Close to Home

by Lisa Jackson

  “Oh, no, don’t bother. I really just came by to see the place and ask if you’d seen Arlene.”

  “Once,” Sarah admitted. “I hope to go back to Pleasant Pines soon.”

  Marge made a big point of visibly shivering. “Dreadful place. So institutional. Take note, kids. I do not want to end up there.”

  “Is it that bad?” Sarah asked.

  “No,” Caroline was quick to reply. “Mom’s just sensitive about it.”

  “As any sane person would be. And poor Arlene. She can’t drive anymore, well . . . I guess she’s beyond all that now, of course,” Marge admitted.

  They walked into the living room, where the fire had died, and Marge propped herself on the couch against a faded cushion while Clark shifted from one leg to the other and checked his cell, presumably for the time or a message, while Caroline couldn’t help wandering around the first floor, her footsteps fading past the staircase.

  “I’m worried about Arlene,” Aunt Marge said, still eyeing the interior of the house. “I, um, I’m afraid she might not last much longer. She’s confused, you know.”

  “Some of the time,” Sarah agreed.

  “She probably doesn’t make good decisions.”

  “Probably not.”

  Caroline returned to the living area and stood near one of the posts. “Just get to the point, Mom. We do have other things to do. Clark and I have jobs, you know, and family duties.”

  Sarah gazed at Marge, who cleared her throat. “Okay, fine,” she said. “Sarah, I wanted to talk to you alone.”

  “Alone?” Sarah repeated.

  “Oh, brother.” Caroline was getting impatient.

  “Well, I mean, before Dee Linn’s extravaganza,” Marge explained. “From what I hear, she’s invited half the town.”

  Sarah looked from Marge to Caroline.

  “She wants to know about your mother’s will,” Caroline explained, while Clark sighed and pretended interest in the far wall, where old wallpaper was peeling.

  “Well, yes. Yes, I do,” Marge said, slightly flustered by Caroline’s bold statement.

  Sarah steeled herself, wondering, for the first time, if all the comments Arlene had made over the years about her younger sister being envious of her were true. Arlene had forever insinuated that Marge, left in poor financial straits after her husband divorced her, had been jealous that Arlene had “married well.”

  “I mean, I don’t understand.” Marge looked to Clark for support, but he was having none of it. “The house was your mother’s, Sarah. How can you just start renovating it? I would have thought all of the acres and buildings would be a part of Arlene’s estate, but, of course, she never confided in me.”

  “Which really pissed you off, didn’t it?” Caroline said with a sigh. “I told you that I talked to Jacob and he told me how it worked. Arlene doesn’t own it any longer.”

  “So you bought it from her? You and your siblings?” Marge asked Sarah.

  “Yes . . . essentially. I’m not trying to be secretive or coy, but I can’t really discuss it.”

  “Arlene had always indicated that I was going to be left something when she passed,” Marge said, cutting to the chase. “I . . . well, I’d hoped it would be enough to . . . make me more secure. You know that when Darrell left me and the children, things were tight.” All of a sudden tears filled her eyes. “Oh, my . . . for the love of God,” she whispered, digging through her purse until she found a tissue. “That man!”

  “Mom,” Clark warned, long-suffering.

  Marge sighed, “Oh, I know he was your father—”

  “Is, Mom,” Caroline cut in. “He is still our dad.” All traces of the flirty girl Sarah had once known had fallen away. She turned to Sarah. “I’m sorry. This is inappropriate, but she insisted. Clark and I didn’t want to come.”

  “I’m just letting Sarah know what Arlene intended,” Marge defended herself. “I know my sister’s a little . . . confused . . . now, but when she was in her right mind, she wanted me to be secure. Comfortable. We talked, you know. She didn’t have an easy time with her husbands, either. First that dreadful Hugh, and then Franklin . . . Oh, I know he was your father and you loved him, but the man was a philanderer, a player. Trust me, I know. He came on to me more than once and even cornered Caroline that time by—”

  “Mom! Stop!” Caroline’s mouth dropped open, and her skin turned red. To her brother she said, “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  Clark scowled. “So what were we going to do?”

  “Say no, that’s what.” Caroline was shaking her head and cinching the belt of her coat more tightly around her.

  Clark reminded, “She would have just made a scene at Dee Linn’s.”

  “Don’t talk as if I’m not in the room. Okay, I’m sorry!” Marge got to her feet and lifted her chin a notch. “I thought you were different from your brothers and sisters, Sarah. That you would be more compassionate, being a divorced woman and a single mother. That you would understand what happens when a marriage crumbles and the financial underpinnings, not to mention the emotional support, are stripped away. Your mother always mentioned that I would inherit something . . . I mean, even that little cabin that we used to rent from your father, or—”

  “Let’s go.” Clark, suddenly in charge, took his mother by the crook of her elbow and propelled her out of the living room and through the foyer.

  “I’m sorry,” Caroline whispered again as Sarah got to her feet too. “I guess we’re saying that a lot. Don’t mind Mom. She’s just bitter.”

  “I heard that!” Marge declared as Clark opened the front door with his free hand.

  “You were meant to, Mom.” Caroline shook her head. “Bye, Sarah,” she said as they all walked to the front door. “I’ll see you at Dee Linn’s extravaganza, I guess. Unfortunately, we’ll all be there.”

  “See you there,” Sarah said, and felt a welling disappointment that it had all come down to money with her aunt. She watched as Aunt Marge’s aging Mercedes drove away, leaving a trail of blue smoke and sadness in its wake.

  At lunch, Jade discovered her phone had sustained a major crack and barely worked, but fortunately Mary-A and her gang left Jade alone to down a Diet Coke and sneak outside. She thought about a cigarette but didn’t have a pack and really wasn’t that into it. Using the cell was a real pain now; reading texts was nearly impossible, and she found herself wanting to strangle Liam Longstreet and his loser of a friend.

  The rest of the day didn’t get any better, but she suffered through until last period, when, still avoiding her “angel,” Jade made her way to the science wing, with its 1950s charm, ancient labs, and acrid smells that wafted into the hallways. Without saying a word to anyone, she slipped into an empty seat at a lab table in the back. Though most of the students in biology class sat in pairs, two lab partners at each table, she had, as yet, not been assigned a partner, so the other chair at the table was vacant.

  Which was perfect.

  After opening her book and pretending to read, she reached for her cell again but stopped when Sister Cora’s high-pitched voice commanded everyone’s attention.

  “I have an announcement,” she said, standing at her desk in gray slacks and a sweater, a silver cross swinging from a chain at her neck. “There are going to be some changes.”

  “It’s about Antonia.”

  Jade turned a deaf ear. Antonia Norelli was another friend of Mary-Alice’s and the TA for this class, so Jade barely listened to Sister Cora’s long-winded explanation that Antonia had come down with a serious case of mono. At the end of her diatribe, Sister added, “Luckily, at least for me, I’ve found a replacement,” she said, scrawling down the name of Antonia’s replacement on the white board.

  Jade glanced up, and her heart sank as she read Liam Longstreet’s name in the teacher’s flowing hand.

  She couldn’t believe it. What were the chances that Longstreet, a senior and a jock, would be assigned to this class? Jade wanted to die a thousand d
eaths—no, make that a million deaths. This was just too much. She even sent up a prayer that there had been some colossal galactic mistake. Surely God, if there was one, wouldn’t do this to her.

  But He did.

  Ten minutes after Sister’s announcement, Liam Longstreet, six feet plus of arrogance, sauntered in, dropped his backpack, and while Sister Cora taught the lesson, appeared to listen to the boring lecture on plant reproduction. Jade stared at the clock, willing the hour to pass. It seemed that he didn’t notice her. Either that or he was ignoring her, which was just fine.

  But that changed near the end of the period when he looked up and their gazes finally met.

  He smiled.

  Oh, this wasn’t good!

  She’d been certain he would say something to her, something harsh, but he merely nodded at her, his near-black hair falling over his forehead for a second before he grabbed his backpack and, five minutes before the final bell sounded, walked out of the room.

  Somehow she’d gotten a reprieve from another confrontation.

  For now.

  Seeing him every day, though, in this class would change all that.

  Talk about bad luck.

  Automatically she started to text Cody before she saw the crack in the screen of her iPhone again. “Awesome,” she muttered under her breath before realizing that her texts were going through, even though her screen was nearly impossible to read. Frantically she texted Cody once more, then spent the next forty minutes being bored to death in Algebra. Though cell phones were forbidden in class, she kept hers handy, in her pocket, the volume turned off. She checked the screen every five minutes while the teacher, a lay woman, frantically wrote equations on an old-fashioned chalkboard. The teacher was so interested in her work that it was easy for Jade to check her phone. She wasn’t the only one. A boy who sat nearby, Sam Something-or-other, was totally into his as well, either texting or playing a game.

  She caught a glance from that Dana chick who’d been in the restroom, and the girl sent her a frosty glare, but Jade tossed her a “what’re you looking at” stare and Dana looked away. Good. Jade was more upset with Cody than anything. He hadn’t shown up as he’d promised and had texted again that he was coming, just wasn’t sure when. She’d called him, and he hadn’t picked up nor called back, so her faith in him was waning. Not for the first time, she wondered if he already had another girlfriend.

  What would she do then?

  All her bravado with Mary-Alice and her claims that she didn’t need anyone at this lame-ass school would be hollow.

  Her phone vibrated, and her heart leaped as she glanced down at the text, but it wasn’t from Cody. Nope. It came from a number she didn’t recognize.

  Wanna go out sometime?

  What? Was this some kind of joke, a sick prank by Mary-Alice or Longstreet or one of their stupid friends? She didn’t respond.

  It’s Sam. I’m trapped here too. With Ms. Sprout.

  She glanced over at Sam’s desk. He was kinda cute. Sure enough, his phone was in his lap, hidden, while he pretended to watch the teacher and check the book lying open on the desktop.

  Go to the fb game?

  No way. And how the hell had he gotten her cell phone number?

  Her finger hovered over the keypad as she formed a response in her head, but before she could type in a letter, the phone silently vibrated and a text from Cody came in.

  Miss you.

  Her heart melted.

  Miss you too, she wrote, tears of relief glazing her eyes.

  C U soon.

  When?

  OMG, did he mean now? Her heart soared. Maybe he was coming to surprise her! Quickly she brushed her tears away and ignored the other texts from Sam.

  As the last bell sounded, she was out of the room in a shot and nearly ran to the staircase, where from the balcony she had a view of the student and teacher parking lots. Hoping against hope, Jade searched the vehicles. Cody’s Jeep was glaringly absent. She walked to the opposite side of the landing and peered through the high windows that overlooked the front of the building and the streets nearby. Still no sign of him.

  What had she expected?

  Just because he’d texted her that he’d missed her hadn’t meant he’d hopped into his Cherokee and driven here. She’d just hoped, deep down, that he couldn’t stand being apart from her and had driven the hundred miles to just catch a glimpse of her. Her heart pounded at the thought. God, she loved him. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, and the sooner they could be together, the better. She peered at her cell phone, where his number was attached to a photo she’d taken of him: startling blue eyes, thick brown hair that fell over his face, and a firm jaw. He rarely smiled, but there was a certain brooding-actor quality to him that she found fascinating. Roguish. “Don’t give a damn” attitude. “Very James Deanish,” her mother had once commented, though Jade hadn’t known who that guy was until she’d Googled him. Not hardly. Cody was so much better-looking.

  She believed he loved her and couldn’t stand being apart from her, and told herself he wasn’t making excuses but really couldn’t have gotten away any earlier. But, as he only worked part-time, she’d kind of expected him to show up, to surprise her. Before Saturday.

  It could be that to make the surprise complete, he’d driven another car, but as she looked through the windows she knew she was grasping at straws, making excuses. A few days ago, she’d been elated, certain he wouldn’t be able to wait until Saturday and was on his way to spirit her out of this hellhole. But she’d been wrong.

  And she couldn’t go to see him without her car. That really made her furious. How long did that cretin Hal have to keep it? She had his number in her phone, so she called and waited while the phone rang and rang. Certain she’d get a recording, she was about to hang up when a gravelly-voiced woman answered. “Hal’s Auto Repair.”

  “Hi. This is Jade McAdams. You have my car,” she said, then launched into why she needed it back ASAP. She must’ve been a little pushy, because the woman on the other end of the line responded with, “I’ll have Hal call you, but we do have other vehicles to work on, you know.”

  “But this is important,” Jade pressed, phone held to one ear as she tried to hear over the din of the students filing up and down the stairwell.

  “I’m sure all the other clients want their vehicles as well.”

  Jade wanted to scream. Oh, she’d seen the other clients. One was the older woman with a dog, who’d pointed at her white Chevy Impala that had to have been from the 1960s. “In pristine condition,” she’d told Hal with a nod and a smile, “and I’d like to keep it that way. Did you know it’s only got thirty thousand miles on it? Well, of course you do. We always drove Randolph’s car when he was alive, God rest his soul.” Jade had thought she’d go crazy with that one, and there were others as well, a couple of guys who brought in their vehicles. That’s what happened in a town this small. Hal’s Auto Repair was the only game in town.

  “But I need my car,” she pleaded with the woman on the line. “Really, really badly.” Surely her urgency was more dire than the old lady and her dog.

  “The parts have been ordered and shipped, but they’re not here yet. Once we’ve got ’em, Hal’ll take care of you.”

  “You don’t even have the parts yet?” Jade couldn’t believe it.

  “It’s an older Honda. We don’t keep parts for every make and model, but you’ll get the car back soon.”

  Not soon enough, Jade thought, deflated. She descended the stairs and turned in the direction of her locker. Any thoughts that she could somehow get to Cody had been dashed. No way would Mom let her borrow her car. So she’d have to wait for Cody to show up here. If he even decided to come.

  Don’t give up on him, He’s coming, You know it, You just messed up thinking he’d meant he was coming that night,

  Not so, she realized. Maybe he would never come. But he had to! She couldn’t suffer through many more excruciating days as the new kid
at Our Lady of the River. She just couldn’t.

  CHAPTER 17

  Scowling into the tiny mirror mounted near the door of his office, Sheriff Cooke adjusted his tie, tightening the damn thing and noticing that his salt-and-pepper hair was leaning a lot more toward salt even though he wouldn’t be forty until the spring. His mother’s genes. All of her family had been blessed with jet-black hair that started turning gray before they reached thirty. By forty-five or fifty most had hair that had turned snow-white, and he figured he was on that path. At least he wouldn’t lose it, if, as it appeared, he took after his mother’s family and not his father’s. All the men and some of the women on his paternal side were bald long before they’d been laid to rest.

  He would make sure the press conference wouldn’t last long. After all, there just wasn’t that much to say that hadn’t been reported. There were no new leads in the case. Rosalie Jamison was long gone. In the wind.

  And it scared the hell out of him.

  He squared his hat on his head just about the time there was a quick rap of knuckles against his door. Before he could say, “Come on in,” Lucy Bellisario had popped her head inside.

  “Showtime, Boss.”

  He nodded curtly. He hated being put on display. Even though he wanted to portray a stern, solid leadership in a department that protected the citizens of this county, he detested the folderol that came with it. “Any news on her laptop or cell phone?”

  “Nothing substantial. All the leads to that boyfriend in Colorado have led nowhere. It’s as if he never existed.”

  “All in her mind?”

  “Maybe. They haven’t given up and are working with the cell phone company and the Internet provider.”

  “Hopefully they’ll come up with something. You double-checked all the resident scumbags’ alibis?”

  “Still working on several. Lars Blonksi, for example. Something’s not quite right there. His friend—and I use the term loosely—keeps changing his story. Gonna talk to Lars again and Jay Aberdeen’s ‘wife,’ who’s really an ex-girlfriend and lives in Cincinnati.”