Chapter Eighty-Eight Kiersten
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Kiersten
It took about half a second for the fog of alcohol shrouding her brain to lift as Kiersten pulled her addled thoughts together.
Something is wrong.
Piper ran down the sidewalk, barefoot, hair streaming behind her, oddly elegant with her athletic gait and long strides, toward the flashing police cars in front of the half-constructed home.
She squinted. Through the beams, inside the house, a flash of red.
Then she knew.
Johnny.
Johnny’s entire wardrobe was Minnesota Twins red.
She ripped off her shoes, too, jumped off the porch, and began to run, legs working like pistons, catching up to Piper.
She arrived at the building site, out of breath, sides heaving as Rosamund skidded in beside her a few seconds later.
The house stood on the left side of the lot, near Richard’s house, framed, with a roof, beams delineating the eventual rooms, and empty squares awaiting the installation of doors and windows.
Anyone could wander inside, and she knew many of her neighbors had. People were understandably curious. Where would the dining room go? How many bedrooms did it have? But she’d told the kids never to venture onto someone else’s property without permission.
Her heart lurched. So why did she hear children’s voices coming from inside the half-constructed house?
She entered and squinted into the dim light, following the sound. The house had no electricity yet, and the only light came from the gaping openings where the windows would eventually go.
Suddenly Luke slammed into her, hugging her around the waist. “Mom. We didn’t do anything wrong. Tell them.”
She rounded the corner and found Chip and Trey Davis talking with two police officers, while the kids stood huddled a few feet away.
“Here they are,” Chip Davis said, shooting a look at her, Rosamund, and Piper as they entered a large open space likely designated as the kitchen and family room.
“Maybe they can explain why their kids are allowed to roam free in the middle of the day, vandalizing building sites when they’re supposed to be in ‘school.’”
His lip twisted, mocking the word school, as his face contorted into a scowl.
Piper scowled back. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“See for yourself.” Trey extended his arm and pointed at the Sheetrock wall where the kitchen cabinets would eventually go.
Kiersten’s gaze followed his pointing finger as her stomach plummeted into her shoes.
Lewd pictures. Graffiti. Curse words sprayed across the Sheetrock.
Caitlin gripped Piper’s hand. “Mom, we didn’t do this.”
“Officer, this is obviously a misunderstanding—” Piper began.
“I can smell the alcohol from here,” Chip muttered, waving his hand in front of her face.
One of the officers approached Piper.
“Ma’am, are these your children?”
“They are. I mean, some of them are.”
“Where are the parents who are supposed to be supervising these kids?” he asked.
Kiersten and Rosamund stepped forward.
“Officer, this is clearly some kind of a mix-up—” Rosamund began.
“Please, ma’am.” The officer raised his hand. “If you could just remain quiet while we try to determine what happened here.”
“It’s obvious what happened here,” Trey said, coming forward to stand beside his father. “These moms are day drinking again, leaving their kids completely unsupervised. They do it all the time.”
Piper’s nostrils flared. “That’s a lie and you know it.”
Kiersten’s mouth dropped open. “We were at your house,” she protested. “At a party hosted by your wife.”
“These kids are never in school,” Chip said, throwing his hands up in apparent frustration.
“They roam the cul-de-sac day and night like a band of hoodlums, terrorizing their neighbors, leaving weird things on people’s doorsteps.
Breaking into people’s homes. They noticed our building site is unattended today, so they came in with their spray paint and vandalized the place. ”
“But you invited us to come over.” Matthew lifted his chin, eyes blazing with indignation. “You told us to meet you here.”
Trey narrowed his eyes. “You’re a cool liar for someone so young.”
The officer glanced over at Trey and Chip. “I think you two can head home now. We’ll follow up with you later.”
“This is our property, officer,” Chip protested. “And we will not leave our property while these kids—”
“I understand that, sir,” the officer said, patient but with an authoritative edge to his voice. “But I need to ask these kids some questions, and your presence isn’t helpful right now. We’ll handle things from here. And we’ll be in touch shortly.”
Chip turned on his heel with a derisive snort, muttering something about his tax dollars at work. Trey scowled at the officer, then followed his father out of the house.
Matthew turned to his mother when they left, a panicked expression on his young face. “Mom, we’re telling the truth. We didn’t vandalize anything. It was like this when we got here.”
Kiersten looked into his eyes and saw the truth. Her kids would never do something like this. And suddenly she knew the phrase her kids included Rosamund’s and Piper’s girls too. They were all her kids.
She pulled him into a hug. “I know that, honey. Everything’s gonna be fine.” Then to her mortification, she hiccupped.
The officer looked over at Kiersten. “Ma’am, have you been drinking?”
“Drinking? I . . . well, yes, actually, but I’ve only had a couple . . .”
The officers exchanged a glance. “Maybe we need to get social services involved here,” one muttered to the other.
Kiersten twisted the skin on her upper arm. A nightmare. This had to be a nightmare, and if she just pinched herself hard enough, she’d wake up.
Pain prickled her flesh, yet everything remained the same.
She already had a black mark next to her name after the incident on the Turnpike.
What if they took her kids away?
Her knees went weak, and she gripped a sawhorse for balance, trapped in the worst kind of nightmare.
The kind you have when you’re wide awake.
She’d tried to give her children what she had growing up. A childhood filled with love and freedom, with enough space to read and explore, to become bored, to tinker and experiment, to learn independence by roaming the neighborhood with a troop of other kids for companionship and protection.
Would her children be ripped from her arms to grow up in foster care as a result?
“We need to ask these children some questions.” One of the officers bent down to speak with Bella. “Does your mommy ever leave you home alone?”
Kiersten held her breath as Bella looked up at the officer and shook her head. “No. But sometimes she locks Travis in a cage. I don’t like it when she does that. Travis doesn’t like it either.”
He exchanged a glance with the other officer as bile coated Kiersten’s throat.
Piper took a step forward, “Officer, you don’t understand—”
“Ma’am. Another outburst and I’ll ask you to leave.”
“Where do you go to school?” the officer asked, turning back to Bella.
“The Beaverbrook Academy for Inquiring Minds.”
“Where’s that?” he asked.
“In Mrs. Cleaver’s dining room. It’s home school. But Mr. Reggie does PE. And Miss Valentina reads us stories. Mr. Miles helps us find fox poop. He’s from England, and Mary Poppins is his cousin. We call that science.”
“What else does your mommy do?”
“One day we had worms in our house,” Bella said.
“We had cockroaches,” Johnny put in helpfully. “And we go to the cemetery sometimes and look for dead people.”
“Does your mommy ever drink?” the officer asked, turning back to Bella.
She nodded. “She drinks a lot . . .”
“I see.”
“She calls it her ‘cup of ambition.’”
“What does your mommy like to drink?”
“K-Cups mostly,” Bella said. “She drinks a lot of those.”
The officer lifted his eyebrows. “Your mother drinks a lot of . . . coffee?”
She nodded. “She puts a whole scoop of sugar inside her coffee, but she won’t let me have a whole scoop of sugar on my strawberries. I don’t think that’s fair.”
“I see. Does she drink anything else?”
“Water. She says it’s important to stay hy-rated.”
“Does your mother ever forget about you when she’s doing other things?”
Johnny nodded. “My mom forgotted me at a truck stop once. The patrol people brought me home.”
“Tell me more about Travis,” the officer said. “How old is he?”
“He’s like . . . just born,” Bella said. “He’s still a puppy.”
“Wait. Travis is a dog?”
“’Course, silly,” she said with a little giggle. “You don’t lock people in cages. And his real name is Travis Kelce Mondello. After Taylor’s fee-onshay.”
“Where’s your daddy?” the officer asked.
“We never know where Daddy is,” she said with a cheerful shrug. “He’s with Deborah. The secretary.”
“His secretary?” the officer asked.
She nodded. “I think so. He travels with her. They go all over together.”
“My daddy is gone with his secretary a lot too,” Johnny added helpfully. “They go to Oklahoma mostly. Or Kansas.”
“The secretary of agriculture,” Piper cried out. “And Deborah Templeton. The secretary of state. My husband is a DS agent.”
The officer glanced over at her. “What’s his name?”
“Brendan Mondello.”
The officer’s stern face betrayed a hint of a smile. “I know Brendan Mondello.”
“You do?”
“Sure. I did a stint in DS, too, till my wife threatened to divorce me because I was never home. So I switched to local law enforcement.”
“Then you understand—”
Suddenly Valentina and Reggie burst into the building.
“This is all my fault,” Valentina bellowed dramatically. “I am an addict. And bingo is my drug of choice.”
The officer sighed. “And you are?”
“Valentina Lucia Rossellini. And I promised to watch these children today, but instead I left them unattended because the jackpot at the Blue Diamond Bingo Emporium has reached $10,000.”
“That’s right,” Reggie nodded. “And I had to haul her ass out of there again. Shameful. Truly shameful.”
The officer rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”
“He’s our PE teacher,” Johnny said.
Reggie extended his hand to the officers. “Reggie Spade, United States Marine Corps. Retired. Nice to meet you. Kids, get into formation.”
The kids immediately lined up in two neat rows and saluted. The sound of feet stomping on plywood echoed from the entrance, and then Garrett and Brendan rushed in.
“Honey, I’m so sorry I was late getting home to watch the kids. You told me how important it was for me to be home by four o’clock today to help watch the kids, but traffic was terrible on the Fourteenth Street Bridge, and I just couldn’t get here in time.”
Kiersten mustered a smile. Someone had called the cavalry, and they’d ridden to the rescue, armed with semi-plausible excuses.
“Same here,” Brendan said, casting an apologetic look at Piper. “I’m really sorry I’m late, honey.”
One of the officers looked up at Brendan. “Brendan Mondello?”
“Sam Elridge?” Brendan took his outstretched hand as the officer slapped him on the back. “Hey, man, great to see you again.”
Suddenly Miles strode through the doorway and joined the group.
“Let me guess,” the other officer said, lifting an eyebrow. “You promised to watch the kids too?”
“No, actually,” Miles said. “But I can provide this.”
“What is it?” the officer asked.
“Video.” Miles came forward with his phone.
“From the wildlife cameras I’ve placed throughout our neighborhood.
The time stamp is in the corner. If you look here, you can see Chip Davis approaching the children, right here, between their home and Lillian’s house, about an hour ago.
You can see him gesturing to the house where we are currently standing. ”
“Okay.”
“And if you rewind . . .” He moved his finger across his phone. “If you rewind, you find this taking place around 2:00 a.m. this morning.”
They crowded around Miles’s phone. Kiersten squinted at the image of a tall person in black, entering the partially constructed home, carrying a can of spray paint, his features obscured by the hood on his dark sweatshirt, and a baseball cap.
“Excuse me, officer,” Matthew said, his voice authoritative but respectful.
The officer looked over at him. “Yes, young man?”
“If you look at the very beginning of that video, you can see our neighbor, Lillian Landry, in the corner of the frame, sitting out on her front porch. She would have overheard the entire conversation. I’m sure she can vouch for the fact that he invited us to come over here.”
“I’ll go get her,” Rosamund said.
The officer ran a hand through his hair and exhaled loudly. “You guys need to know something.”
Kiersten’s eyebrows rose in alarm. “What?”
“This isn’t the first call we’ve gotten about the kids on Beaverbrook Lane.”
Piper looked stunned. “It’s not?”
He shook his head. “We’ve been getting anonymous calls for the last couple months from someone in this neighborhood, claiming kids are roaming around unsupervised, terrorizing the neighbors.
But every time we’ve come over to check things out, we find them jumping on the trampoline, or playing tag in the backyard, or shooting basketball in the driveway, or doing PE out front with Reggie here, or sitting on the front porch, talking to the old lady across the street.
We realized these reports were unfounded, and we asked the person to stop.
And then today they called us again and accused the kids of vandalizing this construction site. ”
“Do you have the name of the person making these calls?” Piper asked.
“Not until today, when Chip called, and gave us his name and met us here. But it’s a pretty good bet Chip is behind the other calls too. If I were you all, I’d keep a close watch on your kids. Someone is unhappy with what you’re doing here.”
“So you’re not going to call social services?” Kiersten asked, holding her breath.
“I think we’d all be lucky to have this many good people looking out for our kids. Just watch your backs, okay?”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Brendan said. “We will.”
Kiersten raised her face to the open beams in the ceiling and said a prayer of gratitude. Then a scream from outside pulled her back to the present.
“Ambulance! We need an ambulance! Now.”
The officers reacted first, running outside the half-finished house and across the street. Kiersten followed behind them and looked across the cul-de-sac where Rosamund knelt beside Lillian’s crumpled body.