Guaranteed to Bleed

by Mulhern, Julie

  Alice had a sense of humor lurking somewhere within. Who would have thunk it?

  “Are you? Sorry?”

  She studied her shoes—clunky platforms that made her skinny legs look like sticks. A half-smile played on her lips.

  “Why did you do it?”

  She lifted her gaze from her footwear, brushed aside her bangs and looked at me with eyes glowing with conviction. “I had to do something. People had to know.”

  “Know?”

  She nodded. “I’m supposed to apologize to Donna too.”

  To Donna? I blinked. Duh. How was it I’d missed that? Donna and Bobby. Duh, duh, duh. “She’s not here.”

  “She went home?” Something dark and sly slithered across Alice’s face.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly cold despite the warm night. Did Alice know something? Had Alice done something?

  “If Donna’s not here, I guess I’ll be going.” She turned her back on me and descended the first step.

  “Alice.”

  She paused and looked over her shoulder. “What?”

  “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “About what?” She sounded too innocent.

  “About Donna or Bobby.”

  “Anything I want to tell you? About them?” She snorted. “I don’t think so.” She stepped away from my door.

  Merciful Lord. Had she killed Bobby? What if Grace and Donna hadn’t run away? What if Alice had done something to them?

  “Alice,” I called.

  This time when she paused, she didn’t look over her shoulder.

  “Do you know where Donna is?” My voice was too high.

  “Nope.” Her voice was too low, as if it held a rumble of laughter, as if she was laughing at me.

  I watched her get in her car. I watched her drive away.

  When she rounded the corner, I closed the door. I really ought to call Anarchy. And tell him what? That Alice seemed guilty of…something? Yeah, right. Teenage girls regularly murdered their would-be boyfriends.

  I hurried past the living room and the gorgon within. Why borrow trouble? Besides, Donna’s sketchbook waited for me in the kitchen.

  The pad lay on the counter, spiral-bound with a brown cover and corners softened by use. Aggie and Hunter regarded it with distaste.

  I reached for it.

  “Aren’t you going to call Grace’s friends?” Mother asked from the doorway.

  Why couldn’t she stay ensconced in the living room? Better yet, why couldn’t she climb into her car and drive home?

  “Later.” My voice brooked no arguments.

  Or so I thought.

  “You said you’d call.”

  “I will.” I drew a breath. “Later.”

  Mother glanced pointedly at the kitchen clock. “It’s after nine now.” The tsk in her voice set every one of my nerves on edge and tightened all the muscles in my neck and shoulders.

  I gave her the scrunched up smile Grace shared with me whenever what I’ve said doesn’t deserve a response, then I flipped open the book.

  The first drawing was a picture of Donna’s father, her real father—not the jackass masquerading in the role. He’d had kind eyes and a gentle expression. I touched the paper and sensed the grief Donna had poured into each line of his face.

  I turned the page.

  India stared back at me, her lip caught in her teeth, sadness and indecision alive in her eyes. She held a younger Donna’s hand.

  Mother glanced over my shoulder. “The girl has some talent.”

  The girl had loads of talent.

  The first sketch of Jonathan depicted a self-important man with a puffed chest and frightening eyes.

  The drawings turned darker. Dread leapt off the page while demons danced their way through fiery backgrounds. One demon with a puffed chest and frightening eyes jigged on a chintz couch. In another drawing he lurked in the shadows of a grandfather clock. In yet another, the demon trapped Donna’s chin in his claws while his forked tongue tasted her tears.

  My hands shook and I rested the pad against the edge of the counter and turned another page.

  Each drawing was worse than the last—the demon grew more terrifying and Donna grew up. Gone was the little girl who’d held her mother’s hand. Instead the Donna on the latter pages looked like a sex kitten. Barbarella with dark hair.

  Bile rose in my throat.

  Mother stiffened to her most disapproving self. “That man…”

  Hunter nodded. “It looks that way.”

  Tears stood in Aggie’s eyes. “That poor, poor girl.”

  “I can’t believe you let him in your house,” said Mother.

  It wasn’t as if I knew he was a character from a Nabokov novel when I offered him coffee. The buzzing in my brain was near deafening. I searched for a response anyway.

  Hunter found one for me. “Monsters don’t wear signs, Frances.” His lips curled into the wry approximation of a smile. “They look just like everyone else.”

  Mother sniffed. “Be that as it may, I told Ellison they weren’t our kind of people.”

  Rich coming from Mother. My sister married the rubber king of Ohio. As for my late husband—well, the less said about his predilection the better. But what Jonathan Hess had done to Donna went beyond selling King Cobra condoms or cheating on your wife with a woman who enjoyed being tied up and flogged. What Jonathan Hess had done was pure evil.

  Mother pointed at the sketchbook. “That family has always been trouble. India’s mother was a gold digger, India hasn’t the sense God gave a goat and this girl…Well, you know she’s the reason Grace is gone. Grace helped her escape.”

  The buzzing in my head grew louder and I gripped the edge of the counter.

  Mother encompassed us all with her glare. “The question is, what are we going to do next?”

  “Ellison needs to lie down,” said Hunter.

  I opened my mouth to argue but my skin felt flushed and frigid at the same time. The act of forming words was more than my tongue could handle and my stomach seemed to have completed yet another flip and lodged itself near my throat.

  Mother narrowed her eyes and examined me. She unclasped her handbag, withdrew a bottle and shook out two pills. “Take these, Ellison. I’ll call Grace’s friends.”

  I didn’t move.

  She thrust her hand toward me. “You’re no good to anyone in the state you’re in. I’ll call Kim and Debbie and Peggy and tomorrow we’ll find Grace.”

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t just go to bed when my daughter was missing. I couldn’t climb into a comfortable bed when Lord only knew where she was sleeping. If she was sleeping. I couldn’t ignore what Jonathan Hess had done to Donna. I couldn’t rest not knowing where they were.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Are you planning on driving around like that? You look like you’ve already taken half a bottle.” She shook the pill bottle for emphasis. “We can’t find them tonight. We can tomorrow. Besides, you need some rest. Tomorrow morning you’re going to have to tell India Hess her husband has been molesting her daughter.”

  Oh dear Lord. She was right. I held out a hand for the pills.

  Aggie put a glass of water in my other hand and patted me softly on the back.

  “We’ll find them tomorrow,” Hunter promised.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  I opened my eyes just wide enough to glare at the door—for half a second—then I remembered Grace was missing. Whoever was knocking might have news. “Come in!”

  Aggie stuck her head in my room. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Russell.”

  Aggie? I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. Too early for Aggie. “What are you…”

  “Your mother didn’t want you to be alone. She asked me to spend the night.”
r />   I swallowed my annoyance. In her own bossy, interfering way, Mother cared. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Um…”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Your friend Libba is here.”

  Libba? At this hour? I looked at the clock a second time. Libba didn’t move this early in the morning.

  My housekeeper’s brows were drawn and the corners of her mouth sagged. She looked almost apologetic. “She’s waiting for you downstairs.”

  Had Grace gone to Libba’s? If so, if my daughter had been there all day yesterday and Libba was just now telling me, Anarchy Jones would have another homicide on his hands. I threw off the covers.

  Aggie opened the door farther. “I brought you coffee.”

  Truly, I don’t pay the woman enough.

  “Thanks.” I crossed the room, accepted the cup and sipped. “Would you please tell her I’ll be right down?”

  Aggie closed the door behind her.

  I let go of my coffee long enough to jam my arms into a peignoir, then followed her downstairs.

  Libba perched on a stool at the kitchen island. She’d traded in her usual effortless elegance for jeans and a t-shirt, smudged mascara, red eyes and splotchy skin.

  My heart, my stomach—hell, my kidneys—all triple-flipped. Why was Libba crying into her coffee before seven thirty in the morning? “What’s wrong?” I squeaked. Two words used up all the air in my lungs.

  “I have terrible taste in men.”

  True, but not news and not worth crying over first thing in the morning.

  “You’re not here about Grace?”

  “I’m here because Charlie asked if he could borrow my earrings.” She lowered her head to her hands.

  “I thought you were done with him.”

  “I gave him another chance.” She shook her head without lifting it. “Mistake.”

  “Which earrings?”

  She raised her head. “Don’t be catty.”

  “Those sapphire chandeliers would look lovely with his eyes.”

  “Why do I talk to you?”

  “Because I’m your oldest friend and I tolerate your showing up unannounced before I’ve had my coffee.”

  “Hhmph.”

  We both stared into our cups and considered the obvious merit of my words.

  “Why would I be here about Grace?”

  “She’s missing.”

  “Oh my God! Ellison!” She jumped off her stool as if standing translated into doing or solving or finding. “Why didn’t you say something? Has she been kidnapped?”

  “No. She and Donna ran away.”

  Libba lowered her chin and snorted. “Have you called the Alameda?”

  “The hotel?” The nicest hotel in the city.

  “Grace doesn’t exactly enjoy roughing it.” Libba regarded me with her raccoon eyes. “You weren’t thinking bus terminal?”

  That and worse.

  “You were!” Her lips curled into an almost-smile. “This is the child who insisted you send softer sheets to summer camp, the child who won’t eat store-bought bread, the child who keeps a thermometer in her bathroom to test the temperature of her bath water. She didn’t run away. She went somewhere.”

  Maybe. I put down my coffee mug and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.

  “Stop that!”

  I stopped long enough to glare at her.

  “I mean it. You’ll give yourself wrinkles.” Libba sipped Arabica-scented ambrosia and stared at me over the edge of the cup until I dropped my hands. Victorious, she asked, “Where would she go?”

  “If I knew that she wouldn’t be missing.”

  “Ha. Ha. I’m serious. Where would she go?”

  The country. “She might go to Mother and Daddy’s place up north.” The sheets were soft, the water was hot and there was a good bakery nearby. I’d taken her there when her father died. “But the caretakers would have called me.”

  “You’re sure? Grace can be very persuasive.”

  “I’m sure.” I poured more coffee into my cup, added cream and watched the clouds billow on the surface. “It wouldn’t hurt to call.”

  “Call.” Libba crossed her legs and looked at me expectantly.

  “Fine.” I picked up the phone. My hand hovered above the dial.

  Libba wrinkled her nose. “I’m waiting.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Did you loan him the earrings?”

  She grinned. “Bitch. Just make the call.”

  I dialed. “Hello, Mrs. Smith. It’s Ellison Russell calling. I’m wondering if you’ve seen Grace?”

  “Um…”

  “Have you?” My voice sounded as tight as a freshly strung tennis racket.

  “Let me put Mr. Smith on the phone, dear.”

  My heart beat faster. Was Libba actually right?

  “Mrs. Russell, you’re looking for Grace?”

  “Yes.” I was afraid to hope.

  “I think she might be out at your father’s hunting cabin.”

  For the first time since I’d realized she was gone, my lungs filled fully. “Why?”

  “I thought I saw her car yesterday. And this morning, Mrs. Smith accused me of eating half the pie she left in the icebox.”

  No one made better pie than Mrs. Smith. If Grace was anywhere close to one of Mrs. Smith’s pies she’d be hard-pressed not to eat a slice…or three. “Apple?” I asked. Grace’s favorite.

  “A hunk of cheddar was gone too.”

  It was her. It had to be. My shoulders lifted as if the weight of three or four full golf bags had disappeared. “Can you keep an eye on her? I’ll be up in a few hours.”

  “I reckon.”

  “Thank you, I’ll see you shortly.” I hung up the phone.

  Libba smirked at me.

  Brrrng.

  I picked up the phone immediately. “Hello.”

  “Ellison? It’s India Hess calling. Have you had any news?”

  My heart, which had felt almost buoyant, sank faster than a golf ball driven into a water hazard. As much as I wanted Grace safely home, could I send Donna back to her stepfather? I swallowed. “India, we need to talk.”

  Twenty

  “What’s happened? Are the girls all right?” India’s voice climbed higher with each word. So high the phone vibrated in my hand. So high that right was little more than a squeak.

  “I’m sure they’re fine.” I tried to sound soothing—easier now that I knew our daughters were in the country eating stolen pie rather than dining from a dumpster in a shadow-filled alley.

  Libba, always helpful, rolled her eyes, and stared at me over the rim of her coffee cup.

  “Have you found them?” India demanded.

  “No.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but close enough that I scratched my nose anyway.

  “Then what do we need to talk about?” she asked.

  “We found Donna’s sketchbook—”

  “She draws all the time. What has that got to do with anything?”

  “Yes, well…this sketchbook has some drawings you ought to see.”

  “Why?”

  “They might explain why the girls ran away.”

  India answered with silence.

  “India? Are you there?”

  “Jonathan said you’d do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Blame Donna.” The pendulum of her voice swung from treble to bass.

  “I’m not blaming anyone,” I insisted. “You ought to see her drawings.”

  “I think we should find the girls before we worry about Donna’s doodles.”

  My mother had dismissed my interest in art as a nice hobby until I found a husband. Her certainty in my inability to succeed still rankled.

  “They’re not doodles. Don
na’s very talented.”

  “Donna needs to give up this crazy idea she’s going to be a painter. Jonathan has told her over and over. It’s not like a woman can make a living off art.”

  “I do.”

  The response earned me more silence.

  “India, let’s not argue. Meet me at the French bakery on the Plaza. Say four o’clock?” Four o’clock gave me almost all day at the farm. “I’ll show you the sketchbook. Maybe by then we’ll have found the girls. Maybe they’ll be home.” I crossed my fingers.

  “Fine.” A grudging affirmative if I ever heard one.

  “I’ll see you then.” I hung up the phone before she could change her mind.

  “What is going on?” Libba put her coffee on the counter, the better to give me the hairy eyeball. “What’s in this sketchbook?”

  “Cross your heart?” Silly but effective. We started crossing our hearts for silence when we were ten. Still did it now. This was the sort of secret I didn’t want her blabbing all over town. I waited.

  Libba dutifully drew an x over her heart.

  “India’s husband molested Donna.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.” The mere thought soured my stomach. I put down my coffee.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true.” I wouldn’t make up something like that. I looked around the kitchen for the sketchpad.

  “Oh, I believe he did it. I just don’t believe someone has worse taste in men than I do.”

  I stared at her. “Well, I suppose every cloud has a silver lining, doesn’t it?”

  Her eyebrows and shoulders rose, her lips pulled away from her teeth and she ducked her head. At least she had the decency to look abashed. “Sorry.” She wrapped her hands around her coffee mug, pulled it closer and stared into its depths. “Molested or molesting?”

  “Molesting.”

  “So what are you going to do now?

  “Drive up to the farm.”

  “You can’t send Donna back to that man.”

  I scraped a few strands of loose hair away from my face. “I know.”

  She released her mug and gripped the edge of the counter. “So what’s your plan?”