Bitter Crossing (A Peyton Cote Novel)

by D. A. Keeley

“Locally?” Peyton said.

  “I don’t think so. Listen, Peyton, I needed to see you about something else. I thought maybe we could talk. Brought you these.” He held the bouquet of flowers out to her. “Judging from your reaction when I kissed you, I upset you. These are a peace offering.”

  “Please come in,” she said and held the door. “Thank you for the flowers. But they’re not necessary.”

  He took two steps into the kitchen and stopped. “You don’t want them?”

  He wore jeans, Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers, and an ironed button-down white shirt. Blond hair, neatly parted to one side, ran to curls at the back of his neck. And he still had that great smile—crooked, embarrassed now, but cute nonetheless. He looked like a surfer, except his ice-blue eyes hinted at nervousness.

  “You have nothing to apologize for,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Have a seat. Want a beer?”

  “Ever hear me turn one down?”

  She took two bottles of Heineken from a cardboard six-pack container in the fridge, set them on the table in front of Dye, and fumbled through the silverware drawer for the bottle opener. When she handed Dye the opener, she took a vase from the cupboard and fixed the flowers in it.

  “How old is Tommy now?”

  “Seven.”

  “You’ve done a lot with your life,” he said.

  She sipped her beer, not sure where he was headed.

  “Traveled, lived away, came back,” he went on. “I’ve never left.”

  “Don’t be so harsh. You’ve got a master’s, a career that matters.”

  Overhead, floorboards creaked. She hoped Lois didn’t come down.

  “Peyton, I wanted to say I’m sorry for kissing you. It was stupid. I—”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Huh?”

  “Kissing me wasn’t stupid, Pete.”

  He looked at her. She reached for her beer.

  Where the hell had that statement come from? Unfortunately, saying what she meant had never been a problem for her.

  She drank some beer and cleared her throat. “The flowers are lovely, Pete. Thanks very much.”

  He drank some beer and sat looking at her. “What did you mean?” he asked.

  “The flowers,” she said.

  “Not that. The kiss wasn’t stupid?”

  Leave it to Pete Dye, with his damned cute crooked smile and surfer’s blond hair, to ask her to elaborate.

  “The kiss wasn’t necessarily stupid,” Peyton said, “if you understand my situation.”

  He looked at her, bewildered.

  She made it easy for him: “I have a son who comes first in all of my decisions.”

  Upstairs, Lois started to sing “New York, New York,” the high notes, once again, nearly a screech. Peyton waited for Pete to respond. But he was distracted, looking to the stairs, listening to Lois’s off-tune squeal. When he turned back to Peyton, he started to chuckle. She did, too. After several moments, they fell silent again.

  Then he said, “Remember that night at Madawaska Lake?”

  She’d been remembering it since Jeff had left her. It had been July before her senior year at U-Maine. A warm breeze blew off the lake, keeping the black flies at bay. Jeff had driven Elise and Peyton to the party in his new Jeep. When he let Peyton drive that night, steering toward an orange sunset as if leaping into a flame, she’d fallen in love with Wranglers—the top down, her hair dancing with the wind. Later that night, amid a bonfire and beer buzz, the three of them had gotten separated. She’d ended up beside Pete Dye at the end of the dock, their feet dangling into the water. Pete had leaned in to kiss her then, but that time, more than a decade earlier, she’d withdrawn. She hadn’t been engaged but was with Jeff and was loyal. For years she had wondered what might have been.

  “I remember that night,” she said. “You’re a good person, and you’ve been a good friend for as long as I can remember. God, we were like brother and sister in high school. But I’m a single mother. I’ve got responsibilities you don’t have. Tommy comes first in every decision I make.”

  “I understand that,” he said.

  “You’re also a player, Pete, and I’m not about to be played.”

  Outside, tires crunched on the dirt driveway.

  “Peyton, I went to your wedding because I was invited, but I hated every second of it. I can’t talk like a salesman like Jeff. I won’t ever have his money because I like teaching. But that night, on that dock, when you pulled back, and then the day I watched you get married, I … I felt like I’d lost you forever. Now you’re back, and I don’t want to lose you again. I really hoped we could give it a try—that is, if you’re at all interested.”

  “I think I am,” she said, staring at him, mind racing, “but I’m not twenty years old anymore.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “And Tommy …”

  “Comes first,” he said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “This has to move slowly.”

  “Just talking about dinner and a movie, P.” He grinned that Goddamn adorable crooked smile again.

  This time she smiled back.

  “Dinner? Tomorrow?”

  Before she could answer, Lois entered like a cyclone.

  “Jeff is here, Peyton.”

  Peyton felt the way she did moments after a long nap. “What?”

  “Jeffrey McComb,” Lois repeated. “In typical fashion, he brought flowers.” She saw Dye. “Oh, hi, Peter. Didn’t know Peyton had company. And you brought flowers, too. That’s sweet,” she paused, “in your case.”

  Dye was looking at the bouquet uneasily.

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “You tell me. Jeff’s out in the living room. He says there’s a house you have to look at tonight because a doctor from Pennsylvania is viewing it first thing in the morning. He wants Tommy to see it, too, so he’s putting on sweatpants. Peter, would you like to join us?”

  “You had a date,” Pete said to Peyton, “all this time?”

  “Pete, it’s not like that.”

  But he was already looking away. “I’ve got to go,” he said and stood quickly, turned his back to her, and walked out.

  When Jeff McComb entered the kitchen, Peyton didn’t look in his direction. She was watching the back door close softly behind Pete Dye.

  FORTY

  “TOMMY’S SUPPOSED TO GO to bed in twenty minutes,” Peyton said.

  Jeff smiled. It was a winner’s smile, one that said he knew she had no chance.

  “But, Peyton, you saw the look on my pal’s face”—he pointed at Tommy—“when I told him I’d found a special house for him.”

  “Please, Mom,” Tommy said, “can we go with Dad?”

  She said nothing and got into Jeff’s BMW. His little stunt, though—manipulating Tommy twenty minutes before bedtime—wouldn’t soon be forgotten. Neither would the look on Pete Dye’s face: the thought that Peyton remained in such close contact with her ex had sent him packing.

  Jeff’s entire setup wasn’t fair. Not to Tommy, not to Pete, and not to her. She came off looking like a careless mother, an untrustworthy friend, and a needy ex-wife, all at the same time.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” he said as they drove.

  She leaned close to him and whispered, “And you should be damned glad for that. This is a shitty stunt.”

  “This is me trying to help you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She straightened and looked out the window until Jeff pulled into a tarred driveway and motion lights went on over the garage.

  The house before them was white with shutters the color of an angry sea. She saw two chimneys, but there was no yard, only dirt surrounding the home.

  “No lawn yet,” Jeff said, as if reading her mind. “They only finished construction three weeks ago. Four bedrooms, three baths, with a daylight basement. As you can see …”

  He sounded as if this were a formal showing, which reminded
Peyton of Pete’s words—I can’t talk like a salesman like Jeff.

  Thank God for that, she thought.

  “The landscaping hasn’t been completed. I don’t know how much you know about real-estate development, but that’s always the final touch,” he said. “They’ll do it in the spring.”

  “Peyton, you asked to see this one?” Lois said. “Isn’t it a little big?”

  “It’s huge,” Tommy said. “Awesome.”

  Jeff killed the engine. “Why don’t we get out and walk through it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Peyton said. “And, no, I didn’t ask to see this one. It’s way too big for Tommy and me. And”—she looked at the listing sheet on the console—“it’s listed at $325,000.”

  “Will it just be the two of you?” Jeff asked. “I see you had a visitor tonight. Maybe you’ll need something bigger.”

  Her face reddened. “Mother, you stay here with Tommy. Jeff and I need to take a walk.”

  Before anyone could protest, she got out of the BMW, walked down the driveway, turned left, and stood in the moonlight.

  The sky was clear, and the morning’s light snow had left no accumulation, but she could still see her breath in the cold night air. She smelled the McCain’s potato processing plant in Easton. Something was moving in the woods maybe twenty feet away. She recalled her father’s words: “There’s nothing in the Maine woods that isn’t more afraid of you than you are of it.” He’d told her that over and over. His mantra had helped her on camping trips and on an Outward Bound solo in high school.

  A door opened and slammed shut behind her, shoes crunching the dirt.

  How had she married this man? Had her judgment really been that poor? No. He’d changed. He’d always been flamboyant and cocky—she’d actually found that attractive once; vanity led him to stay in good shape. But for someone who made her living by judging people on a moment’s notice, she had to wonder how she’d been duped.

  She turned to face him walking toward her. Maybe she hadn’t been fooled. Maybe she, too, had changed.

  “Look,” he said when he reached her, “whatever’s going on between you and Pete Dye is none of my business. But you and I were supposed to have lunch sometime. I feel like I’m not getting a fair shake here.”

  “You got out of the car to say that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe you’re forgetting who left whom in El Paso, Jeff. I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “So that’s how you want it?”

  “That’s how it is,” she said.

  “Everything is so Goddamn black-and-white with you. You know, I had a vision for what life would be like for us. Did you ever think of that? That maybe I wanted to come before your job? Well, now I’m living that life, and I’d like to share that with you.”

  “Your vision is called an inheritance. You left me and Tommy to come back here, work for your parents, and eventually take over the business.”

  “That’s a cheap shot. I work every bit as hard as you do.”

  “We barely heard from you for three years, Jeff.”

  Her cell phone vibrated against her leg. She grabbed the phone, her eyes leaving his to register the number.

  “I need to take this,” she said.

  “Let me guess. It’s the office.”

  She didn’t reply, turning away from him, raising the phone.

  “Once again,” Jeff said, “the office comes first.”

  “Cote here,” she said.

  “Peyton, it’s Scott Smith. How are you doing?”

  “Fine. What’s up?”

  “Ah, this is a little awkward because I respect you so much, but I need to ask if you interviewed Nancy Gagnon today.”

  The three men in her life had now collided, and she was officially being called to the mat.

  “I went to check in with her. I told her I would drop by every couple of days. I wanted to honor that.”

  “Ask about the baby?”

  “Has Mike Hewitt asked you to call, Scott?”

  “I’m just trying to keep my dialogue with this woman on-going,” he said, “and I don’t need you spooking her.”

  “No need to worry.”

  “Learn anything while you were there?” he said.

  Could she trust Smith? She wasn’t sure, but she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize finding Autumn.

  “Not much. That her husband has some new business venture, that he sold Tip of the Hat, that she says he’s around a lot, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.”

  “That’s all fact. Anything instinctive?”

  He was pushing for more. Could she trust this guy? Hewitt hadn’t requested this call, but Smith was a fellow agent. And a baby was missing. And that trumped all.

  “Nancy told Hewitt the baby was alone for thirty minutes. She told me the time the baby was alone was more like two hours.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. And have you wondered about how much had to be done to get that baby out of the house without waking her? The kidnapper climbed onto a workbench and out a casement window. How? Did he hand her to someone, then climb out himself?”

  “There were two sets of tracks near the window.”

  “Or maybe he went out the front door,” she said.

  “Peyton,” Jeff said, “for God’s sake, we can’t stand here all night.”

  “That’s about all I have, Scott.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  She hung up.

  A stick snapped in the woods nearby.

  “What was that?” Jeff said.

  “Probably a deer,” she said. “They move at night, especially in the fall.”

  “Peyton,” Jeff said, “can you focus on me for a minute? I wanted it to be a surprise, but I’ll just say it. I’m going to help you buy this house. That’s why I wanted you to walk through it tonight. I’ve already started the process.”

  “What?”

  Her mind was still on Scott Smith. What would he do with the information she had just offered? Would they reenact the kidnapping?

  “Don’t you see what I’m saying?” Jeff went on. “I’m going to split the payments with you.”

  “Why don’t you just increase your child-support?” she said.

  “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “Why? Your payments have never increased, but your salary has probably doubled since you left El Paso.”

  “You don’t know what I make.”

  “Your lawyer has seen to that.”

  “You know what your problem is, Peyton? You think of no one except yourself. We’ve got a child, or have you forgotten?”

  “He’s why I came back. I thought he might need to be closer to his dad. Not feeling real good about that decision right about now, though. There were times during the last three years when I wanted to pull my hair out wondering why you didn’t acknowledge Tommy. Tonight, I’m thinking differently. I’m thinking being ignored by you is probably the best thing that could’ve happened to him. I don’t want him to grow up believing he can buy back his mistakes.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You’re not paying for any part of that house,” she said, “or any other for me. And you can expect to hear from my lawyer.”

  She turned and walked back to the BMW. Tommy was asleep in his booster seat, but that wasn’t why they drove home in silence.

  “A closed-door meeting?” Peyton said.

  She was in Hewitt’s office, at his request, at 8 a.m. Saturday.

  Hewitt nodded. She sat across the sparse desk from him.

  “Got a phone call this morning that you need to explain,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Have any idea what I’m about to say?”

  “None.”

  His eyes narrowed, and she knew he wondered if she was lying.

  “A doctor named Matthew Ramsey from Reeds—”

  “Oh shit,” she said.

  “Yeah, ‘oh shit.’ He called and says you
went to his kid’s daycare to question his son.”

  She leaned back in her seat. “It’s true, Mike.”

  “I told him it wasn’t likely since you weren’t even working but said I’d talk to you.”

  “I apologize. I got a call. It sounded like something that might have something to do with Autumn, so I checked it out.”

  “For Christ’s sake, you went to the kid’s daycare and questioned a four-year-old?”

  Through the window on the building’s east side, she saw a fox at the far end of a long field. She turned back to Hewitt, whose jaw was firmly set, narrow eyes locked intensely on hers.

  “Officially, I was volunteering.”

  “Volunteering?”

  She nodded. “At the daycare. I asked questions, I admit that, but I got a call from Susan Perry at DHHS.”

  She told him about Perry’s phone call and what the daycare workers had reported.

  “Susan came to me with the little boy’s story because it sounded like maybe it went with the baby in the field,” she said. “I told her I’d look into it. I had nothing else going on, and I think there’s something there.”

  Her mind ran to Tyler Timms and Tom Mann. If they also filed complaints, her leave could be a prolonged suspension. She knew she’d overestimated her guile.

  Hewitt looked at her for several seconds and tapped his pen on a manila folder on his desk. Peyton Cote was scrawled in felt-tipped marker on the pull tag.

  “This is your file. All of it—resume, credentials, everything. I’m rereading to see if I missed something.”

  Her back straightened as she took the verbal blow head-on.

  “At least I know I’m not losing my mind. You didn’t do anything in El Paso to indicate you might not listen to colleagues or might go renegade while on administrative leave. But grilling a four-year-old is going too far, Peyton.”

  She knew that at times she was her own worst enemy—couldn’t stand to leave something undone. But this was different.

  “I didn’t grill him. I ate French toast with him, for heaven’s sake. Something is wrong with the Ramsey boy’s story, Mike. It needs to be looked into.”

  “Why didn’t you just call and tell me that?”

  “Maybe I should have. But I can tell you there is something there.”

  She didn’t have to say how she knew that. There were times as an agent when you followed your gut. You stopped a guy at a checkpoint and he wouldn’t make eye contact. Or you asked someone a question and the answer came too quickly. Those scenarios led to full-blown vehicle searches. This was the same thing. And she knew Hewitt knew it.