The Night's Legacy Page 2

  “Of course not. She never laid a hand on me or said a bad word.” That was the problem. Mom had never lost her temper or done anything to hurt Lois. She had been perfect. Too perfect. “I’m not going to say anything else without a lawyer.”

  “That’s fine, Ms. Locke. Do you have someone you want us to call? We could arrange a public defender—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Lois turned back to stare at the ceiling, waiting until the detective stood up and left. Then she closed her eyes and decided to take a nap while she waited.

  * * *

  There wasn’t a clock to tell her how long she’d waited. From Ren City to Lubbock was about a three-hour flight. With time for security, deplaning, and so forth it would take probably seven hours for Mom to get to the hospital. Less if Dr. Johnson let her borrow the 707 he kept at the airport, which he probably would. He might even come along for the ride.

  She smiled at that thought. She hadn’t seen Dr. Johnson in ten years. Back then she had just about fainted every time she saw him. It wasn’t just that he was handsome, tall, and had a great smile; he was also the smartest person other than Mom at the museum. He could recite every Egyptian ruler chronologically or in reverse order. He was as fluid in hieroglyphics as in English and Arabic.

  She felt her face turning warm as she thought of him. By now Dr. Johnson would be about sixty, an old man more than twice her age. Even if she were older, he probably still thought of her as the precocious toddler in pigtails asking about mummies.

  When the door opened, she thought it was either a nurse checking on her or the detective coming back to pester her with more questions she wouldn’t answer. That was until she heard Mom’s voice cry out, “Lois! Oh, my baby.”

  She almost didn’t recognize her mother. Other than a few rusty strands, Mom’s hair had turned gray. The lines in her face had deepened and she had the beginnings of a turkey neck. Her eyes were the same, though, the same watery blue eyes that had always forgiven her.

  The handcuffs made it difficult to hug her mother back. Lois had to settle for patting Mom on the back with one hand. Mom didn’t seem to mind as she squeezed Lois with enough pressure to crack a few ribs. “I was so worried, sweetheart. I thought I might never see you again.”

  “It’s all right, Mom. I’m fine. More or less.” She jingled the handcuff for emphasis.

  Mom let her go and then turned the chair around to sit down. Although she had never raised her voice or hit Lois, she employed a far more subtle weapon Lois had dubbed “the Glare.” It was simply that, a relentless glare with all of the authority Mom could muster behind it. Even now at twenty-three, Lois still looked down at her feet as if she had broken the cookie jar in the kitchen. “What did you think running away was going to accomplish?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I just needed to get away for a while.”

  “You could have called. Or wrote.” The Glare broke down as Mom began to cry. “I thought you might be dead.”

  Lois wished at that moment she weren’t handcuffed so that she could hug her mother or at least pat Mom’s shoulder. There was nothing she could do from the gurney though except to say, “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “I just wish I could understand why you would do such a thing. You know I love you, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  Mom reached into her purse for a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes until the tears dried and the Glare returned. “Why would you do something so terrible, Lois?”

  “Like I said, I just needed to get away—”

  “I’m talking about the car you crashed. You could have killed someone driving like that. You’re very lucky it was just a sign and a sprained ankle.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t want them to take me in. I knew they’d call you and I wasn’t ready for that.”

  “You must think I’m some kind of monster.”

  “No, Mom. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

  “I’d really like to understand all of this.” She reached out to touch the tangled hair that was the same color as Mom’s used to be. “I want to understand you. We used to be so close, didn’t we? You used to be my sweet little girl. Now I don’t know who you are.”

  “Mom—”

  “We’ll talk about it on the way home.”

  “Home? I’m not—”

  “I’ve talked it over with the police. You can either be released into my custody or they’ll try you here for resisting arrest. The maximum sentence is five years in prison.”

  Lois didn’t need long to think it over. She had no way of winning the case, not when the deputy probably had it all on tape. The judge wasn’t likely to go easy on her with her record either, especially not in Texas. “How soon can we leave?”

  Chapter 2

  It didn’t take Lois long to pack up her life. Seven years on the run had taught her how to pack light. She didn’t keep any mementoes or photo albums of where she had been. Even her memories of these years had blended together to become indistinct from one another.

  Mom of course couldn’t resist being a mom about the room. She held up the comforter and stuck a finger through a cigarette burn. “Did you do that?”

  “No. I don’t smoke, Mom.”

  “That’s good, sweetheart.” Mom clucked her tongue. “When was the last time anyone cleaned up this room?”

  “Probably sometime in the Clinton administration,” Lois said.

  “How could you stay in a place like this?”

  Lois shrugged. “You don’t really notice after a while.”

  Mom shook her head but didn’t say anything else. Lois knew Mom was still trying to come to grips with what Lois had done. In the scientific community Mom was the smartest woman on the planet, but when it came to the real world she was as naïve as a child. She could never have lived in a roach motel like this or slept under bridges or in alleys as Lois had; it just wouldn’t make sense for Mom to do that when she had a perfectly good home.

  Lois’s entire life of the last seven years amounted to one canvas bag she slung over her shoulder. She tucked her uniform from the diner under her arm with a note thanking Mr. Henry and Miguel for their kindness over the last six months. Then she went down to the office to pay the bill. Mom reached into her purse for her wallet. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “I can pay it,” Lois insisted. She reached into her pocket for a wad of bills. Mom’s eyes widened as Lois counted off six twenties and placed them on the counter. The manager woke from his alcoholic stupor long enough to snatch these and stuff them in his pocket. Lois set the uniform down on the counter along with another forty dollars. “Make sure Mr. Henry gets this, will you?”

  “Sure, kid,” the manager growled and then took the uniform. There was a fifty-fifty chance he would actually do it, but Lois didn’t want to drag Mom around the whole town. They still had a long flight ahead of them.

  It had surprised Lois outside the hospital to see an ordinary Ford sedan and not a limousine. For environmental reasons Mom rode a motorcycle to work and had never been comfortable with driving a car. When Lois was little Aunt Betty had done the driving. Once she married Dr. Johnson, Lois and her mother took cabs or hired a car for the day.

  After she dumped her bag in the trunk, Lois offered to drive. Mom Glared at her. “Do you have a license? A real one?”

  “No—”

  “Then I’ll drive.”

  They were out of Durndell when Mom asked, “Where did you get all of that money?”

  “Working.” Lois rolled her eyes and added, “Not anything illegal, I swear. Waitressing mostly. A few odd jobs here and there.” Most of those odd jobs had involved clerical work or computer programming, but she had liked working in an office even less than going to school.

  Mom sighed. “I worried you might have become a—”

  Mom’s face turned red. Lois finished the thought for her. “A hooker?”

  “Yes. Or something worse.”

 
“Look, I don’t smoke, I don’t use drugs, and I’m not having sex for money, all right?”

  Mom turned her head to Glare at Lois. “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m your mother. It’s my job to worry about you.”

  “I know—”

  “I don’t think you do.” Mom turned back to watch the road. She didn’t say anything else all the way to the airport in Lubbock. That was another of Mom’s weapons. She adhered to that philosophy of, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Whereas someone else might rant or rave, she would simply go silent, her jaw setting as if it were made of concrete. It had never taken long when she was little for Lois to crawl onto her mother’s lap and apologize. Later she tried waiting Mom out, but that never worked either. This time she folded her arms over her chest and watched the west Texas scenery go by in silence.

  * * *

  As expected, Dr. Johnson had loaned Mom his jet for the trip. Dr. Johnson was the only Egyptologist in the world to have his own airliner. He had enough family money to pay for the upkeep and he had told Lois the first time she took a ride in the jet that it was much easier to use his own plane than to fly commercial. It certainly made it easier to get through customs with the artifacts he and his team recovered from the desert.

  She was disappointed to find no one on board except the stewardess, who took Lois’s bag to put into an overhead bin. “Dr. Johnson didn’t come with you?”

  “He’s in Washington, making a presentation,” Mom said. Her voice still had that icy tone to indicate she was upset. “He’ll be back in a few days.”

  The 707 still had the original first-class seats. The coach seats had been ripped out in favor of leather couches and a full-size table for eating or meetings. The stewardess showed them to the first class seats for take-off and helped them buckle in. Some of Mom’s anger must have subsided as she reached over to take Lois’s hand while the plane began to taxi. Lois couldn’t help noticing how thin the skin on Mom’s hand was, nearly to the point of transparency, blue veins standing out against the pale flesh. There were even a couple of liver spots on the back of her hand that Lois didn’t remember seeing before.

  The take off went smoothly, though Mom kept hold of Lois’s hand, squeezing it as the plane climbed higher in the air. Lois understood it was as much to make sure she was still there as it was for Mom to show her love and support. Lois knew better to say anything that might spoil the moment.

  Once the pilot indicated they had reached cruising altitude, the stewardess unbuckled their belts. Mom finally let Lois’s hand go. She flashed that shy, dopey smile Lois had seen often enough on magazine covers. “I’m going to take a little nap. It’s been a long day.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “Just don’t try to parachute out of the plane.” From her tone it was tough to know if she were joking or not.

  The way Mom shuffled back to one of the couches, her back hunched forward, she seemed in dire need of a cane or walker for support. She didn’t sit down on the couch so much as she fell on it. Lois thought of Blue T-shirt back at the diner, but this wasn’t from drink; Mom was simply exhausted.

  “Is there anything I can get you?” the stewardess asked.

  “Do you have anything to read?”

  “Of course, ma’am.” They didn’t have any paper books on board but the stewardess brought out an iPad preloaded with a wide selection of books from nonfiction to best-selling novels. Since this was Dr. Johnson’s plane, most of the books had to do with Egypt. Lois found one of the nonfiction ones she hadn’t read yet and brought it up on the screen. As she read, she tried not to look back her mother sleeping.

  * * *

  Lois had finished the book when Renaissance City came into view. It looked pretty much the same as when she had first seen it from the air twenty years ago. There were so many gleaming skyscrapers so close together that it looked as if the main island would sink from the sheer weight of them all. Low clouds obscured the lower buildings, including the Thorne Museum, the majority of these clouds manmade. From up here the city looked so beautiful, so peaceful.

  She waved the stewardess off to go over to the couch where Mom was still sleeping. She shook her mother’s shoulder gently. “Mom, wake up. It’s time to land.”

  Mom turned over on the bed. She stared at Lois for a moment as if in disbelief and then smiled. She touched Lois’s cheek with one hand and smiled. “Hi, sweetheart.”

  “Hi, Mom. Come on, we have to buckle in.”

  “Oh, right.” Lois caught her mother’s wince as she stood up from the couch. She didn’t wave off Lois’s assistance in helping her back up to the seats either. “I was having the nicest dream.”

  “What about?”

  Mom took Lois’s hand. “This.” Mom started to cry. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

  “I’m glad I’m back too,” Lois lied. She found Mom’s handkerchief for her while the stewardess helped them buckle in for the landing. “And I’m really sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is we’re together now.”

  “Right.” Lois shifted uncomfortably in her seat. They were together now, just like old times. She tried not to sigh as she thought of how long she would have to stay here before the heat from the incident in Durndell died out. Six months? A year? It would be just as good as prison in a lot of ways.

  There was a car waiting for them at the airport. Mom had slept the whole flight, so either the stewardess had called or Dr. Johnson had arranged for it. “Take us home, please,” Mom said. Lois tried not to think about how odd that word sounded now.

  She stared out the window as if she were a tourist seeing the city for the first time. From the ground it looked nothing like from above, the skyscrapers blotting out much of the sun to give everything a muted look. Lois shivered from the old sense of claustrophobia at so many buildings, cars, and people packed together into such a tight space. She had much preferred towns like Durndell where you could see for miles and where two cars was considered a traffic jam. She caught Mom watching her, probably trying to gauge her reaction.

  “I know it’s going to take some getting used to after so long,” Mom said.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  It took an hour for them to reach Centerton with the usual Ren City traffic jams. Centerton was the site of the original Fort Renaissance, which because of its strategic location near the water became a major trading center, giving birth to the city. The old fort was long since gone, but most of the colonial-style homes on the tree-lined streets dated from the late 18th Century.

  Mom’s house dated from 1790, during Ren City’s brief time as the young nation’s capital. Like most of the residents of the neighborhood, she had the money to keep the house looking so pristine that you might expect to find George Washington sitting on the front porch. There were no Founding Fathers, just Mom’s motorcycle chained to a post. The motorcycle was different, one of the new three-wheeled models. Lois was sad to see the old bike gone; she remembered tearing around the city streets on the motorcycle, clinging to it as if she were riding on a rocket. “That’s different,” she said.

  “It’s more stable,” Mom said. “Easier to handle at my age.”

  “You trade in the old one?”

  “It’s in the basement. I thought you could have it—if you want.”

  “Sure,” Lois said, trying not to sound too excited. The bike would certainly make getting out of here a lot easier when the time came.

  Mom unlocked the front door and then ushered Lois inside. The inside of the house hadn’t changed much over seven years. Except there seemed to be a lot more pictures of Lois than before. Climbing up the stairs, there was a photograph hanging over every step: Lois as a baby, a toddler, a little girl, and then a teenager. At the top of the stairs was Lois’s graduation photo, her in a green cap and gown and Mom smiling next to her in a matching dress. She remembered Dr. Johnson taking that picture and how happy he, Mom, and Aunt Betty had been while Loi
s could only feel relief that soon she would be off to college, far away from everything. Not far enough, though. Not nearly far enough.

  “I kept your room the way you left it,” Mom said from the bottom of the stairs. “Why don’t you go settle in and I’ll order something for dinner. What do you eat these days?”

  “Whatever you want is fine,” Lois said. It really didn’t matter to her anymore, not after she had rummaged through dumpsters for food.

  Mom really hadn’t changed Lois’s bedroom. She found the same Marilyn Manson and Nickelback posters hanging on the walls. She had never really cared much about their music; the posters were just part of showing her independence. The dark blue comforter was as soft and clean as if brand new; it was much nicer than any from the various motels where she had stayed over the years.

  Lying on the comforter, she found her eyes drawn to the shelves lined with trophies and blue ribbons. She had won every science fair from first grade on through high school. No one except Mom had ever taken any joy in her wins. As the daughter of Dr. Jessica Locke she was supposed to win the science fair. Even when she didn’t try to win they still gave the trophy to her, as if it were a ritual they couldn’t break.

  She would have preferred to throw the trophies in the garbage, but she couldn’t. Mom had always been so proud of her, long after winning became old hat for Lois. Mom would dust and polish the things as if they were actually made of gold instead of plastic. Lois closed her eyes. Mom would never understand. Lois hadn’t been running from her; she had run away from the trophies, the ribbons, and the expectations that came with them from being Dr. Jessica Locke’s daughter.

  But now here she was again, back in her old room and her old life. With a sigh she tried to get some sleep before dinner.

  Chapter 3

  When she woke up, she found some cold Thai food and a note waiting for her in the kitchen. Mom’s handwriting was just as neat as everything else she did, often so neat that it was hard to tell the difference between it and a computer printout. “Thought I’d let you sleep. Went to catch up on work at office. See you later. Love, Mom.”