Love Mercy Part 8

She stared at the ten digits for a long five minutes before she screwed up the courage to dial them. On the third ring, a woman answered.

"Karla Rae?" Love asked.

"No, this is her friend, Ann. May I tell her who's calling?"

She swallowed and said, "This is her mother-in-law, Love Johnson. In California."

"Is Rett there?" Ann said, her voice excited.

"Yes, she is. She's-" But before Love could finish her sentence, she heard the phone drop.

Ann's voice yelled, "Karla! It's your mother-in-law." Then Ann came back on the line and asked, "Which one, ma'am?"

For pity's sake, Love thought, how many has she had? "I was the first." She heard her own voice turn to steel. "I am Rett's real grandmother."

"No, not Roy's mom," Ann called to a voice in the background. "Not Pete's either. Honey, it's your first husband's mama."

Love gritted her back teeth at the woman's words.

Seconds later, a husky, familiar voice came on the line.

"What have you done with my daughter?" Karla Rae demanded.

TEN.

Mel We're the original Irish cliche," Sean O'Reilly told Mel on their first date, a pastrami sandwich at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino. He was the last-born of a large Irish Catholic family that went back a hundred years in Boston. "My blessed mother spends all her time saying rosaries for her wayward sons and daughters, though most of us are pretty much on the up-and-up."

He'd held up his fingers and counted off his siblings. "In birth order, Patrick is a police sergeant, Kathleen is a housewife and married to a police captain, Michael sells insurance, Moira is a singing nun, Brian is a fireman, Kelly Marie is a teacher, Timothy is an accountant, Mary Margaret is a parole officer-something every Irish family needs-and then there's me, the black sheep of the family."

"You have a sister who is a singing nun?" Mel asked, thinking that perhaps Sean wouldn't find her parents so odd after all.

He gave his wonderful, deep laugh, a sound that filled her with a crazy desire that she'd never known existed until she met him. "Well, she's a nun and she does occasionally sing. She gets annoyed when I call her that, but I told her that I had to do something to punch up her image. Being a plain old nun is just too boring."

She'd stared at him, fascinated by a life she couldn't even imagine. A household filled with people who looked like you, who shared your life from the time you were born, people who would understand when one of your parents did something weird or exasperating. She'd seen it before with people she'd worked with, kids she'd known in school; they could just look at their siblings and with a flicker of an eye, communicate everything that needed to be said. She'd always longed for that kind of bond.

"You became a cop, just like your dad and Patrick," she said. "Why are you the black sheep?"

The irony of her question haunted her to this day. Was he taking bribes even when she asked that innocent question?

He laughed. "I left Boston and moved to Sin City."

The memories tumbled back as she dialed the number Sean's brother left on her answering machine.

"O'Reilly," he answered in a voice that was an older, more gravelly version of Sean's.

"h.e.l.lo, Patrick," she said, forcing her voice to be calm. "This is Melina LeBlanc."

"It's about time you called."

"I'm sorry to hear about your mother," she answered, ignoring his tone. How had he found her? She answered herself in a flash. He was a cop. Of course he could find her.

"Yeah, yeah, well, she's up in heaven or wherever probably still saying her rosaries for us sinners down here. We have to talk."

"Was it her heart?" Sean had told her his mother had heart problems. Mel felt a perverse need to force Patrick to tell her the details. It wasn't so much that she cared. She'd only met Sean's mother once, at his funeral. She shook the sobbing woman's hand and gave her condolences without his mother even realizing that Mel was not only her son's lover but also part of his downfall. Patrick bustled his mother away, shooting Mel a hard look. Only Patrick knew about Mel and, apparently, had not told anyone else in his family. No doubt one of Sean's so-called friends on the force had informed Patrick about her. When Internal Affairs came to her and asked if she had ever seen anything unusual with Sean, she didn't lie and told them about the money she'd found in the pantry. And that was that. With one statement, she ended her career as a cop. No one would ever really trust her again. Though she was cleared of being involved with his kickbacks, IA would always look at her with suspicion, and her fellow officers would always see her as someone they couldn't trust.

"What do you care how she died?" Patrick snapped.

The details of Mrs. O'Reilly's death didn't actually matter to Mel, but she was avoiding what she knew Patrick wanted to discuss. She'd dodged it for almost three years, hoping the words he'd said at Sean's funeral were just the ranting of a grieving brother. "I was just being polite."

"It was a heart attack. She was always saying that we'd give her one, and I guess we finally did."

"I'm sorry."

"She didn't suffer," he said bluntly. "One pain and she was gone. Truth was, she was never the same after Sean died."

Neither was I, she thought.

"She's gone now, so like I promised at Sean's funeral, I'm going to pursue this now. Where's the rest of the money?"

She took a deep breath before answering. "Like I told you then, I don't know."

An angry puff of breath echoed through the phone. Mel could almost smell the whiskey scent of it, recalling Patrick's same question when he pulled her aside at Patrick's funeral in Las Vegas. "Look, I don't want to have to come out there, but I'm telling you, I'm not about to let this go. My baby brother died for that money, and it belongs to his family."

Mel let herself grow cold and indifferent inside, channeling the persona she'd developed as a street cop. "Your baby brother killed himself because he was on the take, was going to get caught and sent to prison. That's dirty money, Patrick. I would think that you wouldn't want anything to do with it."

"Money is money," Patrick said. "It's all dirty. But it's still ours."

"And I still don't know where it is. Or even if it exists."

"My brother wouldn't risk his career for ten grand. I know that he had to have more."

"Because he was likely on the take for years?"

Patrick let out a stream of curse words. "My brother had a problem. He was sick."

"He was a drunk and a drug addict," she said, hating herself even as she said the words. And because of him, she thought, I'll have to wonder for the next ten years whether I contracted HIV.

"Where's the money?"

"I-don't-know."

"This isn't over." He slammed the phone down, cutting off their connection. She stood with the phone to her ear for thirty seconds, listening to the dial tone.

She set the receiver carefully back in place, trying to will away the trembling in her hand. She'd known this day was coming.

She sat down hard on the sofa, staring at the floor. It still bothered her that Sean had somehow hidden his drug addiction from her. Or more likely, she just hadn't wanted to see it. He'd always been a cheerful, upbeat guy, the life of any party they attended. And there were a lot of parties, something that she still sometimes missed, that camaraderie, that being a part of a brotherhood, knowing-or at least believing-that these people would have your back if need be.

"I love being the center of attention," he said when they first dated. "Psychologists say that's because I'm the baby of the family. Hope it doesn't bother you."

"Not at all," she'd said, and it was true. She was happy to be the quiet one, the girl who nursed a single drink all night long, then drove Sean home, often pa.s.sed out in the seat next to her. It was easy to be with him, to absorb his vitality, to be part of his "posse," as he liked to call it. Everyone loved Sean. He was generous, always buying drinks for people or lending them twenty or fifty bucks. She'd occasionally wondered how he could afford it. Now she knew.

She had no idea what Patrick would do. She wouldn't put it past him to come out here and confront her directly. The thought of her old life encroaching on this fragile, new existence she'd built made her feel desperate. She knew-hoped-that her new friends here would believe her, that they'd not a.s.sume the worst, but she didn't want to put their loyalty to the test. Though Love and Magnolia and Rocky and the Johnsons and the rest of the people she'd come to call friends knew she'd been a cop in Las Vegas, that was the extent of it. Thankfully, no one ever asked her why she left the force.

She'd told only one person the whole story: Cy. It all spilled out the day before he died when he was lying in bed, groggy from pain medication and, she hoped, uncomprehending. He'd finally conceded to Love's pleading to allow an increase in his pain meds. She couldn't bear to see him suffer. He agreed, he'd told Mel, only for Love. So she wouldn't fret.

Telling him about her past at that moment was, Mel felt, a horrible thing to do, something she was ashamed of to this day. But she couldn't let Cy die without him knowing about her. He'd saved her life. He deserved to know the truth about her. Had he heard anything she said that day?

Mel waited until he dozed off and Magnolia had convinced Love to go for a walk. As Mel held his dry hand, the words tumbled over themselves like stones in a fast river. It took twenty minutes, and by the end, she could barely breathe.

"Thank you, Cy," she whispered. "Thank you for my life."

Then-and to this day she didn't know if it was real or just her longing-she thought she felt a small squeeze from his hand. He never opened his eyes, never spoke another word to anyone. He died the next day.

She glanced around her small house, a two-bedroom, one-bath beach cottage she'd grown to love. She rented it from an older woman who lived in Cambria, a woman whose husband made his fortune with computer stocks. The owner, Mrs. Melville, was a friend of Love and Cy's and had rented Mel this house as a favor to them. Slowly, over the last three years, Mel had made it her home; she even had an herb garden in the kitchen window, though she never cooked and did nothing except use the mint leaves in her iced tea. Her small collection of ceramic chickens, bought mostly by Cy and Love, sat on a bookshelf she'd found in a secondhand store and refinished herself, following instructions in a book she'd borrowed from Morro Bay's tiny library. On the walls were photos Love had taken of the ocean, of Cy's boat, of Morro Rock, of the feed store. Above her sofa she hung an acrylic painting of the b.u.t.tercream Cafe done by a local artist, Stewart Allison. Everything she owned was secondhand or bought for her by Love, who would tell her, when Mel tried to refuse her gifts, that she was doing Love a favor accepting the towels, sheets, red plaid kitchen curtains and cheery matching drinking gla.s.ses that she found at Target or Wal-Mart or the outlet mall in Pis...o...b..ach.

"I have no one to buy for but you and Magnolia," Love always told her. "Polly just wants gift certificates so she can pick things out herself."

And now she might lose it all. Before she'd let Patrick ruin her life here, she'd leave. Go somewhere else and start over. It would be easy enough; she knew how to invent a new ident.i.ty, though she doubted she'd have to go that far. But she'd leave no trace, so that Patrick couldn't hurt any of the people in Morro Bay who'd been so kind to her. When he asked them where she was, they wouldn't have to lie, because she'd make sure they didn't know.

The phone call from Patrick had agitated her enough that she knew she wouldn't be able to settle down. She wondered how Love was faring with her new granddaughter. She pictured them sitting at the pine kitchen table, like Mel had with Love and Cy so many times, sharing a meal and laughing. Was that what was happening? Mel suspected it wasn't quite that simple. That young girl looked like she brought with her a boatload of trouble. That would be another reason Mel would leave if Patrick followed through on his threat to come out here. Love would have her hands full with her granddaughter. She didn't need to worry about Mel.

She glanced over at the sunburst clock hanging next to the potbellied stove sitting in the corner of the living room. It was nine fifteen p.m. Too late for a piece of pie at the b.u.t.tercream. But she was restless, wanting to be on the move yet not knowing where to go. She grabbed her keys and left her house, driving her truck out of Morro Bay toward San Celina. She wanted a drink but didn't want to go where anyone knew her. She had a lot to think about. If she was going to leave, she'd better start thinking about what she'd take, because it would happen fast, the minute that Patrick showed up on her doorstep.

In downtown San Celina, Mel parked in one of the new parking structures and walked down to Lopez Street, the town's main drag. The old-fashioned streetlamps were decorated for Christmas with artificial pine boughs, giant red bows and gold trumpets. There were twinkling lights in the trees, giving the entire downtown a festive, Disney-like aura. They were cleaning up from the town's famous Thursday night farmers' market. The bars at the south end of the street were just starting to liven up, rowdy groups of Cal Poly students pouring out on the streets, loud, laughing and obnoxious. At least they seemed obnoxious to Mel, who not only had never lived that carefree college life but had spent a lot of her early years as a patrol officer hauling these overly privileged, drunk, puke-covered kids into the police station.

She walked down to the end of the street with her hands in the pockets of her flannel-lined barn jacket, trying to decide if she wanted to push through the crowds and find a quiet corner. She finally gave up and walked back up the street toward Blind Harry's Bookstore, where she'd make do with a chai latte, even though what she craved was a double Irish coffee, a drink she'd grown to love when she was with Sean.

The bookstore was crowded with Christmas shoppers, and she realized that Blind Harry's was having a special "open until midnight" sale. That worked for her. She hadn't bought a Christmas gift for Love yet, and though she wasn't sure if she'd even be around in a few weeks, she'd try to find something that she could leave with Polly to give to Love on Christmas Day.

It didn't take her long to find what she hoped was the perfect gift. It was a book of photographs by the late Isaac Lyons, a famous photographer Love took a cla.s.s from once and who had been married to Benni Ortiz's grandmother, Dove. She picked it up and ran her fingers over the faux leather front cover.

"It just came in today," said a pretty Hispanic woman who looked to be in her midforties. Her name tag read Elvia. "He was a local for many years. Married to the grandmother of a friend of mine before he pa.s.sed away last year." She straightened a stack of Christmas cards. "We miss him terribly."

Mel nodded. "Benni and Dove. They have the ranch next to the Johnsons. I work for Polly and August occasionally." She handed her the book. "I'll take it. It's actually a gift for Love Johnson."

"Oh, my goodness, I've known Love forever. She's a wonderful customer." The woman smiled at Mel. "She'll love it. I'd be happy to wrap it for you. No extra charge."

"Sold," Mel said. "Thank you."

Happy that she'd found something Love would like, Mel carried her package to the bas.e.m.e.nt coffeehouse to buy her latte, maybe read the newspapers always lying around on the round wooden tables. It was better she didn't stay home and brood. There would be enough time for that later on tonight, when she wouldn't be able to sleep. She ordered a decaf, hoping that her virtuous choice would stave off the insomnia gremlins.

She was perusing one of the bookshelves filled with used books that lined all the walls of the coffeehouse, waiting for her order to be called, when a vaguely familiar male voice said her name.

"Melina LeBlanc. As I live and breathe."

She turned to look at the man, studying his animated face, trying to remember where she'd met him. He wore a navy blue cowboy shirt, jeans and a pair of dark, shiny cowboy boots made with the skin of some unfortunate lizard.

He smiled and held out his hand. "I'm absolutely crushed that you don't remember me. Ford Hudson. Hud. Maisie's dad."

"Oh, yeah, hi." The annoying sheriff's deputy. She shook his hand firmly, one cop to another.

"Doing some holiday shopping?" He tilted his head, glancing at the red and silver Blind Harry's bag. "Or a book for yourself?"

"A gift," she said, glancing around, trying to figure out a way to extricate herself from this encounter. She'd driven to San Celina specifically because she didn't want to talk to anyone.

"You have an appointment?" he asked, his dark eyes laughing at her.

She hesitated, not a natural liar but wanting to use the excuse to leave.

"I won't bite. At least not until we've known each other a little longer."

She frowned and looked him directly in the eyes. "I don't find your flirting particularly amusing."

"Flirting, moi?" He pretended to be shocked. "My daughter would inform you that I am way too elderly to flirt. According to her, people should stop dating or havin' any fun at all after the age of thirty-five."

She just stared at him, not wanting this conversation to continue. She had too much on her mind tonight to word wrestle with some middle-aged wannabe cowboy.

"I'm from Texas," he said, completely out of the blue.

"Too bad," she replied.

"You got something against Texans?"

She inhaled, holding it in for a few seconds before letting out a long breath. "Look, Mr. Hudson-"

"Hud. Mr. Hudson was-"

"I know, I know, your father. Look, I just want to be alone tonight, okay? I'm sure you're a nice guy and that there are women who go for guys like you. So why don't you go run your little spiel on them? I'm sure they'd appreciate it a lot more than me."

"I'm very rich." He said it matter-of-factly, with a friendly smile like he'd just said, I own a ba.s.set hound or I like fried chicken.

She felt her mouth drop open slightly. "That's the most obnoxious pickup line I've ever heard."

"It got your attention, didn't it? Don't you want to know how I got rich? I swear, it's not graft."

It felt like someone punched her in the stomach. His words had to be a coincidence, but they still seemed to crumble around her like a brick house in an earthquake.

"I gotta go," she said, her voice jagged in her ears. She ran up the steps, vaguely hearing her order being called. When she reached the street, she stood for a moment inhaling the cold night air, her chest heaving, trying to catch her breath. It felt like she was under water, like she was going to suffocate.

"Here," Hud said, suddenly beside her. He pulled her into the alley next to Blind Harry's. He took her Blind Harry's bag and handed her a brown paper sack. "Put it over your-"