Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

That was just hours before her death.

Molly couldn’t remember exactly what the woman had said to Kay on the phone. It was something about Kay being an unfit mother.

The house phone rang, giving her a start.

Molly marched into Jeff’s study and snatched up the cordless. “What? What do you want?” she barked.

“Molly?”

She recognized Lynette’s voice. “Oh, hi, Lynette,” she said. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else. I’ve been getting these crank calls—”

“Molly, I need a favor,” she interrupted. “I need you to pick up Carson and Dakota from school today. I already cleared it with their teachers that you’d be by. I wouldn’t be asking you, but Jill can’t get away from work today.”

“Well, ah, sure, I guess,” Molly replied, confused. “Lynette, I’m very sorry about what’s happening with Jeremy. I—”

“Thanks,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “But I really can’t talk. Courtney’s been in an accident. She wrecked her car. They took her to UW Hospital. I’m on my way there now.”

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry,” Molly murmured.

“Just pick up Carson and Dakota for me, and don’t tell them anything. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’ll call you when I find out more. Okay?”

“Of course,” Molly replied numbly.

She heard Lynette start to sob. “Thank you,” she said, tearfully.

Then she hung up.

Eight-year-old Carson Hahn picked up a large pebble by the entrance to the play area outside Burger King. It looked like he was about to hurl it at a car in the parking lot.

“Carson!” Molly yelled. She was sitting outside at a red and yellow plastic picnic-style table with Rachel. It had grown chilly with nightfall, and though the play area was well-lit, she’d buttoned up her coat to stay warm. She nibbled on some fries that had gotten cold while Rachel ate a salad.

Molly hadn’t had any problems with Carson’s and Dakota’s teachers when she’d gone to pick them up. Lynette had called around 5:30 to report that Courtney’s condition was critical. Chris had come to the hospital to keep her company while Courtney was in surgery. Lynette couldn’t say when she’d be back to pick up the kids.

Molly had kept Carson and Dakota in line by promising to take them to Burger King. She’d had to separate Carson from Erin twice, because he liked to tease her. But the three kids had behaved themselves during their November night picnic dinner. Now they were working it off in the play area. The girls seemed to like the slide, and Carson seemed to like trouble. Molly knew — as soon as she saw him pick up that pebble.

She quickly got to her feet. “Carson, you put that down right now or you’ll be very sorry!”

He sneered at her. “I don’t have to listen to you!” he shot back. “And you can’t hit me, because my mom will be real mad if you do!”

For a moment, Molly didn’t know what to say.

Rachel threw her plastic fork into the plastic salad receptacle and stood up. “Well, I don’t know your mother and I don’t care if she gets mad at me. So do what Molly says before I come over there and slap your face!”

His mouth open, Carson gaped at her. He shrugged awkwardly, then tossed aside the pebble. He gave the fence around the play area a kick, and then wandered inside and plopped down on a swing.

“Thank you!” Rachel sweetly called to him. She looked at Molly and sighed. “Something tells me that’s going to come back to haunt me.”

Molly chuckled. “Oh, he’s so going to tell his mother on you. But I for one thank you. I’m really glad you could come along.”

“No sweat,” Rachel said, picking a crouton out of her salad and nibbling it. “I think we have an easier job here than Chris does — holding Lynette’s hand at the hospital, the poor guy. I’m not a big fan of hers, and I hate hospitals. My mom was in and out of hospitals for so many months. She had cancer.” Rachel tilted her head to one side and squinted at Molly. “Are your parents still around?”

“My mother is,” Molly admitted. “But we — well, we’re kind of estranged.”

“I’m sorry, that’s too bad,” Rachel said, fingering the straw to her vanilla shake. “My mom and I were close. She practically raised me by herself. Never mind about my dad. He’s not worth going into. Anyway, they’d discovered the cancer too late. Toward the end, I moved her into my house, and took a leave of absence from my job. I was a financial forecaster for this investment firm in Tampa. The money was really good, and I had a nice house — and a gorgeous, sexy husband, an actor by the name of Owen Banner. Have you heard of him?”

Molly shrugged. “Sorry, no, I haven’t.”

Rachel nodded glumly. “And you never will. I basically supported him while he spent my money on booze and other women. He did three commercials and dinner theater for the geriatric crowd. Talk about a loser. He’s very immature, and I guess in some warped way that appealed to my maternal side. I wanted to take care of him. But Owen didn’t like having my sick mother in the house. He finally issued me an ultimatum: either my mother went or he went. So I started divorce proceedings. In the meantime, my mom died. I had no idea that I’d gotten all my financial savvy from her. Thanks to her investments, my mother left me with about nine hundred thousand bucks. When Owen got wind of this, oh, boy, did he come running back to me, ready to make amends. I know he’s bad news, and that’s why I moved away — as far as I could. I already had ex-sex with him about two months ago. That’s one more reason I made the move here to Seattle.”

Rachel slurped the last of her milk shake through the straw, then sighed. “Anyway, that brings you up to date on moi —motherless, jobless, divorced, and independently wealthy for the time being.”

Molly shrugged. “Wow. Well, I’m glad you told me. Thanks.”

Rachel reached for her purse. “Don’t thank me yet, Molly. I just wanted to let you know about me and my background and my mistakes before I showed you this. . ” She pulled an envelope from her purse, and set it on the table. “Remember, this came to your house by mistake? You gave it to me last week when we first met.”

Molly remembered. It was the only piece of mail that looked like a personal letter.

Rachel pointed to the handwritten address in the corner of the envelope.

785 NW Fleischel Ave.

Portland, OR 97232

“That address is a fake,” she said. “I looked it up on Google. There is no Fleischel Avenue in Portland. And see, the postmark is Kent, Washington. Somebody in Kent wants me to think they’re in Portland — and they’re not doing a very good job. Anyway, open it up. . ”

Molly took out the letter. “Oh, my God,” she murmured.

It was a folded photocopy — in negative — from a microfiche file of the Chicago Tribune ’s front page, from January 30, 2007. The headline read: 3 DEAD, 5 WOUNDED IN CAMPUS SHOOTING SPREE. There was a photo beneath it, which Molly knew very well by now: a cop comforting a crying woman with blood on her blouse. They stood in front of the community college’s front entrance with the crowd that had been evacuated from the school.

Someone had stuck a Post-it to the page. You might ask your new neighbor about this, it said.

“Isn’t your maiden name Wright?” Rachel asked gently.

Molly just nodded. The piece of paper began to shake in her hand

“I didn’t want to ask you about it until I knew you a little better,” Rachel said. “But I looked it up. So — this Roland Charles Wright, was he related to you?”

Molly nodded again. “He was my brother. He — he had some emotional problems, obviously.”