“I wasn’t sure,” she says and then drops her gaze away.
“What are you doing, Lida?” I ask her slowly. “What’s with parking on the bridge here?”
Her eyes snap back to me. “They trapped me. I had nowhere else to go.”
“You’re making me kind of nervous being so close to that railing with Charlie,” I tell her gently as I take one step toward her with my hand held out. “How about you come away from it a bit.”
Her body hunches protectively around Charlie, eyes filled with suspicion and she actually takes a step back from me so her back comes up against the steel.
“Hey,” I call out to her and take two steps back myself to give her space. “It’s fine. You and I are cool. I’m not here to hurt you or anything.”
She throws her head toward the end of the bridge where there’re at least ten cop cars parked. “They want to hurt me. Take me away to jail.”
I take in a breath and hope to fuck I can sell this lie. “They don’t, Lida. Pepper is fine, and so is Lucy. I’ve let them know the stress you’ve been under, and well…you’ve had medical issues that will obviously explain all of this. Come with me and we can work on being a family.”
“You think I’m stupid,” she hisses at me. “Pepper and Lucy may be fine but I still shot one and hit the other. I kidnapped Charlie. I know damn well what that means. There’s no family when I’m in jail.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“All right then,” I say as I throw my arms out helplessly. “What do you want from me? Why did you ask that I come here?”
She looks unsure and to my relief, she moves Charlie from her shoulder and cradles her instead so I can see her face. She’s awake and smiling up at Lida.
Lida looks at me with tears in her eyes. “Look at that…she knows who I am. She knows I’m her mom.”
I decide to run with that. I’m not about to tell her Charlie smiles at everyone.
I take a few steps closer and crane my neck to look at my daughter. “Wow. Look at that.”
Lida looks at me again and she’s beaming a wide smile. “I knew she’d remember me.”
I smile back at her and it’s the most fake, dishonest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I feel greasy for doing it.
“The mother-child bond,” I murmur gently and inch another foot closer. “It transcends everything, doesn’t it?”
Lida stares at me a moment and nods. Her gaze goes back to Charlie. “I just wanted to see her. If you’d only let me see her, none of this would have happened.”
My knees wobble and almost give out as guilt slams into me. I’d been so sure the correct thing to do was keep her away. Did my hard-ass stance drive Lida to do this?
“You know I had no choice,” she says quietly before regarding me again. Her voice is calm and her words come out as if meticulously planned. “I had to see her. It was tearing me up not to. And I thought that perhaps we could be a family. It’s why I shot Pepper. I thought with her out of the way you’d let me back in.”
I don’t say a word to her because my blood is boiling like a volcano getting ready to erupt. I’m also shocked she’s admitting the motive to her crimes to me.
She must read it on my face because she grimaces when she says, “Except Lucy walked in on it and saw me there. I knew then my plan wouldn’t work. That I’d have no choice but to just take Charlie.”
“You can’t just take her away from me,” I say with a bit of pleading to my tone. “I love her and I think you know that. And Lida…I don’t think you ever wanted to hurt me in all this.”
“No,” she agrees and runs a finger along Charlie’s cheek. “I didn’t want to hurt you. You’re a good dad. I knew you would be.”
My breath catches when she bends to kiss Charlie and then walks up to me without any hesitation. I have to control myself so I don’t snatch my daughter away from her.
Air fills my lungs as she places Charlie in my arms. “Will you tell her I loved her from the very beginning?”
“Yes,” I say, wondering how I’m going to explain to my daughter that her mom is in prison for a lot of bad things. Regardless of that, I do believe Lida loves her. “Of course. I’ll tell her.”
“I’m sick, Legend,” she says with a watery smile. “And I’m tired of all this.”
Her voice is that of a child’s and for a moment, I have true empathy for her. She’s made horrific choices that are going to keep her locked away for a long time. But there has to be something more that was driving her. Surely that has to do with a mental illness because sane people don’t kidnap babies and shoot people.