Finding Mary Blaine

by Jodi Thomas

  Lilly poured them both a glass of iced tea and sat down at her place. “I was a librarian’s assistant before I married my second husband. He talked me into moving out to his farm, promising I could buy fifty books a year if I wanted.” She giggled. “If he’d lived longer, my whole house would be lined in bookshelves.”

  “You didn’t go back to working in a library after he died?” Mark asked then took a bite of food.

  “No. I never went back to anything in my life. I was a teacher’s aide before I married the first time. When he died I went back to school then worked in the library until my second husband came along. When he died I went back to school again and took enough journalism courses to get a job writing columns for a small-town newspaper. I owned that paper by the time I found my third husband.”

  “When did he die?” Mark found Lilly’s life story interesting, like something they’d make a “for women only” movie about.

  “Oh, he didn’t die that I know of. I just went for cigarettes one day and I never went back home. You would have thought he might have noticed something was up, since I don’t smoke. He was like that, lost in himself.”

  “He was mean to you?” Mark felt sorry for her. He’d seen dozens of women marry late in life to someone they thought was worth having and the husband turned out to be abusive. A few of the other partners in his office took such cases, but Mark stayed away from them. He preferred his conflict to be over numbers matching in an account book.

  “No, he wasn’t mean.” Lilly downed half her iced tea. “He just flat bored me senseless. I finally couldn’t take it.”

  “So you went back to school?”

  She grinned. “You guessed it. Only this time I taught a few classes and I learned something I guess I’d known all along.”

  “What’s that?” Mark stared at his empty plate, surprised he’d eaten every bite of the strange mixture while she had talked.

  “If you can’t go to bed with a good man, go to bed with a good book. It’s much better company in the long run.”

  Despite his mood, Mark laughed and she scooped him another helping without asking if he wanted more. He could never remember talking to someone like her, and to his shock he found himself enjoying the meal. About the time he thought he had her figured out, she twisted the conversation into a new area he’d never considered talking to anyone, much less her, about.

  She even asked why they’d never had children. Mark told her Blaine couldn’t have any. He left out the fact that they’d never really looked into it. Blaine had made the question easy for him because if she’d been able to have children, he would have to consider it and the thought of parenting frightened him as few things did in the world. He liked feeling in control and most parents seemed to be sailing without a compass.

  When they moved to the living area, Lilly handed him a bowl of popcorn and a can of root beer, then turned on the TV. “Do you watch Survivor?”

  “I don’t have time to watch much except the news. If we don’t go out, I’m usually working on a case.” He thought of telling her he needed to go and do just that, but she didn’t give him a chance.

  “Well, we’ve got to watch tonight. There’s only two people left. It’s the last night.” The screen came to life with half-naked men and women running along a beach while drums beat in the background.

  “I’m really not interested,” he said honestly.

  She wiggled into her recliner and popped the tab on her drink. “We can fix that. How much money do you have in your pocket?”

  Mark reached for his wallet.

  “Not your back pocket. I don’t figure you for a sucker. In your front pocket, where you stuff the change from eating lunch out.”

  Mark pulled the bills from his left pocket and the change from his right. “Eleven dollars and forty-three cents.”

  “You a good judge of people?”

  “I have to be to pick juries.”

  “Then I tell you what, you watch the opening where they show a little summary, and when they get down to the last two, you pick the one you think will win. I’ll take the other. Even bet.”

  Mark smiled, almost feeling sorry for her. He’d bet his skill against hers any day. He’d always been able to read people. “I hate to eat your food and take your money, Miss Lilly.”

  She grinned at him as if she knew a secret. “Are you trying to back out, chicken?”

  He glanced at the plaque over her stove. “No way. You’re on.”

  She dug in her purse until the exact amount of his bet was on the trunk that served as a coffee table.

  Thirty minutes later the popcorn was gone and they were both on the edge of their seats. Mark thought the choice of who would win was obvious, but if so, why did she let him pick? Maybe the producers painted one guy in a bad light and then changed their tone about the time the viewer thought he knew who’d won.

  Forty-five minutes into the game he decided she must have rigged the bet. His choice was turning out to be the jerk of the island. He yelled at the TV as if he could change what was happening.

  Miss Lilly joined in and shouted for her pick not to listen to a thing Mark was saying. Then she laughed, as only a woman who loves to laugh can, with her whole body.

  Five minutes to go and he found out her choice had a few secrets to tell and seemed determined to do so even as Miss Lilly yelled.

  When the show went to commercial, Mark was up pacing the floor as if he was in a courtroom. Lilly was laughing at him, verbally poking him like a child toying with a chained dog. The thought crossed his mind that he should be thankful she hadn’t gone to law school in her many returns to collect more education.

  A few minutes more and the suspense was over. Mark yelled a football hoot he hadn’t screamed in years. By chance his pick had pulled it off in a last-minute ploy. Lilly laughed until she had to use one of the afghans to wipe her face.

  “That was great fun,” Mark said before he caught himself.

  How could he say such a thing after all he’d been through?

  “It was fun.” Lilly looked up at him as if reading his mind. The money lay forgotten on the table between them. “It’s all right, Mark. It’s all right to laugh and it’s all right to cry. No matter what happens, as long as we’re breathing, we’ve got to go on living.”

  Mark nodded, sat down on her ridiculous couch of many colors and did something he hadn’t done since his mother passed on. He cried.

  Eleven

  Blaine ran two blocks before she looked back to see if the man in the blue cap followed. To her relief, no one appeared. She turned a corner and hurried down another street, then another, then another, weaving her way to nowhere. She’d been a fool to walk so close to him, to think she had to see his eyes. Now, if he recognized her, he knew she was still alive. Now he’d be looking for her.

  Desperately, she sought safety in a town that suddenly seemed foreign to her. Austin was no longer home. No longer safe.

  She ran down alleys, but the fear that the bomber might catch her alone in the shadows drove her back to the crowded streets. Here he might find her, but at least he couldn’t kill her without someone noticing. She tried to guess if he’d recognized her, or simply hated the way she stared at him. She couldn’t be sure. She had a feeling that if he wasn’t sure who she was, he might still think it safer to kill her rather than take a chance at her causing him trouble.

  A question lingered in her thoughts. Why had he stayed around, only a few blocks from the bombing? Looking for a witness? Watching those suffer from the chaos he’d caused? Or was there a chance that he suspected she still breathed. The possibilities chilled Blaine’s blood.

  Could it be that somehow, when he’d bombed the back of the clinic, he hadn’t accomplished his goal? Surely his one goal hadn’t been to kill her. She tried to remember the exact word she’d heard Winslow and the thin man whisper in the shadows that first morning, but the conversation was blurred with memories of the throbbing in her head, the fire in her throat an
d the ache in her leg.

  Blaine couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t been dreaming or out of her mind that morning. It all seemed smoky now, like a nightmare she couldn’t shake. But the fear she felt was real and she had to think.

  She tried to blend in with the crowd, but she was no longer one of them. People frowned if she moved too close, and a few turned around as though questioning why she might be following them. Women pulled their purses closer, men checked the wallets in their pockets. Blaine was afraid to stand too close, afraid to get too far away, for there was comfort among the strangers.

  Blaine joined a group of schoolteachers protesting in front of the capitol, but with her ragged clothes, she stood out among the khaki skirts and white tennis shoes. She tried walking beside a group of tourists, all with cameras and fold-up hats and buttons that said, A Dozen Capitals in a Dozen Days. They didn’t glare at her as the teachers had, but she knew she couldn’t blend.

  At the downtown library where she worked, she twisted around a corner and paused behind a dozen concrete steps leading to the back entrance. There, in the shadows between buildings, she tried to think. She had to be careful, very careful. The killer could be walking the streets only a block away, searching for her. Or maybe he had found a hiding place where he could watch everyone pass by. If she kept circling, she was bound to run into him. She had to have a plan.

  As she gulped air, the door opened at the top of the stairs and one of the librarians hurried down and across the street to a coffeehouse. The girl didn’t notice Blaine standing below the steps on the other side of the railing.

  Blaine smiled. She was back to being one of the invisible people again. The question remained: was she invisible enough? She glanced at the door.

  The staff, used to street people wandering through the library, would ignore her as long as she stayed in the public areas. What she needed, though, was not in the public areas.

  She walked her fingers along the brick wall to the metal door. Just as she hoped, it had not closed completely. Probably left ajar because the staff worker would be returning in moments with coffees.

  Blaine slipped inside so quickly the movement of the door could have been caused by a breeze. She hurried past stacks of boxes. The most likely place she would be seen was in this open area. An ancient camera blinked a red light from above the exit sign, but Blaine knew no one watched its recordings. She had seen the monitor near the circulation desk and never noticed anyone showing interest in the comings and goings at the back door. Below the exit sign was a huge cardboard poster demanding this door be kept locked at all times. For the library, that probably seemed security enough.

  She moved with silent determination toward the stairs and the rooms below where desks were crammed into vacant corners amid old display cases and boxes labeled Book Sale. Hers was the only space not designated for volunteers. Since she usually spent only a few minutes each morning picking up assignments or dropping off books she wasn’t ready to send back upstairs, Blaine didn’t mind the drab almost-office.

  The basement room was empty and lit only with faint strips of emergency lighting. Blaine didn’t dare turn on a light and announce her arrival. It was still too early for volunteers to be there. Most came in around ten so they would have time to plan lunch before taking their break. Blaine let out a long-held breath and moved to an old typing table that served as her desk. Since she had no drawers for supplies, Blaine kept a box beneath the desk.

  The phone looked so innocent, so unimportant on her desk. She lifted the receiver and dialed nine for an outside line, then her home number.

  No answer. Mark had either turned off the answering machine, or it was full.

  She dialed his private line.

  Two, three, four rings.

  “Anderson’s office,” a low voice said. “This is Harry Winslow.” A long pause. “Hello. Hello, who is this?”

  Harry still answered Mark’s private line. Blaine pictured the stout man running across the space between his office and Mark’s. He would have to pass Mark’s secretary, so Mark must know he was answering the phone. But why? No one had ever answered the private line before except Mark.

  It crossed her mind that Harry might be waiting for her to call in.

  Blaine slowly lowered the phone. Twenty-four hours ago Mark had answered his own phone. If he wasn’t home or at his office, where was he? Her mind crossed the possibilities. Driving to work? Out for coffee? She closed her eyes. Making funeral plans for his wife. Of course. Mark still thought she’d died in the bombing.

  She had to reach him, but how? The last thing she planned to do was let Harry know she’d called.

  Reaching through her belongings in the box, Blaine needed to connect with her life. Mark was safe, she told herself. He had to be. It would have been in the paper if someone had hurt him. He lived in a locked complex, worked in a public place, no one would hurt him. There would be no reason. He was a lawyer, thinking of running for railroad commissioner. No one would want to harm him. She was cracking up. Right now, he was far safer than her. She was the one who had to vanish and fast.

  As she pulled out the box, her knee bumped against the slick nylon of her gym bag. She almost cried out in pure joy. How many times had she been angry with herself for forgetting to take the bag home? It was easy to work out at the gym a few blocks away before dropping by the library, but hard to remember the bag when she left the library with other things on her mind.

  Blaine crawled under the desk and opened the bag, feeling her belongings in the darkness. Sweats, deodorant, a comb, one still-damp swimsuit wrapped in a towel and Nikes. Nikes. She jerked off the filthy hospital slippers and put on one of her tennis shoes. Heaven!

  She continued her search.

  Her favorite gold bracelet still remained zipped in a bottom pocket along with a ten in case she needed money for juice at the gym. She’d thought it such a crisis the day she’d broken the latch. Now the familiar feel of the chain made her smile as though she’d reclaimed a piece of her shattered life.

  Within minutes she’d stripped to the skin and scrambled into her wrinkled sweats. When she pulled on her socks, she almost cried. Nothing had ever felt so good. She crammed her dirty clothes into the bag and tossed the slippers into a nearby trash can.

  Blaine rummaged through her office-supply box for anything she thought she could use. It would be too risky to return again to the library. Anything she needed, she had to take now. Scissors, five quarters and two breakfast bars were all she thought might be useful.

  With the sweatshirt’s hood over her wild hair, she walked out the front door of the public library carrying her duffel bag with a Gold’s Gym ID card dangling from the zipper.

  The homeless Mary had been replaced by a jogger, but she wasn’t safe yet. If the bomber got a look at her face, he’d still recognize her. She had to be careful until she knew she was out of danger.

  Disappear, she decided. But with ten dollars and change in her pocket, it wouldn’t be easy.

  Blaine stayed on the move, watching for a tattered blue cap to appear from among the people passing. No one bothered her as she walked through hotel lobbies, for now in her jogging clothes, she looked very much like anyone else in the hotel on vacation. She could have easily been one of the many businesswomen who traveled but still went through a workout each morning.

  In front of one hotel door with a Do Not Disturb sign hanging from the knob, Blaine picked up a paper. Now she could sit almost anywhere and read. Most hotel cafés would even bring her water. She made use of the hotel rest room to tie her hair back, then borrowed several of their soaps.

  She devoured the paper for details about the bombing but learned little. The bomber had used dynamite and most of the damage to the clinic had come from the fire that followed the bombing. Two bodies were found, Blaine’s and an office worker’s. One nurse was still missing—a Sindi Richards, who had only been working in the clinic a few weeks.

  On the back page she noticed a short
article about upcoming political races. Mark’s name was mentioned as still being considered in the running, but his law partner, Harry Winslow, had issued a statement that Mark might be reconsidering due to the recent tragedy.

  Blaine’s fingers twisted the paper. This race was so important to Mark. It was all he’d talked about for months. How could he be thinking about dropping out? The Railroad Commission held a great deal of power since they controlled oil production in Texas. Mark could make a real difference in such an office.

  The coldness of reality moved through her blood. He was thinking of dropping out because of her. She’d done the one thing she’d sworn she’d never do. She’d interfered with his dreams. No, correction, she may have killed them.

  It didn’t matter if she could talk to him or not. If she wasn’t dead, the press would be all over the story of how Mark Anderson’s wife was almost killed at a clinic known for doing abortions. No matter how many times she told them she’d only gone to find out if she was pregnant, there would always be that shadow of doubt. Women don’t have to see a doctor to find out about pregnancy…unless they fear cancer…unless they remember their mother thinking she was pregnant and finding out she had only months to live. In the end, her mother’s cancer would be mentioned and then someone would find out about her mother’s death. Blaine didn’t want to think of her life spread across the headlines like some story out of a tabloid.

  She closed the paper, folded it under her arm and began to walk. She kept her hood up and her head down as she passed block after block. One thought kept nagging at the back of her mind. What if? She didn’t want to bring it to the forefront of her thoughts, but it wouldn’t go away.

  What if? kept whispering in her thoughts. What if you were the reason for the bombing? Not the clinic and its problems, but you.

  She pushed the thought aside. Why would anyone want to kill her, Blaine Anderson, a part-time archivist who spent most of her time scanning old newspapers and articles?

  The words Winslow had whispered in the dark that morning after the bombing drifted over her like icy rain. “You got the wife,” he’d said.