More hidden messages. More codes to break.
I cried a little because no matter what I did it wasn’t enough to save us from the constant fear.
“Mommy!”
I threw the blankets back over the books and ran to Drew’s room without taking a breath. He yelled again and I realized he was in Jada’s room. I sucked in air, seeing spots and trying to ignore how bad the back of my head hurt, pain radiating down my neck and to my right shoulder. Adam’s messages were almost always to me alone, and I could usually hide them from the kids. But this time, he’d gone further.
“Any idea what this is?” Drew pushed the toe of his shoe against one of Jada’s shirts that had been laid out flat on the floor above a pair of her leggings, socks, and shoes. A primitive smiley face drawn on a sheet of plain white paper rested between the neck of the floral shirt and a sun hat. It would have been damned eerie just to see the clothes stretched out like a mini person, a two-dimensional Jada, but the smiley face took it up a notch to something terrifying. The blood drained out of my face and settled in my toes. For a minute, I thought I might actually pass out.
“Same in the each of our rooms.”
I wavered again. I hadn’t gotten used to the idea yet of just one of my kids laid out like a paper doll.
“I took pictures,” Drew said, “and put the stuff away in Hope’s room before she saw.”
I could only nod. He was a step ahead and behaving like an adult even though he wasn’t a teenager yet. He shouldn’t have to think this way, gathering evidence and protecting his sisters from a glimpse of madness.
“Should we call someone?” he asked. “The police, or his mom?”
I shook my head. “I would if it would change anything, but it won’t. There’s nothing we can do.”
If I told, he would punish me. Things could get a whole lot worse; I had seen them worse. My restraining order was useless. Even if they put him in jail, or back in the state hospital, they wouldn’t hold him long. It was best to hold my tongue and my cool.
“We’re going out for Chinese tonight,” I said. “And I’ll call his sister. I’ll try to get her to do something. I don’t want to keep calling the police. Boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome. We need them to take us seriously if we really need them.” When. When we need them.
Drew nodded, looking around the room instead of at me. Running away was the last thing he wanted to do. But we were both as afraid to be in the house as we were to leave it empty. There were no solutions. No answers. We had no way out. Even selling the house and moving was no guarantee that he wouldn’t just follow us.
For a long time, I had felt so sorry for Adam. Watching someone go insane was the most horrible thing I’d ever experienced. Despite all the things that were stolen from him, the knowledge that he had once had a family and loved them remained. But so did the realization that he couldn’t be with them, and it was all shadowed over with voices whispering conspiracies and frightening solutions. My pity had long since been overwhelmed by my mama-bear protective instincts.
I had always known I would go to great lengths to keep my kids safe. But I’d never realized how hypothetical protection scenarios would feel in real life. Forget about going to great lengths. This was more than just what I would do to keep them safe, it was who I was willing to become.
The next afternoon I stopped at a sporting-goods shop on the way home, went directly to the gun counter, and rang the old-fashioned bell. I hadn’t researched weapons for personal use, but I already knew what I wanted from the research I had done for the books Adam threw away with my hard drive. I had even taken a gun-safety class at this shop a few years ago to learn exactly what it felt like to load and shoot a handgun.
“Well, if it isn’t little Miss Murder Book! Haven’t seen you around in a while.” A tall, heavy man with a mountain-man beard walked around behind the glass display case. His beard wiggled like maybe he was smiling somewhere beneath it.
“Hi, Bill. Good to see you, too.” I smiled, surprised by how calm I felt given the reason I was there. “This time, I’m buying.”
His eyebrows, or maybe “eyebrow” was more appropriate, rose. “Whoa, I didn’t think you believed in having guns around. You sure about that?”
“What kind of price can you give me on a .38 Special?”
“Well ya see, I got more than one of them.” His eyes lit up, eyebrow lifting further toward his hairline, which had been running from that brow for a few years now. “I know just the one. Don’t go nowhere. I’ll get it from the front. Have it on display.”
He kept talking while he walked, and I took a deep breath. I wasn’t in the mood to shop around. The one I wanted was the least expensive weapon that would reliably shoot bullets.
Bill was so thrilled with the little box he carried back that he practically danced his considerable bulk back behind the counter. “Looky here!” He was breathing heavily, a little bead of sweat sliding down his left temple. He opened the black plastic case to reveal the tackiest pink gun I’d ever seen. “Costs a little more because of the color. Women love it. It’s a .38, too. Special gun for a special lady. Isn’t that something? That’s what the papers say. See here?” He held up a little brochure to prove that some advertising guy, probably someone with a college education, had actually come up with that catchy slogan.
I smiled, aware that it was a flat, meaningless smile but unable to even pretend that this was what I wanted. “Maybe something like this another time. Right now I want something plain. What can you give me the best deal on? Money’s tight.”
He narrowed his eyes and popped a blue Bic pen in the corner of his mouth like it was a piece of straw. “You all right, Miss Murder Book?”
“Just home protection. I’m fine, Bill. Thanks for asking.” I pointed to a solid black .38 through the glass. “What will that one cost?”
“That’s a little polymer frame. I could give it to you for three hundred fifty.” He registered my sigh like a good salesperson. It’s practically a lost art, the weighing of the sigh. “Had a guy trade a used .38 last week. Shoots fine. Tried it out myself and cleaned it up. It’s in the back.”
“Thanks, a used one would be perfect.”
“Now it ain’t nothing to look at,” he said over his shoulder. “Been dinged up some.” He disappeared through a swinging door.
I shifted my weight and slowed my breathing. Did I really want to do this? It was a point of no return. I shouldn’t buy a gun unless I could really shoot someone with it. Could I do that?