Dear Daughter (31 page)

BREAKING: GRAND THEFT AUTO

TMZ has again obtained exclusive information regarding the whereabouts of Janie Jenkins. . . . Yesterday it was reported that Jenkins likely spent the night in a motel in McCook, Nebraska. TMZ contacted Kayla Simmons, the employee who was on duty at the time. She told us that the guest was a “middle-aged woman” who was behaving strangely.

“I thought she was on drugs or something,” says Simmons.

But wait—that’s not all. Simmons’s truck was also stolen that same night. It seems too convenient to have been a coincidence . . . which means that Janie Jenkins has probably added another crime to her rap sheet. If anyone has any information on a blue 1996 Ford F-150 with Nebraska plates 48-CTXU, possibly driven by a brown-haired woman, send us an email or contact us at our tip line!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Everyone has some idea about what separates us from every other animal, about what makes us humans so fucking special. God, language, cheese, that sort of thing. But you might not have heard of this one: What makes us different is the fact that we’ll voluntarily step into a locked cage with a predator. Ladies, you know what I’m talking about. It’s night. You’re alone, in a parking garage. The elevator opens—there’s a man inside. For whatever reason, your rapey Spidey sense is tingling.

What do you do?

You step into the elevator, of course. Because you don’t want to judge him unfairly just because he’s big or because he looks different or because he’s wearing a chain wallet. You overrule the animal inside you that’s screaming
danger danger danger
because you don’t want to
feel bad
. You talk yourself out of your instincts because you want to feel empowered, because you want to feel noble.

But, truth: Never once when I’ve done this have I felt empowered. Never once have I felt noble. I’ve only ever felt lucky to still be there when the door opens again. Because you know who’s the only kind of woman who doesn’t
feel bad
? A dead one.

And yet, each and every time I step into that elevator. Otherwise I never would’ve come to Ardelle to begin with. Otherwise I never would’ve let Peter take me back that day.

While you still can?
What the
fuck
. In our long history of shouldn’ts and don’t-you-dares, none of my mother’s demands had ever been for my benefit. I could maybe understand it if she’d just been trying to keep me from sticking my nose in her business—that was classic Mom—but this was . . . protective. The discordance shook me.

Or—had she known that there was nothing she could have said that would have sent me back to Ardelle so quickly? Had she
wanted
me to go there? Reverse psychology always was my kryptonite, and she’d always taken ruthless advantage of it.

For the first time in probably ever, I wished I could talk to her.

•   •   •

Anyway, my knees were shaking, and not just because of Peter’s driving. We were nearly back to Ardelle.

“That went well,” I said, breaking the silence.

“He didn’t tell me a damn thing I hadn’t already figured out.”

“At least he confirmed it,” I said. “Kind of.”

The trees rushed by. I pretended to watch them.

“Do you really think she was pregnant?” I asked.

“Who knows?” he said. “Sounds like she was one of those girls who slept around just enough for everyone to think she slept with everybody.”

I thought of the police report from the night with Darren Cackett. “Is there anyone else she was seriously involved with?”

“Crystal said something about Mitch Percy.”

“But Mitchell doesn’t start with J—”

Peter gave me a weird look. “I hope that’s not your eureka moment.”

Oh right. He doesn’t know about the diary.

“Forget I said anything.”

We passed the gas station on the outskirts of town, and I scanned automatically for the flash of a lens, the pale curve of a satellite, but no, all I saw were the orange festival banners flapping in the breeze. One had been blown off. It lay at the foot of the street lamp in a tattered heap, looking like I felt.

“Christ, I can’t believe she actually talked some other sad sack into covering this thing.”

My head snapped up. The inn had just come into view—and there was a TV truck out front.

They’d found me.

“Peter—” I said.

He groaned. “Poor schmucks. Cora told me she’d pitched the festival to some small-town news something or other. A story on the historical ball thing tomorrow. And they sent
two
reporters? Christ.”

I broke out into a sweat. There was only one way out of this. I had to tell him—I had to tell Peter everything. I’d offer him an exclusive interview in exchange for a speedy escape to a remote location. He wouldn’t want to give the story to anyone else. He’d do whatever I asked. I opened my mouth—

“Oh, thank god, they’re packing up. There’s nothing like local newscasters to make a journalist fear for his future.”

I finally let myself look over. The correspondent, sure enough, was loosening his tie and reaching for his heavy coat. The expression on his face was the same as that of someone who’d just attended a staged reading of the
OED
. I exhaled. The reporter clearly hadn’t found anything of interest. He hadn’t found
me
.

Peter looked at his watch, utterly unaware that I was an irregular heartbeat away from asking for a defibrillator. “Shit, we’re about to miss the historical society luncheon—my editor will kill me if I don’t write it up. Are you coming or are you going to find some way to ditch this event, too?”

“Where’s the lunch?” I asked.

“At the Percy house—that big place on the hill. It’s on the national registry and everything, I guess. Which is apparently what the readers of my dumb magazine really care about.”

All I wanted to do was go upstairs and crawl under my bed with a bottle of whiskey. But then I told myself that I probably only had a day or two left in Ardelle before the press really did find me—and that I could have a whole lifetime of whiskey if I could just figure out what had happened to my mother.

“Sure,” I croaked out. “Let’s go.”

Peter jerked the steering wheel clumsily to the left and drove us to the end of Percy Street and up a steep, curved driveway. He squeezed the car between a rusty Corolla and a pickup truck, and we climbed out.

The house was three stories high and constructed of rough-hewn bricks of salmon-pink sandstone. My eyes followed the neat rows of terra-cotta tiles on the roof up to a central dome, which was topped with a silver finial. Was that a pineapple? An artichoke? I’ll never understand the architectural obsession with produce.

We wiped our feet on a sisal mat and stepped into the foyer, a cavernous octagonal room that practically commanded visitors to look up and admire the fresco on the ceiling. In front of us, a circular table was dominated by a gratuitous arrangement of exotic flowers I wouldn’t have thought would be available in South Dakota. I leaned in to smell them: They were fake. Good fakes—but still. I looked up at the ceiling again, wondering if the fresco was actually just really nice wallpaper.

“May I take your coats?”

I turned and found Crystal—in white gloves and catering blacks—holding out her hands. She flushed when she recognized Peter and flushed some more when she recognized me.

Peter handed her his jacket, but I shook my head.

“I get chilly.”

Peter moved on without another word, but I wasn’t quite done with Crystal. I gave her a friendly, conspiratorial wink, and it mustn’t have looked too clownish, because her shoulders settled. Then I uttered the words that have brought women together in a holy harmonious bond for centuries: “That guy’s a dick.”

She gave me a grateful smile, and when I walked away I felt the warm satisfaction of a mind well managed. When I approached her next it wouldn’t be hard to get her to tell me what I needed to know.

Because let’s be honest. I had a lot of questions for that mouthy bitch.

•   •   •

The luncheon was held in a spare but elegant buttermilk-yellow room that, had I not met Stanton, I would have assumed had been decorated by a woman. The windows were hung with shimmering Dupioni silk that would have flattered even the grayest of complexions—of which the room had plenty.

Another white-gloved worker bee led me to a table laid with china and crystal and napkins twisted into improbable shapes—and also limp salads with chunky blue cheese dressing. Seated at the table were six local women dressed in what counted as Sunday best (i.e., floral-print suits), and when I sat down, they looked at me in unison, raised their eyebrows, then turned away. I couldn’t blame them.

Stanton, Kelley, and Renee were sitting at the head table along with a woman I didn’t recognize who was looking off to the side and picking at her cuticles. Cora was at the podium, reading what I guessed was the historical society’s annual report.

Man, the gods sure weren’t making it easy to keep from falling asleep. I bit down hard on my lip and tried to focus on Cora’s speech, but her voice kept drifting in and out. And my eyelids were so heavy.

“. . . pleased to announce that the Wednesday raffle raised $560 . . . our efforts to add Adeline to the state’s roster of historic sites . . . this lovely house that Stanton has so generously . . . winner will be announced at the ball tomorrow . . . don’t miss it. . . .”

My head listed to the left. I had that garbagey feeling in my stomach I always get after an all-nighter. I was so tired my body was all mixed up about the direction digestion was supposed to move in.

“. . . and now I’ll hand things over to Renee Fuller, who has an update on the status of the nature preserve . . .”

My eyes closed.

“Rise and shine, sweetheart.”

I jerked awake. Leo was sitting next to me. He had flipped his chair around and was straddling it, his elbows on the table, a little crease in the middle of his cheek that I couldn’t quite read. One of the women on the other side of the table gave him a disapproving look.

“I’m trying to pay attention,” I said under my breath.

“And doing a great job of it,” he said, popping a crouton into his mouth.

I ignored him and pretended to be engrossed in my place setting. Actually, now that I looked, there were too many forks and spoons for a luncheon. And they weren’t arranged correctly: The fish fork was farther from the plate than the fish knife, and my soup spoon was much too close to the edge of the table. I gave the silverware a series of little nudges. When I was finished, Leo was still watching me, waiting me out.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“A few things went missing last night,” he said.

“If you mean your brain, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

A waiter swooped in and replaced our salads with clam chowder.

Seriously? Clams? In South Dakota?

“Where were you this morning?” Leo asked, apparently unperturbed. “I stopped by the inn for breakfast, but I didn’t see you.”

“A girl needs her beauty sleep.”

“I knocked on your door.”

“I mustn’t have heard you.”

“Nice try. I let myself into your room. It was empty.”

I stiffened. “You broke into my room?”

“I was worried for your safety. You might’ve slipped in the shower or been knocked over by a light breeze.”

“And did you find anything interesting?”

“Apart from clothes that could only be so ugly on purpose? No.” He paused. “Which I’m guessing means that anything I might be looking for is in that bag you never let go of.” He pointed to my purse. “Would you mind if I took a look?”

I shrugged. Like I’d be stupid enough to leave anything incriminating in my bag. I’m no amateur. “Go ahead. But if you need a tampon, all you have to do is ask.”

While he rifled through the bag I attended to my chowder. It was so gummy that when I pressed it with the flat of my spoon it jiggled.

“I don’t know how anyone would expect to find anything in here,” Leo muttered. “You seriously lug around a laptop all day?”

I scooped out a globule of chowder and touched my tongue to it before putting it in my mouth. I was beginning to miss my ramen.

Leo tossed the bag at my feet. “There’s nothing here,” he said.

Nope, because what you’re looking for is tucked up in my coat pockets.

“Sorry,” I said.

He sighed. “Can I at least have my keys back? I walked here so I wouldn’t have to ask Billy for the keys to the squad car.”

“What makes you think I have your keys?”

“A bunch of your hair snagged on the doggie door when you crawled through.”

I cringed. Maybe I was an amateur.

“I’ll give them back to you on one condition,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “You and your conditions.”

“Don’t let Walt out of his cell,” I said.

He peered at me, then nodded. “I can do that.”

I blinked. “That was easier than I expected. Okay, then. Here you go. I pulled his keys out of my other pocket and dropped them in his soup. They didn’t even break the surface.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to grow up?”

“I’m just playing to my demographic.”

He kicked the leg of my chair. I took another bite of soup to hide my smile.

“So who’s the woman next to Kelley?” I asked.

He looked up at the front table. “That’s Nora Freeman—Walt’s mom.”

“No wonder she looks so embarrassed.” I wiped some condensation off the side of my water glass and pressed my hand to my neck. It was fucking hot in that coat. “She seems a weird choice for the board of the historical society,” I said. “What with having spawned Walt and all.”

“There’s always someone from each of the five families on the board. They’re like the UN Security Council, except the only thing they veto is what kind of cookies they serve at each meeting.”

“Why these particular families?”

“Because they’ve been here the longest. And between them they still own all the land around here. Most of it’s Stanton’s, of course, but everyone else has some. Even Walt—even me.”