Turning Secrets

by Brenda Chapman

  Emily had said that Vanessa’s boyfriend picked her up every day after school. Dawn wondered what that felt like … to have someone care about you enough to drive to wherever you were, every single day. She zipped up her coat and readjusted her knapsack before crossing the street. The sun was warm on her skin even with the coolness in the air. She could see the buds on the bushes and trees; they were greener than the day before. Blue spring flowers dotted the lawn in front of a house and vivid red tulips lined the walkway. As she watched two robins hop across the lawn, she thought after all that she might not like having someone pick her up every day. The very idea was suffocating. She liked being alone with her thoughts. Doing what she wanted.

  That was what people didn’t get.

  She wasn’t upset about being an outsider. She liked Emily but could just as easily never hang out with her again. She didn’t need anybody else to make her world complete. As long as she had Kala and Taiku to go home to, she could handle the rest. The thought of being taken from them again was the only thing that terrified her in the middle of the night.

  They were the only ones she couldn’t bear to lose.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Marci Stokes looked up from her computer as Rick dropped into the seat across from her desk. “Such a long day,” he said, stretching his arms over his head. The entertainment beat is heating up lately and I’ve been out every night this week covering events. “You still working on the suicide?”

  “Not a suicide any longer. Police are thinking murder. And the girl has a name. Nadia Armstrong.”

  “I guess you have the inside track.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My sources tell me you’re in thick with the head of Major Crimes.”

  Marci didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. Not for the first time, she considered the fallout of dating Rouleau. She didn’t see the relationship impacting her work much but he’d be under scrutiny. “He doesn’t share information about cases,” she said. “Tell your sources that.” She wouldn’t reveal even to Rick that her info was coming from Woodhouse.

  Rick waved a dismissive hand. “They wouldn’t believe me. Everyone likes to think the worst of others. Makes life just that much more delicious. Does Scotty know who you’re climbing into bed with?”

  “Do you honestly think he’d care?”

  “Well, he is running the paper and he hates getting blindsided.”

  “For God’s sake, Rick. It’s not as if I’m doing anything illegal.”

  “Girl, we’ll leave that talk for another day.” Rick gave what passed as a lecherous leer and stood, smoothing down his blue velvet jacket. “Well, I’m off to cover the spring fashion show at the mall. Catch you later.”

  “Yeah, later. I’ll be avidly awaiting your report on the must-haves for my spring wardrobe.”

  “As if.” Rick shook his head and feigned sadness before walking away.

  Marci looked down at the clothes she’d put on that morning, actually inspecting them for the first time. Perhaps she should have ironed the striped blue shirt. Her black pants had definitely needed an iron but she’d been running late. She promised herself a trip to the mall to replace the scuffed leather boots that she’d worn for the past decade, turning her attention back to the document she’d been typing before Rick’s interruption.

  A half hour later, she was woefully aware of the gaps in her story about Nadia Armstrong. She had nothing about the woman’s life in Kingston or her past except that she’d grown up in Ottawa. It was as if Nadia had avoided social media; she didn’t even have a Facebook account that Marci could find. She thought for a moment. Scotty would have to approve a trip to the nation’s capital to dig into Nadia’s background. Marci figured she could talk him into covering expenses for at least a day. Maybe he’d even spring for a night in a motel so she could spend two days tracking down sources.

  Rather than try to see him in person, she dashed off a note outlining her reasons for going to Ottawa and asking for his approval for the trip — Scotty had been hard to pin down lately, always in meetings. She reached for her coat slung over the back of the chair. She’d take a run past the apartment building where Nadia had lived and see if she could meet with any of the tenants. Then she hesitated, her arm halfway into her sleeve, and sat back down. She had the name of the woman who’d reported Nadia missing somewhere in her notes. It would take a minute to find but would be the perfect place to start her inquiries. Marci had a couple of hours before Rouleau would be stopping by her place for supper — plenty of time to check out the apartment building and then pick up something premade on her way home.

  Twenty minutes later, she cruised past Bellevue Towers, craning her neck to get a closer look at the four-storey building. The houses on either side of it looked tired and worn, resigned to life in the shadow of the badly maintained low-rise. The roof of the two-storey grey-brick house on the left was black in places, its eavestrough hanging at a drunken angle. The homeowner on the other side hadn’t bothered to wheel their garbage bins back from the curb and chunks of decaying food and soggy newspapers were strewn across the sparse brown grass. The sun was on the decline and it sparkled off the jagged pieces of a broken bottle scattered across the road.

  Lovely, thought Marci, as she drove around the smashed bottle and farther up the street, looking for a safe place to park her car. She doubled back on foot and walked up the concrete walkway to the front door. The intercom appeared to be working; she rang Teagan McPherson’s apartment. A moment later, a woman’s voice with a lovely Irish lilt answered and agreed to buzz her in. Marci took the stairs to the second floor, covering her nose to keep out the pungent aroma of cooking grease, dank mould, and unwashed bodies — although she might have been imagining that last smell.

  A woman with carrot-coloured hair answered the door. She was holding a wooden spoon and her white sweatshirt was stained with splotches of something brown. “Come back to the kitchen,” she said.

  Marci followed the woman and the scent of cooking meat and onions down the hallway, stepping around children’s shoes and bookbags. “Whatever you’re cooking smells delicious,” she said, sitting on the stool that Teagan cleared off and pulled out for her.

  “The kitchen’s a bit of a tip, but I’ve been baking and freezing apple pies and I’m now working on a lamb stew. My mother’s recipe. I have to pick up the kids from an after-school program in twenty minutes so I’ll finish this up as we talk.”

  Marci took a subtle look around before fishing in her bag for her notebook. The kitchen was more than “tipped”; it had been upended and coated in flour and lord knows what else. Marci’s fingers landed on a pen. “When did you move here from Ireland?”

  “I immigrated with my parents when I was ten. The accent should have worn off by now but I can’t seem to shake it. My parents’ influence, I guess.” She laughed before turning back to the stove. “You want to know about Nadia. I haven’t much to tell.”

  “You were looking after her baby. She must have trusted you.”

  “I suppose because I have two bairns myself, she felt I was as good a choice as any. She wasn’t overly friendly. Kept to herself.”

  “Did she say anything about how she’d ended up in this apartment building?”

  “She told me that she saw an ad for a vacant apartment and met with the owner. This place isn’t much, but it’s a safe area and there is a super on hand to fix things. Jeff Simmons is a bit of a mog, but handy.”

  “Mog?”

  “Sorry. A simple bloke. As far as I can tell, he’s only here because his brother Murray owns the building, although I must say Jeff’s a hard-working lad and tries his best.”

  “Got it.” Marci made a note of their names.

  Teagan set the wooden spoon down next to the stove and spun back to look at her. “Nadia did mention that she’d been living with her sister in Brockville but thought it was time to leave. She said that she planned to finish high school and then go to college.
I’d have thought she’d have an easier time finishing high school courses while living with family to help out with baby Hugo, but I didn’t voice my opinion since it was none of my business.”

  “Understood. Do you have the sister’s name?”

  “No, sorry.” Teagan reached across the counter for the pot lid and turned down the heat on her stew. She half turned. “Lorraine? Yeah, she called her sister Lorraine.”

  Marci knew Teagan was preparing to leave to pick up her kids. She felt the interview slipping away. “How long had Nadia been living in this building?”

  “Five, no, six months. She moved in late November, I know that much. Sorry, but I really must be going. The staff get huffy if we arrive late to get the kids.”

  Marci stood and reached into her pocket for a business card. “Please call this number anytime if you remember something else.”

  Teagan took the card and set it on top of a stack of takeout flyers on the counter. “I feel bad about Nadia. I wish now that I had gotten to know her better. We’re both single moms and it’s a tough slog, especially on minimum wage — or welfare, in my case.”

  Marci nodded in what she hoped looked like commiseration and started down the hallway, followed by Teagan. “It’s never easy when somebody you know dies, no matter how slim the connection.”

  “She didn’t deserve what happened to her. Not even if she was messing in something she shouldn’t have been.”

  Marci, at the front door now, turned to ask what Teagan meant by that, but a phone rang from deep in the apartment. Teagan said, “See yourself out. I have to take this.” With that, she disappeared into what Marci assumed was a back bedroom, and Marci had no choice but to exit the apartment. She stood in the outer hallway, wondering if she should wait for Teagan to come out, but as the seconds stretched into minutes, Marci decided to leave it for the time being.

  For someone racing to pick up your kids, you seem to have gotten sidetracked very easily, she thought as she pushed open the door to the stairwell. She took one last look down the empty hallway before letting the door slam behind her. Once she reached the lobby, she searched for Jeff the super but he was nowhere to be found. She exited the building with more questions than answers but at least she had a new avenue of inquiry to pursue. She’d track down the sister’s name and address and be on the road to Brockville first thing in the morning. No need to run the one-hour trip up the highway past Scotty, since it wasn’t an overnighter. If he approved her request for money to visit Ottawa, she’d do the entire circuit.

  “That your friend?” asked Leo, leaning sideways to see past Vanessa out her passenger window. She imagined his eyes all lit up with possibilities behind the dark sunglasses and didn’t know what to do about the emotions rippling through her. The first was jealousy that he was sizing up another girl followed by unease as to where his interest could lead.

  “I don’t know her that well.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Dawn.”

  “Dawn what?”

  “I don’t know.” She wasn’t about to make it easy for him.

  “What’s her story?”

  Vanessa sighed and looked out the window. She jumped when Leo slammed the steering wheel with the flat of his hand, then began talking fast. “She lives with her aunt. I have no idea where her parents are but she was in foster care last summer for a while. I really don’t know anything else about her except she’s smart in school.”

  Leo showed his teeth in his idea of a smile. “Now was that so hard?” He turned his face sideways and said over his shoulder, “Whaddaya think, Shawn B.? Your next girlfriend?”

  “I dunno. Wasn’t looking.” The man with the black beard, stretched out in the back seat, lifted the baseball cap covering his face, opened his eyes, and shut them again.

  Vanessa kept her gaze forward. She focused on a mother pushing a stroller on the next block. Leo turned right at the stop sign, and she was sorry not to get a closer look at the woman’s face. For one second, she’d reminded Vanessa of her own mother when she was younger. It took her a moment to return to herself and feel Leo’s hand on her thigh, sliding up under her jacket. His voice was playful and she was immediately on guard.

  “I thought Shawn B. would come with us today. We can fool around a while and then I have a couple of paying customers lined up.”

  “I told you I don’t want to do that anymore. You said I could stop.”

  “Yeah, well, we need the money.”

  “It makes me feel bad.”

  “You know I love you, baby. I’m always going to look after you.” His hand was rubbing her stomach above the belt of her jeans. “I just need you to do this for me. For a while until I’m back on my feet.”

  He didn’t need to mention the video and the photos he’d taken of her. He’d only had to threaten her once with putting them out on social media, sending them to her parents and teachers. She felt her resolve crumbling but she wouldn’t cry. Not this time. Her tears only made him colder. She shivered, thinking about having the man in the back seat’s hands all over her.

  She wondered how her life had turned into this. What would Emily and Chelsea think of her if they knew? Would her parents disown her?

  “I have to be home by six,” she said. “My mother’s been asking where I go after school.”

  “I thought you said that she doesn’t care where you are.”

  “She didn’t, but she’s starting to notice I’m never around.”

  Leo was silent. He removed his hand from her stomach and turned the volume up on the radio.

  “All right. My man Drake,” said Shawn B. from the back seat.

  They travelled out of the downtown area and farther north, and Vanessa’s stomach clenched tighter with every kilometre. Leo turned the car into the Blue Nights Motel, then reached over and rubbed the side of her face with his knuckles. She flinched before making herself hold very still. He’d hurt her a couple of times where nobody could see and she knew better than to make him angry. Resisting made him angriest of all.

  “I’ve been thinking all day about what I’m going to do to you,” he said above the music. “There’s nobody I’d rather be with — you know that, right, baby?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  She looked over to the far end of the parking lot. There was another girl here the week before. She’d been walking with a tall man in a grey suit toward a room at the other end of the building, hanging on to his arm, her head thrown back, laughing. Her face had turned and their eyes had met for a split second before the girl looked away. Help me, Vanessa had wanted to say, but she hadn’t, and she knew now that the other girl was in no position to help her or anybody else.

  Vanessa had told Leo once that she loved him. Before he made her have sex with the other men. She couldn’t bear to think about how naive and gullible she’d been at the start. She’d thought Leo was going to be her saviour. He must have been laughing at her the entire time, thinking about how easy she’d been to reel in. About what he planned to do to her.

  “Might be time you brought me home for supper,” Leo said after he turned off the engine. She could make out the round orbs of his eyes behind the glasses. “I could soften up your mom, then we can spend more time together.”

  Vanessa tried to keep the panic from showing in her eyes. She nodded, letting her hair swing forward to hide her face. He had to be teasing her. He’d never want her family to meet him. Tears welled up in her eyes and she reached blindly for the door handle. As she stepped out of the car, she blinked hard and glanced again toward the room that the other girl had entered with the man, but she knew already that the girl wouldn’t be there.

  The girl would never be there ever again.

  Because Vanessa had seen the girl’s picture on the news that very morning as she was eating breakfast. A smiling version of the girl she’d seen walking and laughing with the man in the grey suit. The girl in the photo onscreen was a bit younger, and her hair was brown, not coal black,
but there was no mistaking the eyes or the diamond glinting above her lip. Vanessa had listened to the reporter laying out the facts with growing horror. The girl she’d seen across the parking lot had been found dead not far from this very motel. The girl with the piercing eyes that had locked with hers in a moment of shared connection. Splattered on the pavement after falling several storeys from a half-built hotel.

  Vanessa waited for Leo to unlock the door to their room, and all thoughts of running away vanished. Where would she even run with all that Leo had on her — and this place in the middle of nowhere? Had the other girl tried to run away?

  “Check it out. I bought you a present,” said Leo, pointing to a package on the bed. “Some sexy red underwear ought to keep our customers coming back for more.” He laid his arm across her shoulders before giving her a playful push. “Go put it on and Shawn B. and I will get the party started.”

  Vanessa watched herself walk over to the bed and pick up the package. Fear kept her moving, her desire to please Leo long dead. With every after-school trip to this motel, she felt herself disappearing.

  When she’d met him, she thought that Leo was going to be the one — the person to make her forget that her parents hated each other, to calm the rage she felt every time they screamed in front of her like a couple of five-year-olds. The one to make her feel like she was somebody worth loving.

  What she wouldn’t give to feel that rage again instead of this deadness inside. What she wouldn’t give to be home right now with her dysfunctional family, not knowing now what she didn’t know then.

  If only she’d never accepted Leo’s friend request on Facebook.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “What are you going to do today?” asked Kala as she placed a bowl of oatmeal and blueberries in front of Dawn. She’d gotten up early to prepare breakfast and spend a bit of time with Dawn before she left for the day. “I’m sorry about having to cancel the visit to your mom.”

  Dawn looked up from her iPad. “I’m going to art class downtown. Emily asked me if I wanted to catch a movie a few days ago. Maybe I’ll see if she still wants to.”