Secondhand Sinners (19 page)

When she got home, sick from sadness and shock, her parents and Ma'am were waiting at the dining table with a pregnancy test sitting in the middle like a centerpiece. She knew it was hers, even though she’d hid it underneath the boxes that were in the big metal can out behind the garage. They weren’t alone. Sister Serenity was sitting at the table with them, and Emily was terrified. They stared at her, not with an air of compassion and consolation, but with contempt on their faces and the stench of bleach hanging over them.

Instinctively, Emily ran out of the house. Partly because Daniel had begged her to run enough times that it finally sunk in. She mostly ran because she was scared of what it would do to the baby. It was only when she crossed the Texas state line that she felt safe enough to pull into a gas station to use the restroom. She didn’t realize until she looked in the mirror as she washed her hands that Daniel’s blood was on her face. She threw up and then sobbed uncontrollably as she washed it off. When she made it to Dallas, she called her granddaddy and told him everything. He came to her, got her an apartment, and found her a doctor. He helped her get away from her family. He helped her start a new life. He helped her by finding a good home for her baby.

“I’m thirsty,” Jack said, holding the refrigerator door open. “There’s no water in here.”

“Yes there is.” Emily pulled a plastic cup from the cabinet and filled it with water from the sink. “They don’t have water bottles here. They don’t need them. Here.” She offered it to him. “They have really good water. It’s from a well.”

Jack closed the refrigerator and took the cup. He sniffed the water. “Smells like dirt.”

“That’s what makes it good.”

“No.” He put the cup on the counter. “I wanna water bottle. Does this place have any kids?”

“They used to.”

“Do they have Legos?” he asked, blinking.

Levi used to play with Legos. Surely her parents had cleaned out their rooms by now. She wouldn’t be surprised if they had boxed and burned her things the day after she left. It was a long shot that they’d find any Legos. However, she needed to try so he could have something familiar to stabilize him while everything around them was so out of control. “Let’s go upstairs and see.”

Alan seized her arm. “You’re wasting time.”

“Have you ever seen an autistic child have a meltdown? I’m pretty sure you haven’t, cause if you had you’d understand that if I don’t take care of Jack first, I’ll be too busy trying to keep him from hurting himself to be able to look for some key to Hoyt’s stupid treasure.” She took Jack’s hand and led him out of the kitchen and through the living room, past the brown leather recliner she and Levi crammed themselves into after school to watch reruns of
The Brady Bunch
and
The Cosby Show
. She touched the chair, hoping it would somehow touch her back. It was the closest she’d been to Levi since she got into town.

“Go faster,” Alan prodded.

“Believe it or not, this is harder for me that it looks. I ran away from this place for a reason.”

Once they were up the staircase, she showed Jack the room on the right. “That’s Uncle Levi’s old room. He used to play with Legos. They might be all gone.”

Jack pushed his way in, scanned the room, and then checked the closet. “Ah man!” He threw his hands in the air and let them fall to his side with a clap. “Nothing!”

“I’m sorry, buddy. I said it might be empty. You wanna see if they have any good cartoon channels?”

Jack pointed to the door across the hall. “Whose room in that?”

“That used to be my room. I didn’t play with Legos.”

“What did you play with?”

“Nothing. I liked to draw.”

“I like to draw.”

She didn’t want to go into her old room, didn’t even want the door open. “There’s nothing in there. I’m sure it was emptied out a long time ago.”

Alan stepped back into the hallway and motioned to her bedroom door. “You better hope to God there’s at least one thing in there—my key.”

Jack made a beeline for her room but stopped when he reached the closed door. “There’s no knob.”

“I wasn’t allowed one.”

“That’s weird.” Jack’s eyes twitched and fluttered. “Why? Was it broken?”

“Yes. It was broken.” Emily pushed the door open.

The room wasn’t empty. It looked, as close as she could tell, like it did the night she ran away. She swallowed back the urge to cry. Her bed was still made. Her pink canvas Keds sat in the same corner of her room. The blinds were still pulled up from when Daniel climbed out of her window that night–he always came to her room when he visited because Levi’s was next to her parents’. Even though she was pretty sure it was her imagination, the smell of bleach still burned the back of her throat. The hand-drawn pictures of flowers were still taped down the side of her mirror. Anyone who paid any attention to the drawings would have noticed Miller’s initials,
MA,
that she hid within the petals of the flowers.

The light pink ribbon draped over her mirror hit her the hardest. It reminded her more than anything else that she was a kid when she left. Why didn’t someone protect her? Wasn’t she worth the bother? She was forced to make decisions she was much too young to understand weren’t isolated moments of commitment to one choice or another. They were seeds, planted deep in the earth of her life, which sprouted and grew into massive trees that lined the path between her past and her future. Some trees gave shade, others stood dead and rotted, growing dangerously close to falling over and destroying everything when the winds blew too hard.

“Where’s the paper to draw on?” Jack was on his knees, holding up the bed skirt to her bed. “What’s this?” He held up the wooden wedge Levi made for her in wood shop so she could shut her door after her parents took her doorknob away.

“That’s nothing. The paper should be in here.” She pulled a pencil and paper out of her drawer. “Here.”

“I’m gonna draw a picture for Miller. When are we going to ride the horses again?”

“I don’t know,” she answered as she pulled out some map pencils and handed them to him.

He took them, sat at her desk and said, “Retard Leotard. That’s my new catch phrase.”

“I don’t think so, Jack.”

Once he was settled, she sat on her bed and looked at Alan. “There’s obviously no key in here, and even if there is, I don’t know where it is.”

Alan leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Tell me what happened the last time Daniel was here.”

“You want me to relive the worst night of my life?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I think Daniel hid something in here.”

“Why would he do that?”

“To keep Hoyt from getting it.”

“If he did, he didn’t tell me about it.”

“I think he did. You probably didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“You swear that once we find whatever it is you’re looking for, you’ll never tell Abby she’s adopted?”

Alan made an
X
mark over his heart.

“I don’t believe you.”

“The only thing keeping me in town is Hoyt’s money. Once I get what I want, I’m outta here.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

He shrugged. “It’s funny that you think that even matters to me.”

“Okay. Fine.” She’d never talked about that night, not even with Levi. She would now, though, if it would help Miller. She owed him that much after abandoning him. First, she needed to do one thing. She needed to scope out a means of escape because she didn’t believe for a second Daniel would hide anything in her room without telling her, and she had no idea how long Alan was going to make her search for a phantom key. “I’ll tell you every detail. Let me go to the bathroom first, okay?”

“That’s bullshit. You went at the restaurant.”

“Jack went. I didn’t.”

“Fine.” He took her by the arm and led her to the bathroom down the hall. “I’m standing right here the whole time.”

She went in, closed the door, and locked it. She opened the cabinet doors hoping to find some old razor blades or something she could stash in her pockets that could help her if the opportunity to get away from Alan came up. The sight of all the decades old makeup and cheap perfume her mother had stashed in there made her want to scream. Unless she was going to force Alan to let her go by throwing tubes of expired lipstick or out-of-date blue eye shadow at him, she was out of luck.

“I don’t hear anything,” Alan called out.

“Jesus, Alan. Hold on.” She flushed the toilet, turned the faucet on full blast, and rummaged through one of the baskets. A spray from an atomizer of perfume in the eyes could do enough damage to get her and Jack out the door. Elizabeth Taylor and her White Diamonds were Emily’s best hope. Great.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

Miller

Miller was finding it difficult to be as mad at Emily as he wanted to be because he kept seeing her face when she looked at him. That sad look always incapacitated him. No doubt he was the reason for it. Was he the reason for it when they were younger? Everything Alan said bounced around in his head like a thousand echoes. Alan was telling the truth about the two of them having sex. It was obvious she didn’t want to see him or hear his side of the story. What was he going to tell Abby about why Emily was gone?

He’d have to let Abby down easy. He’d tell her he asked Emily to leave because it wasn’t going to work out. She’d see right through him, of course, and tell him to stop babying her. Then he would look at her and see Hoyt where Daniel used to be, and he’d still love her.

On his way home he drove by the diner and stopped in the middle of the road. Emily had ignored his call
before
Alan showed her the tape at the police station. Sure she was mad at him for bringing her baby back to where she ran away from and for saying all the things he said about her to Levi. Something was already wrong, though. Something that would have caused her to call him not long after they parted that morning and then frown when his name showed up on her caller ID. What was she doing at that diner with Alan when she was supposed to be at the hospital? Did she even go to the hospital?

While something was definitely off, Miller couldn’t put his finger on it. He pressed the accelerator and went left at the next intersection. He hadn’t been to the hospital since Abby was a baby. It was time to go back. When he got to there, he went to the ICU unit and found Gail in the waiting room, standing over the coffee pot.

She looked up at him and asked, “Have you seen the bleach?”

“No. There’s probably some in one of the cleaning closets. Why?”

“We’re all out of bleach.”

“You don’t need bleach to make coffee.”

“I know what’s wrong now. We clean her with it, but we have to clean ourselves too.”

“Who?”

“Emily.”

“Was she here earlier today? A few hours ago?”

“Yes.” Gail nodded slowly.

“What did the two of you talk about? Was she upset?”

“Mother said he was defiling her.”

Miller led Gail to the line of chairs along the wall and helped her sit down. Then he pulled another chair out from the wall and sat facing her. “Are you talking about Hoyt?”

Gail’s back stiffened as she sat up, her eyes wide. “Now that boy’s dead.”

“Yes. Daniel’s dead. Do you know why Emily ran away? Was Hoyt hurting her?”

“It’s all my fault.” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

She’d gotten bad fast. Just this past winter, Gail had shown up at his place at three in the morning carrying a bottle of bleach. Miller thought she was drunk at first. When he didn’t smell any alcohol on her breath, he thought she must have been sleepwalking. He put her in the truck to take her home when Norman pulled up, yelling at her like a madman, telling her to stop pretending she was going crazy like her mom and making him drive all over the property looking for her. Gail didn’t even notice him. She kept saying she needed to go into Miller’s house for the cleaning. He thought she wanted to clean his house. Norman loaded her up into his car and peeled away so fast his tires threw gravel on Miller.

“Gail,” Miller peeled her hands off her face, “I need you to talk to me. Was Emily here earlier today?”

Gail studied his face and nodded.

“What did you talk about?

“I didn’t want her to come back here.”

“Then why did you call her?”

“He took my phone and dialed her number. He handed it to me because he said she should be here.”

“He who?”

“That policeman who came to the house to tell me about Norman.”

Miller knew she was talking about Alan. There was no doubt in his mind. Alan wanted Emily to come to town. Why though? Could he even trust Gail knew what she was saying? He stood up and put his chair back against the wall. He was hoping to get some answers. It was clear Gail didn’t have any. He was about to walk out of the room when Gail caught his hand.

“I need bleach,” she said.

“Why do you need bleach?”

“The cleaning.”

He looked at her sunken cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes. She wasn’t well. He couldn’t leave her there, not after he’d already seen how bad off she was. “Let me take you home, Gail.”

“I can’t leave. Norman’s getting better. I have to take care of him.”

“Norman had a stroke. He would want you to take care of yourself and get some rest.”

“Not yet. I have to clean.”

“The custodians will clean.”

“No. She’s mine, I have to clean her.”

“You clean her with bleach?” Miller had never heard of anyone washing another person with bleach. Something like that must be pretty painful. “Why would you wash her with bleach? Isn’t that bad for the skin?”

“Not her outsides. Her insides.”

“You mean you used bleach
inside
her?” Bile stung the back of his throat. “Why?”

“Because Mother said she was defiled.”

“Who defiled her?”

Gail closed her eyes tight, covered her ears with her hands and screamed, “No! No! No!”

A nurse in scrubs ran into the room and looked back and forth between Miller and Gail, settling her gaze on him. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Miller backed away from Gail a few steps. “I was leaving, and she needs to be checked out by a doctor.”

“Who is she?”

“Gail Collins.”

The nurse moved closer to Gail and took her wrist to check her pulse. “Mrs. Collins, do you have a doctor I can call for you?”

“Dr. Nichols. He’s checking on me.”

“Oh.” The nurse dropped Gail’s wrist.

“Who’s Dr. Nichols?” Miller asked.

“He’s a neurologist who treats the dementia patients. Be right back.”

While she was gone, Miller helped Gail into a chair and sat with her, ignoring her requests for bleach. Each request for the poison drove home the fact that the question he’d been asking himself for the last fourteen years—Why did Emily run away?— had just been answered.

Bleach. It’s what Emily didn’t talk about and what made Levi beat his dad to a pulp. Emily ran to protect her baby, the baby she believed was Miller’s. He remembered trying to talk her into telling her parents that she was pregnant. She was so adamant that her family could never find out. Emily wasn’t the one who broke his heart. Gail and Norman and Violet were. No wonder she ran away. No wonder she stayed away.

He sat up with a start. She stayed away…until now…until Alan lured her back. That’s what Gail had said.
“He took my phone and dialed her number. He handed it to me because he said she should be here.”

Why would Alan want her back? How could he have let her go with him without argument? It didn’t do him a bit of good to go off on his own because he still didn’t have any answers. Only more questions. He didn’t know what to do. His visit with Gail was a dead end, and three o’clock was closing in.

The nurse hurried back into the room. “Okay. I left a message for Dr. Nichols' assistant. Hopefully she’ll call us back soon.” She leaned over and got face-to-face with Gail. “Okay, Ms. Collins?”

“Huh?”

“As soon as Nurse Jennifer calls me back, I’ll know where we need to take you.”

“She’s got to be exhausted. I can take her home so she can get some rest,” Miller offered. Then something in his cluttered mind clicked. “Wait a minute. Nurse Jennifer?”

“Jennifer Abernathy. She’s been Nichols' assistant for the last several months.”

“Sonofabitch.”

Jennifer Abernathy was the woman Alan was screwing. One mention of her at the police station had changed Alan’s mind completely about letting Emily see Levi, like he didn’t want her name to be repeated. Alan was up to something, may have been up to something for a lot longer than Miller was even able to consider at that moment.

“Where is Dr. Nichols' office?” he asked.

“He shares a space with some other specialists here in the hospital. On the second floor. Why?”

“I have some questions for the good nurse.” He took off for the stairs, not wanting to waste time waiting for the elevator. The hospital only had two floors, and the one elevator was slower than if it was servicing a skyscraper. He found Dr. Nichols' office, told the receptionist he needed to talk to Jennifer Abernathy, and waited while she went to get her.

With time to think, it dawned on him that his problem was bigger than Emily going off with Alan after hearing his conversations with Levi. Alan knew about Abby.
Shit
. Anyone who watched that video knew about Abby. There was no way this information was going to stay contained. He was going to have to tell her. Soon. Today. He couldn’t have her finding out the same way Emily did. Less than a week ago, he had himself convinced he didn’t care about Emily. He hoped he’d never see her again. He hoped she lived with the kind of unrest that woke her from her sleep in the middle of the night and kept her awake with regret for how she left him. That was all before he got a glimpse of who Emily really was. She wasn’t the cold bitch who left him alone with no word of why. She was the damaged girl who ran to save her baby.

“She quit,” the receptionist came back and announced.

“She quit?”

“Yeah. Nichols ain’t happy about it either. He just got her trained.”

“When did she quit?”

“She and Nichols had gotten back from visiting a patient in the hospital, so I guess it was sometime after that.”

“Did she say why she quit?”

“Something about coming into some money soon.”

“Money? Have you seen her with Alan Dupree? He’s a Bokchito policeman.”

The receptionist thought for a few moments and shrugged. “I think so. Nichols only has office hours here once or twice a week.”

“This patient they went to see, was it Gail Collins?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Do you know where Jenny lives?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”

“Can I talk to the doctor?”

“Are you a family member of one of his patients?”

“No. This is very important, though.”

“So are privacy laws.”

“Fine.” Miller resisted the urge to storm out of the room, opting for a more gracious exit. “Thanks for your time.” He stopped at the water fountain for a drink and had stepped into the stairwell when the receptionist hurried inside with him.

“I couldn’t say anything in the office, but yeah, Gail Collins is a patient. She hasn’t gotten any better since she started seeing Dr. Nichols. In fact, her file says that her condition is deteriorating rapidly. She’s not taking her medicine.”

Miller stared at the receptionist, unsure how to respond. He knew he should’ve been more concerned about Gail, though right now all he could think about was getting to the bottom of what Alan’s plan was. Because there had to be some kind of plan in play here. There were too many coincidences. Alan was hooking up with Jenny Abernathy, who was working for the same doctor who was treating Gail. Jenny quit suddenly, on the same day Alan picked Emily up and showed her that video, because she was going to come into some money. There were still so many unanswered questions. He’d obviously taken advantage of the situation with Levi to lure Emily here, which meant he probably planned to show her the video as soon as he saw it. So how could he have known her father would have a stroke and give him a good reason to come for her?

“Please don’t tell anyone I told you all that,” the receptionist said.

“Why
are
you telling me all this?”

“My horoscope.”

“Your horoscope?”

“I’m Capricorn. It said I should aid a person in need today. Do you need anything else?”

“Do you know how I can get in touch with Ms. Abernathy?”

“No. You could try Facebook.”

“Facebook?”

“You know, write on her wall or send her a message.”

Miller was not about to write on the Facebook page of someone who was only six or seven years older than Abby. He’d look like a creepy old man…like Alan. If she was smart, she would block him the moment she got the message. “Or you could sneak a peek at her personnel file.”

“I’ll try.” She grimaced. “If I get caught I’d be in big trouble.”

“I really need it.” He gave the girl his phone number and asked him to call if she got any info.

Walking back to the waiting room where Gail was, he couldn’t get over the feeling that the situation was much worse that it appeared on the surface. He could always hope to run into some more Capricorns; one of them might know where Jenny Abernathy lived. He was almost back to the ICU waiting room when the nurse who was looking after Gail nearly ran him over.