“This is highly amusing,” she chuckled, propping her crutch against the hall table before slowly making her way into the soon-to-be nursery. Fighting a grin, Kerry sank gratefully into the rocking chair that sat in the middle of the room.
Carter stifled a smile of his own as he rolled his shoulders, turning slightly to peer at her, paint brush still in hand as he worked around a window sill. “So, I amuse you?”
“Very much,” she laughed, resting her hands over her stomach and crossing her legs at the ankles. “Better than television.”
“Oh?” his tone quasi-serious as he rolled the pale yellow paint up the wall in a broad sweep. “So you just keep me around for the entertainment value?”
“Certainly not for your cooking skills.”
“Hmm,” he muttered, dipping the paint and flipping it too quickly, paint splattering down the length of his jeans.
“Nice,” she laughed, wiggling in her seat, runners sliding back and forth along the hardwood floor.
Chuckling, he dropped the brush with a plop, three walls evenly coated in beige pant, and descended the makeshift ladder again.
“Watch the – “ she began, inwardly wincing as he missed the last step.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he sighed, wiping his hands on his pant leg, then bringing them to his face and unknowingly streaking it with paint.
For a few moments, she successfully managed to retain a straight face. But then he reached up and swiped a streak of yellow down her nose, and she glared as he laughed.
Finally he dropped to the portion of floor covered with newspaper at her feet. “Good day?”
“Good day, no traumas,” she smiled back, running a hand through his yellow tipped hair. “You’ve almost finished it,” Kerry nodded to the room, “it’s beautiful, thank you.”
Gracing her with a grin, Carter’s face softened as he finally asked, “Any word?”
“On Hailey?” her tone was clipped but expected. “Nothing. Her father never… well, he never regained consciousness,” she paused, “he was brought in over 24 hours ago. The police, “she rubbed at the drying paint on her nose, a frown creasing her skin, “uhm, they think she’s probably dead. It’s been eight days since she was discharged.”
Carter hung his head, reaching upward to clasp her child-sized hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, standing and molding himself around her, breathing into her light auburn hair.
“Me too,” she sighed, sagging tiredly against him, as her eyelashes fluttered in the path of expelled breath. “Me too.”
---
Next Day
6:00 pm
Kerry’s House
“Where did you find southern-style food?” she demanded, leaning her head back against the wall. “This is excellent, John.”
“Only the best,” he offered a lopsided grin and she chuckled around a mouthful of chicken. Somewhere along the way, her shifts had slacked off to mostly day-only, sometimes as short as seven hours, and he’d grown accustomed to attempting to find new and more interesting restaurants that met her cravings or desires. Strangely enough, he’d taken to anticipating them and doing an excellent job at it.
He turned to the only blank section of wall, paint roller in hand. “You really got daring with the dark beige paint, Kerry,” he mocked, “perhaps next time we’ll try tan?”
She glared at him as she lifted her fork from the plate, shifting it to the side as she crossed her legs. “Do you want to sleep on the couch?” she deadpanned, and he quickly and almost meekly repented. “I’ll forgive you, sort of gratitude for the food.” The attending watched him nod, rolling the paint roller up, then down, then up again. A few minutes and a light silence later, she sat the plate to the side and stretched against the dry wall, yawning tiredly.
“I can finish this without supervison, you know,” he commented, rotating about and sliding the instrument through the pan. That was her Carter, always worrying, even over slight things such as a yawn. “You’re tired, go rest.”
“I’m not tired,” she argued, “and I’m waiting for that phone call.”
“Adelle?” he questioned, recalling easily the constant state of worry and near-panic she’d been in and had just managed to escape – and was now falling rapidly into, again. The little child, Hailey, had easily gotten under her skin. Whether this was because of the pregnancy, her own abuse issues and the memories she was just beginning to recall, or the oath she’d taken years ago before accepting responsibility for the lives of others, Carter wasn’t quite sure.
Not that he didn’t understand.
He’d heard her, felt her struggling at night as she fought repressed dreams, her own demons, and when she’d cried, though detached, as she shared her memories of childhood physical and sexual abuse, he’d fought back tears all his own and finally realized just how ugly and black murder appeared, for the irrational side of his brain longed to commit it. And then, as they each drifted off to sleep during nights on which they shared she same shifts, he’d let his hand rest and circle over her abdomen and wonder just what kind of monster would hurt a child – especially his own.
What drives a man to commit murder? –he’d once wondered, but as he blearily drifted off to sleep, most nights, and pondered over exactly how lucky he’d somehow become, he realized he’d known the answer all along.
“Yes, Adelle,” she answered, running a hand through strawberry blond hair. Two days before, Hailey’s father had been rushed into the ER with several fatal gunshot wounds. Two days before, the gun had been located with a smear of blood and a tattered handkerchief, but the child had yet to be found, and it would be days before conclusive DNA testing on the blood would return.
Hailey had been missing exactly nine days.
“Okay,” Carter nodded, “go on and rest, and I’ll get you if Adelle calls,” he smiled at Kerry, “go. You need the rest.”
She seemed to ponder it for a moment, then smiled gratefully up at him and pushed herself upward, plate in hand. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he nodded, grinned, then returned to his painting, the room quickly coated in beige. The trim would be done the next day – animals of Africa and monsoons of India. Like the child, it would be exotic and beautiful, like the mother, it would be a mystery, always leaving some stone embedded in the dirt.
---
“Adelle…” Kerry sighed, the look of a lost child painted on her visage. “Adelle got hold of the ballistics reports and the crime scene analysis for the… you know, the murder and all that,” she finally replaced the phone into the cradle. He’d woken her only minutes after she’d fallen asleep to tell her twice that Adelle was on the phone, and then she’d jerked upright and listened intently for several minutes as her face fell, finally hanging up when she could stand to hear no more. “It wasn’t her blood.”
She ran a hand over her face, then down to her stomach. As promised, he’d waited paint-splattered and patiently as the women spoke.
“Jesus, John,” she finally began again, “the fingerprints… she was registered at her school in case of this sort of thing – missing persons, kidnappings – she was registered so they could find her, but all they’ve found is her prints on the gun. She killed him John, they’re saying… they’re saying she killed her father.”
“Oh Hailey…”
---
Following Afternoon
Cook County Hospital
Day Ten
~A statue stands in a shaded place,
an angel girl with an upturned face;
A name is written in a polished rock,
A broken heart that the world forgot.~
“Excuse me, Miss,” an older man called to Randi, shifting the bundle in his arms, “I’ze told that Dr. Weaver’s still here, and this one,” he gestured downward, “insists on seeing her. I think her leg’s broken or something.” He looked like a kindly old fisherman, but the clerk was tired and rolled her eyes.
“Have a seat over there,” she waved flippantly toward the waiting area, “and I’ll see if I can,” she looked up, finally noticing the blond hair and eerily pale blue eyes, “Oh, dear God. This must be Hailey,” and then Randi headed for the lounge at a near gallop.
A few seconds later, she burst through the doors and Kerry lifted her forehead from her locker, tears long since dry as she recalled the past few days, the look of understanding Carter had given her the evening before, the way he held her when she cried. There were no happy endings, she’d come to believe, even though she had once thought otherwise. There were no happy endings, because once she reached the happily ever after, something seemed to hold her in place long enough for another storm to move in her direction, their direction. Just when Kerry thought she’d dealt with life and all of its mysteries and miseries, another memory surfaced and another heartbreak occurred. She only hoped Carter was strong enough to hold her down when she felt like running, and hold her up when she felt like falling, because she wasn’t completely certain she could hold herself up any longer.
The doctor turned slowly as Randi quasi-yelled, “They found her, Dr. Weaver, an old man brought the girl in, Hailey. They’re waiting in Chairs.”
For a moment, it appeared that she was frozen in place, much like a stone, unsure whether to move, laugh, or cry. The child was alive, but would she survive all of the trauma life had pitched upon her, Kerry wondered, then flew into action and pushed herself through the door. It had been ten days.
“Curtain Two,” she curtly informed Lydia, then tapped the grey-man’s arm, leading him to the room. Shortly, he deposited the blanketed child on the gurney as per the doctor’s instruction and shuffled toward the door. “Wait,” she finally called, unwrapping the unconscious child, “wait a second.” She flicked the light over her eyes, palpated, prodded, and quickly examined the child. “We need the basics, and an x-ray, her leg and hip…” she paused, “There’s no further evidence of sexual assault, so no rape kit seems necessary.” She glanced upward at the nurse, then headed for the door. “Have me paged when you get the results or if she wakes up. I’ll notify DCFS,” then Kerry sighed, turning to the cloaked man. “Come with me, sir.”
Once they exited the room, she began again. “The police will want to speak with you, would you mind staying for that?”
Tweaking the collar of his raincoat and snuggling deeper into the hood, he smiled down at her, “Not at all, Miss,” eyes never leaving her face, never moving downward, never reaching her crutch. Slowly, he followed her to the desk, where she tapped Randi on the shoulder and requested she call Adelle and the police again, this time with a positive update. “She was in the cemetery, down from the park,” his voice had a foreign undercurrent, perhaps Scottish, “she was just laying there, quiet as a lamb, in front of a grave, a woman’s grave,” his eyes sort of unfocused as he seemed to drift backward to his own time. “Her mother, I suspect,” he finally said, head cocking to the side as she watched him intently. “She was crying, holding to her leg. Wouldn’t let me help her at first, scared little thing. She just kept shaking her head and holding onto that angel.”
Kerry had been examining him rather conspicuously throughout his dialogue. She felt almost as if she were in shock, for she’d nearly given up, probably would have if it hadn’t been for the child in her own belly. The Doctor in her was cynical, well acquainted with the lesser side of human life; the woman in her had nearly held vigil for the child, praying to whatever god would listen. “The angel?”
“Don’t you know?” he asked, turning frighteningly light blue eyes on her, “The memorial,” his face was graced with the slightest of smiles, “’twas a stone angel girl.”
