“What can we do for you today?” Vic asked. “I’m afraid Terry isn’t here, if you were looking for him to sign something…”
“I’m not looking for Officer Piper,” Clara said. She waited for Mrs. Foster to pick up her bag and depart. She leaned in toward Erin. “You should not be using police resources for your own personal investigations,” she warned. “Terry may look the other way, but I think if the sheriff knew, that would be a different story. And if someone further up the line figured out what was going on…”
“Who is further up the line than the sheriff?”
“The mayor, for one. You really want the mayor investigating Officer Piper for misuse of department funds? How do you think that would end?”
Erin swallowed. She hadn’t really thought about the possibility that Terry could get in trouble for running background on Charlotte Campbell for her. He was the one who had offered. Terry was always conscientious about his time, and Erin was sure he would have conducted the background search on his own time, not the department’s. As far as using department resources… she had assumed that they had a monthly subscription to the databases, not that they were charged per transaction.
“You’d have to bring that up with Terry,” she said icily. “He knows all of the ins and outs of the system and the politics, I don’t. I don’t see why you’d come here to harass me about it.”
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw those printouts,” Clara said, eyes glittering. Her smile made Erin think of a shark. “I couldn’t think of what trouble the Dyson clan would be up to in our town.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know anything about it.”
“He told you about them, didn’t he? You being from Maine, I could understand you not knowing what you were getting into with this family, though I would think that someone like Victor, growing up in these parts…”
“Don’t call me that,” Vic growled. Her tone was hard and Erin could see that Clara was surprised, having miscalculated how far she could push Vic before the girl would snap. Erin knew that Vic hadn’t even gone by Victor before transitioning, so it was doubly insulting. Not like she was just an acquaintance who had forgotten what Vic’s preferred name was, but making it obvious that she was intentionally misgendering her.
“Well, I’m sure sorry,” Clara said dramatically, clearly not one bit sorry for what she had done. “I can’t keep straight what it is you want to be called…”
Vic’s mouth was in a tight, forced smile. “Since you’re not actually a customer here—”
“Oh, I’ll buy something.” Clara looked over the goodies in the glass-fronted display case. “How about some gingersnaps? I don’t think you can do anything to ruin gingersnaps…”
Erin was relieved when the bells rang again, needing someone else there to help dissipate the tension. Clara turned her head to see who was coming in as well, but she didn’t get the eager audience she was hoping for. Instead, it was Willie Andrews, who Clara knew would not hesitate to jump to Vic’s side and champion her case. Clara’s mouth pursed into a sour knot while she waited for Vic to count the cookies out into a paper bag. Seeing who was there, the corners of Vic’s mouth curled up slightly, and she counted out the cookies even more slowly and deliberately.
“Hi, Vicky,” Willie’s voice was warm and pleasant, happy to see her after he’d been away on whatever business had taken him from Bald Eagle Falls. He only had eyes for her.
Vic passed the bag of cookies down to Erin, who rang them up for Clara, taking her time just as Vic had. Clara paid for them, then practically snatched the paper bag and made a dash for the door.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from the Dyson Clan,” she warned. “You’re not from around here, so maybe nobody has bothered to tell you.” She looked at Vic when she said nobody. “You better stay out of the way of the Dysons. Or you’re going to end up in a heap of trouble. The trouble you could get in from the sheriff for wasting department resources isn’t even close to what’s going to happen if you get involved with that bunch.”
The bells jangled wildly when she shoved the door open, sending them dancing. Then the door swished shut behind her.
Willie looked at Vic, then at Erin, his brows raised. His soot-stained skin made the whites of his eyes stand out even more, so he seemed almost comically surprised.
“Uh… what was that about?”
“It’s a long story,” Erin sighed.
Vic looked at her. “Can I tell him about it? Do you mind?”
Erin threw her hands up in a shrug. “No, I suppose not. Looks like it’s on its way around town now anyway. By tomorrow, everybody will be in the know.”
“It’s Erin’s new sister,” Vic said. “She got a lead on the identity, but the girl is involved with the Dyson clan. Terry did a background on her. We’ve been trying to explain to her that she should just stay away from them, give up on pursuing this woman any further. But you know Erin. Once she gets an idea into her head…”
“I’m not stubborn,” Erin protested. “I’m a perfectly reasonable person!”
Willie and Vic exchanged a look that said otherwise.
Erin rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not stubborn. You can compare me to a pit bull all you like, but that doesn’t make it accurate!”
Neither one of them said anything. Erin didn’t have anyone to argue against if they wouldn’t push back, so she let out her breath and tried to just let it go.
“Nice to see you’re back in town, Willie. Need your water refilled?”
“No, it’s good. I just wanted to see Vicky and make sure we were on for tonight.”
“I’m free if you are,” Vic agreed.
“Good. I’ll come by tonight when you’re off.”
Vic nodded, a brilliant smile advertising how happy she was to have him home again. Willie turned his gaze back to Erin, his mouth twisting into a grimace.
“And the Dysons, Erin? You really don’t want to get involved with them. When I was—I know some of them… you really don’t want to be mixed up in anything to do with that family.”
Erin arched an eyebrow. “Really. I’m sort of surprised to hear that coming from you.”
Willie was taken aback. He blinked at her. “Why? What do you mean?”
“I mean, usually, that’s what people are telling me about you. He has a past. He’s been involved in things. He has some bad connections. And I never listened to any of them.”
“Well… it’s all true. I do my best to be an upright citizen, but if you were to start digging into my skeletons… well, you might be surprised.”
“But I don’t care about your skeletons. And I don’t care about Charlotte’s. All I care about is finding her and getting to know her. If she is involved with some of these bad characters, or wants to get involved with one, that’s her business. It’s got nothing to do with me.” Erin hesitated to say anything else, then forged on. “Everybody is entitled to some privacy about their past. You don’t know everything about me, and I don’t know everything about you, and that’s okay. We should be able to evaluate each other without all of that baggage.”
Willie gave a nod. “Normally, I would go along with that. But we’re talking about a brutal gang here. Really, you don’t want to underestimate them.”
Erin considered his words. She was beginning to wonder if she could be wrong. It wasn’t like it was just one of them telling her to stay away from the Dysons. Everybody acted like they were bad news.
“I’m not joining this clan,” she pointed out. “I’m not getting involved in anything shady. I’m just talking about meeting someone who happens to have a connection to them. Do you really think they’re going to kidnap me and induct me into their dark practices?”
Vic snickered. “They’re not witches, Erin. Just… criminals.”
“Exactly. I’m not going to be committing any crimes. I just want to meet my sister.”
Chapter Nine
E
rin did think things throu
gh seriously. She considered all of the warnings from her friends. Willie’s warnings in particular, weren’t to be ignored, she’d learned in the past. She wondered what dealings he’d had with the Dysons in the past. Had he done jobs for them? Fought them for some kind of territorial right? Maybe just known some of the clan kids his age when he was going to school?
In the end, Erin had to follow her heart. She couldn’t go another twenty years without meeting her sister. Now that she knew Charlotte’s name, she couldn’t just erase her. She needed to meet her. She needed to know what her sister was like and what it was like to actually have a family relationship.
She had a phone number, but she couldn’t imagine just springing the news to someone over the phone that they were siblings. Erin had no idea what Charlotte’s past was, whether she’d had any other siblings or had grown up as an only child. Whether she had lost either of her parents. Whether she’d had good relationships or bad ones. It wasn’t something Erin could just spring on her over the phone.
She left Vic and Bella to watch the store one Friday afternoon, and headed to Moose River to find her sister.
Would Erin recognize Charlotte? She should have asked Terry if he had a picture of her. But she didn’t want any preconceived notion of what Charlotte looked like. She wanted somehow to recognize her mother or Adam Plaint in Charlotte’s features. If Charlotte didn’t look like either of them, could she really be the right person? There must have been other Charlottes out there. Plenty of people with the same birth date who could have been the missing sibling.
The information from the adoption board contact gave Erin a home address, but no work address. She had no idea what kind of work Charlotte did or what time of day she worked. She aimed for six o’clock, figuring that would give her time to get home if she had a nine-to-five job, but before she would have to leave for a night shift. Erin could be completely wrong. Charlotte could go out for dinner or drinks at six o’clock. But it was the best Erin could do.
The address was an apartment building, but Erin was able to get in without having to buzz someone from the lobby. She went to number 309 and took a few deep breaths before knocking on the door. Too quietly. She knocked again, rapping her knuckles sharply, then worried that it had been too hard and Charlotte would think it was the police. The police always knocked like they were going to break the door down if the homeowner didn’t answer right away. Erin had been roused from a deep sleep by that knock more than once.
She waited, chewing on the inside of her lip, practicing in her head exactly what she was going to say if Charlotte came to the door. To begin with, there didn’t seem to be anyone home. Erin knocked again, criticizing herself silently for even being there. She didn’t know for sure that Charlotte was her sister. She didn’t know what to say to her. She didn’t know what she would do if they didn’t have anything in common. If there was a long, awkward silence and she didn’t know how to fill it.
There were footsteps within, and then the door was opened. Not even a pause to check the peephole or call through the door to see who it was. Maybe Charlotte was expecting someone.
Erin could instantly see familiar features in her sister’s face. How many times had she wished that she looked like one of her foster sisters or a foster mother? That she was the one who belonged instead of the ugly duckling. She scrutinized her face in the mirror and saw only the vaguest resemblance to her mother’s features, and nothing of her father’s. There was no extended family to review for inherited traits she might have that had skipped her parents’ generation. No long-lost cousins to say she looked just like this aunt or that great-grandmother. The pictures in Clementine’s genealogy were black and white, too fuzzy to make out details.
“Yes…?” Charlotte asked, giving her head an impatient shake.
Erin tried to pick her jaw up from the floor and come out with something coherent. It took a bit of stammering to get her greeting out.
“Charlotte? You must be Charlotte Campbell.”
Charlotte gave a scowl. “Who are you?”
“I’m… my name is Erin. Price. I’m… well, I’ve been looking for you. Could we… sit down and talk for a few minutes?”
“I don’t have the time right now, I’m getting ready to go out.”
Probably that was just an excuse. Get rid of the crazy lady at the door and continue with whatever she had been doing before Erin arrived. Charlotte was in blue jeans and a black t-shirt that was too small for her. Erin could see the edge of a tattoo under the neckline of the shirt. She had scratches on her arms. Maybe she had a cat. She seemed far too young to be Erin’s sister. Almost as young as Vic. But Erin had known that. She knew that Charlotte was eight years younger than she was. Barely an adult.
“I’m sorry… maybe tomorrow? Could we have coffee?”
“Coffee?” Charlotte shook her head irritably. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“You don’t know me, but you’re…” Erin still couldn’t bring herself to say it right out. She considered telling Charlotte the information she had, the date and hospital where she was born, so tiny, to a mother who had been brain dead for months. But surely no one had ever given her those details, so Erin didn’t either, holding back.
“Yeah, I’m what…?”
“Are you adopted?”
Charlotte’s eyes narrowed. She looked at Erin with new understanding, looking at her face, and then up and down her, making the same comparisons as Erin was. Petite build and pleasant, small facial features. Dark brown hair. The same eye shape.
“Maybe you’d better come in.”
Charlotte opened the door wider and Erin entered. The apartment was small and sparse, but neatly furnished. Charlotte picked up a pair of socks and a few other things from the floor, giving an embarrassed laugh. “I’m really not that bad a slob, let me just pick these up…”
But it was obvious she wasn’t a slob. For the most part, everything was put away in its proper places. It was a pleasant place, if a little bare. The type of place Erin would have lived if she weren’t in Clementine’s old house. The type of place she had lived many times.
“It’s fine,” Erin assured her. “It’s not messy, it’s just comfortable.”
“Lived in,” Charlotte agreed.
Erin sat down on a couch. She swallowed and tried again to find the natural way to start the conversation. “I’m not sure what to say,” she admitted. “I guess… you might be my sister. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Your sister.” Charlotte shook her head. “But I don’t have any family. Any biological family, I mean. Both my parents died in a car accident.”
That part was true, at least.
“I know they did. But I was eight at the time. I survived the car accident. They put me into foster care.”
“Foster care. Wouldn’t they put you up for adoption, like they did me?”
“I was free for adoption… but people don’t really want eight-year-olds. Infants, but not older kids.”
“Eight isn’t that old.”
“No… I know other kids who got adopted. But mostly… if you’re older than five… you’re hard to place.”
Charlotte’s eyes searched Erin’s face. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know this isn’t just some scam?”
“Well… I guess you don’t. Not really. But I know… if you’re my sister, your biological parents would have been listed as Kathryn and Luke Price.”
Charlotte quirked her head slightly. A movement that was vaguely reminiscent of Erin’s mother. “Listed as…?”
“I believe that your father was actually Adam Plaint. Not Luke Price. Making us only half-siblings.”
“Adam Plaint. Who is that? Is he still alive?”
“No. He was… it’s a long story. He was killed about the same time.”
“So it’s just you and me.”
“On our mother’s side, yes. If Adam Plaint was your father, then you have a half-brother as well. Older. His name is Davis.”
Charlotte sat back, thinking about this. “All of this comes as a bit of a shock. I was always told I was an only child.”
A sharp pain sliced through Erin’s chest. Why had they told her that? What was the harm in sharing that she had a sister? They wouldn’t have known about Adam Plaint being her father and having other children, but they knew about Erin. Erin was there at the hospital. In the car. They put her into a foster family. DFS knew very well that baby Charlotte had a sister. Did they think it would be more attractive to her adoptive parents if she were an only child? Maybe they didn’t want to put pressure on them to adopt the two of them as a sibling group? Or had Charlotte’s adoptive parents known about her sister and not wanted to tell Charlotte about Erin? Had they wanted a child who was unconnected and would never go looking for her biological family?
“You’re not alone,” she told Charlotte.
“Of course I’m not alone,” Charlotte snapped. “I’ve got my parents, friends, a boyfriend—” She cut herself off abruptly and shook her head. “This is too much.”
She went into the little kitchen and in a minute was pouring herself a tumbler of amber liquid. “You want a drink? I can’t do this without a drink.”
Erin’s whole body was tense, her stomach a lead weight. She shook her head. “No… I don’t drink.”
“Of course little miss goody two-shoes doesn’t drink,” Charlotte muttered.
Erin looked down at herself. Had she done something to make Charlotte think she was condescending or judgmental? Was it the way she was dressed? Something she had said? Erin had been through plenty of scrapes herself and, while she might not be tattooed or a drinker, she wasn’t like one of the Bald Eagles church ladies, outwardly self-righteous and telling everyone else how to behave.
“I’m not… I just don’t drink,” she said lamely. “After our parents… the car crash… and I lived in foster homes where… I saw what it did to other people. I just… never wanted to take the chance.”
She thought of Davis and his long-time addictions. Did it run in the family? Was Charlotte already, at this tender age, an addict herself? She had certainly been quick to go for the alcohol.
Stirring Up Murder Page 5
