Gone (22 page)

Her finger tips traveled slowly over a picture of Beth that Clare believed had been taken shortly after her sister’s adoption. She recognized the toddler as her sister and the sight was achingly familiar. Clare leaned forward for a closer look at Beth.

Gladys went through all of the albums. Each chronicled some period of Beth’s growing-up years. Clare felt as if she was getting to know her sister through the photos, treated to a glimpse into the happy life her sister led.

Gladys’s hands never faltered as she passed them over photo after photo. There was no Braille explaining which was which. She knew each picture by feel.

“And here’s her wedding picture,” Gladys said.

It was a typical bride and groom pose for the camera. Beth, dressed in an off the shoulder gown, gazed lovingly up at her new husband.

Gladys’s fingers lightly and unerringly traced Beth’s face. “Do you and Beth look alike, Clare?”

Clare had been silent, enthralled by the photographs. She looked away from them and to Gladys. The older woman’s brows and cheeks had lifted in an earnest, eager expression.

“There is a resemblance,” Clare said.

“May I see?”

Before Clare could reply, Gladys leaned toward her. The thin floral print sheet covering her fell away from her waist. She reached out slowly and her thin, venous hand touched softly on Clare’s cheek.

Clare remained still as Gladys’s fingers roamed her face.

“You have the same shaped eyes.” Gladys’s smile deepened. “And the same stubborn chin.”

She laughed and then sobbed. Her twig-thin arms wrapped around Clare’s shoulders and with strength Clare wouldn’t have credited her with, Gladys hugged Clare to her.

Clare hesitated, unaccustomed to spontaneous bursts of affection, then awkwardly returned Gladys’s embrace.

The old woman’s arms tightened and her body shook. “I don’t know why she had to go away, Clare.” Gladys’s voice was choked by tears. “I don’t know why it had to be this way.”

Gladys’s breathing hitched and the next breath seemed to be too long in coming. Clare’s stomach tightened. She pulled back to peer at Gladys. The elderly woman’s face had turned a shade of purple.

Clare set Gladys against the pillows and sprang up from the bed calling for a nurse. Gladys latched onto Clare’s hand. The door to the hospital room was flung open. A woman in a pink medical uniform strode across the tile.

“It’s not good for your blood pressure to get upset, Mrs. Linney,” the nurse said softly. She withdrew a syringe from her pocket. “I’m just going to give you a little something to help you rest now.”

Gladys kept Clare’s hand in her own as the nurse administered the injection.

When Gladys’s lids drooped and remained closed, the nurse turned to Clare. “She can’t become upset like that. Her heart can’t take that level of stress. We took the photos away from her and put them in her closet, out of her reach. Since her daughter left, every time she has them she goes off.”

Clare released a deep breath. Gladys’s episode had shaken her as well.

“I’ll replace these items,” she said to the nurse, “and be on my way.”

The nurse nodded.

Light from the ceiling fixtures illuminated the closet when Clare opened the door. She returned the albums to the box and the box to the shelf. She set the box down, then noticed one of the tiles in the closet was uplifted. A gouge at one corner showed that the tile had been deliberately removed.

Clare crouched and wedged a finger beneath the tile. A manila envelope lay beneath. Clare took it into the light.

She removed a check book, and bank statements for the same account, from the envelope. The account was the one Beth held in the Columbia bank. Clare flipped the check book open and glanced at the entries. There were four of them. All were for beauty treatments except for the last, which was the one Jake’s search had turned up. A check made out to cash for two thousand dollars, reducing the account balance to zero.

A small folded paper was in the bottom of the envelope. The page was torn from a doctor’s prescription pad. Dr. Mercer in Columbia. His credentials showed him to be an Obstetrician Gynecologist. The patient was Elizabeth Ryder and the paper was dated two days before her departure from Farley. The prescription was for prenatal vitamins.

* * * * *

Beth was pregnant.

That realization had been playing over and over in Clare’s mind since she’d returned to her rented house hours earlier. A baby . . .

Clutching a glass of wine, Clare made her way onto the back porch. She’d changed out of the dress and matching jacket that she’d worn earlier and into shorts and a tank-style shirt that felt comfortably cool in the night air. The front pocket of her shorts bulged slightly with the weight of her cell phone.

She leaned against a warped, but sturdy pole and stared out at the moonlit land. Crickets chirped and an azalea bush that somehow managed to hold onto life in the inhospitable environment of this neglected house gave off its floral fragrance.

Beth was going to have a child. The legacy of Jolene Marie Marshall would live on in another generation.

Clare shook her head at the awful thought. It was
how she felt about herself. That Jolene’s legacy lived on in her.

Beth obviously didn’t share that fear. Unlikely she even knew of a Jolene Marie Marshall, let alone her connection to a convicted murderer.

When Clare found Beth, and introduced herself as her sister, all would be revealed.

Fear of how Beth would receive her reared its head again, and more, fear of what her presence in Beth’s life could cost.

Would becoming Beth’s sister again be the most selfish act she could commit?

Clare returned to the kitchen. Hooking the bottle of wine by the neck, she mounted the stairs to her bedroom. Moonlight provided enough light to see by. She got into bed and poured another glass.

* * * * *

Clare awoke with a start. Her head hung over the side of the bed; the empty wine bottle dangled from two of her fingers. Light from the moon streamed across the bed through a separation in the curtains. It was still night.

She coughed, the sound punctuating the dull roar inside her ears. She considered raising her head from the awkward angle that was putting uncomfortable pressure on her neck, but the prospect of doing so seemed too much effort at the moment. And, there was a fear that movement of any kind would increase the throbbing inside her head.

If she raised her head, though, blood would drain from it and should relieve the pain. It sounded like a good plan. Clare remained as she was.

She could count on one hand the number of times she’d drank to excess. Her mother’s addiction and the high percentage of addiction among her colleagues had given her an abhorrence for alcohol.

She coughed again. Oh . . . her mouth tasted foul. She released the wine bottle in disgust.

Then she smelled it—smoke.

Clare rolled off the bed and went to the door. She seized the knob then yanked her hand back from the hot brass. She grabbed a sheet from the bed, wrapped it around her hand, and opened the door.

The hall was engulfed in flames.

Chapter Twelve
 

Clare slammed the bedroom door closed. No escape that way. She had to think. Easier said than done at the moment. Thanks to the wine, she felt as if she were in a haze. She shook her head in an effort to clear it and ran to the window.

The window was large, with a wide ledge that ran the length of it. It was about a fifteen-foot drop to the ground from the ledge. A tree grew by the window. She didn’t know if she could reach it from the ledge to make her way to the ground, but she had no choice. She had to try.

As she went to retrieve the chair in the corner of the room to climb onto it to reach the window, she dug her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed 911. She gave her address and the reason for the call quickly, then disconnected and dropped the phone in the front pocket of her shorts.

The 911 call made, she couldn’t wait for help to arrive. Heat from the fire raging in the hall was making the room she was in unbearably hot. Smoke was billowing in from the crack beneath the door. Her eyes stung. She coughed.

A sagging and torn screen covered the window. She struck the screen. The wire mesh popped off and spiraled into the air.

She climbed onto the chair and then stepped onto the ledge. Now that she stood on it, it didn’t seem as wide as she’d first thought. Perspiration dampened her skin and she fought a wave of dizziness.

Dark clouds covered much of the moon, casting the yard in deep shadow. Mindful of her step, afraid that she might land on a spot on the old ledge too battered to support her weight, she treaded lightly, keeping her back pressed to the house as she gingerly crossed the curled and rotted planks. The tree that was her destination was a live oak, its branches laden with Spanish moss. It grew a short distance beyond the house, but as she reached the end of the ledge, she saw that the oak was too distant for her to reach.

She peered down. A thick, leafy vine grew by the side of the house, its limbs twisted around a wooden trellis. Much of the trellis had rotted and fallen away. Mostly jagged pieces remained. Clare feared that the vine was holding up the trellis, rather than the other way around.

She didn’t know if her luck would hold a second time this night and the trellis would also hold her weight, but she had no choice. She couldn’t wait any longer.

She stepped onto the trellis. The brittle wood gave. Clare gasped. She seized another piece of wood, preventing the fall, but slid down the trellis. Slivers tore her palms.

She kicked out to gain purchase on two bits of the trellis that crossed each other, but before she could reach them, the wood she was grasping broke.

Clare landed hard. Her head bounced off the unyielding ground.

A whirring sound began in her ears, becoming more shrill. She needed to get away. To get back from the house where flames now licked at the ledge she’d stood on. She couldn’t seem to move. She saw herself as if from a distance. Her vision shrank, growing black at the edges.

The house seemed to shudder and then the center of it collapsed. It was the last thing she saw.