Under the Skin (29 page)

For a moment, Phillip tuned out of the discussion and tried to organize his thoughts. First there had been the phone call a few hours ago; fortunately he’d been off duty and was at the dining table with paperwork spread out all around him when his cell beeped. Lizabeth hadn’t said much, just that they would be home in about an hour, that she would bring stuff for dinner, and that a young man would be coming with them. That was it—she’d explain it all later, she’d promised. At least the part that could
be
explained, she’d added, before hanging up.

He’d rushed around, tidying up his clutter, making the bed, and doing the dishes that had been accumulating. He’d even thought about hauling out the vacuum cleaner but decided instead just to sweep the kitchen floor and let it go at that.

Lizabeth had taken him aside as soon as the three had arrived and swiftly filled him in on the story of Gloria’s lost child and the “miraculous” events that had just taken place. And now here they were, all sitting around the living room like one big happy family.
Family—
Phillip wondered how Ben was going to feel about a newfound older half brother. The answer to
that
question would have to wait till Monday, as Ben and Amanda had taken off for a weekend music festival somewhere. And while it was great to see Gloria looking so happy, still, the cop side of Phillip’s nature was deeply suspicious of the whole setup. Too neat, too—

He became aware that the story Gloria was telling had moved on.
I’ve lost the thread here. Where were we? Gloria was in some kind of box in a basement and Lizabeth wanted to know why she hadn’t been hollering for help
.

“… the same woman?” Elizabeth was asking.

“Yes, the woman in white I met at the old bathhouse this morning. She came to me …”

Gloria stopped. Her brow furrowed. “But that doesn’t make any sense—I was in that box, wasn’t I? I swear though, I
saw
her and she told me that I was going to be fine, that someone was coming to get me out.

She …”

Gloria was shaking her head now. “I know this sounds crazy …”

You got that right
, thought Phillip. He glanced at Elizabeth. But her face was expressionless.

“No, go on,” urged Joss, “this is amazing—just one more amazing thing in this amazing day.” He picked up Gloria’s hand and put a gentle kiss on her palm, then wrapped her fingers around it. Phillip realized that he found the intimacy of the gesture somewhat unsettling. What age was this Joss, anyway? Early thirties, by what Lizabeth had said, but he looked much younger. Whatever, this cozy, lovey-dovey stuff between Joss and his supposed mother was creeping him out.

Not Gloria. She favored Joss with a radiant smile and went on.

“Well, anyway, the woman in white was
there
, somehow, and she told me I was going to be all right. She
spoke
to me—I heard her voice—just like your Miss Birdie, Lizzy—and she said,
Honey
, only she said ‘hawney,’
now you lay quiet fer a spell. Take a little nap
. And I curled up and fell asleep, just like that!”

Gloria patted Joss’s hand. “The next thing I remember, I was being carried upstairs and out into the light. And then I saw it was Joss and I knew that all of this had somehow been
meant
to bind us together.”

“Excuse me, I think I’m missing something here.” Phillip could hold back no longer. “You’re saying some unknown person or persons—”

“Person,” Gloria corrected him. “I’m sure there was only one.”

“Okay, an unknown
person
carried you off, dumped you in a box of some sort—”

“I’ve been thinking about that box …” Now Lizabeth was doing it. “It must have been a sort of early steam cabinet. There was a hose fitting—”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Phillip leapt to his feet and moved out of the cozy circle of family, feeling that if he didn’t get up and walk around, he’d explode.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” The look of surprise on Elizabeth’s face made him lower his voice and he reached down to give her shoulder an apologetic squeeze. “But for the love of god, don’t you folks understand that a crime’s been committed here? Did anyone bother to call the Hot Springs police? I know the sheriff’s office wasn’t called.”

They were staring at him now with expressions ranging from guilty embarrassment (Lizabeth) to indignation (Gloria) and what looked suspiciously like barely concealed amusement (Joss).

“I told Lizzy not to, Phil. Since I was the one involved, surely it was my decision.”
And there’s an end to it
, Gloria’s tone said.

“When I first realized Glory was missing, I did start to call you. But then Joss showed up saying he knew where she was and …” Elizabeth lifted her hands in one of those
whaddayagonnado
gestures and concluded, “And then everything happened so fast and Glory—”

“I absolutely forbade calling any local yokel cops.” Now Gloria was on
her
feet, hands planted on her hips and elbows waggling in that old familiar bitch-wings pose his ex-wife had majored in. Bitch wings seemed to work best, Phillip thought, with short, strong-willed women—the ones like little feisty dogs. They could waggle
those elbows and stare a big man down in no time flat.

At least, Lizabeth looked like she understood why he was so ticked. Maybe it would be best just to back down for the moment and see where this was going.

The cellphone clipped to his belt began to vibrate and he reached for it.

“Excuse me, folks.” Happy for the interruption, he headed for the office. “I gotta take this.”

When he returned from his phone call, Elizabeth was on her way to the front porch. “I need to go check on a heifer—she’s not due for a while but the cows are down from the mountain and handy over there in the pasture. I might as well take a look …”

We need to talk
, her eyes said.

He nodded. “I’ll come with you—do me good to stretch my legs. I’ve been swamped in that blasted paperwork for most of the day.”

Leaving Joss and Gloria deep in conversation, he followed Elizabeth to the porch and waited while she pulled on boots. The dogs, well aware of her intentions, danced about while James made little darting attempts to lick her face as she leaned over to tie her laces.

When they reached the driveway, after glancing back to make sure that they were out of earshot of the house, Phillip began. “Lizabeth, there’s something about this whole setup that—”

“
Setup!
That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking from the beginning.” Lizabeth’s blue eyes were shining. “But you see how Glory is. She wants to believe that she and her lost child have been miraculously reunited.”

They continued on through the gate to the tractor road that ran along the top of the pasture, Ursa and Molly leading the way. Up ahead, just at the edge of the woods, a dozen red cows were grazing.

“Is it one of those up there?” he asked, wondering how she could tell one cow from another anyway.

Elizabeth waved dismissively. “That heifer won’t come in for another month; I just thought we needed to get out of the house.” She reached for his hand. “You looked like you were about to explode right before that phone call took you away.”

He looked back at the house. “Yeah, Gloria can be a little …”

“Yes, she can. So let’s go on and have a walk and I’ll try to fill you in on what’s been happening.”

As they walked along the path in late afternoon sun, Elizabeth recapped Gloria’s story of the hushed-up pregnancy, the banishment to New Bern and Aunt Dodie, the arranged adoption, and the birth.

“They told Gloria the baby was born dead. She’d been under anesthesia for the birth and by the time she regained consciousness, dead or alive the child had been whisked away. Of course, since Gloria hadn’t really wanted to consent to the adoption, it’s possible my mother decided to tell her the baby died so she wouldn’t make a fuss.”

“Wait a second—would the doctor or the hospital or whatever have gone along with a big lie like that? And, anyway, for the adoption to take place, your sister would have to sign papers—”

Lizabeth gave him a pitying smile. “You never knew my mother. She always said it was amazing what a little money could do. And she would have forged Glory’s name without thinking twice. She might have even told herself that it was better for Glory this way, just to believe that the baby was dead rather than to go on worrying about it. And do you imagine that an adopting couple, about to be presented with a healthy male infant, would ask a lot of questions?”

They had reached the edge of the woods and, after a
quick look at the heifer in question, Elizabeth paused to admire some little purple flowers that covered the ground below the path.

“It’s a good thing the cows don’t have a taste for wild iris.” She swept her hand toward the swathe of bloom. “They trample a few here and there but at least they don’t eat them. I look forward every year to seeing this. It always makes me think of a pool of water spread out here in the shade.”

He watched as she bent to inspect a single fan of leaves that had been dislodged by a passing hoof. In an instant she had set it aright, patting the rich dirt around its roots, and then wiping her hands on her jeans as she stood back up.

“Oh, bloody hell, these are my good jeans! I forgot.”

He reached for her dirty hand and drew her to him. “I like the way you know and love every inch of this place. And the way you tend to even the wildflowers—I’ve seen you leaving big patches of those lacy white ones when you’re out with your weed cutter. It’s … it’s nice.”

She stood, quiet in his embrace. Almost as tall as he—he liked that too—an armful of woman.

At last she said, “I can’t imagine ever living anywhere but here. I enjoy seeing other places—and with Ben and Amanda and Julio and Homero to take up the slack, it’s gotten easier to be away now and then. But you know, anytime I’m somewhere else, I’m always wondering what I might be missing here: the first crocus, the flame azaleas, those lovely Louisiana irises down at the pond …”

She fell silent and he closed his eyes and breathed in her fragrance—shampoo, soap, the woman herself—a smell that always oddly reminded him of fallen oak leaves—an elemental smell. Time seemed to stop as they clung to each other, just out of sight of the house and the questions waiting there.

Finally she pulled away from him. “But I was supposed to be giving you the backstory on Glory. Let’s walk on.”

As they moved into the wooded section of the walk the dogs trotted ahead, eagerly examining invisible trails and tantalizing scents. A squirrel darted in front of them and ran up a poplar tree to the first branch where it paused to flirt its tail and chatter abuse. All three dogs scrambled up the bank in futile pursuit then abandoned the hunt in favor of following their people.

“This abduction—your sister being carried off like that—Did she have any idea who it was—make any guesses?”

“No, none at all. When she was first missing, I figured it must have been that Eyebrow guy.”

Phillip shook his head. “Not him.”

“Oh, I know,” Elizabeth continued. “When we found her in that cellar, I realized it really couldn’t have been him. It would have to have been someone familiar with the place. But—”

“It couldn’t have been Mr. Gregorio Lopez, aka ‘Goyo’—the fella your sister calls the Eyebrow,” he continued. “Because according to Mac—that’s who the call was from—Goyo was stopped
yesterday
in a routine traffic check and the drug-sniffing dog evidently detected a trace of cocaine on one of the seats. One thing led to another and your Eyebrow friend got violent and he’s sitting in the Buncombe County jail just now, awaiting transfer to Florida, where, as it turns out, there are several outstanding warrants.”

He grinned. It felt just fine to be delivering good news for a change. But Lizabeth seemed to be deep in thought.

“So who? And
why
?” She kicked at a rotting branch on the path. “If it couldn’t have been the Eyebrow, who was it? And why … to scare her? Did whoever it was think she would stay quiet? Were they going to come
back for her? Or was it all some kind of setup—all so that Joss could be the hero who found her …”

Or
, thought Phillip,
did your crazy sister set up all of this herself?

But he didn’t say it.

D
o you believe this shit, Aunt E?”

I looked up from the tray of seedlings I was transplanting to see Ben, looming over me and vibrating with emotion.

This was the first I’d seen of him since he and Amanda had returned late the previous night. Gloria had left a note on the door of their cabin, telling Ben to come over in the morning as she had some important news for him.

“I just can’t
wait
for Ben to meet Joss. You know he always hated being an only child. And now he has a big brother! Won’t he be thrilled?”

She actually believed that.

I wasn’t so sure and suggested that it might be a better plan to break this news to Ben privately before presenting him with his ready-made older brother. I even offered to talk to Ben first but Gloria was having none of it.

“We’ll do it my way, thank you just the same, Lizzy. I’ll tell him when he comes over in the morning. Don’t you dare call him or do anything to spoil my surprise, do you hear me?”

So, in a somewhat cowardly move, I’d gotten up early and fled the house, leaving a note to tell Gloria that I had urgent work to do. Phillip had been of the same
mind and had left before dawn, swearing that he had an early meeting at the sheriff’s office.

“Well, Aunt E?
Do
you believe that … 
person
is who he says he is?” Ben picked up a spray bottle of insecticidal soap and began to toss it from hand to hand—a mindless activity that warned me that he was trying very hard not to give vent to all his suppressed feelings.

“I truly don’t know, Ben. I wish I did.”