Lie in Plain Sight (31 page)

“I don't doubt us,” she said.

“Not us,” he said. “Me.” When she tried to protest, he held up a hand to stop her. “It's right there,” he said, reaching out and touching her cheek just below her eye. “It's been right there all along.”

“Where do we go from here?” she asked when it was clear that he was done talking.

“That's why I'm here, Maeve.” He moved his mouth a few times, choosing his words. “We don't go anywhere.”

“We don't?” she asked, her voice sounding weak at the realization that the best thing she had right now—a relationship with a normal guy—was over.

“I helped you when you were looking for your sister. I even tried to defend you when Judy Wilkerson said what she did. I have tried to deal with the secrecy and your family issues and everything else that goes along with loving you.” He smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. Regret. “I do love you. But this is all just too…”

“Complicated?” she asked.

He nodded. “Complicated.”

Outside, it was a beautiful day. Inside, the kitchen suddenly seemed gloomy and dark even though sunlight streamed through the window over the sink, casting a glow over Chris Larsson that showed her just how this would never work out. He was simple and true, with not one secret to share. And she, cast in a shadow thrown from the big shelf by the back door, was none of those things, someone who held her secrets close and who realized, at that very moment, that they would be what finally destroyed her.

“Please leave this alone, Maeve. I can't understand why you put yourself in the middle of this, but now, you're just a hindrance,” he said.

“I thought you didn't know big words,” she said, the joke falling flat by the disappointed look on his broad, honest face. She handed him a cupcake. “Here. Try this. For Founders Day.”

He held the cupcake in his big, meaty hand, with no intention of eating it in front of her. “Maybe we can try this again some other time?” he said, waving the cupcake between the two of them.

“Maybe,” she said. But she knew the truth: It was over, and it would never start again. She would see him around town, and it would be awkward and strange, two people who had shared everything once and who now lived separately, moving on without each other. “I'm really, really sorry, Chris.” It sounded lame to her ears, but it was all she had. “I never meant to hurt you.”

His face crumbled into what seemed like a million pieces. “My heart feels broken,” he said, words at odds with who he was most of the time: big, strong, stoic.

Mine, too,
she wanted to say, but he was gone, and there was no one to say it to.

 

CHAPTER 43

Jo clapped her hands together. “Are you ready for Founders Day?” she asked when she arrived at work on Sunday morning. “The day that gave us our beloved Farringville?”

Maeve had been at work since four, putting the finishing touches on the cupcakes for the celebration as well as Kurt Messer's order.

Jo continued. “Where big guys with even bigger dogs will search for that one special someone, the woman with just the right tramp stamp.”

Maeve looked up. “What are you talking about?”

Jo wasn't finished. “Where the smell of roasted meats and caramelized onions will tickle your culinary fancy, delighting your senses for hours after you've departed. And why? Because you'll never be able to get the smell out of your nostrils no matter how hard you try.”

Maeve hadn't laughed in a long time, and it felt good. “You've given this a lot of thought.”

“Not really. I've just been to a lot of small-town festivals and celebrations. They are all the same.”

Maeve boxed up the last of the cupcakes and three quiches, tying up the boxes with several layers of red-and-white string. In any other town, the local DPW guys wouldn't eat quiche, but Farringville wasn't like any other town. Not every town had The Comfort Zone.

Jo went into the front to gather supplies for their booth: napkins, plates, some money from the cash register. Maeve sat up on her stool and surveyed the work that she had done, taking a moment to breathe. She would be surrounded by hundreds of people that day, but she would feel more alone than she had ever felt; she knew before even stepping foot on the main drag that her loneliness was just beginning and would only get worse with time.

Inside her pants pocket, her phone vibrated. She looked at the screen.

Poole.

Mrs. McSweeney has passed. Natural causes.

And with her, Maeve thought as she clutched the phone in her hand, went any knowledge she had of my sister, her birth, her parentage. It was gone, just like the girl from Prideville the year before, and Taylor now. Maeve didn't respond at first, silently putting the phone back in her pocket and trying to forget that there were certain stories that would never have a happy ending.

After a minute of thinking about everything that had happened, she couldn't help herself. She pulled her phone out again and thanked Poole for the information, asking another question.

Why would someone have mail from the U.S. Marshals?

His response didn't come quickly, but when it did, it left her more confused.

They are a Marshal themselves. Or Witness Protection.

It made no sense. David Barnham wasn't a U.S. Marshal, not that Maeve could discern. Did they do undercover work, placing guys like him in positions like soccer coach? It seemed unlikely but what did she know?

Witness Protection.

She shook her head. Both scenarios were completely preposterous, even more so than her believing that he had something to do with those missing girls.

She and Jo loaded all of the cupcakes into the back of both their cars and headed for the center of town, where cars were allowed for just a few hours before the street would be closed off to traffic. When they were done, they parked their cars in the police station parking lot with the other vendors.

Jo looked at Maeve as they got out of their cars. “Well, this isn't too uncomfortable.”

“I'm going to forget that you said that, Jo, and pretend that it is totally normal to be out on bail and parking in the police station lot.”

“Suit yourself,” Jo said. “I just love irony.”

When they got back to the booth, they set up the display of cupcakes and waited for the parade to start.

“Don't look now, but there's the happy couple,” Jo said. “Three o'clock.”

Maeve turned to her right and saw Cal and Gabriela walking along, the baby in his stroller, his parents' arms entwined, Gabriela's head on Cal's shoulder.

“Jeez, it's after Labor Day. Put away the white jeans, sister,” Jo said.

“She's not from here. I'm not sure they have that rule in Brazil.”

Jo put a hand to her brow, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Is she even wearing underwear? Who does that? The sun is shining. We don't need to see that. Not on a day for families.”

“Who does what?” Maeve asked, her eyes trained on Suzanne Carstairs, walking along the parade route, one hand on the gun on her hip as if she were suspecting trouble from the group of preschoolers who marched alongside her, oblivious to her presence, her guarded stance.

“Goes outside without underwear. To a town fair, no less,” Jo continued putting boxes under the table while ranting. “Go commando at home. Not outside.”

“Huh?” Maeve asked, getting a glimpse of Chris Larsson in the distance, his eyes trained on the parade and its marchers.

“Forget it,” Jo said, clapping in time to the ragtag group of musicians the Farringville High School called its marching band. “Are they playing ‘99 Problems'? Amazing,” she said. “I didn't realize you could turn Jay Z into a marching band song.” She whistled through her fingers. “Well done, guys! Playing like bosses!”

Maeve watched as the band went by, Suzanne Carstairs and Chris Larsson coming closer together, landing on a corner near where Judy Wilkerson and a boy who looked vaguely familiar to Maeve stood. Chris clasped a hand down on the boy's shoulder, smiling when the kid looked up at him, while Carstairs spoke quietly, all the while with a smile on her face, to Judy Wilkerson. Her hand left her hip, and she put an arm around Judy, while Chris walked in the other direction with the boy.

“Madison, Mississippi,” Maeve said, but Jo was too busy singing along with the marching band to notice that she had said anything. “Not Connors but the other one.”

Jo turned. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Maeve said, looking down at her cupcakes. When she looked up, everyone was gone, the kid having been spirited off with Chris before anyone had noticed a thing, Judy Wilkerson in the wind as well. All she could see when she looked across the street was Gabriela's perfect ass, packed into tight white jeans.

Jo was right: no underwear.

The soccer team was making its way down the street behind the marching band, Coach Barnham and his team waving as if they had just won the World Cup. Heather wasn't with the team, as far as Maeve could see, but every other girl seemed to be.

“They need a new sax,” Jo said, still listening to the marching band. “The kid on sax is a disaster.”

In the crowd, Maeve saw Jesse Connors moving among the people watching the parade, looking over their heads, likely looking for his cohort, who had gone off with Chris Larsson somewhere.

“Trombone is okay,” Jo said, keeping up her critique of the jazz band.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Maeve said, coming out from behind the table.

“Already?” Jo said. “And you didn't recently push a giant baby out of your hoohah. You'd better get that looked at. You may have a problem.”

But Maeve was halfway down the street already, not listening to Jo's rant about the damage caused to the urinary tract by one large newborn. She scanned the crowd but didn't see Chris, Carstairs, or the people they had snatched from it. All she could see was parents with little kids, all with balloons touting the celebration, and teens wandering the streets with pockets full of cash to spend on crappy food and even crappier souvenirs. They were out of the house for the day, and that was all their parents cared about, the Farringville parent alternating between completely overprotective and almost neglectful.

She wandered the streets for a little while, losing herself in the crowd, not seeing the boy or the woman among the revelers. The chief and her lead detective were nowhere to be found either. She spotted Kurt Messer in front of a tiny upscale restaurant that had opened six months previously; he and the owner were chatting about the festivities, the owner wondering if this was something the town would do every year.

“Well, I hope not!” Kurt said, letting out a big guffaw. “We can't afford the overtime.” He saw Maeve and beckoned her over.

“Maeve, hello. Do you know Thom Prendy?”

Maeve shook hands with the owner. “Nice to meet you. I own The Comfort Zone.”

“I've been wanting to talk to you,” Thom said. “I'm not happy with our pastry chef. Wondering if I should just go local and pick up from you.”

Maeve smiled. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Come on down when you get a chance, and we can talk.”

Kurt put a hand on Maeve's shoulder. “You can't go wrong with anything from Maeve,” he said. “Her food is outstanding.”

“Thanks, Kurt,” Maeve said. “Do you want a job in public relations?”

Kurt let out another booming laugh. “Only if I can have a title like director of sales and marketing,” he said. “Then again, I've got my hands full keeping this village clean, Maeve. But I'll do my best on a freelance basis.” He looked over her head. “Parade's ending. Gotta go. Maeve, I've left the back door open so you can leave my order in the kitchen. Anytime after four?”

“Sounds good, Kurt. As soon as things settle down here, I'll be over.” She turned to Thom. “I'll talk to you soon.”

She went back to the booth, where Jo was selling cupcakes like they were going out of style. “How many did you make?” Jo asked.

“Four hundred,” Maeve said, pulling an apron out from under the table and pulling it on over her head. “As soon as we're sold out, we're done,” she said, over the idea of Founders Day and its attendant misery. She wasn't comfortable out in the open like this; she was sure the entire village knew that she had been arrested and was no longer dating Chris Larsson. Bad news—salacious news—traveled fast. Good news traveled less quickly. It was the way of a small town.

Mark Messer approached the booth, and Maeve handed him a cupcake. “Enjoy, Mark,” she said.

“Hey, Maeve,” he said. “Thanks. Where's Heather? I haven't seen her around.”

Now wasn't the time, but it was on the tip of her tongue to ask him about their relationship, how long it had been going on, what it was like. Did they go on dates? Had he met Cal? Did anyone besides him, Heather, and his father know that they were dating? Instead, Maeve shrugged. “I don't know, Mark. She's around,” she said, leaving out the part where it had been days since they spoke. Not even a text. Maeve could only be sure she was fine based on the fact that she hadn't heard otherwise from Cal. If there was a problem, she'd know about it. Unlike her for the last several years, he wouldn't tackle anything on his own, leaving his life with his new wife and son unblemished by the travails of raising two teenage girls.

“If you talk to her, would you let her know that I was looking for her?” he asked. “She's not responding to my texts.”

Join the club, pal.
“I will.” Maeve watched him wander down the street, a black plastic bag looped through his belt, on duty for the day. Sure, he was a little old for Heather, but he was a nice kid, by Maeve's standards. As she watched him, she admitted a little class consciousness to herself. Had she seen her daughter dating a DPW worker? Or someone more like Jesse Connors with his allegedly faulty moral compass, someone who looked good to the outside world but who seemed to have his share of skeletons in his closet? It didn't matter. Heather wouldn't admit to having dated Jesse and probably wouldn't admit to dating Mark either. They weren't speaking, so Maeve couldn't ask her even if she wanted to.