Crooked Little Lies (14 page)

She sat down again, indicating the sugar shaker. He shook his head.

Annie slid her feet a little nearer Rufus’s sleeping form, close enough to feel his warmth through her shoes, taking comfort in it. She stirred sugar into her mug.

“I heard you say Bo is your stepbrother.”

“Yeah. My mom and JT met when JT moved here from Morro Bay, California, after his mom died when he was five.”

“That’s a long way to come with a little kid. Do they have other family here?” Cooper helped himself to a muffin and took a bite.

“There isn’t any other family that I know of. I think they were looking for a change, a fresh start,” Annie said. She was distracted, watching Cooper, worried the muffins were awful.

But then he groaned in a good way, closing his eyes. “These are so good.” He was practically smacking his lips in his pleasure.

Annie’s gratification, her delight at his enjoyment of the food she had made from scratch, stole through her, a momentary benediction.

Cooper helped himself to another.

Annie said, “JT’s first wife was sick for quite a while, almost from the day Bo was born.” She paused to think about it, how ironic it was that Bo’s mother’s death had spared her having to live through this current anguish. Annie’s own mother had escaped the nightmare, too.
Lucky for them.
The words were heated, a whisper that sawed across her brain.

She looked at Cooper. “You know Bo’s earmuffs?”

Cooper nodded.

“He had them on the first time I met him. He said his mom talked to him from heaven through them. He was so little.” Annie’s throat narrowed at the memory.

“Was it cancer?”

“Brain.” She touched her temple.

Cooper grimaced. “He remembers her?”

“He remembers going to see her in the hospital and crawling into her bed. She told him all kinds of things, that they’d go to Disneyland when she was well, and the zoo. They’d swim in the ocean. She said they’d travel to every country in the world. It seems sort of cruel—” Annie’s voice caught, and she stopped.

Cooper said, “Maybe she thought she would beat it.”

“Maybe.” Annie toyed with her napkin. “From what Bo said, she read to him a lot, but she’d fall asleep a lot of the time, too. From the medication, I guess. Anyway, he missed out on how the stories ended, so Mom and I read them to him. He loved
The Wind in the Willows
and the
Just So
Stories
, anything about animals.” The threat of tears was serious now, and she pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “Sorry.”

“No,” Cooper said, and he went on talking, saying something about how close he was to his own mother, that he couldn’t imagine what he would do without her, and Annie thought he was trying to soothe and distract her.

He wiped his mouth. “I’m the kid the other kids called a mama’s boy, but I’ve never cared much what anyone thought about it.” A smile, half-abashed, tilted over his mouth.

Annie smiled, too. She liked that he was close to his mother, that he was man enough to admit it.

His gaze held hers. “I’m so sorry about your mom, Annie. You lost her way too soon.”

“It’s hard without her. She was my best friend; I could tell her anything.” Annie closed her hands around her coffee mug. “All my life, until I was ten, it was just the two of us, then Bo and JT came . . .” Annie paused, remembering the crowded house, the lack of privacy, having to share things. Not only her mother. The bathroom, her toys and books, the television remote control. “I wish I’d been a better daughter, a better sister. I wish I’d taken better care of Bo.” She looked at Cooper, then away. The memory of Leighton, her confession, hovered in the air between them, but maybe it was only her guilty conscience.

He cupped his hands around hers. “It isn’t your fault, Annie, no matter what’s happened to Bo. He’s a grown man.”

“In his body, not so much in his mind.”

“But even you have talked about how independent and stubborn—”

“You don’t know anything about him or me.” She pulled her hands from under his and scooted out of the booth. She couldn’t listen to him anymore, taking her ill-advised confessions and turning them into some sort of an excuse, a justification.

“Maybe not, but I’d like to if you’d let me.” His voice followed her, quiet and steady; the words were an offering.

Annie stopped, shoulders loosening, chin lowering, as if someone had pulled a pin. She was drawn to him, to the strength she felt in him; she couldn’t deny it, and she wondered in that instant what it would be like to accept, to say yes to him. But even as her heart grabbed like a thief at the possibility, she knew she didn’t deserve the relief of leaning on Cooper, or the happiness he might bring into her life, not while Bo was missing.

“Annie?”

She lifted her head.

“Someday you’re going to have to trust somebody again, or you’ll always be alone.”

She might have answered that he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. But she didn’t want to encourage him. It wouldn’t have been fair to him. Lifting her chin, she wiped her face and walked away, through the kitchen and out the alley door.

She heard Rufus, the click of his nails on the tile floor, following her, and then she heard Cooper.

“Come on back, boy,” he said. “She doesn’t need you.”

Annie was shaken and meant to go home after she left Cooper. She had some idea that she’d shower and put on clean clothes, maybe take everyone’s advice and lie down for a bit. Instead, for reasons she would never fathom, she detoured by the community center, the one place she dreaded being above all others. She was talking to Mary Evans, one of the librarians, when she happened to look up to find her mother looking back at her. At least for one mind-numbing, heart-gladdening moment, Annie thought the woman who was staring intently at her was her mother.

The impression was strong, garnered more from a wish for it to be so than the handful of similarities; the woman’s size and stance bore a likeness to Annie’s mother’s, as did her hair coloring and style. Her complexion was as flawless as fine porcelain, the way Annie’s mother’s had been, too, and her eyes were the same gentle shade of green. Even the way the woman tucked her hair behind one ear, which had signaled Annie’s mother’s anxiety, was reminiscent, and Annie felt a wave of longing so hard and fierce, it loosened her knees. She put out her hand, almost flailing, foundering.

The woman took it. “What is it?” she asked. “How can I help?”

Annie couldn’t speak. It was as if her voice had fallen down a well.

“Come and sit down.” The woman led Annie to a nearby chair. Settling beside her, she introduced herself. “I’m Lauren Wilder.”

Annie started to repeat her own name, but Lauren said she knew and offered an apology that slid into a rueful groan. “That sounds ridiculous. When I think of all you’re dealing with.”

“No, I—” Annie broke off in confusion. There was too much she couldn’t say, not to a stranger.
You are so like my mother. I miss her so much.

Lauren tried again. “I—I heard about the awful ordeal you went through this morning.”

The trip to the morgue, Annie thought. Of course, she would have heard about it. Annie raised her glance to Lauren’s, then let it fall away. It was hard to look at her, this woman who for one soul-riveting moment of utter joy had been her mother. It felt awful that she wasn’t, like the cruelest joke, the sort where Annie struggled to get the punch line, and once she did, she felt aggrieved, as if her mother had been taken from her all over again.

“It wasn’t him, thank God,” she told Lauren, and she was on the verge of standing, of excusing herself, but some impulse made her turn back to Lauren. “I think I’d know, don’t you?” She was seeking more than Lauren’s opinion. “I mean if Bo was—” She couldn’t say the word
dead
. “If something that awful had happened, I’d feel it, wouldn’t I?” It was so unlike her to reach out in this way, so against her natural reticence to open herself to a stranger. She felt her face warm.

“When my daughter was six,” Lauren said, “she broke her arm on the playground at school, and I knew something had happened before the school called. I wasn’t surprised. I think such things happen when you love someone. There’s a special connection.”

“My mom used to say the same thing,” Annie said.

Lauren fiddled with the strap of her purse. “I have to tell you something.” She searched Annie’s gaze in a way that made her heart constrict. “I feel just awful about it, too. I should have come before now.”

Annie was at sea. “I don’t understand.”

“I saw Bo and spoke to him,” Lauren said. “Last Friday,” she added.

13

L
auren apologized, this time for not having come forward sooner, as if any number of apologies made a difference. The horrible fact was that, no matter what she said or did, Bo would still be just as gone, and precious time when her information might have helped would still be lost. She thought of Tara. What would she do if her sister vanished? If one day Tara disappeared into thin air without a trace? The sense of what Annie must be going through emptied Lauren’s mind. She wanted to do something for her. At the very least, she would have covered the trembling knot of Annie’s hands with her own had she not been afraid Annie might take offense. She was small, much smaller than she had appeared on the television last night, a tiny slice of a girl, and as delicately boned as a wren, one that would fly if Lauren touched her, if Lauren even looked as if she might.

“I had turned the wrong way, or I never would have seen him,” Lauren began, and she went on, describing her meeting with Bo. It wasn’t until she mentioned the dog, Freckles, that Annie interrupted her.

“We don’t have him anymore,” she said. “He died six years ago.”

“Oh, Bo seemed—that is, I thought—”

“I know.” Annie looked away. “He gets confused sometimes.”

“I should have insisted on getting your phone number from him.”

“No, don’t blame yourself. He wouldn’t have waited for me.”

“He did seem to have a plan.”

Annie made a face. “He probably did. He kind of has this one-track mind. He’ll even write down what he’s going to do in a little notepad he carries. He could have written down the name of the woman you saw him drive away with. You didn’t see it, the notepad?”

“No.” Lauren thought a moment to be sure.

“I feel as if I should know who that woman is,” Annie said, “but then I’m finding out Bo has all sorts of friends I know nothing about.”

“A calamity has that effect,” Lauren said. “Things come to light—” She stopped.

Annie looked curiously at her.

What about drugs? You think he could have been on something? Were you on something?
Detective Willis spoke in Lauren’s mind; she saw his face, that wily look he’d given her, as if he was on to her and knew her for the liar she was. She thought of the roll of bills Bo had shown her. She thought of telling Annie about it, but she might not know the police associated her brother with drugs, and if she didn’t, Lauren didn’t want to be the one to tell her. Neither did she want to implicate herself or speak of her own addiction. It was painful enough talking about her downfall at 12-step, where she was accepted, where forgiveness was automatic. Annie wouldn’t be so forgiving, Lauren thought, and the realization filled her with regret. What a mistake she’d made, coming here.

“It’s hard to keep secrets when someone’s in danger.” Annie broke the silence, and her tone, her expression when Lauren met her gaze seemed freighted with some odd significance. Panic tapped at Lauren’s temples. A thought rose: that it was foolish to imagine she and Bo would have engaged in a drug deal in broad daylight on one of the busiest street corners in town. And further, even if she had bought drugs from Bo, what would that have to do with his disappearance hours later?

She jumped now, hearing someone—Madeleine, it turned out—say Annie’s name. Lost in the swirl of her anxiety, Lauren hadn’t heard the older woman approach.

Lauren stood up, and so did Annie.

“I thought Carol took you home.” Annie’s tone was lightly scolding.

“She tried, but I want to stay. See to the food,” Madeleine added, and it sounded more like an excuse than an explanation.

It sounded, Lauren thought, as if Madeleine was afraid Annie would discover what seemed obvious: that Madeleine stayed for Annie’s sake. Lauren sensed that if Annie would let her, Madeleine would have the girl in her arms in a heartbeat, that she would like nothing better. And it was surprising, because Lauren had always thought of Madeleine as aloof, even austere. Not at all the mothering type.

According to the talk around town, she’d never been married. Rumor had it that she’d been engaged a long time ago, but her fiancé had died suddenly from a rare heart defect. Who knew if it was true? Madeleine had never felt compelled to confirm or deny the story. She kept to herself, and while she might appear aloof, she wasn’t unkind. Far from it. Everyone local knew if there was a need, Madeleine Finch would move heaven and earth to fill it.

She cooked meals and delivered them to people when they were ill, and employed others, like Bo, when they were down on their luck. A few years ago, when Tara was home recovering from an emergency appendectomy, Madeleine brought over her famous eggplant casserole because it was what Tara ordered most often when she and Lauren had lunch at the café.

Annie was talking about a text message she’d gotten from Bo, that it had been delayed, that it had mentioned a woman named Ms. M. “Does it ring any bells?” she asked Madeleine.

The older woman said it didn’t.

“Could he have meant you?” Lauren asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so. He calls me Ms. Finch, or sometimes Ms. Birdie.” Madeleine flushed pink as if it pleased her, Bo calling her Ms. Birdie.

Annie said she hadn’t considered the
M
might be the letter of a first name.

They looked at each other, taking a moment to think about it, the letter
M
and the possibility it might be related to a first name as easily as it could be to a last. Their shared silence was pocked with a dissonant clamor of ringing telephones, a low rumble of voices.

“I don’t think the police care who she is,” Annie said. “The detective I talked to, Jim Cosgrove, told me they don’t have enough of a description to find her.”

“Detective Cosgrove talked to you?” Lauren worked to keep the flare of fresh apprehension from showing in her voice.

Annie’s look was curious.

“I talked to him, too. He and his partner came by my house this morning.” Lauren paused, making herself breathe. She wanted badly to ask if her name had come up when Annie talked with Cosgrove. She wanted to know if Willis had been present. Instead, she said, “I think they came because I’m the last person they know of to see Bo.”

“Can someone put these up?” A woman approached, carrying an armload of flyers. “Somehow we missed both sides of Prescott Street from here north to Oak Hill.”

Madeleine reached for them, but Annie intercepted her. “You go and rest. I’ll take these.”

“I’ll go with you,” Lauren said, and it was sheer impulse. “I’d like to help.”

Annie thanked her. “I need to run to the restroom first.” She handed Lauren the stack of flyers.

Watching her go, Madeleine said, “That child has seen way too much trouble, more than most people get in their lifetime.” She sounded almost angry, as if she took Annie’s trouble personally, and she went on, not leaving Lauren time for a reply. “Her daddy walked out when she was a baby. She lost her mom a couple of years ago, and now this. JT does his best, but mostly he’s just going through the motions, putting one foot in front of the other. He’s a good man, but he hasn’t got a clue what to do with a girl, much less one as sensitive and stubborn as Annie. Or Bo. JT never has known what to do about Bo, either.”

And no wonder, Lauren thought. Raising a child was hard enough when they were mentally whole and there were two parents.

“It hurts him, the way Bo is,” Madeleine said, and her voice tremored. “I see it every time JT looks at the boy. But being hurt over what ails a child never does any good.”

“No,” Lauren murmured. She wondered if Madeleine had been interviewed by the police, but couldn’t bring herself to ask.

“Annie’s mother is the one who looked after Bo; she looked after all of them. She kept them together, and ever since she passed, that little family’s been like a boat adrift without a rudder. It just cuts me to the bone—” Madeleine’s voice broke completely.

She was so obviously flustered at her loss of control that Lauren reached out, putting her hand on Madeleine’s arm, and it occurred to her that if Madeleine was without a family of her own, it wasn’t by choice. Lauren understood then that Bo and Annie were the closest Madeleine had ever come to mothering anyone. She saw it so plainly: Madeleine’s utter despair, her loneliness and longing, and it saddened her. “What can I do?” she asked.

Madeleine brought her hands to her face, and Lauren looked away, giving her privacy, a space to gather herself. She took only moments, and then she said briskly that money was needed. “For a reward,” she explained. “Annie’s against it. She doesn’t like asking anyone for anything, much less their money. But I keep telling her sometimes money is the only way people will talk.”

Lauren’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it from her purse, checking the ID.
Jeff.
She tucked the phone into her jacket pocket, feeling bad about it, but the situation here was so dire. She felt compelled to stay, to do what she could, and he would only argue.

Madeleine mentioned renting a billboard along I-45, the interstate that cut through town. “We could put Bo’s photo and a phone number on it so folks could call in tips. A lot of people drive that freeway.”

“What about organizing an auction to raise money?” Lauren spoke as the plan took mental shape. “We’ve held them at Wilder and Tate before. We have things we could donate, and we could ask others to contribute items, too. They don’t have to be antiques.” She would call Tara, Lauren thought. Tara knew people, important people, through the public relations manager she worked for. Her boss had connections all over Houston, all over Texas. Lauren could imagine what Tara would say, that at least he was good for something. She and Lauren would laugh. “What about Sunday?” Lauren offered the day and then bit her lip. Did she honestly think she could arrange such an event so quickly, in three days? Was she nuts? What if Jeff didn’t go for it?

“It’s kind of you to offer,” Madeleine said. “You do realize we could go to all the trouble to organize an event and Bo could show up.”

“So much the better. It would become a celebration then, wouldn’t it?”

Catching sight of Annie, Madeleine said, “Maybe we should wait until we know for sure what we’re going to do, before we say anything to her.”

Lauren would have disagreed or at least questioned Madeleine’s reluctance to advise Annie of their plans, but the young woman rejoined them too quickly. Slipping her wallet into her jacket pocket alongside her cell phone, Lauren asked if Madeleine would mind taking charge of her purse. Carrying the flyers, Annie led the way out of the community center, and she and Lauren headed north, taping posters to the light poles and inside the windows of the shops they passed. They handed flyers to the folks on the sidewalk. By now, Annie’s face was familiar to them from the news, and they spoke to her in that way, asking how she was, as if the question could have a reasonable answer, one that wasn’t readily apparent. It annoyed Lauren. There was a look in their eyes she didn’t like, some mix of complacency and relief that this terrible thing that had happened wasn’t theirs.

No, no. Blessedly for them, they had dodged the calamity bullet this time.

Good for you!
Lauren wanted to say to them.
Aren’t you the lucky ones?

By the time she and Annie finished walking both sides of the three blocks that comprised the downtown area, Annie was white-faced and shivering, and Lauren was like Madeleine, consumed with a heated desire to protect Annie, to pull her close and say,
Never mind them.

Instead she kept the polite distance of the near strangers they were between them and asked, “Are you cold?” even though both of them knew what ailed Annie wasn’t the weather.

She answered she was fine, looking not at Lauren but far beyond her, at some unknown point on the horizon.

The sound of Lauren’s cell phone jarred her, and she tugged it into view, just far enough to check the ID.
Jeff.
Again
. She ought to answer; he’d be worried. But, as if her mind had other ideas, she thumbed the “Off” button and stuffed the phone back into her jacket pocket. She didn’t want to leave Annie, not just yet, and realizing they were close to Uncommon Grounds, Hardys Walk’s answer to Starbucks—so close, in fact, that the air was fragrant with mingled aromas of coffee and sugary Danish—she said, “Let’s have something warm to drink. My treat.”

Annie said no. “It may sound awful, but I can’t face one more person. They’re so sorry for me. They ask so many questions. I know they want to help, but all I want is to find Bo. If only I could know—” She broke off, clamping her jaw so tightly the muscle at its corner pulsed.

“We could sit outside. It’s warm enough in the sun, don’t you think?” Lauren pressed, speaking quickly, her gaze taking in the comfortably furnished patio area that fronted the coffeehouse, then coming back to rest on Annie. She was surprised and gratified when, after a moment, Annie agreed. “You go and sit down,” Lauren told her. “I’ll bring you something. What would you like? What’s your favorite?”

“Hot chocolate. With extra whipped cream?” Annie’s smile, self-conscious and fleeting, tilted the corners of her mouth.

Lauren nodded, and her heart swelled with a ridiculous amount of happiness that she could perform this small service for someone who badly needed it. Inside the coffee shop, she ordered Annie’s hot chocolate and a pumpkin-spice latte for herself, and on a whim, asked for an assortment of scones, too, enough for a half-dozen people. She was embarrassed when she rejoined Annie and unloaded the bulging sack of its contents; she was equally thrilled when Annie helped herself to an iced cranberry scone and took a bite and then another.

When she caught Lauren watching, she blushed. “Thank you,” she said, popping the last of it into her mouth and dusting her hands. “It was delicious. I know I should eat a regular meal, but it’s hard.”

“Then don’t. Just eat what tastes good.”

Annie smiled, and Lauren knew she’d given the right answer. She thought how she would never have said that to Drew or Kenzie. With them, it was always lecture, lecture, lecture. Maybe she should stop. Maybe it was okay once in a while to have pancakes for dinner, as Drew often suggested. Hadn’t she seen it on a bumper sticker, the admonition: “Eat Dessert First”?