Page 88 of Fate

“Who the fuck is this?” I use a scary tone I don’t even recognize, but between my daughter being kidnapped and her mother out on the run, I’ve lost all patience.

“Dude, it’s Scooter. I’m one of Eli’s hunters.” He says this like I should know who heis.

Scooter. I let the name roll around in my head a few times before it registers. Hunter, my ass. He’s Eli’s tech guy. Never enters the field, just stays behind on his computer, hacking away and drinking endless amounts of Mountain Dew and Red Bull, if I remember correctly.

“Yeah, I remember. And yes, I’ve gotCora.”

“Wicked cool. But dude, I’ve got some shit news for you. I tried to call Eli to tell him first, because that’s the way shit rolls around here, but he’s not answering. I tracked him, and he’s on the highway heading north. Means he’s on the trail to meet up with Dice, who’s a solid three hours ahead ofhim.”

“All of this is very interesting information, but you said you had bad news?” I attempt to bring Scooter back around to the point of hiscall.

“Aw, yeah. Sorry to tell you, but your baby’s mama is psychotic.” He drops this little nugget as if he’s just told me it’s a breezy fifty degrees in the bay and to wear a pullover because of the chill.

“Tell me something we don’t know, Scooter.” I let all the air out of my lungs, my patience tried. I need to lie down with my daughter on my chest and just be still, listening to her heartbeat, not shooting the shit with some tech wizard.

“No, man. You don’t get it. She’s clinically insane. As in escaped from a mental institution.”

A mental institution? “You’re kidding.”

I can hear the phone volume change, and then Scooter sounds louder but farther away, like he’s in a tunnel. He’s probably put me on speaker.

“Says here she was diagnosed at age fourteen with a brain tumor. The tumor was benign and stopped growing a year after she was diagnosed, but it presses on the part of her brain that deals with being able to discern reality. Apparently, the tumor ate through her paracingulate sulcus, a part of the brain that controls judgment. Fucked-up shit,” he whispers.

I hear him tapping away and try to remain patient while I wait for him to continue.

“Shit, dude. Says before she was diagnosed, she tried to kill her boyfriend, who she believed was cheating on her. The boyfriend’s father caught her with a knife in her hand, standing over her boyfriend’s bed after she’d broken into their house. The dad happened to hear music playing in the kid’s room and was going to turn it off before he settled in for the night. Took her down, and she was arrested. She was assessed by a pediatric psychologist and underwent more testing. That’s when they found the tumor.”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, and Scooter continues to level me with more badnews.

“Says here the boy’s family didn’t press charges, which they should’ve, because fuck!” He continues tapping on the keys. “Fuckingfuck.”

My worry ramps up a hundred notches. “Scooter. Focus. What?”

“Shit, dude, she went on to marry a man named Jared Duncan right out of high school. And a year into the relationship, she sliced him up something horrible. Slaughtered him in his sleep. They found her rocking herself in the bathtub, covered in blood. Chick had some type of psychotic break. She was arrested, found unfit to stand trial due to insanity. Then they locked her away in a high-security mental hospital, where she didn’t speak. Meaning, she didn’t utter a word for over a year. Eventually, she started talking at some point during her five-year stay there before she escaped three yearsago.”

I breathe through the fear and swallow down the vomit pooling in the back of my throat. She’s so much more screwed up than I thought. “Does it say how she escaped?”

A flurry of clatters come through the line as Iwait.

“Duuuuuuude. She killed two guards. One with a toothbrush that’d been filed into a sharp point. She stabbed it up through the guy’s nose right into his brain. Whoa, brutal. She offed the other one with the first guard’s gun. Scary bitch. Gives me the willies.” He makes a burr noise, like he’scold.

“How did she fly under the radar?”

“Shit happened in Wyoming. In California, anyone can stay off the radar. I’ve got no employment for her under any of her legal names. Looks like she probably worked under the table until your father hired her. Looks like he didn’t do a background check on her and listed her as Misty Duncan with a false Social Security number. That’s why we couldn’t find any real information on her. Bitch stole someone’s number.”

I grind my teeth. “Fuckinghell.”

“Dude, I gotta go. I’ve got to reach Eli or Dice. Give them a heads up on how crazy this chick is. Glad Eli got your daughter. Later.”

“Later,” I reply, but the line is alreadydead.

I sit back and pull my sleeping daughter up and over my chest so her legs are straddling my waist. She doesn’t so much as stir as I make her comfortable against my chest, where I can feel her heartbeat and hold her close. “No one is getting to you ever again, baby. It’s going to be me, you, Kathleen, and your sister or brother from here on out. I’ll not allow that woman anywhere nearyou.”

With my daughter safely on my chest, grounding me, I call Kathleen and tell her what Scooter said. Once complete, I call Maria and give her a heads up about Eli and thank her. She assures me it’s all Eli’s idea, not hers, and he’s doing what he needs to do for his family.

Family.

There is a lot of that going around. For the first time in a long time, while I hold my daughter close and think about the woman I’m going to marry and have another child with, and all the extended members, including Kathleen’s soul sisters and their men, I’m finally content. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and nothing can take that away fromme.

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