The Gifted

by Gail Bowen

  “None,” Margot said, “but it doesn’t matter because I have pregnancy brain, and I wouldn’t retain the information anyway.” The theme music came up and Margot hit the remote and turned the set off. “So what’s going on in the big world? I just want to hear the fun news.”

  “Well, Zack’s thinking about running for mayor.”

  Margot’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope. He’s been talking about it for a while now, and he’s dead serious. We had lunch at the City Hall cafeteria so he could press the flesh.”

  “He’s not going back to Falconer Shreve?”

  “Maybe not for the foreseeable future.”

  “Wow! Zack for mayor! Is he not aware that the opposition and the media do background checks on potential candidates?”

  “He’s prepared to tough it out.”

  “Zack is the least political person I know. Where did this come from?”

  “The Racette-Hunter project has been an eye-opener for him. Now that the centre is moving towards completion, the mayor and city council are busting their buttons over what they’ve accomplished.”

  Margot’s laugh was short and sardonic. “And they’ve thrown up roadblocks every step of the way,” she said. “I don’t blame Zack for being pissed at that.”

  “Well, the glory-grabbing is a small irritant compared to what’s in the works now. Zack’s been fuming about how the mayor and the council are trying to relocate the housing intended for Westchester Place to Dewdney Park. And lately we’ve been hearing rumours of other, even more questionable land deals.”

  “So Zack’s going to be the knight in shining armour for the people who always end up getting hooped,” Margot said. “Well, he’s got my vote.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “But he doesn’t have yours.”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out,” I said. I stood up. “I didn’t come over here to talk about Zack’s next career move. We’re having split pea soup for dinner tonight. Do you and Declan want to join us?”

  “Declan has a basketball game tonight, and he’s going for pizza with his team beforehand. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just stay put and watch back episodes of The Young and the Restless – I still can’t figure out who slept with whom and when.”

  “I’ll bring your dinner over so you can concentrate,” I said. “When you’re in labour and you really need distraction, I’ll fill you in on the romantic history of the Abbots and the Newmans.”

  Margot raised an eyebrow. “You watch Y&R?”

  “Mieka has loved it forever. When she was in high school, it was her reward for doing algebra.”

  “So you watch it because Mieka likes it.”

  “No, I watch it because I like it. See you at six.”

  Taylor had been uncharacteristically withdrawn when she came home from school. She murmured hello and went straight to her room. As the minutes ticked by and her bedroom door remained shut, I grew anxious. Finally, I went upstairs, rapped on her door, and opened it a crack. Taylor was lying on her bed with the comforter pulled up to her neck, staring at the ceiling.

  “Is everything okay?” I said.

  She pulled the comforter closer. “I’m fine,” she said. Then she turned her back to me.

  I delivered Margot’s dinner early, hoping that I could catch Declan at home before he went out with his teammates for pizza. I was in luck, Declan answered the door. He took the tray. “This looks great,” he said. “When I get back from the game, I’ll have a bowl.”

  “Good,” I said. “Declan, can I talk to you for minute?”

  “Sure. Do you want to come in?”

  “No, let’s just talk out here.”

  Declan took the tray inside and returned almost immediately.

  “When Taylor came home from school, she seemed upset,” I said. “She won’t talk about what’s wrong. I wondered if she’d said something to you.”

  For a beat, Declan stared at his runners. Then he opened up. “Julian’s telling Taylor that they need each other to survive, I told her that’s just bullshit – that she doesn’t need Julian. She doesn’t need anybody. She can handle her own life.”

  “Is she listening to you?”

  “She’s starting to, but she’s afraid of what Julian might do if she breaks off with him.”

  My throat clenched. “Is Taylor afraid he’ll hurt her?”

  “I’d never let that happen,” Declan said flatly. “Julian is threatening to harm himself, and Taylor believes him.”

  “Then it’s time for Zack and me to step in.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time,” Declan said.

  “You’re a good guy,” I said. I reached over and touched Declan’s hair. Dreadlocks are hard to tousle, but I did my best.

  When Zack got home, Taylor came downstairs as soon as she heard his voice. She hugged him and then she hugged me, but she was quiet at dinner. Split pea soup was a family favourite, and I didn’t want to ruin our meal by discussing Julian. So we talked about the Grey Cup events that were springing up all over town like mushrooms after a three-day rain. The Saskatchewan Roughriders were the western champions, and the game against the eastern champion Montreal Alouettes would be played in Regina on November 24. Taylor was going to a party at the Wainbergs. Taylor loved parties, especially themed parties. A Grey Cup party was right up her alley, but even talking about the event at the Wainbergs didn’t draw Taylor out of her shell, and I could see the worry in Zack’s face.

  After Taylor went upstairs with her books, Zack and I took our coffee into the living room.

  “Declan and I had a chat tonight,” I said. “He says Julian’s trying to convince Taylor that they have to take their relationship to a deeper level.”

  “Sexual,” Zack said, and his voice was quietly furious.

  “More than sexual,” I said. “Symbiotic. Julian is telling Taylor that they can’t live without each other. He’s apparently threatened to hurt himself if she breaks off her relationship with him.”

  “That tears it,” Zack said. He wheeled to the bottom of the stairs. “Taylor, can you come down for a few minutes.”

  Taylor was in her pyjamas and slippers. She followed Zack into the living room, but she didn’t sit down. Her eyes darted between our faces. “If this is about Julian, I’m going back upstairs.”

  “Just hear us out, please,” I said. “Your dad and I are concerned that you’re about to make a bad decision.”

  She whirled around to face me. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve made some very good decisions lately. My paintings brought $43,000 to Racette-Hunter and every decision about those paintings was mine. I decided on a subject. I decided on the approach I’d take. I decided about how I would position my subjects. I decided the colours I’d use and how I’d use light and space. Now I’m making another decision. I’m going to continue working with Julian.”

  “Taylor, I’m sorry. We just can’t allow that to happen,” Zack said. “We made a terrible mistake about Julian. We trusted Kaye’s judgment, and Julian was not the man we thought he was. He used Lauren Treadgold, and he’s using you.”

  “I’m not listening to any more of this,” Taylor said and she raced up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door.

  “Go after her,” Zack said. “We can’t leave it like this.”

  When I knocked on Taylor’s bedroom door, she didn’t answer. I went in anyway. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, breathing hard.

  I carried a chair over so I could be close but still give Taylor space. “Taylor, I know that Julian’s been telling you that you can’t make good art without him – that he can unlock something inside you that’s keeping you from being the artist you can be.”

  Taylor’s eyes filled with tears. “Declan talked to you,” she said. “I thought I could trust him.”

  “You can trust him,” I said. “Declan loves you. He loves you enough to risk losing you because he knows you need to be protected.”

&nb
sp; “I don’t need to be protected against Julian,” Taylor said, and her voice was low with fury. “He wants me to be the best artist I can be. That’s what I want, too.”

  “And that’s what your dad and I want for you,” I said. “But from the moment Julian came into our lives, things have changed. You’ve changed. You, your dad, and I have always been open with one another, but for more than a month Julian was here almost every day and you never once mentioned that he was posing naked.”

  Taylor’s face was flushed with anger. “That’s because he never did pose naked. He always wore a bathing suit.” Taylor leaped off her bed, grabbed her knapsack from the floor, and shook the contents onto her bed. There were sketches and there were photographs. She picked one up and thrust it at me. It was in colour. “This is Julian’s penis,” Taylor said. “If you want to dig through the rest of my stuff, you’ll find pictures of all of Julian’s sexual parts. I thought you knew how I felt about boys. I wasn’t ready to see Julian naked, so he suggested I work from pictures.” She picked up another photo. “This is a scrotum,” she said coldly. “Painting it from a photo was as easy as painting a piece of fruit.”

  “I’m sorry, Taylor.”

  “I don’t care if you’re sorry or not sorry,” she said. “The point is you didn’t trust me to do what I needed to do. Now, just please get out of here and leave me alone.”

  Zack was at the bottom of the stairs waiting. “I take it your talk did not go well,” he said.

  I was still holding the photo Taylor had given me. I handed it to Zack. He stared at it over the rim of his glasses. “That’s Julian’s penis,” I said. “When I went upstairs, the killer point I was planning to make was that Julian was changing Taylor, that she had kept the fact that Julian was posing naked secret.” I took the picture from Zack. “As it turns out, Julian never was naked. He wore a bathing suit. When Taylor was painting Julian’s genitalia, she worked from pictures. She’s furious that we didn’t trust her to do what she needed to do.”

  “Shit,” Zack said. “Do you want to ask her to come down to talk to me?

  “She’s too upset,” I said. “So am I. Let’s all just sleep on it, and try again tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER

  12

  Friday morning we awoke to glorious sunshine and blue skies, but I had stopped believing in the pathetic fallacy. As I took the dogs up to the roof garden, my heart was heavy and the scene that greeted me in the kitchen when I got back to our condo didn’t lighten it.

  The line of Taylor’s mouth was grim and her body language made it clear she didn’t want physical contact with either Zack or me. She drank her juice, ignored the porridge in the pot, and made herself toast. When she sat down at the table, Zack wheeled close to her. “Taylor, do you want to talk about this?”

  “No. Not now.”

  “We love you.”

  Taylor pushed her chair back and stood. “Julian said you’d try to do this. He told me that no matter how many times you tell me you love me, I should remember that this is my life.”

  She grabbed her backpack and walked quickly out of the room. I saw that the bubblegum pink toque that matched the lining of her boots was still sitting on the kitchen counter. I called out to her as she was opening the front door. She pivoted to face me and I saw that she was crying. I went to her and snugged her toque over her ears the way I had when she was a child. And then, as I had when she was a child, I kissed the tip of my daughter’s nose. We looked into each other’s eyes, and for a beat, I thought we might be home free. But when I reached out to wipe away her tears, Taylor turned and ran for the elevator.

  I shut the door, walked into the living room, and collapsed on the couch. Wordlessly, Zack followed, transferred his body from his chair to the place beside me, and drew me to him. Willie and Pantera came in and flopped as close to us as they could manage. For fifteen minutes, Zack and I held each other in a silence that was broken only by the ticking of the grandmother clock and the breathing of our dogs.

  Mieka called just as Zack was cleaning up the breakfast dishes and she had good news to pass along.

  She and Riel had talked after he spoke to the police. Riel told her everything he’d told the police about his attempt to blackmail Lauren Treadgold and his painful encounter with her when he picked up the money. He had also recounted how, when he heard voices on his return visit to the Treadgold house, he’d fled.

  But there was new information. When the police took him through the sequence of events surrounding his two visits to the Treadgold house, Riel remembered something that he’d blanked on when he talked to me. When he left the Treadgolds for the second time, Riel was physically and emotionally spent. He decided to take the bus home. As he waited in the shelter at the bus stop, he saw someone running down the street in front of the Treadgold house. The rain was coming down in sheets, and Riel couldn’t tell whether the figure was male or female. All he knew was that the person was slender, had pulled up the hood of their rain gear, and wasn’t much of a runner.

  According to Mieka, Mildred Thill, the lawyer Zack had recommended, had handled Riel’s police interview well. Ms. Thill pointed out to the police that Riel had come forward voluntarily with information that allowed them to expand their investigation; that he’d attempted to return the $20,000; and that when that attempt failed, he’d donated the money to Racette-Hunter.

  “Where’s Riel now?” I said.

  “Out on the porch, painting the benches,” Mieka said. “Mum, I don’t know what I’m going to do when he’s finished with the painting. I don’t want to lose him, but I’m not ready to go on as if nothing has happened. I don’t think Riel is either. One good thing: Riel and I are having coffee tomorrow with Mildred Thill.”

  “That is a good thing,” I said.

  “It is,” Mieka said. “Mum, I’m relieved that Riel’s addiction is out in the open. At least now we can see the problem and deal with it.”

  Zack came into the living room, fooling with his iPad. When I told him that Riel had gone to the police and given the full story, Zack exhaled with relief. “That’s promising,” he said.

  “And there’s another glimmer of hope on the horizon,” I said. “Mieka and Riel are having coffee tomorrow with that lawyer you recommended. They’re going to talk about Riel’s addiction.”

  “Whoa,” Zack said. “That’s more than a glimmer of hope. Mildred gave a talk on addiction at a trial lawyers’ lunch last year, and I was impressed. She had some interesting things to say about the relationship between childhood traumas and addiction.”

  “Well, Riel’s childhood was filled with trauma. He saw his mother’s husband murder both his mother and his father.”

  “He also grew up feeling marginalized – another marker for addiction.”

  “Did Mildred have any suggestions for approaches that really work in conquering addiction?”

  “Actually, she did. She quoted this Vancouver doctor. I forget his name, but he talked about the road to recovery requiring what Buddhists call ‘mindfulness.’ I’m usually not into that touchy-feely stuff, but what Mildred said about addicts slowing down and focusing on what’s happening inside themselves made a lot of sense to me.”

  “Let’s hope mindfulness works for Riel,” I said. “Let’s hope that for once the universe unfolds as it should.”

  “Hoping isn’t enough. We need to be proactive. Let’s go back to bed and fool around. That always gets the universe unfolding in the right direction.”

  “Sold,” I said. “Do you realize how long it’s been since we made love?”

  “Three days,” he said, “but who’s counting?”

  “There’s something I want to try,” I said. “It was number one in a Cosmo article called ‘Ten Sex Tricks That Will Drive Your Man Crazy.’ ”

  Zack wheeled over, put his arm around my hips, and squeezed. “Let’s get on it.”

  Cosmo’s Sex Trick Number One involved a serious degree of athleticism on my part. When we were finished, Za
ck looked at me with new respect.

  “That deserves champagne and truffles.”

  And then the landline rang.

  “I guess I’ll have to hold off on the champagne and truffles,” I said, reaching for the phone

  Our caller was Gracie Falconer. Taylor hadn’t shown up at school that morning and she wasn’t answering her cell.

  Gracie was worried. I promised Gracie I’d call her when I heard from Taylor, and then I broke the connection and told Zack.

  I could see the tension in the set of Zack’s jaw. “Let’s not panic,” he said. “Taylor was upset when she left here, she might have decided she just didn’t want to face school.”

  “Then where is she?” I said. I picked up the phone and dialled Taylor’s cell. A recorded voice told me the cellular customer was not available. “She’s turned off her phone,” I said. “That’s not like her.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Zack said. “Let’s start at the beginning and take it from there. If Taylor hadn’t met Declan at the elevator as usual this morning, he would have been in touch.” Zack checked his watch. “He’ll be in class. I’ll text him and ask him to call.”

  Declan responded immediately. Zack took the call and outlined the situation. When he hung up, his face was grave. “Declan dropped Taylor off at the usual spot, outside the main door, and as usual he left to park his car. That was the last he saw of her. He’s going to ask around to see if anyone saw Taylor inside the school.”

  “I’ll start texting the girls Taylor is tight with at school.” I took the list of phone numbers off the zonk board and began. When Declan called back, he confirmed what the texts of Taylor’s friends had established. No one at Luther had seen our daughter inside the school that morning.

  Zack sighed. “Like it or not, the next call is to Julian.”

  “Your turn,” I said.

  Zack dialled and waited. “Shit. Straight to voicemail.” He wheeled over to the hall cupboard and got his jacket. “What kind of car does Julian drive?”

  “A black VW beetle. Do you think they’re together?”

  Zack picked up his wallet and car keys. “Probably. Where does Julian live?”