Mailboat V by Danielle Lincoln Hanna

Author:Danielle Lincoln Hanna [Danielle Lincoln Hanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hearth & Homicide Press, LLC
Published: 2022-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter thirty-one

ANGELICA

Angelica pushed through the front doors of the Santa Monica Police Department and spilled into the tiled lobby, Rafael and her parents on her heels. Her eyes scanned the room—the glass window, similar to the one at the Lake Geneva PD; the night dispatcher listening to her headset…

Then her eyes zeroed in on a pair of boys—her boys—sitting in two metal chairs. Swinging their feet, they spoke with a tall, thin man, thirty-something, dressed in a dark blue uniform with a bulky vest under his shirt. He stood over the boys, his weight casually shifted to one leg, his hands resting on a thick belt. It sounded like they were talking about soccer… the World Cup… their favorite teams…

At the sound of the door, Kaydon and Mason turned their heads. Their eyes locked with Angelica’s, and they sprang from their chairs.

“Mom!” Mason yelled.

Their feet pummeled the tiles.

Angelica dropped to her knees, arms wide, hands reaching, heart pounding. Rafael and her parents made various exclamations, but their words became irrelevant, distant noise. She grabbed her sons and held them tight, her fingers tangled in their hair, one head gold, the other black. They smelled like cold night air and exhaust fumes and a hint of Febreze, like a car that had been professionally cleaned, and inexplicably, they smelled like buttered popcorn.

The police officer was mumbling something to Rafael which, for the moment, was unintelligible and unimportant—he found them walking down the Santa Monica Pier—a detective was on his way to interview them—words, words, words. Her sons were hugging her back, their faces buried in her neck. They were talking, too, the sounds barely registering. It’s okay, Mom. Don’t cry. Her family’s hands rested on her shoulders, on her sons’ shoulders. None of it mattered. Her sons were here, and they were alive, and she had them in her arms.

Slowly, as if someone had turned a dial, the room returned to normal volume, normal color, normal time. Angelica finally pulled back and examined Kaydon and Mason from head to toe. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” There had to be something wrong. Something for her to fix. Some way to comfort her sons. To comfort herself.

“We’re fine,” Kaydon replied.

Angelica looked into his eyes, blue like his dad’s, as serious as if he were chairing one of his father’s board meetings. He’d grown up so fast since his father died, as if, at the age of twelve, he felt the family were his responsibility now. Who had told him such a thing? Where was her little boy?

“What happened?” she demanded.

“We were playing in the front yard,” Mason volunteered. His brown eyes were round, like a drawing from a comic book. And yet, he spoke with animation, as if he’d been on some adventure no more dangerous than the third-grade books on the shelf in his room. “We were gonna come in for bed on time, honest.”

Angelica shut her eyes and shook Mason’s shoulder. “What happened?” she demanded again, terror overtaking patience for her son’s ramblings.

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