Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Anthony woke early the next morning. Not that he was at all rested.
How could he be? His friends were crazy.
Taunting a serial killer? It was asking for trouble.
But clearly, he was outnumbered. Still, if they thought he was going to sit by and watch, they were wrong.
He wasn’t going to leave Della’s side until Vaynes was back in prison.
In a straitjacket.
Or better yet, secure in some black site detention center built to withstand terrorist attacks and earthquakes.
At least Della looked like she’d gotten some decent sleep after they’d talked. Even at the firehouse, with plenty of others around to watch over her, he couldn’t relax his brain enough for some REM.
Della sat on the other side of his squad car, her presence adding to the ultra-alert vibe running through him.
He was on the clock already, but Della’s shift didn’t start until this afternoon, so they headed to the gym.
And he might go mad if he thought about the risk they were taking, so he better find something else to talk about.
“Do you work out every morning?” he asked her.
She set her pre-workout drink in the cupholder. “Yeah. I know I can use the gym at the firehouse, but it’s easier for me to stay focused when I’m not on call. I know I won’t be interrupted this way.”
“That takes a lot of dedication.” His admiration for her continued to climb.
“I don’t have a choice. I have to stay in shape. It’s a job requirement. The second I go lax, I let my team down. And I fought too hard to be a firefighter to lose it by slacking off.”
“Did you always know you wanted to be one?”
“No. As a kid I had a very different plan. After my parents died, I decided I was going to become rich and open up orphanages back in India, where my grandmother is from.”
Anthony pictured young Della Nixon ready to take on the world. “And how were you going to do that?”
“Fashion design. I actually went to college for it.”
“Really?”
She chuckled. “Should I be offended that you find it so surprising?”
“No. It’s just such a drastic change from fashion designer to firefighter–foster mom that I didn’t see it.”
“Yeah.” Her voice grew soft. “Well, a lot changed after…everything with Vaynes.”
Of course. “What made you decide on firefighting, then?”
“It was one of the firefighters that found me. The woman stayed with me until paramedics arrived. She was the first sign of hope after days and weeks of torture. The first sign that I was going to be okay. I want to do that for others. On their worst days, I want to be a sign of hope that they’re going to make it. ”
“Now that, I can definitely see. It’s a pretty hardcore job too.”
She smiled at him. “Yeah, it is. I never felt prouder of myself than when I passed that qualifier test. It was the hardest thing, physically, I’ve ever done.”
“It makes—”
Anthony’s phone rang.
He glanced down at the name on the screen and quickly denied the call.
For a moment he waited. The road noise did nothing to cut the tense silence in the car.
“Do you need to call her back?” Della’s words were soft. He probably looked like a jerk, refusing to talk to his own mother.
But, “No need.”
Talk about ruining the moment. His mother had a habit of doing that.
“So…I take it you’re not close?” she asked. He glanced over. She gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I saw it was your mother. You don’t have to explain anything.”
The muscles in the back of his neck throbbed. The beginning of a headache if he didn’t take meds soon. But none of that was Della’s fault. He sighed. “I’m not on the best of terms with my mother. It’s complicated.”
“I get it.”
“You do?” He glanced over.
“Well, not really. I’d give anything to talk to my mom again.”
Yep. He was a world-class heel. But he was a sucker to hear how real families functioned. What a childhood could’ve been if he’d had a normal mother and actual father. “What was your mother like?”
“She loved color. She was an artist. She told the most wonderful stories and fairy tales. And any time I was scared, we would play a game. It helped calm me.”
“What game?”
“We would list names or titles of God using the alphabet. I would be so busy trying to come up with one for the letter Q that I’d forget whatever I was afraid of.”
“She sounds pretty special. Was your father into art too?”
“No, he was a scientist, but he adored us both. They gave me an amazing childhood.”
“I wish I could say that.”
Without thinking, the words had fallen from his mouth. A wish he’d wished for so long, for a different childhood. Della said nothing. But a warmth on his arm made him look down to find her mittened hand resting on his arm.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t.”
Aw, great. He couldn’t have her pitying him. Now he needed to explain. “It’s not like my mom didn’t try. She’s not a bad person or anything. It’s just—” How did he put it? “When people are kind, they would say she marches to the beat of her own drum.”
“So she’s eccentric?”
“Very. She was born in the wrong era. She would’ve made a great hippie.”
“A hippie?” Della asked. “Like she wears bell-bottoms with peace signs or something?”
“Oh, her wardrobe was definitely part of it.” Anthony winced, remembering her outrageously ugly shawls and scarves over long, flowy skirts.
The dirty overalls she often wore as she worked in her garden and the thrifted outfits she would make him wear.
“But we also lived on a small farm, off-grid. She homeschooled me. We had our own little world. If she went into town, it was usually to protest something. She was caught up in conspiracy theories, convinced of everything from aliens to nanorobots in the water supply and stuff like that. You name it, she was probably on board with it and on a mission to educate the public too.”
“She sounds like quite the character.”
That was a nice way of putting it. And Della’s soft smile melted some of the resentment inside. “You could say that.”
“And your father? Was he ever in the picture?”
“In the beginning. But they fought all the time, and eventually he left us when I was nine.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m better off without him. He wasn’t really interested in being a father. But it hit my mom pretty hard. She had to be hospitalized for a while, and I had to live with another family and go to public school after being homeschooled my whole life. Talk about an eye-opening experience.”
“That had to be traumatic for a little kid.”
He tried to shrug, but his shoulders were too tense. “Yeah, it was rough for a chubby kid with long hair and weird clothes, who wasn’t ever allowed to watch television.”
“You? Chubby and awkward? I can’t picture it.”
“I was. And the kids were relentless. It was right before Christmas, and they couldn’t believe I’d never heard of Santa Claus.
They thought I was the alien. One day I even ran away and called my dad at work, begged him to pick me up.
He refused. He said, ‘I told her you’d end up some weirdo with the way she was raising you.
She made her choice and I made mine. Better get used to it, kid. I’m not your dad anymore.’”
“Oh my word, Anthony. That’s awful!”
“I got over it. It just…it just really messed with my mom, you know? She never fully recovered, and even today, she can be detached from reality. She takes everything too far. She’ll become paranoid about harmless things.
So every phone call is an emergency. And I love her, I really do.
But I know I can’t feed into her delusions. ”
“That’s got to be rough. Do you think she’s lonely?”
“Good news is she has kind neighbors that help her out. I know if there was a real problem, one of them would call me.”
“But what about you? She probably misses you if you’re her only family.”
“After we get through this case and Vaynes is behind bars, I’ll go check on her. But for now, we have to stay vigilant. I don’t want to scare her.”
“Right.” Della nodded. “I wouldn’t want her to get caught up with this if Vaynes is tracking me.” She paused. “But when this is over and you do go to visit, if you want someone to go with you, I will. Maybe she could use another friend.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course. So she’s a little quirky. Everyone could use a friend. And I happen to like quirky people.”
If Della followed through on that, she’d be the first of his friends to meet his mother.
Maybe he shouldn’t be so embarrassed by her, but the few times his high school buddies had seen her, they’d been cruel behind her back.
And he’d never brought home any dates, too scared that by the end of the visit, she’d be touting the need for revamping the education system so that her future grandchildren wouldn’t be brainwashed.
It took a special kind of person to mesh with Kimberly Thomas.
But something about Della made him wonder. Would she really be as accepting as she said?