I Mean You No Harm

by Beth Castrodale

  Now, frustration returned, and anger. “So, what am I supposed to do? Magically stop thinking about him?”

  “That’s not what I’m suggesting. What I’m suggesting is that we work out a plan.” Layla sat back, withdrawing her hand. “I’m all ears.”

  Bette started out with a series of questions:

  Had Layla filed a police report? Not at first, but eventually yes.

  Had she kept the packages, as evidence? Yes.

  Had she seen signs of anyone trailing her on foot or by car, or watching her house? So far, no. Thank God.

  She thought of the white car that Bette had seemed so troubled by. It rang no bells with Layla when she first saw it, or now, and she wanted to believe what she had before: that it was nothing more than a mysterious trigger of Bette’s road anxiety. But at this moment, that wasn’t so easy.

  “What about phone calls?” Bette asked. “Anything weird on that front?”

  The waitress passed by, waving to the toddler. A reminder of kindness in the world.

  “No calls. But yesterday, I got a weird text. Lemme show you.”

  Layla called up the text and handed over her phone. Bette studied the screen for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she asked, “You go to church?”

  “Nope. I’m not a Bible aficionado either.”

  “Do you know anyone who is?”

  “No. I mean, not that I’m aware of.” Layla took another sip of her ginger ale, tried to put her thoughts together. “The optimistic part of me wants to believe the text was sent in error. Or by some gospel-bot. The not-so-optimistic part of me wonders if someone’s following me, or wants to. Like the creep who sent me the packages.”

  Bette gave the screen another look, then handed back the phone. “I’m betting on the optimist. But if you get any more of these texts, let me know right away.”

  “Do you think they could be traced?”

  “If they turn into something more personal or threatening, yes. That would open up more doors with law enforcement. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? For now, let’s talk self-defense.”

  That reminded Layla of her new home security system, which she mentioned to Bette. Though it was the cheapest one she could find, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep making the monthly payments.

  Layla didn’t mention the hammer she’d started keeping under her bed back home. Most likely, Bette would find this lame.

  “Good,” Bette said. “When we get back from this trip, I’ll hook you up with a self-defense course. A good one’ll cover pretty much every threat, including stalkers.”

  “Thanks.” Though this was very kind, it didn’t make Layla feel any safer.

  “One thing they’ll probably recommend is pepper spray, and they’ll train you with it. But you might wanna go a step beyond that, weapon-wise.”

  It took Layla a moment to figure out what Bette meant. Remembering what she’d found in the glove compartment, she felt a fresh chill. “No, no, no. No guns.”

  Bette raised her hands, a gesture of surrender.

  “Ba, ba, bah!”

  The toddler. She was slapping the tray of the highchair, sending Cheerios flying. Undeterred and still smiling, the mother eased a spoon of food toward the child’s mouth, which opened wide.

  Layla imagined that in some alternative universe, she might be in that mother’s place, and happily. But as much as she liked kids, she could barely take care of herself. She couldn’t envision a time when she’d have the emotional—let alone financial— capacity to look after another human responsibly.

  She noticed that Bette had been watching her, smiling. To cut off any questions about babies or motherhood, Layla asked, “Should we get the check?”

  “Sure.”

  As they settled up, Bette gave her the security-guard look. “Do you really like musicals?”

  “Nope. Except for Singin’ in the Rain.”

  Years ago, Layla had come across the movie by accident, while flipping through channels on the basement TV. Somehow, the sight of Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor dancing up and down stairs and furniture, collectively tipping a couch, pulled her from a pit of adolescent despair. Though the actors seemed at nonstop risk of breaking their necks, they sidestepped doom gracefully, full of joy.

  Cats was another story. It was the musical Layla most disliked, at least partly because she’d felt forced to sit through a community-theater production that lasted nearly three hours, all because a friend’s mother had a bit part in it. Beyond that, the cats unsettled her, because they so clearly weren’t cats but creepily costumed humans. During the show, Layla imagined the performers turning into real cats and darting off in search of privacy or prey.

  “Well, I hate every single one I’ve seen,” Bette said. “Though I might give Singin’ in the Rain a chance, on your recommendation.”

  “You should.”

  Surely, the stalker hadn’t known of Layla’s general dislike of musicals. Surely, his choice of the Cats postcard, and the magnet and notepad, had just been an unfortunate coincidence.

  Chapter 9

  Some Chain Hotel Near

  Effingham, Illinois

  Layla slipped in and out of sleep, disoriented by the bed that was far plusher than she was used to, and by the shadows that had no correspondence with the ones in her bedroom at home. The strangeness cut her loose in space and time. So did the unfamiliar figure sitting on the window ledge.

  Bette.

  Bette, who’d taken the bed closer to the door, as she’d done during their first motel stay, all those years ago.

  “Just a habit,” she’d explained, when they first entered the room.

  Now, Bette parted the street-lit curtains, looked out at the parking lot as if she were expecting someone. Was she? Layla fought the urge to ask her, wanting to believe that Bette was experiencing an especially bad jag of the insomnia she claimed to be troubled by. Or was this an extension of her road anxiety? The gun, at least, was nowhere in sight.

  The gun. Holy shit.

  Layla rolled away from Bette, toward the lamp on the nightstand: a bowling-pin-shaped number of clear, golden glass, an amber lightbulb at its center. When she and Bette had first entered the room, Layla had taken it, and the abstract prints on the walls, to be an attempt to give the room an air of sophistication. Now, in the dimness, it called to mind the glowing-owl lamp that used to be her mom’s, and that Layla had kept by her bed for as long as she could remember. As a child, before drifting off to sleep, Layla would gaze into the glow, thinking that her mom had done the same thing. She would imagine that the owl had stored her mom’s stares and was slowly giving them back, like the moon returned light from the sun. It seemed that if her mother were present anywhere, it would be in that lamp and in the drawings and diaries Layla got when she was older.

  Once, years ago, Layla had hoped that some trace of Sara might have remained in the Red Rose Diner, where she’d worked so many hours and drawn so many of her pictures. Where she’d met Vic.

  Until her eighteenth birthday, when she got the diaries, Layla never had gone to the Red Rose. Her grandparents never took her there—for good reason, as she came to understand. They wouldn’t even drive past it—taking a series of winding back roads to get into town, instead of the much faster Route 19, where the diner’s flashing neon rose beckoned night and day.

  After reading the diaries, Layla visited the Red Rose just once. At the time, she felt as though she were betraying her grandparents, a sensation intensified by the fact that she’d borrowed their LeSabre to make the trip, and nearly side-swiped a minivan as she pulled into a space in the diner’s parking lot.

  Inside, the diner looked much like the picture the diary entries had made in her mind: booths along two adjoining walls, tables in the middle, and a counter and stools opposite the entrance. Behind the c
ounter, the kitchen. The corner booth—Vic’s old spot—was wider than the others, its vinyl more worn. At the time of Layla’s visit, a tiny grandmotherly woman occupied the booth, looking dwarfed as she sipped a milkshake. Because Layla had arrived at an off hour, two or three in the afternoon, there were just a few other customers, all of them older, none of them looking the least bit like the “hoods” her grandpa talked about.

  The only differences between what Layla had imagined and what she saw and felt? The booths and padded stools were turquoise, not red. The dessert case stood to the left of the counter, not the right.

  Then there was the absence of that thing she’d most hoped for, however foolishly: the sense that she wasn’t in an ordinary diner, the sense—a drop in temperature? a flickering of the fluorescent lights? a shadowing at the edge of her vision?—that her mother was present and watching her, waiting to see what she’d do.

  Down to the fat-fryer smell in the air, this diner was ordinary in every way.

  As Layla turned to leave, a harried-looking waitress bustled from the kitchen, made an effort to smile.

  “Sorry for the wait, honey. Sit anywhere you want.”

  No thanks, I changed my mind. Layla was about to say this, until she saw the waitress’s name badge: Bitsy.

  “Not ashamed of my fake red hair” Bitsy.

  Never-forget-a-birthday Bitsy.

  Time-for-a-bitch-session Bitsy.

  Layla remembered these details from the diaries and figured the Bitsy standing before her had to be the one her mom had mentioned several times. How many women with that name could there be in this town, much less at the Red Rose Diner? And this Bitsy’s hair was the red of a troll doll’s—no way its natural color.

  Layla took a seat at a two-person table and ordered a slice of chocolate cake, knowing she didn’t have enough money for one of the sandwich plates advertised on the menu. As Bitsy delivered the cake to the table, her eyes lingered on Layla’s face as if she were seeing her—really seeing her—for the first time.

  “I’m Sara Shawn’s daughter. Layla.” She blurted the words, before her courage could flee.

  Bitsy froze, still holding the slice of cake. For a long moment, she stared at Layla. Then, gently, she placed the cake in front of her. “I should have known. You’re her spitting image.”

  She reached for Layla’s shoulder, then pulled back, as if uncertain of herself. “I’m so sorry about what happened, honey.”

  What did she mean by what happened? What did she think happened? Later, Layla wished she’d asked. At the time, she stared at her cake, not knowing what to say.

  “Your mother was the best.” Bitsy looked like she was trying to smile, trying to put on a brave face. “Kind to the bottom of her soul. And I know she loved you to pieces.”

  Layla was embarrassed by the tears welling in her eyes, embarrassed that she’d made this stranger feel obligated to comfort her. But Bitsy seemed to be retreating back into her own world. As she studied Layla, her attempt at a smile faded.

  “Your mom was kind, but she didn’t take any crap. And you shouldn’t either. Not from anyone.”

  Layla knew there was a whole story behind this piece of advice, this warning. But at the time, she was afraid to ask what the story was. At the time, all she said was, “Okay.”

  Bitsy waited, as if for something more. Then she said, “That cake’s on the house, hon. Let me get you a glass of milk.”

  Layla no longer wanted the cake, but it didn’t feel right to leave the gift of it behind, untouched. She took one bite, chewed it, got it down. Then she got up and walked out.

  Now, Layla rolled away from the lamp by her bed, fully awake. She stretched and groaned, louder than she’d meant to, getting Bette’s attention.

  “You can’t sleep either, huh?” Bette said.

  “Seems not.”

  “Are those packages still on your mind?”

  “Yeah, that’s part of it.”

  Bette got down from the window ledge, leaned back against it. “You wanna talk about the other part?”

  Where to begin? Layla thought. “I’ve just been thinking about my mom, and how far I feel from finding the guy who … who’s responsible for what happened. Even if I did, maybe he’s dead by now.”

  At this moment, her mother’s drawing of the man from the diner felt more cruel than possibly helpful: something that was just getting up her hopes that she’d uncover something important.

  Bette crossed her arms in front of her, her features obscure in the dimness.

  “Mind if I ask what you do know? It’s unlikely I’ll have any light to shed, but I’d be happy to hear you out. If you think that might help.”

  Layla doubted that sharing the story with Bette would yield any new revelations. But if neither one of them could sleep, why not try to make some use of the time? And maybe it would help Layla feel a little less alone with what she’d learned of her mother’s end, a loneliness she’d felt more acutely since her grandparents’ deaths.

  “I think it would,” Layla said. “I’m just not sure where to start.”

  “What about the hours leading up to her death? Do you have any details on that?” Layla did: details her grandparents had revealed to her slowly over the years, as she prodded them for more and more information, and as they felt more and more willing, or obligated, to share it.

  “Last time my grandparents saw her, it was a Sunday, one of her ‘drawing days,’ as she called them. She’d do her morning shift at the diner, then head off somewhere with her sketchpad, just for a couple of hours. She’d usually be home by three, and always before dark. But that Sunday, she never made it back.”

  “Did she always go right from her shift to her drawing?”

  “That’s what my grandparents told me.” The way Alice and Roy described it, this time was precious to her mom. Surely, she wouldn’t want to waste a minute of it.

  Bette eased herself into the chair by the window. Silhouetted by the street-lit curtain, she looked thinner, frailer than she seemed by daylight.

  “Did she always go to the same place to draw? Or did she have any favorite spots?”

  “She liked to go different places, for variety.”

  Alice and Roy remembered Sara mentioning the Hillcrest Mall, Devon Lake, and Grandview Park. Though she’d never spoken of Ross Woods, that didn’t mean she never went there before that last day. Birds, trees, and leaves were some of her favorite things to draw.

  “So, what happened next?” Bette asked.

  This part of the story always brought her grandparents to Layla’s mind, in scenes that she’d never witnessed but that seemed as real as if she’d been right there with them as the sun drew down on what had been, by Alice’s mournful description, a “gorgeous, golden” October day. Layla saw Roy pacing the living room the way he always did when something seemed to be troubling him, never sharing his thoughts. She saw Alice at the kitchen table, grasping a cooling cup of coffee, never drinking it. The wall phone was to her left, and soon she’d be using it.

  “My grandma called the diner first and asked if my mom took another shift. The person she talked to said she’d left at twelve-thirty, like she always did on Sundays. Then, my grandma called all Mom’s friends she knew how to reach, and asked if she was with them, or if they knew where she might be. No luck.”

  Layla didn’t mention something that Bette had to be thinking: almost certainly, Vic had come to Alice’s mind that evening, and Roy’s. Though he was in police custody at the time, he’d “sown a lot of trouble,” in Roy’s words. In time, he and Alice came to believe that, somehow, that trouble must have entangled Sara, even if Vic had played no direct role.

  Feeling a crick in her neck, Layla plumped her pillow, which was way fluffier than any she’d ever owned. Though this hotel chain wasn’t exactly the Four Seasons, their room was a far cry from the one t
hey’d shared at that shitty motel years ago. If Bette had any shower shoes in her roller bag, she hadn’t brought them out.

  Layla went on with the story: “While my grandma made the phone calls, my grandpa drove to drawing spots my mom had mentioned before. When he struck out, he just kept driving around town, looking until he ran out of ideas. When he finally gave up and went home, he and my grandma decided to call the cops.”

  “Let me guess what happened,” Bette said. “Pretty much nothing.”

  “That’s right. I think someone took down the information, but they basically said, ‘Adults can be missing if they choose to,’ and they told my grandpa to give it another day or two before going into worry overdrive. I think those were the actual words.”

  But soon, there was no more cause for worry, or for further searching. Just after dawn the next day, a couple discovered Sara’s body in Ross Woods while walking their dog. As quickly as she could, Layla told Bette how they’d found her: a scene that anyone would take as a suicide at first glance, if they didn’t know the full story.

  “The medical examiner took it that way, too,” Layla said. “So did the cops. And the case was closed. If any evidence was collected at the scene, the police don’t have any record of it.” That was what they told Layla anyway, when she posed the question several years ago. She’d hoped that if there were any evidence, it might be tested for DNA, an option that wasn’t available to her grandparents back when her mother was found.

  Bette sat forward, rested her elbows against the arms of her chair. “I’d like to ask you some questions. Questions that might sound kind of hard-edged. I just wanna try to get a better picture of things.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Bette settled back in her chair. “Was Ross Woods a walk or drive from the diner?”

  “A drive.”

  “Was any car found near the scene?”