Duke
The fuck she talking about? She killed her daughter? What the hell is this, The Twilight Zone? Because this sleepy town full of friendly people seriously hides one fucked up secret.
“Come again?” I step a little closer, as though that’s going to help me understand what she just said.
“It was my fault, Duke.” She storms from the room, leaving me to chase after her to hear what she says next. “My negligence meant she died.” Cammie swipes a tissue from the box in the bathroom drawer, wiping her eyes. “If I’d paid more attention, thought about it, I could have prevented the whole damn thing from happening.” She talks to me, although it’s herself she stares at angrily in the mirror as she wipes away her smudged makeup.
“Tell me what happened.” I take a seat on the side of the tub. “Explain it to me so I can make up my own mind if you’re to blame, because, Cam, I don’t think you could be.”
She sighs, her hands on the vanity as she hangs her head between her shoulders. “How long has the roast got to go?”
Fucking woman. “Don’t ignore the question.”
“I’m not,” she snaps before sighing and repeating the words a lot softer. “I’m not. I’m just hungry, and quite frankly, this whole thing is upsetting enough; you don’t want to add ‘Hangry Cammie’ to the mix.”
Damn woman makes me chuckle, as much as I’d rather not. “Fair enough. Let’s go check.”
She fluffs around, fixing her eyeliner or some shit while I head back to the kitchen and check the rolled beef. Sure enough, the thing’s ready to go—too much longer and it would have been tough as an old gumboot.
“So?” Cammie asks as she finally re-joins me.
“You were right to ask. It’s ready.”
She gives me a smug rise of one eyebrow, and then moves across to the far side of the living room as I pull the stainless-steel tray from the oven and set it down on top of the sink. After what feels like an hour of searching in what I thought would be the obvious places, I give up trying to locate a carving fork and use two knives: one stabbed through the roll to keep it in place, and one to cut it.
All the while, Cammie ferrets around in the sideboard cabinets, pulling things out in her mad search for something. I keep a cursory eye on her as I plate the meat and vegetables, transferring the tray to the stovetop to make gravy from the juices.
The look on her face when I set the plates on the table makes every ounce of the effort worth it.
“I should keep you on,” she says with a smile, despite the fact her eyes are puffy and red, her pinked cheeks giving away how she really feels. “I thought you said you couldn’t cook?”
“Cook? No. Can’t add anything together without it tasting nothing like it should. But make a mean as roast? Easy.”
“Says you.”
I chuckle as I pull out her seat.
Cammie takes her place at the table graciously, reaching up to set some papers on the surface beside her place setting. I take my seat opposite her, and indicate for her to start.
“I don’t usually say grace or anything,” she announces as she slices into the meat. Straight for the best parts. “So I hope you’re not offended.”
“Neither.” I take a mouthful of roast potato drenched in gravy and groan. I haven’t had a roast in what feels like forever. “Damn that’s good, if I do say so myself.”
Cammie nods in agreement, her eyes closed. “Mm-hmm.”
I wait until she’s looking at me again and jerk my chin at the papers. “What are they?”
She pops a carrot in her mouth and then sets her knife down to unfold the top sheet. With her palm flat over the contents, she slides it across the table to me, gesturing for me to read it as she picks up her knife and continues to eat.
I take a bite of the meat and chew it slowly as I look over the newspaper article. It’s short—probably a bare mention halfway through their local rag, but it’s to the point, that’s for sure. The headline reads: Local woman under investigation after tragic accident.
“Jared saved it for me,” she explains between mouthfuls. “At the start, I couldn’t face anything that would remind me of it, so I’d bin the paper when it was delivered before I even unrolled it from the plastic. He fished it out and clipped that for when I was better.”
I run my eye over the column as she speaks.
“He said he saved it at first because he thought it might make me see that I did everything I could.” She pauses, waiting for me to finish.
The article outlines in brief detail the events that led to her daughter, Taylah’s, death. An innocent enough day, by the looks of things, that ended in tragedy when her daughter ran down the driveway to the open road and was struck by a car. The woman under investigation wasn’t Cammie, as I’d first assumed; it was the driver of the car that hit her little girl.
“But then this one came out.” She slides the next sheet of newsprint across to me. The article’s a fair sight longer. “He never looked at or spoke to me the same after that.” Her eyes fixate on the printed letters, her thoughts clearly somewhere else. Or maybe they’re here, trapped in a nightmare that came to life a long time ago.
Mother accused of neglect after toddler’s death
“Shit, Cam.” I pull the article closer, setting my fork down on the side of my plate.
She continues with her meal in silence as I read the words that damn her involvement beyond any shadow of a doubt.
“It was an accident,” she whispers as I reach the end. “It’s not as though I set it all up, planned it, or did any of it knowing what would happen. How was I to know?”
“You say that, and yet you still blame yourself?”
Cammie pushes her plate aside, setting both elbows on the table so she can cover her face with her hands. “Because I should have been more careful, Duke. I should have thought about it when I took the cold and flu medicine.”
My appetite lost, I lean back in my seat and pick the article up to read it again. According to the report, Cammie was on a nightly dose of prescribed medication for insomnia at the time. After taking additional drugs for a head cold during the day, the ingredients reacted and left her drowsy and unable to be roused when she fell asleep. Her daughter—their daughter—opened the front door and made her way to the road where the accident with the car occurred. The driver was cleared of the charges of careless driving causing death considering the open road speed limit, and the hedge that obscured the driveway meant she had no chance of reacting in time to avoid the collision.
“Cammie.”
“What?” she moans, still hiding behind her hands.
“Look at me.”
A moment passes where I wonder if she’s going to up and walk out, yet she finally drops her hands with a sigh revealing bloodshot eyes.
“Are you listening?”
She nods.
I hold her gaze, make sure I don’t blink, and say, “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”
Her nostrils flare, those perfectly sculpted brows twitching as she slowly but surely begins to shake her head. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“I think I do.” My knife and fork hit the plate with more force than I intended as I slice into the nearly cold roast. “You were a mother trying to feel well enough to care for the child she loved above anything else. Also, a mother who needed sleep to function. Nothing unusual, Cam. Nothing to feel bad about.”
Her jaw hangs as she stares at me finishing my meal. A few choked sounds come out, but other than that, I’ve got her.
This time she walks out. Her chair scrapes across the floor as she rises with a huff, abandoning her unfinished dinner to stride from the room. Using the side of my finger, I wipe up the last of the gravy, not wasting an ounce of this meal while I give her a moment. Her frustrated howls echo down the hallway as I stand, and then clear the table, carrying both plates to the kitchen to begin the clean-up.
I don’t even get as far as retrieving the dishwashing tools from the pantry before a telltale crash has me heading through to the hallway. Glass litters the timber floor, the shards catching the spill of light from the living room. I look to the left in time to catch Cammie as she reaches up and yanks another picture off its hook, lifting the treasured memory over her head before throwing it to the floor with a roar.
“Hey!”
The third and final picture resists, its wire caught up on the brass hook. Taking care not to get broken glass in my foot, I step over the carnage and take her forearms in my hands. “Stop, Cam.”
“Let go of me!” She snarls, a cornered dog looking for a way out.
“No.” My hands tighten, her skin bunching in my hold. Fuck, I’m probably bruising the woman, but like hell I’m walking away from this when I’m partially responsible for starting it.
Fuck my curiosity. Fuck her mother, too, for validating the idea in my head. Why the hell would she want me to crack this case of shit open if this is the reaction it gets? Surely she knows how much talking about it upsets Cammie? What parent would willingly inflict pain on their child like this?
One who wants change.
I know that process all too well, don’t I?
“Just let me do this,” Cammie moans as she wilts in my hold, her knees hitting the floor. “I need to do this.”
“No, you don’t.” I loop one arm under hers, hefting her to her feet. “All you’re going to do is regret this in the morning.” She doesn’t fight me when I guide her away from the mess and toward her bedroom. “I get you’ve got to work through it, but destroying the things you have left isn’t the answer.”
Her breath hiccups as I set her down on the edge of her bed. The room is exactly as I guessed: white and grey. A calming space for a woman who’s nothing but frenetic chaos on the inside.
“Can I trust you to get into your pyjamas if I leave you alone?”
She nods, already removing the tie from her hair.
“Good. Now where’s your dustpan? In the fridge?”
She chuckles, exactly as I’d hoped.
“No, you muppet. It’s in the hall cupboard.”
Of course. “Get changed, Cam. I’ll be back in ten.”
She rolls onto her back as I step out and pull the door shut behind me. Soft sniffles filter through the wall as I kneel and rescue the prints from the mess on her floor. My chest tightens as I take stock of the images properly for the first time. I’d looked before, but never looked at what the images contained.
A woman surrounded by love.
A mother whose world was complete.
A perfect stranger’s life before it was torn away in the blink of an eye.
Just like mine.