“You look like hell,” Annabelle said trying to get an even better look around Claire’s lame attempt at disguise—her shirt collar.
Claire laid her head back on the nubby chair. “What would possess you to read this? It’s none of your business.” She took a napkin out of her purse and wiped her neck.
“Because I knew it had something to do with why you’re here, your craziness.” Annabelle sat on the floor at Claire’s feet. “I was right.”
Claire kept her eyes shut, to keep the room from spinning out of control. Her whole body felt contracted, muscles cramped. This couldn’t be happening. The one thing she didn’t want. The thing she’d tried so hard and spent so much money to avoid.
“I didn’t want you to know.”
“I take it the other letter, the one I sent with your clothes, is more of the same?”
Without picking her pounding head up, Claire nodded.
“This thing’s been going back and forth since Dad died?”
Claire nodded again.
“He was born around the time Dad died, a couple months before?” Annabelle sounded like the orphaned child she was when Claire first met her.
Claire’s chest rose and fell her breathing deep, ragged. “Yes,” she said in a whisper.
She laid her head in Claire’s lap and wrapped her arms around her wet calves. Without lifting her head or opening her eyes, Claire smoothed Annabelle’s hair. The skin on her trembling hand thin, translucent. Claire could hear her own tears fall on the wooly cushion underneath her ears. The heat from Annabelle’s body radiated through the damp legs of Claire’s jeans. She inhaled the comfort of her familiar scent, sweet, like cherries.
Annabelle. The motherless, now fatherless, girl.
Chapter Forty-One
“What are we gonna do?”
“We aren’t gonna do anything.”
Claire stepped into her leopard print ballet flats. She and Annabelle had spent a restless night in the same bed. Between the chills, nausea, and the stomach cramps, Claire hadn’t slept more than a few minutes at a time. “I don’t want you to worry about it. You’re going to get on the next plane back to California.”
“I meant today, here.”
Annabelle put her hair in a ponytail and looked out the window. Seemed she didn’t fully grasp the situation with Ellen and her son Shane. Liam’s son. She’d stayed silent about it the rest of the night. Claire wasn’t sure what that meant but she wanted her to go home.
“Annabelle.” Claire didn’t intend to take her on a tour of Bizzareville. “We need to see about getting you out of here. There’s nothing you can do.”
“I want to see my mother’s grave.”
Not what Claire expected. She couldn’t conjure a response.
“You’ve been to the cemetery haven’t you?” Annabelle said.
“Yes, of course.”
“Do you think we can find her?”
Annabelle looked like she’d just come up for air from the bottom of the pool.
“I know someone who can.”
****
Bonnie Colleen Corrigan. Her headstone stood near a shade tree and wasn’t far from the chapel. Joe Lansing looked it up, no problem, and drew them a nice map. Claire and Rob Rhino must’ve walked past it and not known it.
Annabelle and Claire stood in front of the stone for a few minutes in silence.
“I don’t remember if I came to her funeral,” Annabelle said.
“You were only a baby,” Claire said.
“No flowers.”
“No, guess not.”
“People probably lose interest after a while.”
“Maybe we came in an off week.” Claire said. “Could’ve been some a few days ago for all we know.”
Poor kid.
Annabelle looked around. “This place is really pretty. I like it here. You know, if you have to be dead.”
“Yes, it’s quite something, peaceful, beautiful.
They walked.
“What could’ve been so bad she didn’t want to live?” Annabelle said.
“I think some people are too delicate for this world.”
They stopped at a bench and sat.
“Maybe some people are just fine ’til they marry my dad.”
****
Just what she’d wanted to dodge. Claire turned to face her stepdaughter.
“It’s true,” Annabelle said. “My mother killed herself... and...and...look at you.” She covered her face with both hands and sobbed. “You’re the walking dead.”
Claire reached into her pocket, felt her stockpile.
Soon this would be over.
While Annabelle wasn’t looking, she gulped a buffer.
“Your mother’s death was not, absolutely not your dad’s fault.” Claire rubbed Annabelle’s back. “You know that. Everything is screwed up in your head right now. I’m fine. I am.”
Annabelle put her hands down. “Have you seen yourself? You’re not fine. Everything is screwed up in your head.” She started sobbing again.
Was it? Claire frowned. She didn’t know what she was anymore. For now she needed to make it right for this young woman who’d lost too much. That’s all she knew.
“Annabelle, your father loved you, loved us. But he wasn’t perfect. He made a mistake. One you never should’ve known about. Don’t let that wipe out what he meant to you for a lifetime.”
After he gets what’s coming to him maybe I’ll feel that way too.
Annabelle sniffled, “Aren’t you mad at him?”
Tread lightly.
“Well, I can be mad at him and still recognize what’s true can’t I?”
“I dunno.”
“Well, you will. Takes time.”
Annabelle brushed the hair that’d escaped from her ponytail away from her face. “Speaking of time, how long are you going to be here?”
“Didn’t I tell you? The crypt takes three weeks.” She tried to figure how long she’d already been there. The inside of her head felt like mashed potatoes. “A couple more weeks I guess.”
Annabelle didn’t seem to care much about the answer.
“What did you hope to accomplish by coming here?” Claire took Annabelle gently by the chin and turned her face toward her own.
“I don’t know. I saw that letter. I wanted to see you.” Annabelle’s eyes overflowed. “I’m scared. I thought you wouldn’t come back.”
Christ, how bad do I look?
“Why would you think that?” Claire said.
“Just a feeling. You... you’re barely hanging on, Claire.”
Claire sighed. “I need to get this behind me. As soon as I do, I’ll get better.”
She would. She’d look into going vegan. Maybe she’d get a colonic.
Annabelle looked skeptical.
“We better get back,” Claire unfolded out of the bench. “You need to get home, forget about all this and get to school.”
Annabelle stood, words shot out of her mouth like coins from a nickel slot. “Give her what she wants.”
“What?”
“Give Ellen the ten million.”
“How in God’s name do you know about the ten million?”
Annabelle faced Claire full on. “I talked to Andrew. We decided it would—”
“We decided?”
Had an anvil fallen on Claire’s head?
“Claire, these decisions need to be made by... someone else. You’re not competent to—”
Claire grabbed Annabelle by both shoulders, with strength neither of them realized she possessed. “If you know what’s good for you, that sentence will stay in your ignorant mouth.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Claire took Annabelle to the diner for lunch on the way back from the cemetery. It was the most comfortable choice. Claire tried to calm her rattled nerves, find some perspective at the bottom of her Prada. Annabelle sniffled, wiped tears, whimpered apologies.
“I thought I could help. I’m sorry, Clairesicle, I—”
“Don’t you ever talk to Andrew again, is that understood?”
On the heels of food poisoning was she getting the flu? Would it ever end?
Annabelle nodded, ribbons of tears running down her perfect unlined face. “He said you’d never survive a trial. Or dragging the whole thing out. I—”
“Andrew doesn’t have a clue about what I’d survive.”
Annabelle’s cell rang. Conchita with her flight arrangements. They’d have a couple hours to throw Annabelle’s stuff together before the car service came.
Picking up where she left off, Annabelle said “He’s looking out for you, Claire. For us.”
Claire would’ve jumped out of the booth if she hadn’t been so weak. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a naïve babe in the—”
The waterworks started down Annabelle’s cheeks again. “You’re sick, Claire. Not in your right mind. You need to come home with me, see someone, a professional, for an evaluation. I tried to get you to go that place in Hawaii. Andrew says there’s a place here. As your family we need to step in, do the right—”
“Do what right thing?”
Annabelle looked at her hands. “Well, we could force this, Claire. You don’t have to agree to—”
Claire leapt across the table, silverware clattering, grabbed Annabelle’s too expensive T-shirt front. “You and Andrew think you’ll have me committed?” Claire’s breath blew into Annabelle’s face. “Who do you think you’re dealing with?”
The waitress headed to their table turned on her Dr. Scholl’s and headed in the other direction.
“See? You’re out of control.” Annabelle sobbed, tried to worm away.
Claire pushed her toward the booth, flung herself backward, sat with her head in both hands. With a sigh heavy as bricks she met Annabelle’s wide eyes.
“What would possess you?”
Annabelle wiped her running nose with the back of her hand. “I’m just trying to help. It all came out wrong, but I’m worried about you. We all are.”
Something stank. “What’s in this for you?”
Annabelle glanced down at her lap. “I am worried about you. I am.”
Claire lunged across the table again, mashed her stepdaughter’s cheeks together with an iron grip. “Do not fuck with me.”
She crumpled like a piece of tinfoil. “Andrew said if I helped bring you around on this, he’d pay me, make it worth my while.”
The waitress snuck in with their lunches, hurried away without eye contact.
“Pay?” Claire said. “You just inherited two and half million dollars.”
Was she kidding?
Annabelle turned pink. “I spent most of it.”
Claire dropped her fork on the floor. “You spent most of it?”
“Okay all of it.”
“That’s almost unbelievable.” Claire’s body felt like jelly.
“It’s not like a couple million goes very far these days.” Annabelle’s whine made Claire’s skin feel like it shrank three sizes. “I bought that condo, my Beemer, I went in on that yacht with Kimmie and Dale. I have to have clothes. Now I might have to get a job. I—”
“How did you pay for your trip here?”
“Andrew.”
Judas and his silver.
“What’s in it for him?”
“Nothing, Claire. He was Dad’s best friend. He promised to take care of—”
Annabelle’s phone rang again. Saved her from getting Claire’s French dip thrown in her stupid face.
“Jordy, hey... what?” Annabelle’s eyes, big as the plate her Chinese chicken salad sat on, glanced at Claire then away. “No she’s right here.” Annabelle got up, ran out the diner door. Claire followed, telling the waitress, “Be right back.”
“At home? Did Steven bail you out?” Annabelle paced, wiped at her eyes, her still wet face.
Claire ripped the phone out of Annabelle’s hand so hard her stepdaughter tripped backward on the sidewalk.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Mother, it’s not a big deal.” Jordan said. “I didn’t know you were sitting right there. Annabelle’s got a big mouth.”
“Answer me.”
“Don’t freak. I got arrested. I—”
Claire felt the sidewalk come up. “You got arrested?”
A passerby, already staring, stopped. She flipped him off.
“I said don’t freak.” Jordan’s voice started to rise. “I’m already home. Bailed out. Taken care of for now.”
“Arrested for what?”
Bad taste in men?
“Drug possession.”
Claire reeled. “Drugs? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I had some pot in the car, Mother, a little coke. Nothing earth-shattering. First offense—”
Claire looked up at Annabelle who rocked on her Chloé wedges with her arms crossed, shaking her ponytailed head. “Now you’re some pot smoking coke head?”
Jordan laughed, a sharp short sound. “Really, Mother?”
“Yes, really.” Claire almost hopped up and down with anger, disappointment. If she hadn’t been so sedated. “You were not raised to do drugs. That Steven, this is his—” She spit her words.
“Don’t go there.”
“You’ve never taken drugs. Not even prescription, not since your ADHD medication when you were a kid.”
Claire couldn’t believe her ears. This all had to be a nightmare.
“I didn’t have ADHD, Mother.”
“You did too. You used to get that medication, remember? Every month like clockwork.”
“Yeah, I remember. You took it all”
Chapter Forty-Three
Claire grasped for her head. It hurt. Before her arm reached its target she winced and dropped it. The IV stuck in her vein pulled when she tried to move it. Her brain was a mass of disconnected scenes, moving pictures, recollections in triple time. She thought hard, bits of chaos, bright lights, madness, ran through like worker ants. A dangerous jumble, mixed up like everything else she didn’t like thinking about.
“Claire?”
She turned. Her head throbbed, felt huge. Were her eyes burnt? A nurse. Smiling in that way they do. Like you’re about to croak or they wished you would. Maybe she was about to. The nurse’s teeth gleamed like perfect eighty-eights. Claire shouldn’t knock it. At least the last person she’d see looked happy.
“How are you feeling? Better I hope.”
Better than what?
“I feel like shit. Am I in a hospital?” Claire looked around her room. She was the only one in it. “I’m in a hospital, right?”
“You are. I’m afraid you overdosed last night.”
“How long have I been here?”
The nurse picked up her chart, looked at her watch. “Looks like about twelve hours.” She listened to her heart, did all the nurse stuff, while Claire tried harder to remember the night before. Other than the hospital acoustics, the cold steel, the white coats that came first to her addled mind, there was nothing. Annabelle, Jordan. Goddamn ungrateful brats. She’d taken a nap or tried to after a bawling Annabelle got whisked off in the limo... couldn’t sleep.
“The doctor will be in to see you soon. Oh and your fiancé’s here. He slept in the hall all night. Since they brought you in. He’s worried sick about you.”
“Fiancé?”
“Rob, Rob Rhino. Quite a character. He’s well known around here.” Nurse smiled, made notations. “He sure seems devoted to you.” She put the chart back and left.
Claire felt her wrist for a pulse.
She must not’ve survived the overdose and gone straight to hell.
****
Rob Rhino bustled in, his rubber clogs squeaking across the tile floor.
Did the man own another shirt?
She followed his candy green feet across the floor. Her head felt a little better. She might not have to crack her own skull open like a walnut. All right was a stretch though.
“R
ob Rhino, if I wasn’t so exhausted, I’d strangle you. My fiancé?” Claire felt too frail to sit up or lift her head off the pillow.
If she expected him to look sheepish she was mistaken. “Listen, you’ll thank me when you get the skinny. It’s against the law you know.”
Claire managed to lift her head a little. “What’s against the law? Having you for a fiancé? It should be.”
“I see you’re not too sick to bust my balls.” Rob laughed too loud for a hospital. “No, Miss Priss. It’s against the law to try to kill yourself.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Kill myself?” Her voice a snake-like hiss. “That’s ridiculous. I never... is that what you think?” She breathed the heaviest sigh she could. “I suppose that’s what everyone here thinks?”
“Yes, that’s what everyone thinks. Claire, you popped a whole bottle of pills, again. Plus the booze.”
So she had some hooch. Not like she drained the bottle, bottles, or drank every day. Okay not a ton every day. Who was Mister-Cock-of-the-Walk to judge?
Claire rewound the last couple weeks in her spinning head on speed dial. The porn palace, the religious fanatics, Liam’s Sopranos-like family and their patriarch—Father Pat the parishioner-plugging priest—and realized she didn’t care what everyone thought. They think she tried to kill herself? Whatever. Bingo was her name-o.
“So okay. Let’s say I did. It’s against the law. Am I going to jail? How does having you for a fiancé help? Sympathy vote?”
Rob rested his scaly elbows on the metal hospital bed railing. “They can commit you to the psychiatric ward for however long they think is necessary.”
Claire’s head left the pillow for that one.
“As it is, you’d better behave. It’s up to the doc how long you stay.”
Claire gave Rob the stink eye. “So far, having you for my betrothed hasn’t done diddly for me.”
“Not so fast. They like it better if you have somewhere to go and someone to go there with. If you don’t blow it they’re probably going to let me take you home sooner rather than later no matter what kind of fruitcake you turn out to be.”
“Are they? You must be awfully charming. Even more than I thought.”
“I introduced Doctor Levinson to his wife.”
The Last Day For Rob Rhino Page 16
