Johnston - I Promise (18 page)

Delia stared in horror at her sister. They spoke on the phone at least twice a month. Rachel hadn’t even hinted at this kind of trouble.

Rachel stared at her hands, which were knotted in front of her. “I wasn’t really going to kill myself, Delia. I was just so unhappy. I thought Cliff might pay more attention if . . .” Her lips curled in the mockery of a smile. “Anyway, it didn’t work. He kept it out of the papers, and I started seeing the psychiatrist.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Delia said, searching her sister’s face. “Why didn’t you let me help?”

“I couldn’t.” Rachel tucked her hands under the table where Delia couldn’t reach them. “Don’t you see, Delia? It was my problem. I had to solve it myself.”

“But I’m your sister!”

Rachel shook her head. “You left, Delia. You had your own life, and I wasn’t a part of it.”

Delia wanted to put her arms around Rachel. More than the table kept them separated. Delia felt for the first time that she didn’t have the right to comfort her sister, or to seek comfort from her. She had known Rachel was out there somewhere, but she had been too busy running from the past to be there for her sister. Lord, Lord, it was time the running stopped.

Delia thought of the bed she had barely glimpsed in her room at the Circle Crown and realized she was going to have to sleep there, to face what had happened there, and somehow let go of it once and for all.

“I know why you left,” Rachel said. “I know you blame yourself for what happened to Daddy. But Delia . . .” Rachel stared at her, wide-eyed and breathless. “It . . . it wasn’t your fault.”

Delia rubbed her brow. “I know that, Rachel.”

“You do?” Rachel asked, surprised.

It was not her fault that Rachel had murdered their father. Except that she should have done something sooner to stop Ray John. At least she would find a way to help Rachel this time before it was too late.

“The past doesn’t matter anymore,” Delia said, meeting Rachel’s gaze. “What matters is how we’re going to get you and Scott away from that madman you’re married to. Maybe taking Scott and running isn’t the best plan. Maybe we should think about this a little more.”

Rachel tucked in a wayward strand of hair. “Are you saying I should stay with Cliff? Not try to leave again right away?”

Delia caught the look of despair in Rachel’s eyes. She laid her open palm on the table and waited for Rachel to put her hand in it. When she did, Delia gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Only until I have time to talk to some of my friends here in Texas and see what we can do. Is there anything else I should know, Rachel? Anything else that might make it possible for Cliff to take Scott away from you?”

Rachel lowered her eyes and tried pulling her hand free.

Delia wouldn’t let her go. There was something else. Delia was afraid to ask, but she had to know. “What is it?”

“I don’t think Cliff would bring it up. Because he might have to talk about what happened before.”

“Before what?” Delia asked.

Rachel raised her eyes. “Before I held an empty gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”

Delia’s eyes slid closed, and she swallowed hard. “Like Daddy used to do?”

Rachel nodded miserably. “I only wanted to scare him. Because he had beat me. I wanted him to know if he did it again, I would kill him. And I would have.”

“Would you? Really?”

For a long moment, Rachel was silent. Then she sighed. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to, because then I would lose Scott for sure. Scott is the most important thing in the world to me, Delia. But I might, if I had to. I know you’d take good care of Scott for me, wouldn’t you? You’re his godmother. And I know you love children.”

“Please don’t talk like that, Rachel. It scares 1ne.”

“I’m sorry, Delia.”

“Is there anybody else you’ve confided in?” Delia asked. “Anyone who knows what Cliff has done to you? Anyone who could testify in court?”

“The psychiatrist.”

“Has he seen the bruises?”

“She. She’s seen them.”

“And you told her how you got them?” Rachel nodded. “But I don’t have any proof, Delia. Cliff never hit me when anyone was around to see. And I hid the bruises when I was in public. I . . . I was ashamed.”

Delia stared at an amateurish painting of a single live oak hanging on the wall for sale along with other equally woeful paintings by local artists, avoiding the pain in Rachel’s eyes. “I haven’t been a very good sister, Rachel. But all that’s going to change. I envy you having Scott, but I don’t want to end up raising my nephew.”

“You envy me, Delia? I always thought you were happy with your career. You’re a judge, for heaven’s sake. That’s an incredible accomplishment. If you want to know the honest truth, I envy you.”

“Want to trade?” Delia said with the hint of a smile. “I’ll take Scott. You can have my gavel and robes.”

Rachel managed a grin. “You’re welcome to Cliff, but I think I’ll keep Scott.” The grin faded. “Will I be able to, Delia? Keep Scott, I mean, and still get away from Cliff.”

“You will,” Delia promised. “I’m sure we’ll figure out some way to manage it.”

Delia was eating the last bite of her buttermilk pie—a candy-sweet mixture of vanilla, sugar, buttermilk, and eggs that she liked even better than the cafe’s famous chocolate chiffon—when Marsh walked into the Amber Sky. Not walked, precisely. Stalked. Or stomped. Or tramped. He was obviously in a bad mood and searching for someone. She hoped it wasn’t her.

She saw the moment he recognized her among the dinner crowd, because he headed directly toward her.

“What do you suppose Marsh wants?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know,” Delia murmured. “Why don’t you ask him when he gets here?”

Rachel laughed. “He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since he saw you. I don’t think he’ll even know I’m here.”

Sure enough, when Marsh reached the table he focused his gaze on Delia and said, “Billie Jo didn’t come home on the school bus. I can’t find her.”

Delia was at a loss. What did Marsh expect from her? She didn’t even know what Billie Jo North looked like. His next words provided her answer.

“Where did you go when you were her age? Where is she liable to be?”

The live oak.
The flush came fast and hot to Delia’s cheeks.

“She wouldn’t be there,” Marsh said, easily reading her mind. “I don’t think,” he added a second later. He shifted his weight onto one hip, pulled off his hat, ran a frustrated hand through his hair, put it back on, and tugged it down again.

“Sit down, Marsh,” Delia said. “While I think.”

He jerked a chair out, turned it around, and straddled the turquoise padded seat with his arms across the painted black wooden back. “The bus passed by the house without stopping. I got worried and came looking for her. The damned school didn’t even know whether she got on.

“They were quick enough to tell me she got into another fight today. How the hell she could do that when she was already on suspension, I’ll never know.”

“Another
fight? Suspension?” Billie Jo was certainly following in her father’s footsteps, Delia thought.

“Yeah, well, that’s a whole other story,” Marsh said. “Anyway, I had to wait around at school for the bus driver to finish his rounds to ask him if he’d dropped her somewhere else. He said she never got on the bus in the first place. So where the hell did she go?”

“It’s too early for the movies,” Delia said. “And it’s too cold for tubing. Is there a game room somewhere?”

“It went bankrupt a month ago,” Marsh replied.

“Is there something going on after school she might be involved in?” Rachel asked. “A play or a club?”

“I searched the school from top to bottom. She wasn’t there.”

“Could she be with friends?” Delia asked.

Marsh rubbed at the shadow of beard that had accumulated since morning, then pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I don’t know. If she has friends, I don’t know who they are.”

Delia frowned and exchanged a look with Rachel, who shrugged. She didn’t have any suggestions. But it seemed heartless to leave Marsh to search on his own.

“Would you like me to drive around with you? We could ask around at the Sonic Drive-In and McDonald’s and Taco Bell and Pizza Hut to see if anyone’s seen her,” Delia offered.

Marsh lowered his hands. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. “I’d appreciate that.”

“Can you drop me off at the ranch after we find her? That way Rachel will have the car to get home,” Delia said.

“Sure,” Marsh agreed. “Anything.”

He sounded desperate. Uvalde was a small, safe, friendly town, but Delia knew there were always isolated incidents where some stranger drove through a small town and a young woman disappeared.

“Do you mind if I go with Marsh?” Delia asked Rachel. “I might not get back in time for us to spend much time talking before you have to leave tomorrow.”

“I think we’ve discussed everything that needs to be discussed for the moment,” Rachel said. “Don’t worry about me. Just find Billie Jo.”

A moment later Delia found herself sitting on the tattered red leather bench seat of a familiar '57 Chevy pickup. Memories bombarded her. Good ones, mostly. Of a sky with a million stars. Male and female flesh dappled by sunlight streaming through the branches of an ancient live oak. Steamed-up windows. And the grind of gears and rattle of loose metal as Marsh set the rusted-out truck in motion.

“I’m surprised you still have this old rattletrap,” Delia said.

“I left it home when I ran away,” he said. “Hitchhiked to Houston with a semi trucker and hopped an oil tanker for the Middle East. Luckily, fate took over in the form of an Arab oil embargo that brought a horde of American journalists past my hotel door. I ended up doing a little investigative work on the side for one of them. Which turned into a little more work. The rest is history.”

She kept her eyes lowered as she admitted. “I’ve seen some of your stuff. It’s good.”

When he didn’t say anything, she looked up and found him staring at her. He looked surprised. And pleased. She felt a flush creeping up her throat. She opened her mouth to make some sort of excuse or explanation for having followed his work and realized that would only make things worse.

“What about you?” he said. “Where did you end up when you left town?”

“Actually, I didn’t go far. A good friend of my father’s—my real father—lived in San Antonio. Nash Hazeltine is—was—my godfather. He was a rodeo clown, so he was on the road most of the time. I stayed with his wife, Lydia, and finished high school in Alamo Heights.”

“Pretty nice area of town for a rodeo clown.”

“Nash had family money. He and Lydia paid to put me through college and law school. They were both very generous with me.”

“You keep using the past tense.”

“My third year of law school at UT in Austin Nash died in a car crash on his way to a rodeo in Nacogdoches.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I still keep in touch with Lydia. She’s re-married. They were very good to me.”

They had arrived at the Sonic Drive-In, which was west on Highway 90 from the Amber Sky. Marsh drove into one of the few remaining spaces and looked around at the collection of teenagers in cars and pickups. “I don’t see her,” he said.

Delia opened the door and stepped down. “Let’s go ask if anyone knows where she might be.”

“She’ll kill me,” Marsh said, “for checking up on her.”

“If she didn’t want you to check up on her, she should have phoned, so you wouldn’t worry.”

Marsh cleared his throat. “We . . . uh . . . don’t exactly have that kind of relationship.”

Delia’s brow furrowed. “What kind do you have?”

“She sort of takes care of herself without much help from me.”

“You’re still her father. She should have known you’d worry. Let’s split up, so we can do this faster,” Delia said.

Marsh was grateful for the respite from Delia’s probing questions. When he had realized Billie Jo wasn’t on the bus, he had been mad at first, thinking she was sulking somewhere, punishing him for getting her into trouble at school. Or maybe afraid of what he would do when he found out she had been in another fight.

As the daylight hours waned, his anger had faded and the worry had grown. What if something bad had happened to her? What if someone was hurting her right now? He had seen too much in his lifetime not to have a very vivid imagination.

He thought of all the ways he had failed Billie Jo as a father. Being gone so much overseas when she was little. Seeing her so seldom once he and Ginny were divorced. Sending a birthday card when he remembered, a Christmas card with money, but not a gift he had picked out himself. He thought of the promises he had made once upon a time about the kind of father he would be.

His kid would get lots of hugs. His kid would know he—except it had turned out to be a she—was loved.

He didn’t think he had touched Billie Jo since he had met her in Logan Airport in Boston after Ginny’s death. He had wanted to hug her. The forlorn teenager had looked like she needed a hug. But when he reached for her she had ducked under his arm and headed for the baggage carousel, muttering something about his luggage.

Since then, they had been two strangers living in the same house. He hadn’t known what to do to break down the barriers between them. He had no practice being a parent. He had no role model to follow.

That wasn’t precisely true. He could remember listening to his grandmother’s stories, being hugged by her, being tucked into bed by her.

But Billie Jo was sixteen. You didn’t tell stories to a sixteen—year—old or tuck her into bed. And she looked mortified every time he even hinted he might like to give her a hug.

Marsh leaned against the roof of a shiny red Ford Taurus with mag wheels and stooped down to speak to the teenage boy in the driver’s seat. “Have you seen Billie Jo North since school let out?”

“Naw. Is she in some kind of trouble?”

Marsh realized he might be creating more than a few problems for his daughter by asking about her like this. “No, just trying to locate her,” he said. “If you see her, tell her to call home.”