After a minute, that now-familiar voice came on the line. “This is Barbara McCarty.”
“Hello, Ms. McCarty,” Flip said. “I’d like to talk with you about the message you left for Sara Weston—Sarah Larkin—today.”
“You’re with the police?”
“Surf City. Yes, ma’am.”
“What do the police have to do with this?”
“Ms. Larkin’s been missing for four weeks, and we’re investigating her disappearance.”
The woman was quiet at first. “I don’t know anything about that,” she said finally.
“She was interested in renting an apartment?”
“Yes. But it’s been months now. She…I’d have to check, but I believe she e-mailed us at least six months ago, looking for a three-bedroom. She must have asked to be put on our waiting list, which is why I called her.”
I lifted my head. “What the…” Maybe it was the wrong Sara Larkin. This just didn’t make sense.
“You said in your voice mail that you needed to check with Western Carolina Bank regarding her employment,” Flip said.
“That’s right. We always need to verify an applicant’s employment.”
“Why did you think she was working there?”
“She’s not? She must have said so on her application.”
“Can you fax or e-mail me a copy of her application?” Flip asked.
“It’ll take me a few minutes to get my hands on it, but yes. Sure.”
Flip gave her his e-mail address, while Marcus jotted something on a piece of paper and slid it across the desk to him.
Flip glanced at the paper. “And can you tell me how much the rent would be on a three-bedroom?”
“The one coming open is twelve hundred.”
I let out a laugh. “Right,” I said, and Marcus shut me up with a finger to his lips.
“All right,” Flip said. “I’ll watch for your e-mail.”
Marcus clicked the button on his phone.
“It’s gotta be the wrong Sara Larkin,” I said. “Maybe Mom…for some weird reason…changed our phone listing to her maiden name and this lady looked it up and…” I shrugged.
“Why would she do that this long after divorcing your…Steve Weston?” Marcus asked.
I shook my head. “I feel like I don’t know her right now,” I said.
Flip looked at me. “What money did she have besides the thousand or so in her savings account?” he asked.
“Zilch,” I said. We’d already been over this. Over and over. “She’d cash her check from Jabeen’s and we’d live off that. She didn’t even pay rent on the trailer.”
“She didn’t?” Flip raised his eyebrows. “For how long? Is there a chance the two of you were getting evicted?”
I laughed. “No way.”
Marcus shook his head. “Long story short,” he said to Flip. “Laurel owns the trailer park and she let Sara and Keith stay there rent-free.”
“So there was no way she could pay this twelve hundred a month without a new job,” Flip said. “Even then, that’s a chunk of change for someone with only a thousand dollars in the bank.”
I suddenly thought of my college fund. I looked at Marcus. “Could she have gotten into the money you gave her somehow?”
Flip turned to Marcus. “You gave her money?”
Marcus sighed. Looked at me. “You okay with Flip knowing?”
I nodded. “Why not? The whole world knows how fucked up we are now.”
“Jamie was actually Keith’s father,” Marcus said.
“Jamie…” Flip looked totally confused. “Your brother?”
Marcus nodded. “So when Jamie died, I started a trust fund—a college fund—for Keith. It had forty thousand dollars in it at the time. I don’t know how much it has in it now. Sara was the trustee, but she couldn’t…can’t…touch the money until Keith goes to college.”
“We’ll check on that and make sure it’s still there,” Flip said. “Keith, think hard. Did your mother talk about moving to Charlotte or applying for a job in Charlotte or anything like that?”
I tried to think back to conversations my mother and I’d had over the last year. The thing was, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to what she talked about. I had two burned arms and one burned face and they’d occupied most of my time. I sure as hell would have remembered if she said she was planning to move to Charlotte, though. “So, do you think that’s where she is?” I asked. “Maybe she did get a job there and found a different apartment.” Maybe she’d deserted me after all. I watched Marcus take a swig of his Coke and peanuts and thought I might barf.
“None of this makes sense right now, Keith,” Marcus said. “But it gives the police a bit more to go on.”
“Right,” Flip said, like everything was now fine and dandy. “We need to bring the P.I. into the loop. Let him know about this.”
I leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “This is so lame,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’m outta here.”
“Hold on, Keith,” Flip said. “We’re going to have to go through the house again.”
“You mean the trailer, don’t you? The pile of rust she left me with while she moved into—”
“Why do you think she was looking at a three-bedroom apartment?” Marcus interrupted me. “Just for herself? I doubt it. I imagine you were in her plans.”
I stared at him. “Then why didn’t she let me in on those plans?” My brain was fried, trying to figure it all out.
I wanted to tell Jen. I wanted to crawl into bed with her and tell her everything. Lay it out. She wouldn’t ask me a thousand questions. She’d just listen and then she’d hold me that way she did, like I wasn’t damaged goods. We could have sex, but I didn’t even care about that right then. And that was really saying something.
I just needed to matter to somebody.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Maggie
I STAYED LATE AT THE HOSPITAL THE DAY THAT MADISON died. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to stay in the peds unit with people who understood how I felt. Even after the shift change, when Taffy left, I stayed. I think Taffy’d taken some heat for letting me stay with Madison when she was so close to dying, and I tried to let everyone know I was okay. I honestly was. I was okay enough to be worried about Joanna. She fell totally apart when she realized that she’d left her daughter’s side for fifteen minutes in the last twenty-four hours, and it was the wrong fifteen minutes. It shouldn’t have been me with her. It should have been her mom. Yet it was nobody’s fault.
Tony, one of the male nurses in the peds unit, came on duty after Taffy left, and when he found out what had happened, he called the social worker to come talk to me to be sure I was all right. She was a pretty woman in her thirties who’d been leaving for the day when Tony’d called her. She came to the playroom, carrying her purse and her sweater, and I felt terrible that I was causing her to stay late.
“I’m absolutely fine,” I said, sitting down on the rocker at her request.
She sat on the playroom table, setting her purse and sweater next to her.
“Tony said you were supposed to leave at five,” she said, “and it’s now after six. Why don’t you go home?”
“I just want to stay,” I said. “There are a few kids here whose parents can’t come in tonight. I can read to them or whatever.”
“Who’s at home?”
“What?” I didn’t know if she was talking about my family or the patients’ families.
“If you go home now, who will be there?”
“My mother and brother. Possibly my uncle.”
“Are they supportive? Can you talk to them?”
“Oh, sure,” I said.
“Then what do you think is keeping you here?”
“I told you. I can help out if I stay.”
She smiled a little. “The people at home, no matter how loving and supportive they are, didn’t know Madison,” she said. “But everyone here did. Right?”
I he
sitated. It wasn’t as though everyone in the peds unit was talking about Madison or anything, but there was this bond I felt with them that I would lose the moment I walked out the door. “Right,” I said.
“Have you cried yet today?” she asked me.
I shook my head.
“If you go home, do you think you will?”
Yes. I was sure I would. “I don’t want to,” I said.
She nodded, and I thought she understood exactly how I felt. She reached into her purse and pulled out a business card. Then she jotted a number down on it and handed it to me.
“I’m leaving for the day, but this is my cell number. If you feel like you need to talk tonight, call me. But right now, you need to go home.”
I started to shake my head, but the expression on her face told me I wasn’t going to win the argument.
“Yes.” She stood up. “You need to go home, Maggie.” I didn’t budge from the rocker as she put on her sweater. “I’ve heard good things about you,” she said. “I think it’s great you’re putting in so many hours here, and you’ve really earned the respect of the staff. But part of being a good, responsible health worker is learning how to take care of yourself in an environment like this one that can tax you to your core. It might seem like staying here until you’re so tired you fall asleep sitting up is the way to do it, but it only puts off the grief. You’ll need to figure out other ways of dealing with it. Okay?”
She reached out a hand and I stood up and shook it.
“Okay,” I said. I still didn’t want to leave. I didn’t feel up to figuring out “other ways of dealing with it.” But I knew she was right. I couldn’t hide out in the peds unit forever.
I was getting my jacket in the volunteer office when I heard a commotion at the nurses’ station. I walked into the unit and saw Madison’s father, Rudy, bedraggled and red-faced, shouting as he waved his arms through the air. “It’s a fucking scandal!” he yelled at Tony and Constance, the only two nurses in the station. “I’ll sue! I’ll sue your sorry asses.”
I hesitated near the corner of the nurses’ station, which was between me and the exit. I didn’t know if I should try to zip past Rudy or duck back into the volunteer office. I could see that Constance, who was probably the oldest nurse in the unit, was on the phone. Calling security, I hoped. I felt sorry for Madison’s father, but he scared me.
“Mr. Winston,” Tony said, “please settle down so we can talk about this calmly, all—”
“Fuck that!” Rudy shouted. “My little girl is dead! Talking calmly’s not gonna bring her back, and it’s your fault. All of you!” He pointed his finger and his whole arm shook as he swept it in a horizontal arc in front of him. I took a step forward and saw that other nurses and parents were standing in the doorways of the patient rooms. A couple of them were on their cell phones.
“Don’t you have any…any, like, screening?” Rudy shouted.
One of the parents, a huge, burly guy, walked from his child’s room toward the nurses’ station. “Sir,” he said, “let’s go outside. You’re scaring the children.” He reached for Rudy’s arm, but Rudy jumped backward.
“What about my child?” he wailed. “My little girl! If I was you, I’d get my kid out of this hospital before it’s too late.” He looked down the hall at the other parents. “All of you! Get your kids out of here. They don’t have no quality con—”
He saw me. His eyes burned into me and I stood paralyzed at the corner of the nurses’ station. “You goddamn bitch!” He started toward me, but one of the security guards suddenly appeared, and between him and the burly father, they managed to hold Rudy back.
“Parents!” Rudy shouted, his arms twisted behind his back by the guard. “Listen to me! Do you know who this girl is?” He jutted his chin toward me. “Maggie Lockwood, that’s who! Does that name mean anything to you? Remember her? The arson fire in Surf City! People killed and burned. She just got out of prison, and this backwater hospital hires her to take care of kids!” He kicked the wall of the nurses’ station so hard I jumped. “Where’s your brains?” he shouted toward Tony and Constance. “Maggie Lockwood was with my daughter today when she died. Joanna’d been with her every minute for days and she was fine, and in the five minutes this bitch is with her—” he jerked his chin toward me again “—she just happens to die. You think that’s a coincidence? Huh?” He kicked the wall again. Once. Twice. I jumped each time, horrified by what he was implying. “How dare you let someone like that work with kids!” he shouted at Tony, as if he was responsible for me being there.
I leaned against the counter as a couple of police officers burst in the door. Thank God! Without missing a beat, they took the place of the security guard and the burly father. Rudy didn’t even put up a fight, but he wasn’t done shouting. “How dare you!” He kicked the wall again. “I’m suing the ass off this hospital, you better believe it!”
The cop slapped handcuffs on him. Roughly. Too roughly. “Let’s go,” the other cop said as he led Rudy toward the exit.
“You let her take care of my little girl!” Rudy wailed as he stumbled toward the door at the policeman’s side. He sobbed, gasping for breath. “You let her take care of my little girl! My little—”
The door closed behind him, cutting off his words. Tony turned toward me, and only then did I realize I had my hands on the sides of my head like in that painting The Scream, tears pouring down my face.
“Is this true?” Tony asked.
I felt so many pairs of eyes on me. Nurses who didn’t know me well because they didn’t work the day shift. Parents, only a few of whom I’d met.
“Cathy Moody knew,” I said quietly. “She knew everything. I told her when I applied.”
Tony looked away from me. “Get out of here, Maggie,” he said. “You’ve had a long day. Call Cathy Moody in the morning and…see what she wants you to do.”
I walked past the nurses’ station, my cheeks on fire, and I heard the whispering start behind me as soon as I opened the door.
I could hardly see the road as I drove home. Was this it? The end of my community service at the hospital? I wanted to stay there so badly. But maybe a criminal wasn’t supposed to be able to do community service in a place she loved that much.
My car suddenly lurched to the left, the steering wheel vibrating so violently I could barely hang on to it. I wrapped my hands around the wheel and forced it to the right, holding on tight until I came to a stop on the shoulder. I got out, and although daylight was fading, I could see that my left front tire was nearly in shreds. Damn. Could this day get any worse?
Stay calm, I told myself. I’d changed a tire before, although not on the sloped shoulder of a four-lane road. I wasn’t sure if I should pull forward or what exactly, and I decided the first thing I needed to do was check my spare. I opened my trunk and discovered I had no spare to check. Great. I couldn’t believe Mom had let Andy drive around without a spare.
I got back in the car and dialed home, but there was no answer. I tried Uncle Marcus’s cell number, then my mother’s, and got dumped to their voice mail both times. I even tried Andy’s, in case he was with them and had his phone on, but I remembered he had swim practice tonight. No doubt, my mother was with him.
Jen. I hadn’t spoken to her since Friday, when she’d splashed me in the water. Even after we went back inside her house, I’d felt uncomfortable with her and left pretty quickly, trying to figure out why our couple of hours together had gone south so suddenly. We didn’t speak all weekend, and now it felt strange to call her. But she was a friend, right? My only friend, actually.
I dialed her number.
“Hey.” Her voice was quiet when she answered. A whisper, really.
“I’ve got a problem,” I said. “I’m halfway home from the hospital and I have a flat. I tried calling my mom, but I can’t reach her. Is there any chance you could come pick me up?”
Silence.
“I’ll buy you dinner if you haven’t already eaten.”
It was after seven. Of course she’d already eaten.
“I can’t right now,” she said.
She had someone there, I thought. A guy? Another friend?
“Can’t you call a service station?” she whispered.
I felt myself tear up again. How was I supposed to find the name of a service station? And besides, I didn’t have a spare.
“Could you do me a favor and look up a service-station number for me?” I asked.
“Are you crying?”
I bit down on my lip to try to stop the tears. “It’s just been a crappy day.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help. You’ll figure it out. You’ve got your phone, so you’ll be okay.”
I looked through the windshield at the darkening sky. I didn’t feel okay at all.
“I have to go,” she whispered.
“All right. Good—” I heard the click of her phone. I stared at my own phone for a minute, hoping she’d call back or that Mom or Uncle Marcus would get my message and come rescue me. Then I called information and asked to be connected to the nearest towing company. I was going to have to rescue myself.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Keith
“WHO WAS THAT?” I ASKED. I WAS HALF-ASLEEP IN JEN’S BED, but I’d heard her whispering on the phone. I could tell she wanted to get rid of whoever it was and get back to me.
“Just a friend.” She was sitting up in bed with her back against the headboard. “Go back to sleep, baby,” she said. “You need it.”
I didn’t want to sleep anymore. When I first got to Jen’s, I just wanted to shout and punch the walls and let out all my confusion on someone who’d listen. She did listen. Then she did more than that, taking me into her bed. Having sex with me so I’d forget for a little while what the hell was going on with my mother. Now, though, I was in radical pain.
“I need my drugs,” I groaned.
“Are they in your pants pocket?”
“No. Shit.” I suddenly pictured them on the kitchen counter in the tower. “I left them at Marcus’s.” I carefully raised myself up on one elbow and saw that she had her computer open on her lap. “What are you doing?”
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