A Matter of Trust

Chapter 5





As she sprinted across her lawn, Mia heard muffled screams coming from the second floor of her house. The sounds gave wings to her feet.

What was wrong? She saw no strange cars, no flames, no smoke. The house was lit up from top to bottom, but the blinds were drawn.

Usually she liked how far apart the houses were here. But as she sprinted up the three stairs to the porch, Mia wished that she and her neighbors lived cheek by jowl.

She turned the knob and yanked the front door back. A shock ran up her arm and into her shoulder when it didn’t budge.

The front door was still locked. No unlocked door, no strange cars, no flames, no smoke. No sign of anything amiss.

But somewhere above her, Brooke was still screaming, barely pausing for breath. At the end of each ululation, the sound was nearly a sob.

While Mia fumbled her key into the lock, Charlie peered through one of the door’s small paned windows, one hand cupped around his eyes. His gun was out of its holster and by his side. The sight of it did not reassure Mia.

She twisted the key and threw open the door. “Brooke? Gabe?” she yelled as she ran into the empty entryway, Charlie at her heels. “What’s wrong?”

For an answer, Brooke only screamed again.

“Mom!” Gabe called, his tone so desperate that tears sparked her eyes. “Something’s really wrong with Brooke!”

Mia flew up the stairs. Her foot slipped on the fifth step and she half fell, banging one knee. Shaking off Charlie’s hand, she bounced back up, not even registering the pain.

No blood, she thought when she reached the doorway to Brooke’s room and tried to make sense of what she saw. Thank God there’s no blood. But something was still terribly wrong.

Gabriel was kneeling on the bed, leaning over Brooke. His hands were on his sister’s shoulders, trying to hold her still. Arms flailing, Brooke twisted back and forth, her body arching, her feet kicking under the covers. She let out another scream that made the hair rise on the back of Mia’s neck.

“Oh, baby, no!” Rushing forward, she squeezed past Gabriel and tried to scoop up Brooke to comfort her. But at her touch, her daughter stiffened and bucked and scratched all the more, her back bending like a bow. She howled again, right next to Mia’s ear. Her skin was clammy. Strands of hair stuck to her forehead. Brooke’s gaze swung to Mia, but her eyes were oddly flat and unfocused.

“Watch out, Mom!” Gabe yelled.

Brooke’s fist hit Mia in the temple so hard that for a moment one side of the room went black. “Brooke, it’s okay,” Mia shouted, trying to pierce through her daughter’s cries. “Brooke, Brooke, Brooke—wake up!”

Instead Brooke kicked and thrashed as if Mia were attacking her. Wincing and tucking her head, Mia tried to grab her wrists, but Brooke fought back even harder, twisting her hands free. Finally Mia leaned her weight across her four-year-old’s body, pinning her arms in place. She pressed her own face into the pillow, cheek to cheek with her daughter. Brooke’s heart felt like it was beating so hard it might burst through her damp skin. Could a heart even beat that fast without causing damage?

Gabe pinned Brooke’s legs in place under the covers, but she continued to fight them both.

Had she eaten some type of poison? Gotten into the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed for Mia three months earlier? Was she having a seizure?

Her daughter’s breathing was ragged and harsh, each exhale an explosion ending in another howl. It was so rapid that just hearing it made Mia’s own breathing speed up.

“Brooke, baby, can you hear me?” she said, but her daughter’s frenzy didn’t abate.

“How long has this been going on?” Charlie asked from the doorway. Mia glanced back at him. He was holstering his gun.

Gabe jerked his head around, his eyes widening.

“Who are you?”

“That’s Charlie Carlson,” Mia said, still trying to hold her daughter’s tiny body still. She had to raise her voice to be heard over Brooke’s continued keening. “He’s a cop. When he picked up Colleen’s phone to talk to you, he heard Brooke screaming.”

Gabe’s gaze flashed to the phone that lay faceup on the floor a few feet from the bed. “Is Colleen okay? I didn’t hear her say anything, and then Brooke started screaming and I dropped the phone. I’m sorry.”

“We can talk about Colleen later.” Mia tried to say it lightly, as if nothing were wrong. “Right now we need to figure out what’s wrong with Brooke. What happened?”

“I was in my room when she started screaming. I thought someone had broken in or something, but she was all by herself.” Gabe took a shaky breath. “It’s like she’s not really there. I mean, I think she’s hearing something, seeing something, but whatever it is, we can’t see it. It’s like she’s stuck someplace else.”

Could a four-year-old be mentally ill? As if in answer, Brooke let out another terrified wail.

“Should I get dispatch to send an ambulance?” Charlie asked.

“No,” Mia said. “I want to try something.” Shouting and holding Brooke down weren’t working. “Let go of her legs,” she told Gabe. “Go stand in the doorway with Charlie.”

She was working off instinct now, a guess that the exact opposite of what she wanted to do—shake Brooke awake, force her back into herself—was what was really called for.

She released Brooke, who continued to flail and screech, but no worse than she had been. Kneeling next to the bed, Mia put her face as close as she could to her daughter’s without touching her and waited for a moment of silence. Brooke let out another half scream, and after it was finished Mia half crooned, half whispered into the pink shell of her daughter’s ear. “Mommy’s here, baby. It’s okay now. You can go to sleep. You can relax.”

There was a pause. Brooke let out another cry, but it was quieter and somehow held a note of sadness. She was on her side now, facing the doorway. Tentatively, Mia put out her hand and lightly touched her daughter’s lower back. Sweat had soaked through her pajamas. Mia began to rub slow, small circles. Brooke continued to cry out, but there were pauses in between, and the volume was diminished.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here. It’s okay.”

Outside, sirens suddenly split the night. Mia’s hand jerked. She had forgotten that Charlie had asked for backup. She realized with a little shock that it had probably been less than five minutes since they ran up the stairs.

“I’ll tell them it’s okay,” Charlie said. “Right?”

“Right,” Mia said, her attention still fully focused on her daughter. The sound of the sirens didn’t seem to have penetrated. Brooke’s screams had turned into something more like sobs.

Charlie went down the hall and murmured into his radio.

Slowly Brooke’s cries faded away. In five more minutes she was breathing peacefully, seemingly deep asleep. Gabe tiptoed closer to the bed, and occasionally Mia met his eyes and they exchanged tremulous smiles. Charlie came back to the doorway and watched them without speaking. Even Charlie Carlson, it seemed, knew there were times when it was better to do nothing.

Finally the only remaining sign of whatever had happened to Brooke was a faint flush on her cheeks and a few strands of hair still stuck to her face. Her mouth was loose, her breathing easy.

Slowly Mia lifted her hand. Brooke’s breathing didn’t change. Mia got to her feet. Looking down at her daughter, she found it hard to believe what had just happened, those moments of terror. She hugged Gabe.

Charlie cleared his throat softly, and they both turned to him. “I’ve got to get back out to the crime scene. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Talk?” Mia blinked. “Why?”

“Because you’re a witness to Colleen’s murder.”

Gabe’s head whipped around. Mia wanted to throttle Charlie. Her son did not need this terrible news. Not now.

Charlie winced and shot an apologetic look at Mia.

“But I never even saw Colleen tonight,” she protested.

“Yes, but you were on the phone with her when she got shot. You might be the only witness.”