Too Close to Home (11 page)

Maybe it was my presence—the sight of a uniformed cop, mirrored glasses glinting in the sun, leaning against a glossy white SUV that was topped by Mars lights and emblazoned with Maryville’s logo. Or perhaps it was simply that today’s drivers were all veterans of the process. But in either event, no horns blared, no curses flowed, and no one broke traffic laws trying to back uphill and out of line. The drivers sat patiently, most with their windows shut and their vehicles idling, burning fuel for the sake of air-conditioning.

The noise from the ferry’s powerful engines indicated that they were now fully engaged, fighting to navigate across the strong river current. I looked away from the water churning in the wake of its departure and toward the bluffs again. Up
near the top, there was a section of rock that staggered outward, like a side view of a sloppy stack of thick, grubby white dinner plates. And at the very top of the stack was a flat stone, just big enough for two. Though there were undoubtedly others of many generations who claimed that spot as their own, I always thought of it as ours. Chad’s and mine.

I glanced again at the departing ferry and smiled to myself as I resisted the urge to look down at my watch. But the impulse to time the ferry’s circuit from the Illinois side to the Kentucky side and back was a strong one, rooted in the best days of my childhood.

How old had we been, I wondered, when Chad and I had first climbed down onto that outcropping, defying every adult rule about children staying off the bluffs? On days just like this, the two of us would lie on our stomachs, betting pennies on the timing of the ferry, our elbows propped, our bare arms and legs touching. Not all that many years later, we’d snuggled together on that same rock after midnight, two off-duty cops sharing a bottle of Jack hidden in a paper bag and watching the lights of the ferry moving ever-predictably between the two riverbanks. Touching then, too. But in a way that childhood had never imagined.

My mind veered away from that train of thought and I refocused on the present. Just downriver, a convoy of barges moved slowly down the Ohio, the weight of their cargo making them ride low on the water, the deep hum of their heavy engines echoing off the bluffs.

I pulled my cap from my head and wiped my arm across my forehead. For a moment, I wasted time searching the sky for some sign of a storm cloud. Then I straightened my back, put my cap back on my head and climbed back into my SUV.

For the next half hour, I drove a slow, lazy loop around
Maryville. Just making sure that everything was peaceful in my town. Peaceful and—unlike my personal life—under control. Except for children, few people were even outside. No one lingered on Main Street. And even seniors like Marta Moye and Larry Hayes, who usually sat out on their porches this time of day, had retreated out of the heat and into cooler indoor spaces.

After that, I decided to go to my office and do some paperwork.

My office was a newly remodeled space and all of my furniture matched. Which sounded better than it was. The desk was a gray steel monster that took up about half of the windowless room’s square footage. The door that the desk faced was oak with a frosted-glass pane and dark lettering that read Maryville Police Department.

I settled in behind my desk with the door open for maximum ventilation. On the narrow gun-metal gray credenza immediately behind me, the low-volume voices on my scanner crackled on and off. I half listened to them as I polished off a sandwich and began cleaning out the accumulation in my IN box. As usual, I was interrupted. But today it wasn’t a series of calls from county dispatch that thwarted my good intentions and made paperwork impossible. It was a persistently ringing phone.

Two out-of-town reporters and half a dozen concerned citizens phoned, all seeking better information than a police scanner and local gossip could provide. I confirmed what they’d already heard—unidentified remains had been discovered in the forest during a successful search for a lost child—and offered nothing more. They hung up disappointed.

Hours later—a stack of paperwork and a dozen more interruptions later—I went home.

That night, the phone on my nightstand rang as I was crawling into bed and the caller ID flashed the number of the Cherokee Rose. The phone rang again as I held my hand suspended inches above the receiver, knowing that the call might be urgent Underground business, but still hesitating. Because chances were, the caller was my sister.

Earlier, when I’d come home from work, the answering machine had been flashing and the voice on the phone had been Katie’s.

“Hi, Brooke. It’s me,” she’d said at the answering machine’s prompt. “Nice work finding the little girl. Call me, okay? I have great news.”

My sister’s voice had been predictably sweet, upbeat and optimistic. Just like her attitude since she’d returned home to the Cherokee Rose months earlier. Not at all like the depressed, acutely disturbed teenager who had left Maryville eight years ago. Therapy, travel, education, growing up. Some of those things—perhaps all of them—seemed to have transformed Katie. And as for the event that had separated Katie from us? Those who knew of it—Gran, Aunt Lucy, Katie and I—never spoke of Missy’s murder. As if not talking about it meant it had never happened.

As I’d hit the button to erase her message, I’d decided that my day had already been emotionally grueling enough. Katie’s good news would have to wait until tomorrow. That decision had little to do with the day’s events. My reluctance to interact with my older sister was, unfortunately, business as usual.

Despite the changes in her personality, ever since her return to Maryville, the relationship between Katie and me had been strained and distant. My fault, not hers. I loved my big sister as I always had, but a minefield of taboo
subjects now lay between us. Our childhood. Missy’s murder. The Underground. Chad. I found it difficult to recall a time when the secrets Katie and I shared had united us. Now I feared that there might be a secret that Katie
hadn’t
shared with me.

The phone beneath my hand rang for the fifth time and, just as I heard the message tape click on, I answered it. Impulse, perhaps. Or concern inspired by the late hour of the call. Or maybe just to prove to myself that I wasn’t going to let coincidence and unfounded suspicion poison my interactions with my sister. So I picked up the phone.

I was surprised and a little relieved to find Aunt Lucy on the line.

“Hey, honey,” she said by way of greeting. “Gran and I are going shopping tomorrow. Across the river in Paducah. We’ll be meeting a friend of a friend. Would you like to come along?”

I had no doubt that Aunt Lucy was talking about an extraction. And that long habit rather than any pressing need for caution had prompted her to discuss Underground business in veiled terms.

“Okay,” I said without hesitation.

Despite the conflict it brought to my life, I’d never questioned my commitment to the Underground and the women it served. Many who traveled along the Underground network were able to walk away from the abusive situation they’d been in. Easy enough, then, for one of our volunteers to help them take the first step toward a new life in a new location. But some women couldn’t escape on their own. They—and, sometimes, their children—required extraction from life-threatening situations. Over the past eight years, I’d helped Gran and Aunt Lucy with dozens of such urgent rescues.

“We should probably leave the Cherokee Rose by one,”
Aunt Lucy said as we finished talking about the next day’s rescue. “If that works for you.”

“Sure does,” I said. “Sounds like fun.”

Business taken care of, the urgency left Aunt Lucy’s voice. Her syllables lengthened as her voice relaxed, and I could almost hear her smile. That smile, I knew, would deepen the laugh lines around her mouth and crinkle the skin surrounding her dark-lashed chocolate-brown eyes.

“I’m sorry for calling so late,” she said. “Are you too tired to talk?”

“No. Not at all,” I said, and I meant it.

As I settled back against my pillows, long familiarity with Aunt Lucy’s habits made it easy for me to picture her. Middle-aged and slightly plump, at this hour she would be dressed for bed in an oversize T-shirt and loose-fitting pajama bottoms. Her glossy dark hair would be caught up in a braid and she would most likely be fiddling with its end as she spoke on the phone.

Like everyone else I’d talked with that day, my aunt asked me about finding the little girl and discovering human remains near Camp Cadiz. But Aunt Lucy was the only one who’d asked how I felt and how I was doing, and she worried aloud at the impact that another disappointment might have on Chad.

“He’s such a dear, sweet boy,” she said.

Aunt Lucy chattered on, unaware of the burst of laughter I smothered against my shoulder. Too easy for me to imagine Chad’s reaction to such a glowing description. Undoubtedly, he would flush bright red and scowl. I smiled to myself as I thought of a new quip and awarded myself a point.

You might be a cop if…you practice your cold, hard stare in front of a mirror.

“Why don’t you come by early tomorrow and have lunch
with Katie, Gran, and me?” Aunt Lucy continued. “It seems like forever since we’ve all just sat around the kitchen table and visited. Which, I suppose, is what happens when a family gets busy. What with your job and Katie and me running our feet off with preparations for that big wedding at the end of the month, Gran seems to be the only one with any leisure time. I told you, didn’t I, that we ended up hiring more kitchen staff?”

Southern hospitality and a sweeping view of the Ohio had always drawn a steady trickle of paying guests to our family’s historic hotel, but lately business was booming because of the food that Katie served in the antique-furnished dining room. And because of the beautiful pastries and cakes she created in the Cherokee Rose’s modern, industrial kitchen. In the past few months, word of mouth had dramatically increased the number of wedding parties booking into the Cherokee Rose.

“I’m hoping we get a break in the weather by then,” Aunt Lucy was saying. “The bride has her heart set on getting married in the back garden. Shade trees or not, her guests won’t want to spend any time outside if it stays this hot. Of course, rain wouldn’t be great, either. But with a little rearranging in the front parlor and dining room, we can bring the whole shebang inside on a day’s notice. Oh, well… At least we can be sure the food will be fabulous. Which reminds me, Katie’s experimenting with some new hors d’oeuvres for the occasion. I’m sure she’d love for you to sample them and tell her what you think.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “How’s Katie doing?”

That was a question I always asked. Because I was always concerned.

Aunt Lucy replied with characteristic enthusiasm.

“At the moment, she’s walking on air. Remember me telling you about the guest who insisted on touring the kitchen
and
meeting Katie? Well, it turns out he’s a travel editor for the
St. Louis Post Dispatch.
They ran a story about us. Well, about Katie, really. He said she was the third generation of beautiful and charming innkeepers working at the Cherokee Rose. That her beauty, personality and European-inspired cuisine should quickly make the Cherokee Rose a
destination.
His only criticism was that Katie didn’t spend enough time interacting with her guests.”

Pleasure warmed Aunt Lucy’s tone. But I knew her well enough that I heard the note of hesitation that crept into her voice just as it trailed off. It warned me that I wasn’t going to like whatever she said next. And I was right. Her announcement stiffened my back, brought me upright from the pillows.

“Gran and I think he’s right. We talked it over and decided there’s no reason she shouldn’t be spending more time playing hostess. Especially during special events like the big wedding that’s coming up. She wants to do it, Brooke. She’s earned the right. And it’s not as if she’d be moving back into the hotel again.”

Instead of moving back into the bedroom we’d once shared in our family’s apartment on the hotel’s first floor, Katie now lived in the brick coach house behind the Cherokee Rose. Used for decades as a honeymoon cottage, the tiny building was separated from the expansive flower gardens behind the Cherokee Rose by a six-foot-tall wrought-iron fence overgrown with jasmine vines. Her walk to work took minutes along a narrow, brick-paved alley. Katie had seemed content with her little home and her position as the Cherokee Rose’s first formally trained chef. Until now.

I was upset enough that I broke with convention, specifically mentioning the Underground.

“But we agreed before Katie came home,” I said, urgency
tightening my voice, “that it was too stressful—too risky—for her to be involved with the Underground ever again. And because the layout of the Cherokee Rose makes it impossible to separate regular guests from activities involving our
other
guests, we came up with our compromise. A place to live away from the hotel and a job that limited Katie’s contact with
all
of the guests. Remember?”

My question was met with silence, a silence in which I easily recalled an alternative that I had offered a little more than six months earlier. When Katie had called and asked to come home. To stay. That’s when I’d proposed to Gran and Aunt Lucy that we stop rescuing and sheltering abused women, that we shift that responsibility to other, equally competent members of the Underground. But Gran had been adamant.

“Absolutely not,” Gran had said. “Your grandfather and I founded the Underground. I don’t care how many volunteers and how many other safe houses we now have. The Tyler family
is
the Underground. And until I’m in my grave, the Cherokee Rose will remain at the center of the Underground network.”

I took a breath, tried to reason with Aunt Lucy, although I knew that, ultimately, Gran would make the final decision. As she did with any issue that affected the Underground.

“It was a wise precaution then and it still is,” I said. “We can’t risk anything like Missy ever—”