Love Today (37 page)

“
You creaming him?” he asked
as he tugged on her pigtail.

“Nah,” she
replied
casually. “He cheats.”

Everyone laughed, including
Jack
, but Jared looked back at me with a sad smile and continued on to the front of the bus.

Later that night, when everyone was somewhat settled into a bed and Maggie was sound asleep on the edge of ours, Jared knew that I was hesitant to
be affectionate
with him. I’d been thinking about the possibility of his dad being a part of
Rachel
’s murder, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. No I didn’t want things to come between us, but how could I be in a relationship with someone whose father
may have
killed my sister?

And then I began to think about Maggie. What if John Miller really was her father, and he really had done something to
Rachel
? It wouldn’t be fair to deny Jared that relationship with his sister. Was it?

But
i
f I could use that logic for that scenario, why didn’t it work the same way when it came to
my
relationship with him?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I was back to swimming in the sea of uncertainty.
But this time,
I’d reached a
state of numbness that I wasn’t familiar with. I didn’t have the ability or the means to do anything from that point, and the only choice I had was to surrender to whatever was in store for me.

I was sitting in McDonald’s of all places. Maggie was drinking her milkshake, slowly
nibbling on
a chicken nugget
.
She had no idea of the things going on around her. “Reality” was her own temporary contentment. She lived in the moment with those that loved her, and that was her world. When does the switch occur? When does your
way of thinking
adjust
to include the
rest
of reality?

Maggie had been swabbed for her DNA and she’d been lied to about what it was for. I told her it was just a little test, like a checkup, to see if she was healthy. When it was confirmed that yes, she was indeed healthy, she was pleased. At the same time, I watched the swab be secured and taken away to be tested. It was my future that I was watching, a little stick with the power to change people’s lives
forever
.

Detective Bronson gave us a ride to Maggie’s choice of dining. She had work to do though, and left when I assured her that I had a plan. I guess my plan was to sit there and wonder what my plan really was, because that’s all I did for thirty minutes while Maggie ate.

I knew where Jared was. He went straight to Miller and Harris to have it out with his dad. I hadn’t heard from him since, and I was too chicken to call. Maybe he found out that
his father really had killed
Rachel
; maybe he was told that Maggie really was his sister.
The
possibilities weren’t exactly endless,
but I was aware that the few conclusions that were available were powerful enough to alter many lives one way or another.

I had
only one preference for how I wanted the situation to turn out. The only thing I wanted was for
Rachel
’s killer to be someone that wasn’t directly linked to my life. Jared didn’t deserve to be associated with his dad, but I truly felt that it
should
be against my code to carry on the way we were before. It just wasn’t a viable option, and I knew it would never work.
It made me sick to think that way because I truly did love him. I just wasn’t sure I could ever go back to the way things were, and I selfishly prayed to God that things would turn out in my favor.

Whether or not John Miller was Maggie’s biological father was a toss up. I wasn’t sure if I cared one way or another who she belonged to biologically (unless
,
of course
, he
was a murderer), but I did care how it was going to affect Maggie’s life. I hoped that Mr. Miller would respect the fact that my family was happy to raise Maggie, and legally I hoped that nothing negative came from it.

It didn’t bother me that Jared could be her half-brother. Biologically he and I weren’t linked in anyway, so that didn’t affect me. I guess it could be weird to say that I’m Maggie’s aunt and I’m in a relationship with her
half-
brother, but those were things that were the least of my worries. Jared
,
on the
other hand
,
wasn’t sure how he felt about it. On the flight home (while Maggie was asleep) he basically only said that
he didn’t want
the results to have a negative a
ffect on
our
lives
. He said that he wanted a life with me and with Maggie, and that DNA wasn’t the deciding factor for him.
He admitted that being related to Maggie would indeed link him to her life for good
, but he wanted that anyway, whether she was his sister or not.

It hurt to hear him out. We knew that things were different between us already, just because of certain questions, but I never confessed that he and I were no longer an option if it turned out that his dad was somehow involved in
Rachel
’s death. It wasn’t time to make that decision yet, and I hoped I never had to. Jared had kissed me goodbye as I headed for Detective Bronson’s car at the airport, and as I watched him in the side mirror as we pulled away, he slipped into a dark sedan
that had arrived to pick him up
.

On the plane we had discussed his dad a lot. Jared admitted that he thought he was an asshole, but he couldn’t believe he’d risk getting his hands dirty with other heinous crimes. I didn’t say out loud that people were capable of anything, even though Jared had said that himself in so many words. But I guess we decided to hold off on the speculation and wait for something solid.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?” Maggie asked, breaking my thoughts.

It took a while to answer her because I was looking at her beautiful
, innocent
face for several seconds.
Finally I replied,
“No, I’m not hungry right now.”

“I’m full,” she said, pushing her food away from her. There was a chicken nugget left and a few fries still on a napkin.

I took the nugget and ate it and she smiled.

“What are we waiting for?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“Are we waiting for Jared? Is he picking us up?”

I stared at her again and then said, “Uh, no he’s not. What should we do though? I don’t have a car.”

She thought for a few seconds and said, “Let’s call Jared.”

“Jared’s busy right now. He’s, uh, with his dad.”

“He has a dad?”

I studied her again. “Yes, he does. His dad was your mom’s boss at work. John. Do you know him?”

“John?” she aske
d. I nodded
but she shook her h
ead. “I don’t know M
ommy’s work
people
.”

I sighed to myself. We’d been over this several times before, soon after
Rachel
’s death. She’d been told names, shown pictures, asked question after question… Nothing turned up. Out of all the things in a person’s life, I couldn’t believe that nothing pointed to the reason why she died.

“Who killed M
ommy?” Maggie asked.

The question took me completely
by
surprise and I just stared at her. She didn’t seem very affected by it—I guess it was a fact and she just wanted clarification—but I didn’t realize that she knew her mom was murdered.
Maybe I did realize that she
might have
figured it out—even though everyone tried to talk about it when she wasn’t around, maybe she heard something anyways—but I guess up until that point I wasn’t ready to address it.

“Um, what makes you think that somebody killed her?” I asked.

It was her turn to stare at me
and then she said, “She wasn’t killed by somebody? Why is everybody looking for all the people?”

“What people?”

“All the people’s names.”

“You mean all the names we’ve asked you about?”

She nodded her head.

“Well…those
were
people that the police wanted to know more about, so we can find out what happened to your mom.”

“But you said she died because she stopped breathing. Did someone do that to her?”

My heart thundered in my chest, but I knew I had to be honest with her. “Yes, Maggie. Someone hurt your mom and she died because of it.”

She didn’t respond for a while as she took a sip of her milkshake. “What about the lady?
Did she hurt Mommy?
”

“What lady?”

“The lady that didn’t like her.”

I stared at her and my pulse raced again. “What lady are you talking about? There was a lady that didn’t like your mom?”

She nodded and then pointed to the parking lot
out the window
. “She yelled at her out there.”

I glanced behind me for a few seconds and then faced Maggie again. “What did she say to your mom?”

Maggie shrugged. “I
didn’t
hear them. I was in the car. Well…” she decided to add as she thought about it.

“Well what? You did hear something?”

“Mmm, we sat right there,” she said, pointing to the table beside us. “Mommy grabbed me and
we left fast,
and then the lady yelled at her. I hit my head,” she said, rubbing the top of it as she remembered.

“When M
ommy put you in the car you hit your head?”

She nodded. “That’s when the lady said
, ‘I told you!’ and pointed at M
ommy.”

“And then what did she say? The lady. Did she say anything else?”

Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know. Mommy went
there
and they were talking.”

“Talking? Or yelling?”

“Mmm, talking I guess, but I think they were mad. Mommy went like this—” she made the motion of waving someone away from her—“and she was mad. Then she got in the car.”

“And then what?”

“
We
left,” she pointed, showing the exit that they must have taken.

“Maggie, can you come out to the parking lot and tell me all of that again?”

She gave me a questioning look but eventually shrugg
ed her shoulders as she stood. I quickly tossed our trash, and a
s she followed me outside I asked, “Did you remember all of this because we were here today?”

She nodded, but she seemed a little ashamed.

“Maggie, it’s okay,” I told her, kneeling down at her level. “If you can remember something that will help find the bad people that hurt your mom, it will be great.”

“Did that lady hurt M
om
my
?”

“Honey, I don’t know. If she did, we’ll find out. If she didn’t, at least we’ll know that too.”

It was difficult to discuss those kinds of things with a five-year-old. I didn’t want her to think that all angry people could be murderers, so I tried to explain that to her.
I think she understood, but I think she was more focused on wondering why people could be so cruel. She asked why someone would want to kill somebody else, and it was awkward trying to quietly explain that to her on the sidewalk of the McDonald’s parking lot as people came and went.

When she seemed ready to move on, I again asked her about the parking lot incident and she explained it the same way that I’d pictured it.
Rachel
must have seen someone she reco
gnized pull into the restaurant
and she tried to get out of there before she was spotted. It was too late, the two of them had words, and
Rachel
took off before things got worse.

“Did M
ommy say anything about the lady when you were in the car?” I asked.

She considered that for a bit and just shrugged with a frown. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” I assured her. “We’ll just have the police detective ask the lady about it, oka
y? Maybe she can tell us why M
ommy was upset. For now do you want to play on the playground inside?”

I was hoping she would say yes so I could make a phone call, but she shook her head no.

“Can we call Jared? I’m cold,” she added with a shiver.

I decided to take Maggie inside for the time being. The only option I had was to call Jared or a cab. I didn’t want to do either, and besides… Where would we go?

I pulled out my keys and stared at Jared’s house key.
It was the only choice I had
. We could check into a hotel, but I knew I would still need to speak to him, and I decided that Maggie needed him in the first place. I wasn’t going to alienate her from the people she cared about.
And
I
needed him. Despite the confusion going on at the moment, I still wanted to be with him. I missed him, even just from being separated for a couple of hours.