Guaranteed to Bleed

by Mulhern, Julie

  “Jack, are you hungry? Do you want anything? People who don’t have to come to the hospital come here just for the pie.” I glanced up at our waitress. “The best kind is coconut cream, right?”

  She nodded.

  Jack didn’t respond.

  “Two ice cream sundaes,” I told the waitress, then I turned my fractured attention on the boy who wasn’t talking. “You haven’t said a word since you called for the ambulance.”

  Jack shook the crushed ice in his water glass until it fully submerged then he shrugged.

  I dug a few dollars out of my purse and handed it to his sister. “Betty.” I pointed to the gift shop. “Would you please buy me a copy of the evening paper? And why don’t you get yourself a comic book?”

  She rose from the table. “Don’t let Jack eat my sundae.”

  “I won’t let him touch it,” I promised.

  I watched her until she disappeared inside the shop then I turned to Jack. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Another shrug.

  “You aren’t thinking this is your fault, are you?” I pretended not to see his wince. “Because it’s not. Heart attacks don’t work that way.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know because the cause of heart attacks is heart disease and you didn’t give your father heart disease. He did that himself.”

  The dark cloud on Jack’s face lifted slightly. “But—”

  I waved a finger at him. “No buts. Not your fault. Your father loves you.”

  “Does not,” Jack muttered.

  “Does too. Parents love their children—even when those children do things we don’t much like.”

  “Not Dad. If I’m not just like him, he doesn’t want me around.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t. If you did, you’d have run away with Grace and Donna.”

  The tight line of his lips softened; he ducked his head and audibly swallowed. “About that…”

  “Yes?”

  “Grace only ran away to help Donna.”

  Seventeen

  Betty sat at the formica-topped table, swung her legs, devoured her sundae and read her comic. Only a few moments passed before she dropped her spoon in her empty dish, turned the last page and commenced twiddling her thumbs, large enthusiastic twiddles that shouted, I’m bored and plotting mayhem. I gave her money for a word search book. She gave me a gratified smile then she skipped off to the gift shop.

  Jack sat and stared at his dish of melting ice cream.

  “What did you mean?” I asked. “Why did Donna have to leave?”

  He shrugged, grunted and lifted a spoon of ice cream soup to his lips.

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  He answered with a half-shrug. Only his left shoulder lifted.

  Fine.

  I rose from the table. “I need to make a call.”

  He didn’t lift his gaze from the sundae dish.

  The payphones were conveniently located in a spot where I could keep an eye on both the gift shop and the snack shop. With my gaze fixed on the gift shop entrance—who knew how much havoc Betty could wreak if she got loose in the hospital?—I dropped a dime in the phone and dialed Aggie’s number.

  She answered on the third ring.

  “Aggie, it’s Ellison Russell calling. When was the last time you saw Grace?”

  “Yesterday. Why?”

  I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “She and Donna are missing.”

  A few seconds ticked by. In her former life, Aggie worked as an investigator and silence usually means she’s thinking hard. Rather than hurry her, I craned my neck to see Betty. I couldn’t spot her but the woman behind the register looked worried.

  “Shall I come over to the house?” Aggie’s question surprised me—touched my heart.

  “I’m not at the house.” I explained about John’s heart attack and his children. “I can’t just leave them here.” Although it was very tempting.

  “No,” she agreed. “I suppose not. Have you called the police?”

  I should have done that first—before I rushed out of the house to confront Jack. If not then, I should have called before I loaded John McCreary’s children into the car and drove them to the hospital. I definitely should have called before I let Betty natter. No wonder Grace left. I was a terrible mother. “No,” I admitted.

  Aggie grunted. “Probably doesn’t matter. The police won’t take a report. Not yet. The girls have to be gone at least twenty-four hours before they’re considered missing.”

  “What if I called Detective Jones?”

  “He’s homicide. He can’t help you with Grace.”

  I could let my eyes fill with tears. I could dredge up a brave smile. I could beg.

  Who was I kidding? I could sob pitifully and it wouldn’t make a difference. Anarchy Jones would still follow the rules.

  “We have to do something!” My voice sounded unnaturally high.

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

  I let her think.

  “Did they take a car?”

  “A car? I don’t know.” I hadn’t thought to look.

  “I’ll go to the house right now. If Grace’s car is gone, we can report it stolen. That way, even if the police won’t look for Grace, they’ll look for her car.”

  “Thank you,” I breathed. Aggie was a genius.

  “We’ll find her,” Aggie promised. “When you get home, I think you ought to look at Donna’s sketchbook.”

  When I got home, I was going to put all my energy into finding my daughter, not look at sketches drawn by the girl who’d lured her away. “Uh-huh.”

  “I mean it, Mrs. Russell. You need to look at those sketches.”

  “Will they help us find the girls?”

  A dime’s worth of silence passed. “They might.” If Aggie said so, it must be true.

  Betty stepped out of the gift shop, glanced into the café, presumably saw me missing, then headed across the lobby in the wrong direction.

  “Aggie, I have to go. I’ll call you at the house.” I hung up the phone and intercepted Betty before she disappeared into the patient wing.

  We returned to the table, where Jack hadn’t moved and my coffee had cooled to the temperature of the crushed ice in the glasses. Betty flung herself into a chair, asked me for a pen, and set herself to circling words. I waved for the waitress.

  “Warm that up for you, ma’am?” she asked.

  “Maybe a fresh cup?”

  “What about you, hon?” She looked at Jack’s dish of sugary soup. “You want me to get that out of the way?”

  Another shrug. She whisked away the dirty dishes and brought my new cup in record time.

  “Ellison!” Amy McCreary flew through the coffee shop holding two four-year-olds in party dresses by the hands. She looked at our table, covered with newspapers and a comic and a word search, then dropped her daughters’ little hands. “How can I ever thank you?”

  She could let me leave. I stood.

  Standing, I was easy to hug. Amy took full advantage. Her arms circled my shoulders and she squeezed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I squeaked, trying to free myself from the vise of her arms. “I need to get home, Amy.”

  “I’ll walk you out.” She turned her gaze on her son. “Jack, watch your sisters.”

  That wouldn’t end well.

  No longer my problem.

  Amy and I stepped outside the coffee shop.

  “I talked to the doctor and it looks as if John will be fine.” She held her hand over her heart. “You saved his life by getting him to the hospital so quickly.”

  “Happy to help.” I glanced at my watch. “I do need to get home.” But…Damn. “Amy, you
ought to know…”

  “Yes?” She tilted her head to the side, probably waiting to hear that I’d fed her children ice cream for dinner. I had. Or that I’d let Betty read a comic that might give her nightmares. I had.

  “Um…Jack feels responsible. He and John were having an argument when…”

  “That boy.” She shook her head. “Jack always feels responsible. He felt responsible for Bobby’s death.” She snorted softly. “As if he could have anything to do with that. His father wasn’t home so I got to deal with all that angst by myself.”

  “Where was John?”

  “He was at the game for a while. He said it wasn’t very good.” She lowered her voice. “He left with a few friends and went out for a drink before you found the body.”

  Even I, who knew nothing about football, understood that all the cheering and the boys running with balls tucked under their arms meant an exciting game. John wouldn’t have left. I stared at Amy. Her eyes were wide and honest. She didn’t realize she was lying.

  Why had John McCreary lied about being at the game when Bobby died?

  I drove home with single-minded purpose. Donna’s sketchbook. Aggie suggested it might hold answers.

  Would it tell me why Grace and Donna disappeared?

  What they hoped to achieve?

  Where they went?

  I parked the Cadillac in the drive and got out, fumbling with the house keys. One second I had them, the next they were airborne, arcing toward the mulch where my hostas should be, were it not for their brush with death and police procedure. Damn it. I hiked up the hem of my suit, fell to my knees and dug amongst the bit of wood.

  A car pulled into the driveway and I looked up from the shrubbery. Mother’s BMW sat behind Henry’s Cadillac.

  Perfect. Just what I needed. The extra cherries on my very own sundae.

  One black leather pump touched the drive, then the other. “Ellison, what are you doing?”

  “I dropped my keys.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  About what? Grace? I could already hear the parenting lecture she’d deliver. She didn’t even need to give it. “I just haven’t had time yet.”

  “You didn’t think it was something I’d want to know right away?” She smiled at me as if I’d unexpectedly done something right.

  I blinked. I was crawling around in the shrubs wearing Chanel. Donna was missing. Grace was missing. None of those things deserved a smile.

  “Well,” her smile brightened, “I’m here now. Tell me all about it.”

  Mother was unbelievable. There! I snatched up the house keys and struggled to my feet. “You’d better come inside.” I’d tell her, then I’d send her back to central command. From the comfort of her Sister Parish-designed sitting room Mother could wage any battle, win any war, maybe even find a couple of missing teenage girls.

  I opened the door. Max waited on the other side. He saw Mother and backed away, whining softly.

  Not even the sound of a car in desperate need of a new muffler could lure him forward.

  Mother’s smile only faltered a bit when Aggie parked her ailing Bug, Bessie, behind the BMW. The smile lingered when Bessie emitted her usual death rattle. The curve of her lips even held steady when Aggie stepped out of her car wearing a retina-burning orange muumuu.

  “Are the cars here?” Aggie called across the drive.

  “I haven’t had time to look.”

  Aggie nodded then disappeared around the corner of the house.

  Mother’s smile finally gave out. “Are you quite sure about that woman?”

  I was sure. Aggie was better than an early morning swim followed by the perfect cup of coffee. She was better than shooting a hole-in-one. She was better than bidding and making a vulnerable, doubled grand slam. But my opinion mattered little—at least to Mother. I played my trump card. “Hunter recommended her, remember?”

  Mother might argue with me but Hunter’s opinions were above reproach.

  She blinked away any lingering Aggie doubts and followed me through the foyer, down the hall and into the kitchen.

  In a half-second, Mother inventoried the room’s cleanliness, organization and general appeal. Thanks to Aggie, she was unable to find fault. “I wish you wouldn’t keep the coffeemaker on the counter.”

  Well, almost unable.

  “I use it every day.”

  She sniffed.

  Enough. Grace was missing. I didn’t have time to debate where Mr. Coffee spent his nights. “What is it, Mother? What do you want?”

  She smiled at me—a high-beam smile. “Tell me all about it.”

  Mother’s smile didn’t look brave in the face of adversity, it didn’t even look like a don’t-let-the-neighbors-see-the-cracks-in-the-façade expression. Mother’s smile looked happy. Had she downed a few martinis to deal with the worry?

  I dropped my handbag on the counter. “As far as we can tell, she’s been gone since this morning.”

  She blinked. “Who?”

  Who did she think? Faye Dunaway? “Grace.” I rubbed my eyes. “Donna is missing too.”

  She stared at me, her expression fading to a more familiar expression. Utter disapproval. “My granddaughter is missing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re just telling me now?”

  Mother in a nutshell. Not where did she go? Not have you called the police? Not have you called all her friends? Instead, she offered up implicit criticism on my timing.

  A key turned in the back door and Aggie blew into the kitchen like an orange tornado. “The car is gone. You can call the police and report it.”

  “Report what?” Mother asked.

  “We’re going to report Grace’s car as stolen,” I explained.

  “If she gets pulled over, she’ll be arrested.”

  Exactly. I picked up the phone and dialed the operator. “Would you please connect me with the police?”

  “Ellison, this is a mistake.”

  I narrowed my eyes and glared at Mother. Must she question all my decisions?

  “I’ll connect you now,” said the operator.

  Mother ignored my glare. “Grace could be arrested.”

  Max whined and Aggie sidled toward the door to the back stairs.

  I’d understood the first time she said it. Grace could be arrested and found. “It’s not like I’d press charges. This way the police will look for the car even if they won’t look for her.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Hunter’s idea,” I snapped. A lie, but a lie that would buy me Mother’s silence. I turned my back on her and listened to the woman on the other end of the phone line. “I need to report a stolen car.”

  She connected me to another woman who offered to take my information. I gave her the make, model and license plate number of Grace’s car as well as my name and phone number. She read everything back to me. I thanked her and hung up.

  Mother glared. Aggie opened the door to the stairs, mimed drawing, and slipped away. Max followed her.

  Great. Left alone with Mother.

  The phone saved me. It rang. I reached for the receiver and the doorbell gonged. “Would you get that?” I asked.

  Mother huffed then disappeared down the hall.

  I snatched up the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Ellison, it’s Amy McCreary calling.”

  What now? “Is John all right?”

  Mother’s voice floated down the hallway. Who was at the door?

  “No change,” said Amy. “Listen, Jack told me Grace is missing.”

  My throat tightened. “Yes.”

  “I wanted to let you know, I saw her this morning at the service station on Broadway.”

  “Broadway?” />
  “Just north of Westport.”

  Nowhere near school. Nowhere near home. Nowhere near her mother.

  “What time?” My voice hardly broke.

  “That was the odd thing. It was eight thirty, and I remember thinking she and her friend ought to be in school.”

  Mother’s voice got louder and her heels clicked on the hardwoods.

  “Thank you for calling, Amy.”

  “Are you kidding? John owes you his life. You let me know if I can help.”

  I thanked her again and hung up the phone—just in time to look up into Hunter Tafft’s concerned face. He brushed past Mother, closed his hands on my shoulders and pulled me into a hug. Then he kissed me. On the lips.

  I froze, too stunned to move.

  He released me, stepped back and said, “Ellison, what can I do?”

  From her vantage point near the door, Mother smiled brightly. Beamed. How quickly she forgot the bigger picture. Grace was missing.

  I focused on that picture and not the firmness of Hunter’s lips or the comfort of his arms—certainly not on what had possessed him to kiss me.

  Aggie swung the door to the back stairs open and stepped into the kitchen with Donna’s sketchbook clutched to her tangerine-clad chest.

  Mother raised a brow at the intrusion. Hunter stepped farther away from me. I turned my back on both of them and held out my hands for the book. Finally, I got to see what was inside.

  Eighteen

  Aggie extended Donna’s pad slowly, as if it was a box and I was Pandora.

  Ding-dong. The doorbell. Again. What now?

  Mother glanced at me then Aggie. It was almost too easy to read her mind. I showed no signs of moving, which left Aggie and her orange muumuu. Hardly the ensemble Mother would pick for someone answering her daughter’s door. “I’ll get that.” She disappeared through the door to the front hall.

  “What’s in there, Aggie? You look almost sick.” Hunter offered her an encouraging smile.

  My fingers closed on the pad’s edges.

  “Ellison!” Mother’s voice carried down the hallway. Her tone was unmistakable. I hadn’t heard it since my sister Marjorie’s father-in-law had one too many and spilled a black Russian down Mother’s new cream dupioni drapes. The tone meant trouble. Capital T trouble.