Blood Born Read online

  God damn God damn God DAMN that Eric Gensler.

  Daniella’s face had a pinkish cast, so Margaret stood up and felt her forehead. Feverish. “Goddammit,” she whispered. Her daughter had an infection of some sort, probably from those nasty bites Eric had given to her shoulder and neck.

  Whimpering, Daniella felt down the front of her sweaty hospital gown. “Hungry,” she said again and squeezed her stomach—then abruptly let go of it with a grunt.

  “What’s the matter, honey? That hurt?”

  Daniella moaned in response, but Margaret wasn’t sure if that was a yes or no.

  She was about to probe her abdomen when a nurse entered the room, bearing a tray of food.

  “Whew, thank God.” Margaret swung the meal table into position. “She said she’s starving.”

  “Good, ’cause we have a nice, hearty breakfast here.” A nametag over the nurse’s ample bosom identified her as Julie Kimball. “Scrambled eggs, bacon, cereal, grits, toast . . .” She removed the cover to unveil a meal large enough to make Margaret gape. “. . . fruit cocktail, a banana, orange and apple juice—and I forgot to ask, does she like tea or coffee?”

  Margaret couldn’t help laughing. “You said you were hungry, Daniella.”

  Daniella licked her lips once, twice, three times as Nurse Kimball raised the head of her bed so she could eat. Margaret figured the change in position would hurt like hell, but Daniella didn’t even look away from the food. By the time she was sitting up, she had already torn the wrapper off her utensils and attacked the scrambled eggs.

  Presently, a short, dark-skinned doctor wearing a white coat much like Margaret’s came in. Introducing himself as Dr. Sharma, he gave Margaret a brisk handshake. He moved to shake Daniella’s hand, but she didn’t look up from her meal.

  “Daniella, say hi to the doctor.”

  “No, do not worry.” The doctor’s Indian accent made him sound like his tongue was paralyzed. “I am here reviewing CAT results if you are interesting, yes?”

  Margaret answered that of course she was interested. She then listened as Dr. Sharma launched into a long technical description of Daniella’s head injury. While he spoke, Margaret frowned at the way her daughter grunted as she wolfed down food.

  “Daniella, slow down, or you’ll throw up.”

  The girl didn’t reply. Nothing existed but her and her breakfast. She hardly noticed as the nurse drew a blood sample. Her only acknowledgement of the visitors was when Nurse Kimball said she needed an arm to check blood pressure and pulse. Daniella made a sound that might have been “okay” and continued eating with just one hand until the exam was over and the nurse left.

  But the most important thing, as far as Margaret was concerned, was that it sounded like Daniella would be all right—at least physically. Provided she’d deciphered Dr. Sharma’s speech correctly, Daniella didn’t appear to have any brain hemorrhaging. Sharma said he would take a wait-and-see approach on her concussive injuries before recommending further intervention.

  “Thank you,” Margaret said. She felt like she could go home now. She blearily searched for her purse before remembering that she left it in the car. “Oh, I should tell you that she has some stomach tenderness. And I’m sure the nurse noticed her fever when she took her vitals.”

  Sharma nodded, then put on his stethoscope and began his own examination. Daniella looked irritated at this attention, but paused in her feeding when Sharma admonished her to “stop being a nonsense” and let him listen to her lungs.

  Margaret didn’t pay a lot of attention to the exam because she was so tired—and now feeling another hot flash, dammit. But she noticed the doctor’s thoughtful look as he probed Daniella’s abdomen.

  “It is hurting here, yes?”

  “I’m just hungry.” Daniella glared as if to say, Are you done yet?

  Dr. Sharma sighed as he removed his stethoscope from his ears. Daniella took that as her cue to stab her remaining bite of eggs, fork pinging against the plate.

  “I ask Dr. Bowen about these things,” Sharma said. He said he would also review the antibiotic regimen administered to prevent rape-related STDs and infection from her animal bites.

  At the mention of the rape, Daniella began to cry.

  Margaret hugged her. “There, there, honey, it’s all right.” She felt like she’d used up her entire supply of there-theres and it’s-all-rights during the past nine hours. She looked up to see Dr. Sharma ducking out of the room.

  “Wait a minute, hold on! I’ll be right back, honey.” The bastard wasn’t getting away that easily.

  He was waiting for her in the hallway. “I am apologizing. What else may I do you for?”

  The question made Margaret want to giggle despite herself. It had been a long night. “Well, you can find the hospital’s rape counselor, for one thing. I haven’t seen one yet.”

  Sharma made a note on his clipboard. “I am so apologizing. Woh is a complete nonsense.” He looked sidelong at her. “You look most fatigued also, yes? You should go home.”

  Margaret nodded. “I’m on my way out.” She blinked and looked around her, feeling like she was noticing this place for the first time. “I’ve been meaning to ask, why is my daughter in this part of the hospital?”

  The Women’s Center, she knew, was where they treated things like female cancers and high-risk pregnancies. The “Restricted Access” sign on this wing also seemed odd.

  “I am not understanding,” he said.

  Something told her Dr. Sharma understood her perfectly, but she was too tired to analyze his coyness. “It’s just that—well, I think if she didn’t have the concussion, she would’ve been released by now. But since she wasn’t, shouldn’t she be in the Neurology Unit instead?”

  “Ah, theek hai.” Sharma nodded understanding. “Neurology is too much full today.”

  “Too much . . . ?”

  She found this unbelievable, but again, she was too tired to argue. Plus, she was developing a headache—stress-related or menopausal, she didn’t give a shit anymore so long as she got some sleep. Maybe she just needed to stop trying to be Daniella’s doctor and let these people do their jobs. She thanked Sharma for his time and let him go.

  Ten minutes later, after having said goodbye to Daniella, making sure the nurses had her number, and getting lost on the way back to the parking garage, Margaret blinked at the sunlight as she started her car and turned onto Gallows Road toward home. Her colleagues, who all drove BMWs and Lexus sedans, sometimes teased her about her ugly little Isuzu Amigo, which she’d bought used through AutoTrader.com for a paltry sum. Daniella had been bugging her for a car ever since getting her driver’s license, so maybe she would give it to her and buy something new . . . that way Daniella could drive herself to the movies instead of going out with hoodlum boys who—

  She sat up straight and jerked the car back into her lane. Good going, she thought. She lightly slapped her own cheek to wake up. Just pile up the car right now, then Daniella won’t even have a chance to drive it. . . . And what the hell’s going on down here?

  She rolled to a stop behind a long line of cars headed northbound on Gallows. A car accident, most likely. Fuck.

  As she waited, a police cruiser came screaming down the center lane, its siren piercing Margaret’s eardrums. She took her first opportunity to detour onto Route 50 and away from the jam.

  Navigating past a cluster of ramps where the secondary highway crossed the Capital Beltway, Margaret made a complicated series of turns to merge onto Fairview Parkway headed north. Just as she passed a manmade lake beside which she and Daniella had once parked to watch a two a.m. meteor shower, she encountered another unmoving column of vehicles. She sighed as she braked to a stop. She kicked herself for not continuing down Route 50 and cutting through the neighborhood streets toward home. And there was no opportunity now to do a U-turn.

  After five minutes of not moving, she shifted into park. A police helicopter thumped past overhead. She seriously considered
heading back to the hospital. She could always do her impersonation of a stranded airline passenger and get some shuteye in a waiting room. She had a lot of practice at doing so from the days when Henry was bouncing through cancer clinics.

  Christ, what a screwed-up night this had been. She’d be so glad when her little girl—Daniella would always be her “little girl”—was at home and that perverted boy was serving ten to twenty. . . .

  A horn blast from the truck behind her alerted her that traffic was moving again. Cars streamed by in the next lane. Margaret waved an apology and took off.

  It turned out that the holdup wasn’t a traffic accident after all. At the intersection of Fairview Parkway and Lee Highway, a cordon of police cruisers blocked the west and north sides of the intersection. Police officers milled about, some holding shotguns, and faced the miniature golf course across the street.

  One cop stood under the traffic lights, which were cycling as normal, and directed everyone to detour to the right, down Lee Highway. There were more vehicles beyond the roadblocks—including what looked like a UPS van with a police insignia on its side—but Margaret didn’t have much time to rubberneck before turning.

  Wow. I’ll have to watch the news tonight.

  At least she had been headed in this direction to begin with. She and Daniella lived in a small brick house a mile down the road, behind two gas stations and a strip mall, and across from a cemetery. (“Everything we need,” Henry quipped when they moved in, shortly before Daniella was born.) They lived in a nice enough neighborhood except people insisted on parking on both sides of the street, leaving just one narrow lane down the middle for driving. Margaret and Daniella kept their home cozy—although ever since Henry’s passing, it was as if its vitality had leeched away, triggering continual appliance breakdowns, leaky windows, and blights on their shrubbery and yard.

  After parking in the driveway, Margaret staggered to the front door. She accidentally hauled out her white office keycard along with her door key—she tried to catch it as it fell and wound up dropping both. She panicked until she remembered hiding the blue one she stole at the bottom of her desk drawer at work, beneath a box of tampons. She felt like crying as she retrieved everything—not only from exhaustion but from the realization that soon she wouldn’t need that particular emergency stash anymore.

  Just get some rest, she chided as she went inside. Daniella’s going to need you to be strong.

  As she deposited her keys, purse, and lab coat in the kitchen, a gray shape leapt at her from atop the refrigerator.

  Gemini the cat landed on her shoulder with a yowl and scrabbled at her with sharp claws. Margaret screamed and swatted until it fell off.

  “Goddamn you, cat!”

  Gemini took station by its empty water and food bowls. He meowed loudly enough to hurt her ears.

  “Oh, damn. I’m sorry. I was at the hospital all night.”

  Margaret picked up the bowls and carried them to the sink. She filled one with water while she pulled the bag of cat food out of the upper cabinet. Something squeaked underfoot as she reached, and she looked down to find a plastic mouse toy. When she kicked it with her heel toward the dining room, Gemini ignored it. He kept staring at her while she refilled the bowls. The cat’s single-minded hunger reminded her a bit of Daniella’s.

  She might have shivered if she weren’t experiencing her second hot flash of the morning.

  As the cat ate its meal, shaking its head in a flesh-tearing motion that scattered food kernels across the linoleum, Margaret went into the living room and wrote herself a note. She would look up the ethical rules governing whether she could prescribe hormone replacement therapy for herself.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daniella’s yearbook picture hanging in the hallway. It was beside Daniella’s induction certificate to the National Honor Society. She wrote herself a second note, which she starred as her top priority: “Look up rules for writing Daniella prescriptions, e.g., birth control.”

  She was sitting on the couch as she did this, a pen and a Post-It pad in her lap. Before she could stand back up and go to the bedroom, her chin sunk to her chest, and she fell asleep.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Margaret awoke when sunlight struck her eyelids through the window. Groaning, she sat up and straightened her glasses. The cat, which had curled up beside her stomach, jumped off the couch and disappeared down the hall.

  She blinked at the miniature grandfather clock on the mantelpiece, a wedding gift from Henry’s late mother. Eleven a.m. It took a moment, but the night came rushing back—and she groaned again. She needed to get her little girl out of that hospital. It’d only been a couple hours, but she’d had enough sleep to recover some clarity, and what her instincts told her was that she didn’t like how Dr. Sharma had hidden behind his language barrier and claimed the Neurology Unit was “too much full.”

  Yeah, right. She didn’t know why he was lying, but any doctor who would do so didn’t deserve his license, let alone deserve to work on her daughter.

  Her grogginess vanishing, Margaret hurried to put on clean clothes, leaving the lab coat behind. She paused long enough to brush her teeth and slake her dry mouth with tap water. In the bathroom mirror, she looked like death warmed-over, but she hardly noticed. Nothing was important now except her daughter. Even issues like her career (which included writing that stupid newspaper article) seemed far in the past and unimportant.

  Remembering the detective had taken Daniella’s clothing for evidence, Margaret stopped in her daughter’s bedroom to get her some street clothes and underwear. She tried not to linger, tried not to see the pink bedspread piled high with teddy bears, which belied how her little girl wasn’t really a little girl anymore—especially not now that she’d lost her virginity, and what a horrible, awful way for that to happen—that goddamn Eric Gensler, when I get my hands on him I’ll—

  “Stop it,” she told herself. She closed the dresser drawer harder than she meant to.

  Atop the dresser, beside a picture of a younger Daniella standing between her parents, an address book lay open to a page covered with hearts pierced with Cupid arrows. In the middle, in Daniella’s neat script—which included hearts instead of dots over the “i”s—was Eric Gensler’s address and phone number.

  Margaret remembered meeting him last week, when he came by to pick up Daniella for their first date. She only had a cursory conversation with him at the door—long enough for him to address her as “ma’am” and firmly shake her hand, which counteracted the impression given by the baggy jeans, wallet chain, and stud in his ear. I’m such a sucker, she thought. He’d also smiled without showing his teeth, and now she knew why.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, reminding her of the police she saw on the way home—and that made her think of Detective Randall. Margaret tapped her fingers on the address book before dropping it on the stack of clothes for Daniella. On the way home from the hospital, they would go by the police station to give this information to the detective. Randall probably already had it by now, but the visit would be a good excuse to ask for an update on the case. If they had a holding cell in the station, maybe Eric would even be inside, and Randall would let them talk to him. Sure, that was too much to hope for, but goddamn, it would feel good to face her daughter’s rapist and tell him how much of a scumbag he was. It’d be good for Daniella, too.

  Scooping everything into a plastic grocery bag from the kitchen, Margaret marched out to her car. Each footstep rang with righteous anger, and she imagined grinding her heels into Eric Gensler’s neck.

  Once in her car, she pulled out the road atlas from under her seat—just for the hell of it. She checked Daniella’s address book, then looked up Eric’s street. She was surprised to find that he lived off of Fairview Parkway, in a townhouse development beside Fairview Lake. It was on her way.

  It couldn’t hurt just to look at it.

  She turned the ignition key.

  Chapter 6

  Her nec
k ached from sitting there asleep on the couch, so Randall opened her eyes and considered going to the bedroom.

  Nausea rippled within her. When she stood up, it abruptly crested into a tidal wave that sent her reeling to the kitchen to vomit into the sink. She retched loudly, but nothing came out but a few ounces of green bile.

  “Damn.”

  She washed out her mouth under the spigot, then gulped down as much water as she could stand before the nausea tried to sink its claws into her again.

  Claws . . .

  Last night came back to her. Her exhaustion vanished under an onslaught of adrenaline. She looked at the microwave’s clock, saw that it was almost eleven a.m., then hurried off to take a quick shower. Her shift didn’t start for another seven hours, but she already knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep.

  In the shower, the cuts in her breasts and shoulder hurt like motherfuckers. She reached out of the spray long enough to lay the Neosporin by her hairbrush so she wouldn’t forget to treat her wounds. Before getting out, she also frowned at the way her ankles had mysteriously started to bloat—then sneezed so hard that she knocked her head against the tiles. Food would help her feel better. She must remember to eat. . . .

  Ten minutes later, the owner of JF Carry-Out Pizza laughed when Randall leaned against the counter and ordered breadsticks and a large coffee to go.

  “That’s your breakfast?” Jill said as she rang it up. “I sell this stuff, and I can hardly stand it, let alone eat it first thing.” Suddenly she closed the cash drawer and handed the money back. “Just take it. It’s on the house today.”

  “You sure?” Randall smiled at the younger woman, whom she’d known for about a year. She remembered last night’s depression over lack of friends and wondered if Jill could be the chitchat buddy she needed. Jill had recently divorced, so maybe they could even cruise a singles bar together. That would certainly be easier than going alone.

  “Look, I’m just happy to have a cop living over my shop. It’s no trouble, really.”