In Place of Never (17 page)

His lips curved in a sad smile. “Just like Faith. That’s good. I heard you had a tough time, you know? It’s good you’re leaving here. You look like her. I never noticed before. You could be her twin.”

He reached for me and I moved onto the top step, preparing to run. This wasn’t how I’d expected our conversation to go. I thought he’d look the same, invite me in and offer me some sweet tea or water, and we’d sit at the kitchen table reminiscing about Faith. I thought he’d share stories like Patricia and Vanessa. Panic rose in my chest.

I needed to get my answers and leave. “Do you remember what happened the night she died?”

His head jerked back as if I’d slapped him across the face. Pain changed his confused expression to one of massive grief. I knew that look. Too well.

“Brady?”

His eyes widened on me.

“I didn’t come here to upset you. Like I said, I’m leaving soon and I really don’t know what happened that night. Not knowing the truth has tortured me. I’ve heard rumors and read the report, but I want the whole truth.” I stepped back onto the porch. “What you heard about me was right. I had a tough time. I hid in my room for the last three years. At first, I was immobilized by grief and guilt, and then I got better, but didn’t know how to start over. My time’s up now. I have to go soon and I can’t without knowing. Please tell me what was going on with Faith that summer. I thought she and I were best friends, but she kept so much from me.” My voice shook with need. “She loved you. I know you broke up, but she loved you and if you can help me understand, I’d really appreciate the peace.”

Brady grabbed his mouth and swore behind his fingertips. “I loved her. We were going to get married. I was going to play professional ball. She wanted to open an art studio and rent an apartment upstairs. We were going to have a dog and two kids.” He choked on the words. “I lost everything when she died.”

Feet pounded along the sidewalk behind me. “Hey!”

I spun around.

Mark ran full speed toward their home.

My heart clenched.

Mark leaped onto the porch beside me. “What the hell are you doing here? Huh? Aren’t you supposed to be in your room crying or packing to get as far away from here as possible?”

“What?” My skin burned. This was his reason for running and screaming like the town was on fire? I’d come to his home?

My limbs went rigid. “I’m done crying, Mark. I came to talk with Brady before I have to leave for school, and I’m not running to the ends of the earth. I’m going to college. Temple is a car drive away.” Moron.

He turned to Brady. “What’d you open the door for, man? You don’t need this.”

Brady shook him off. “She wants to know about Faith.” He waved his hand in the air between us. “Look at her. They’re practically twins.”

I turned to Mark. The obvious settling in. “Is he drunk?” He wasn’t hung over from too much Saturday night partying. He was drunk.

“Mind your business. Go home. Crawl back into whatever hole you were hiding in and stay the hell away from my family.” Mark grabbed Brady’s arm. “Come on.”

The look on Mark’s face broke my heart. Yes, Mark had been a creep of astronomical proportions to me, but he was Brady’s little brother. He blocked my view of Brady the same way Pru had stepped between Mark and me on Main Street last week. There was power in family.

“Brady, please,” I begged. “I know she went to the River Festival. I know you two had a fight and she left you there. She went to a party at the campgrounds, but I can’t figure out why she was at the river and no one saw her. Why would she leave a party to be alone?”

Mark stormed into my personal space, leaning his chest toward mine and glaring down at me. “Your sister is dead, Mercy. It’d do you good to remember that and leave it the hell alone. There’s no bringing her back. Who knows why Faith did half the shit she did? Her death ruined our lives too, man. Can’t you see that?”

Behind him, Brady started to cry.

Mark swore and turned back to his brother, pleading with him to go inside. “Come on, let me get you a drink.”

The weight of the situation settled in my hard head. I had no idea where Brady had been for three years. His father and his brother blamed Faith’s loss for ruining their lives. Brady was an addict or alcoholic or something. He lived at home. He hadn’t gone to school or played ball and the Dobbses hid his problems the way my dad hid mine.

I jumped forward and grabbed Mark’s arm. “Are you kidding? Offering him another drink?” Good grief. Was the entire town hiding their dysfunction as well as we were? “Brady, you need to talk to someone about this. Mrs. Allen at the church is a wonderful confidant, or you can talk to my dad. Dad can help you. He’ll want to help you.”

Brady’s tears turned to rage. “Right. Like she helped Faith or your mom? Or you?”

Mark pressed his phone against his ear and stepped away looking defeated and a little frightened. “I’m calling Dad. You’d better get off our property, Mercy.”

Adrenaline flooded my system. The sheriff was coming. I had minutes at the most. My dad would kill me for bothering the Dobbses if he had any idea how bad it was over here. “Brady. Why do you think she was at the river? Why would she leave the party? What was the last thing you heard about that night? Any detail you give me will help. I’ll hunt down everyone who spoke with her and question them, I swear it.” I grabbed his hand. “I promise you. I will find out who did this. I can’t bring her back, but I can make it right or at least give us some peace and closure. Tell me anything. Do you think someone hurt my sister?” Huge tears blurred my vision. “Let me fix it.”

He jerked free of my gentle grip. “You can’t fix it. No one can fix it. Can’t you see that? She’s gone! She’s not coming back and she took my life with her when she left. No one wants to change that night more than me.” He growled. “Jesus, Mercy. I could’ve saved her. Why’d she leave me at the festival?”

Mark shouldered his way between Brady and me. “Dad’s on his way. Go inside, Brady. Why don’t you go back to the river, Mercy? Get back in bed with those dirty Gypsies I see you with. They have the answers you want, not us. Leave us alone.”

Blood drained from Brady’s face. “Not you too?” He looked into the distance and back to his brother. “The Gypsies came back?”

Murderous rage changed his expression from broken to dangerous. “What is wrong with you Porter girls? What do you want with those traveling freaks? They told Faith she didn’t have a future.” His scream reverberated through my bones. Brady slid onto the wide oak floorboards and dropped his forehead into open palms. “They knew she had no future.”

“Someone said that?”

Brady lifted swollen eyes and stared. “She had no future.”

The siren on Sheriff Dobbs’s cruiser sent me flying off their porch. The sheriff could come to my house to arrest me if he wanted, but I couldn’t stay there another minute. His boys were crazy and angry, and one was drunk. I’d rather plead forgiveness and hide behind the preacher than face the three of them alone.

How did I miss the tidal wave of disaster Faith’s death had brought our town?

Someone had told Faith she had no future. Of course. Nadya. Anton said Nadya read Faith’s palm. Had she really known? Was that her big rush to leave town? Sobs banged in my throat as I erased the distance to home. Brady Dobbs hadn’t taught me anything about Faith’s last night, but he’d shown me I wasn’t the only one permanently damaged by her loss. Plus, he’d given me my next person of interest. Evil stares or not, I had to face Nadya again.

The sheriff didn’t follow me home. A Sunday miracle. I locked the front door behind me and ran to my old bedroom. The scent of Faith’s perfume hit me like a punch to the chest. I stopped short, baby-stepped through the room and turned in a circle. Faith was everywhere.

I spoke into the emptiness. “I don’t believe the rumors about you. You didn’t leave us on purpose. You loved us. You shielded me from things I still don’t understand and Mrs. Allen says you helped Mom.” A humorless laugh rolled off my tongue. “Mom was depressed before we lost you, and I had no idea. You kept her secret too.” My knees buckled and I sat on the end of my old bed.

“Maybe it’s the grief talking or the fact I need to do something after doing nothing for so long, but I don’t believe you drowned accidentally. You were a good swimmer. Really good. Drunk or not, you wouldn’t have gone into the river alone at night. That scenario makes no sense. You what? Went for a leisurely swim in your clothes? Knowing you had to sneak back into our room soaking wet?”

I moved to her desk and ran a finger through the dust. “Your phone was ruined. I have no idea who you called last or who called you. I don’t know which picture was your wallpaper. What was on your playlist that night? I have no idea. The whole night is a mystery, but I’m putting it together for you. I’ve read about other deaths like yours online. Drowning is hard to prove beyond accidental, especially in moving water. You floated into the milkweeds on the other end of town the next morning. Your body crossed the rapids at Serpent’s Bend. I can’t imagine what the rocks did to you.” I sighed. “That’s a lie. My imagination is top notch for all things macabre. I’ve imagined what you went through a thousand times. I woke, covered in sweat, to the sound of your frantic cries every night for a year after you left.”

I puffed air onto the dust covering everything. “I hope you’ll understand why I’m doing this. I don’t want to intrude on your secrets, but I want to know you. This is the only way I have left.”

I pulled stacks of notebooks and paperbacks from her drawers. Art books. Classic novels. Sketchpads. Things every teenage girl owned. I settled on the floor, surrounded by yearbooks and trinkets, balancing her memento box on my lap. Dad had made the tiny cedar chest for her sixteenth birthday and carved a cross into the top. The letters of her name ran left to right across the wood.
Faith
. Our names had been chosen as symbols to guide our lives. Had Prudence been born on time, instead of two days late, she’d be Mary Grace. Unfortunately for Pru, Mary Grace’s mother had scheduled a C-section for Pru’s due date and stole the name Mom had picked. She’d narrowly missed being called Temperance. There was no nickname for that.

The hinged lid of Faith’s memento box creaked open. Lines of photo booth pictures covered corsage ribbons and letterman pins. Her class ring lay in the corner beside the promise ring Brady had given her at graduation and the purity ring she got from Mom. Folded scraps of paper with tiny sketches and lines of poetry cluttered the small space. I shut the lid.

A stack of lidded plastic tubs stood in the corner beside her dresser. She’d started packing her things before graduation and stopped a few weeks afterward. The bottom tub was filled with winter clothes and boots. I’d helped with that one. The middle tote was filled with gifts from graduation meant for her dorm room. Pink desk lamp. Teal trash can. Unopened art supplies. Everything else had had to wait until it was time to leave. If she’d packed things she needed, she’d only have had to dig for them all summer.

Dad’s voice bellowed from downstairs.

I scrambled to my feet, hiding the stacks of books on the opposite side of Faith’s bed. I replaced the memento box in her drawer. “Coming!”

Pru stomped up the stairs and stilled as I pulled the door shut behind me.

Dad’s feet hit the steps. “Mercy?”

Pru and I answered. “Here.”

“Oh.” Dad rounded the corner and stopped on the landing. “Pru brought you home a turnover from her last taste of freedom.”

Pru rolled her eyes. “You said I could go.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked.

“What? You did.”

I passed her on the steps and hugged my arms around Dad’s middle. For a moment, he stood stock-still. Then his arms wrapped around my back and his cheek fell against my hair the way Vanessa had posed with her baby.

“I love you, Mercy.”

“I love you too.”

I released him before I was ready. I had the town sheriff on my tail. “You want to split a turnover?”

He nodded and followed me to the kitchen.

It was only a matter of time before Sheriff Dobbs came and ruined our budding relationship. Our family needed a peaceful moment before it all went to crap again.

Dad brought two forks to the table.

I poured my cold latte into a mug and shoved it in the microwave.

Pru slid onto her seat at the table. “Mary Grace says Miss Gold from the library kissed one of the firemen after the parade.”

“So?” I opened the microwave a few seconds early and tested the coffee temperature. Good enough.

“So, Miss Gold went to the fireworks with John Burgess. They held hands the entire time.”

I pulled out my chair and set the coffee aside. “Interesting.”

Dad groaned. “It’s not interesting. It’s gossip.”

Pru lifted her eyebrows. “No. Gossip is that bit about the new kindergarten teacher at St. Mary’s elementary.”

Dad pressed the tines of his fork against the flaky puff pastry. He didn’t ask.

I leaned both elbows on the table, fork in hand. “What about her?”

Pru perked. “She posed in
Playboy
her senior year of college and lost her last teaching job when someone recognized her.”

I pushed a bite of turnover between smiling lips. “No.”

“Yep.”

Dad centered his attention on the pastry. He shifted in his seat. “Who recognized her?”

I giggled. “Excellent question.”

Pru slapped the table. “Her old principal!”

We laughed. Irony at its finest. “He fired her for posing in a magazine he admits to reading?”

Dad dropped his chin. “Reading is a very generous assumption.”

“Dad!” Pru tipped her chair back and hooted.

The dessert disappeared long before our conversation. Best of all, Sheriff Dobbs didn’t ruin it for us. No matter what happened next, we were a happy, untroubled family again, at least for one afternoon.

The Shadow

Pru poised a tiny brush over my fingernail. “So, Mark Dobbs became a minion of Satan to hide his older brother’s addiction?” Her eyebrows quirked. “That’s almost honorable.”