Past Forward Volume 1 (15 page)

“Oh, I was at J. Something Penney’s tonight.
I bought clothes for tomorrow—or, rather, Bill bought them for me.”
Thirst drove her to the small refrigerator where Bill had put
bottled water just before they left for dinner. The coolness of it
soothed her throat. “I have to make sure he gives me a copy of the
accounts before I leave. I have no idea how much is in there, and I
spent almost a hundred dollars tonight!”

“I thought you said
he
bought
them?”

“Well, he paid for them because he wouldn’t
let me go out to the car to get Mother’s wallet.”

A few more minutes passed as Willow
described her drive into Rockland, the smothering feeling of the
press of huge buildings around her, and the elegance of the
restaurant. She described her room and the view from her window
until another wave of homesickness struck. “Are you near a
window?”

“Mmm hmm.”

She hesitated before she asked, “Will you
put your cell phone out the window so I can hear the cicadas?”

Despite her jitters and Bill’s certainty
that it would be a long, drawn out process, court was surprisingly
mundane. The judge asked a few questions blatantly designed to
ensure that she was honest about her situation. Renee Freeman
produced medical records dating as far back as Willow’s second
birthday, the journals, the letter explaining the facts of her
birth, and a few statements from people who had seen her with Kari
Finley from time to time over the years. Ms. Freeman had been
thorough.

“Well, everything seems in order. The finger
prints match… the letter from your grandparents states that your
mother disappeared at the proper time for the situation.” He
frowned, shaking his head. “I wish I knew who this man was. Do you
know?”

“Mother never said. One of the journals
mentioned a first name—Steve—but that’s it. Steve is a common name,
isn’t it?”

“It is.” He signed the document they needed
in order to file the birth certificate and passed it to Ms.
Freeman. Turning to her, he offered his hand. “It was nice to meet
you, Miss Finley. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“That’s it? I can go home now? I can get out
of the city?”

“You want to leave?”

She blushed. “The buildings are so tall…”
Smiling, she gathered her things and shoved them back in the tote
bag. With a little wave and another assurance of her gratitude,
Willow left the room, Bill and Ms. Freeman following. In the
hallway, she seemed incapable of stifling her joy. “I can’t believe
it! No test even! No courtroom either. Is that normal?”

“For this kind of thing, a courtroom is
unnecessary. Some places probably use them, but Rockland is a busy
city. They save courtrooms for actual trials and hearings.” Renee
excused herself to file the paperwork with the registrar. She
assured Willow that a copy would be on the way to the Finley farm
in a matter of weeks.

As they strolled out into the street, Bill
glanced at his phone. “I have to get back to the office. We have
several important meetings today, but I’ve cleared my schedule
after three so that we can go to the Natural History Museum, the
zoo, or wherever you—”

“Well the bus leaves at three-forty…”

“But I was going to take you home tomorrow
afternoon. Chad said he could handle things until then.”

Willow chewed her lip, leaving a deceptive
impression that she was capitulating. Truthfully, she was furious.
It took every ounce of self-control that she could muster to keep
her temper in check. “No. I didn’t sleep well last night. I missed
my bed, my room, the bullfrogs, the cicadas, and knowing that
Othello is nearby if I get lonely. I am going home.”

Stiff awkwardness hung between them as Bill
digested her words. He nodded. “If that’s what you want. I can’t
imagine being lonely in the city when there’s nothing at home,
but—” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got an appointment in fifteen
minutes and a ten minute drive. I’ll call and arrange a late
checkout, and I’ll be at the hotel by ten after three to take you
to the bus.” He fumbled for his keys and started backing away from
her. “Will you be ok until then? I— I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have gotten so
upset. You didn’t know.”

Without another word, she walked confidently
down the street toward the subway station, causing Bill a twinge of
nervousness. At the corner, she turned and waved before consulting
a map from her tote bag and then disappeared around the corner. Her
confident walk, carefree air, and thoughtful wave amazed him.
Again.

“Wow.”

Willow arrived at the mall nearest Macy’s
entrance. Chad had mentioned it, and though Willow had intended to
go back to J.C. Penney’s, it seemed silly when there was another
store right there. A helpful girl at a perfume counter pointed her
in the direction of the leather goods.

That same feeling of panic threatened to
overtake her. Boxes of perfume mocked her from glass counters as
she passed. Mirrors made five people look like ten. Smiling women
offered to help her try out things she’d never seen, but she
refused to acknowledge them.
Focus on the purses. Just focus on
the purses.

A sea of leather greeted her in the
accessories section—leather, vinyl, and materials she couldn’t
identify. Brilliant blue, pink, red, purple mingled with sensible
black, brown, and white. Even those three simple colors came in a
dozen varieties each. Frustrated, she chose browns. She’d just
stick to browns. After debating over several options, Willow
finally chose a tan purse with both handles and a strap. She
realized immediately that she didn’t know which she preferred and
the matching wallet attached to it was an added bonus. She carried
it with her as she looked over the shelves and racks once more, and
then moved toward a register near the hosiery department.

Underneath a sunglasses display, her
identical purse in a darker brown lay discarded. She glanced inside
to ensure it was merchandise rather than someone’s lost property.
The wads of paper she’d found in all the other purses and the price
tag dangling from the handle reassured her, and she nearly skipped
her way across the store to return the first purse to its place on
the shelf. The scent of honeysuckle and oranges distracted her from
the cash register and before she knew it, she’d spent an hour
sniffing perfumes, sampling lotions, and trying on sunglasses to
add to her lotion and purse purchase.

The sales clerk seemed annoyed with her.
Willow asked questions about ingredients and the woman answered
them with short, impatient answers. Once she realized that she was
not dealing with someone like the woman from J.C. Penney, Willow
passed the sunglasses and purse across the counter. “May I pay for
these as well as the lotion?”

“Certainly. Will this be on your Macy’s card
today?”

“Macy’s card?”

“Would you like to apply—”

Willow shook her head frantically. “They
wouldn’t give me one anyway. I have no—”

“Well, then will this be cash?” the woman
interrupted impatiently.

Willow pulled her mother’s
twenty-four-year-old wallet from her simple tote bag, and held it
open, ready to hand over the money once she received her total. The
clerk, in routine motions, pulled wadded paper from the purse and a
pair of earrings slipped from the wrappings. She gave Willow a
disgusted look and carefully poked through each wrapping to expose
several pieces of costume jewelry, a tester bottle of perfume, and
beyond that, Willow saw no more.

“The other one didn’t have all that stuff
with it. It just had the wallet.”

“Nice try. Security is on the way.”

Willow stared at her confused.
“Security?”

“Oh, we’ve seen it all. That is so not going
to work.”

Before Willow could respond, a voice at her
elbow asked her to follow him. She protested. “I don’t know who you
are! I’m not going anywhere with a strange man.”

“Miss, I’m store security, and if you don’t
follow me we’ll be forced to call the police, and we
do
have
the right to detain you.”

Suddenly, Willow went cold. “What? I don’t
understand. Why the police? What did I do? Because I didn’t want
the card? I can’t get a card! I have no identification to
prove—”

“Macy’s takes shoplifting very seriously,
miss. Let’s go.”

The word shoplifting was enough to stop her
protest. Dread filled her heart and tears sprung to her eyes.
Willow now understood. “I didn’t—”

“Just come with me. We have surveillance
tapes.”

A clear calm swept away her rising panic.
Surveillance tapes. Detectives used them in crime novels to prove
guilt. “Of course. Of course you do! Would you mind if I requested
that the clerk come with us? I am still uncomfortable going
somewhere with a strange man. Or maybe I could call my lawyer? I
have a cell—”

“Heather, come with us.”

In a screening room, three people hovered
around four monitors and scrolled through footage until one pointed
at Willow entering the store. She watched, fascinated, as they
traced her steps to the initial counter, around the accessories
department, looking into several bags as she tried to make a
choice, walking away with the first bag, finding the second, and
then her rush to return the first to the shelf where she’d found
it.

“I don’t see—”

The woman leaning over two men punched a
button and the screens whirled back until the store opened that
morning at nine o’clock. They panned to the sunglass display and
saw nothing. Then, ten minutes into the morning, two teen-aged
girls hovered over the purse and then dropped it, half kicked under
the display.

Before anyone could say anything, the sales
clerk, Heather, tapped the security guard and pointed at a
currently recording screen. “Ms. Patel?”

One glance at the screen and she pointed at
the door. “Go.” She turned to Willow and smiled apologetically. “I
am truly sorry. I hope you can understand—”

“Oh, I do. This was exciting for me once I
knew that I’d be cleared.”

As she disappeared behind the door, one of
the two men looked at Ms. Patel. “I almost wish all of our
customers could be so confident.”

She eyed him quizzically. “Almost?”

“Sure! If everyone knew they hadn’t done
anything wrong, I’d be out of a job.”

Bill lingered until Willow’s bus rounded the
corner and disappeared behind the large building. She was gone—home
to Fairbury and her precious goat. His afternoon meetings had been
sweeping and unequivocal failures. While he tried to discuss
investment portfolios, stock options, and retirement plans, his
mind whirled around the question of what he could have done to make
Willow want to stay a bit longer.

Bill returned to the escalators and rode
down to the subway. Willow had insisted on riding the new line to
the bus station, leaving Bill feeling forced to return the way he’d
come. What he considered filthy and somewhat degrading, Willow
found exciting and fresh. “Fresh,” he mused to himself inwardly.
“What an odd word to use to describe a train ride.”

How the subway had fascinated her and a
store had reduced her to a quivering puddle of nerves, he couldn’t
comprehend, but it seemed Willow did nothing but confuse him. She’d
loved the announcer’s voice, the strange and normal people all
jumbled in one tiny car, and somehow she had not realized that the
weight of the city was above them.
How did Kari ever think it
was a good idea to keep her so isolated?

He walked to the Towers from the corner
substation and handed his ticket to the valet. Within minutes, he
cruised along the city streets to his apartment building. Halfway
up the elevator to his fifth floor apartment, Bill glanced around
him and realized that everything he did was on a semi-autopilot. At
his floor, he punched the down arrow and retraced his steps.