Mommy and the Policeman Next Door
Autore
Marie Ferrarella
Letto da
18,8K
Capitoli
10
1
If you ever want to see Mommy again, bring a thousand dollars in little bills to the picnic bench in Cedarwood Park.
Adam John Douglas chewed on his lower lip and held his breath as he watched the little girl who was practically his mirror image. His sister was reading the note he had written, and she was being much too quiet. Which meant that she was going to say something stuck-up when she did talk.
A.J. cringed inwardly, silently bracing himself for what he knew was coming. He’d heard it before, but he still didn’t like it.
They were tackling this thing together, he and Addie, the way they always did everything, and he needed to know what she thought. Addie was better at planning things than he was. Usually. He would never tell her that, of course, not even if she tickled him and made him laugh until his sides hurt, but it was true.
A.J. rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, feeling like his stomach wanted him to run off somewhere. He was excited about this. They were finally going to do something about the policeman next door, not just talk about him, the way they had for the past month, ever since he moved in. They were finally going to get him together with Mommy. After the policeman saw how nice she was, how far she could hit a baseball and what great cookies she could make, he’d be their daddy for sure.
Just like the daddy they had lost. He even looked like him a little, A.J. thought. At least, the uniform was the same.
All they had to do was get Mommy and the policeman to say something to each other.
A.J. had been watching a movie on Sunday about a lady who was kidnapped when the idea came to him. He knew how to get them together. Policemen always came when somebody was kidnapped.
Since then, he and Addie had been waiting for the right time to put their idea into action. It had to be when their mom was out, so the policeman wouldn’t realize that they were just pretending. A.J. felt like he had been waiting forever, not just four days. He had almost given up, and then things had gone right.
Today, when Mommy left them with Summer while she went to the newspaper, Addie had seen the policeman go down to the pool. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but A.J. was pretty sure that the man was still a policeman even without it.
It was now or never.
A.J. had felt confident. Confident enough to let
Addie finally see the note he had written. They would give the policeman the note, he’d look for their mommy, find her, and then they’d be together forever. It was the perfect plan.
A.J. let out a long, fidgety sigh. What was taking Addie so long? She could read faster than that. She could read faster than he could. Wasn’t she always bragging about it?
“So, what do you think?”
Adelaide Douglas, born five whole minutes ahead of her brother, made the most of her seniority. Sheraised haughty crystal blue eyes to A.J.’s face as she shoved the note back into his hands and fisted her own on either side of her denim-clad waist.
And because A.J. hated it when she did it, she sniffed. “I think it’s dumb.”
A.J.’s eyes clouded with hurt and frustration. “Is not”
“Is too.” Addie jabbed her finger at the paper in
his hands to make her point. “Random notes aren’t
written in crayon.”
“Ransom,” A.J. corrected importantly. That was what they had called the note in the movie. He was glad he had watched it without Addie. She wasn’t the only one who could know things. “And I know
that. It’s just a.a rough draft,” he ended triumphantly.
That was what Mommy called the columns she wrote before she handed them in to her boss at the newspaper. A.J. was proud that he remembered that. It made up for forgetting to write the note in pen. He didn’t like pens. They always left black marks on his hands.
Stung, Addie grabbed the note back from her brother. “Gimme that” She read the note again, then lifted her chin. She’d found another flaw. Her fair complexion fairly glowed. “The kidnapper isn’t going to call her Mommy. She’s not his mommy, she’s ours. You gotta put down ‘your mommy.’“
A.J. was always open to suggestions. That was what made them such a good team. Addie loved to boss people around, and he was willing to be led. Most of the time.
“Okay.” A.J. took back the note. This time, he reached for a pencil and in little lopsided letters wrote the word your between see and Mommy. Finished, he looked up at his sister and waited for further comments and criticisms.
Addie didn’t disappoint him. “And Mommy’s worth way more than a thousand dollars.”
Did she think he didn’t know that? “She’s worth a gazillion dollars,” A.J. agreed quickly. “But I can’t spell gazillion.”
Addie opened her mouth, then gave up the lie. “Me neither,” she admitted mournfully, even though she hated to say so. She was older, even if it was just by a tiny bit. It was up to her to know things like that.
A.J. reached over and put his arm around his sister’s shoulders. Of the two of them, he was the more sensitive one, the one his mother always said would be in demand in another seven or eight years. She said Addie was going to take some work.
“That’s okay, Addie. Maybe we can say ‘ten thousand.’ I can spell ten.”
The moment of contrition over, Addie raised her chin again.
“So can L” She drew the pad over to her side of the small play table in their room and sat down. “And I’ve got better handwriting than you do, so I’m going to write it.”
A.J. was more than happy to let his twin take over. “Okay.”
With the tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth, Addie rewrote the ransom note slowly. Her heart began to pound in her small chest as she thought of the consequences. She looked up at her brother with uncustomary uncertainty in her eyes.
“Think he’ll want to help?”
There was no doubt in A.J.’s mind. “He’s a policeman. It’s his job.” That was what Big Bird said on “Sesame Street.” And Big Bird never lied. Just like Mommy.
Addie laid down her pen and studied the note she’d written. It looked pretty good, even to her scrutiny. But her stomach felt as if there was a big, wet knot in it This was lying, and she didn’t like to lie. Mommy said it wasn’t right. But if they didn’t do something, Mommy was going to be alone, like old Mrs. Springer. She’d have white hair and everything because she didn’t have a husband living with her.
Besides, Addie really did want a daddy again. One with big arms to hug both of them with. And Mommy, too, she added as an afterthought.
She chewed her lip, just as A.J. had. “What happens when he finds out she’s not missing?”
Nothing could shake A.J.’s optimistic view of the future. “He’ll say he’s glad she’s okay.”
A.J. could always make her feel better. Addie began to smile. “Think so?”
“Sure I think so,” A.J. answered confidently.
“Yeah.” Addie nodded her head as she pushed herself away from the table. “That’s how they do it on TV.”
Validated, A.J. was more than willing to render Addie her due. “Gee, Addie, you know everything.”
She beamed. “Thanks. Now get me an envelope out of Mommy’s room.” Addie grabbed her brother’s arm as he began to leave. “And don’t let Summer see you.”
A.J. laughed. Summer had been minding them for the past two years. She’d been fun in the beginning, playing games and telling them stories. But that was before she had gone off to the tall school. Mommy called it high school, so he knew it had to be tall.
“Summer’s busy making love-y noises at her boyfriend. I could ride an ellie-fant into the living room and she wouldn’t notice.”
Addie was inclined to agree with him, but it didn’t hurt anything to be careful. That was what Mommy always said. And when Mommy was gone, it was up to her to remember for both of them.
“Just hurry up.”
Waving A.J. on his way, Addie crossed to the window. A petite eight-year-old, she raised herself up on her toes, as if that could get her a better view. From where she stood, she could just barely see the fenced-in pool. The object of their intricate planning was sitting by the side of the pool, resting. But she knew, because she and A.J. had taken to watching him, that he wouldn’t be resting for long. He was always going someplace.
She looked over her shoulder. A.J. was still standing there.
“Hurry up,” she whispered. “He’s not going to be there all day.”
A.J. didn’t need any further prodding. He fairly flew out of the room before his sister could finish her sentence.
Sergeant Augustus Tripopulous, known to everyone as Guy, thanks to his younger sister’s initial mangling of his name, couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a day off and actually relaxed. Probably because it had been so long ago. Even so, he felt guilty, but he put that on hold. Put the notion that there were at least a dozen things he should be tending to on hold, as well. Instead of dealing with those dozen things, he stretched out on the white plastic lounge chair and sighed.
Before him, rays from the brilliant California sun skipped along the green-blue pool water, scattering diamonds in their wake.
This was positively decadent, he thought, but he didn’t care. He had this coming to him. He’d put in some really long hours in the past month.
In comparison to its larger, older and more sophisticated sisters, Bedford, California, was a relatively quiet little city. But that didn’t mean that it was the Garden of Eden. Crime still reared its ugly head from time to time, like as not imported from neighboring cities that were far more developed than Bedford. Which meant far more jaded, far more dangerous. A man had to stay on his toes, even here. Especially if his chosen field was law enforcement.
Born and raised in nearby Newport Beach, Guy liked it in Bedford. He had no deep-rooted craving to play cops-and-robbers and shoot it out with bad guys. He just wanted to live in a nice place and see that it remained that way. He took it as his calling.
For the most part, he loved his work. All but the reports. And once in a while, he even got to do something significant, to make a difference. Like the time when he had found a man wandering the streets, his mind wiped clean of any memories. Guy had had nothing to go on except the engraved medallion around the man’s neck. The requirements of his job had been fulfilled when he brought the man in to the local hospital to be checked out. The requirements of his conscience, however, had demanded a great deal more of him. He’d taken the man to his sister, who now ran the family restaurant. She’d put him to work and given him a place to stay. In his spare time, Guy had tried to find out who the man was.
Eventually, Guy had been instrumental in reuniting the man with his past and giving him a future that contained not only a wife, but a baby, as well. It had made Guy feel really good about himself.
And maybe, if he was being strictly honest with himself, just a little bit envious, as well.
A woman wearing a bikini the thickness of dental floss walked by. She smiled at Guy, and he nodded in response, but made no effort to follow her and take advantage of the blatant invitation she was issuing. He didn’t feel like dallying. Not anymore. He’d spent ten years doing that. Now he felt like getting serious. He wanted to find someone and lay down roots.
What he wanted, he mused, was to be just like Brady Lockwood, except without the episode of amnesia. He wanted what Brady had now-a home, a wife, a family.
He had a family, Guy reminded himself. A very loving family. But in his case, that family was comprised of parents, grandparents, and a sister who thought that just because God had given her a mouth and him ears, that meant she had to talk and he had to listen. He loved them all dearly, but it just wasn’t enough anymore.
Guy wanted a family of his own. A small one to start, he mused, but who knew what lay ahead? All he had to do was find the right beginning. The right woman.
All.
It was a hell of a tall order. The woman hadn’t happened along in thirty years—what made him think she was ever going to come?
He shrugged. It was too nice a day to dwell on the negative side.
Laziness dribbled through his veins like golden honey that was slowly being poured over a stack of pancakes. Pancakes. Guy was mildly aware that he was hungry, but he was simply too tired to do something about it.
Maybe later.
His eyes began to slip shut when he felt the sudden jolt on his chair. Two jolts. One on either side of him, and almost simultaneously.
Instantly alert, his eyes flying open, Guy saw that he was buffeted on each side by a golden-headed child.
Surrounded was more like it, from the way they were clamoring for his attention. Their angelic faces were identical masks of excitement, and what Guy recognized as animated fear.
They were both yelling, one in each ear, at an identical pitch. He caught the words help and kidnapped, but little else.
Guy placed his hands on the little boy’s shoulders, momentarily stilling him. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Not to be outdone or ignored, Addie wrapped her hands around Guy’s arm. “You’ve got to help us!” she cried in her best dramatic voice.
She wondered if she should pretend to faint. But if she did, then A.J. would get to do all the talking. Addie decided against fainting.
Recognition set in as Guy looked from one to the other. “You’re the kids next door, aren’t you?”
He’d seen them the day he moved in. Since then, he’d observed them several times as he left for work, and noticed that they would be watching him with solemn, contemplative eyes that were way too old for their young faces. He’d been in a hurry each time, and he hadn’t stopped to talk. But he had promised himself that he would, very soon. It never hurt to know your neighbors, especially when those neighbors had a very good-looking mother. One with soulful blue eyes and legs that went from here to there.
“Yeah.” A.J. fairly bounced up and down against him. “I’m A.J. and this is Addie. Our last name’s Douglas.”
Guy inclined his head solemnly. “Pleased to meet you, A. J. and Addie Douglas.”
Addie didn’t like to be mentioned last. She fairly shook the policeman’s arm, capturing his attention. “You’ve got to help us.”
They were agitated, there was no doubt about that. Guy couldn’t decide whether that agitation was serious in the absolute sense, or in the under-tenyear-old-and-on-spring-break sense.
He cocked his head, looking from one to the other. They were almost identical, he thought. Like two halves of a golden apple. “Help you with what?”
Addie bit the inside of her lip so hard tears came to her eyes. Just as she wanted them to. “Our mommy’s been kidnapped.”
A.J. stared in awe at his sister. Admiration enveloped him. Addie was even better than the people in the movie.
Under normal circumstances, Guy would have said that this was just some sort of game they were playing. But the children were both so breathless, so upset, that for the moment and for the sake of argument, he decided to believe them. It was his experience that children were usually far more astute about picking up on things than they were given credit for.
He gathered the little girl into his lap. “How do you know that?” he asked seriously.
He believed them, Addie thought, her heart beginning to race. He really believed them. This was great. She wanted to squeeze her brother, but didn’t dare.
“Because we saw the note. The ransom note.” She said the word very slowly, afraid of getting it wrong and spoiling everything. Addie’s lower lip quivered. “You can get her back, can’t you? You’re a policeman. I saw your uniform.”
Then this was on the level, Guy thought. His heart went out to the two children. Striving to calm her, he ran his hand over the girl’s hair. Poor kid. “Yes, I’m a policeman.”
Not to be left out, A.J. chimed in. “You won’t let anything happen to her, will you? She’s all we’ve got. Our daddy went away a long time ago and he’s not coming back.” A.J. wondered how Addie could cry like that. He thought of the saddest thing he could and felt his eyes sting a little, but no tears came. “Mommy said he can’t.”
Guy wondered if “can’t” translated into “won’t.” Was the long-legged woman who lived next door to him a widow, or a divorcée with a restraining order against her ex? He hadn’t noticed any man coming or going from the apartment, but then, he hadn’t been around all that much. The stakeout had taken up most of his time since he moved in. Some of his things were still in boxes, and he absolutely abhorred clutter.
“Would you know who would want to hurt your mommy?” he asked A.J. gently.
A.J. shook his head. Moving Addie aside, he climbed onto the policeman’s lap. It was a nice, warm place to be. He vaguely remembered a bigger, softer lap. A lap that had made him feel safe. But he knew he hadn’t sat in that lap in a long, long time. Mommy’s lap was nice, but it was small. There really wasn’t enough room for both him and Addie on it anymore.
“No. Everybody likes Mommy.” He knew he should be saying something more. Something to make the policeman feel sorry for them. “You won’t let anything happen to her, will you, Mr. Policeman?”
“Guy,” Guy told them, trying to guess what they had to be going through right now. “My name is Guy, and no, I won’t let anything happen to her.” The first place to start, he thought, was in the woman’s apartment. Because he didn’t want to upset them any more than they already were, Guy tried to make his questions seem more like a conversation. “How long has she been gone?”
“A long time,” Addie told him solemnly, nodding her head for emphasis.
“Since this morning,” A.J. announced.
Addie glared at A.J. for contradicting her. He was going to ruin everything. She should have told him to stay home.
“It feels like a long time,” she explained.
“I’m sure it does,” Guy agreed soothingly. Very gently, he moved each child off the chair and then rose himself. “Does she leave you alone often?”
Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. Maybe the woman had just gone off and they just thought she’d been kidnapped. If that was the case, he was going to give her a stern warning about the criminal ramifications of leaving young children home alone.
“Oh, no,” A.J. protested. “We’re not alone. Summer’s with us.”
“Summer,” Guy repeated. If someone was with them, why hadn’t they reported the kidnapping?
“Our baby-sitter,” A.J. elaborated, despite the glaring look Addie was giving him. He could never please Addie, he thought glumly. There was always something wrong.
She had to keep A.J. from talking, or he was going to spoil everything. They had to get Guy to their apartment before Mommy got back.
“Young people-sitter,” Addie corrected.
This one was going to run for office, Guy thought. He was beginning to rethink the gravity of the situation. Maybe this was a game after all. “So, can I see the note?” He held his hand out.
The plan was back on track. Addie nodded her head. “Sure,” she said, with the confidence of one whose heart was pure and whose intentions were noble. She linked her small hand with Guy’s and began to tug him in the right direction. “But you gotta come with us to our apartment.”
His suspicions were definitely aroused. He usually had a sixth sense about things when it came to trouble, and so far, it hadn’t kicked in.
“And why is that?” he asked Addie.
Addie continued tugging. She glanced toward her brother expectantly. A.J. took Guy’s other hand and pulled.
“Because that’s where the note is, Guy.” Addie tossed her golden head in the direction of the garden apartments. “We didn’t want anything happening to it when we came down here looking for you.”
“You came looking for me.” So they hadn’t just happened on him as the first available adult they spied.
“‘Course,” A.J. said with feeling. “You’re the cop next door.”
“Policeman,” Addie corrected. She shook her head dismissively at her brother, then turned her face up toward Guy. “Children. You have to watch them every minute.”
Guy had trouble hiding the smile that was beginning to bloom. “So they tell me.”
Addie’s light brows almost touched as a thought suddenly occurred to her. “You don’t have any of your own, do you? Children?” she pressed, when he didn’t answer her immediately.
Addie knew that Joey Kennedy’s daddy didn’t live with them anymore, but he was still their daddy. She didn’t want to take away anyone’s daddy. She just wanted one of her own. It had been so long since she had one.
She was beginning to sound like one of the women his grandmother socialized with, Guy thought. Always quizzing him about his life and whether or not he had gotten married since they saw him last. “No, I don’t. I’m not married.”
Addie nodded her head. “We know that. But were you ever married?” They were almost at the apartment, and she turned toward him, waiting for his answer before continuing on.
“No. Why?”
She let out a sigh of relief. She hadn’t messed up. He was the right one for Mommy. “Just wanted to know.” Addie turned again, motioning him on. “It’s this way.”
“Yes, I know.” He followed her. The boy was directly behind him, as if prepared to block the way if he changed his mind about coming with them. “I live next door.”
“How come you’re a cop?” A.J. wanted to know. “Um, I mean a policeman.”
Guy stopped just short of the door, wondering what this was all about. He was fairly convinced, tears or no tears, that the woman next door was not a kidnap victim, but the center of an elaborate juvenile plot.
“I like helping people.”
A.J.’s eyes were wide, and incredibly blue. “Like you’re going to help us find our mommy?”
There had to be a gentle way to ease out of this. “About that—”
“Here we are,” Addie announced, throwing open the front door. She clamped her hands down around his wrist again, in case he decided to leave. “The note’s in the kitchen.”
Maybe there wasn’t a way to ease out of this just yet. Curiosity urged him on a little farther. As he allowed himself to be drawn into the apartment, Guy saw a slender blond-haired girl in the living room. She was comfortably propped up against the myriad of pillows on the sofa. There was a telephone attached to her ear. From the angle she assumed on the sofa, the receiver appeared to be hermetically sealed. She was completely oblivious of the fact that her charges had left the apartment and then returned with a stranger in tow.
“Summer?” he guessed, directing the name and the question toward Addie.
The disdainful look on the little girl’s face was not lost on him.
“Summer,” she confirmed. Without sparing the teenager another look, Addie continued leading Guy into the kitchen. He was pretty manageable for an adult, she thought, pleased that it was going so well.
Once in the kitchen, Addie produced the envelope with the note inside it. She handed it to him with a small flourish.
“Here it is,” she announced. “The ransom note.”
If Guy still had any lingering doubts that this was a game, they were quickly dispelled as soon as he took the note out and read the childish scrawl.
It was a game, he thought, and they needed an adult to play with them. The teenager in the other room was obviously unsatisfactory or unwilling. Maybe both. In either case, she wasn’t part of it.
He had nothing pressing for the day, and suddenly, sitting at poolside, deepening his already dark complexion, didn’t have much allure. Neither did unpacking the boxes that were still stacked up in his bedroom. Guy decided to play along.
Pretending to read and then reread the note, he finally placed it on the table and nodded, pulling his features into a grave expression.
“It looks serious, kids. I’m going to have to get right on this.”
The glee that passed between the twins was almost audible and definitely visible.
Addie was almost ready to hug herself. “Then you’ll help?”
“It’s my sworn duty,” Guy informed her. “As a policeman.”
Just like on “Sesame Street.” “See, I knew he would,” A.J. crowed to his sister.
Addie didn’t want Guy to think that she didn’t have any faith in him.
“So did I,” she chimed in with feeling. She looked like a little goat, about to butt heads with another goat as she lowered her head. “He was my idea.”
Realizing what she had just said, Addie clamped both hands over her mouth, her eyes darting fearfully toward Guy’s face.
“It was your idea to ask me for help?” Guy supplied innocently.
Addie sighed, relieved, as she slid her hands away from her mouth. It was still okay. “Yeah.”
“Good thinking,” Guy confirmed. “This is obviously the work of a criminal mastermind.”
Pleasure flitted through A.J.’s chest. He stood on his toes, looking around Guy’s well-muscled forearm at the note, as if he had never seen it before. “You think?”
It was getting more and more difficult not to smile. “I know.”
Guy had always had an affinity for children. Right now, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. So much so that he didn’t hear the front door opening and then closing again. Nor did he see the perplexed woman approaching.
But Nancy Douglas certainly saw him. All of him. And wondered why there was a seminude man standing in her kitchen, talking to her children.
