Heir

Chapter 5

5

Just once, I’d like to start the day not already late.

JJ gave Trooper a pat. The German shepherd mix had an iron bladder, and the girls could let him out if they beat her home, but she’d left a pee pad on the kitchen floor in an abundance of caution.

“Stay off the couch,” she said, nearly slamming her toe in the door in her rush to lock up.

JJ tossed her bags in the back and patted her old Bronco’s steering wheel superstitiously (come on, baby) before turning the ignition (good job). The tires caught a little gravel as she did a quick, swerving turn in her driveway. It was nice being mostly back on day shift at the hospital, but it definitely took some getting used to. Evie had spent the night with Rachel, so JJ made a hard left at the bottom of her driveway, then turned almost immediately onto the Nicholson’s drive. It was her turn to drop the girls at school. Was she supposed to have made Evie lunch, too? Dammit, she couldn’t remember. Too late now anyway.

JJ parked in front of the Nicholson house, leaving her SUV running. She wore a sweatshirt over her scrubs and pulled the hood up over her wet hair. It wasn’t quite cold enough for her hair to freeze, but it sure did feel like it. After a quick, staccato knock (Otto had finally traded the screen in the storm door for a glass pane), she let herself in. Standing on the doormat, she glanced down to check her feet and heard something unexpected—raised voices.

Otto and Dorothy were arguing.

JJ pulled her hood down to eavesdrop.

Rachel’s recent kidnapping had put a strain on the Nicholson marriage, but they’d seemed to have come through the rough patch. Some days their open affection was downright sickening, but she’d hate for them to swing in the other direction. JJ walked slowly (sneaked was such an ugly word) toward the kitchen.

“Our daughter is not a freak,” Dorothy said, loudly. She tended to be the louder of the couple.

“I didn’t say she was,” came Otto’s calm response.

“I’m done talking about this.”

“Dorothy, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable?” Dorothy’s voice pitched even higher. “You’re the one talking crazy, hocus-pocus crap.”

“That crap is how Adam found our daughter. That crap is the only reason she’s still—”

JJ couldn’t make out the sound that interrupted Otto. Had Dorothy slapped him? She shook her head; it was time to make her presence known, before things got even more awkward. She pulled her hood back over her head.

“School bus is here!” JJ called out before barreling into the kitchen.

Otto held Dorothy’s arm gently by the wrist. He released it as JJ entered, and Dorothy slowly tucked her arm behind her as she leaned against the counter.

“Sorry,” JJ said, pulling her hood down. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything. I knocked, but with my hood on I wasn’t sure if you’d heard me. Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” Dorothy said.

Her dark hair hung limp around her face, gone pale with worry or exhaustion, and she wore what passed for pajamas (flannels and sweats) in a cold house in winter. JJ remembered today was Dorothy’s off day at the diner.

“Everything’s just fine,” Otto agreed.

Neither of them was very convincing. JJ heard feet thundering down the stairs—her daughter at least was on her way.

“Rachel won’t be going to school today. She’s not feeling well,” Dorothy said, glaring at her husband as if daring him to challenge her.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” JJ said. “Do you want me to take a look at her?”

Dorothy’s face softened. “No, thanks, JJ. She didn’t sleep very well last night. She’s been doing better with her asthma lately, but I know a lot of the kids are getting sick now. I just don’t want to risk anything by sending her to school exhausted.”

Evie stomped into the room. There hadn’t been any significant snowfalls yet, but the child insisted on wearing her heavy boots. “Hey, Mom! I’m getting Rachel’s homework, so I can’t be late today.”

“Subtle, kid,” JJ said, rubbing her daughter’s shoulder, which edged closer to her own every day. “Okay then, we’re off. Let us know if you need anything.”

Dorothy thanked her, and JJ headed for the front door almost as quickly as her hyper daughter, eager to leave someone else’s marital dysfunction behind. But they’d barely made it off the porch when Otto emerged on their heels.

“Evie,” he said, “why don’t you run in and grab Rachel’s lunch? Her mom packed it last night, but I’m sure she’ll want to make her something special now. A hot lunch since she’ll be home.”

Evie looked to her mother. JJ waved her on, and Evie did her best Clydesdale impersonation clomping back in the house.

JJ’s hand crept to her face, partly because she was embarrassed and partly because it was so damn cold. “How did you know I forgot to pack her lunch?”

“I didn’t,” Otto said. “Listen, there’s something going on with Rachel.”

“You mean she’s really sick?” JJ asked.

“No.” It was strange seeing the tall, broad man glance over his shoulder for his small-boned wife. “I mean, there’s something going on in her head.”

JJ shivered and put her hood back up. The temperature didn’t seem to faze Otto, wearing only a long-sleeved T-shirt, but his ruddy beard probably helped.

“Isn’t she seeing someone at the school? A counselor?” JJ asked.

Otto nodded impatiently. “Yeah, but that’s not what I mean.”

Otto stepped close enough that JJ imagined she could feel the heat from his body. Or maybe he was screening her from the wind. “She’s been having these dreams,” Otto said. “Dreams that wake her up at night.”

“Like nightmares?”

“Not exactly.”

JJ was getting impatient herself. “Then like what exactly? Come on—spit it out.”

“I’m not sure, because she can’t remember. But I think it’s something…” Hands on his hips, Otto’s gaze dropped to the ground. “I think it’s something like Adam.”

Suddenly what Dorothy had said as JJ walked in made perfect sense—crazy, hocus-pocus crap. “What do you mean, something like Adam? Visions?”

“I don’t know.”

JJ threw up her arms in frustration. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I don’t know!” Otto yelled.

JJ took a micro step back, remembering the sensation of hanging on his back as he beat the crap out of Adam. Otto briefly closed his eyes and softly tapped his closed fist against his forehead. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. But I know my daughter is seeing things the rest of us can’t.”

JJ shook her head. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Rachel, too, on top of everything else. “Are you sure—”

Otto raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, okay, we covered that,” JJ conceded. “Obviously Dorothy disagrees.”

Otto snorted. “Dorothy is still ready to hang Adam by his nut sack for no good reason. Rachel could be floating furniture around the room and Dorothy’d say, Oh, isn’t it breezy in here.”

A short laugh escaped JJ at the thought.

“What about Harlan?” Otto asked. “Is he better yet?”

And any levity vanished instantly. JJ shook her head and mashed her lips together until she was able to say, “Harlan may never be better.”

Otto let out a ragged sigh.

Harlan was the one who had truly set Adam on Rachel’s path. And young Aaron Schofield’s as well. It’s unlikely either child—or Adam—would have survived without Harlan’s guiding hand.

Evie came thumping out the front door as Otto asked, “And Adam?”

“What about Adam?” Evie asked. She had a soft spot for her mother’s best childhood friend, since he had saved her own.

“I’ll talk to him,” JJ said. “But no promises. Let’s go, kid.”

JJ mentally kicked herself as she rolled down the gravel driveway. Marcus paid child support intermittently, if at all, and it was in the winter that JJ felt it most. How much gas had she wasted leaving her Bronco running? And for what, with its heater mostly on the fritz? The knowledge that she didn’t have to worry about it starting?

She glanced over at her daughter as they approached the highway. Evie had been gung-ho about school a few minutes ago, but she was suspiciously silent now. JJ wondered if it was something Dorothy had said to her, or perhaps just the Nicholson marital dysfunction seeping in around the edges. Evie had been preschool age when JJ and Marcus had divorced, but it had still left an imprint on the child.

“So what’s for lunch?” JJ asked.

“Sandwich,” Evie said.

JJ didn’t bother asking what kind; if her daughter couldn’t be bothered with using an article, JJ wouldn’t hold her breath for an adjective.

“You have your gym clothes or whatever you need for the workshop this evening?”

“Yeah,” Evie said, but volunteered nothing more.

“Are you worried about Rachel?” JJ asked, thinking maybe that explained her daughter’s funk. She glanced over to meet Evie’s gaze.

“Why?”

Why indeed. Evie was hard to read, but maybe JJ was giving her credit for a little too much emotional maturity. Instead of answering, JJ asked, “Did y’all have a good time last night?”

“Yeah.”

JJ sighed. Her child was suited for a life in espionage, with her natural resistance to interrogation. “You get your homework done?”

“Yes, Mom,” Evie said, with a mild undertone of how do you function on a daily basis?

JJ finally took the hint and backed off. There’d be plenty of time for daydreaming about wringing her daughter’s neck when she hit puberty. Instead, JJ kept recalculating her chances of making it to work on time (the clock is four minutes fast, so if I hit the edge of Plattsville by…) and reviewing the work schedule in her mind. How late she could be without pissing anyone off depended on who was working. And how crazy things were. Tuesdays usually weren’t bad, but—

“Mom?” Evie said.

JJ held in a smile. Like any wild animal, the key was to leave her daughter alone and wait for the child to approach you. “Yeah, honey?”

“Where’s Adam?”

JJ felt a chill, remembering her conversation with him yesterday. Should she have mentioned something to Otto? Rachel’s father obviously believed in… whatever it was Adam was able to do. But maybe he believed in it too much. The man couldn’t be objective.

“Mom!” Evie demanded.

JJ slowed down as she reached the Cold Springs town limits. “Adam is in Morgantown now. He and Miss Iris have a friend in the hospital there who’s very sick.”

Evie went quiet for a moment, then asked, “Is it someone I know?”

“No, sweetie, I don’t believe you do.” They approached the old brick schoolhouse now, the same one she and Adam had attended as kids. JJ lifted her butt and peered over the steering wheel, as if that would magically help her find a spot to pull over.

“Are you sure I don’t know him?” Evie asked.

“Pretty sure,” JJ said, whipping her Bronco into a clear section almost before the car in front of her had vacated it.

Evie grabbed her backpack from the footwell, threw the door open and hopped to the sidewalk.

“Hey! Don’t forget your lunch,” JJ shouted over the sound of her noisy engine. As Evie turned back for the bag, JJ found herself saying, “Why’d you ask if you know him?”

Evie jumped to adjust the pack’s weight on her back. “I just figured if Rachel knows him, I might, too.”

“What makes you think Rachel knows him?”

Evie looked at her mother as though she were an absolute i***t. “Well, Mom, I don’t usually have dreams about people I don’t know. Do you?”

And she slammed the door behind her.

What the hell? JJ pulled the parking brake and jumped out of the Bronco, engine still running. Someone behind her honked a horn in protest. “Evie!” she called out, rounding her vehicle. “Evelyn May!”

Evie stopped in her tracks and turned toward her mother with a look of outraged disbelief that JJ ignored to ask, “What did you mean about the dreams?”

Evie glanced—too casually—at the parents and students streaming by. Was her uncertainty simply social embarrassment, or something more?

“Sweetie, this is important,” JJ said, resisting the urge to touch her daughter in public. It was bad enough she’d called her by her full name.

“Rachel’s been having dreams about a man in a hospital,” Evie said, hands tucked in her backpack straps as she stared at the ground.

“What man? What kind of dreams?” JJ asked, stepping closer and lowering her voice.

“Nothing weird,” Evie said, mildly revolted. “Just some old guy. She sees him in a hospital bed. She thinks maybe he talks, but when she wakes up she can’t remember what he said.”

“What else?”

“That’s all she told me. If you want to know more, ask Rachel.” Evie looked over her shoulder. “I gotta go, Mom.”

JJ watched Evie rush toward the white-painted, double doors, backpack bouncing. Horns blared again, insistent and angry, yet so distant to JJ’s ears they could have been on another street. She ignored them as she walked slowly back to her Bronco.

She could ask Rachel.

I’d hoped Otto was wrong.

But she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear her answer.