after twelve years of parenthood, that her son had another father, couldn’t have been easy. I tried to imagine bringing Carrie up for twelve years, having her be mine, and then suddenly finding out that she had another mother, and because that mother hadn’t known she existed, she had the right to sue for custody.
Rafe never had, of course. David was settled with Sam and Ginny, he was happy and healthy and loved. It wouldn’t have been in David’s best interest to change that. But I could well imagine Ginny’s fear that it could happen, and her feeling that Rafe (and I and Carrie and Mother and everyone else) were taking something away from them. David would never be fully hers and Sam’s again. From that moment when Dix and I knocked on their door a year and a half ago, to tell them about Elspeth’s death and Rafe’s existence, she’d always have to share him with us.
“Everything OK?” I wanted to know when Rafe ambled into the bedroom after putting the Harley in the garage.
He nodded, and his lips relaxed as he took in the tableau of me feeding Carrie and Pearl curled up on the rug (because I felt safer having her nearby than downstairs, where she usually sleeps). “David’s grounded for a week. No electronics. He can’t believe he’s being punished for saving his sister’s life.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “He isn’t being punished for saving his sister’s life—”
“He’s being punished for running away from home and making me spend several hundred dollars on cab fare. If he hadn’t saved his sister’s life, it woulda been two weeks.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed next to me and looked at Carrie.
“I’ll give her to you when she’s finished,” I told him. “If I do it now, she’s just going to be upset.”
He nodded. “She wasn’t in any danger, you know. We had the house surrounded before you even pulled up.”
“I figured that out,” I said, “when I came out and saw you. I had no idea you were there until then. I had no idea she was there, either. I didn’t notice her. Or recognize her. Not until we were outside.”
“It was David’s idea,” Rafe said. “He thought you mighta mentioned the open house over dinner on Friday night, at Beulah’s, and that she mighta heard you. So he talked me into providing backup, just in case she showed up.”
“It was a good thing he did,” I said, “or she might have made it out of there with Carrie.”
He didn’t say anything, and I added, “I only took my eyes off her for a few seconds. I swear.”
“Nobody’s blaming you, darlin’.” After a second he added, “But that was too damn close.”
Much too close. “I guess Grimaldi updated you on what’s going to happen next.”
He nodded. “Not somebody we have to worry about again. There were enough pictures and other things in her apartment to shut the cage door tight for a long time.”
“You went to her apartment?”
“Figured I might as well get the full picture of what we’re dealing with,” Rafe said coolly.
“And did you?”
He shifted his weight, looking—as he rarely does—uncomfortable. “She had a lot of pictures. A lot more than she posted online. Not of you or Carrie, but of me. She had the intake form for the vet clinic for Pearl, when we brought her there, with my signature on it...”
“Your signature? Why?” What could she have done with that? It wasn’t like she could pretend to be him.
“I think she just wanted it,” Rafe said. “She had a used napkin from Beulah’s—mine, I guess—in a plastic baggie, and a T-shirt—I have no idea where she got that—folded on top of her bureau. Tammy said it was mine. I couldn’t tell.” He shrugged.
“That’s really creepy.” I glanced around, at the bureau with his clean clothes and the hamper with the dirty ones. “You don’t think she got into the house, do you?”
“I can’t imagine how,” Rafe said. “And I think Pearl woulda torn her limb from limb if she’d tried.”
True. “I guess it doesn’t matter, now that she’s been arrested. Grimaldi told me she’s going to make sure she won’t get out on bail.”
“Believe me,” Rafe answered, “there ain’t no chance of that.”
Good to know. I shifted Carrie away from me and held her out. “Here. She’s full of milk and all yours. Make sure she burps.”
He grabbed her while I buttoned myself back up, put her against his shoulder, and