Medical Kidnap Files 1-6, page 106
“You’ll see when we get there.” Renata looked around, checking over her shoulder, making sure they weren’t being followed and that no one was paying too much attention to them.
Despite how tired and worn thin Gabriel was feeling, he reflexively checked as well. Anyone out of place. Any unmarked vans, tinted windows, or vehicles with too many antennae. Anyone who didn’t look like what they initially appeared to be. He looked at shoes and hands. Dental work. Things that people who were masquerading as street people didn’t get right or were unable to change. But everything seemed to be normal. No one suspicious.
He accepted that Renata didn’t want to tell him where they were going. If he were arrested and she managed to get away, it was better he didn’t know where she was going. By design, he didn’t know all of her safe places and she didn’t know all of his. There was no point in trying to get it out of her. He’d find out soon enough.
Gabriel leaned back and slid down in the bus seat, bracing his knees against the bench in front of them. He closed his eyes and, hugging his backpack to his chest, drifted off to sleep. He was feeling better with food in his system, but he was still tired and didn’t feel quite himself.
It seemed like it was just a few minutes before Renata was shaking him awake again. He rubbed his eyes and looked around.
“Next stop,” Renata advised.
“Okay.” He sat up and tried to blink himself alert. He looked out the window and didn’t recognize the area they were in. A new friend or safe house, not one he’d been to before.
When the bus slowed, they got to their feet. Gabriel held on to the handrails and straps, legs unsteady. When they stepped off the bus and onto the sidewalk, he stood still for a minute, feeling like he’d just gotten off of a boat and the ground was rolling under his feet.
Renata held his arm to steady him and, in a minute, Gabriel was able to stand and walk without assistance.
“Okay?” Renata asked.
Gabriel nodded. He wasn’t going to pretend that he was perfectly healthy and didn’t need her help. They’d learned to rely on each other and not to put on an act. Except for the fact that he hadn’t told her how much trouble he was having sleeping outdoors in the winter weather. He had known how resistant she would be to having to stay indoors. Whether it were at a shelter or a safehouse, it meant that people knew where they were. And if people knew where they were, it made them vulnerable.
“It’s not far,” Renata said. She looked at a note she had written on a slip of paper and looked around, orienting herself. She led Gabriel down the street. “Just a couple of blocks. Promise.”
They walked at a slow, energy-conserving pace. Gabriel glanced sideways at Renata. Her cheeks were pinker than usual, but maybe it was just the cold. They walked in silence for a couple of blocks to the safe house. Renata stopped and looked up the walkway to the house. Gabriel waited. He glanced around. Not an affluent neighborhood. Duplexes and fourplexes. A few newer condo developments, but they were probably built with paper-thin walls and the cheapest possible materials. There were cars on front lawns, porches clustered with baby strollers, chain link fences with dogs taking aggressive positions behind them, watching the intruders warily.
Gabriel looked at Renata, waiting. There was no point in trying to push her to make her decision faster. She had to persuade herself that there was nothing to fear, or she would turn around and go back.
Renata let out a long sigh. She nodded, more to herself than to Gabriel, and started up the sidewalk to the house. She led him around back to a door that must lead to a basement suite, and again took a look around.
There wasn’t another person in sight. No one who could be watching them enter the house. That was good. If someone had followed them, they would know where Gabriel and Renata had gone, but otherwise, there was no one to tell anyone where they had disappeared. Gabriel was sure no one had followed them. Renata had been watching carefully. Gabriel hadn’t gotten any bad feelings while he was waiting for her to decide. Everything in the neighborhood seemed to be as it should be.
Renata didn’t ring the doorbell, but pounded on the door, a hard, demanding knock.
There was silence. No one home? Gabriel rubbed his fingers as he waited to see if there were someone there. Standing in one place wasn’t a good idea. He was covered, but he’d been losing body heat since he got off the bus. Waiting for someone to answer the door when the house was empty would unnecessarily drain his resources.
Renata knocked again, rattling windows with her pounding. Gabriel opened his mouth to point out that there was no one home, but Renata held up her hand for silence, and Gabriel heard faint footsteps climbing the stairs from the basement.
Were they expecting Renata and Gabriel? Or was Renata springing it on them?
The door opened. Gabriel looked at the woman who stood in the doorway, and for a few moments, he didn’t recognize her.
He could be excused for that. He’d only ever seen her once before. A mistake, because she had given Gabriel a fictional name on the phone, knowing that he wouldn’t go to see her if she gave her own.
She stared at Renata, her mouth dropping open. Renata had not called ahead. Hadn’t done anything to smooth the way for them. Elena clearly had no idea that they were going to drop in on them.
“Renata,” she said breathlessly, and held her arms open wide to enfold her daughter. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”
Renata took half a step back, putting up her hands defensively. Her message was clear. She did not want to be touched. Elena dropped her arms to her side after a moment, nodding her head in agreement.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll stay cool.” Elena rubbed her arms. “Speaking of cool, come inside. You’ll freeze to death out there.”
She pushed the door open wide. Renata didn’t move. She stayed where she was and didn’t say anything to acknowledge her mother.
“Renata,” Elena prompted. “Come in. You want to attract attention, standing outside like that?”
Elena knew how to use Renata’s paranoia against her. Renata took a swift look around, then complied, stepping into the house. She reached back to pull Gabriel behind her, keeping him close.
Gabriel was happy to step into the welcoming warmth of the home. But his mind whirled, trying to reconcile Renata’s actions with what he knew about her.
Since he had first met her, Renata had insisted that Elena had been trying to kill her before Renata had been apprehended and Elena sent to prison. Elena had not been sent to prison for trying to kill Renata, but because she had objected and attacked the police officers who had forced themselves into her home to apprehend Renata. Judge Dee-Dee had agreed that their entering Elena’s home had been improper, without any warrant or just cause to force their way in but, at that point, it no longer mattered. Elena had broken the law by attacking the police, so she went to prison and Renata went to DCFS after all. It was crazy, but Judge Dee-Dee had felt it was her only choice. Letting Elena off scot-free after assaulting the police would be an injustice. Elena could have filed a complaint. She could have asked for an investigation into the actions of the police officers. But she couldn’t assault them. For that, she had to face the consequences.
Renata had been moody since Elena’s release. Elena wanted to meet with her, wanted a chance to see her daughter again and wanted Renata—and Gabriel too, if he wanted—to come and live with her again. Gabriel had turned her down flat and walked away. Renata had repeated the refusal, as Gabriel had known she would. But Renata hadn’t been happy with the choice. She had said a couple of times that she missed her mother, wanted to see her, but quickly brushed those impulses off as momentary weakness and asserted that she never wanted to see or live with her mother again.
Gabriel tried to catch her eye and figure out what was going on. He couldn’t fathom what had made her change her mind. Had it just been too long since she had seen her mother? Was it just a shift in her paranoia, or a stabilization of her mental health? Was it a good thing, or did it mean that something was terribly, dreadfully wrong?
Elena led them down the stairs, carpeted with musty, rust-colored flowers. The carpet looked like it had been installed in the seventies. Or maybe earlier. The house smelled strongly of animals. Wet dog, something rank growing or moldering there. Even coming in from outside, Gabriel could feel a temperature drop between what he had felt when they stepped inside and when they reached the basement floor. He could feel the cold cement under the carpet. Either there was no underlay, or it had been pounded to dust by hundreds of footsteps over the decades.
Elena led them to a small, dim sitting room, and motioned to the couch. “Have a seat, please.”
She pulled a chair in from the kitchen. Round metal tubes connecting the seat and the back of the chair and torn vinyl upholstery that had been duct-taped on more than one occasion. Elena sat down on it, staring at her daughter.
“I can’t believe how much you have grown up.”
Renata shrugged one shoulder. “That’s what happens when you don’t see someone for a couple of years.”
“You know that’s not my fault. I would have seen you if I could have. You could have come to see me, and I let you know when I was out. I tried to connect with you, but you wouldn’t return my calls.”
“It’s your fault you got arrested.”
Elena sighed. She knew where the conversation was going. There was no point in arguing about it. Renata wasn’t going to change her mind. It was a big enough deal that she had gone there, of her own free will and choice. Elena needed to take the opportunity and not sabotage whatever time they might have together.
“Are you okay?” She looked from Renata to Gabriel. “Both of you?”
Gabriel looked down, avoiding Elena’s eyes. Was he the only reason they were there? Because Gabriel needed to be somewhere warm for the night?
Renata looked at Gabriel, her eyes asking for permission to talk frankly with her mother about him. Gabriel gave a small nod. Whatever she wanted to tell Elena was fine with him. He knew she wouldn’t say more than she felt was safe.
“Gabriel… he’s having some problems. With his mito. With the cold.”
Elena nodded. Her expression was concerned. “What can I do?”
“We just need… a warm place,” Renata said.
“Of course.” Elena nodded. She frowned, looking from one to the other. “Don’t you have… anywhere warm? Don’t you have a shelter…? Don’t tell me you’ve been outside in this.”
“We sleep rough most of the time,” Renata confirmed. “Outside. Shelters aren’t safe. Nowhere is safe for more than a day or two. And the more people who know where we are…”
“No one is trying to get you,” Elena assured her. “You’re always running away from shadows and phantoms. You know that there isn’t anyone after you. This is just… part of your illness.”
“There are people after us,” Renata insisted. She looked at Gabriel for his support.
Gabriel nodded. “They killed one of our friends,” he said. “And the police and DCFS don’t like…” He looked over at Renata. “Don’t like what we’re doing. If they know where we are, they could arrest us.”
“For what?”
“Whatever they want,” Renata snapped back. “Start with vagrancy and build up to federal charges. Lay everything they can and then start building a case against us. If they wanted to, if they got their hands on us and we didn’t have a sympathetic judge, they could put us in prison.” Her lip curled as she looked at her mother. “For longer than you were. Much longer.”
Elena appealed to Gabriel. “You know that she’s paranoid. She’s making these dangers up. Tell her. Everything will be fine. You can come and go as you please, there isn’t anyone trying to capture you. There’s no one following you, trying to kill you.”
Gabriel didn’t say anything. Elena shook her head impatiently.
“You can’t buy into her paranoia. You’re just feeding it. You have to be the logical one. The one who is grounded.”
Renata looked at Gabriel, but he kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t stayed with her as long as he had by trying to argue with her paranoia. She had been right too many times for him to discount anything she said. The conspiracies were not all true, but it was true that Doctor De Klerk had sent people after them, and they quite likely had outstanding warrants. There were enough suspicions that if the right cop stopped them and figured out who they were, they could be in big trouble.
Renata sat on the couch with her knees pulled up to her chest like a shield. Gabriel watched her, trying to understand what had made her decide to see her mother, let alone stay with her.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” Elena said finally, deciding that it would probably be better not to challenge Renata. She had to know that if she pushed Renata too far, Renata would just run away.
But they had established roles. Elena was the mother. The caregiver. The one who was responsible for telling Renata how the world worked and to raise her properly to adulthood. It wasn’t her fault, of course, that Renata had turned against her and thought that Elena was trying to kill her. That was just part of Renata’s disease. But there was no point trying to convince her paranoid brain that there was no danger.
“Can I get you anything?” Elena offered. “Gabriel, some hot tea? Blankets for you both? I know it’s not very warm down here. I wear a lot of sweaters and warm slippers and pile on the blankets. You guys must be cold. I’ll get you something to keep you warm.”
Neither of them objected. They hadn’t even bothered to take off their coats, though both had divested of their layers of gloves. Elena walked out of the room to gather blankets for them.
Gabriel looked at Renata. “You okay?”
Renata nodded. She looked around anxiously. “I don’t like being here. With her. But… I think I needed to see her again.”
“Sure. That’s understandable. If I had the chance to see my mom again, I would take it.”
“Sure, but she took care of you. She wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“I would still want to see her again,” Gabriel asserted.
Renata smiled. She faked punching him in the shoulder. “You’re just saying that.”
“No. I would still want to see her. We know there are plenty of kids who want to go back to their parents even if they were being abused. It’s what they know. And it’s their parents. They want to go back to their parents.”
“Yeah.”
“I just want to make sure that you’re okay. And that you know…” Gabriel coughed and cleared his throat and tried to put it into words casually, without getting choked up. “You didn’t have to do this just for me. I would be okay.”
“We could have gone somewhere else,” Renata said. “I didn’t have to come here. I could have picked another safehouse.”
Gabriel nodded. “Yeah. I just… I’m okay, you know. If you want to go somewhere else. Or if… you want to go back.”
“To sleeping rough?” Renata stared off into space. “I don’t think we can do that for a while. Not while it’s this cold.”
Gabriel felt like he had let her down by getting sick, by letting himself be conquered by the cold. If he were stronger, if he took care of himself better…
“You couldn’t help it,” Renata said, correctly interpreting his pained expression. “We can’t control our bodies. If we could make ourselves healthy by sheer force of will… trust me, I wouldn’t choose to live like this.”
Renata rarely whined about her mito. She didn’t complain about not being able to eat like everyone else. She was philosophical about only being able to be tube fed formula and having reactions to medications. She didn’t complain about psychosis and paranoia and all of her other issues.
What would complaining change? They just played the hands they were dealt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Fae had ignored several incoming calls during her shift. Some of them were from known numbers, and some of them were not. She had ignored them all. She knew she was behind everyone else on her tickets and, if she stopped to answer phone calls, not only would she get in trouble if she were seen talking on company time, but she would fall further behind. Her hold on the job was very tenuous without any further challenges.
She had ignored Maya Simmons’s calls not only because she didn’t want to take calls while she was on shift, but also because she didn’t want to talk to her.
Simmons had been giving her the runaround, telling her that they expected her to meet certain requirements, and yet not letting Fae get any further ahead when she did. Every time she met one requirement, they stretched it to make it more difficult or to add another one. And they still weren’t letting her see Hannah. They were supposed to be working toward reconciliation, but they wouldn’t even talk to her about letting her have a visit with her youngest daughter. Even though they admitted there had never been any physical abuse. Fae sighed and listened to the calls.
As well as Simmons’s curt ‘call me, Fae,’ with a martyred sigh, like she had been trying to get Fae for days, there was a strange call from someone she didn’t know. She sounded like a friend of Hannah’s, a teenage girl, but she didn’t explain who she was or ask after Hannah. She just left a cryptic message saying that she was calling about Hannah, and that she would try again later, but it would probably be a different number. She didn’t say what number it was, which was not at all helpful. Fae considered calling back the number she had called from to see if it were some kind of prank call. Like she didn’t have enough to worry about without prank calls on top of it.
She steeled herself and called Maya Simmons. “Sorry, I can’t take calls while I’m working,” she explained. “Did you call to set up a visit with Hannah?”
