The Off Season (2 page)

“Move it, Max,” she scolded, pointing to the hundred-dollar heated dog bed she’d bought after moving in early in December.

The big fawn-colored dog looked up pleadingly, then rolled onto his back, his spine curving like the letter
C
as his long legs stuck up like a road-killed whitetail’s.

Christina knew that she should ignore the pang of loneliness she felt and force the issue, instead of stroking his thin, sleek coat. But after getting up with Lilly last night and lying awake for so long afterward, she was too exhausted to—

Lilly. Last night.

Christina’s scalp prickled with a memory of her daughter’s china-doll eyes shimmering as though filmed underwater. Nausea rose with an echo of her sweet voice.
Murder me . . . No leave babies . . . No pretend, Kay-dee.

“Impossible,” she said aloud, talking to herself the way she’d speak to a delusional patient. It was only a bad dream triggered by cold weather. And the fact that Lilly was quickly approaching the age Christina had been on the night that forever changed her life. Or maybe it was proximity, knowing that after years in Texas—years she’d spent making excuses to avoid visiting any more often than she had to—she was back within a hundred miles of where it had happened.

Details filtered through her fog, the cold seeping in and the memory of her daughter in her arms morphing into the memory of her own baby sister as the snow came down around them.

Christina remembered a car out there that night, recalled her own hope fading with its receding taillights. Or were her memories getting mixed up with the sight of the strange vehicle she’d spotted last night on the street?

Throwing off the covers, she went to the window and looked out again. But the SUV had gone, leaving behind nothing but a splotch of bare, dark asphalt. As if the vehicle had sat there for a long time, arriving before the snow came and leaving after it had ended.

A gust off the churning water gave rise to a twisting specter, white with frost and vaguely feminine as it danced across the dark spot. Christina shivered as the snowy form dispersed, her imagination whispering forgotten words in her ear.

You take care of her and wait here just a minute. Mama’ll be right back.
Her breath caught.

But it was only another shard of a nightmare caused by how little sleep she was getting between Lilly and the new job, the stress of fresh grief, and the grueling cross-country move back from Texas to New Jersey. A woman of science, Christina clung to the rational explanation.

At least until the next time her mother spoke to her.

CHAPTER TWO

As Christina swallowed her last bite of toast, Renee bounced in through the back door with curly-haired Jacob wrapped in one arm and a striped tote draped over the other. The shiny, strawberry-blonde waves Christina had envied since they’d first become friends in junior high school swung over Renee’s shoulder as she chirped, “Morning!”

Her petite friend’s perkiness this early made Christina’s head ache, but they’d known each other for so long that she wasn’t going to strangle her friend for the offense. For one thing, since renewing their long-dormant relationship, Christina had become aware of a certain desperation behind her friend’s size 2 brand of cheer, a brittle edge suggesting that last year’s divorce had been no easier on Renee than Christina’s loss had been for her. It helped, too, that Christina had already had her first cup of caffeine, thanks to the barista-worthy coffeemaker that was her favorite thing about the house’s gorgeously remodeled kitchen.

“Lilly’s still sleeping,” she reported, grateful that she wouldn’t have to deal with any toddler crankiness this morning. Still, a remnant of unease flickered behind the thought, a lingering relief that her daughter wouldn’t open up those shining eyes and call her
Kay-dee
and not
Mommy
.

Christina filled her travel cup with a second hit of coffee, rich and dark and strong enough to burn away the chilling realization that she’d sunk to a new parental low. Afraid of her own daughter because of what she was certain had been nothing but a nightmare.

After slinging her bag atop the granite island, Renee set Jacob down and asked him, “You want to watch your show?”

Instead, he took a step toward Christina and held up a green toy dinosaur, mischief in his hazel eyes.
His father’s eyes,
she thought, before pushing aside a memory of Harris Bowers’s face.

“Rawr!” Jacob said, his shoulders hunching toward his ears.

Christina waved her hands and squealed, “Oh no! Not the mighty T. Rex! Who will save me? Maxie?”

From the family-room sectional where he was sprawled out, the big dog looked up and thumped his tail against a cushion. Instead of coming to her rescue, he yawned and laid his head back down.

“Lazybones!” Jacob laughed, forgetting his game as he made a beeline for the TV. He turned on a kiddie show, then heaved himself onto the sectional, draping an arm around the greyhound while they watched.

Figuring that dog and boy would soon go back to sleep, Christina stirred a splash of cream into her coffee and told Renee, “Those two have the right idea.”

She found Renee eyeing her as critically as she so often had during their junior high years.

“You look terrible,” Renee said bluntly. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

Christina snapped the to-go top on her cup with a bit more force than necessary, then peeked at her reflection in the microwave to check her usual slapdash makeup application and the ponytail she wore to keep her hair out of her face while working.

“I slept,” she insisted, despite the dark circles under her eyes.

Renee slipped an arm out of the sleeve of her jacket with a snort of disbelief—or was it disdain? “Sure you did, but did any of that sleep come in more than twenty-minute stretches?”

Christina shrugged. “Can’t have everything, I guess.”

“Can’t have
anything
if you keep stumbling around looking like you ought to be admitted to the hospital instead of treating patients. Call your sister,” she said, lapsing into her old tendency to issue orders. “Have Annie stay over for a couple nights, and have her get up with Lilly if you need her to, while you take something so you can get some real rest for once.”

“I’m late for work,” Christina told her, too on edge to deal with the unsolicited advice. Especially the advice to lean on the same sister whose seemingly miraculous resuscitation had planted the seed for med school in Christina’s own mind long ago. “You know, where people worry more about whether I can stitch ’em up or get their kid to stop projectile vomiting than how recently I’ve tweezed my eyebrows.”

Renee winced at the sharpness, hurt blooming in her blue-gray eyes. “You’re right, of course. Don’t mind me. I’m just worried, that’s all.”

Christina stared at her, uncomfortably reminded of how much her friend needed the babysitting money since she’d lost her teaching job not long after her divorce. Her divorce from a man Christina still regretted not warning her about.

“I’m not mad, Renee. How could I be?” Grabbing her tote and cup, she offered a one-armed hug. “You’re a real lifesaver, coming over. Have any trouble with the snow?”

Renee shook her head. “Main roads are all plowed.” She shrugged. “And, anyway, I’ve got the Jeep. The one good thing Harris left me.”

Hiding her discomfort at the mention of Harris Bowers, Christina nodded toward Jacob’s sleeping form. “Not the only good thing.” He really was a great kid—smart, sweet-tempered, and compliant—where Lilly was a live wire, to put it mildly. But then, Renee was such a natural in the mothering department, her self-assurance the polar opposite of Christina’s awkward efforts.

Soon she was on the road, driving the sleek, black Mercedes she suspected she would always think of as Doug’s car. Though she’d never thought of herself as the luxury-sedan type, the comfort of its heated leather embrace felt like the only thing keeping her from tears that icy morning . . . tears that threatened to overwhelm her as she allowed herself to consider that last night’s
dream
might have had a darker explanation. That if Doug were here, he would remind her that this wasn’t the first time she’d heard voices, after all.

That night Christina lay in bed, awake for hours, though her body was aching with exhaustion. Cocooned within a silence so absolute it felt like death, she found herself trapped with her regrets, her doubts, and the bone-deep need to hear the rumble of her husband’s snores beside her.

When he was alive, it had driven her crazy—the sheer volume, with the stops and sputters she’d warned him many times indicated that he should be evaluated for sleep apnea, especially considering his family history of early heart disease. On at least three occasions that she could recall, he’d set up an appointment, only to cancel when some emergency reshuffled his busy surgical schedule.

She wondered now, as she had so often, whether he would still be alive if she’d forced the issue—or whether he would have at least reconsidered the wisdom of swimming a damn lake, without a word to her or anybody, in preparation for the triathlon he’d planned to enter. Of swimming so far from the shore that, once the chest pains had started, there could be no swimming back.

A lump formed in her throat as anger, like a red-hot coal, burned its way through her flesh.

You were supposed to be here for us. Supposed to help me raise our daughter, to keep her safe in case I ever . . . it ever happened again.

Feeling like the worst person on earth for being angry with a man she would have given anything to bring back, she climbed from the bed to take one of the nighttime pain relievers she’d been trying to wean herself off. From experience, she knew it would make waking up in a few hours like a slog through hardening concrete, but a little sleep beat none at all—and there was always coffee.

Sometime later, she was almost out when she heard the rustle of movement from the baby monitor sitting on her nightstand. For a moment, she held her breath, praying that her daughter would go back to sleep. As the monitor went quiet, Christina whispered a prayer of gratitude, then gradually wound down until she was dreaming of snowflakes spiraling around her. And a cold so deep, her toes and fingers lost all feeling, her bones aching and her—

“I need you to come find me, Katie.”

The words jerked Christina awake—an adult voice that had her struggling to escape the tangled sheets. Her heart booming in her chest, her instincts shrieked that there was an intruder inside the house, in her daughter’s room.

She hesitated, noticing that Max, who had once more crept up to sleep beside her, seemed to be out cold. Laid-back as he was, he sometimes slept through Lilly’s fussing, but normally he would have rushed to investigate any strange noise in the house.

Before Christina could decide whether what she’d heard was real, he abruptly lifted his head, the tips of his ears shaking as he stared at the monitor. A growl started low in his throat, a low rumble she had never heard before.

“If you don’t come, baby”—the voice came through the speaker loudly, clearly, undeniably—“you’ll both stay lost forever.”

Vaulting from the bed, Christina bolted toward Lilly’s room two doors down, where she was dead certain she would find the stranger who was her mother alive and standing at her daughter’s bedside. Christina would rip the hair from the woman’s head, claw her face to ribbons, kill her with her bare hands if that was what it took to get her away from Lilly. Away from both of them and out of this house, out of their lives forever.

Christina flipped on the hall light outside Lilly’s room and flew inside, ready to fight for her daughter’s life.

But Lilly lay fast asleep in her bed, her small back rising and falling gently beneath the plush-footed pajamas she was wearing. Her flesh pebbled with chill bumps, Christina desperately looked around. But all was still and peaceful, though the hand she laid atop her daughter’s silky head was shaking. Christina’s breath came in ragged gulps as she imagined Lilly standing outside on a night far colder than this one, imagined her vulnerable and alone, save for the tiny burden she struggled to hold on to.

As Max followed her into the room to halfheartedly sniff around the floorboards, Christina whispered a message to the woman she wanted to believe was no more than a figment of her own imagination. “You stay away from her. She’s mine. Stay away from both of us, or I swear to you, I’ll—”

A cry caught in her throat as she heard the creak of wood. The house settling? The groan of an old memory? Or was someone waiting nearby, waiting to take Lilly when Christina retreated to her room?

Rather than rushing to investigate, the dog stared up at her, his head cocked in a look of vague confusion. A moment later, he yawned silently, bowing and stretching his long body before padding past the night-light and back toward the master bedroom.

But Christina didn’t need his confirmation. She knew she’d been wide awake when she’d heard—they’d both heard—that strange voice, tinny and distorted, coming from inside this house. Certainty flooded her brain, an unshakable conviction that those words had been as real as the string of reported break-ins, as real as the SUV she’d seen parked outside the house the previous night.

Her heart stumbled at the thought, and she bent to scoop up Lilly, who moaned in protest and buried her face against her mother’s shoulder. Arms wrapped tightly around Lilly’s waist, Christina hurried back into her bedroom, pausing to close and lock the door behind them.

Her daughter was out again as Christina laid her on the bed beside the world’s worst watchdog and picked up the landline to dial 911.

But what on earth would she report? A footstep she’d thought she heard? The voice of a woman who hadn’t cared enough to look her up over the course of thirty years?

A wave of anxiety broke over her, but she fought free of it, knowing this was different from the hallucinations that had once scared her out of her mind.
Make the call.
Her hand tightened on the phone as she pressed it to her ear and sucked in a sharp breath.

The line, along with any further hope of sleep, was dead.

With his eyes glued to Christina’s house, a few doors down from where he’d parked to assess the situation, Harris stepped off the edge of an unseen curb. Icy slush poured over the tops of his leakproof tactical boots, but he didn’t break stride. With his wet feet squelching and his weapon in his left hand, he flipped on a flashlight that could double as a baton, providing that he could maintain a grip with his right.

Part of him wished there had been someone else he could have sent, someone with two reliable hands to respond for him. But when the call from the alarm company came in, informing the dispatcher that the landline at 127 Cape Street had failed, and the resident could not be reached via the alternate cell number, he couldn’t bring himself to put the rookie on it. Or fucking Fiorelli, a burnout longtimer more likely to be parked somewhere snoring in his department cruiser than listening for calls.