What My Sister Knew

by Nina Laurin

  “Every week.”

  I gulped. “Every other week. I’ll text you. You’ll come meet me out by the road.”

  “In the middle of the day, in full view of traffic?”

  “You can’t come here again,” I said. “I’ll…I’ll change my hours. I’ll work nights.”

  “That boyfriend of yours won’t mind?”

  He knows about Milt, I thought, a chill in my very bones. I didn’t have time to question the why and the how. Only to deal with what was in front of me. “No.”

  Later that day, I went in to see Marla and changed my work hours to the night shift. None of the younger female employees wanted to do night shifts, not just because of frequent altercations with drunk or high homeless youths who could get angry when told we were out of beds for the night but because of the shelter’s location in the middle of nowhere. Marla raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

  Two weeks later, I took one of the flip phones our charges left in a special drawer per shelter regulations and used it to text my brother. I handed over a single day’s ATM limit, three hundred dollars.

  That night, I came home to Milt rattled. He wanted to know what happened, whether someone attacked me, or worse. I didn’t tell him anything but I couldn’t endure his presence next to me as I slept. I crept out of bed and spent a nearly sleepless night on the couch.

  That night, I knew that Eli’s sentence had ended, and mine was just beginning.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Awake now, I lie still and listen.

  “I hate to disappoint you but I don’t know where Andrea is,” I hear Cynthia say in her usual penetrating voice. “She isn’t answering her phone, as I’m sure you’ve realized.”

  “It is absolutely imperative that I speak to her.” Figueroa speaks more softly but her voice carries with the same intensity. And it’s brimming with anger she barely holds back. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”

  “No. And to be honest with you, we don’t exactly have a loving and sharing kind of mother-daughter relationship. This is the last place she would come to stay. Have you spoken to Milton DeVoort?”

  “I just sent someone to talk to Mr. DeVoort. Now I need to talk to Andrea.”

  My heart starts to thrum dully, the last wisps of sleep torn asunder. Why would she send someone to talk to Milt in person?

  “Well, unfortunately, I can’t help you with that.”

  “I believe there was an incident involving your adoptive daughter and…an engagement ring? A family heirloom that—”

  “Andrea’s relationship with Mr. DeVoort is none of my business. They’ve called off their engagement, yes, but that’s all I know.”

  Lying still on my stomach, I feel my blood turn cold, afraid to move so much as a finger.

  “That’s why I would have liked to meet with Andrea in person,” Figueroa says. She clearly doesn’t know Cynthia Boudreaux.

  That’s when I hear steps thundering down the hall and then down the stairs. Oh God. I forgot about Leeanne.

  “Hi,” she says in her best prom-queen voice. “You’re Detective Figueroa, right?”

  Figueroa must acquiesce with a nod, because Leeanne goes on.

  “Listen, I understand that you’re doing your job but Andrea isn’t here. And even if she were, she doesn’t have anything to tell you. The fact of the matter is, that man—her brother—is a monster. She suffered enough because of him, don’t you think?”

  “Ms. Boudreaux,” Figueroa says, struggling to keep her voice amicable, “as much as I appreciate your input, I’m afraid this case has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

  “Nothing?” Leeanne retorts, barely missing a beat. “I went to school with him. And if you have a few minutes, one of these days, I can tell you what Eli Warren did to me, in detail. If it interests you, of course,” she adds, her voice dripping with condescension.

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  “It very much does,” Figueroa says levelly. “But that will have to wait for a better time. Right now, I must locate Andrea.”

  “If she shows up,” Cynthia says, “we’ll let you know.”

  “Please do.”

  The door closes, and I allow myself to breathe again. My vision is swimming; my armpits are damp. Minutes tick by in silence. Then, just as I’m summoning the courage to sit up, I hear soft steps behind the door, followed by an even softer knock.

  “Come in.” My voice is rough and hoarse from lack of use. I expect Cynthia to come in to check on me but when I turn my head, Leeanne is carefully closing the door behind her. Without further invitation, she comes over and sits on the edge of the bed, making the bedsprings creak. She reaches out and switches on the bedside lamp.

  We stay silent for a few moments, each one expecting the other to speak first. Finally, she gives up.

  “I took the car back, like Mom asked.”

  “Thank you.” I’m more thankful than she’ll ever know. “What am I going to do if I want to leave?”

  “If you want to leave, you’ll be in big trouble.”

  No arguing with that.

  “I know,” I say, and watch her back stiffen. “About the…assault.”

  She gives me an owl-eyed, blank look. Then, to my surprise, hangs her head. “Figures.”

  “Did he really…”

  “For God’s sake, Andrea,” she says mockingly. “You’re a social worker. Aren’t you supposed to believe victims?”

  “I…It’s just…” My face grows hot. “He was twelve.”

  She shrugs. “That’s what the newspapers would have said, if it got out. Depravity in our schools. Y’all need Jesus. Et cetera. And my daddy and his career, caught right in the middle of the scandal. Do you understand now?”

  I’m starting to. I draw a breath sharply.

  “Yeah, yeah. Republican politician’s slutty thirteen-year-old daughter gets an abortion. It’s such a stereotype. For all I know, I might have wanted to keep it.” She gives a laugh.

  “Was it really his? The—” I can’t bring myself to say it. Baby, fetus, or whatever.

  Leeanne holds my gaze for a long time. Then, infuriatingly, shrugs. “We’ll never know now, will we?”

  We sure won’t.

  “I had to tell my parents something,” she says, desperation lurking beneath the smugness in her voice. “You must understand that. You work with troubled teens.” Even as she says it, her nose wrinkles. Like it has nothing to do with her. “My parents would have killed me! And Eli did attack me. There were witnesses.”

  So this is it, I think, weirdly numb and light-headed. Jim Boudreaux simply used me to cover up his daughter’s misstep. Our family drama must have been a godsend to him. And I went along with it because it was what I wanted. Because I was a coward and I saw a way out.

  There was a fire, my parents died, my brother became infamous. I got my compensation—going to live with a rich family. Moving up in the world, as they say. And everyone else’s lives went on as before.

  “It’s a shame Dad’s political career went nowhere,” Leeanne says. “He really could have been good at it.”

  I digest this silently. When I don’t speak for a few minutes, she becomes increasingly ruffled. “Look, I know you think I’m the bad guy here but you have no idea what kind of person your brother really was. Is. Did you know that when middle school started, he went around telling people you were a hermaphrodite? That’s why no one wanted to be friends with you.” She shakes her head. “I know, I know. It was a different era. No unisex bathrooms back then. And I heard you used to wet the bed. Which I’m also guessing was his invention?”

  “I know my brother,” I say. I’ve never felt it to be more true.

  Leanne grimaces and shrugs.

  “Is that why you did it?” I ask. “Because you felt bad?”

  Her eyes narrow, and her face rearranges itself in a familiar look of smug superiority. “Do what? The abortion? What kind of question is that?”

 
“No. You know what. Lie to the police for me just now.”

  She stops smirking and heaves a sigh. She raises her hand to rub her eyes but then she must remember she’s wearing mascara, and she drops her hand back into her lap. “Because I feel sorry for you.”

  My breath catches. I push myself up to a sitting position.

  “Look, I know what it feels like to make shitty decisions,” she says. The smirk creeps back onto her face. “I’ve had my share of fuckups, my failed marriage being but the latest. But at least I know I’m the one responsible, and only me. You, on the other hand, owe it all to your brother. And the worst thing about all this? If you’d just come forward back then, you could have avoided this whole circus. And you wouldn’t still be on his leash.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Eli Warren had no visitors. Not from anyone he knew, not from his sister. Although the court did prohibit him from contacting her, I don’t suppose she would want to make the first step either. So, for now and for the foreseeable future, there’s no one to drop by during visiting hours. I asked him how it made him feel, seeing other patients get visits from their families and knowing he never would.

  “It’s a shame,” he said with a shrug. He flipped his hair out of his face. “This guy, [name redacted for privacy reasons], got a supercool pair of sneakers from his mom. I wish I could have sneakers.”

  —Into Ashes: The Shocking Double Murder in the Suburbs by Jonathan Lamb, Eclipse Paperbacks, 2004, 1st ed.

  Fifteen years earlier: before the fire

  Andrea is whiling away her lunch hour in a bathroom stall. It’s pouring rain, so outside is not an option, but she found a way to reclaim the bathroom. She just locks herself in a stall and pulls her feet up onto the toilet lid. Voila. Invisible. If she’s quiet enough, it’s almost like she doesn’t exist. And the best part is she gets to listen as other girls come and go and overhear all the gossip.

  Except today the bathroom is empty because something is happening downstairs, a fund-raiser for the school dance that seventh graders are allowed to participate in for the first time ever. So all the girls are there, probably chattering excitedly about their dresses and what boys they wish would invite them.

  Andrea knows she probably won’t go—there’s no point. There will be no boy and no dress. She’s content to spend her lunch hour here, playing with the lighter.

  Bringing it to school is playing with fire, literally, but she can’t bring herself to leave it at home either, for fear of her mother or Sergio happening upon it, especially now that she and Eli have lost their hiding place. She’s afraid to part with it, even for a minute. As a result, she keeps it in her pocket at all times, hoping that even if someone sees it, they won’t know what it is. From the outside, it’s just a cheap trinket from a souvenir shop, an enameled lighthouse.

  She flicks it open, watches the flame for a few seconds, and flicks it closed again. Counting the seconds it takes her to pull it out of her pocket, flip it open, and light it.

  The bathroom door clangs open, putting an end to her calm solitude. She watches the girl’s feet stomp over to the sink. A moment later, the water starts to run. Andrea freezes inside when she recognizes the trendy brand-name sneakers. She wonders what Leeanne is doing here alone, without her cronies.

  The tap stops running, and Leeanne’s feet storm to the stall next to Andrea’s. Andrea forgets how to breathe. She listens to Leeanne fumbling. There’s rustling, a wrapper being torn. Then Leeanne plunks down on the toilet seat, her jeans around her ankles. The seats are filthy—Andrea wouldn’t be caught dead sitting on one.

  Leeanne sighs deeply, curses under her breath, and finally, Andrea hears the soft trickle of urine that stops and then starts again. Leeanne draws another deep breath through her teeth and then chuckles nervously. She gets up from the toilet, turns around, and flushes with her foot. “Fuck,” Andrea hears her mutter, and then something clatters to the floor right between the two stalls. It’s so close she could grab it if she reached. Then, stupefied, she realizes what it is. She has time to glimpse the thin white stick and the pink stripes in the little window on its end.

  Andrea has read about this stuff in the teen magazines she sometimes glances through at checkout at the grocery store. But that’s for older girls—not middle school girls. She was sure that all the nasty rumors floating around about Leeanne and her friends were just that, rumors.

  She dives for the stick at the same time Leeanne reaches under the stall. She’s faster, snatching the test away before Andrea can grab it. But it’s too late. Andrea’s feet are on the floor, and Leeanne sees them.

  The stall door slams. “Warren!” Leeanne shrieks. “Come out here! You nosy little shit. Come out here so I can break your long fucking nose, you snitch.”

  She pulls on the door of Andrea’s stall, yanking again and again. Andrea is paralyzed, watching powerlessly as the latch moves farther and farther to the left with each pull.

  “Come out!” Leeanne bellows. The latch gives way, and the door flies open.

  Leeanne’s face is pure rage, red, wild-eyed, her hair a mess. In the split second before Leeanne lunges for her, Andrea can see the twin trails of tears down her cheeks.

  Andrea does the only thing she can think of. The lighter flicks open with a soft click, and the little flame hisses out. It’s too small to reach Leeanne but it licks the ends of her blond hair as they swing in Andrea’s face.

  Leeanne screams. There’s a flash of heat, and an unspeakable smell fills the air. Andrea gags as she watches Leeanne spin across the bathroom, pawing at her hair that hisses as it’s consumed, turning black and brittle. Leeanne plunges her head into the sink. A final hiss, accompanied by wisps of acrid gray smoke, and she straightens herself, gasping as she faces the mirror.

  On the right-hand side, most of the length is gone—her hair barely reaches her chin, its ragged black ends curled up and burned to a crisp.

  Andrea expects the girl to lash out, start screaming, beat Andrea to a pulp against the bathroom tiles. But instead, her face screws up, and she begins to cry, racked by deep, horrible sobs. Not a thin, endless childish whine—adult tears. Quiet.

  A sense of calm envelops Andrea then, a sense of control unlike anything she’s ever felt before. And it feels good. She thinks that she would like to feel like that again. She exits the bathroom stall, putting the lighter away in her pocket.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” she says, meeting Leeanne’s red-eyed gaze in the mirror. “And I won’t tell your parents that you needed one of those. They wouldn’t like it, would they?”

  Leeanne tries to say something but tears choke her. “You bitch,” she finally spits.

  Andrea walks out of the bathroom and doesn’t look back.

  The next day, Leeanne comes to school sullen, with a short bobbed haircut.

  No one calls Andrea to the principal’s office.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The first time Adele Schultz showed up at the shelter, I didn’t realize anything was wrong. She wanted a place to sleep, she said, because she couldn’t go home.

  I never asked why—we weren’t supposed to. She blended in with the others, a little unkempt, unhealthy looking, like she didn’t get enough nutrients or sleep, with hollows under the eyes that had appeared too early. I took her phone, like I did the others’. It wasn’t time to call Eli. It had only been a week since I last saw him.

  I had long ago settled into this nonlife that had started when my brother got out of prison. I was acting normal—just normal enough to avoid questions from my boss, or coworkers, or Milton. At first, I chalked up my jumpiness and fitful sleep to the change in working hours. Now, everyone was used to it and no one asked any more questions.

  You really can get used to anything. I was becoming accustomed to the idea that this is how it would be from now on—life as usual but with biweekly meetings with and payouts to my brother, who would tell me all about how he could barely get by because no one in their right mind wou
ld hire someone with his record. I believed him because I knew it to be true. I had seen similar situations at the shelter, and every social worker knows what it can be like for an ex-convict to try to reintegrate into normal life.

  I managed to convince myself it was an adjustment period. That after everything, it was the least I could do. As I have always done, I floated along and hoped for the best.

  The hope would prove to be short-lived.

  It was nearing three a.m., and I was watching the clock, yawning into my thermal cup of coffee. Soon, Allan was going to take over, and I could finally go home, take a shower, and snuggle up next to Milton. I could already feel the softness of the Egyptian cotton sheets Milt favored, the warmth of his body next to mine.

  Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, she was standing in the doorway to the dormitory. At first, I couldn’t remember her name. I was too tired, and frankly, I didn’t care. I told her to go to sleep and turned my attention to scrolling through an article on my phone. When she didn’t answer or move, I looked up again.

  “Andrea,” she said, “I’m Adele. Nice to meet you.”

  I’m really not here to fraternize, I almost told her. But she took a step closer and tilted her head.

  “People call me Addie,” she proffered. “Do they call you Addie too?”

  In spite of the overheated, dry air in the shelter, I felt a chill. Nobody called me Addie—not anymore. Milton did as a joke, so that didn’t count.

  That left only one person.

  “Look, Addie, I’m going to level with you,” she said.

  I wondered if she was on something—she was too animated and coherent. Ritalin? Coke? Her eyes sparkled in a way I didn’t like. And the closer she came, the more I saw that she did, sort of, look like me—in the sense that we were both plain, nondescript, just shy of cute. The same dishwater hair, the same freckles.

  “Did he send you?” I asked point-blank. “I just paid him. It’s only been a week.”

  She grinned. “Yes and no. From now on, you’ll be paying me too. Because he told me and now I know the truth.”