“Are you going to explain why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“The new normal.”
At Seabank Seafood Teo had managed to secure the same patio table where I’d sat with my nieces. I made the introductions, and Sophie hugged Teo like an old friend. We chose seats so our guests had the best view of Little Mangrove Bay and the last vestiges of sunset. Tonight the band on the other side of the patio was playing light rock, and the air was filled with laughter and conversation. We added to the cacophony as Sophie and Ike asked Teo about Confidence K-9s.
Our server, a bearded blond with a man bun, arrived with a basket of hush puppies, and Sophie ordered lemon drop martinis for everybody. After he left, I suggested bowls of Key West chowder, followed by a couple of giant seafood platters. When he returned with the martinis, Teo made the order and added two pounds of boiled shrimp to arrive immediately.
Once we were alone I got down to business. “Teo has an idea for finding my sister.”
Sophie was instantly intrigued, and Ike knew enough about Wendy’s disappearance I could tell he was interested, too.
Teo took over. “A friend in the sheriff’s office explained a sneak attack he uses to locate suspects who’ve moved away. He has to have their former address, and it only works if their mail is being forwarded.”
“Is Wendy’s?” Sophie asked.
“Not yet.”
“This is getting good.”
Teo smiled at her enthusiasm. “He sends a letter to the last address he had and types ‘return service requested’ over the address. And here’s the important part. The post office doesn’t forward the letter. Instead they return it to him with the suspect’s new address on a sticker. The person he’s trying to find is never notified.”
“Moral to the story,” Ike said. “If you want to keep your location a secret, keep it secret from the good folks at the post office.”
We waited to continue until our server set a bowl of cold shrimp on ice in front of us. Sophie was ready with a question for me.
“But you’re still getting Wendy’s mail at the town house, right?”
“We’re hoping to change that tonight.”
Her eyes were dancing now. She loved a good challenge.
I filled in details for Ike, since I knew Sophie wouldn’t have shared most of this, if any. “There’s a safe in the town house laundry room with things inside that my sister wants. A friend of hers was supposed to help her get them. He had a house key, but it didn’t work, and he couldn’t break in. Let’s just say that under pressure, he gave us the combination.”
“She’s hitting the highlights,” Sophie said.
I finished up. “This guy, Jonah, was supposed to send most of what was inside the safe to my sister by way of a remailing service. My sister is probably frantic to find out why she never got it.”
“We know Wendy is still checking voice mail on the home phone—she’s deleting messages.” Teo changed to his best Southern drawl. “So tonight, she’s finally going to hear from Jonah.”
He sounded exactly like the renegade roofer. I clapped silently.
He grinned at me. “I’m going to block my number, then I’ll call the town house and leave a voice mail from Jonah.” He turned to me. “What about your mom?”
“She won’t answer. I told her not to.”
“Perfect.” He paused. “Ike, want to help?”
“Sure.”
“Be my drinking buddy. When I point to you, say something like ‘hurry up, Jonah.’”
Sophie looked proud to know us. “That’s why you chose this place. The band, the conversation.”
“And the food,” I added, “which will be here soon, so let’s roll.”
Teo pulled out his phone and punched in numbers. From my seat beside him, I could just hear Wendy’s recorded “leave a message.”
When Teo spoke, he sounded enough like Jonah that I had to stop myself from turning around to check.
“Hey, Wendy, this is... You know who it is. I’m out of town, but so are you.” He forced a nervous laugh. “You aren’t answering your cell phone, but luckily I got this number when I was, um, doing repairs at your place. Anyway, I got what you wanted. I sent you everything a while ago, but it came back in the mail, right when I was leaving.”
He stopped and pointed to Ike who leaned over the table. “Hey Jonah, hurry up!” He sounded appropriately tipsy. The guys were enjoying themselves.
Teo gave Ike a thumbs-up. “Anyway, the address you gave me was no good. Don’t worry, though, the stuff will be safe until I get home.” The band cranked up their volume, which was perfect.
Teo spoke louder. “Jeez, can you hear me? This place! I’ve been thinking. You’ve been gone a while, so the post office must be forwarding your mail. When I get home, I’ll mail the envelope to your house in Seabank and the post office can forward it. It’s one of those padded kind. You can’t miss it. I bet you’ll be happy to get it, one way or the other.”
I thought he was done, but he added the perfect touch. “I guess I won’t see you again, but remember when you get everything, you still owe me a little cash for those...repairs. You know where I live.”
Teo put his phone back in his pocket and picked up a shrimp.
“Bravo!” If the phone call worked, my sister, anxious for the passports and flash drive, would go to the post office, wherever she was staying, and fill out a change of address card. And in a couple of days, her mail would stop coming to the town house. I reached over and kissed Teo’s cheek. He put a shrimp in my mouth.
“So if she does decide to forward her mail, what happens next?” Sophie asked.
“I’ve already written a letter.” I took a sip of my martini. “And if you’re willing, I’ll give it to you when you drop me off tonight. Once I’m sure Wendy’s mail isn’t coming to the town house, you can mail the letter in Delray. The envelope is all typed up, and your house is the return address. If, for some reason, she actually gets it, she’ll think I was visiting you.”
I didn’t tell them I had struggled with what to say, and in the end, had simply scrawled, “Call me, please.”
“Of course I’ll mail it,” Sophie said. “Think it will work?”
Teo detailed the problems. “It’s a long shot. We’re counting on Wendy to have her mail forwarded, and then counting on the post office to do their job correctly. We’re also counting on Jonah not to answer any strange calls in the next few weeks, in case Wendy tries to get hold of him.”
Three possibilities that could spoil everything.
“Is she going to believe the remailing service made a mistake and returned Jonah’s package?” Sophie asked, nailing the fourth. “Isn’t that unlikely?”
“Everybody makes mistakes,” I said. I hoped we hadn’t made one tonight.
The seafood chowder arrived, but not before Ike clapped Teo on the back. “I don’t know this Jonah guy, but you sure convinced me he was sitting right here.”
The two men grinned at each other. Sophie winked at me, and I made a conscious effort to put my sister behind me for the rest of dinner and enjoy our beautiful evening together.
* * *
In the shadows of the restaurant parking lot, Teo kissed me good-night. “I’m going to be out of town for a little while, working with a police department in the Panhandle. You’ll let me know if this works?”
“You know I will. If it doesn’t? I’m still going to find her.”
“I know, but if this works, please don’t go alone. It’s not safe. Think about it.”
And that was the problem. He was right. I shouldn’t go alone, but I knew I couldn’t go with him and still expect Wendy to tell me anything. The dilemma was all too familiar.
“I’ll do nothing but think about it,” I said. “Trust me.” I kissed him again before I got into Ike’s car. Bac
k at the town house, Sophie stopped in just long enough to get the letter that might give us Wendy’s address.
Finally I was alone with Mom. We sat together in the great room, her back as straight as a fireplace poker.
“Don’t bother trying to make it sound better. Just tell me what this Milton Kearns told you.”
So I did. By the time she left, she knew the bad news from Costa Rica, if not every detail. But I’d also reminded her that so far, we only heard one side of the story. As I had expected, she’d stood up for Wendy and pointed out Ex’s poor reliability. I respected her for spreading her wings over her baby chick and fighting off predators. But I also respected her for the last thing she said before she left.
“No matter what she’s done, Wendy’s my daughter. I’m going to stand by her, Ryan, the same way I’d stand by you. But if any of what that man said is true, even half of it, we have hard times ahead.”
By then Mom looked exhausted. I put my arms around her. She let me.
A few minutes later I stood in the driveway and watched her drive off before I closed the door. I felt wrung out from tonight and all the decisions ahead.
“Aunt Ryan!”
The girls often woke and called me. It wasn’t a nightly occurrence, but usually after a trip to the bathroom or a glass of water, they’d go right back to sleep. This was different. Holly sounded terrified.
I raced up the stairs and found her sitting at the top. She wasn’t quite awake, and not quite asleep. I reached for her, sitting close, and held her against me.
“Hey, it’s a bad dream, sweetheart. But that’s all. Just a dream. You’re home and I’ve got you.” I held her tighter.
“Mommy wasn’t here.”
I stroked her hair. “No, Mommy’s gone. But I’m here, and I’ll take good care of you.”
“No, Mommy was gone. Before. When I got up.”
For a moment I actually wondered if somehow my sister had gotten into the house, and Holly was trying to alert me. Of course, that was impossible.
“It was a dream. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does! She put us to bed, and we were supposed to sleep. But I felt sick. I threw up all over my sheets. And I got up to tell her. I knew she would be mad, but I couldn’t sleep that way. And my stomach hurt and my head was so dizzy.”
I wondered if Holly was talking in her sleep. Despite that I started to tremble, as if my body knew, before my mind, what was coming. I held her even closer. “Of course you couldn’t,” I said.
“But she wasn’t anywhere. Nobody was here. Just Noelle, and she wouldn’t wake up. Mommy wasn’t anywhere. I looked all over. I was so scared. I cried and cried, and finally the door opened and she came back.”
Holly looked up at me, and I saw she was wide awake now. “There was a man, and they were laughing. He wasn’t Daddy, but he kissed her. I ran downstairs, and she was so mad when she saw me, she shouted at me to go back to bed. I told her that I threw up, and she pushed me, and I fell, and she told me to sleep on the floor.”
I scrambled for the right thing to say. Could I pretend this was only a dream? But how awful for Holly to be told that what she remembered so clearly had never happened. She was sure it was real. How could I destroy her faith in herself or in me?
As I held her, and all the facts came together in my head and worse, in my aching heart, I knew the scene she’d recounted was no dream. It fit all too well with the things I’d already learned about my sister.
“What made you remember?” I asked, pushing her hair back from her wet cheeks.
“I thought you were leaving. I heard the door close. I thought you were gone.”
“I would never, never leave you in this house alone. I was just saying goodbye to Gram.”
“Mommy left us alone. After the night I got sick? I tried to stay awake every night and listen for the door. Sometimes I couldn’t. But sometimes...”
“Sometimes you did.” I was crying now, too, my tears falling against her hair.
“She went away and left us a lot.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Children should never be left alone. Your mommy was wrong to do that.”
“She told me not to tell anybody, especially Daddy.”
“Thank you for telling me anyway. That was the right thing to do, and your mommy was wrong to say otherwise.”
“She said bad people would come and take us away if I told. Will they?”
“No chance. I won’t let them. Your daddy won’t let them. Gram and Grandpa won’t let them.”
“Then why did she say that?”
I no longer knew the reason my sister did anything, but it wasn’t my job to make Holly hate her mother. Sadly, Wendy was well on the road to making that happen on her own.
I felt my way. “Sometimes people do things they shouldn’t, and then they tell lies to cover up. And sometimes when people are unhappy, they do bad things. Maybe your mommy is unhappy. It’s still very, very wrong to leave kids alone, no matter what. But it might explain it a little.”
“Can we keep living with you? Until Daddy comes back? What if Mommy comes home? Will she make us live with her? Will she take us away?”
“You don’t have to worry. If she does come home, it won’t be for a long, long time, and your daddy and I will make sure we’re the ones taking care of you, no matter what.”
“Noelle misses her. Noelle cries because she’s gone. But I don’t miss her. I hope I never see her again.”
I sniffed back more tears. I remember Noelle’s hidden stash of Wendy’s discarded objects, so lovingly assembled. “The best thing we can do is try to make your sister happy whenever we can. And you, too. Just remember I’m not going to let anything bad happen, okay? You can sleep at night and not worry. That’s a promise.”
“Can I sleep in your bed?”
“With Biz? Sure.”
“I love you, Aunt Ryan.”
There was no hope of damming tears now. I cried and held her. “I love you, too.”
Just weeks ago I’d wondered how I was going to cope with Holly and her sister. I’d only come to take care of them because Wendy had demanded it. My nieces, my sisters, gifts from the universe that Wendy had thrown away like the weekly trash.
I would fight for these children, no matter what that meant, no matter where it happened or why. If my parents tried to protect Wendy, I would still find a way to keep her from Holly and Noelle. Forever. Even if I had to take both girls and run.
If I’d had any lingering doubts about my sister, I no longer did. Our final battle had begun. And I was ready.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Sitting in my rental car across the street from the Pronghorn post office in southwestern Utah, I had to admit that Teo had been right. Stakeouts were the absolute pits, and worse? This one gave me too much time to think. Other than turning on the engine to heat the car, sipping hot coffee from nearby Pizza Pleasures or snuggling under the extra blankets I’d borrowed from my bed and breakfast, there wasn’t much to do.
For three days I had parked in the same spot to watch post office patrons come and go with their mail. And for three days I had considered and reconsidered how best to bring an end to this chapter in my family’s life.
I was beginning to recognize the regulars. First thing every morning two middle-aged men in cowboy hats strode inside together, leaving the engine running on an ancient Dodge pickup. About an hour later a dark-haired mother dragged two protesting preschoolers inside, probably afraid if she let go of their hands they would leap into the snow banked outside the parking lot.
My favorite was a regal old man with a cane, silver knob glinting in the winter sunlight. He came precisely at one o’clock and held his head like a king. Yesterday he’d slipped on a patch of ice, but as I grabbed my door handle to cross the street and help, he scrambled up and continued inside. I was glad I
hadn’t offered my services. He wouldn’t have liked it.
I thought about texting Teo to tell him that so far the stakeout hadn’t been successful. But I didn’t. We had only seen each other once since dinner at Seabank Seafood, and the encounter hadn’t gone well. Just before my flight to Las Vegas, I’d stopped by the kennel to return Bismarck. While my mother had volunteered to keep both dog and girls, Holly and Noelle had gone to Gulf Sands alone. With no reason to break into the town house, Jonah was no longer a threat. Bismarck’s days as our security dog were over.
At Confidence K-9s Teo had met me in the parking lot, leaving me to wonder if he no longer wanted me inside. He’d nodded a greeting before he leaned over to speak fondly to his favorite canine, then he straightened and inclined his head in question.
“I hate this,” I said. He knew what I was talking about, since I’d told him what I planned to do on the phone that morning.
“So you’re really going to confront Wendy?”
As careful as my sister had been from the very beginning, she had not anticipated that the postal service would be her worst enemy. If she didn’t move on before I got there, I knew I would find her in Utah.
“I got a good flight from Fort Lauderdale, so I can swing by Delray and pack a few winter things before I go. I’ll fly into Las Vegas and drive to a little town called Pronghorn. It’s not far from Bryce Canyon, and it’s supposed to be beautiful country, even in winter. I was lucky to find a place to stay.”
“Yeah, lucky.”
“I can’t imagine Wendy hiding in a place like that. She’s not the outdoor type. And there’s nothing to do this time of year except enjoy the snow.”
He didn’t answer. I grimaced. “You’re not going to help here, are you?”
“You don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to hear it, Teo. I just have to do this my way.”
“Believe it or not, I know.”
“But it makes you angry.”
“No, I’m not angry. I am...” He shook his head. “This place you’re talking about? You say it’s in the middle of nowhere? Doesn’t that strike you as risky?”
A Family of Strangers Page 39
