by Claire Adams
"Ah yes, your little assistant," Sloan said dismissively. "Be careful. I think she's got a crush on you, Jack."
"Oh, you think so?" I said as I feigned total disinterest. "Hey, do you have your orders from this week written up yet?"
"No, but I'm sure your secretary will be chomping at the bit as soon as I open that door," she said rolling her eyes. "I'll take care of them."
"Good, good," I said waving a hand in her direction to get her to leave. What I really wanted to do was sit her down and grill her about what she'd said about Leah, but I didn't want to tip my hand and doing that definitely would have.
I had two more calls to make before I headed down to meet with Leah. I picked up the phone hoping that, once I was finished, I'd have good news for her.
Chapter Forty-Two
Leah
After Sloan dropped her bomb and walked out of my office, I sat staring at the door in silence. There was no way to deny the fact that I came from the wrong side of the city and, that if Jack was messing around with me, it wasn't anything serious. The advice Molly had given me had only applied to boys who were from our side of town. Trying to apply it to someone like Jack was bound to end in heartbreak—at least for me.
I took the day's orders out to the warehouse floor where Burt and the guys were gathered in preparation for their first full day in the newly renovated warehouse. We’d managed to build the additional space necessary to hold the increased inventory by building storage shelves that could be accessed via overhead catwalks. It was a simple design often used by department stores that allowed workers to climb a set of metal stairs on either side of the platform and access the inventory kept on the second level. We’d had a lift installed on one end so that groups of orders could be quickly brought to the main floor. It had been a quick installation, but I knew it would be highly effective if we could figure out an efficient method of retrieving products.
The construction crew was cleaning up their mess and gathering the left over materials that hadn't been needed as I stood in front of the guys and discussed how we needed to become more efficient now that we were going to have a substantially increased inventory.
"If we stagger the shifts so that we never have down time, then this will fill in the gaps until we figure out how to compensate," I said looking at the schedules in my hand. "Who wants to volunteer?"
"Eh, I'll do it," Burt said raising his hand. "Why not? I'll be in at 5:00 to unload the deliveries. Who’s going to join me?"
A few of the other guys raised their hands and followed Burt's lead. I gave him a grateful smile, knowing that he was not a morning person, but that he was willing to sacrifice in order to keep the warehouse running smoothly. I was also grateful I didn’t have to cajole him into doing it because there was no way I could explain how critical it was that we make this work without giving away Jack's plan.
"I'll be coming in at 6:30 to make sure that all of the orders are in and that we've got the pickups scheduled," I said. "We might need to hire a couple more warehouse workers, but don't count on it happening until we see how the switch goes."
"Isn't that ass backward, Leah?" Burt asked with a grin. "I mean, shouldn't we have help getting this thing off the ground rather than trying to launch it and then hire more people?"
"One would think," I said, returning his grin. "But this is how it's going to go for now, so get used to it, and don't make me crack the whip."
There were some wolf whistles and laughter at Burt's expense, and then we broke up to start the day. I handed Burt the morning's orders and told him that I was running out to take care of something.
"Where you going?" he asked seeing the tense look on my face.
"I need to go home and take care of a couple of things," I said grimly. "They can't wait."
"I got it under control, Leah," he said patting my shoulder like I was one of the guys. "No worries."
I nodded and headed to my office to grab my purse and call a cab. I was pretty sure Jimmy was outside waiting, but I wasn't sure what Jack's schedule was for the day. Besides, I didn't want him to know what I was doing.
*
I called Patrick from the cab and asked him to meet me at the house so we could talk about what we were going to do with Mama's things. He grudgingly agreed and said he'd be there as soon as he could.
After the cab drove away, I stood staring at the charred remains of what had been my home for almost my entire life. There was a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn with the name and number of a realtor I didn't recognize. The fire department had done what they could to clean up the mess, and Patrick had had a company install boards over the broken windows, making the house look abandoned.
Patrick arrived a few minutes later and together we entered the house. It was pitch black inside, so we left the front door open to let in some light.
"I don't know that anything's salvageable," Patrick said as he walked through the burned out living room.
"Not in the front room, but the rest of the house wasn't burned," I said a little defensively. "Let's check her room and see."
"Leah, you do understand that the whole house was affected, don't you?" he said in a condescending tone that put me on edge.
"Of course, I do," I muttered. "I'm not stupid, you know."
"I didn't say you were," he replied as we climbed the soot covered stairway.
I peeked into my bedroom and quickly realized that the damage to the house was far more extensive than I'd imagined. The firefighters had sprayed the entire house with water and had pulled apart the walls in my room and Riley's room, the ones over the living room and closest to the actual blaze. My closet was now a wet mass that contained the beginnings of mold and rot, and it stunk terribly. I knew I wouldn't be able to recover much from the mess. I took a deep breath, opened the top drawer of my dresser, and pulled out the small metal box I kept a few keepsakes in. I tucked it into my purse.
I checked Riley's room and found it in a similar condition. I opened her dresser drawers to see if she'd kept anything like I had and found nothing but a small pillbox that contained an old high school photo of Molly and a locket that she'd worn when she was a kid. I tucked it in my purse and followed Patrick down the hall to Mama's room.
Light streamed in from a window that hadn't been broken and, combined with the water that had flooded everything, it made the room seem even dingier and like more of a dump than I'd remembered. I told myself that living at Betty's house was the reason all of this seemed worse, but I didn't believe the lie.
"Do you think Mama wants any of this?" Patrick asked as he kicked a pile of clothing that lay on the floor. "What a dump."
"Shut up," I said as I looked around. "You got out, so just shut up."
"What? You think it didn't affect me?" he shot back suddenly hostile and angry. "You think that just because I left, I forgot what it was like living with . . . her?"
"No, I don't think you forgot, I think you just put us out of your mind and moved on!" I shouted. "Quit acting like you're the only one who was affected by all of this, Patrick. You might be a priest, but you make a lousy martyr."
"That's what you think I'm aiming for?" he said staring at me in disbelief. "You think I want to be a martyr? Well, let me tell you something, little sister, I never ever wanted to be a martyr. I think that was your goal."
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I shouted. "I'm the one who stayed!"
"My point exactly," he said looking away. "You stayed and tried to fix everything, but instead you made it all worse."
"I made it worse? How in the hell did I make anything worse than it already was?" I yelled. "You walked away and left us behind! You just checked out of the family and left me to clean up the mess that was left! You are my older brother! You were supposed to protect me!"
"I know, and I'm sorry that I didn’t do that," he said bowing his head. "But I didn't know how else to survive."
Patrick looked at me with tears welling up in his eyes. I shook my head, try
ing to maintain my self-righteous anger so that I wouldn't go down the path that would invariably lead to self-pity and sadness. I was angry at him for leaving me alone with Mama.
"Leah, I didn't know how I could survive if I stayed here," he said quietly. "She hates me. She's always hated me."
"Mama does not hate you," I said.
"Yeah, she does," he nodded. "She told me so. Numerous times. She said I remind her of him and that she hates us both."
"Patrick, that's crazy talk," I said waving him off, but knowing deep down that he was right. Mama hated our father more than anyone on Earth, and she had been very vocal about that fact all our lives. He'd abandoned the family and then died before he had a chance to find peace.
"It's not crazy talk, Leah," he said as he dug through the closet looking for anything that might be salvageable. "It is what it is. I've accepted it, and I've moved forward with my life. I found peace in the priesthood, and I'd advise you to move forward with your life, too. Don't you want something more than just scraping by?"
"Of course I do," I said, coming dangerously close to spilling my feelings about Jack. "I just haven't met anyone who I like enough to consider making a life with. Besides, I'm busy raising a twelve-year-old, in case you didn't know."
"I know," Patrick said quietly. "I'm sorry I left you to raise her all alone."
"You did what you had to do," I said, steeling myself against the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me.
"I miss her, too, Leah," Patrick said as he moved across the room and stood holding his arms open to me. I bit my lip, and then burst into tears as I fell into my brother's embrace. He patted my head as I sobbed, "I know, I know. Let it out."
"I miss her so much, Paddy," I said calling him by his childhood nickname. "I don't know what to tell Riley, and I want to know what happened to her! Where did she go? Is she still alive? Did she just forget about us?"
"I know, Leah," he said as he rocked me like a baby. "For years I've tried to track her down, but she didn't leave much of a trail. The detective I hired said that when the trail goes cold, it's usually because someone is dead."
"I know she's probably dead," I choked out. "But I just want to know for sure. I want to know what happened so I can move on. I'm sick of looking over my shoulder and scanning every face in the crowd for Molly."
"I don't know what to tell you, sis," he said taking a hold of my shoulders and pushing me away so that he could look at my face. "But we're the only ones left, and Mama needs some serious care. She's a mess."
"It's my fault," I said starting to cry again. "I let her get away with it because I was too tired from working and keeping up with Riley and the house. I should have stopped her. I should have gotten her help, but she was so angry, Patrick."
"It's not your fault, Leah," he said sternly. "Mama made her own choices, and one of them was to keep drinking. That's not your fault or your responsibility. It took me many years of therapy to understand that I wasn't responsible for her hatred or for her choice of how to work out her own pain. She had choices, Leah. There are always choices."
I nodded as I cried against his shoulder and he simply wrapped his arms around me and patted my back until I had cried myself out. When I was done, I stepped back and looked at the bedroom. It was a disaster, and there was no way we were going to salvage anything.
"Look in the drawers and see if there's anything she might want to keep," I said. "Tomorrow I'm calling the guys who haul junk and will have them clean this place out before we try to sell it."
"I forgot to tell you," Patrick said as he dug through Mama's nightstand and tossed out old magazines and romance novels she'd kept stashed in the drawer. "We've had an offer on the house. The realtor called and said a buyer saw the pre-listing she sent out and offered the full price, sight unseen."
"You're kidding me, right?" I said as I pulled open the dresser drawers and tossed out clothing that my mother hadn't worn in twenty years. "Jesus, she's a pack rat."
"Leah . . ." Patrick said.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," I said rolling my eyes with my back turned to him again. "But seriously, Patrick, she kept so much stuff!"
"No, Leah . . ." he said again. This time I turned around to see that he was standing in the middle of the room holding a handful of what looked like envelopes. "She wrote her."
"Who wrote who?" I said, not understanding what he was talking about.
"These are all from Molly," he said. "She wrote Mama."
"What?" I said not sure I was hearing him correctly.
"These letters are from Molly, Leah," he said as he dropped them on the bed and began looking through them to find the most recent postmark. "They started right after she left, and they seem to end a year later."
"That would be two years ago," I said, excited that maybe they would lead us to our missing sister. "Where is she?"
"It looks like she was in Florida the last time she wrote," he said pulling the letter out of the envelope and finding a blank sheet of paper. He turned it over looking for writing and said, "There's nothing here."
"Is there anything on the other sheets?' I asked as I walked over and grabbed one. It was postmarked Kentucky and inside was a sheet of hotel stationary with nothing written on it. I looked at the envelope and saw Mama's name and our address clearly written in Molly's looped handwriting, but there was nothing else. "What the hell?"
"We should ask Mama," Patrick said flatly. "She'll know what this all means."
"When can we visit her?" I asked.
"They told me that it would be another couple of weeks," he said. "She hates the treatment facility and is fighting them the whole way. They told me it was best if family didn't visit for a while."
"But we need some answers!" I cried. "She can't just hide in rehab."
"Maybe that's just what she's trying to do," he said. "Maybe she doesn't want to tell us what's going on or what happened to Molly."
"I want to know, Patrick," I said, determined to confront my mother and find out the truth. "Riley deserves to know, and we do, too."
Patrick stood silently for a long time and gave me an almost imperceptible nod.
We would find out what happened to Molly, and then leave the past where it belonged.
Chapter Forty-Three
Jack
I'd been finalizing the last parts of my plan for dinner that night. I'd wanted to do a quick run through of how the evening's events would unfold and go through the information I'd gathered.
"Where'd Leah go?" I asked Norma.
"Darlin’, I haven't got a clue," she shrugged as she continued opening the mail. "Not my day to watch the girl."
I sighed loudly and headed down to the warehouse where the best I could get out of Burt was the fact that Leah had said she'd had some errands to run. Her office was empty and there was nothing written on her calendar. I tried her cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail.
"Dammit, Leah!" I muttered as I took the back stairs up to my office. "Where are you?"
I marched back into the office and gathered up the files I'd been working on before heading out. I'd asked Norma to join us for dinner, partly as a witness, but also as a backup for all the information we'd spent the week gathering. I knew that when Lincoln and Sloan started pushing my buttons, I'd need backup in the form of some logical, fact-based input that neither one of them could dispute. Norma and Leah were my backups, but without Leah here to go through the information, Norma had become a very important part of the plan.
"You'll be there before 8:00, right?" I said as I walked through the front office where Norma was taking care of the last bits of the day's business.
"You can count on me, darlin'," she said with a wide smile. "Wouldn't miss little Miss Snotty Pants getting her comeuppance for the world."
"Norma, you're a piece of work," I laughed. "Just remember that you and Leah are my backups if things get rough."
"Darlin', I've got family, too," she said with a knowing nod of t
he head. "We'll have your back."
I had Jimmy make two stops on the way home and then drop me off before sending him back to the office in case Leah showed up. I cursed myself for not having hired a separate car for her when she and Riley had moved in, and I made a mental note to fix that as soon as possible. If I'd done it sooner, I'd know where she was right now and wouldn't be worrying about whether she was going to show up or not.
My mother had prepared the dining room for our guests, and it looked just as I had hoped it would.
"You've outdone yourself, Mother," I said kissing her cheek as she arranged flowers in a vase on the sideboard.
"I'm glad you approve," she smiled. "I did my best to set up what you wanted. I've got a kitchen full of people preparing dinner, and the cook is not very happy about that."
"I'll make it up to her," I said as I scanned the room and made sure to take note of where my mother had set the place cards. "Norma will be here by 7:30 to do a quick run through of the program, but I can't find Leah anywhere. Have you heard from her?"
"No, dear, I haven't," my mother said. "But I wouldn't worry. She'll be here. Of that I'm sure."
"Well, if you're sure, then I'll trust your instincts," I said warily. I wasn't entirely convinced, but there wasn't anything I could do about it now.
I ran into Riley as I was just about to head upstairs to shower and dress. She was red cheeked and excited about something she held in her hand as she raced through the downstairs toward the dining room and my mother.
"Betty! Betty! Look what I found!" she called as she collided with me. "Oof! Sorry, Jack!"
"What have you got there?" I asked looking down at her cupped hands.
"A frog!" she cried as she opened her hands and a tiny green reptile crawled up her fingers before launching itself at me. "Jack! Watch out!"
Instinctively I reached up to brush it off my shirt, but the frog was a step ahead of me. It launched itself into the air again before attaching to the entryway wall.
