Lie in Plain Sight (24 page)

“Yes, he should have told you.”

“Heather is there,” Maeve said, a caution. The last thing the girl needed after a half day at the police station was a full-out battle between the fiery Gabriela and her idiot father.

“Yes, I know. She was happy to see Devon.” Gabriela looked at Maeve, her eyes filling with tears. “Do you have any wine?”

“I do,” Maeve said, grateful for the diversion. In the kitchen, she tried to pull herself together so that she could be prepared for whatever Gabriela had to throw at her. Accusations. Emotions. Recriminations. She needed to be ready for all of it.

But when she returned, two glasses of red wine in hand, her former friend only looked at her sadly. “I know the truth, Maeve. So don't feel as if you have to lie.”

Maeve took a sip of her wine and waited.

“You see, this is all my fault,” Gabriela said. “I let him down. I let myself down. I wasn't the wife I promised him I would be.”

Maeve had no idea where this was going, and she was so tired that she didn't care when she thought about it. Gabriela knew. She didn't seem angry at Maeve. So, let's finish our wine, Maeve thought, and go on our way. Let's let life return to normal, whatever that is.

Gabriela smiled sadly and shook her head. “It's almost as if I had turned into you without realizing it.”

Maeve put her wine down. “Come again?”

“The distance that was between us. The walls I had put up. It was like I had put Cal back into the same marriage he had had. The one he escape—” She caught herself, but not soon enough. “The one he decided to leave.”

Maeve leaned forward in her chair. She wanted to drink the whole glass of wine down to make this monologue palatable but decided that would be bad. Wine would loosen her tongue, and she might press Gabriela to elaborate on why turning her marriage into the one that Maeve and Cal had had—and enjoyed for a time—was such a bad thing. It had once been great, in that time before Gabriela and her amazing persona had arrived, the one that Maeve came to find was built on smoke and mirrors.

“I need to be better, Maeve. I need to be the woman he married.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Maeve said, picking up her wine and tilting it in Gabriela's direction. “A toast,” she said. “To you and Cal.”

Gabriela burst into real tears, not the shimmery fake tears that had filled her eyes when she had first arrived. “Do you still love him, Maeve? Tell me the truth.”

“Absolutely not,” Maeve said, trying not to burst into laughter. She was unsuccessful.

“So why, then? Why the breach to our friendship?”

“Whose friendship?” Maeve asked, motioning between the two of them. “Yours and mine?” She looked closely at Gabriela. “Are you high? I mean, seriously. Are you on something?”

Gabriela was at a loss for words.

“Because you do realize that you cheating with Cal originally is what broke up our marriage, right? That you sleeping with him and him lying about it was the final straw in our marriage? Or have you forgotten that?”

“He was unhappy, Maeve. Looking for a way out.”

“Well, you gave him one.” Maeve stood. “I am terribly sorry for whatever it is you think I did,” she said, not wanting to give Gabriela the satisfaction of a confession. “But I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

Gabriela stayed on the couch, sipping her wine as if they were two old friends catching up. “It was just you, you know. That's what makes it easier to go back. I can forgive him for thinking that he left something here that he still wanted.”

“Really, Gabriela. You have to go.”

Gabriela looked at Maeve beseechingly. “Please tell me it's over.”

This time, Maeve did finish her wine and put the glass on the table next to the chair she was sitting in. “It was over a long time ago.” And that was the truth. How to make Gabriela understand that was another story.

“I have to believe you, I guess,” Gabriela finally said, standing. With nothing left to say, she started for the front door, but not before downing the last of her wine in a dramatic gesture similar to taking a shot of tequila. “Good wine,” she said.

“Thanks?” Maeve said in a questioning tone, not sure how to respond anymore. She walked Gabriela to the door, holding open the screen. “One last thing, Gabriela.”

“Yes?”

“If I hear even a hint from Heather that she has been witness to any of your histrionics or Cal's denials, I make sure that he never sees her again. Got that?”

Gabriela nodded, solemn and contrite.

“My daughter is my only concern in this. Not you. Not him. Not even your baby together. Just don't do anything that would upset her.”

Gabriela stepped outside, her face illuminated in the porch light, still gorgeous in her early forties, a dewy complexion that Maeve never had and could never replicate at her age. As she navigated her way down the rickety porch steps in her high heels, Maeve called to her.

“And call your friend Tammy! She's worried sick about you!”

Inside the house, Maeve picked up her wine glass and grabbed the bottle of wine that she and Gabriela had started, marching up to her room and putting both on her nightstand. It had been a long day and would probably be an even longer night. She collapsed onto the bed and closed her eyes, the wine glass in her hand. On her nightstand, the landline rang, and she debated whether or not to pick it up.

It was Jo. “Turn on the local news.”

“What?” Maeve said.

“Turn on the local news,” Jo said again, but by the time Maeve located the remotes, whatever story had Jo so agitated was over. “This is a fascinating story about bulldog rescue organizations, Jo, but I'm tired and want to go to bed.”

“Keep the news on,” Jo said. “Trish Dvorak is in jail.”

“What?” Maeve said, sitting up so quickly that she nearly upended the wine on the nightstand.

“She's the one who orchestrated Taylor's kidnapping.”

 

CHAPTER 31

Before she finally fell asleep, Maeve watched the story three times. Trish Dvorak in handcuffs. Chris Larsson making a statement to reporters. Suzanne Carstairs walking up the stairs to the station house, a grim set to her red lips, not missing a step in her extraordinarily high heels.

Trish hadn't been kidding when she said that she was worried about paying for college. She was so worried that she planned on getting the money any way she could, even if it meant a fake kidnapping plot that would result in her daughter's father, Charles Connors, paying five hundred thousand dollars to the “kidnappers.”

According to Chris, Taylor was supposed to go to the Rathmuns', who were housecleaning clients of Trish's, and stay there until the money was delivered. The only thing was, she had disappeared for real.

And for good, it seemed.

“Is this some kind of village of the damned, or what?” Jo asked. “Mothers who would sell their own kid for tuition? Real kidnapping? I thought Doug's job was crazy, but these local cops have their hands full.”

Maeve had stared at the screen and watched Chris. They surely did have their hands full, and sometimes it seemed they couldn't get out of their own way. It was a dangerous combination.

Maeve always thought that the strangest things happened in the most bucolic locales. Farringville was proving her correct on that front. The scariest part was that Taylor was missing and the wheels had been set in motion by her own mother. Maeve knew some truly horrifying people—some would consider her one of them if they knew the truth—but that took the cake.

No pun intended.

Maeve texted Heather the next morning to make sure she was going to school and to tell her that that night, over dinner, they were going to talk about everything: her lie of omission about Taylor and the day she disappeared, this new relationship with a kid Maeve didn't know but didn't like already. Once Tommy, the boyfiend, as Maeve thought of him, had left town months earlier, Heather had lived the life of a monastic, but it appeared that her self-imposed boycott on the opposite sex had come to an end. And she had gone right back to the type of boy that made every mother's skin crawl, only this time, the rumors were far worse than just those usually alleged.

She drove to Rye after work to pick up Evelyn, having let the owners of the group home know via e-mail in the morning that she was coming. Evelyn was waiting at the front door, a little woman in neatly pressed jeans and a long-sleeved polo, her hair combed and lip gloss—an adored item that she went through with alarming alacrity—shining on her mouth. She opened the door when she saw Maeve's car, racing out to greet her younger sister.

“Maeve!” she said, and Maeve prepared herself for the force with which Evelyn would throw herself into her arms. Maeve grabbed her and kissed the top of her head, the older woman being shorter. “Where are we going?” Evelyn asked when she got in the car, making sure to first buckle her seat belt, her feet barely touching the floor mats of the Prius.

Maeve thought about that, wondered how much to say. She decided to tell Evelyn the truth. “We're going to see the house where you used to live.”

Evelyn loved an adventure, particularly if it involved her beloved sister, someone she had only known a short time but had come to rely on after her father had died. Maeve would never tell her that Jack wasn't her biological father; he was the only father she had ever known, and he had done right by her, taking her from a horrible institution and making sure she lived a wonderful life right in Maeve's backyard. She wasn't sure Evelyn would understand the difference between biological and adopted anyway. It wasn't a conversation worth starting for many reasons.

“I'm hungry. We should eat,” Evelyn said, her appetite a constant.

“Yes, we'll eat. What do you want? What sounds good?” Maeve asked, merging onto the highway, grateful for the flexibility to travel at off hours and to be able to get to today's destination quickly.

“Cheeseburger!” Evelyn said.

Maeve looked over at her, enough of her mother in both of them so that they bore a resemblance to each other. The cheekbones—or lack thereof in Maeve's case—and the softening around their jawlines, the flesh showing their age, spoke to their shared genes. Maeve wondered if those traits would be evident in her mother today, had she lived. Her mother had died young, younger than Maeve was now, so she would never know.

While Evelyn kept up a constant monologue, asking Maeve how every single person that they knew mutually was doing—Jo, baby Jack, Heather, Rebecca, Doug, et cetera—Maeve rehearsed in her mind what she might say to Heather that night once they were alone. Raging didn't work. Neither did disappointment. Maybe she would have to try something that she rarely used with her younger daughter: honesty.

It was worth a shot.

If she were someone else, Maeve would have asked her sister if she remembered anything about the street where she had spent a few years, if anything looked familiar at all, but it was no use. Evelyn remembered odd details about things, but overarching concepts were lost to her, somewhere in her mind, not retrievable.

That didn't mean she couldn't surprise Maeve every once in a while. “That's where the Haggertys lived,” she blurted out in the same unmodulated tone that Jack had often used when remembering a lost detail.

Maeve pulled over and parked beneath the shade of an elm and turned to look at her sister, flabbergasted. “You remember?”

But Evelyn was on to something else, remarking on the tallest tree she had ever seen and how the one Maeve had parked beneath paled in comparison. “Do you remember where you used to live?”

“No, Maeve. I live in Rye.”

“Did you visit the Haggertys a lot?” Maeve asked. “When you lived here?”

Evelyn was singing a song, another Kelly Clarkson tune, “Since U Been Gone.” Her voice was soft and sweet. There was no talk of the Haggertys, just the song. The moment had passed, and there was nothing Maeve could do to get it back.

She never thought of herself as an emotional blackmailer, but walking up to Mrs. McSweeney's house, it was the only way she could describe herself. One hand holding her sister's, Maeve knocked at the front door with the other.

Mrs. McSweeney answered quickly, obviously expecting someone else. The smile on her face was immediately replaced by a frown when she discovered that the person she'd thought would be there when she opened the door was really Maeve and a woman she looked like she recognized but wanted to forget.

“Maeve,” she said gently.

“Mrs. McSweeney, this is my sister, Evelyn. The one we spoke about.”

The older woman stood inside the door and regarded the two women on her front stoop. “Hello, Evelyn.”

They were in a standoff, this much older woman who was as sharp as a tack and Maeve, with only memories of her childhood, and none of her sister. Maeve held her gaze. “She's older now. But you remember her.”

Evelyn looked at Maeve, whispering. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Maeve shrugged. “We need to use your bathroom, Mrs. McSweeney.”

Mrs. McSweeney opened the door reluctantly, averting her gaze as Maeve and Evelyn walked in. Maeve led her sister to the bathroom, situated exactly where she thought it would be, since her childhood home was a mirror image of this one. She waited outside the door, reminding Evelyn to wash her hands when she was done, even though she didn't need to; Evelyn was fastidious about her appearance and her hygiene, making sure her hair was combed, her clothes were pressed, and her hands were always clean.

Maeve wandered down the hall after a few moments, finding Mrs. McSweeney in the kitchen. “Do you remember her? I know it was a long time ago. But you must remember something.”

Mrs. McSweeney leaned against the Formica counter, looking out the window over the kitchen sink to the backyard. “I told you, Maeve. I remember nothing. I didn't know your sister. I don't know what you're looking for, but I don't know anything.”