Aberration Read online

  I was so worried I would vomit while I was in front of people. It would be like the eighth grade all over again. I’d gotten sick and thrown up in my classroom—right in front of everyone. My teacher, who was mean to begin with and seemed to hate girl students, was less than sympathetic. It took months to live that down.

  “You don’t sound fine,” Jory said.

  “Jory,” I said, wiping my mouth with the sleeve of my shirt. “I can’t talk right now. I have a lot of work to do.”

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “I asked you to reconsider moving here, being with me. I told you that I have reservations about us jumping into a relationship together. Look, I can’t discuss this right now—”

  “Kass, I’ve filed for divorce. We’ve both had time to think. I haven’t changed my mind. I want to start looking for a job out there. I need to know where we stand.”

  TK appeared in my doorway, and my whole body went loose with relief. I smiled at him. “I really have to go now,” I said into the phone. “My colleague is here.”

  I heard a frustrated sigh. Then, “I’m not going away, Kass. Call me.”

  He hung up. I put my phone on vibrate and tucked it into the case that was clipped to my waist. TK raised an eyebrow. “Throwing up again, huh?”

  I stood and gathered the trash bag filled with my vomit. I tied it in a knot, sealing it up. “I’m fine,” I said. I fished in my purse for a handful of mints and sipped from the bottled water on my desk.

  TK crossed his arms over his chest. “You still haven’t taken a pregnancy test, have you?”

  I glared at him. He laughed. “I’ll take that as a no. Bishop, it’s almost seven o’clock at night. Go home, take a pregnancy test.”

  “But I—” I opened my mouth to speak, but TK held up a palm to silence me.

  “Go home,” he said. “Now.”

  I picked up six pregnancy tests. At home, all three dogs stood in the bathroom doorway, their furry little brows knit with concern. I stood in front of the sink, looking at the pale-faced woman in the mirror. She had dark circles under her eyes. She looked terrified.

  Was this how Lexie had felt?

  My sister had gotten pregnant in our sophomore year of college. I had been with her when she took the home pregnancy test.

  I breathed deeply, pushing the air down into my abdomen. Somewhere, deep in my belly might be a little life. A living, breathing product of mine and Jory’s poor moral choices, created with love. No matter how many times I denied Jory, no matter how many times I pushed him away or how many doubts I had, I did love him.

  “Oh my God,” I moaned.

  Pugsley yipped. I looked at my dogs, who remained baffled by my obvious turmoil.

  “It’s okay,” I assured them, even though every single cell in my being screamed that it wasn’t.

  I tried not to let my mind venture any further than the task at hand. I’d have to make some choices, though none as difficult as Lexie had had to make.

  I had a memory of her collapsing onto her bed, burying her face into the pillow and sobbing. I felt cold. I closed the door to our dorm room. I sat on the side of the bed and waited.

  After fifteen minutes or so, the sobs lessened into hiccups and an occasional gasp in lieu of a breath. She turned over and looked at me. Her long brown hair formed a silky fan over the tear-stained pillow. The rims of her eyelids were red.

  “What do I do?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “What do you want to do, Lex?”

  Her body shook with a deep pang of grief. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t have this baby.”

  “You know mom and dad won’t say anything. I mean they might be a little pissed at first, but you’d have their support,” I said.

  She shook her head, swishing her brown hair across the pillow case. One renegade lock came loose and drifted downward toward her shoulder. “It’s not that,” she said.

  I felt a little creak inside, like a door opening. Maybe it was the door that opened up between us, allowing us every so often to see and know the things the other did. “Oh no, Lexie,” I said.

  She sat up and gripped my arm, fingers digging into my tricep. “I know it was wrong. I know it was. I won’t ever do anything like that again. He never talked about his wife, and I just never thought of asking. He doesn’t wear a wedding ring. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it—he’s so much older than me. I was just so crazy about him. Kass, I promise I won’t do anything like this again, but please don’t let me go through this alone.”

  “It’s okay,” I mumbled. “I’m not going anywhere. But who? Who is he?”

  She loosened her grip on my arm and drew her upper body back. She dipped her head and looked up at me through a curtain of hair that matched mine exactly. “Professor Garrity,” she said softly.

  “Wow,” was all I could say.

  I’d known she was seeing someone since the spring semester of our freshman year, but I hadn’t known who and I didn’t ask. I figured if Lexie wanted to talk about it, she would come to me. In a small sense, I could not blame her. Almost every girl on campus who’d been in one of Garrity’s classes had a crush on him. He was probably fifteen years older than we were, but he had a smile that reduced young women to giggles and a swagger that brought on hot flashes.

  “Did you tell him?” I asked. “I mean before you took the test just now—did you tell him you thought you were pregnant?”

  She nodded.

  “What did he say?” I asked softly.

  She didn’t look at me. “He said he’d pay for it if I had an abortion. He said really that was the only option for us.” She laughed harshly. “Us. Please. He means himself. It would ruin his career he said. He’d get fired, and his marriage would be destroyed. His whole life. He said maybe I couldn’t understand because I was only nineteen, but that it makes no sense to let this one thing ruin everything he worked for when we could stop it.”

  Her face was stiff, her voice a lattice work of bitterness and grief.

  “What a prick,” I said.

  She laughed a little. I squeezed her hand. “You should ruin his career just for saying that,” I added.

  “I know. Boy, would I love to.”

  Here I was, seventeen years later, going through the same thing, only I faced it alone. I ached for Lexie in that moment. I thought of calling Linnea. I had already told her about Jory’s visit when we last spoke on the phone. I had left out the part about possibly being pregnant. I decided not to call her.

  In the quiet solitude of my bathroom, with three canines looking on, I took all six of the pregnancy tests. I lined them up on the sink and waited. Three of them had already shown results when my doorbell chimed. The dogs erupted into a chorus of barks. I followed the mad flurry of dog paws down to the foyer—at once hoping and terrified that Jory would once again be on the other side of the door. But it wasn’t him.

  Linnea Deeds stood outside my front door. As she moved inside, Rocky and Smalls stood on their hind legs, pawing at her chest and shoulders, almost reaching the length of her five-foot-ten frame. She scratched between their ears, talking softly and smiling.

  She moved past them and embraced me. As I clasped my arms around her, I felt the hard sinew of muscle beneath her tattered jacket. “You look like a hoodlum,” I said when she released me.

  She laughed. She flicked one of her many long braids and put a hand on her hip. She looked me up and down, pretending to appraise me haughtily. “Yeah? You look like a Fed.”

  I laughed. Linnea strode past me in her torn jeans. I followed her into the kitchen. “You under cover?” I asked. Linnea worked for the DEA.

  Her reply floated out from behind my refrigerator door. “Mmm-hmm.”

  I heard her shuffling the contents of the fridge around as she gat
hered the desired items. “Are you a pothead or a cokewhore?”

  With a pile of food in her arms, she joined me at the table. She grinned. “Honey, nobody cares about weed and coke no more. Don’t you Feds know anything? It’s meth, baby. Meth.”

  I smiled watching her slap together a large and largely unappetizing sandwich as only Linnea could. When she took her first bite, a third of its contents fell onto the table, scattering amongst the open packages of meat, cheese, vegetables and open containers of condiments.

  Finally, she plopped into a chair across from me. She pushed a glob of food into one cheek and talked around it, “I saw Dale outside. How’s his dad?”

  “The Alzheimer’s is getting worse, but the nursing home takes good care of him. Dale finally got him into a place with a specialized Alzheimer’s unit,” I said. “It’s not too far from here.”

  Linnea nodded. “I brought him a print of New York City to add to his collection of cityscapes. He was very pleased. I see he’s just as watchful as ever.”

  “Yeah, I know. He actually came over when Jory was here.”

  Linnea rolled her big brown eyes. “I bet that went over well.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. About five seconds later we were doing it right here on this table.”

  “All three of you?”

  Linnea ducked as I threw a piece of lettuce at her. “Very funny,” I said.

  She winked at me. “Ahh, Detective Ralston. Nothing like a little old-fashioned jealousy to light a fire under his ass.”

  “Yeah. It was a fire all right,” I said wryly, but my voice came out weaker than I intended. I glanced briefly at my lap, avoiding Linnea’s gaze.

  She put her half-eaten sandwich on the table and leaned across it, peering into my face. She wrinkled her brow. “What’s going on? You’re freaked out about something. I can tell. Don’t say nothing because I know there’s something.”

  I looked away from her. The dogs lay in various poses on the kitchen floor. All I saw was Jory, his smile like a newly minted coin, sending a thrill up my back and making my stomach plummet at the same time. I remembered the way his breath felt stirring the hair at the back of my neck. His hands warm and dry on my hips. Then the baby growing inside me.

  “I’m pregnant,” I said.

  She went rigid, her brown eyes wide as saucers. Her voice was as high-pitched as I’d ever heard it. “What?”

  I led her upstairs to the bathroom where all six pregnancy tests announced what I knew but didn’t want to face.

  Linnea picked them up one by one, studying the plus signs and double lines that marked each one positive. She whistled under her breath. “Whoa, momma,” she said.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “You’ll be a momma soon,” she pointed out. “You have to tell Jory.”

  I wanted to tell her to shut up but instead I said, “I know.”

  “You could have a life with him, you know.” She waited for a response, but I gave none. I turned away from her and sat on the edge of the tub. “Kassidy, think about what Lexie would have wanted for you.”

  I groaned again. Linnea came over and stood in front of me. She looked at me intently. “You have to tell him now.”

  “I haven’t even adjusted to the fact that I’m going to be a mother,” I said.

  Linnea smiled and sat beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. She pulled me in, jostling me against her side. “You’ll make a great mom,” she murmured.

  Tears burned the backs of my eyes. “No,” I said. “Lexie would have made an excellent mother. Not me.”

  I had never really developed the nurturing quality that had come naturally to Lexie. It always felt like that part of me had stunted in its growth, remaining half-formed and indistinct. Lexie had always had it.

  “She was a sucker for wounded creatures, you know. One time we found our outside cat eating a baby rabbit and she tried to save the rabbit. She was devastated when it died. Another time, this baby sparrow fell from its nest in the tree behind our house. It couldn’t fly yet and neither of us could catch it to put it back in the nest. Lexie insisted on holding vigil over it all night long to make sure no other animals killed it. She stayed up all night with her flashlight while I slept in a sleeping bag. I even snored.”

  Linnea laughed. She gave me another squeeze. “Just because you don’t save baby animals doesn’t mean you won’t be a good mother.”

  I shook my head. “But she would have been amazing,” I mumbled.

  “You’re thinking about the abortion, aren’t you?” Linnea said.

  I nodded. It seemed like the world had somehow sprained its axis, throwing everything into reverse. Lexie had not chosen to have her baby, even though she would have been a natural mother. I was the one having a baby now even though I hadn’t chosen to become pregnant. The idea of motherhood was loose and slippery, refusing to solidify in my head.

  I was always the ornery one—less sensitive and quicker to anger than Lexie—rougher than my twin.

  The day Lexie had her abortion, I accompanied her in and out of the clinic. On the way out, I held her arm. She was pale, unsteady and slightly groggy from the anesthetic.

  Neither of us saw it coming.

  A rock flew through the air and thumped against Lexie’s skull, just over her right eye. It knocked her down.

  As the impact jarred her from my grip, I spotted the protester responsible. His arm froze in an arc over his head. He quickly hid his glee when our eyes locked. I was on top of him in seconds, kicking and punching.

  “You son of a bitch,” I hollered as Lexie sat on the sidewalk dazed, blood trickling out of the gash over her eye.

  When the police arrived, they asked if Lexie wanted to press charges. She had received five stitches over her eye. She looked at me. The silent flood of communication between us lasted only seconds.

  “Yes,” she told the officer. When he asked her name, she said, “Kassidy. Kassidy Bishop.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WYATT

  September 30th

  Wyatt waited in his rental car across the street from Megan Wilkins’ home. He knew she’d finished her shift at the diner at five because he’d had an early dinner there after flying into Portland that afternoon, but she hadn’t come home yet. He tried to concentrate on the task ahead, but his mind kept coming back to the positive pregnancy tests he had found in Kassidy’s trash that morning. He had had no immediate reaction to Kassidy’s pregnancy other than puzzlement. One of her college friends was visiting—perhaps they belonged to her. Wyatt had tried to convince himself of that, but he knew that Kassidy had missed her period the last two months because he hadn’t found the usual array of feminine hygiene products in her trash at the appointed time. It made perfect sense in light of all the vomit he’d been finding in her garbage. He knew that Jory Ralston was the father. Ralston was the only man Wyatt had seen her with in years.

  Kassidy Bishop had had lovers, but she hadn’t had any serious relationships with men. The closest she had ever come was the boyfriend she’d had during her freshman year of college. That relationship had lasted nearly a year and ended shortly after a man attacked Kassidy as she left a women’s clinic.

  Wyatt had been wrong about Ralston’s most recent visit being an isolated event. Terribly wrong.

  Nausea assailed him. He was about to open the car door and vomit on the sidewalk when he noticed Wilkins in his side mirror, walking toward his vehicle. He threw himself across the seats, facedown, hoping she wouldn’t look into the car as she passed. His heart pounded so loudly in his ears, he had to concentrate very hard to hear her footsteps as she went by. She didn’t slow down, and when he peeked over his dash, he saw her unlocking her front door and slipping inside.

  He closed his eyes and sighed with relief. He had to pull himself together. He h
ad important work to do, and he couldn’t afford to fuck it up. He would simply have to put the pregnancy tests out of his mind for the time being.

  By 5:30, Wyatt had calmed down. He mentally reviewed his plan again and called Wilkins from his Tracfone. As usual, she listened instead of hanging up. “I’m watching you, Megan,” he whispered.

  “Who is this? Why are you doing this to me?” she cried.

  “Because you’re a bitch. A mean, nasty, heartless bitch. I’m coming for you, Megan.”

  Her voice cracked. “I’m calling the police.”

  He laughed, long and loud. “No, you’re not. You never call them. Now it’s too late. I’m coming for you, and I’m going to kill you. But first, I’m going to take my time. I’m going to make you beg for mercy.”

  The words flowed easily from his mouth as if they had been pre-recorded. He was barely cognizant of what he said; he was more intent on listening to Wilkins’ breath quicken with each word. He could just imagine her pallor and the hand on her chest.

  He knew she’d been having chest pains since he’d begun his harassment campaign. He finished that call and waited twenty minutes before calling again and hanging up on her. Then he went immediately to her door. As he expected, Wilkins offered no challenge. For a woman who complained of being terrified, she took no precautions. She opened her front door immediately without looking out the window or calling out first to find out who was there. It almost took all the fun out of the previous months during which Wyatt had carefully and methodically terrorized her.

  She looked surprised to see him, but she recognized him immediately. Her hand still lay over her heart. “Dylan, hi,” she said with a nervous smile.

  Wyatt smiled the smile of the innocuous guy whose coffee she’d been pouring for the last two months. He didn’t even have to say anything.