Chapter 23

Mary sat down next to Dan as he sipped burnt police station coffee. She had her phone out. Lilith was babysitting. Richie was at the concert. Harper was off with some woman. Morwen. All Mary could do was focus on her job. On the troubled drug addict kid who fled custody.

The only bright spot in her life was that she had coffee at the cafe. She looked up and saw one of the younger officers walking Darleen Little over to her. Darleen was incredibly animated, insisting the handsome young cop take one of the cookies she carried.

“Darleen?”

“Mary! Oh my god, are you alright?”

“As alright as can be,” she said. “This is Don. Don Sievert. A client of mine.”

“Hi!” Darleen said. She opened the pink box and offered it to Don. “Homemade chocolate chip?”

“Thanks,” he said, looking pale. He picked out the cookie and dunked it straight into his coffee cup. Mary shook her head when Darleen turned it towards Mary.

“You are such a housewife,” Mary said.

“And you’re a go-getting career woman,” Darleen said. “No wonder we make such a great pair. Did you get out of Richie anything more about Harper?”

“Yeah, but nothing much I could do about it,” Mary said. “Has Caitlin mentioned a girl named Morwen to you?”

“Weird name,” Darleen said. She watched Mary’s face squeeze in impatience. “No, I’ve never heard it before.”

“Your daughter needs you?” Don asked. “Why are you here? I wouldn’t be here for Frankie if Trevor wasn’t in ... Oh my god! Your daughter’s with Trevor!”

He was up to his feet like a bolt and found Darleen had grabbed his pants. He looked down and she shook her head.

“She has two daughters,” Darleen said. “Lily’s fine.”

“God, I hate the name Lily,” Mary said. She reached behind Don and grabbed a cookie and bit into it miserably.

“Mr Sievert, Mrs Cowie?” A tall detective in his sixties walked over. “One of our officers called in a car driving disruptively slow across George Street.” He said and lifted a newly printed picture off of a clipboard. The paper was still warped from the hot ink. Any younger detective would have left the picture on the tablet and carried that over. Hell, the two older ones as well. “Is this Franklin Sievert?”

He had a picture taken from the camera mounted on a police cruiser. It showed a rage-filled face of a young man hunched over, using the front of a car as a shield.

“The girl in the driver’s seat was with Richie at the hospital,” Darleen said, first.

“She works at Burger King with Don’s ex-wife.” Mary balled her fist. And Richie. They had been shown a picture of Centre 200’s parking lot. Obviously, since she had lived in the city from childhood. Moreso for the giant banner of Gabrielle Xu hanging off the building behind Frankie.

“That’s my brother,” Don said.

“He ran, but we’ve got four patrol cars surrounding the block and four more on the way in. Mrs Cowie?”

There was no moment to stop. She was stampeding towards the front exit of the building.

“There’s not much she can do until we bring him in,” the detective said.

“Doesn’t mean she’s gonna sit around and prove that,” Darleen said. “Cookie?”

The wind buffeted Richie’s ears as he pulled himself hand over hand. He couldn’t fathom how long he had been climbing, but there was no way the ground should’ve been as far away below him as it seemed. He stopped looking down and dragged himself up. Looking up didn’t help. It never felt like he was getting closer.

He looked back down.

Again?! More?!

He climbed faster.

Harper laughed as viciously as she could. It was a struggle. Her scalp hurt. Morwen roughly pulled Harper by the hair out into the gardens. Pale and slender women rushed away from tending their garden patches.

Harper dug her fingers into the soil. The stone floors of the palace had been perfectly smooth. The dirt of the garden crumbled under her fingers. She couldn’t hold herself back.

“Stop fighting, woman! You’re mine!” Morwen screeched.

“For a few more minutes! My man is coming to get me!” Harper laughed. She managed to kick and scramble to a crawl, it eased the tension on her hair. Morwen bellowed and marched faster.

“You’re not worth this!” Morwen sneered.

“Or, for the first time, you underpaid,” Harper said.

Morwen cursed and spat. They passed out through the gardens, beyond the arms of the east and west wings. Dirt and soil gave way to white rolling ground. Harper managed herself up to her feet.

She rushed forward and put herself side by side with Morwen. Morwen’s rage achieved a new height. Harper slapped the hand from her hair and looked up at the endless blue sky and sun.

“You’d think a satellite would’ve found this place by now,” Harper said.

“No, that’s not space above us,” Morwen had gone deathly quiet in her rage. She stopped and Harper took an extra step forward. A knot of greenery drilled out a hole in the cloud. Cold quiet wind was soundless under the drumbeat of Harper’s heart.

Lilith tucked the blankets in tight and swept Trevor’s bangs out of his eye. He needed a haircut, but neither Flo nor Dan had worked up the willpower for the fight that always entailed. The boy couldn’t keep his eyelids open, he yawned and rolled onto his sleeping side by the time Lilith got to the lightswitch.

She missed. She wobbled on her feet and clutched her stomach. She grabbed the doorjamb and patted the wall, too low, for a second before she found the switch and darkened the room. She left the door open.

“Shit, Lilith!” Zita whispered and grabbed her friend.

“It’s OK, we can talk normally, he sleeps through most things,” Lilith said.

“You look like you’re gonna hurl,” Natalie said. Her hair was a mess of random braids after having been bullied into it. Whatever, the kid had fought the girly stuff, but he had fun.

“Maybe,” Lilith said. She hung onto Zita. Zita moved her towards the bathroom. Lilith shook her head and flexed. “Air! Patio!”

“Sure,” Zita said, Natalie grabbed the other side of Lilith and they aimed the girl through the kitchen and out the back door.

Lilith took a big breath. She blinked her eyes. The wave had passed. She felt normal. She staggered forward and grabbed the table. It was wet. Everything out here was always wet. It never seemed to get enough sun, even a day after the last rain.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you need Richie?”

Lilith looked at Zita and Nat cross-eyed, “Richie? Why Richie?”

“She gets like that,” Zita said. “It comes and goes.”

“It’s gone, it went,” Lilith said. She stood up and took a long breath. Her body shivered with the chill March night. “I’m feeling–”

She was green again. She bolted for the end of the deck and grabbed the railing. Her feet kicked up as she levered herself over the railing. Disgustingly loud, she retched.

“Is that blood?!” Nat shrieked.

It was too bright red to be blood. She couldn’t explain the color. Nothing Lilith had drank or eaten had been anywhere near the vibrant color that geysered from her lips!

They had had grilled cheese sandwiches for Christ’s sake!

It didn’t seem like she was throwing up. She was purging, clearing out something that couldn’t quite hold on inside of her any more.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” She launched herself back, bowling through the shoulders of Zita and Nat as she fell onto the wood. Green knifed upwards into the sky. Autumn leaves twisted off the stalk. The curling grassy tower powered up in front of them.

“What the fuck is that?!” she asked, panting.

Zita and Natalie were staring upwards, like turkeys drowning in the rain.

“I–”

“Richie’s up there,” Nat said.

“Then we go after him,” Zita declared. “I’m gonna grab our coats and shoes. You’re gonna stay and look after Trevor, right Lil?”

“What in the flying fuck? Why would Richie be up there?” Lilith muttered. She frowned. “That came out of my guts!”

“Yeah...” Nat said warmly. “Maybe we’ll find some more up there and you won’t throw it up this time.”

“Right, you’ve been a real pain in his ass,” Zita said, rushing inside.

“Oh my god,” Lilith said. “I need to talk to someone sane.”

She almost called her mother. She stopped. She dialed Flo.

“She’s never not shown up to work,” Flo said. “I’d fire all of you for another of her, normally.”

“Don’t be silly.” Keith laughed from the fry stations. “You can’t fire people. Frankie worked here for two years.”

“Obviously!” Flo laughed. “But, I’m worried about Oksana. What the hell, right?”

“Right,” Keith said. “You gonna answer the callbox?”

“Hi! Welcome to Burger King, can I take your order?” Flo put on her smile as she punched in the button on the side of her headset.

“Yeah, can I get two whopper combos, cheese, onion rings instead of fries.”

“No, I want fries.”

“Fries for one, onion rings for the other.”

“Hmmph!”

“And to drink?”

“What do you want? Diet coke?”

“Oh, I’m fat now?!”

“Diet Pepsi alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Two Diet Pepsis,” he said.

“Thank you. Pull up to the window,” Flo said, as she finished the order.

That’s when the police came into the restaurant.

“Mrs Cowie, please!” One officer said as a severe woman stormed up to the counter.

“Hi!” Daisy asked from cash. “Can I help you?”

“Get your manager,”

“Take over drive-thru Daisy,” Flo said, putting the headset on the teenager. “Hi Mary, what’s wrong?”

“Actually, ma’am, this is our job,” the police officer said, stepping up next to Mary. “Can we speak in private?”

“I’m Frankie Sievert’s lawyer.” Mary raised herself and stared down the policeman. “I’ll be coming.”

“Fine,” the cop said.

“The back office,” Flo said. “Are you three going to be OK? Daisy, you’ll have to do drive-thru and cash.”

“Where the fuck is Oksana!” Daisy snarled. Her face instantly turned to a bright smile. “Hi! Welcome to Burger King! How can I help you today?!”

Flo frowned. Cursing in range of the dining room. Daisy would have to be written up. She let the police and Mary Cowie in through the employee’s only door. She led them back around the stacks of buns and into the back office.

“Is this about Frankie? Do I need to call the owner?”

“No, this man and this woman were seen driving ... oddly on Townsend and George St,” the police officer said. He showed a tablet to Flo.

“Oh my god! Oksana didn’t come into work today! Is she OK? Did he hurt her?”

“Calm down, they went to the Centre 200 parking lot and–”

“Why is he going after Richie?”

“Who?” The policeman asked, eyebrow raising as Mary pushed forward.

“I don’t know,” Flo said. “He came to my house looking for Richie’s phone number and address. It was the final straw to get him fired.”

“Richie is an employee here?”

“Yes, Richard Jackson. Richie,” Flo said. “He was dating Mrs Cowie’s daughter until the du–until Harper dumped Richie for some other woman.”