. Before she had managed to cross the dining room to retrieve it, Doc’s phone rang again.

“Now what?” he growled. “Fine. Where are you right now? Because I want to know. If I have to set this up for tonight, I want the advantage. Where is that? Okay, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

After he hung up, he shook his head. “That woman is horrible. I’m supposed to kill Daisy tonight.”

Six minutes later, Doc dropped me off with instructions to stay with Carole and Dylan until he got back. He waited until the door of the Walchuk condo opened and I was safely inside. He wouldn’t explain why he wanted me there, but I could tell it was important to him. I didn’t argue. I just watched him drive away with a little prayer that it would all go according to plan. I wanted Doc to bring Daisy home in one piece.

Dylan wanted to play crazy eights, so we sat around the kitchen table, flipping cards down, getting silly as the game progressed. Carole seemed relatively calm, considering her ex-husband had thrown her for a loop with his news. Each time he won, Dylan did his victory dance around the table, waving his arms and legs, making his mother and me chuckle. Carole settled for an over-the-head, arms-raised, cheer each time she threw down the winning card. I kept my celebratory movements low-key, given my sore shoulder, but I managed to hoot, for Dylan’s benefit.

By nine o’clock, I was starting to get worried. Carole got Dylan off to bed and then suggested we move ourselves to the sofa, to watch a little TV. I noticed her eyes straying to the mantel clock as the minutes ticked on.

“I hope they’ll be home at a reasonable hour,” she said to me. “Daisy’s looking forward to that wedding tomorrow. I don’t want her to be too tired to do a good job.”

“I’m sure they won’t be too much longer,” I offered. I was wrong. By ten, Carole was nervous. She tried Daisy’s cell phone three times. It kept going to voicemail.

“Maybe there’s been an accident. Should we call the hospital?”

“No, let’s give them a little more time. Another fifteen minutes.” The minutes seemed to crawl by, and when there were just three to go, my cell phone went bing. It was a text from Doc. I glanced down at it.

Doug called Mimi. Said FBI called him -- children & ex-wife in danger. Warned her not do anything foolish. Took off with Daisy. Still trying to locate them. Don’t tell Carole.

I didn’t do a very good job of keeping a poker face. Carole knew something was wrong, so I tried to distract her.

“Doc. We had a little tiff earlier. He’s mad at me.” I threw in some of the lines from my very real fight with Doc about the date, figuring I could use the afternoon’s drama to keep Carole from thinking about her missing daughter. She tried to give me advice about Doc, telling me to give him a chance. I let her talk me into going out on a date with him. When I got done playing my part, I got up to use the powder room.

The doorbell rang while I was washing my hands. I couldn’t hear who was at the door because of the overhead fan, so I sacrificed light for the opportunity to listen to the conversation just outside the door. I was hoping it was Doc and Daisy, but it didn’t sound like it. Carole’s voice had an edge to it. And then I could hear panic mixed in with the anger.

“What are you going to do to us?” Those were ominous words. In the dark, I stood frozen. Mimi had brought Daisy home at gunpoint.

My fingers fumbled on the phone as I dialed Doc. I didn’t trust myself to text him. I needed to hear his voice.

“They’re here,” I whispered. “What do I do? She has a gun!”

“I’ll call the local police. You stay where you are.”

I could hear Mimi in the living room. She was forcing Daisy to duct tape Carole’s hands and feet. The teenager was sobbing, begging her mother to forgive her. Carole was almost eerily calm. As Mimi’s voice rose in pitch and volume, Carole’s grew softer.

“Don’t worry, Daisy. I know it’s not your fault. You’re a good daughter.”

“I don’t want to die,” sobbed the terrified teenager. “Please!”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” the frazzled stepmother screamed.

Once Carole was restrained, Mimi wanted Daisy to do the same thing to her little brother, and that meant going upstairs to retrieve the sleeping boy. This was too much for a girl on the verge of womanhood. Daisy begged her stepmother not to hurt the family. Mimi ignored the pleas.

“Hurry up!” she shouted. “Get the little brat now or I’ll shoot you in the knees. You won’t die right away. The pain will be excruciating.”

Why go to the trouble of taping their arms and legs together? Why wake up a second-grader from his pleasant dreams and force him downstairs, where he would know only the sheer terror as he faced his death? Why force Daisy to do her dirty work? Power. Revenge. Mimi had come to Old Saybrook, first to eliminate Doug’s daughter, and then, when the plan imploded in her face, to extract revenge on the innocent for ruining it for her. She wanted her victims to feel helpless as she killed them, one by one. Doug would have to live with the horror of knowing his family was murdered because he made Mimi mad.

I heard them go up the stairs, Daisy wailing as she went, Mimi screaming at her to be quiet. I could even hear them moving around as Daisy woke her little brother up. Taking advantage of the moment, I ran to the front door, my hands fumbling with the knob. A patrol car was just arriving. I stumbled out to meet the cops, leaving the door open as I fled.

“Wait in the car!” commanded one cop over his shoulder, passing me. Three cops made their way up to the front door cautiously. I was too scared to get in the car. I hovered behind it, watching, listening, praying. I could see the police moving silently, carefully into the condo. Slipping inside, they scattered. One went into the powder room. One ducked into the kitchen. The third disappeared in the direction of the living room.

Still upstairs, the sounds of Daisy sobbing cut through the night.

“No, please!” she cried. “I’ll carry him! Don’t hurt him!””

A moment later, I saw feet on the stairs. The teenager appeared with her younger brother enfolded in her arms.

“What the hell?” Mimi came down the stairs behind her, her gun in Daisy’s back. “Why is that door open?”

Reassured that Carole was still on the sofa and still restrained, Mimi dragged Dylan and Daisy into the front hall at gunpoint, so she could close the door. The last thing she expected was three cops pointing their weapons at the back of her head, especially when Dylan and Daisy, forewarned, dropped straight to the floor, leaving Mimi without her hostages.

“Hands up!” bellowed one cop.

“Show me your hands!” screamed another.

I watched it all through the open doorway as I leaned against the patrol car, my knees weak, my heart pounding. The night exploded in a kaleidoscope of blue and red flashing lights as more police cars pulled up and cops rushed the house. The look of surprise on Mimi’s face was frozen in place, like some twisted death mask. With a howl of anguish, Mimi complied as uniformed officers moved in on her. The stepmother from hell gave up the fight. Just in time, too. As the local cops were cuffing her, a cavalcade of federal law enforcement vehicles converged on the condo complex. Agents poured out of their vehicles en masse. The next thing we knew, the Walchuk home was crowded with law enforcement people. For more than an hour, they came and went. Even the press showed up, wanting to interview Carole and Daisy, who declined. I was positioned at the front door as gatekeeper. When Doc arrived, he grabbed me and held me tight.

“I’m glad you’re okay, babe,” he whispered in my ear.

“Is it finally over?” I wondered. It still seemed unreal.

Doc made his way through the law enforcement gauntlet surrounding the family and gave Daisy a big bear hug, telling her it was all going to be okay. The tearful teenager clung to him, as if she were a drowning swimmer washing up on the rocks. When she finally let go, Doc made his way over to the remaining Walchuks as they sat on the sofa. Mussing up Dylan’s hair with a friendly hand as the boy clung to his mother, Doc greeted Carole.

“You okay?”

“I think so. It’s been a hell of a night.”

“It has,” he agreed. “It can only get better from this point on.”

“I hope you’re right, Doc.” She gave him a weak little smile, pulling her children closer.

Doug showed up, babies in tow, forty minutes later. He seemed stunned, not only because his current wife was under arrest for attempted murder, but because he nearly lost his ex-wife and children. He was a man out of his depth, overwhelmed by his bad choices and dumb decisions. One of these days, his selfish impulses were going to be called into account, but at the moment, he had his arms around Carole and he was profusely apologizing. Doc and I had taken the babies from him, so he could embrace his first family. Doc settled himself into the big recliner, a baby in each arm. The little creature wiggling in my embrace gurgled happily, feet kicking, as I leaned against the arm of the chair. It was a relief to know Mimi was in custody. Everyone was safe.

By one o’clock, Doc had helped Doug set up a playpen on the floor of my spare bedroom, where one of the babies would sleep next to the experienced medic. A second baby would sleep in a pop-up travel crib. The third would sleep in another travel crib in my bedroom, with me as babysitter. We child-proofed the rooms quickly, making sure there were no hazards. Once Doug was certain the babies were safe, he was in a hurry to get back to Carole, Daisy and Dylan. Doc and I had all three babies in my bedroom as we got them ready for bed.

“That man’s made a real mess of his life,” Doc commented, as he changed the third diaper, and then swaddled the youngster in a set of footed cotton pajamas. “He won’t be digging himself out of that hole any time soon.”