CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dre

After the scare with Bo, Preppy and I both decided he needed to feel more of a sense of permanence with us.

He was ours, the adoption was legal and binding, but the three of us still had different last names.

That’s why, on a sunny Friday morning, I brought Bo to the clerk’s office with me and waited for forty minutes. The goal was to leave the building with the same last name.

The Clearwater family was about to become an official party of three.

“THIRTY-FOUR,” a gravelly female voice called out. “THIRTY-FOUR.”

I stood up and waved my ticket at Bo. “Come on, buddy. It’s our turn.” I grabbed his hand and led him to the counter.

“I need two name change forms, please,” I announced to the bored looking woman behind the glass partition.

“Two?” she asked, looking at me above the rim of her reading glasses.

“Yes,” I said. “One for me and one for him.” Bo stood on his tiptoes and smiled at her.

“Hey,” she said, dryly. She tapped some keys on her keyboard while staring at Bo. “What are the reasons for the name changes? Divorce, marriage, adoption, emancipation...”

“Marriage for me. Adoption for him.”

“Do you have your certificate of legal adoption finalization form and your marriage license?” she droned.

I passed her Bo’s forms but realized I’d forgotten to bring the marriage license. It was fake, but they didn’t have to know that. “Crap, I forgot the marriage license, can you please look it up for me?”

“You’re going to have to fill out these forms before I can do that.” She passed me a pink and yellow form, the kind that makes a duplicate underneath while you write. “You can use the pencils in the corner over there,” she said, pointing to the far wall with an empty table and several chairs. All of which were occupied by people filling out the same kind of forms I now had in my hands. “Or you can fill it out on the computer over there.” She pointed to the older model PC on the other side of the room. “When you’re done, take another number.”

“Oh, but I just...”

“Number THIRTY-FIVE!” she called.

“Come on, Bo,” I said, opting for the computer since there was no one there I sat down and propped Bo up on my lap.

The form I needed pulled right up when I clicked NAME CHANGE APPLICATION. It was a relatively simple form but the computer hated me. “See? We can do this, right?” I asked. Bo nodded, but was fixated with a patch of mold growing on the ceiling tile above us.

Current last name was the first field I had to fill out. I entered CAPULET and pressed enter instead of TAB. A new screen pulled up with everything in the county public records that had to do with the last name Capulet popped up, including the transfer of the deed from Mirna’s house. “Shit,” I swore. Bo looked up at me and flashed me a knowing smile. “I mean shoot. Shoot,” I corrected, mussing his hair.

I closed all the tabs I didn’t need and went back to the form. I’d only gotten to the second line to fill in my new last name and I’d already hit the enter key again instead of the tab key after typing Clearwater. “GGGGrrrr,” I growled at the computer as a dozen or so tabs popped up on the screen again, covering my form.

Bo bared his teeth and folded his hands against his chest like paws. “You make a great little lion,” I told him.

I closed out the tabs that were mostly address change forms. People moving from Logan’s Beach to Clearwater, Florida.

I was about to close out the last tab when something caught my eye. It wasn’t an address change form. It was a lawsuit.

Nancy Clearwater Bateman vs. Mutual Life of Nassau.

Mutual Life of Nassau was a well-known life insurance company with a catchy jingle in their commercials that was hard to forget. I scanned the document quickly and basically came to understand that Nancy was suing Mutual Life for failing to pay on policy number #456479874840, but it didn’t give any information on the policy itself. Mutual Life had countered that Nancy had made a late payment on the policy and there was a lot of back and forth statements and paperwork filed between the two parties. I drummed my foot against the desk, knowing in my heart what was coming when I closed the tab, revealing the next document, the resolution of lawsuit.

The one where Mutual Life Insurance of Nassau had agreed to pay one Nancy Clearwater Bateman, beneficiary, a hundred thousand dollars on the life insurance policy taken out in the name of her son.

Samuel Clearwater.

––––––––

Preppy

Dre had been acting strange since she’d gotten home. After Bo went to bed she grabbed a chair that she’d been working on reupholstering and flipped it upside down in the middle of the living room. Kevin and I watched American Ninja Warrior as she grunted and swore at the chair, wrestling with a staple that wouldn’t come loose. “You want my help?” I asked.

Dre didn’t answer and I wasn’t sure if she hadn’t heard me or if she was ignoring me. Finally, she threw down her pliers and stormed off into our room.

“What do I do?” I asked Kevin.

“I don’t know,” he said, taking a sip of his beer. “But you better fix it ‘cause chances are, it’s probably all your fault.”

“True story, man.” I got up and was about to go find Dre and fix whatever was bothering her when she appeared with a big purse, one I didn’t see her carry that often, slung around her shoulder.

“Hey,” she said, when she practically ran into me.

“Hey,” I said back. “Where you running off to?”

“Oh, I’m just gonna run to the discount fabric store and get supplies for the chair. I don’t have the right staples and the plier is all bent and wonky. Maybe while I’m there I’ll check out some new fabric for the couch too. I won’t be too long though,” she said all in one breath.

“They’re still open?” I asked, checking my watch. “It’s eight o’clock.”

“They’re open until ten,” she replied.

“It’s Sunday,” I reminded her.

“Um yeah, I was surprised they’re open so late too.” She looked over my shoulder. “Kevin can I take your car?”

“Uh huh,” he called from the couch, his focus solely on the TV.

“Why don’t you take mine?” I asked, offering her my keys. She dangled Kevin’s keys, which hung from his dirty rabbit’s foot keychain.

“Because I’d like to get there sometime today and if I took yours I’d be driving two miles an hour the entire way, afraid I might do something to hurt it,” she said. “I could play bumper cars with Kevin’s piece of shit and he’d never even notice.”

“Hey,” Kevin called out, still not turning around. “It might be true but that doesn’t mean it don’t hurt any less.”

She stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on my lips. Nothing about her reasons for leaving, or that kiss, felt right.

Not a damn fucking thing.

“Take Wolf with you,” I said.

“Don’t be silly. I’ll be really quick, no one is looking for me at the fabric store,” Dre said, darting out the door.

I stood on the porch and watched her pull out. She was really adorable if she thought she was going somewhere unprotected when a threat could still be out there. We’d eliminated everyone on the list we’d made but since we couldn’t be sure we took out the person responsible for trying to get to Dre, it would always be in the back of my mind. Which was why Wolf was still standing guard at the house.

“You want me to follow her?” Wolf asked.

“Nope,” I said, watching the taillights disappear around the corner before I pulled out my keys.

“You gonna let her go alone?”

I was halfway to my car when I answered.

“No fucking way.”

Dre

I didn’t know what I’d find when I drove to the address listed on the legal documents. Mostly, because I didn’t really know what I was looking for.

Never in a million years did I expect what was waiting for me there.

NEVER.

When the front door shut behind me I walked down the driveway back to Kevin’s car in a daze. I shifted my now much heavier purse and fiddled with my keys only to drop them when a voice out of nowhere scared the shit out of me.

“You’re a terrible fucking liar, Doc,” Preppy said, his voice laced with anger and something else that made me cringe and my stomach drop.

Hurt.

“I’m sorry but I wanted to check it...”

“Whose house is that?” Preppy asked, uncrossing his arms and standing up straight.

“It’s...I came here to see your mom.”

“My mom?” Preppy asked, taking a step back then looking up at the house. “Why the fuck would you want to come see my mom, and more importantly why the fuck would you lie to me about it?”

“I’m so sorry. I just didn’t want to get you upset if there was nothing to be upset about. I wanted to check things out for myself first.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Preppy asked, looking as confused as I felt.

I pulled the legal documents from my purse, the ones I’d printed off from the county, and handed them to Preppy who scanned them over. “What the fuck,” he whispered.

“She took out life insurance policies on you and on Kevin. She’s also been collecting disability and social security off both you since you were practically infants. Scamming the system left and right,” I started, bouncing from foot to foot. “I think...Preppy I’m pretty sure she was the one after me or who hired someone to come after me in order to get to you. I mean, the woman collected a hundred grand based on the fact that you were dead and I think she wanted you to stay that way before she either got arrested or they wanted their money back or both. It was just a matter of time. So she used me to get to you.”

Preppy lowered the pages and looked at me. “That doesn’t answer why you came here to see her. Why you DIDN’T come to me first.”

I took a deep breath. “I knew if you got to her first I wouldn’t exactly have the chance to talk to her and I wanted to look in the eyes of the woman who denied love to the most amazing human being I’ve ever known, mother to mother. I wanted to see her so I could better understand your pain. Better understand you before I told you all this and you got to her first.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Preppy asked.

“No. Not exactly.”

“What? She wasn’t home?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I said, pulling out the box Nancy’s husband had given me from my purse.

“What’s in that?” he asked.

“Your mom’s remains.”