What Stella Wants

“When did Bitsy stop by the nursing home?” Jake asked, pulling us back to the matter at hand.

“It had to be after she called me,” I muttered to Jake.

Marygrace cocked her head to one side and appeared to be giving Jake’s question serious consideration. “Let’s see. It was after ten o’clock bingo and a little before lunch. Yeah, that’s right. I remember because old Mrs. Maxwell expired around four and I was trying to take care of the arrangements when all hell broke loose in Baby’s room.”

Marygrace twitched, clutched her side and reached inside her brightly colored jacket. A moment later she pulled a tiny cell phone out and flipped it open.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m on call. I have to take this.”

As we watched, Marygrace listened, the frown on her face deepening with each passing moment.

“Don’t give me that!” she cried. “How can it happen again without anybody seeing anything? Where were you people?”

Marygrace looked up from her conversation and mouthed the word, “Baby” before returning to the conversation.

“Where’s Darren? Well, tell him I’m coming back right now, and this time we’re calling the police. If one of those CNAs laid a hand on Baby, I’ll have their job and their ass. Call Stephanie and get her in to see Baby right now. If she can’t come, call a fucking ambulance and have her transported to the E.R.”

There was a brief hesitation as the person on the other end apparently questioned Marygrace’s orders. I watched her eyes darken and her scowl deepen, thinking only a fool would ignore a dynamo like Marygrace when she was riled up.

“I don’t give a flying rat’s ass what Medicaid’ll pay for. Get her there and get her there now!”

Marygrace slammed the lid shut on her tiny phone.

“Let’s go!” Marygrace was already halfway out the door. When nobody moved to follow her, she spun back around. “Well? Come on! Baby’s room got hit again and this time she got hurt. Are you guys gonna sit around with your thumbs up your butts or are you coming?”

“We’ll be right behind you, Marygrace,” I answered. “I’ve got to get a couple of things started before we head out, that’s all. We’re coming.”

Marygrace’s eyes glittered with unshed tears and her face and neck flushed. She clenched and unclenched her fists. In that one moment I understood her feelings completely and saw the woman she’d become. Marygrace had simply taken all the skills she’d used for fun and diversion in high school and channeled them into her career as a social worker.

She was no longer the champion of her fellow fun-loving teenagers. She had evolved into a champion of lost causes and underdogs. Marygrace fought for her patients with the same fervor and intensity I’d had on the police force. I hated to think what would happen if she were the one to encounter Baby Blankenship’s abuser.

“Just hurry up, okay?” she said finally. “This scares me.”

She was gone before I could answer her. I swallowed hard, ignoring the tight feeling in my throat and the naked emotion in Nina’s eyes. “All right, you two, Jake and I will take the nursing home. While we’re there, I want you to get me some background information.”

Spike nodded, her chin resting on Nina’s head. “What do you need?”

“I know you still have contacts in the police department,” I said. “I want to know what they know about Bitsy’s death. I want to know everything you can find out.”

Spike looked momentarily puzzled. “Okay. As soon as they ID’d the car, the feds wouldn’ve taken over.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m covering all the bases. Bitsy was coming to see us and she’d said it was urgent. She never made it, and I want to know why. I’ll take any bit of information I can get.”

“What do you want me to do?” Nina asked, her voice muffled by Spike’s shoulder.

“As soon as I can get a list of employees on duty today and at the time of the first incident, I’ll call you. I want you and Spike to do the background checks.”

Jake was strapping on his shoulder holster while I talked. So, he was expecting trouble, too. I didn’t know why our subconscious alarm systems had suddenly kicked in, but they had, and it was always best to trust your instincts in this business. There was no doubt in my mind that Bitsy Blankenship’s death and the attack on her grandmother were somehow related. Now it was up to us to figure out how and to prevent anything else from happening.

“You ready?” Jake was already halfway out the back exit.

“Be right there!”

I crossed the room to my gun safe, punched in the combination and, when the door swung open, considered the cache inside carefully. Not the Glock; no safety. I discarded the Sig; too bulky. I reached past the Beretta and pulled out my Lady Smith 9 mm. Perfect. Small, easily concealed. “Tasteful, elegant but not ostentatious,” I murmured as I pulled out a pancake holster and stuck the gun inside it. “Just the right little accessory for a visit to a nursing home.”

I reached for my blazer, grabbed my purse and ran down the back steps and out into the cold winter air. The sky was clouding up ominously, and a gust of wind blew in from the northeast. Not a good sign. I sniffed. The air smelled like snow.

Jake punched the accelerator of his newly purchased ’98 black Viper. It was his way of saying, “Hurry the hell up!” When I hopped into the passenger seat he spun out of the parking lot, barely waiting for me to close the door.

“Calm down!” I yelled. “There’s no sense in getting us killed, too.”

He didn’t answer me and he didn’t slow down.

“Jake, I mean it! What’s wrong with you?”

He took the road toward the outskirts of town well over the speed limit. We headed into a sharp turn, careening around a massive granite boulder outcropping, and swerved right into the path of an oncoming concrete truck.

There wasn’t even time to scream. I grabbed the edges of my seat and stopped breathing. Jake fishtailed through the narrow gap between the truck’s bumper and the guardrail, accelerated and cleared the truck with a two-inch margin. A second later he pulled over onto the side of the road and cut the engine.

We sat for a long moment without speaking. Finally Jake broke the silence.

“Stella, I need to tell you something about Bitsy,” he said. He was staring at a spot on the dashboard instead of looking at me. “I need to tell you something about me and Bitsy. Now. Before this goes any further.”

The serious tone in his voice scared me. What could Jake possibly have to tell me that was this desperate? And what did he mean, “Before this goes any further?” Was he talking about the investigation or did he mean our relationship? I took a deep breath, forced my body to relax back into the leather bucket seat and waited.

“After you and I broke up, well, Bitsy and I had a…short relationship.” He looked at me, scanning my face for a reaction, and when I didn’t show one, went on. “It didn’t mean much. I mean, it didn’t last long. It was just one of those summer things and I guess I pretty much forgot about it. Then a few years later, when I was in Special Forces, a couple of suits paid me a visit.”

“Suits?”

“Feds, spooks, you know, CIA types. They were doing a routine background investigation on Bitsy. They didn’t tell me why, of course, but I got curious and eventually I figured it out. Bitsy was joining the club.”

“Shut up! Bitsy? She’s not spy material. She’s a dingbat.”

Jake smiled. “She’s a genius playing a dingbat, Stella. The girl was brilliant. She was the third brightest in our graduating class, and I know she could’ve walked off with the best G.P.A., only it wouldn’t have fit with her party-girl image.”

“So she dummied down?”

Jake nodded. “Just enough to still get into a good school but not be called a geek.”

“And this is what you wanted to tell me?”

Jake looked uncomfortable. “Not exactly. A few years later, right before she got married, we ran into each other again. It was a strange set of circumstances. Both of us were far away from home, doing things other people would hopefully never know, and well, it was fairly high risk, so…”

Great. Jake and Bitsy.

“Weren’t you still married then?” Okay, so I was sticking the knife in and twisting it a little bit.

“Yeah.” Jake looked so miserable I started to feel bad.