could peel her panties off.
“Douche bag,” Moni mumbled as she smiled for Mariella, who remained inside the car.
She welcomed the girl into the front seat with her. Moni put her arm around Mariella, who nestled her little head against her shoulder. As she stroked her bandaged fingers through the girl’s silky hair, Moni lamented how close she had come to harm.
Even though she couldn’t catch the man stalking them on that night, at least she had protected the most important thing in the world, Moni thought. She wished Skillings hadn’t gotten hurt in the process, but now she couldn’t tell anyone about the drawing of the burning man. When the other officers weren’t looking, Moni had fished the picture out of the wrecked car and pocketed it.
What am I thinking? It’s not a good thing that Nina got hurt. It’s a horrible thing.
As she drove home with Mariella on her arm, Moni knew she should feel terrible. She didn’t.
Chapter 26
Moni laid Mariella in her bed and shut the door. The girl didn’t look sleepy after getting woken up by a little car chase. Still, Moni figured Mariella needed all the rest she could get before another trying day at school.
She should have hit the sack too, but Moni’s rush of adrenaline wouldn’t settle down. She replayed every swerve and bump of the chase in her mind. If she had clipped him harder on that first hit, he would have spun out. Or if she had listened to Skillings and boxed him in, they might have slowed him and help would have arrived before he reached the lagoon. He would be behind bars right now and not out there as a threat that could spring at Mariella from any direction. Moni’s hands trembled as if they still held the wheel that guided an engine blasting over the asphalt.
She grabbed her wrist and steadied it. Moni opened the refrigerator door and gazed inside for a few long moments. She felt like cramming everything on the shelves down her pie hole. Instead, she settled on frying up a couple of eggs for some late night breakfast.
Moni sat down with her plate and grabbed the remote control. She couldn’t turn on the TV. She feared that the first thing she’d see would be a newscast of the crash scene. The cameras must have caught Sneed chewing her out. That’s why Darren had called hoping he could take advantage of her, Moni thought. He always waited for her to throw herself into his arms for refuge any time something went wrong in her life. Not this time.
Moni called up Aaron. She hoped he slept near his phone. He answered on the fifth ring with a groggy voice. “Hello?”
“What do you mean, ‘Hello?’ Don’t you know it’s me on the caller ID?”
“Moni? Aw, I’m sorry. My eyes are still adjusting. Is it morning already?”
“Well technically, yes. It’s four in the morning.”
“Oh shit. What happened?” He suddenly sounded more alert. “Are you okay? What about Mariella?”
She told him everything about the chase, save for the drawing of the burning man, and the strange feeling in her head when she approached the lagoon. She couldn’t even remember how it felt anymore. It seemed like a fleeting dream. Aaron asked her whether she knew for sure that Harry Trainer had been in that pickup. She told him that she didn’t get a clear look at his face, but the vehicle had Trainer’s license plate. He accepted the evidence. She knew his professor would seek another explanation, just as he would if they had caught the Lagoon Watcher with a machete in one hand and a severed head in the other.
When Aaron learned about Skillings’ serious injuries, he stopped asking anxious questions about the pursuit. He went silent. This time, someone he knew had gotten hurt. Moni recalled the first time she learned that police work was no rumpus adventure. She had stood over the flag-draped coffin of a 24-year veteran and then watched his sobbing wife and kids receive the flag. Luckily, they wouldn’t need that for Skillings now, but Moni knew either one of them could have been body-bagged after that chase. The pelican might have struck the wrong car.
With the Lagoon Watcher still lurking in the dark, body bags with the names Moni and Mariella on them might yet get filled with their cold, stiff contents.
“Will you come by again after I pick Mariella up from school?” Moni asked.
“Sure. Why don’t I come in the morning and meet you after you drop her off? You sound a little shaken up. Maybe you should call in sick.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t you have class in the morning?”
“I have lab with Dr. Swartzman. I can blow it off.”
“Hold on there, slacker. Don’t make me bring you in for cutting class,” she said playfully. It didn’t escape her that if he came by after she dropped the girl off, they would be in her house alone. That playa better check himself. “But for real, there’s a ton of evidence you and your professor need to go over. I’m sure the pelican that attacked Nina was infected, but you better make sure. And there’s more stuff from the marina explosion, so, put your work in and then come by.”
“Alright.” He sounded bummed that he didn’t have an out from his studies. “But this time, I’m stopping for pizza first. And with extra pepperoni.”
“Okay, I can live with that. I’ll see you… tonight.” She ended the conversation with a smile-a total 180 from where she began it.
Moni kept Mariella under her watchful eye that afternoon. The girl tried going outside to the back porch, but she wouldn’t let her anywhere near the water. She felt a chill every time the girl walked by the rear sliding glass door. She still hasn’t replaced the screen that the infected snake had destroyed.
She had Mariella sit on the coach, where she breezed through her math homework in a few minutes.
“Good job, baby.” Moni smiled warmly. “Every time I finished my homework, my momma used to give me a Popsicle. Would you like one?”
The girl nodded eagerly. Moni took one each of the four flavors out of the freezer and let her choose. To her relief, Mariella picked strawberry and not grape. Not that it would have meant anything if the girl had showed a tendency for purple since she has nothing wrong with her, Moni thought. Tropic the cat stretched with his back arched and placed his front paws on Mariella’s lap as he begged for a lick of the treat. A cat can avoid its owners all day, and then it sees them eating and all of a sudden it’s their best friend. The girl extended a gooey red finger for the purring feline.
Just then, the doorbell rang. Tropic bolted to Moni’s bedroom before he scored a taste.
“Save some room. That must be our friend, Aaron, with the pizza,” Moni said. The girl didn’t seem all that thrilled, but at least she didn’t run away like Tropic.
Keeping her eyes on the sliding door, Moni undid the chain and swung open the front door. “I’m glad you could…” When she saw those deceptively charming brown eyes and that dimpled chin, she nearly swallowed her tongue.
“Make it? Well I sure am too,” said Bo Williams. Inviting himself in, Moni’s father stepped through the doorway before she could regain her faculties, and slam it in his face. He spun around and guided the door firmly closed. “You’re looking mighty fine for someone who’s been in a car wreck.”
She shrank from his gaze and avoided meeting his eyes. “I got cut up a bit pulling the other officer out.” Moni held up her bandaged hand in the hope that he wouldn’t beat on an injured woman. Her memories of her bruised mother’s pleas for mercy told her that it wouldn’t make one bit of difference. When her mother had blocked the entrance to Moni’s room, he had shoved her. Moni remembered hearing her mother’s head thud against the wall and then her mother’s soft sobs as her father penetrated her room. Then he came to her closet.
“I saw you bleed’n on TV and figured I oughta come over and make sure you’re okay.” Her father’s bushy eyebrows arched into his crinkly forehead in an expression of sincerity fit for a vulture.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” She started backing toward the couch so she could shield Mariella from the man who had left a scar on her life; Mariella had enough lasting wounds.
“I see you’ve got company.” His eyes shifted toward Mariella. He strolled toward her. Even at 51, Bo Williams had retained much of his burly frame from his days as a linebacker. His skin had gotten as wrinkled as an old leather sofa, but he still had sturdy muscles under there. The man walked with a slight limp from a sore hip. Too bad Moni couldn’t outrun him with her back against the wall-a position he always caught her in.
