Rising Tide: Dark Innocence (The Maura DeLuca Trilogy Book 1) (23 page)

“Ron’s playing a lot of gigs, so
they should be ok.”  I finally turned to face her.  “I don’t think
he’d take any kind of handout anyway.” 

“Yes,” she turned her eyes
heavenward thoughtfully, “he seems like that type of person.”  I knew she
was thinking back to the time she’d offered to pay his tuition, as was I. 
How could someone as generous as Caelyn want to hurt her own daughter?  My
quick temper had cooled quite a bit, but I was still feeling very confused.

Mom looked at her watch.  “Oh
no!  I have to run, Mink!  Don’t forget, I’ll be at a client dinner
tonight, but you tell Ron that if he needs any help…”

I shoved her purse at her.
 “Yes, yes! I will. Here.  Go…go!”  My attempt at shooing her
out the door and avoiding further, dangerous confrontation worked.  She
kissed my forehead and told me to try not to worry, before sprinting out the
front door.

*She’s still lying to you…about
several things,* a little voice in my head reminded me.  My phone started
ringing again.  “I guess her apple doesn’t fall far from Ron’s tree,” I
countered, aloud.

“Well, if she’s doing what you
think she’s doing, I’ll have no problem confronting her about the whole thing,
including
the health cards,” I told Susie as we rode the Skytrain downtown that afternoon. 
I’d waited until we were safely away from the school to tell her about the
morning’s discovery.  None of our little group knew I was having health
problems except Susie, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“So, how are you doing
anyway?  Anything else weird happen?” Susie queried lightly.  She
knew I didn’t like talking about it; that it made me feel powerless.  I
was much happier forgetting about it, when I could. 

“Well I’m still starving all the
time, weird cravings”—I’d never revealed specifically what these
were—“sometimes my senses seem like they’re on overload…”

“In what way?” Susie asked.

“Well, it’s like I can hear things
I shouldn’t be able to hear.  Some stuff I eat…well if it’s something I
really like…it’s like my taste buds are ridiculously amped up—not a completely
bad thing. And when I am hungry I can’t help eating those things, I have no
choice…or control…”

“Like sweets?”

“Like meat…actually.”  Susie
raised an eyebrow at this and I felt like a freak again, antsy and fearful of
rejection.

“Hmmm, the meat craving could mean
your body needs some iron.  Or some other vitamins and minerals. 
Maybe that’s causing the other things to malfunction.  I’ve read a lot
about how you can be lacking in a certain vitamin, and it causes all sorts of
bad stuff to happen.”

“That could be it.”  I’d never
considered this possibility before.  “Thanks Susie, I have to admit I’ve
been skipping the fruits and veggies of late.  I bet you’re right!” 
I felt a new sense of relief course through me.  “Hey, I bet that causes
problems with teeth, too.  I mean we are still growing…for a little while
longer anyway.  My diet has been too meat heavy.  Milk, fruits,
veggies and multivitamins!  I bet that’s the fix!”  I
needed
it to be the fix.  My whole mood brightened, considerably. 

“Yep, I’m a genius.”  Susie
beamed back at me.  “Wow, but the protein must be super good for your
hair!  It’s so gorgeous.”  She ran her fingers down one thick, shiny
strand.

“The next station is Burrard. 
Burrard Station,” the Skytrain speaker announced.

“Well, her office is on Pender, so
that’s us!”  Susie stood and looked at me expectantly.  I rose and
followed her to the doors.

Lucky for us, there was a Starbucks
right across from my mother’s office building.  It made me twitchy, being
this close to her without her knowledge, so I ordered a hot chocolate instead
of a coffee.  I didn’t believe Caelyn would consider that choice to be
much better.  We settled at a window seat, both sets of our eyes locked on
the revolving glass door of the tower.  Even when we talked to each other,
we didn’t turn away.

Ron’s ringtone sounded again,
shortly after we’d settled in—so exasperating!—I turned the sound off on my
phone, and with an afterthought, the vibrate mode.  Spying on Caelyn set
me on edge, and I just couldn’t have any other distractions, at the
moment. 

“There she is!”  Susie thought
my mom looked like an elegant, Italian model, and was always talking about how
beautiful she was after they’d met.  I knew, before I locked eyes on my
mother, Susie wouldn’t be mistaken.  We’d been waiting for over an hour,
since we’d walked straight to the Skytrain from school, but Mom was still
leaving work a little early. 

And she wasn’t alone. 

The days grew dark early in
October, so the sun was well on its way to slumber.  Long shadows were
thrown across the paths of the people passing on the sidewalk, across the
street.  The tall man had come out after Caelyn, and we’d been so focused
on her, neither of us had gotten a good look at him while he was still inside
the well-lit lobby.  Outside, he fell in beside her—of course on the side
farthest from my and Susie’s prying eyes.  He was enveloped in the
deepening shadows of the buildings, reminding me of my dreams.

“Oh!  I can’t see him at all!”

“But…there is a guy,” I sulked.

“Clients can be guys.”  Even
though the whole thing had been Susie’s suggestion, she seemed to be rooting
for my team, once she’d looked at my face.  “Come on!  Before they
get away!”  She leapt to her feet, dragging me by the hand, as she made
for the door.

Once we crossed the street, I
noticed my mother and Mystery Man were barely in view.  As if reading my
mind, Susie squealed, “Hurry, let’s get closer!”

We ducked through the crowds,
excusing ourselves in quiet voices and shortening the distance between us and
the pair ahead.  My mother had on a long, cream-colored sweater, so it was
easier to keep track of her amid the sea of dark coats, in the mounting gloom.

A dark shape moved into the small
of her back…the guy’s arm.  I, unexpectedly, felt a bolt of possessive
resentment.  “Hey did you see that?!” I fumed at Susie, “he’s got his arm
around her.”

Susie grabbed my hand and squeezed
it.  “Calm down.  Any guy doing business with your mom is going to
try to touch her.  It doesn’t mean it’s welcome on her part.”

“Yea…you’re right.”  That
brought back memories of the wormy client back home.  Poor Caelyn!

That line of thought disappeared in
the next moment.  Caelyn turned toward the stranger and tilted her face up
to him.  He stopped walking and brought his face to hers to kiss her…on
the mouth!  She allowed this.  Susie and I stopped dead in our
tracks, too.

The kiss lingered for a moment, and
then they walked on, this time hand-in-hand.  I thought flames were going
to shoot out of the top of my head at any second. 

“Ow! Maura!! Don’t squeeze so
hard!”  Susie was trying to wrench her hand from mine.  Her face was
contorted in pain.

I let go immediately.  “Oh
god, sorry Susie!!”  She held the hand close to her chest rubbing, it
gingerly with the other.

“Geez!  You don’t know your
own strength!  I think it’s broken.”  Her expression was wounded, as
well.

“You do?!  Oh no…I’m so sorry!
 Let me see!”  Instead she shook it, curling all the fingers.

“I think it’s ok,” she was still
wincing.  “Seriously though, have you been working out?”  I noticed
the darkening, already, under her pale skin that meant a nasty bruise.

“I—I…”

She shook it one more time, looking
up, “Crap!  We’re going to lose them!  Hurry!”  Susie didn’t
take my hand again, but dragged me along by my wrist.  They were walking
along slowly, so it didn’t take too much effort to catch up. 

We kept a safe distance, but I
could still see enough details, by the shop window lights, to put two and two
together.  Caelyn was leaning into whoever-he-was, and she turned to smile
at him quite often.  Any worry I’d had about being discovered quickly
melted away.  My mother’s attention was too fiercely captured for her to
catch on to being followed.  I couldn’t help but feel deeply betrayed,
even though some part of me could understand why she might want to keep this
from me for a while. 

I stumbled over my own two feet, at
the unadulterated shock of it all as I walked along, uncharacteristic for
me.  Susie was very quiet at my side.  Finally, the couple turned
into a quaint-looking, little restaurant that seemed more like a cottage. 
The sign overhead read “La Gavroche.” 

“Oh! I’ve heard of this
place!”  Susie exclaimed, “it’s supposed to be one of the most romantic
restaurants in Van…”  She stopped talking when she saw my expression.

“Let’s cross the street and see if
they sit by the window?”  Susie suggested.

“No, I’ve seen enough.  I want
to go home.”  The tone of my voice sounded almost as miserable as I felt.

Susie ran her hand over my back in
a gesture of comfort  “Are you okay?”

I simply shrugged, completely
beaten down…by my mother, by Ron, by life in general.

“I hate to say it, Maura, but it
was bound to happen sooner or later, ya know?”

I couldn’t help but glare at her.

“Oh come on, think about how happy
you were with Ron, right?  Don’t you want that for your mother?  I’m
sure she has every intention of telling you, once she thinks the time is
right.  I mean she always seems like she’s so worried about you, and I can
tell she’s not a bad person.”

Curious, I’d been having precisely
the same thoughts that morning.  “Yea, I don’t want to admit it, but I
guess you’re right.”  I sighed in defeat. 

There wasn’t really anything to get
angry about…that could be justified anyway…and I’d never been one of those
teenagers that flew off the handle at every little imagined crisis.  The
words Susie had spoken started to burn in my mind. 

“Oh yea, Ron.  I guess I
should talk to him, too.”  I fished in my pack for my phone.

“Yea, maybe it’s time you asked him
about that girl.  Are you calm enough to do that, though?”  Susie
looked pretty motherly herself at that moment.  She wrapped her hand
around my arm as I brought the phone up out of the bag.

“Maybe, I just hate the way things
are….Oh my god!”  I’d hit the home button, and the screen showed me the
list of things I’d missed.  At the top was a text from Ron.  I
squealed with excitement, as I turned the phone around to show Susie.

Maura!
Natalie is my COUSIN!! I’ve been trying to talk her out of leaving college
because she’s homesick. I knew Merina would give you the wrong idea and I
wanted to tell you with a call, not this way, but I guess you were mad? 
Can we Skype tonight, please??? You know you’re my favorite girl.

Susie squealed almost as loudly as
I had.

“So she’s really going out with
someone?”  Ron winced on my computer screen as he said it.

“Well, Susie did point out that
it’s been seventeen years…I guess she’s due?”  I hated admitting it, even
as I was reasoning it out to Ron.  I guess I’d always hoped, somehow, by
some unlikely miracle, the father I’d never gotten to know would find his way
back to my mother and I.

“I guess so…” Ron answered. 
“But I know you well enough to see you aren’t completely on board with the
idea.  Am I right?”

“I just always wished…I know it’s
stupid…”  Allowing myself the luxury of playing out my lifelong fantasy
hurt a lot, and I was dangerously close to tears.

“You want your dad back. 
Believe me I know.  When mine died, I might have been young, but that’s
all I wanted for the longest time, and still do.  But you never got to
know yours at all.  I think that’s way worse.”  Ron was being very
generous, especially being faced with the very real possibility of losing his
remaining parent.  At least I’d always had my loving, if overprotective,
mother and was in no known danger of having her disappear from my life. 

I just nodded, my eyes in my
lap.  I hated crying in front of other people, even my own mother.

Ron knew me perfectly well. 
He changed the subject.  “So, are you going to confront her about the
health cards?  I still think you need to go see a doctor, and I can’t
imagine why she’d want to keep you from going.  Maybe I could talk some
sense into her?”

My mother and Ron having a
discussion about my well-being.  I was horrified at the thought.  I
knew exactly how Caelyn would take that—as insulting, at the very least. 
“No!”  The word came out more vehemently than I meant it to.  “I
mean, believe me, my mom does not appreciate parenting advice.  I’ve seen
people try, and nothing gets her back up more.  I don’t think it would
help.  But, I have a plan.”

“Oh you do?”  He smiled in a
sly manner.  “I should have known.  You’re always full of good
ideas.  My clever beauty.”

I couldn’t help but blush and look
down again, but quickly gathered my composure.  “Thanks…but yea, I don’t
want to reveal anything yet.  I need to catch her off guard.  I can’t
really be around her, because if I am, I know my curiosity will get the best of
me, and I’ll have to ask about the guy.  If we start fighting about that,
I’ll lose my temper and start screaming about finding the health card.”

“Right, and no one wants to be on
the receiving end of that.”  He grinned in a knowing way.

“Hey!  I said I was sorry for
ignoring your calls!”

“I know.  I just couldn’t help
teasing you about it again.”  He was enjoying my guilt far too much. 
“But, please continue with this plan for your poor, unsuspecting mother.”

“Poor unsuspecting!  She hid
my health card from me and is dating some man in secrecy!”  I crossed my
arms over my chest with a huff of angry breath.

“You’re so cute when you’re angry.”
 He smiled disarmingly, making me giggle.  “Ok, now continue.”

I realized he knew completely how
to push my buttons, alarming, but still effective.  “Ok…” I gave him a
mock look of warning.  “So, tomorrow I need to do two things.  The
first is to stay away from her, so nothing slips out.”