Blood Ties (16 page)

“Sam came inside. She was seriously pissed off .

Wouldn’t even talk to me. Except to say Shelley had better tell the whole truth this time. Th

en, she didn’t come

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home that night.” Meredith curled into a ball, the picture of dejection.

A car passed, sending blue smoke fumes drifting across the steps. A bird twittered. A child laughed somewhere close, yet I felt no connection to normal sounds. Meredith and I were in our own little world, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Is that why she and Dick had a fi ght?”

“Yeah. Normally he didn’t give a rip about anything she did, but after Shelley’s little confession, he treated Sam worse than dog shit. Watched her like a hawk whenever he was around.”

She used the toe of her boot to dig the weeds out of the cracks on the sidewalk.

“He called Sam a whore. Said if she wanted to fuck around like her mother she could live someplace else. He even suggested she should go pro. Th

en, at least she could

support herself.”

I lit a cigarette and handed the pack to Meredith, not trusting myself to speak. I almost handed her a beer. God knew she deserved it after the hell she’d lived through.

Ever the upstanding adult, I refrained.

“Course, Sam didn’t help matters, saying she’d prefer living under a bridge screwing strange men to spending another minute with a loser like him.” Meredith gnawed on her lip as she unconsciously curled her fi st. “Her parting shot was the reason he tossed her out.”

“What did she say?”

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“She’d rather have the entire world know she was conceived in rape than have anyone ever believe Dick Friel was her father. He threw her out and forbid RJ and me from ever talking to her again.”

Pins and needles poked my butt and I shifted back on the steps. Meredith fl inched. I knew Shelley wasn’t the only one in the Friel household subjected to Dick’s wrath.

“When did you hear from her?”

“Only twice more. Once to say she was hiding out at Grandma’s.”

“Have you been to your Grandma’s since . . .”

“Of course.” She scowled. “Th

at’s the fi rst place I

looked.”

I imagined a grieving fi fteen-year old tossing the place in hopes for clues to her sister’s disappearance. So much for preservation of the scene. Once the cops found out that Meredith had withheld information on a murder case, she’d be in huge trouble. I couldn’t let that happen.

Kevin and I needed to see where Sam had been holed up and fi gure out why, without interference. Th en we’d turn

over the information to the police, putting an end to this unholy mess.

“Meredith, Kevin and I need to take a look at your Grandma’s house. Can you get us in there tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday?” She looked thoughtful. “Sure, if we can do it in the morning. About nine thirty? I’ll tell Dick I’m going to church. Th

at’s the last place he’d ever

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look for me.”

I ripped off a piece of the paper bag and dug in my purse for a pen. “Write down the address and we’ll meet you.” I watched as she scribbled. “Earlier, you said Sam contacted you twice. What did she want?”

“She needed money and told me to put it in Grandma’s mailbox. Said once she had everything fi gured out, she’d call me.” She wasn’t quick enough to blink the tears away.

“I never heard from her again.”

I wanted to off er comfort, I really did, but words failed me. My arms should’ve encircled her. Instead, they felt encased in concrete, hanging uselessly by my side.

Jesus. I was pathetic.

“It never gets any better, does it?” she said in a small, impossibly young voice that reminded me of Kiyah.

“No. Some days are better than others.” I remembered my chat with the sheriff . “It never goes away completely.

You never forget.”

“Are you gonna tell me how
you
know about all this grief shit, or do I hafta ask?”

I smiled at her. Meredith Friel was going to be okay.

Never the same, but okay nonetheless. I gave her the short version of my life and Ben’s death. She didn’t ask too many questions, just nodded in all the right places.

Our quiet discussion was interrupted by Leanne, from next door, standing on her steps and yelling, “Kiyah!

Get your ass in here
now
. We gotta go.” Th e screen door

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would’ve slammed shut behind her if it hadn’t been busted in two.

I collected the empty beer cans before I stood. “Guess that means Kiyah should head home before Mommy Dearest leaves her to her own devices.”

Meredith blinked. “Alone? Isn’t she like, six?”

“Yep.” Curious about her reaction, I asked, “Didn’t Shelley and Dick ever leave you alone when you were a kid?”

Her gaze fl icked to Leanne’s ramshackle house, the untended yard, the junker car in the driveway. “No. I was never alone. I always had Sam. Always.”

“You were lucky.”

“I know. Sometimes I think she’ll come barreling through the door and yell at me for messing with her stuff .

God, I’d give anything just to have her scream at me. I miss her so much.” She wiped her hand under her nose.

“Stupid, huh?”

“No.” I couldn’t eke out another word without falling apart for what we’d both lost.

She stood and turned back to me after she’d reached the street. “You’ll still work on the case? Even after what happened last night with Dick?” Her brown eyes held the fi rst glimmer of hope I’d seen. “I
will
see you tomorrow?”

I nodded and watched her drive away. Kiyah scooted home immediately, not bothering to say goodbye.

Th

e walls inside my house didn’t morph into anything 167

interesting for the hour or so I stared at them. Beige walls.

Blank mostly, unlike the white noise spinning in my brain.

Th

e thoughts would eventually turn gray. Th en black. I felt

myself retreating into the dark place I avoided. Once sub-merged sometimes it took days, or even weeks to resurface.

I didn’t have that luxury now.

I called Kevin. No answer. I left a message and didn’t dwell on what activities he and Callous Lilly were indulging in that excluded answering the phone. Jimmer was always up for something. Partying. A movie marathon.

Once, we’d even gotten lit and tried cow tipping only to fi nd it was a myth.

I dialed his number and waited. He wasn’t home either. Seemed I was completely alone. My own sorry company wasn’t appealing. I almost called Missy. I debated on calling Ray. When I seriously considered phoning my dad, I locked the front door, grabbed the bottle of Don Julio, and went straight to bed.

But my dreams off ered me no rest and were far from sweet.

Tiara clad, my mother sits atop a homecoming fl oat, smiling coyly, her golden curls shimmer as she waves her gloved hand beauty pageant style. She looks exactly as she did at seventeen. Th

e blurred edges of the dream hide the

168

fact I didn’t know my mother at her age seventeen, or at my own.

Her name is chanted in secret whispers:
Samantha,
Samantha
.

I pause with confusion. Why is everyone calling her Samantha?

While the marching band drones on and collectively stumbles over miles of black cables, my mother/Samantha, tosses small squares of Bazooka Bubblegum and wax paper-wrapped taff y. Th

e blacktop is littered with candy,

but no other children rush forth to claim the treats. I look around slowly. I am not merely in the crowd; I am the crowd, the only one, the lone bystander. But she still doesn’t notice me.

My shouts for her attention battle with the wailing trumpets. Diverted by a fl ock of blackbirds, she gazes above my head and points as she waves, not at me, but the black mist I feel creeping over my shoulder. I don’t want to look, fearing if I do, she’ll disappear forever. Helplessly, I turn my face into the damp, wet softness, and close my eyes, expecting the comforting scent of my mother’s Jean Nate’ perfume.

But I gag against the hated odor of overripe apples mixed with the sour stench of decaying leaves. Th ose autumn smells remind me of the season she died.

Th

en, I do remember, in a sick, slow motion. She
is
dead.

169

I force the horror away and my eyes open to fi nd the parade stopped. A crowd surrounds me. Th e happy sounds

buzz and hum, comforting, yet disconcerting. Frantically, I now look for Samantha, but she no longer rides atop the fl oat. She is hiding.

Th

is is a game. I’m angry because I don’t want to play and she is winning. I am obsessed with fi nding her; I am obsessed with fi lling my pockets with sweets. I drop to my knees and crawl through the maze of legs, greedily shov-ing pieces in the pockets of my yellow windbreaker. One butterscotch disk is kicked out of my reach, and I scramble faster, closer to the fl oat.

Th

e crowd vanishes. Again, I see why no other child bothered with this last piece of precious candy. Not only is it broken, but next to it an ankle pokes out from underneath the fl oat — a bloody, nylon covered ankle still wearing a low-heeled silver pump. A shoe worn by a beauty queen.

I scream. I scream until I’m hoarse. I move forward to touch the shoe, and the foot curls up under the fl oat, like the witch’s shoe in
Th

e Wizard of OZ.
Frightened, I turn away and stumble, and am righted by steady hands. I fl ing myself into the unfamiliar arms, grip the neck tightly, pleading if I had one more chance, I’d never let go, not for any reason, not for anything, not for anyone.

A sticky beard burns my face. I struggle, but am trapped against a body covered with hair. A hot breath 170

whispers across my repulsed fl esh, “It’s too late. You are always too late.”

I jerk back to try to catch a glimpse of the stranger’s face. But my brother Ben is standing there, wooden as a drugstore Indian.

Th

en, I am plunged into icy cold water and everything goes dark.

I wake soaked in my own sweat, fear, and tears.

Kevin’s call woke me at seven. I’d fi nally fallen asleep about four, but that restful REM cycle eluded me. I showered, sucked down a half a pot of coff ee, and drove into town.

My skin prickled, but my rearview mirror remained empty. I had the oddest feeling someone was following me. Ridiculous. I chalked it up to residual eff ects from the nightmare.

At the small café near his condo, Kevin had already staked out a corner booth in the nonsmoking section. I gazed at him critically as I walked over. He probably was unaware of how spiff y he looked in khaki pants and an olive green sweater. I wasn’t. But was it for my benefi t or Lilly’s?

I slid across from him and smiled. Without my smoke hazed around him, I was acutely aware of how clean he 171

smelled. Still wearing a smile, I debated on running my fi nger across the back of his hand, bringing it to my lips for a nibbling kiss. I snapped upright. What the hell was wrong with me? I spend one terrifi ed night alone and I’m hungering for Kevin like he’s breakfast?

“You look like hell,” he said. “Rough night?”

His lack of fl attery put everything back in perspective.

“No. I went to bed early. Why?”

“No reason.” He folded his newspaper and leaned in.

“So tell me.”

I relayed my conversation with Meredith. Kevin didn’t say much, just kept his gaze steadily on me. “You might make a full-fl edged PI yet, young apprentice,” he said, in his bad Yoda imitation when I’d fi nished.

“Great. As if my goals in life aren’t pathetic enough.”

I slurped the last drop of coff ee. “Let’s go. We’re taking your car.”

Grandma Rose’s house was another one of those 1970

split-level types, tucked at the end of a secluded cul-de-sac.

No wonder no one had noticed Samantha hanging around.

Meredith had parked her car in front of the garage and poked her head out the minute we set foot on the steps.

“I can’t stay long,” she said, her eyes refusing to make contact with Kevin’s. “Dick is acting his usual asshole self.

Expects me to show him a Sunday church bulletin so I’ve gotta stop and get one on my way home.”

I lifted a brow. “Is everything okay?”

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“Yeah.” She smoothed the lines of her black skirt and opened the door.

Kevin bent down and removed his loafers; I slipped out of my moccasins.

Th

e tiny house was stuff y but clean. Too clean, I thought as I checked out around the living room for items belonging to a teen-age girl, amidst the fl oral brocade sofas and coff ee table covered with every Hummel fi gurine imaginable.

“It looked like this when I came in. I didn’t mess with anything,” Meredith said.

“Good thinking,” Kevin said.

I stood in front of a china hutch fi lled with Fostoria crystal. Sadness and anger gave me a one-two punch in the gut. My mother had owned some of these same pieces.

Th

ey were the wedding gifts and birthday presents which had chronicled the special moments of her life. Too bad my father’s new wife thought them tacky and donated the whole lot to Goodwill.

Kevin searched while Meredith and I watched.

“I take it Sam wasn’t messy?” he asked, sifting through stacked papers on the oak buff et with the eraser of a pencil.

“God, no. Sam was a neat freak. Kept her side of the room clean and organized. I hated it, ‘cause I’m a pig.”

Meredith trailed her fi ngers over the yellow rose pattern on the back of the couch. “Do you know if they found her rosary?”

173

He shook his head. “Was Sam the type to keep a diary?”

I nearly fell over. Now why hadn’t
I
thought of that?

Most teen-aged girls had an outlet for their angst whether it was music, writing, church, or something less whole-some. Guess Jedi Master Kev was right; I was still in the PI apprentice stage.

“No,” Meredith said. “But she did have one of those silly day planners with kittens on the cover. Wrote everything in it, homework assignments, phone numbers, church choir practice times. Wouldn’t give it up even after I gave her a rash of crap about being anal.”