Page 13 of Bad Mother

I nodded, my eyes glued to my father now, his expression changing. I had never seen him look scared or confused, and I was both mesmerized and afraid.

“I hit him with a shovel,” she explained on a small, tinkling laugh. “A direct strike, and down he went like a bag of rocks.” She brushed her hands together as though it had been no great effort on her part.

Then Mother pushed off the counter, crossing her slender arms over her chest, her red satin vest stretching over her bosom, the sequins on her short, black ruffled skirt scattering the light. Mother always kept herself slim and trim, and she had the figure of a swimsuit model. She sighed. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” she explained. “I’d had enough!” Father and I both jumped at her sudden change in tone and volume. Obviously neither one of us was used to hearing Mother yell or lose her temper. “The dog was the final straw.”

The dog. Jaxon. A moan escaped me at the vision his name brought forth. His suffering. Mother wavered before me, but I fought to hang on to her, sucking in a big breath as she once again solidified.

She was calm now. Solid. As quickly as her anger had flared, she was back under control. Her patient smile returned, and she took the few steps to the table, her high heels clicking on the floor, and she picked up a deck of cards and let them cascade expertly andeffortlessly through her slender fingers, the way I never could master.

When my father was away, my mother and I would play all sorts of games. Card games were her favorite, but we also played chess, checkers, and sometimes—if we had the time—Monopoly. She’d also underline words in my books to form secret messages just for me that Father would never find. Mother was a genius with games, and try as I might, I could never win against her.

No one could win against Mother.

“Danny Boy,” she would tell me. “Think of life as one big game board. If you control the pieces, if you’re a master of every move, you’re a kind of god. If you decide to play, always,alwaysplay to win.”

I liked the idea of controlling the board, controlling life, and creating all the rules. I had often pictured Father as a pawn, picking him up and placing him wherever I liked, moving him at my whim. Or maybe sweeping him off the board completely so that he no longer existed at all.

It seemed Mother had had the same fantasy.

And she had decided now was the time to make it come true.

My heart quickened, but this time not with fear, with excitement. My father’s eyes darted this way and that, and a bead of sweat tracked slowly down one cheek, the trail of blood from his wound trickling down the other.

Mother ceased shuffling, placing the deck of cards on the table as she turned slowly before sliding a carving knife from the block on the counter and settingit next to the cards. Father’s eyes locked on the items in front of him.

I watched as Mother sat, smoothing her skirt over her legs, the same placid expression on her lovely face. She picked up the cards and began to deal. Father’s gaze shot to hers, and he attempted to say something through his gag. It sounded angry. He was obviously regaining his strength and his clarity after being hit upside the head with the shovel. His face reddened, and he shook his head, glaring at my mother.

“Tsk tsk,” Mother said. “No need to get yourself worked up. Of course I’ll set you free.” My heart dropped.“If,”she said, “you win this game of seven-card stud.” She gave him a saucy smile. “You might think I look better than I play, lover, but oh, you’d be wrong.” I sucked in a breath, my heart lifting once more as she began to deal the cards.

Like I said, no one could beat Mother. No one.

Jesus.

Sienna folded the two pieces of paper, covered back and front in the precise printing, and returned them to the envelope, then dropped it all back in the evidence bag. She flexed her hands, now free of the gloves, and sat there for a moment, staring out the window.My God.This was clearly a continuation of the note from the murder victim’s waistband. It’d been delivered to a person the writer of the note had somehow known would be questioned by the police. Which made some sense since he or she—no,he, Danny Boy—had placed in the victim’s hand the cards that led back to Lucia. She bounced her knee, her mind racing. She supposed it would be easy enough to find out which detectives were working on a case and then address a note to one of them.Her.There was no way this was personal. She hadn’t been with the Reno PD—or in town at all for that matter—long enough for that.

What about the note itself? Was it some kind of confession?What’s the point?

Her phone rang, and she grabbed for it, Kat’s name on the screen. “Hi, Kat.”

“Good morning. You got in early. What did the fan club president have to say?”

Sienna updated her on everything she’d just discovered, including her assumption that the suspect had learned the name of at least one detective—her—working on the case, and also the gist of the note. “There’s a lot to go over and some information in the letters that might provide some clues as to who this guy is.” The name Danny; potentially a man stabbed to death; his wife the suspect, whether convicted or not, if that was where this story was heading... the boy had lost his hearing after being struck in the head. Certainly, that would have meant an ER visit? All these potential clues ran through her mind as she started her car, heading toward the station, where she and Kat could go over the letter together and figure out the best place to start. The words Kat had said at the murder scene under the overpass raced through her head:Nothing like jumping right in.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“This is some effed-up shit,” Kat said.

Sienna gave an agreeable snicker. “That’s one way to put it. I started a list of potential clues as to his identity.” She listed off the things that had gone through her mind as she’d sat in her car after leaving the coffee shop.

“We should definitely check into all of that. But... how do we even know this isn’t complete bullshit?” Kat said, giving the copy of the note in her hand a flick of her finger.

“We don’t. But until we know for sure, let’s assume it’s not.”

Kat worried her lip for a moment. “Okay. So this killer was abused, and because of it, his psycho mom finally had enough and murdered his father? Is he trying to provide himself a defense?”

“I have no idea. Like you said, he could be toying with us. Or amusing himself. Who knows? But I’m going to get started going through the database looking for wife-on-husband stabbing victims. Whether he ended up dying or not, that would stand out.”

“Unless she was bluffing and she never ended up stabbing him.”

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