Page 126 of Guilty Mothers

‘Can’t you see that Bobbi is beside herself with fear for her mother?’

‘That’ll pass as soon as she’s able to be herself,’ Carly said, shaking her head. ‘She is trapped by her mother’s expectations, but she’ll see as soon as I?—’

‘She’s already herself,’ Kim protested. ‘Like many of the others, Bobbi enjoyed the pageants for a while. She enjoyed winning, but when she didn’t want to do it any more, she told Leona and they stopped.’

Kim paused to give Carly time to digest what she’d said. Her words had registered somewhere.

‘Is Leona perfect? Probably not,’ Kim said. ‘Do they have to work at their relationship? Probably. But that’s what it’s all about. All relationships are a work in progress. But I can promise you that Bobbi loves her mother very much, and if anything happens to her, it would break Bobbi’s heart. The exact thing you’re trying to avoid.’

For the first time, Carly seemed unsure of herself.

‘I know you’re trying to help your friends,’ Kim said. ‘I get it. But you won’t be helping Bobbi. Look at how she ran in here because her mum was in danger. If you take that away, you’ll ruin the rest of her life.’

‘It’s true, Carly,’ Bobbi whispered.

Carly searched her old friend’s face as though looking for signs of deceit. Bobbi was unable to look anywhere except at her mum.

Seeing the truth right in front of her, Carly took one more look at the knife before allowing it to fall from her hand.

Bobbi ran to her mother.

Bryant ran to the knife.

Kim ran to catch Carly before she crumpled to the ground.

EIGHTY-SIX

Kim took no pleasure in handcuffing Carly and leading her to the front of the building. She felt only satisfaction that no more innocent women would be brutally killed at Carly’s hand.

She paused at the edge of the building.

More police cars had arrived. A precautionary ambulance was waiting to the left, and Bryant was speaking to the driver of the police van primed to transport their killer while a paramedic applied a dressing to his hand.

Bobbi and Leona were holding on to each other as though neither of them would ever let go.

‘What have I done?’ Carly breathed as her eyes rested on mother and daughter. Tears streamed over her cheeks.

‘You took away hope,’ Kim said as she moved Carly forward slowly. ‘None of these relationships was perfect. They rarely are. But your actions mean that the girls you were trying to protect can never make things right.’

Kim had never felt the need to seek parental approval. In her case, she’d have had to kill her own brother to get her mother’s approval. And yet there was a small voice inside her that said she wasn’t immune.

Her foster mother, Erica, had been one of the most decent people she had ever met. The woman had had a strong sense of right and wrong, tempered with fairness and empathy. She had trusted authority and believed in justice. The three years Kim had spent with her had taught her a lot.

She rarely questioned what had fuelled her own desire to become a police officer, but was she seeking parental approval from one of the only people she’d ever truly cared about? Erica hadn’t given birth to her. She hadn’t fed or bathed her. She hadn’t rocked her to sleep as a baby. Yet in those few years, the relationship had been formed. Was her career choice an effort to make her foster mother proud?

‘I just wanted to be their friend,’ Carly said.

‘You didn’t have any friends at school?’ Kim asked.

Carly shook her head. ‘I wanted some. When Mom had had enough of me trying to find ways to make friends, she allowed me to go to a party not long after I started high school.’

Kim waited.

‘I believed her when she told me it was a costume party. She dressed me as a doll. I was the only person in a costume. I looked ridiculous in front of the people who I’d be spending the next five years with.’

‘I’m sorry she did that to you,’ Kim said honestly.

‘The girls will all hate me now, won’t they?’ Carly asked in a voice that was broken and lost.