The Silent Sister (19 page)

“I'm not sick,” she said. “I've just been … I guess I'm nervous, moving here, starting a new life on my own. I have no appetite.”

“Honey.” Ingrid leaned toward her. “Are you on the run from someone who hurt you?”

She tried to laugh as if the question was absurd. “Not at all,” she said.

“Pregnant? I'm sorry to be so personal,” Ingrid added quickly. “I only want to help.”

She wanted to tell Ingrid everything. She was so nice. But of course she couldn't. She'd never be able to tell a soul.

“Not pregnant. Not sick.” She made herself smile. “I'm okay. Really.”

“You need to have some food in the house.” Ingrid handed her the loaf of banana bread and she held it on her lap. “Have you been out at all?” she asked. “Have you been to the market?” She pointed north of where they sat. Or maybe it was south. Having the ocean on the west coast was confusing her after living her whole life with it on the east. “I have a cart I use if I need to buy more than I can carry a block,” Ingrid said. “You're welcome to use it. I keep it in the shed.” She motioned to a tiny building at the back of the little yard. It was overgrown with a white flowering vine.

“Thank you.”

“Are you up to walking over there?” she said. “If not, I can pick up some things for you later.”

Jade had the feeling Ingrid still thought she had AIDS.

“I'll go this afternoon,” she said. She would, too. Ingrid was right. She had to get out. She had to see how people reacted to her. She had to know she was safe here.

*   *   *

Inside the cottage, Jade looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She was a disaster. Her hair was clean now, but it hung limply around her pale face, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Although she'd dyed her eyebrows, her eyelashes were their usual white and if that wasn't a giveaway, she didn't know what was. She had to get mascara. And more of that dye for when her roots started coming in.

She put on her sandals and grabbed her purse. Once on the street, she walked in the direction Ingrid had pointed. North. She was winded by the time the market came into view. There were loads of people on the street and most of them seemed to be close to her age. Blond boys on skateboards. Long-haired girls with holey jeans and cutoff T-shirts. They glanced at her. Some even smiled and said hi. She was not in northern Virginia any longer. People were happy and friendly and unrushed here. The sun shone brighter and crisper. Nobody was thinking about the murderous girl from Alexandria.

Once in the market, she realized she should have brought Ingrid's cart with her. She limited what she bought so it would fit in two paper sacks, picking out some fruit and chicken breasts and a paperback cookbook called
Healthy Cooking on the Cheap
. She paged through it for a chicken recipe and bought the rest of the ingredients she'd need to make it. She'd never learned to cook. Her mother always said she'd rather have her practice the violin than do housework. She bit back tears at the memory of her mother, and that's when she saw the little girl. She was tiny, no more than two, crouching down in the pasta and rice aisle with her back to Jade as she poked at a plastic bag of noodles. A woman—most likely the child's mother—stood nearby, reading the labels on jars of pasta sauce. The girl's black hair shimmered in two high pigtails. Jade stopped in the middle of the aisle, staring, willing the girl to turn around and be Riley.
If only!
The little girl chattered to herself as she poked the bag, and Jade fought the urge to pick her up, swing her around, and bury her face in that chubby little neck that she was certain would smell exactly like Riley's. But when the girl looked up at her with the face of an adorable stranger, the magic spell was broken, and Jade quickly walked past her toward the checkout counter before the child's mother could catch her staring.

She walked back to Ingrid's as fast as she could with the bags in her arms. They weighed a ton and she had so little strength. She was out of breath after the first block, and she couldn't get her heart to slow down. It was even skipping beats, the way it had the day she was arrested and the police dragged her down to the station. She'd been nearly comatose in the back of that police car and her chest had felt like it had a pinball banging around inside it. Her jeans had been stiff with blood; her hands sticky and red. She didn't care then if she died. A heart attack would have been just fine with her. She'd wanted it to be over, because she knew that whatever was ahead of her was going to ruin her life. She felt a little the same way now. Her life no longer seemed to matter. If she dropped dead on the street, they'd find this girl, Jade, this girl who didn't exist, and they'd try to contact her family, only to discover her family didn't exist, either.

By the time she got back to the cottage, she was sweating and crying. She dumped all the groceries in the kitchen, flopped onto her bed, and stared out the window at the orange trees. Did Jade have anyone who loved her? The family she ran away from—did they love her? What did it matter, she told herself. They were make-believe people. The people who loved Lisa—her parents and Riley and Danny and Matty—now only loved the ghost of Lisa. Except for Daddy. Nobody else knew she was still here. Nobody else knew the hollow girl she was turning into.

 

20.

Riley

In spite of Verniece's warning to wait a day to talk to Tom, I couldn't do it. I went back to the park after dinner and was relieved to see him and Verniece sitting in the webbed chairs on the patio, two beers on the small table between them.

I parked at the end of the gravel lane and they watched me as I walked toward them.

“Would you like a beer, Riley dear?” Verniece asked when I reached the patio. I thought she looked nervous, her smile shaky.

“No, thanks.” I lowered myself into the third chair without waiting for an invitation. A mosquito promptly landed on my thigh, another on my wrist. I swatted one and missed the other, but I didn't care.

“Look.” Tom sat forward, not waiting for my questions. He still wore the shirt and pants he'd had on at Suzanne's office. “I was only saying what the police said. They never found her body. It was suspicious, that's all.”

“So you don't know anything?” I heard the plea in my voice.
Please tell me you know something!
“You were just guessing?”

“Exactly,” Verniece said. “He was just guessing.”

Tom lifted his beer and took a long pull on it. He glanced at his wife. “They found more than one set of footprints in the area where her car was parked, like she had help,” he said.

“Tom,”
Verniece protested.

“Like someone helped her fake her suicide,” he added, in case I wasn't following him. I was. Very well.

“How do you know about the footprints?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I read it in the paper somewhere. Your sister's so-called suicide was written up all over the damn place.”

“My father cut out a ton of articles about what happened,” I said. “I read them all. There was nothing about two sets of footprints.”

“Well, he must have missed one,” he said. “I didn't pull it out of thin air. What's it matter, anyway?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You want a murderer in your life? You want to have to split your inheritance with someone like that?”

“Tom…” Verniece had red splotches on her throat.

“If my sister
is
alive, I want the chance to know her.” I felt the threat of tears behind my eyes.

“Oh, see now what you've done?” Verniece snapped at her husband. “Stop teasing her. What's wrong with you, old man?”

Tom leaned back in the chair with a sigh. “I didn't mean to get you all worked up.”

“He didn't mean it, Riley, truly,” Verniece said.

“But … you honestly don't believe she killed herself?” I couldn't let it go. I would keep the possibility alive as long as I could.

“No, I don't,” he said. “I think she's probably still alive and free as a bird somewhere.”

“Stop it!” Verniece leaned over to smack him on the arm. “She's vulnerable. Can't you see that? I told her about her adoption and upset her to bits and now you're filling her head with all sorts of crap!”

“I'm not adopted,” I said tiredly, then looked at Tom again. “It's just the way you said it. You know, when you were in your car before you drove off? Like you knew for sure.”

“I was pissed off,” he said. “But that doesn't change what I believe. About her being alive.”

We were both ignoring Verniece, who was making tsking sounds of distress.

“Verniece told me my father said he was going to give you the park,” I said, “but there's nothing about that in his will. There's nothing to indicate that at all, and I'm sorry if you had your hopes up. I honestly think the pipe collection was pretty generous.”

The look he gave me was evil. “You have no fucking idea.” He got to his feet so quickly I drew back in my chair, afraid. Picking up his half-empty beer bottle by the neck, he walked away from us toward the creek. I watched him go, wishing I hadn't mentioned the park. Wishing I hadn't come at all.

I looked at Verniece. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't realize it was such a sore subject.”

She let out a long sigh and brushed a fly away from her damp face. “We're hurting for money a little right now,” she said. “That's all. You know how it is … well, you don't know, actually.” She smiled. “But you reach a certain age. You're on a fixed income, yet expenses keep going up. Your house is falling apart.” She laughed mirthlessly, pointing to the dented RV behind her. “It gets a little frightening.”

“I'm sorry,” I said again. I felt wealthy, my share of Daddy's money on its way to my own bank and more to come when I sold the house and the park. I'd done absolutely nothing to earn that wealth. “You know you can stay here without paying any rent until I sell the park.”
Oh, God.
Where would they go then? “I hope the pipe collection will give you a little bit of a cushion.”

She wore a sad smile, reaching over to touch my hand. “I'm sure it will,” she said. “And don't you worry, now. We'll be fine.”

*   *   *

I felt far worse as I drove away from the Kyles' motor home than when I'd driven toward it half an hour earlier. I wanted to believe my sister was alive, and yet I knew there was a good chance Tom was toying with me.

Two sets of footprints,
he'd said. Was he making it up? Even if he wasn't, what did it mean?

All I knew was that I didn't want to be alone with this possibility another minute. I drove past the exit of the RV park and onto the rutted lane that would take me to my brother's trailer.

 

MARCH 1990

21.

San Diego

Jade

She played the violin in bed at night.

She had no instrument, of course. She would honor the bargain she'd made with her father, no matter how difficult. She would never play again. But just like a boy without a guitar could play an air guitar, she played the air violin. She'd lie on her back and hold Violet beneath her chin as she stroked the bow across the strings, playing Bach or Mendelssohn, until the instrument grew too heavy for her arms to hold. And then, every single night, she'd cry until her head was stuffy and she'd struggle to fall asleep.

She missed her violin so much. She'd never been one of those children whose parents had to force them to practice. Instead, they'd had to force her to go outside and play. To Jade—to Lisa—the violin had been a reward. Even when she was eight or nine and the neighborhood kids were out riding their bikes on a Saturday morning, she'd wake up with her fingers twitching, ready to pick up the bow. Her violin had gotten her through some terrible times and now, during the loneliest, scariest time of her life, she didn't have the one thing that could calm her.

Sometimes she couldn't believe what had happened to her life, as though it was a nightmare and she would wake up, excitedly working on her applications to Juilliard and the other schools she'd been applying to. Maybe Juilliard wouldn't take her, thanks to Steven, but some school would want her. “Oh, Lisa has such a bright future!” everyone said. Now, Lisa had no future at all, and Jade's looked empty as well. She wondered if there was a way out of her dilemma. Maybe her lawyer hadn't thought of everything. Now, though, even if there were a way out, her father would end up in prison, too. She couldn't let that happen.

In the mornings, she'd eat a piece of toast she wasn't hungry for and watch the news. Even though a month and a half had passed since she'd left home, she still worried that her face would pop up on the television, but it never did. Each day without any mention of Lisa MacPherson, she grew a bit braver. She walked a little farther through the neighborhoods with their bungalows and wild gardens. When people smiled at her, she made herself smile back, and she doubted anyone knew that it was only her facial muscles making the expression and not her heart. At the beach, she'd watch the surfers ride the waves in their wet suits. She looked with new sympathy at the homeless people who had let her share their beach for a night without harm. A few times, she accompanied Ingrid as she carried her baked goods out to the hungry in the dark. It seemed the least she could do.

Newport Avenue, the main street in Ocean Beach, ran between Ingrid's neighborhood and the beach, and both sides of the street were lined with antiques shops and consignment shops and yoga studios and little eateries, but there was one store that drew her in nearly every time she passed it: Grady's Records. The first time she set foot inside the shop, she spent an hour going through old vinyl and cassettes and new CDs, and for a while, she forgot the ache in her chest. She went through everything—the classical, the rock, the folk, the country, the gospel. Everything. She needed music! How had she survived all these weeks without it? If only she could buy some of the CDs, but she had no way to play them and she was afraid to touch her shrinking bank account. She needed a job, but although she could get onstage in front of thousands of people and perform for hours, the thought of walking into one of the shops along Newport Avenue and asking for work scared her. But Grady, the blond, long-haired owner of the shop, gave her a warm smile every time she came in, and she was slowly working up the courage to ask him if he needed help. If it annoyed him that she spent so much time looking through his albums without making a single purchase, he never said a word.