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The mark on Ann’s chest pulsed. Maggie sat back and looked up. Her eyes burned brighter than the light coursing through Ann’s veins.
“How the fu–heck did you do that?” Ann asked.
“I don’t know how it works,” Maggie said with awe in her voice. “I only know what it means.” Her eyes locked on Ann’s. “You are the Protector. My Protector. It’s you—just like I said. Just like the book says.” Her eyes faded back to their usual light-gold color.
“How? Why?” This couldn’t possibly be happening. Shit like this didn’t happen. Ann squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. The light in her veins faded. “How did you know this would happen?” Ann asked. “How do you know it means I’m . . .” she gulped, “the Protector?”
In a voice full of wisdom for such a young girl, Maggie said, “Life breathes light. Light is life.”
A voice not Ann’s own whispered in her head. The same voice from the clearing—what felt like ages ago.
Protect her.
“I can’t believe I’m going to ask this—I can’t believe I’m even considering any of this is real.”
“It is real, Ann.”
“Assuming it is . . . What does it mean to you? Me, being your Protector or whatever.”
“I told you. You have to protect the knowledge,” Maggie said. Her eyes twinkled. “The book.” She pointed at it. “You have to keep it safe and hidden.” She leaned forward and retrieved the tome. “Baba said, if you have the book, if you keep it safe,” she took a shuddery breath, “then I’ll be safe, too.”
Ann lifted the book. It was still warm, though it had been sitting on the coffee table for some time now.
“Safe from whom?” Ann asked. Or what, based on the story Louise had told her. This Yalda-character. Ann rubbed her forehead, smoothing her fingers across her eyebrow.
Maggie opened her mouth, but someone knocked on the front door. They both jumped. Ann got up and peeked through the peep hole.
“Your dad’s here.” She raised an eyebrow at Maggie and then opened the door. Derrick stood on the porch, his eyes wild and hair sprinkled with snow.
“I need your help.” His voice came out rough. “Maggie—she ran off.”
“She’s right here.” Ann stepped aside. Derrick ran to Maggie and pulled her close.
“Daddy, you’re so cold and wet!” she squealed.
“Thank god you’re safe,” he said in a ragged voice. He looked up at Ann. “Where did you find her?”
“Down the street.” Ann omitted the fact his daughter nearly became road kill. He stood, and the relief on his face changed to a scowl.
“Why didn’t you call me?” The accusatory tone took her back to the bickering they did in high school and how he always wanted a phone call to let him know where she was after they parted.
“I left a message.” Ann moved back to the dining room and sat at the table. Derrick deposited Maggie on the couch. Then he sat at the table opposite Ann.
“What happened in here?” Derrick flung a thumb over his shoulder at the mess of DVDs on the floor.
“They were out of order,” she said. “Want a drink?” Without waiting for a response, she retrieved the bottle from the freezer. Sailor Jerry. The Captain Morgan wannabe—albeit stronger. She snagged two glasses from the cabinet and brought everything to the table.
Derrick examined the label. “I took you for a Bacardi girl.”
She glanced into the living room. Maggie had fallen asleep in the nest of blankets on the couch.
Ann set the glasses on the table, and Derrick poured a splash in each.
“Sorry, I don’t have any mixers.” She took a sip and grimaced.
He downed his, coughed, and stuck his tongue out. “I think the last time I drank this stuff was when we sampled my dad’s liquor cabinet back in high school.” He shook his head and groaned. “Capful by capful.”
He poured another and sipped it.
“Didn’t we sneak off to torment Louise afterward?” Ann asked. “All buzzed and full of great ideas.”
“Oh yeah. We were not nice kids.” Derrick smiled behind his glass. “Totally going to hell.”
They reminisced on old high school memories for a while, sticking mainly to stories about Derrick’s dumb friends and the shit they got into, while skirting around any talk of who they were back then. They finished half the bottle in the process.
Maggie shifted position on the couch.
“She’s an interesting kid.” Ann nodded toward the girl and took a long pull of rum. The slight buzz was slowly working its way to full-force drunk.
“She’s a sweetheart. I couldn’t have asked for an easier kid.” His voice left something unsaid.
“But . . .”
“Teresa’s having a hard time adjusting.” He lifted his glass but set it down without drinking. “We had a baby.” He met Ann’s eyes. “She died seven years ago.” He drank.
“I’m so sorry.” Ann usually sucked at sympathy, but the rum helped. “How?”
“One of her stuffed animals—this obnoxiously giant bear Teresa had as a kid—fell on top of her, and when she tried to struggle out from under it, she ended up pressed against the crib . . .” his voice broke, and he took a deep breath, “. . . bumper. She suffocated.” He tossed back the rest of his rum. “We tried again, and nothing came of it. Turns out our baby was a miracle. Teresa is infertile. This may be TMI, but, her cervical mucus has a low pH. The acidity makes for a hostile environment.” He sighed. “Then she had cysts on her ovaries and had to have one of them removed before it ruptured. The other one was so malformed—they said she would never get pregnant.”
“So you decided to adopt?”
“Yeah.” He looked thoughtful for a second. “Actually, oddly enough, your dad put the idea in my head.”
“My dad?” Ann sat up straighter.
“Yeah. Huh, I just remembered that.” He looked thoughtful for a second. “We had dinner together a couple times after you left. Misery loves company and all.” He looked down at his glass. “I saw him around town a few times. Then nothing. I thought he moved away, too.” He shook his head. “Anyway, a few years after our baby died, he called me. I think to check up on me. I’m sure Sheriff McMichael kept him in the loop about what was happening around here.”
Ann patiently waited for Derrick to get to the point, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “When was the last time you saw him?”
He looked at her. “A year, year and a half ago? We met for drinks. I told him everything. How Teresa was in bad shape. He mentioned adopting. How it might help her heal.” Derrick’s lips moved into a tight mirthless smile. “I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with her, so I just decided that’s what we’d do. I didn’t give her a choice. She was a wreck.” He huffed out a mirthless laugh. “She’s still a wreck. It’s been seven years. Maggie joined us three months ago. Nothing’s changed. Teresa still hasn’t come back to work. She just broods.” His voice had taken on a disgusted tone. “Things aren’t good. She’s . . . not right.” He frowned and shook his head.
“Wait . . . How did you adopt a kid if Teresa isn’t right? Don’t they do, like, home studies or something to make sure the environment is friendly? Don’t they conduct interviews and do background checks?”
Derrick shrugged. “Somehow we passed. The advocate, who we never even spoke to, signed off on all the home study and family assessment paperwork.” He shrugged. The signed form from the Angel’s hideout came to mind. “Also, I think Teresa knew I really wanted this, so she was always on her best behavior.”
“Sounds like she isn’t as bad as you make her out to be,” Ann said. She took a swig.
Derrick made a face.
“She had all of our baby’s furniture in the basement, arranged like a nursery. She sat down there doing god knows what.” He looked at Ann. “I got rid of it this morning.” There was some sick pleasure in his smile, like taking something like that away from Teresa made him happy.
“Derrick, Derrick, Derrick.” She let out a groan. “You can’t do that to her. You’re fucking with her grieving process.”
His voice took on a defensive tone. “Maybe, but she didn’t say anything about it.” He shrugged and changed the subject. “She accused me of having an affair. She saw you and me at lunch together.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ann said. Derrick frowned, and she wondered if he wished it were true.
“I told her I was catching up with a friend, but she also knew about us—that we were together back in high school.”
“Fuuuuhhh,” Ann said under her breath.
“Don’t worry,” Derrick said. “I smoothed things over.”
Because you’re so good at that.
Derrick glanced over his shoulder toward Maggie’s sleeping form. When he turned back to Ann, his eyes were sad.
Uh-oh.
When he spoke again, his voice was soft as if he were only thinking out loud. “This reminds me of when we were together,” he said. “Us, talking like this, hanging out.”
“Except, usually we’d be on the couch with your hand up my shirt.” She laughed and took a drink.
“Why did you leave?”
Ann almost spit her rum out. “You know why.” She wiped her mouth.
He shook his head. “I really don’t.” He lifted his eyes from his empty glass to her face but failed to make eye contact.
“I felt trapped.” Ann slouched back and let out a long breath. “Everyone had this life planned out for me and never really considered what I actually wanted.”
“I thought I was what you wanted.” His voice had softened, lowered.
She leaned forward. “You were.” Might as well put it all out on the table. “But, junior and senior year, you were a little controlling.” She winced.
“Controlling?” he said with disbelief. “I was not.”
Ann reminded him of the phone calls.
“I didn’t want to worry about you.” Then she reminded him of the other things. The time or two he told her not to hang out with certain friends of hers, his constant decision-making on her behalf. How he pouted when she didn’t want to hang out with him every second of every day. How he made it a point to always touch her in some way in public, as if to show everyone she belonged to him. How he tried desperately to persuade her to stay in Harmony to follow her dad’s plan for her and become the sheriff.
“I didn’t want to be a sheriff. What I wanted, I couldn’t have if I stayed here. I wanted to solve cases and lock away really bad people. Not just the town drunks.”
“Okay, okay. Point made.” Derrick twisted his glass on the table. He lifted it and attempted to drain a few nonexistent drops into his mouth. “I know you didn’t want to be the sheriff. Remember? Magnum PI?” He smiled. “Though, come to think of it, he was a private investigator.”
She let out a soft laugh and shrugged. “We both had our plans, Derrick. You wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a detective.”
“I know.” He sat back. A few seconds of silence settled over them. Derrick sighed, and in a voice almost a whisper said, “I would have waited for you.” He met her eyes, leaned forward, and jabbed his finger into the tabletop. He spoke through his teeth. “I would have come to you in Denver or wherever it was you went. I would have done whatever it took to be with you.” His voice softened again. “I would have waited for you—if I knew you were coming back.”
“I wasn’t planning on coming back,” she said. “There’s nothing here for me.” Especially now that her dad was gone. She shrugged. “There’s nothing for me in Salida, either. I had nowhere else to go.” She rambled on.
Damn you, Sailor Jerry!
“You’re a hero, though,” he said, as if that made any sense after what she’d just told him. “You saved the children of Salida from a terrible man. You made the town safer.”
She glared, shook her head, and pointed at him. “Don’t you start that. I’m no hero, Derrick. I’m a failure. I’m here to—I don’t know—figure shit out, I guess. Get my shit together.” She leaned her head against the chair back and closed her eyes. The room spun.
Derrick was quiet for a minute, looking at her, probably trying to figure her out. No. That’s what she would be doing if the situation were switched. Can’t take the detective out of the detective.
“I think we better head home,” he said.
Ann rolled her head back and forth along the back of the chair. Without looking at him she said, “It’s snowing. You’re drunk. I’m drunk. Maggie’s sleeping. I have two spare rooms upstairs.”
“Are you asking me to spend the night?”
Ann snapped her head up. “I’m asking you not to risk your life out there.” She got up and snatched the bottle from the table. After two tries to twist the cap back on, she jammed it on and set the bottle on the counter. She went to the master and shut the door a little harder than she meant.
Derrick had been in her dad’s house before. He knew where her old bedroom was at least. A tear sneaked from her eye and she brushed it away.
Why are you crying?
Ann flopped backward onto the mattress. She examined her palm, breathed on it like Maggie had, but nothing happened. How did Maggie do that? What did it mean, Protector of the Knowledge? What knowledge?
The book, dumbass.
She already had the answers—sort of.
The front door shut. Hopefully Derrick had the mind to at least wrap Maggie in a blanket or two. Ann went into the living room, but the mess in there turned her back around. She sat on the edge of the bed.
Something in her pocket poked her in the hip. She dug out the small key she had found taped in her father’s journal. She’d forgotten about it after yesterday’s talk with Loony Lou, lunch with two-thirds of the Hart family, and today’s chat with Raghib.
Tomorrow, she would hopefully get some answers.