Unbinding Love Read online

  Her eyes widened, and her China doll skin turned a whiter shade than I’d ever seen. She snatched up her notebook and pen in one swift swoop, latched onto her drink with her other hand, squealed, “Holy mother of God,” and dropped down in her seat, her eyes squeezed shut. “Tell me when it’s over.”

  “You wanna find your son, then you need to tell her,” Ma said again, her voice so powerful it blew discarded napkins off the table next to me. “It might got somethin’ to do with your missin’ son, and you know it.”

  “Bill, I need all the help I can get here,” I said. “Please.”

  I watched the ghost grapple with the decision. When he dropped his head, I breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s okay,” I said to Mel. “You can open your eyes and release the death grip.”

  She flipped open one eye, and I watched it dart back and forth, checking her surroundings. “Thank goodness.”

  “So tell me,” I said to the ghost. I moved my hand in a circle to encourage him to continue.

  “I was murdered.”

  ***

  Bill Marx was murdered? “What?” I asked, because certainly I’d misunderstood. Aaron would have told me that when he briefed me on the family and Justin’s disappearance. “That can’t be.”

  Bill raised his palms at his waist. “I’m afraid it can,” he said, spreading his arms out to show me. “See? I’m dead.” The corners of his mouth twitched.

  The joke wasn’t lost on me. “And the world is likely a better place,” I said, showing I wasn’t in much of a joking mood. Bill Marx had rubbed me the wrong way from the start, and my opinion hadn’t changed.

  “What’s going on?” Mel asked.

  “Bill was murdered.” I pressed my lips together. “And apparently no one told me.” I didn’t mention that by no one I meant her boyfriend, but I was sure she got the point.

  “Seriously? When? How?”

  “I don’t know. You haven’t stopped talking long enough for me to find out.”

  She threw up her hands. “Sorry, my bad.”

  “Could your murder have anything to do with Justin’s disappearance?”

  He shook his head but wouldn’t look me in the eye, so I didn’t believe him. “No, absolutely not. My untimely demise was four years ago, and my family has been in WITSEC.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Untimely demise is another way of saying surprising death.” The mouth twitch thing happened again.

  I’m all for a good joke, but when a kid is missing, and his mother dies suddenly, my sense of humor goes out the window. I might have made that clear as daggers flew from my eyes and stabbed through his semi-transparent aura. “That’s not what I meant and I’m not in the mood for—“

  Ma saved Bill Marx from a verbal lashing. “It’s that thing they do when someone throws their boss or someone under the bus. Ya know, when the police move ‘em to Iowa or something and change their names, give ‘em jobs at the grocery store? Happened to my cousin Richie after he ‘n his brother Sammy tried to off their boss Joey Cellioni back in the early ‘80s. You remember, right?”

  I didn’t remember, but that wouldn’t stop my mother from babbling on about it, so I pretended I did. “Yeah, I remember, but what’s that got to do with this wits sect thing.”

  Bill explained it for me, and I in turn, explained it to Mel.

  “WITSEC. It’s the witness protection program through the U.S. Marshals Service. Bill said he was involved in some shady dealings—his words, not mind—and gave up his boss, who got sentenced to life. The Marx family was put into protective custody before the trial, but it didn’t go well. They ended up divorced. Bill got immunity for giving up the boss and being a witness for the prosecution. Except it didn’t matter because he was killed walking out of court.” I made a gun with my fingers and pretended to shoot myself in the head. “Boom.”

  “Oh,” Mel said. “That sucks.”

  “Pretty much.” I glanced at Bill, and he nodded his agreement.

  “But he doesn’t think his son’s disappearance has anything to do with his baggage?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about Emma’s death?”

  I deferred to the dead man. He shook his head, so I did too.

  “Somethin’ ain’t right about this,” Ma said.

  I didn’t say it, but I agreed. In my book, Bill Marx was full of crap.

  “My celestial sleuth radar is goin’ bonkers.” She pointed at Bill. “You get your head blown to bits, that’s serious stuff. Maybe they found your family and are takin’ care of unfinished business?”

  “She’s got a point,” I said. “Why don’t you fill me in on—“ I paused, searching for the right words. “On the whole situation, and let us decide if there’s a connection?”

  Mel took notes as I reiterated everything the ghost said.

  “He was laundering money for some pretty bad people in Texas. The U.S. Marshals moved Emma and Justin here, but from what Bill says, Emma struggled to adjust. He doesn’t think Aaron’s department knows, because Aaron’s using their new names, and he’s not seen anyone from the Marshals anywhere.”

  “Don’t they communicate this kind of stuff?” Mel asked.

  “Beats me,” I said, angling my head toward the ghost.

  “To the best of my knowledge, their new lives are just that, new lives. No one, including the local authorities, knows anything unless the Marshals decide to tell them” he said.

  I texted Aaron and asked him to meet us. “What were your wife and child’s real names?” I asked Bill.

  “I’m Dan Reynolds.”

  “Wait, why did your name get changed if you were already dead?”

  “Legally speaking it didn’t, but because family often talks about their dead relatives, the Marshals Service thought it best to give me a new name for conversation and such, and I’ve just become accustomed to it.”

  “That’s kinda cool,” Ma said. “I think you should start callin’ me Petronilla. Sounds a lot better than Fran, dontcha think?”

  I didn’t have time for that, so I ignored her. “And your family?”

  “Mary Sue and Daniel John. DJ for short.”

  I grabbed Mel’s pen and wrote down the information.

  “DJ,” she said, and sighed. “We need to find this boy.”

  “Is there anyone your wife or son might have contacted since entering witness protection? Someone from their previous life that could help us find your son?”

  Bill, er uh, Dan, or whatever he went by, floated around and then said, “Her mother. I can’t be sure, but I suspect she kept in touch with her mother. They were close. Small town southern women who didn’t miss a day talking until this all happened. Perhaps you can contact her.”

  Aaron showed up and kissed Mel on the top of her head, and though I rolled my eyes, I secretly adored their connection.

  I filled him in on what we’d learned.

  “Son of a —“ He stopped himself. “Backyard burger.”

  Mel smirked. “He’s trying not to swear around me.”

  “And you came up with ‘backyard burger’ instead?” I asked, giggling. “That’s pathetic.”

  “Ah, Madone, a good barbeque sounds tasty right about now. Maybe your Uncle Ernie could grill me up some chicken.”

  I shot my mother a look. “Can you not right now?”

  She shrugged. “So testy.”

  Bill gave us his former mother-in-law’s address, and since it was only a short drive away, Aaron made the decision to drive to her right then, postponing his plans with my bestie for later that evening.

  “No worries,” she said, kissing him goodbye. “I’ve got a case to work anyway.”

  He swore under his breath.

  “Eh, eh, eh, mister,” Mel said, wiggling her finger at him. “Watch your language. She flipped her head my direction and busted out laughing.

  I did, too.

  “Should I go check out the grandmother’s house? See if the boy is there?” Ma asked.
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br />   “I think that’s an excellent idea,” I said.

  “He’s not there,” Bill said. “I’ve checked. I’ve checked everywhere he could possibly be, and I can’t find him anywhere.”

  “What about the people who killed you? Did you check their homes?”

  He nodded. “He’s nowhere. I don’t understand it.”

  I didn’t understand it, either. “That’s impossible,” I said. “He’s somewhere, and we’re going to find him. He’s not dead. I can’t tell you why or how I know, but I do.” I wasn’t saying, however, that he wasn’t going to die, and that was my biggest concern.

  “I don’t think he’s dead either,” Ma said. “I can feel it in my bones.” She paused and glanced at her boneless presence. “Well, I could if I had any, that is.”

  My mother with the badly timed jokes, thank God. “Go, look for the boy. Bill, you go with her. You can take her on a tour of your past life. Maybe you missed something or someone. Let me know what you find.”

  ***

  Minutes turned to hours and not a word from my mother or Aaron. Mel and I busied ourselves running errands, and then she helped me clean out the garage. We did the stuff people do when they’re waiting.

  “Do you think Aaron and I will get married?”

  I sat on my rolled up, rarely used pink yoga mat. “Uh, maybe?” I wasn’t sure what the right answer was to that question.

  She pulled my daughter Emily’s five-year-old hula-hoop from behind the paint rack. “I’m not saying we will or we won’t, but if we did, I think he’d want to have kids, and I don’t know if I want to have any more kids.”

  Oh boy. Tread carefully, Angela. Tread carefully. “You haven’t been dating all that long to be thinking about marriage and kids. Besides, he’s the first guy you’ve dated since the cheater, so maybe it’s not the right time to be thinking about this.”

  “Maybe.” She hula-hooped for a minute straight. It was impressive. “You should ease into that conversation about kids. You know, when you’ve got the chance.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that. When I’ve got the chance. Because, you know, we talk about kids all the time.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  She totally missed the sarcasm in my voice, or else she didn’t, but either way I was stuck telling my not-boss that his girlfriend of only a few months didn’t want to have kids. Awkward. That was the reason I didn’t want my best friend and my not-boss dating.

  Seven hours later my mother shimmered in and dropped the bomb we’d been waiting for.

  “We found him, and he’s alive.”

  I dropped a container of lacrosse balls and didn’t scramble to pick them up as they rolled in multiple directions across the garage floor. “Wait, he’s alive? Where? We need to get him.”

  “He’s with his grandma,” she said. “Just like I thought.”

  Mel stood behind me, begging me for info, so I repeated back everything my mother said as she said it.

  “But I thought Bill checked there?”

  “He did, but what can I say?” She held her arms out, palms up to the sky. “I got a gift.”

  “I didn’t see him,” Bill said. “I don’t understand.”

  “Huh. That’s weird.”

  “Not really,” Ma said. “Ya see, his grandmother, she’s one smart cookie. She’s got all this magic juju stuff to ward off evil spirits and Bill here,” she pointed to him, “’cause he was an evil criminal when he was alive. Me, on the other hand, I was an angel then and am now, so that magic juju stuff didn’t bother me none.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Magic juju stuff? Like what?”

  “Hmm, hmm,” Mel said.

  “Some ancient Chinese mirror that goes along with that fang sway stuff, a whole bunch a horseshoes, some wind chimes that I gotta say sounded really nice and calming. She had some evil eye thingie the Greeks copied from the Italian horn, them copycats. But it worked. I got in and saw the boy, and he’s okay. Was playin’ some video games on the computer like Josh does.”

  I filled Mel in. “Wow. I had no idea any of that was possible.”

  Mel picked up the lacrosse balls. “You and me both. I’m so gettin’ myself a bunch of horseshoes. Those things will be my new décor. Hanging out with you and knowing there are evil spirits? I’m not taking any chances.”

  I grabbed my cell and called Aaron to fill him in, though, as I suspected, he was one step ahead of us.

  “Already knew,” he said. “But thanks for the heads up.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you, Aaron was there. Whoopsie,” Ma said.

  “Thanks for that. So I’m guessing he’s still with his grandmother? And he’s okay?”

  She nodded. ““He’s perfetto and he’s still there, for now. I think them Marshals are gonna try ‘n take him, though. I heard Aaron arguin’ with one of them and they wanna take over the Emma Marx case ‘cause too. They don’t think she tripped and fell down the stairs. They think somethin’s goin’ on, and it’s all connected. Aaron, though, he got his undies all up in a bunch about it.” She smiled. “If I was on the other end of the phone, I wouldn’t mess with him. He gets a look in his eye when he’s mad. That Marshal, he’d be a giamocc’—an idiot—to mess with Aaron, with a look like that.”

  I’ve seen that look. And I agreed something was up, and it was highly probable the two situations were connected, but I didn’t say that in front of Bill Marx. I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him--not literally speaking, of course. “So wait, where have you been all this time? Did you just find Justin? We’ve been waiting for seven hours.”

  “Nah, weese went on a tour of Bill’s stompin’ grounds, like you asked. Remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.” My annoyance with my mother evaporated. “What did you find?”

  She floated over and whispered in my ear. “I think there’s a connection between the boy and his ma’s death, but don’t go repeating that around him.” She pointed to Bill.

  I leaned against a shelf full of opened potting soil bags filled with varying amounts of soil. “Uh, Bill, or Dan, or whatever you wanna be called, we need to talk privately. Would you mind skedaddling for a bit?”

  “I’m going to my son,” he said, and left.

  “Don’t matter none where he goes,” Ma said. “He can’t see him anyway, on account that he’s evil an’ all.”

  “Tell me everything.” I glanced at Mel who was tossing two blue lacrosse balls between her hands. Her joke wasn’t lost on me. I smirked, and said, “Mel, get your Nancy Drew notepad. This is gonna be good.”

  She dropped the balls and grabbed her purse from inside. “Shoot.”

  Ma filled me in, and as usual, I repeated it all to Mel, sans Ma’s old school, raised in Chicago Heights, just off the boat from Italy, lazy English.

  “So you think Emma knew her life was in danger?”

  “Yeah. Her mother told the police that she dropped off the boy the day he went missing. Told them her daughter got an envelope on her front porch the day before.”

  “What was in the envelope?” I asked.

  “A picture of Justin sittin’ at school, eatin’ his lunch. Probably somethin’ bad too. Josh says those school lunches are nasty. Says the Tweeter is blowin’ up with pictures of rotten meat and cold beans. They oughta have Italian women makin’ their lunches. ‘Course not half-breeds like you. You got your father’s cookin’ genes. Too bad, you ask me.”

  “Can you not slam my cooking ability now, please? And it’s Twitter.”

  Mel snorted.

  “What cooking ability?” Ma asked. “You don’t got one.”

  “Good grief, Ma. So you were saying? About Justin Marx.”

  “Oh, yeah, so they think Emma was protecting him.” She repeated what she’d said earlier.

  I dragged my thumb and forefinger down my mouth and rubbed my chin. “I would have freaked, too.”

  “Apparently, she did. The grandma said she said they’d been found and something bad was gonna happe
n. She didn’t know what to do, and told her ma she didn’t think the Marshals could help, so she left Justin with the one person she could trust. ‘Cause you know us grandmas are trustable an’ all.”

  “But her mother hadn’t changed her identity. What’s to stop Bill’s—“ I paused, trying to find the right word, “enemies from finding him there?”

  “Beats me,“ Ma said. “Looks like we need to get Bill back here to find out what’s goin’ on.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

  We stood there and waited, but nothing happened.

  “Well, you gonna get him or what?” Ma asked.

  “Me? I thought you were doin’ it.”

  “Why should I do it? You’re the one that does the ghost talkin’, you get him.”

  I felt the heat rising up my neck. “Oh for crying out loud. This is not the time to teach me a life lesson.” I clenched my fists. “Fine, whatever.” I focused my thoughts away from my frustration toward my mother and on Bill’s energy, and asked him to come back.

  He did.

  “That was weird,” he said. “All of a sudden I was drawn back here. How did that happen?”

  I flung my hand. “Fugeddaboudit. We need to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  I laid it all out for Bill. Told him I thought he was responsible for whatever had scared his wife and for her death. I explained that he had to tell us everything or his son would be in more danger and could end up dead too.

  “The note,” he said, “it was a scare tactic. They weren’t after my boy. They were after my wife.”

  Ma gasped.

  “Emma? Why?”

  “Because of the money.”

  “The money you laundered? I thought the cops got that.”

  “There’s still two million missing.”

  “Holy crap. That’s a lotta cash. Do you know where it is?” After the words left my lips, I realized he probably did, as did his wife.

  “No, and that’s the problem. I thought it was buried in her backyard, but I’ve looked and can’t find it. I’m worried if I don’t, they’ll use my son to get it. I think they think he or his grandmother knows where it’s hidden.”