A Family of Strangers

by Emilie Richards

  And every evening after the girls were in bed, I’d delved deeper and deeper into the dark web. Sophie was searching for Milton Kearns, too, but so far, both of us had come up empty-handed.

  Disappearing was an art form practiced by criminals, the battered and stalked, and those poor souls who wore aluminum-foil hats and stuffed cotton under their doorways. I Spy made a killing selling how-to manuals. The lighter reads advised staying off social media and investing in a shredder. The more serious explained how to misdirect investigators, how to find a job that paid under the table, and how to buy everything under the guise of a legal but otherwise spineless corporation.

  Wendy and Milton Kearns seemed well informed. But from prior investigations I knew there was hope. The longer anybody tried to stay under the radar, the better the chance they would slip up.

  Unfortunately, the flash drive I’d found in the safe was still with Glenn, who was trying to decrypt files that had been encrypted by a master. So far he hadn’t been successful, but in his eyes, that just made the challenge more fun.

  I had discovered new information about Wendy from my mother, although more was still an arm’s length away. Without explaining about the passports, I’d told Mom I had an old appointment book of Wendy’s and wondered about certain dates. She had answers. During the first stretch when my sister had been in Brazil, she had told my parents she was in Texas at a seminar. In fact Mom remembered flying to Connecticut to take care of the girls, and Wendy had come home looking puffy and exhausted.

  Bryce was home on leave during the longer trip. He’d flown the girls to California to meet distant relatives, and supposedly Wendy had gone off to visit college friends and do a little traveling on her own. Mom remembered because she had sounded so much happier, so rejuvenated, by the time she returned.

  My mother had the memory of an elephant. But “Brazil” hadn’t been uttered. My parents didn’t know that Wendy had gone to Rio for procedures, quite possibly under the skilled hands of Dr. Vítor Calvo.

  I didn’t want to think about all the parts of my sister’s body Vítor Calvo had monkeyed with.

  Wendy hadn’t called again.

  By now the second cup was filling with coffee, so I ran upstairs to see what Teo and the girls were doing.

  I found my nieces building a tent with their top sheets and towels. Teo and Bismarck were in the center.

  I watched from the doorway as the giggling grew louder and the thumping of Bismarck’s tail did, too.

  “Aunt Ryan! Can you help me tie these?” Holly held up the ends of two sheets.

  Three weeks ago Holly wouldn’t have asked me for a glass of water after a week in the desert. “What’s the problem?”

  “They keep slipping!”

  “I’ll hold, you tie.”

  She favored me with a big smile, and I was reminded how much she looked like her father—the father who was aware that something was happening that I wasn’t sharing with him.

  I lifted both sheets by the hem and winked at Teo, who was reclining against the wall like a desert sheikh.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” I warned. “You still have to get out when they’re done.”

  He draped an arm over his canine buddy and closed his eyes, the picture of bliss.

  I wondered if Bryce ever horsed around with his daughters. When I moved in, the girls had been prissy and subdued, as if nobody ever dared to tickle them or mess up their hair. But since then, they had both blossomed so much. I wanted to believe those seeds had been planted by their father.

  Bryce had sent me a handful of carefully veiled emails. I was sure email from a nuclear sub wasn’t private, thus the need for skillfully worded platitudes and questions, but his meaning was clear. I had sided with my sister in the divorce, and I was shielding Wendy from him as well as his lawyer.

  If only. As bad as that sounded, the real scenario was so much worse.

  Downstairs I finished the coffee, adding cream and a slug of the Irish to both mugs. I was working on hot chocolate for the girls when Teo and Bismarck came down, too.

  I held out coffee for Teo and a dog biscuit for his sidekick. “I was preparing to pay ransom.”

  “When those girls start to crash, they’re going to crash hard.”

  “At least they won’t need baths tonight. Do you think if I yell upstairs and tell them to get into their pajamas, they’ll hop right to it?”

  “If that’s hot chocolate, you can bribe them.”

  I went to the foot of the stairs and yelled his suggestion upstairs. When nobody argued—or responded—I figured they were congratulating themselves for having such an outstanding aunt.

  Back in the kitchen I offered Teo another pass on the evening’s festivities.

  “What do I get if I stay?” he asked.

  My heart beat a little faster. “After you help me pump up TropiSanta, we can lie on the floor of the great room and watch the Christmas tree lights.”

  “Yeah, I saw the lights. It’s a good thing I’m not prone to seizures.”

  “Those are the very same lights I loved as a child. My mother carefully stored them for me, along with every Popsicle stick ornament I ever made. And from this day forward, they’ll be on every Christmas tree I erect, until my mother either moves to Alaska or forgets how much I loved them when I was four.”

  “Too bad that woman never paid attention to what you loved or needed, isn’t it?”

  I toasted him with my cup. All the little things I’d discounted, things as simple as saving Christmas lights, were beacons I couldn’t ignore. Arlie Gracey had been the mother I needed, no more or less.

  “Has she told your father that you know who gave birth to you?” he asked.

  I liked the way he’d phrased it. “At this point I don’t think she wants to mention Wendy to Dad. If it weren’t for his health and the holidays, he’d be rallying flocks of private investigators.”

  “After watching your mother orchestrate the party, I’m more surprised that she hasn’t hired a dozen professionals.”

  “I asked her to trust me a little longer.”

  “And she’s buying it?”

  “I don’t think she’ll be patient forever.”

  “And the girls’ father?” He finished with the most obvious question. “Does Bryce really care what’s going on here?”

  I’d gone over that in my head, with no clear result. “Bryce is infatuated with his job. What kind of man disappears for months at a time and leaves his family behind? Can I blame Wendy for not wanting to play second fiddle to a nuclear sub for the rest of her life?”

  “To answer the first question, a man or woman in the military disappears for months. It’s part of the job. Nobody lies about that when you enlist.” Between high school and college, Teo had done a stint in the army as an MP, so he knew what he was talking about.

  “That may be true, and Wendy knew Bryce’s life plan when she married him. But maybe reality was harder than she thought.”

  “Has she ever complained that he’s away too much of the time?”

  “When you’re with my sister, she makes you think her world is absolutely perfect.”

  “A high pedestal to fall from.”

  I was building a case against Bryce in my head, although I wasn’t quite sure why. Now I tried to be fair. “I’m assuming he misses the girls. I’ve sent reassuring emails with photos. But from his responses, photos and reassurances aren’t cutting it.”

  “Have you considered he might make a surprise arrival?”

  “Some part of me hopes he will. And then once we’re face-to-face, I can tell him the truth.”

  “You’re ready to do that?”

  “How much longer can I breathe platitudes and reassurance? The only reasons he doesn’t know the whole Wendy story are distance and a job that requires superb concentration. But nobody stay
s underwater indefinitely.”

  “I don’t know about that. Some of those little girls in the pool today had me worried.”

  I was glad we were moving to something more positive. The party was living proof that good things could still happen in the midst of turmoil.

  I heard tramping on the stairs, and in a moment two little girls in mismatched pajamas were in the kitchen, too.

  Mismatched was new and different. Holly and Noelle had been carefully schooled to look pretty and sweet, even when they were asleep. Today both girls were taunting the fashion police.

  “Purple polka dots and orange stripes, Holly Jolly! Wow!”

  “It’s our birthday. We should be able to wear anything we want,” Holly said, challenge in her eyes.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Mine match. They both have puppies, see?” Noelle lifted the hem of her cocker spaniel shirt as evidence.

  Her pants sported circus lions complete with lion tamer, but this wasn’t the moment for a lecture on animal families. I lifted her to a stool and set hot chocolate in front of her. Hours had passed since the cake, so I was hoping tummies weren’t going to rebel.

  When they were finished, I took Noelle upstairs to brush her teeth, while Teo and Holly went outside to pump up TropiSanta, who would be flat by morning. After Noelle put away her toothbrush, I perched on her bed, and she surprised me by plopping into my lap. I wrapped my arms around her. “So what do you think, Mermaid?”

  “Holly said today was her party because she was born first.”

  “Holly can be so silly.”

  “Are you sure it was my party, too?”

  “Your friends were there, right? Your name was on the birthday cake. Half the presents were yours.”

  She relaxed and grinned, her missing tooth a reminder she was growing fast. “I never had a birthday party like that before.”

  Not many children ever would, because Arlie Gracey couldn’t be cloned. But the girls were usually silent about what had gone on in their home before Wendy disappeared, so I probed a bit. “What kind of birthday parties did you have?”

  “I don’t think I had one. Maybe once when Daddy was home.”

  That was more than I usually learned, but then Holly, the appointed secret keeper, wasn’t in earshot. “What was it like, do you remember?”

  “Mommy threw out my presents. She said they were cheap. I told her they were still mine, and she got madder.”

  “Well...” I hugged her harder. “Some people get cranky at parties. But not you, right? And we’re going to keep every single present you got today. I promise.”

  Noelle hugged me back, then she leaped off my lap and went to sort through her treasure again, which was piled haphazardly on the floor at the end of her bed. I went downstairs to see if niece number two had finished outside.

  By the time TropiSanta was merry again, I calculated we had maybe ten minutes before the girls disintegrated. I got Holly upstairs, teeth brushed, and finally, both of them into bed. Teo joined us for the tuck-in.

  As he stood in the doorway and Bismarck reclined at my feet, I said the usual prayer and asked the girls what they were thankful for. The party came out on top, but Noelle said she was thankful for me, as well.

  I cleared my throat. Twice. “And I am very, very grateful I have two silly little nieces.”

  They asked Teo for a story, and he told them the true story of a dog who tracked a little girl who was lost in the woods.

  Twenty questions later, the girls were finally ready to close their eyes. The story was the perfect happy ending for a long, exciting day. I kissed them both and, at their request, so did Teo. Then I turned off the light and we tiptoed downstairs.

  Bismarck elected to keep the girls company. He was snoring by the time we left the bedroom.

  In the great room I pulled Teo down next to me on the sofa and told him what Noelle had said about Wendy.

  To avoid the blinking splendor of my heirloom lights, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “You’ve got your hands full there.”

  “Noelle’s no trouble.”

  “Hands full trying to keep your sister out of trouble with her daughters.”

  “It doesn’t come up often,” I said. “They don’t talk about her, at least not to me. There’s a pact of some sort, like they know they’ll get in trouble if they do, or something bad will happen.”

  “You’re going to miss them once you’re out of the picture.”

  I turned on my side so I could see him better. His skin was alternately red and green, but I could ignore that. “I’m not planning to be out of the picture. Never again. If they aren’t with me, I’m still going to make sure they’re okay. Nobody’s going to get between me and them.”

  “So they’re kind of a package deal for the lucky guy who gets you?”

  “I have no idea what’s going to happen with my sister. She might never come back. Bryce might stay submerged and ask me to raise them on my own.”

  He didn’t frown, not exactly, but he opened his eyes. “Is that what you want?”

  “It’s too early. It’s hypothetical.”

  “You seem more and more sure your sister’s not a good mother.”

  The largest part of me was still waiting for a miracle. I wanted to learn that every conclusion I’d reached about Wendy was wrong, but even the most optimistic part of me knew better.

  “You look at home here,” he said, when I didn’t answer. “You never used to.”

  “Here, in the town house? Here, in Seabank with my parents? Here riding herd on two little girls?”

  “The journalist with a million questions.”

  I ticked off my answers on my fingers. “I couldn’t wait to leave Seabank after high school. I couldn’t wait to leave Florida, for that matter. Then when I came back, after... everything that happened, I thought I’d never want to be here again. Now?” I paused. “It’s all good. Who’d have thought?” I wiggled my fingers in the air.

  “I am assuming, and it’s only an assumption, that some small part of that has to do with...”

  I waited for him to say “me.”

  “That talk with your mom,” he finished.

  I was disappointed. “The talk, yes.”

  “You’ll make it through the holidays?”

  “Things are a mess, true. It’s doubtful either of the girls’ parents will surface, but Christmas can be about the rest of us. I’m going to do my darnedest to make it a good one.” I paused. “I wish Christmas was going to be about you, too. But I know you have to spend time with your own family.”

  “I’m heading north tomorrow, coming back New Year’s Eve.”

  “We’ll miss you.”

  “I’m sorry I’ll miss the holidays with the girls.” He smiled just a little. “And maybe you.”

  He hadn’t said as much, but Christmas was in the air, and I was more hopeful that somehow we were finding a path back to each other. “I wish I could be your Christmas present.”

  “Better than a pony.”

  I was encouraged. “Better than a trip to Disney World? Universal Studios?”

  “You’re setting the bar a little high.” He threaded his fingers through my hair and pulled me closer. I nestled against him, and I wasn’t sure whose lips found whose. I sighed with pure pleasure.

  “I need a drink of water.”

  Laughter rumbled through Teo’s chest. I pulled away and turned to see Noelle, head cocked, watching us.

  “You have a water bottle beside your bed,” I told her.

  “You didn’t fill it.”

  “Did you ask Holly to help you?”

  “Holly’s asleep.”

  Since I knew her sister’s sleeping habits—or lack of them—I doubted it, but I got to my feet. “Okay, I’ll come up and do it.”

&
nbsp; “Right now?”

  I sighed. “Immediately.”

  “You were kissing.”

  Teo laughed again. “We sure were.”

  “Was I supposed to see?”

  “You were supposed to be in bed asleep.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “Of course you are.” I held out my hand. “Up we go.”

  Five minutes later I was downstairs again. A slender package wrapped in silver paper and gold ribbon had taken my place on the sofa.

  “What’s this?” I lifted it and sat down where it had been. “Is this my Christmas present? Because yours is under the tree. Want me to get it?”

  “Just put this with the ones I already stuck there for the girls. You can open it Christmas Day.”

  “What fun is that?”

  He looked uncomfortable, and I laughed. “You’re afraid I won’t like whatever this is, aren’t you?”

  “My sister Luella helped me pick it out.”

  “So Luella knows that you and I are, you know, hanging out again?”

  “She does now.”

  I held up the box and shook it. “I won’t need a hazmat suit?”

  “My family doesn’t blame you for anything.”

  “So if I see them again, they won’t all make the sign of the cross at the exact same moment?”

  “Behave, and just open the present, okay?”

  I slipped my finger under the ribbon and pulled it to one side, and then I carefully pulled the tape from the paper.

  “You’re short on wrapping paper? You’re going to use that for something else?”

  I laughed and took my time folding the paper, setting it beside me to expose a shiny white box. This was too delicious to rush. I slipped my fingers under the top of the lid.

  “Aunt Ryan, Bismarck’s snoring!”

  Teo nudged me with his elbow. “Don’t look now, but there’s a little girl standing across the room. And not the one who was here a few minutes ago.”

  I set the box on the carefully folded wrapping paper. “What would you like me to do about it, Holly?”