by Karen Fenech
Katie may not be happy that Clare reentered her life, and may regard Clare’s arrival as an intrusion. It was possible that she would turn Clare away.
Clare heard a meow and opened her eyes. Tilly, the cat that belonged to Clare’s elderly neighbor, leaped onto the balcony railing that ran the length of both apartments. Her green eyes glowed in the darkness.
Deftly, the cat crossed the narrow railing, a path she was well acquainted with, stopping where Clare’s arms rested.
“Can’t sleep either, I see,” Clare said softly.
Tilly rubbed against Clare’s wrist.
The cat was very loved by her owner, and spent much of her day on the elderly lady’s lap. Tilly liked to be held. Clare obliged and lifted her into her arms. The cat’s tawny coat smelled of her owner’s floral perfume.
As she cradled the feline, Clare pressed her forehead against Tilly’s soft fur. Katie would not turn her away. That was not how their reunion would play out.
Tomorrow she would meet with her sister and they would be a family again.
* * * * *
Clare checked the map of South Carolina she’d brought with her, then took the next exit. After a considerable drive that had her questioning if she’d taken a wrong turn, despite the map, she came to a sign that read: Welcome to Farley.
She tossed the map of the state on the passenger seat. On it, Farley was a dot she’d needed a magnifying glass to see. None of the roads within the town were depicted. She’d obtained a diagram of Farley’s streets through the Bureau’s database and retrieved it from the glove box now.
The town of Farley was in Blane County, a rural area that was primarily agricultural. Clare drove past farmland and fields where cotton and soybeans grew tall. The road went on and on. She needed to find out just where she was and searched for a street sign she could look for on the map, but there wasn’t one. A white clapboard colonial house came into view. It stood against the blinding yellow backdrop of the sun. Clare squinted at the sign on the front lawn: Connie’s Inn.
A patch of yellow flowers grew around a flag pole in front. Yellow Jessamine, South Carolina’s state flower, according to the wooden plaque staked into the dirt. A card table with four chairs around it and two half-filled glasses of what looked like lemonade were centered together on the white verandah. Someone there should be able to tell her what road she was on. Clare turned onto the driveway, turned off the ignition, and stepped out onto a pink flagstone walkway.
After being in the air-conditioned car, the heat outside hit her like a blast from a furnace. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the glare reflecting off the upper story windows and made her way up the three steps to the porch.
Welcome to Connie’s. Come in was painted in yellow on the glass door. Clare rang the bell then, following the instructions, went inside.
Cinnamon scented the air inside the house. Clare strolled over gleaming wood floors, passed a living room where a floral print sofa backed against an ivory wall. Someone had left knitting on the arm of the couch. The atmosphere was homey. There was no one in the room now though, and Clare continued down the hall.
“Hello,” she called out.
Soft music played somewhere in the back of the house. A country tune that Clare didn’t recognize.
No one answered her call. She was about to call out again when she heard footsteps and creaking wood. She turned in the direction of the sound as a woman appeared at the top of the stairs.
She appeared to be around seventy and was small and spare. Her gray hair was pulled back in a tight bun that emphasized prominent features. Her gnarled hand gripped a three-pronged cane.
Leaning heavily on the cane and the banister, the woman began a slow descent of the blue carpeted steps. When she was halfway down, she stopped. Her eyes widened on Clare and she gasped. The woman’s face went deathly pale.
“Are you all right?” Clare asked.
The woman looked about to faint. Clare rushed to the stairs.
“I never thought you’d have the nerve to show your face back here.” The woman said in a low, guttural voice.
“What?”
The woman’s face flushed sunburn red. “How dare you come back here?”
“I’ve never been—”
“The last thing my son needs is to see you again.”
“I don’t know you,” Clare said, “or your son.”
The woman’s pale eyes narrowed. “You can bet he’s wished he never knew you.”
Okay, this was getting odd. “My name is Clare. Clare Marshall. You’ve made an error and mistaken me for someone else.”
“An error?” The old woman tilted her head and regarded Clare down the long length of her nose. “Fancy talk. Guess you’re getting yourself some of that college you was always wanting.” Her gaze lowered to Clare’s silk blouse and pleated walking shorts, then lifted to Clare’s face. “Fixed yourself up real classy. That why you come back? To show my boy how you’re doing better without him? Figured he might finally be getting over you and you just couldn’t let him do that.”
Clare crossed her arms. “Look. I stopped here to get my bearings. Clearly, that was a mistake.” One that she intended to correct immediately. So much for Southern hospitality. She turned to leave.
“That’s right. Go on. Get out. Go back to where you come from, and stay there!”
The woman was shouting now. As far as Clare was concerned, she couldn’t leave the inn fast enough. A door at the end of the hall opened. Clare glanced toward it. Another woman, bearing a basket of wet towels on her hip, entered the hall.
Clare took the newcomer’s measure. Mid-thirties. A couple of inches shorter than Clare’s own five-foot-eight. Dark hair was pulled back from her round face in a tight ponytail. She had a solid, sturdy build that suggested a lifetime of hard work.
“What’s going on in here, Mama?” The new woman was puffing slightly. Perspiration beaded on her forehead. “I could hear you shouting from the base—” The woman’s gaze went to Clare and she stopped speaking.
“She’s what happened Connie-girl,” the elderly woman said. Her lips pulled back, baring her teeth. “She’s back.”
Connie’s lips quivered briefly. “That’s not her, Mama.” Her mouth tightened. She set the basket on the floor at her feet. “She looks like her, but it ain’t her.”
The statement was uttered in a harsh tone. The younger woman was as hostile as the older, Clare observed. Was everyone in this town a nut?
If she drove long enough, she’d come to a street with a sign on it. She’d knock on every door in Farley if she had to to find Katie. Clare turned her back on the two women.
The old woman shouted. “You keep going, and this time, Beth Linney, don’t you never come back!”
Beth Linney. Elizabeth Linney. Clare’s heart pounded and she whirled to face the women again.
Addressing the elder of the two, Clare asked. “You know Elizabeth Linney?”
It was Connie who responded. “Mama’s a little confused.” She crossed her arms. “Don’t pay her no mind.”
Clare eyed the old woman. “You called me Beth Linney. Elizabeth Linney. I’m Clare Marshall. Elizabeth Linney is my sister.”
Connie shook her head hard. Two red spots colored her cheeks. “Beth don’t have no sister.”
“I won’t go into the details of it with you, but yes, she does.” Clare squared her shoulders in defense of the statement. “Now. How do you know my sister?”
Connie’s gaze sharpened on Clare. “Sister, huh? Well, well, I wouldn’t have figured Hank Linney for stepping out on his missus, but there you go.” Connie propped a hand on her hip. “Well, sis, Beth was married to my baby brother till one week ago when she up and left him. Run off with a trucker that delivers fruits and vegetables to Dawson Foods.”
Clare’s throat tightened. She ignored the other woman’s incorrect assumption about Katie’s parentage. “Are you telling me that Katie—ah—Beth isn’t in Farley?” Clare’s voic
e came out thin.
Connie curled her lips in a sneer. She lowered her eyelids, looking at Clare as if she were something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe. “You heard me. Beth is long gone.”
Chapter Four
Katie . . . gone for one week. No. No. But even as Clare shook her head in denial, she saw the truth in Connie’s eyes and felt as if the earth shifted beneath her.
“Now you got what you come for,” Connie said. “Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out.”
Clare ignored Connie’s comment. “Where?” Her voice cracked and she forced some strength into it. “Where did she go?”
Connie’s features pulled taut and her eyes glittered with malice. “To hell, I hope.”
Connie’s hatred for Katie aroused a fierce protectiveness in Clare. Her cheeks warmed with anger. She welcomed it and focused on it rather than the feeling of despair that threatened to overwhelm her. Teeth gritted, she said. “Never mind, I’ll get my answers elsewhere.”
“There’s no answer to get. She’s gone. You go, too. Get out of Farley like your slut of a sister!”
Clare let the screen door slam behind her. After the dim interior of the house, the bright sun was near-blinding, and she shielded her eyes with the back of one hand while she fumbled in her purse for the car keys. Getting out of Farley was what she was not going to do. She hadn’t come this far to give up. She would never give up.
In her car, she started the engine then backed out of Connie’s drive and set off down the street. A white cat streaked in front of the bumper. Clare stomped on the brake and the car screeched to a halt. She suppressed a shriek of her own. Her fingers were clamped around the steering wheel and her stomach was tight. Clare realized she was trembling. Not the fault of the near-mishap with the feline. She was still reeling from learning that she’d missed Katie. Again.
In all the years she’d been searching for her sister, there’d been a few times when she’d thought she was close to finding her, only to have the lead fizzle. None, though, had been as close as this time.
Because she’d been so close, she’d gone beyond the vague hope of someday being with Katie again to an expectation that a reunion with her sister was imminent. She’d just fallen hard from a great height. The disappointment felt like the weight of an elephant crushing her. She pressed her forehead hard to the vinyl-wrapped steering wheel.
The pain would paralyze her if she allowed it. She forced herself to raise her head. This was just another glitch. She would find Katie. She told herself that after each false lead. It was do that, or go quietly insane. This time though, it was not a false lead she was pursuing. She had an identity for Katie that she could use to find her.
Clare shook her head, shook off the despair. Relaxing her grip on the steering wheel, she renewed her determination and slid her foot to the gas pedal again.
Connie may not know where Katie went, but Katie’s husband might. She’d proceed as planned to Katie’s house, though this time, to speak with her sister’s husband.
She glanced at the dashboard clock. Coming up on noon. Unless Katie’s husband didn’t work mornings, or knocked off work early for the day, it wasn’t likely that he’d be at home at this time. No matter. She’d camp out on his doorstep until he returned.
Clare drove on. A sign proclaimed the next street she came to as Bridge Road. A creek flowed slowly below. Two men in floppy hats sat beneath a Live Oak, lowering fishing poles into the still water. After sundown, Clare imagined a breeze would blow in off the water. If the heat didn’t let up, she just might go there and find out.
She found Bridge Road on the diagram. Daisy Lane was one street south of that.
The houses on Daisy Lane were small, single-story dwellings that showed pride of ownership with well-tended lawns and paint that shone on eaves troughs, porches, and doors. Katie’s place was no exception. Clare parked her car by the curb, and leaning forward in the driver’s seat, got her first look at Katie’s house.
All visible trim was painted white. Even in the unforgiving glare of sunlight, the white was as bright and chaste as new fallen snow, making a lie of the old adage that white was hard to maintain. The lawn looked as fresh and lush as a golf green. A row of thriving petunias lined the edge of a painted wooden porch.
Clare smiled. Unlike herself, Katie had a green thumb. Unable to resist a closer look at her sister’s home, she braced herself against the heat, and left the car.
A freesia bush bloomed with pink petals. The sweet scent hung in the still air. Upon closer observation, Clare noticed that the bush was carefully trimmed so that its branches were aligned. The petunias were evenly spaced. That prompted another smile. Katie must have a sense of order that Clare herself didn’t possess, in addition to that green thumb.
A decade-old green sedan was parked on one side of the driveway. If that was the only car the Ryders owned, Clare figured it was likely to be parked in the center of the driveway. Again, she considered that it was unlikely Katie’s husband would be at home on a week day, at the noon hour, but there was a car in the drive and she climbed the steps to the porch and rang the doorbell, just in case. As she suspected, no one answered her call.
A gate led to a backyard. She would be trespassing if she wandered through it, invading Katie’s privacy. She held herself back, just barely, from going into the yard, so hungry was she for details about Katie’s life.
She was about to return to her car and wait out the return of Katie’s husband when a white pickup turned into the driveway. The window was rolled down.
The man behind the wheel wore his sandy hair cut military short. It suited his features. He parked, then left the vehicle. On the driveway he stood in place facing her, his blue gaze unwavering. He appeared to be taking her measure, Clare thought, though his expression didn’t alter. She expected some degree of surprise in his eyes, but there was none, and the lack made her think he’d been expecting her.
Clare met his gaze. “Hello. I’m looking for Dean Ryder.”
“You must be the woman my sister called about.”
So this was Katie’s husband. She tried a smile. “I’m Clare Marshall.”
Ryder didn’t acknowledge the introduction. “You do resemble my wife. Her sister, that who you told Connie and our mama you were?”
So much for the pleasant greeting Clare had planned. Expecting a warm welcome for Katie’s relative might have been naive, having learned what she had about Katie leaving him for another man.
“Yes, I’m Ka- ah—Beth’s sister.” Clare was going to have to start thinking of Katie as Beth.
The temperature had to be over one hundred degrees. Ryder’s tan suit jacket was buttoned. A tie was cinched at his throat. He appeared unaffected by the heat. Unlike herself. Clare could feel perspiration trickling down her neck.
“So my sister said.” Ryder nodded. “You’re going to give Gladys quite a turn.”
Clare saw no point in withholding the truth from him. “Hank Linney is not my father or Beth’s. Beth was adopted. She was born Kathleen Marshall.”
His lips pursed. “She never told me about an adoption.”
He appeared angered by that, and Clare rushed to defend Beth. “She might not have known. She was an infant when the adoption took place.” Clare took a deep breath and reigned in her own anger, which wouldn’t be productive in getting any information from Ryder. “Your sister mentioned that Beth is no longer in town. Mr. Ryder—Dean, I’m trying to find her. I’d like to ask you some questions—”
“I got nothin’ to tell you.”
