Winterkill - C. J. Box [61]
Marybeth glared back. She felt her rage, and her frustration, building. This woman hated her. This stupid, trashy woman hated her.
“We love April,” Marybeth said evenly. The words just hung there.
“That’s mighty white of you,” Keeley smirked. Tha’s mahty waht uv you. “But it don’t matter. She’s not your child. She’s my child.” Chile.
Marybeth realized that Jeannie was trying to bait her, trying to get her to lose her cool and say or do something that would look bad if they ever ended up in court. Jeannie had even brought a witness with her.
Again, Marybeth forced back her rage, and spoke softly.
“Jeannie, I do understand what it’s like to lose someone. I lost my baby four years ago. Did you know that? Remember when we met at the doctor’s office when we were both pregnant? I lost that baby when a man shot me. He was the same man who killed your husband.” Marybeth’s eyes probed for a sense of connection or compassion, but neither was forthcoming. “After I got out of the hospital, we found out about April. We took her in as our own. She’s part of our family now. She’s got wonderful sisters who care for her. Joe and I care for her. Can’t you see that . . .”
Marybeth needed to be careful here, and she tried to be. “Can’t you see that April is happy, and has adjusted? That the greatest gift a mother can give is to make sure her child is loved and cared for?”
Jeannie Keeley took her eyes off Marybeth, and seemed to be searching the snow for something. Absently, she dug in her coat pocket for another cigarette and placed it in her mouth, unlit.
Marybeth noticed that the man driving the pickup had finally turned his head to look at her. He was severe-looking, older than Jeannie, with an unkempt growth of beard. He wore a dirty John Deere cap. His eyes were sunken and dark, his pupils hard dots.
A match flared, and Marybeth looked back to Keeley as she lit her cigarette. Was it possible she was reconsidering, that Marybeth had touched her?
Keeley let two streams of smoke curl out of her nose. “Fuck you, princess,” she hissed. “I want my April back.”
Marybeth clenched her teeth, and her eyes fluttered. She thought that in four steps she could be on this horrible woman, pummeling her head with the hay hook that hung within easy reach on an upside-down horseshoe inside the door.
It was as if the man behind the wheel could read her mind, and he quickly opened his door and walked around the front of the truck. He stopped and casually pulled open his coat so that Marybeth could see the faux-pearl grip of a heavy stainless-steel pistol stuck into his greasy jeans.
“We best go, honey,” the man said to Jeannie Keeley.
Keeley snorted, her eyes locked in hatred on Marybeth. The man reached up and put his hand on Keeley’s shoulder but she shook it off.
“We best go.”
“Look at that bitch,” Keeley said, her voice barely a whisper. “Look at her standin’ there like some kind of goddamned princess. She loses her baby so she thinks she can just steal mine to make up for it.”
That tore at Marybeth, but she stood still and firm. Four steps, she thought.
The man moved behind Keeley, and put his arms around her, squeezing her into him, his head close to her ear, “I said let’s go. We’ll get April back. The judge said we would.”
Jeannie started to resist, but was obviously overpowered. She relaxed, and he released his grip. She never broke off her glare at Marybeth.
“What was that about a judge?” Marybeth asked, not able to stop a tremble in her voice.
Keeley smiled, shaking her head instead of speaking. “Never mind that,” she said, and backed up past the man, never taking her eyes off of Marybeth until she bumped up against the door of the truck. “You just better be packing her stuff up so’s she’ll be ready when we come