Questions and answers

You sit through the introductions, the police telling you this is informal, not a big deal. They advise you that you are free to have a lawyer there, but again, it’s just informal questions and answers. Telling you what they are legally required to tell you while setting their trap. You go over the events of that day in your head, and the talking points you are supposed to stick to. When they ask you talk about signing Claire up for Ducky day camp that you heard about at the bus stop. You name dropped Maisie to get Claire in, but you wanted to rent a cabin, make it a camp-like event, like you used to do as a kid. The hike, hearing the noises, seeing the abandoned cabin, walking away. Then the gunshots, you head back, see the lady, check the cabin, get to safety. You go through the modified details of your story, answer their questions. Not that it matters. Some of the details won’t line up. There are things you couldn’t change or clean up, evidence that was never going to be hideable. It's all planned for, there's a progression to this.

They move on to Maisie, ask her about her side of it, where she was, how she came to be there. She’s perfect. Calm, poised, charismatic. She talks about holding the lady, helping calm her down while you check the cabin. Not wanting to go inside, not wanting to see anymore than she could from outside. Throughout Maisie brings up the young woman, not naming her, not giving anything about where she is or what happened to her. The setup is there, the bait she wants them to take. Shape their response, set them up.

The police wait, get let both of you tell your whole story. They want the house of cards built nice and tall so it falls harder when they let you know that they know you are lying. You can’t blame them, they are playing a game built on facts and law. You are playing a game of perception and angles. You don’t like the idea that public opinion and ability to spin a story matter more than the truth, it feels wrong. But like Maisie says, you didn’t create the game. You are just going to beat them at it.

They drop the hammer. The footprint, the fibers, fingerprints you only partially wiped off the table. The gun you had re-barreled, the shots that killed Randy coming from the woods, from near the path you took. The other man killed at close range. The evidence that a third man was inside the cabin. The evidence that Maisie was most likely inside the cabin before the two men were killed. They didn't have enough, there was no proof, just pieces. But a pile of circumstantial evidence is still a pile of evidence. Finally they come to the crux. They want the lady from the cabin They know you drove off with her, they know you got her a check up. You never tried to hide any of that. Maisie informs them that she won’t be coming for an interview. They don’t care. She’s a suspect, she was involved. She can come in voluntarily or she can be brought in. Maisie smiles. You step in, start to argue with them. What kind of sick fuck threatens to handcuff and interrogate a woman who was recently bound and tortured? It works. They don’t even notice Maisie send the message from her phone.

By the time the officer walks in to inform the police officers conducting the interview that they have an urgent phone call you have been restrained and threatened with arrest. You did your job. No punches thrown, no threats made. Just a lot of yelling insults in people’s faces. You can’t help but smile. You got their adrenaline pumping, got them defensive. Maisie squeezes your hand and smiles slyly as she asks you if they hurt you. You did good. She’s happy with you.

The next ten minutes are amazing. You sit and watch Maisie work. The District Attorney on the phone, talking to the police officers, talking to one of his biggest supporters in the previous election. Maisie reminding him of the spot she did on local TV news, supporting the candidate who was going to protect the people of this city she had fallen in love with. That had been a big favor and had moved polling with women. She re-frames the entire situation simply. Bad guys died. Randy and the other guy, his name was apparently Francis, they had records. Not little stuff either, **** and ****. Was the state of New Jersey really going to re-traumatize a woman who was kidnapped, tortured and **** in a tourist area because two violent criminals were killed?

The detectives tried to bring the discussion back to law, back to facts. The people need to know what happened. Maisie kept bringing it back to a simple question, did they want the public to know they were harassing an innocent victim over the **** of two **** dealers? Would that make the citizens of Atlantic City feel safer, knowing that the police were doing their best to protect **** dealers from **** victims?

The detectives bring up Maisie being inside, how can they let it go if she might have been involved. The DA asks her flat out if she was inside when they were alive. Maisie demands off the record, if she’s going to talk about that, the record is off, nothing she says is admissible. The DA agrees, tells the detectives they either agree or leave the room. They stay. The story, almost the whole truth. Amber, Maisie’s cousin. **** and tortured to extort money from Maisie. A cousin she barely even knew, **** and beaten an hour from her home. Maisie will not be handing over her cousin. She won’t be cooperating with any investigation into the **** of those men. She will not discuss what happened inside that cabin. She will use every avenue available to make sure that anyone involved in harassing her cousin will pay for it. Her voice as she goes a hair from openly threatening the police and the district attorney sends chills down your spine. Silence follows her statement. The DA finally speaks, telling the police to let her go. He’ll talk to the captain, sort everything out. This isn’t a case worth pursuing.

The truth is in his voice. The man has his eyes set on becoming mayor, or a congressman. Dragging Amber in for questioning, alienating an important supporter, one local TV is always willing to interview, it’s potential career suicide. Maisie calmly thanks the DA, her voice shaky. You walk to her, hold her. The detectives walk you out, tell you to be safe. You did it. The plan worked. You hold the door to your SUV open for Maisie, kiss her once she’s seated inside, then walk around, get in the driver seat. You take a breath, let the stress out. Then you hear it, Maisie sniffles, breathes out, she's composed but it’s coming. You turn on the engine, back the car up. You need to get her home, someplace safe, someplace she can let go without worrying she’ll be seen.

You pull in your parking space, get Maisie into the building, to the elevator, to your penthouse condo. Silence the whole time. You know better than to ask yet. You know what is coming. You know she can’t show those feelings in public. She’s a celebrity, a photo of her in sunglasses with tears running down her face would be enough to start rumors of almost anything.

She walks in the door, into your house, takes off her glasses, takes a few breaths. You walk up behind her, gently touch her shoulder, test to see if she wants held or left alone. She spins into you, grabs you tightly.

“Babe, put me back to normal.” She says.

“What?” You had forgotten for a moment that she was in “Hardball” mode. She was practically in tears, that shouldn’t even be possible with those commands active.

“Please, I feel trapped.” She says.

“Maisie, be yourself.” You say, the command Maisie set up to take her back to only the baseline commands that she wanted to always stay active.

You feel the change immediately. You go from being held by Maisie to scrambling to not let her collapse as her legs fail and she starts to weep. You get her to the couch, sit down, hold her as she curls up in a ball and cries. You know that the interview had to be hard on her, but you didn’t expect this. You hold her, stroke her hair, kiss the top of her head, let her know you are here for her while giving her room to experience her feelings. You sit like that till Maisie cries herself out and falls asleep.

You reposition, lay on the couch with Maisie lying on top of you, her head on your chest. She seems so peaceful now, resting on you. You lay your head back, close your eyes, just being there for your wife, just being where she needs you to be. It isn’t long before you fall asleep yourself.

You awaken to a warm, nostalgic smell. Someone is baking bread. Your brain catches up to your sense of smell and you sit up, look to the kitchen. Maisie is sitting at the table, a mug in her hands, a scarf wrapped around her head. You sigh. Maisie only baked bread when she was in a bad spot. The head scarf said even more. Maisie’s grandma on her dad’s side, her Nonna, came from a heavily Italian family. She had doted on Maisie, and after she passed Maisie got ahold of her grandma’s recipe book and started learning to bake. It had helped her with her grief, and she got pretty good at it. The scarf was her Nonna’s, Maisie only wore it when she really needed comfort.

“Hey Em.” You say as you walk to the kitchen.

“Hey, Babe.” She says back.

“You okay?” You ask as you reach her, touch her shoulders.

“No.” She replies, then takes a drink of her tea.

“Anything I can do.” You offer.

“No, you’ve done plenty.” The way she says it, it could mean anything.

She snorts a laugh. “That sounded awful, I’m sorry babe, you’ve been amazing.”

“You did most of it Em.”

“You mean the curse did it. You gave the commands; I just followed them.” She says.

You kneel down next to her, take her hand, look up at her. A carefully chosen position. Your wife is beating herself up over this situation, you don’t want to be looking down on her, don't want to feed the nastiness she's already feeling. “You went through hell, Em, but you did it. The State isn’t going to pursue the case. Your cousin is safe. Claire is safe.”

The tears start, her lip quivers, she looks at you. Her eyes filled with something awful, some feeling you can’t pick out.

“I. . . I wouldn’t.” She starts, unable to finish her thought. She grips your hands tighter. “I would have left her there.”

You immediately realize what she is saying. You stand up and hold her. Kiss her hair. No wonder she is struggling. Maisie’s reaction to Randy’s initial threat was to run, to get away. You wanted to confront him, take him out. You hadn’t even thought about Amber at the time, you didn’t know her at all, you just weren’t going to let this man threaten your family and get away with it. But if you had agreed with Maisie, gave her commands to make the guy forget about her and ran away with your wife and daughter, Amber would have been stuck there, suffering under the command of that sick man.

“You didn’t know, Em.” You say. She looks at you, her eyes angry.

“I knew damn well.” She said. “I’ve seen it, my aunt, grandma Pederson. . . Babe, I’ve seen it my whole damn life. I just. . . no one ever did anything about it. No one ever helped them, they just accepted it.”

“Until now.” You say. You had opened that door. You and Maisie had done something, stopped a horrible master from hurting one of her relatives. Hell, Maisie’s plan had Amber about as safe from the curse as any Peterson woman could hope to be.

You touch the side of her face, lead her to look at you. “But we did it Maisie, you helped her. Amber is safe now. Even if someone tries, she’s protected.”

Maisie nods, then says the one word that changes everything. “Holly.”

You understand immediately. Her sister fought the curse for two years, she gave the curse what it wanted when Holly and you spent that weekend making Claire. Holly no longer suffered the effects of being the “Purest Peterson”, but she was unclaimed. Someone could take her, do to Maisie’s sister what Randy had done to Amber.

It hits you. Maisie wants to protect Holly like she protected Amber.

“She’ll never agree to it, Em.” You say.

“She doesn’t have to know.”

“Maisie. . .” What she is contemplating is crazy. Find Holly a master, establish his control, order Holly to forget about being claimed. . .

“They deserve to be protected.” She says. “They” being at least Holly and Claire, did she plan to go farther than that?

“Where would we find men willing to do that?” You ask. The problem with giving someone a master is the master would know about it. The curse would allow the women to forget they were claimed. It wouldn’t let a master forget about the woman he controlled. It wouldn’t let the curse be shut fully down like that. Maisie taking your voice worked because it didn’t stop the curse. It protected Maisie for a decade only because you didn’t know you could still command her. The curse knew you could, and even unwittingly, you had been giving her commands that whole time. Introducing a master to Holly would only protect her if the master chose not to command her, or was somehow tricked into thinking they couldn’t.

“I have an idea.” Maisie answered, then got up and walked to the oven, checked the bread.

“Momma, Daddy?” You heard your daughter’s voice call from the door. You head to the hallway, catch Claire as she leaps into your arms.

“Welcome home Bear.” You say.

“Look what I made!” she says with a huge smile, showing you some clay object with what might be legs coming out of it.

“It’s beautiful Claire, tell me about it.”

As she starts telling you about making her sculpture of a bear, you look to your wife. Maisie’s face has shifted, from sorrow and guilt to determination. You look back at your daughter, your Claire-bear. She’s beautiful. Of course she is. The curse makes them beautiful, especially the “Purest Peterson”, and that’s who your daughter is. She’s going to grow up, face what her mother faced, and she’ll face the threat of a master that mistreats her. Your thoughts go back to that last morning with Holly, when she knew she was pregnant and your time together was running out. Her tears, the promise you made. You swore to protect Claire from the curse. Holly couldn’t take the thought of raising a girl to be someone’s ****. She couldn’t do it. It’s why she fought the curse so long. You swore you and Maisie would protect Claire. But honestly, promise or not, you would do anything to protect Claire. You will not risk Claire ending up like Amber. You look back to Maisie and nod. Whatever you have to do, whatever it takes, you are in.