Bad Mother

CHAPTER ONE

Reno, Nevada, the one place on earth she’d vowed never to return to. Unfortunately, that pledge had blown up in her face, an outcome that was an iffy mix of fate and her own emotionally charged decision-making.

Would you change it? Sienna asked herself for the hundredth time.

And for the hundredth time, she still wasn’t certain of the answer.

Only . . . yes, yes, she was sure of the answer. She’d do it again if given the choice. She just hadn’t anticipated the choice leading her here.

The cloudless desert sky—vivid blue and endless—stretched above as she pulled open the door to the police department before stepping into the blessed relief of the air-conditioned building.

“May I help you?” the woman at the front desk asked on a smile.

Sienna smiled back, though not quite as widely. “Sienna Walker here to see Sergeant Dahlen.”

“Oh, hi! You’re the new detective from New York, right? I’m Chelle Lopez. Nice to meet you. What do you think of Reno so far?”

“Hi, Chelle. Nice to meet you too. And I’m actually from Reno. Originally, I mean.”

A look of surprise lit Chelle’s round face. “Oh, well then, welcome home.”

Sienna schooled her expression, even while a knot twisted in her stomach at Chelle’s words, and she watched as the woman picked up the phone and let Sergeant Dahlen know she was there.

“She’ll be out in just a minute.”

“Great, thanks,” Sienna said as Chelle picked up another call. Soon she was laughing at something the person on the other end said and lowering her voice as she chatted on what was obviously a personal call.

Sienna had barely taken a seat when a very tall, striking woman in her fifties with white-blonde hair in a spiky pixie cut entered the lobby, her eyes focused on her. “Sienna Walker?”

She stood. “Yes. Sergeant Dahlen? Nice to meet you in person.”

The older woman, who was wearing a black pantsuit, a black shirt, and red high heels, moved toward her and shook her hand quickly as Sienna lifted her chin, attempting to see eye to eye with the woman and failing. “You can follow me this way.”

Sergeant Dahlen led her through the station, buzzing with the midday activity of a busy police force, her long legs causing Sienna to have to hurry to keep up. They entered an office, and Sergeant Dahlen closed the door behind them. She gestured to a chair in front of her desk, and they both took a seat as she picked up her phone and asked someone to come to her office. Sienna did a quick sweep of the room, which was completely devoid of clutter and appeared as squared away as the woman who inhabited it.

She replaced the phone in its cradle, leaned back, and crossed her legs as she perused Sienna. “Your captain, Darrin Crewson, and I are both army veterans.”

“Yes, he told me, ma’am.”

“Ingrid.” She paused, her eyes narrowing very slightly. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my fellow brothers and sisters in arms.”

Sienna nodded, her nerves tingling. “Yes, and vice versa, Darrin said.” If an icicle morphed into a person, Sergeant Dahlen is what it would look like, Sienna thought. Lovely in a cold, sharp way.

Sergeant Dahlen—Ingrid—lifted her chin as though reading Sienna’s thoughts and agreeing. “Even so, I don’t need nor want a troublemaking renegade causing me headaches and unnecessary paperwork. I hate unnecessary paperwork.”

“No, ma’am. I don’t intend to cause this department—er, especially you—any trouble. What happened in New York was a . . . unique situation. I won’t let it happen again.” Her tone sounded weak, even to herself. She straightened her back, attempting to convey the message of strength with her posture where her voice had failed. Sienna had a strong feeling Sergeant Dahlen had a low threshold for weaklings.

The older woman studied Sienna for another moment, and she resisted the urge to squirm. If that was the look the detective sergeant used when she was interrogating a suspect, the department must have an insanely high solve rate. Anyone would crack under that glacial gaze. Her eyes moved to the window, and Sienna let out a silent breath. “We have a major staffing shortage right now in the Reno PD, so when Darrin requested the transfer, that made things a little easier on our end.” Sienna resisted a flinch. “But,” the sergeant went on, “Darrin also told me you’re a damn good detective when you’re not going off half-cocked and that any department would be lucky to have you.”

Thank you, Darrin. For that and a dozen other kindnesses. “I’m going to do my best to live up to that generous description, Sergeant.”

“See that you do.”

Sienna turned at the sudden rap on the glass of the door, and a dark-haired woman opened it and peeked her head in. “Come on in, Kat,” Ingrid said.

The woman named Kat came in, taking a seat next to Sienna. She had her hair pulled back in a tight bun, and her lips were red and full. She reminded Sienna of a Bond girl in a pantsuit, if a Bond girl would ever be seen in a pantsuit, fashionable and well fitted though Kat’s was. “Katerina Kozlov, this is Sienna Walker, your new partner.”

Kat turned, assessing her very directly but not unkindly. “Well, thank God the percentage of testosterone in this place just reduced another fraction.” She leaned in slightly. “Ingrid being the biggest supplier of said testosterone.” She shot a grin at the older woman, whose eyebrows rose slightly but who seemed otherwise unamused. Sienna fought the smile that would make it appear she was laughing at her boss’s expense on the first day of a new job.

Kat held out her hand. “Welcome to homicide,” her new partner said. “Call me Kat.”

Sienna shook. “Hi, Kat, nice to meet you.”

“All right, now that the niceties are out of the way, why don’t you show Sienna to her desk and get her acquainted with the layout.”

Kat stood. “Come on, partner. I’ll show you the most important room in this building—the one where we keep the coffee.”

Sienna thanked Sergeant Dahlen and then followed her new partner out the door.

The coffee lounge was small but adequate, featuring a corner kitchen area and a table off to the side, where no one currently sat. Kat picked up a paper cup and held it up to Sienna, her brows rising in question.

“Sure, thanks,” Sienna said. Kat poured two cups of coffee and handed one to Sienna before turning and leaning against the Formica counter. “So what’d you do?” she asked.

Sienna let out a small, surprised laugh, then swallowed a sip of weak coffee. She hadn’t expected the direct question right off the bat, though she knew well that rumors spread quickly among cops. “I neglected to follow orders.”

Kat looked mildly disappointed. “Insubordination? Damn, I was hoping you had an affair with the chief or something juicy.”

Sienna let out a chuckle that died a quick death. If only. “Well, it was a little more complicated but not very juicy. The orders I disregarded came down from the mayor.”

Kat’s eyebrows rose. “Ah.” She was obviously considering that nugget of information. “So they did you a favor and shuffled you out of town before the mayor could demand you resign or be fired.”

“They obviously don’t call you Detective for nothing.”

Kat smiled, nodding to the door and tossing her cup in the garbage. “Let me show you to your desk. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. If you decide you feel like telling me the details of that story, you won’t have to travel far.”

She followed Kat to their work area, the only privacy a flimsy partition, with two standard-issue metal desks just like the one she’d had in New York. She pulled open a drawer, expecting the squeak that followed. The familiar piece of furniture felt like one of the only things in her life that hadn’t changed. Welcome to Reno PD, Sienna.

Sienna was surprised that the trailer park looked slightly less squalid than she remembered. Maybe it was due to the wash of golden light from the setting sun softening the ramshackle trailers and patchy grass. Or maybe it was because her memory had exaggerated the seediness of this place. Or maybe it was because at some point, someone had come along and tried to rejuvenate Paradise Estates Mobile Home Park—a true misnomer if ever there was one—and somewhat succeeded, even if minimally.

Perhaps a mixture of all those things.

In any case, here it sat, in front of her, the layout the same, though the girl she’d been, the one who’d grown up here, felt different in every way. Even though she was sitting in her car, staring out the window, she had a strange sense of imbalance as she looked down the rows toward the lot where she’d once lived, as though the world had shifted subtly beneath her.

Why were you pulled here? She’d found herself driving in this direction after meeting with her new boss and partner, without even really deciding to do so, almost as if by muscle memory alone.

The heart is a muscle too. Yes, and maybe that was the one she’d been using. She’d been raised in this trailer park. She’d left for school every morning from here, until the day she’d graduated high school. She’d had some of her happiest moments in this place and some of her worst.

She’d fallen in love here. Her chest squeezed as she turned her head to the right, gazing down the row where his trailer sat. Of course, it wasn’t his anymore. Or his mother Mirabelle’s. Someone else lived there now, she was sure. He had made it big. And though it had turned out she didn’t know as much about him as she’d once believed, she knew in her heart of hearts that the first thing he would have done with the money he earned was to buy his mother a home. A real home, not housing made of plastic walls that swayed in any moderately strong wind.

At the thought of Mirabelle, she felt a pinching sensation under her breastbone and unconsciously brought her hand up to massage away the pain. She missed her. Still. She’d been the only real mother Sienna had ever known, her own an alcohol-drenched shell of a woman who had been generally unaware of Sienna’s existence. The woman who had passed on her green eyes and her golden-blonde hair to Sienna and—thankfully—not much else had died five years before. When Sienna had learned the news, she’d felt little more than a passing sadness that might accompany the knowledge that any wasted life had ended.

She’d sent her father a check to help with the cremation costs and made a donation in her mother’s name to a local charity that helped drug and alcohol addicts find recovery. It was enough closure for her. And while her father had very promptly cashed the check, she hadn’t spoken to him since.

She’d left this mobile home park eleven years before without saying goodbye to either of her parents. The ache in her heart had only been for Mirabelle. At the time, that particular ache had been drowned out by a greater one, though, and it was only in the aftermath that she had realized her grief had layers.

She stared, unseeing, in the direction of what had once been her home. Her mind cast back.

Mirabelle pulled the door of the trailer open, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Sienna? What’s wrong, sweet girl?”

Sienna let out a quiet sob, allowing Mirabelle to usher her into the trailer, where she led her to the plaid sofa and sat her down. Mirabelle took a seat next to her, turning so they were knee to knee, and took Sienna’s hands in hers, squeezing gently. Lemons and lilies met her nose, and the scent served as comfort before Mirabelle had even uttered a word. She took a deep, shaky breath. “I got invited to Amybeth Horton’s birthday party, and my dad said he’d bring home some money so I could buy her a present, but he didn’t, and now I can’t go.” Truth be told, her father hadn’t necessarily forgotten. He’d likely never intended to at all or even thought twice about her request after she’d made it. He’d come home drunk that afternoon, and she hadn’t “reminded” him, as it was best to steer clear entirely when he’d been drinking. He was mean in general, and liquor only enhanced that attribute. Sienna’s face screwed up, the disappointment of having looked so forward to something, having been included, and then being let down—again—by her parents bringing all her misery to the surface. She couldn’t go without a gift, though. That would be humiliating. The other girls Amybeth hung around weren’t rich by any stretch, but they had more than Sienna’s family. In every conceivable way.

Sienna wished she weren’t so hyperaware of that, but she was fourteen, no kid anymore, and it was just her personality. She noticed everything. She always had. Not like Gavin, who was perpetually happy go lucky and didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. He was observant, too, when he wanted to be, but his observations didn’t seem to constantly hurt him in some way or another the way hers did.

Gavin wasn’t currently at home. She knew that, and it was the only reason she’d come. She didn’t want him to see her cry, but she’d needed a mother. She’d needed Mirabelle.

Mirabelle frowned, wiping Sienna’s cheek with her thumb when a tear spilled from her eye. “Oh, darling. I’m so sorry.” An expression flitted over her pretty face, part sadness, part anger, but then she set her lips together, tilting her head as she thought. “When is the party?”

“Today,” Sienna said, taking a deep breath as the sharpness of the misery lessened. She still felt disappointed, but she was here, in Mirabelle’s neat and orderly trailer, being listened to as though her pain mattered. She’d only come to her for comfort. She knew Mirabelle didn’t have a lot of money either. She worked as the assistant to a magician named Argus, a kindhearted Greek man who called Sienna “Siennoulla” and brought homemade baklava to Mirabelle sometimes in a white box with a black ribbon, which Sienna and Gavin gorged themselves on until their stomachs were stuffed and their lips were coated in honey. Their show wasn’t that popular, though, and barely paid the bills. But Argus said that the joy it brought to their audiences was worth far more than riches.

Sienna knew that to be a little white lie since he let Gavin, who was amazing at cards, play online poker under his name and split the profits, a fact they kept from Mirabelle. Sienna didn’t like keeping secrets from Mirabelle, but she also knew that the extra money Argus told her had come from ticket sales and put into her earnings lessened Mirabelle’s stress and allowed them to pay all their bills, even if there wasn’t much left over at the end of the month.

Sienna was old enough now to know that the tricks they performed were just that, but she couldn’t help watching them practice with pure delight in her heart and a gasp on her lips when an act went just right.

There was something enchanting and beautiful about the choreography alone when it came to a perfectly executed show.

“Today . . . ,” Mirabelle repeated. Sienna opened her mouth to speak, but Mirabelle grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come with me. I have an idea.”

“An idea? Mirabelle . . .” Mirabelle pulled her into her bedroom at the back of the trailer. She let go of Sienna’s hand and stepped up to a dresser next to the door. This room smelled even more strongly of lily of the valley, and her bed featured a quilt of yellow roses. Mirabelle opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out a small wooden box. She opened it and reached inside, and Sienna noticed a stack of photos, but Mirabelle covered them with her hand before Sienna had a chance to see who they were of. Her family? Mirabelle didn’t ever talk about her family. She didn’t have any pictures hung—except of Gavin—and she and Gavin never had any relatives over for holidays or anything else, but maybe she’d had a falling-out with them.

Sienna wanted to ask, but she also didn’t want to invade Mirabelle’s privacy.

Mirabelle brought something out of the box and held it up. Sienna blinked. It was a beautiful, delicate silver bracelet with pale-purple stones. “Do you think your friend would like this?”

Sienna’s gaze flew to Mirabelle’s. “Like it? Oh yes, but I couldn’t—”

“You can, and you will.” Mirabelle took Sienna’s hand and pressed the bracelet into it. Without letting go of her closed fist, Mirabelle looked down, seeming to be considering what she was about to say. “I know I haven’t spoken of Gavin’s father,” she started haltingly, meeting Sienna’s curious gaze, “but he was not a nice man, Sienna. He was violent and cruel, and so I took Gavin and I left him.”

“Oh,” Sienna breathed. “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice small.

But Mirabelle smiled. “Don’t be sorry, love. I’m not. Our life is better without him.” But something shifted slightly in her expression, as though she wasn’t entirely sure of what she said.

“And . . . and you have Argus,” Sienna said, wanting to make the haunted look in Mirabelle’s eyes disappear.

Mirabelle’s worried frown transformed into a gentle smile. “Yes. Yes, I have Argus.”

Mirabelle let go of her hand, and Sienna opened it, the bracelet catching the light and sparkling up at her. “It’s not an expensive piece,” Mirabelle said, her words rushed. “But more than that, it has . . . difficult memories attached to it. I should have given it away long ago.” She stared at it, appearing troubled for a few moments before seeming to catch herself, her smile brightening. “It must be fate that I kept it and that it should belong to Amybeth. Let it make new memories. Good ones.”

Sienna considered it doubtfully. It was lovely. And Amybeth was kind. Sienna would love to gift it to her, but she wasn’t certain she should allow Mirabelle to give her something that—despite her words—looked valuable.

But if it was, wouldn’t she have sold it by now? There were several times she’d seen Mirabelle wringing her hands, a worried frown on her face as she’d gone through her bills. “I—”

“Oh! And I have a box that will be perfect for it too.” She grinned, pulling Sienna into a hug. “Say yes, Sienna, and you go to that party and have the time of your life. Nothing would make me happier.”

Sienna smiled back, love and gratitude gripping her so that she could hardly breathe. “Okay, Mirabelle. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

A little boy caught Sienna’s attention, breaking her from the recollection that had tears burning the backs of her eyes. God, it’d been a long time since she’d let herself get so fully immersed in a memory. The child ran from the side of one of the trailers and ducked behind a tree, holding his hand over his mouth as though to keep himself from laughing out loud as three other children turned the same corner he had, each ducking behind a tree or the side of a porch. They were playing hide-and-go-seek. Mirabelle had never let them play that particular game. It’d made her nervous, she’d said, that one of them would hide somewhere and get trapped. And she’d looked genuinely distraught when she’d said it, so Sienna and Gavin had obeyed. At least while she was home. Sienna’s lips tipped slightly, and she swallowed her emotion down as she watched the innocent game play out, the “finder” making the others howl with glee as he located them. These kids were young still. They lived and played with optimistic joy. They weren’t old enough yet to realize that others would look down on them for where they came from. They weren’t self-conscious of their secondhand clothes or their parents’ broken-down car that would likely backfire in the carpool lane and make others nearby dive for the bushes in fear that a lunatic was firing a weapon into the crowd.

Sienna’s smile melted as she reminded herself she’d be better served to stop projecting her own insecurities and cringe-inducing memories onto these children. Maybe they’d be strong enough not to define themselves by where they came from. Maybe their parents—though poor—gave a damn about them. Maybe they have mothers like Mirabelle and not like my own.

She made a pained sound of frustration in the back of her throat, turning the key in the ignition and starting her car. She didn’t have time for this right now, nor was it helpful. Why she had come here, she really had no clue, other than maybe to prove to herself she could. So, fine, now she had seen it, faced it, survived it, and she could go on with her life, knowing that though it now sat closer, it still had no real power over her. It was only a place. It did not live and breathe.

She turned her car, stomping on the gas so that her tires spun, and a billow of dust exploded in a grainy cloud behind her.

If it doesn’t live and breathe, then why are you racing away as though it might find a way to chase you? But she pushed the whisper down, knowing there was no good answer.