“Where’s she staying?” Colin asked.
“A couple of blocks from here. She’s only in town for two nights—last night and tonight—but she booked a small apartment. She could have stayed with me but I just moved into my place—it’s on the top floor of Jolie’s studio in Cambridge. It’s still a mess. I’m only two weeks back from three months in London. She gave me an extra key to her place.” Adalyn reached for her handbag, hung on the back of her chair. “In case I got too drunk to make it back to Cambridge.” She opened her bag and produced the key, holding it up as if to prove she was serious. “Or in case I wanted to hang out with her and let her grill me about my life. London. What I want to do after I graduate. Mom’s a planner.”
Emma lifted her water glass. “When did you last speak with her?”
“This morning. We had brunch. She picked me up at my apartment. I showed her around a bit, and we headed to her rental apartment and walked to Prudential. She flew in last night and starts vacation tomorrow. She said she needs a real break. Maybe she decided to get an early start. Maybe something last minute came up at work. It’s hard for her to get away. Who knows, maybe she’s mad at my dad. They’ve been divorced for a year, but things are still a bit raw in my family.”
“Where’s he?” Yank asked.
“Home in Washington. He’ll come up next week to celebrate my birthday. He didn’t want to step on my mother’s toes with her celebration. She can be so competitive. You know him, don’t you?”
Yank nodded. “I met both your parents when they were starting out in Boston.”
He didn’t look any more thrilled with Adalyn McDermott than Colin was. He glanced at Emma. She was harder to read. He pushed back his chair. “Why don’t I go knock on her door? It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“I’ll join you,” Emma said.
“Thank you, but I should go with you—” Adalyn said.
Lucy touched Adalyn’s hand. “Let’s talk whiskey with Matt instead.”
Adalyn gave Colin the key and the address. “Tonight...” Her eyes brimmed with fresh tears. “It’s not going as planned. Sorry.”
“We’ll get back as fast as we can,” Emma said.
Adalyn sniffled. “My mom told me about you. I’m interested in art crimes. Maybe. I don’t know. We can talk more when you guys get back.”
Once across the street, away from the crowded, boisterous restaurant and its outdoor café, Colin turned to Emma. “What do you think?”
“Tamara intended to be at dinner when I saw her. She’d never have invited us if she’d planned to bail. That’s my take.”
“Something happened between then and now?”
Emma shrugged. She’d changed into a skirt, a white shirt and a lightweight jacket, its green a shade lighter than her eyes. “It could be something as simple as a dead phone and she miscalculated the time.”
“You had concerns about her when she stopped at the marina.”
“I felt she was holding back.”
“Something to do with her daughter,” Colin said.
“That would be my guess, too.”
“You know Back Bay better than I do. Lead the way.”
* * *
The small apartment Tamara McDermott had rented was located on the ground floor of a brownstone on Commonwealth Avenue. The living room and bedroom overlooked an alley with tandem parking for the building’s tenants. Colin couldn’t tell but, according to Emma, the place was furnished in inexpensive, hip IKEA everything—fixtures, rugs, furniture, lighting, pots and pans, dishes and silverware. All of it was spotless. Tamara either hadn’t made a mess or had cleaned up in case her daughter stayed overnight. He walked into the galley kitchen. Gleaming.
“No luggage,” Emma said, emerging from the bedroom.
“Looks as if she cleared out.”
A handwritten note lay flat on the coffee table. Colin raised an eyebrow when he noticed the turquoise ink and little hand-drawn heart at the bottom. Unexpected. He and Emma read the note together:
Adalyn—
I can’t believe you’re twenty-one! Enjoy the apartment. I’ve settled the bill. All you have to do is lock up and leave your key in the mailbox at the entrance. I decided to leave tonight instead of waiting until morning, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. This is more than a vacation for me. It’s a “time out.” I’m going dark, as they say. No screens. No calls. No work. No family, even. I love you, always,
Mom
Colin stood back. “What do you think?”
“She says ‘tonight.’ To me that implies she expected to be at dinner, but maybe she decided she couldn’t wait and had to leave now.”
“Fight with the daughter?”
“Adalyn certainly isn’t in a great mood.”
“There’s no apology in the note,” Colin said. “Wouldn’t you apologize if you cut out on your daughter’s birthday dinner? Wouldn’t you at least call her—call the friends you invited? Not us. Lucy and Yank.”
“I would. You would. We don’t know if Tamara would.”
“Yank might have more insight into her behavior.” Colin glanced again at the note. The handwriting flowed, without any hint of excessive pressure or uneven lettering that would indicate stress. “We could get back to the restaurant and discover she finally charged her phone and got in touch with Adalyn. If she was already desperate for a real break, it’s possible the notion of her daughter turning twenty-one overwhelmed her.”
Emma nodded. “It’s a big milestone for a mother as well as a daughter. Tamara could be depressed, reflective—she could have simply decided she didn’t want to inflict herself on Adalyn and the rest of us at dinner.”
“Throw in a recent divorce and I guess it’s possible. Why the drama, though? Why put her daughter through such an ordeal?”
“Couldn’t risk Adalyn talking her out of leaving now, or getting swept up in her problems?”
“What problems?”
“Relationships, career, money, burnout.” Emma sighed, glancing out the window at the alley. “It doesn’t have to be anything out of the ordinary to tip the scales for a mother already on overdrive.”
“Did Tamara have a suitcase with her when you saw her?”
Emma shook her head and turned from the uninspiring view. “She must have had it stashed somewhere—a rental car, maybe. She was hot, though. I’d say she walked at least a few blocks before she stopped by.”
“Think she was already debating bolting early?”
“I didn’t get that impression. Let’s head back to the restaurant and see if Adalyn’s heard from her mother and what she thinks of the note.”
By unspoken agreement, they left the note untouched on the coffee table. Colin snapped a photo of it on his phone. “I’ll text Yank to put in your dinner order,” he said as they locked up.
“Those Fenway hot dogs still with you, are they?”
“Mike’s a bad influence. He had four hot dogs. Andy, Kevin and I had to keep up.”
Emma smiled. “Any of the entrée salads would be great for me. I can share if you decide you need a few vegetables today.”
When they arrived at the restaurant, Adalyn and Lucy were sharing spinach dip and laughing over photos on Adalyn’s phone. Her life from birth to twenty-one, apparently, courtesy of her father. She put away the phone as entrées arrived, and Emma explained what they’d discovered at Tamara’s apartment. Colin showed her the photo of the note. “Is that your mother’s handwriting?”
“Yes. No question. Absolutely.” Adalyn pushed aside her plate. “It’s just like her to ruin my dinner and make herself the center of attention. I can’t believe she didn’t tell me she was leaving early. I don’t care if her phone’s dead. Borrow one from someone on the street. Stop at a gas station. Something.”
Lucy wiped her fingertips on her cloth napkin. “Adalyn,
do you find anything unusual about—”
“About my mother’s behavior? No. I wish I did.” She didn’t bother hiding her frustration. “My father asked me not to be so hard on her. She’s under a lot of pressure at work, more so than I can imagine, apparently, seeing how nothing ever happens in my life. Her job is important. High stakes. I’m just a boring archivist. I don’t know, maybe that’s why I told her I was interested in art crimes. Just to... It’s hard to feel as if you don’t matter.”
Colin glanced at Yank but said nothing.
Lucy sighed, her empathy for Adalyn impossible to miss. “Having people we love in demanding jobs can be a challenge. It’s easy to feel as if what we do isn’t as important.”
“But it’s true, it isn’t,” Adalyn countered. “My mother puts away terrorists who want to blow up people. Your husband catches bad guys. You and I—you sell yarn and teach people how to knit, and I’m learning how to preserve documents. If you have your great-great-grandmother’s old diary, I’m your person.”
“Preservation archiving plays a critical role in a number of fields,” Emma said.
“I can get thanked in the future after I’m dead. That’s when I’ll matter.”
Yank sat up straight. “You and your mother will work things out.”
Adalyn’s mouth snapped shut and she stared at him. After a few seconds of silence, she took in a breath. “You’re right. We will. I’m sorry. I should cut her some slack. I hope she has a great time. I hope this vacation is good for her. I know she loves me, but saying it isn’t the same as showing it. You know? Being here.” She grabbed her napkin and put it over her face, sobbing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Lucy touched Adalyn’s hand. “I can take you home if you’d like.”
“It’s the alcohol. I’m not used to the strong stuff. I drank in England but I was careful. Tonight...” She pulled the napkin away from her face; she was red from crying. “I’m really sorry my mother ruined dinner for you, too. Please, enjoy yourselves—on me.” She faked a smile. “I’ll make Mom pay me back when she surfaces.”
“We’re not worried about dinner,” Lucy said.
“I’ll go back to Cambridge. Rex wants to meet me later for a celebratory drink. I’ll let you know if my mother gets in touch.” With a sniffle, Adalyn turned to Yank. “If something had happened to her—you’d know, right?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But if she tripped on a crack in the sidewalk or got mugged and knocked out—someone would report it even if she couldn’t talk. She’s a prosecutor, a friend. You’d know.”
Yank nodded. “Probably.”
“Which means tonight’s what it looks like. She left early for her vacation and didn’t show up because she couldn’t put her own problems aside and focus on me—on celebrating my birthday.”
“Did you two argue since your mother arrived in Boston?” Emma asked. “Were you on good terms when you finished brunch this morning?”
“I thought so. We didn’t argue. We hadn’t seen each other since I got back from England. We had a lot to talk about just to get caught up. She said she had some things to do to get ready for her trip, so we agreed to meet at dinner and I went home.” Adalyn set her napkin on the table and pushed back her chair. “Please, enjoy yourselves. I’ll settle the bill on my way out. My treat, and my apologies for my mother’s behavior, and for my crankiness.”
She almost knocked over her chair getting up. She flounced off without another word or a glance back. Despite her anger and sense of betrayal, Colin sensed she was starting to see her mother’s behavior might be more complicated, more about her own struggles, than it had first appeared, no matter how hurtful it was.
Lucy made a move to go after Adalyn but stayed in her seat. “She needs some time. She has friends.” She grabbed her wineglass. “Not the evening we were expecting. Even if Tamara had turned up a bit late, I suspect there would have been a scene. I’m so sorry.” She sighed heavily. “There’s a lot of mother-daughter angst there. I didn’t realize. I’d have gotten us out of tonight if I had.”
“Have you seen Tamara since she arrived in Boston?” Colin asked.
“She called last night to invite us to dinner tonight. We spoke for maybe five minutes. I was under the impression we’d go back to our apartment this evening for drinks and a catch-up.”
“We haven’t seen much of Tamara or her ex-husband in the past few years,” Yank said. “I met her and Patrick when I was an undergraduate in Boston. They were in law school. We lost touch and then reconnected when I got to Washington. Lucy and I were married by then. We saw Tamara and Patrick socially a few times, but we all had busy schedules.”
“I never saw their split coming,” Lucy said.
“I thought they’d grow old together,” Yank added. “We knew Adalyn was attending college in Boston, but tonight’s the first time we’ve seen her since she graduated high school.”
“We had no idea she’d just finished an internship in London until Tamara mentioned it last night.” Lucy smoothed a fingertip on the table, as if she were looking for something to do. “Adalyn has a tendency to feel she comes a distant second to her parents’ work. That’s not unusual, given their intense jobs, but it never seemed to get in the way of anything truly important. As irritated as Adalyn is right now, I’d say deep down she believes her mother is a no-show tonight because she’s mentally and physically exhausted, not because she doesn’t care.”
“Maybe,” Yank said. “Tamara works hard, and no case she tackles is an easy one. She has a crack staff, and she’s tough and experienced. She’s a control freak and a perfectionist. She wouldn’t like admitting she needs a break. Then she comes to Boston and her daughter turns up in high-maintenance mode—I don’t know. Maybe it all just caught up with her, and she took off for a quiet inn and left Adalyn to sort out her life on her own now that she’s twenty-one.”
Colin noticed Emma’s skeptical look. “You have doubts?”
She set her water glass on the table. “I’m not convinced Tamara told me everything that was on her mind when she stopped by after lunch, and I’m not convinced Adalyn told us everything just now.”
A curt nod from Yank. “I’m not, either. Lucy?”
Colin wanted her take, too. As a psychologist and the only non-FBI agent at the table, Lucy Yankowski would have a different perspective on the situation. “Adalyn and I arrived at the restaurant about the same time, just before her friends. We sat in the bar. She was already agitated. Her mother was only a few minutes late at that point. She tried to put it aside when Jolie and Rex got here. It was a birthday celebration—everyone wanted to have a good time—but Adalyn clearly had other things on her mind.”
“What did you do to celebrate your twenty-first birthday?” Yank asked her.
She frowned at him, his question obviously taking her by surprise. “What?”
“You don’t remember what you did?”
“Wasn’t I with you for my twenty-first birthday?”
“That was later.”
She smiled. Clearly she’d known that. “I have an October birthday. I was studying for an exam.”
“Right.” Yank turned to Colin. “And you were out pulling lobster traps when you turned twenty-one?”
“Could have been. I don’t remember.” It was the truth. Colin smiled. “I just remember my folks breathing a big sigh of relief that another of us boys had turned twenty-one. My mother had a rolling bail fund that she started with Mike. None of us ever got into the kind of trouble she expected we would. She ended up buying a new couch with the money.”
“Good for her,” Lucy said. “What about you, Emma?”
“You were Sister Brigid then,” Yank said. “Do nuns celebrate birthdays?”
Indeed, Emma had been a novice with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart on her twenty-first birthday. “We had Victoria sponge
cake in one of the convent gardens. I celebrated with my parents and brother, too. My grandfather was already living in Dublin then.”
“And you, Matt?” his wife asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever known how you celebrated your twenty-first birthday. Do I want to know?”
“I wish I had a juicy story, but I worked a double shift at an ice cream shop here in Boston. I had peppermint ice cream for the first time.”
“Living large,” Colin said with a grin.
“Yeah. I decided I didn’t like it and haven’t had it since. I was in back cleaning up after closing when four kids broke in and made off with cash out of the register. I chased them until the police arrived. They caught them and lectured me about taking my life into my hands. The kids had one baseball bat between them, but the cops pointed out they could have had concealed weapons. All in all, a pretty good first day of being twenty-one. Can’t say the same for Adalyn. Her mother should be here. I don’t understand why she isn’t.” Yank paused, eyeing his drink. “I need to understand.”
They cut dinner short. The Yankowskis had their leftovers boxed up, but Emma didn’t bother with hers. Colin could see she was processing today’s events. They all headed outside, no noticeable reduction in the heat even now that it was approaching dusk. “I’ll touch base with Patrick McDermott,” Yank said. “See if he knows anything about Tamara’s plans.”
He and Lucy started across Newbury Street, toward their own Back Bay apartment. Emma was watching them, but Colin could tell her mind was elsewhere. He put an arm around her. “Let’s get a cab.”
* * *
The marina was crowded with pleasure boats and their owners and guests when Colin exited the cab two seconds after Emma. She’d said little on the short ride from Back Bay. She didn’t seem to notice the summer fun around them as she unlocked their apartment door and went in. The place smelled faintly of her cleaning extravaganza. He’d done a similar deep-clean at their house in Rock Point after they’d returned from their honeymoon. He hadn’t finished. She’d come home after spending the day with her parents in Heron’s Cove. He’d been cleaning the upstairs bathroom, and that was that. Somehow they’d found themselves in the tub together.
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