AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A few hours later, aftera hefty dose of Advil and with a bag of frozen peas pressed to my cheek, I’m feeling much better. Jane and I sit in the living room, and this alone is a treat because my daughter doesn’t often take the time to just be with me. Usually she’s distracted by her job or by Regina or by the thousand other things she really ought to be doing instead of hanging out with her mother. But this afternoon she seems content to drink tea and just…talk. About what happened today. About the people formerly known as Matthew and Carrie Green.
“So that’s why their blinds were always down,” I say. “Why he was carrying a weapon. Why he installed bars on the windows. Why he never mixed with the rest of the neighborhood.”
“She was their star witness, Ma, and they had to keep her alive. They’d moved her twice before, but somehow he always tracked her down.”
“Because he had someone in Revere PD tipping him off.”
Jane nods. “They know that now, thanks to you. And they’ll find out who the hell it is.”
I feel a nice little rush, hearing praise from my daughter, the cop.
“Greeley got alarmed when he saw the van two weeks ago,” she says. “So they moved her to another safe house.”
“Butsomeonewas still living across the street. I saw the lights.”
“He stayed behind, to make it look occupied. To keep an eye out for that van. Then you walked into the operation.”
“And screwed things up, I guess.”
“No, Ma. You gave them a reason to finally move in and arrest him. They just needed to nail their target with a charge he couldn’t wriggle out of, and now they had a charge of kidnapping. They’d already put a tracker on his Escalade, so they followed it straight to you. When he started shooting, he left them with only one option. To shoot back. No trial necessary now.”
“Remember what I said when you were a kid? About making bad choices?”
Jane laughs. “Yeah, that was a bad choice. Kidnappingyou.”
I look out the window at the house across the street. No one lives there now, and I have to admit I miss the Greens. I miss all the mystery, all the tantalizing possibilities. Now it’s just my boring old neighborhood where the only mystery I’ve managed to solve is who was schtupping whom.
“Speaking of people who make bad choices,” I say, “I finallygot the whole story about why Rick Talley shot Larry Leopold. All this time, I thought Rick hired a PI and that’s how he found out about the affair. But it was Tricia who told him.”
“Triciaknew?”
“She came here to thank me for stopping her dad from killing Larry.”
“How did Tricia find out about the affair?”
“Biology class. They were learning about genetics and they had to type their own blood. Tricia’s a B positive and her mom’s an A positive. The problem is, Rick’s an O positive, which means he couldn’t be her biological dad. That’s why she was so pissed off at her mother. She told Rick, then Rick found out who it was, and that’s why he showed up at Larry’s house.”
For a long time Jane is silent and I can see she’s thinking about something else. That’s how it always goes. I talk and her mind wanders to other things. Things that are more important than what her mother’s saying. Any minute now, she’ll find an excuse to end this boring conversation and get away.
“Jesus, Ma,” she says and suddenly jumps up from her chair.
“I know,” I sigh. “You have to leave.”
“You just cracked it! Thank you!”
“What? What did I say?”
“Blood types! I should have realized this was all aboutblood types.” She heads to the door. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sofia Suarez. I had it all wrong.”
