I turned to Mark. The obvious settling in. “Is he drunk?” He wasn’t hung over from too much Saturday night partying. He was drunk.
“Mind your business. Go home. Crawl back into whatever hole you were hiding in and stay the hell away from my family.” Mark grabbed Brady’s arm. “Come on.”
The look on Mark’s face broke my heart. Yes, Mark had been a creep of astronomical proportions to me, but he was Brady’s little brother. He blocked my view of Brady the same way Pru had stepped between Mark and me on Main Street last week. There was power in family.
“Brady, please,” I begged. “I know she went to the River Festival. I know you two had a fight and she left you there. She went to a party at the campgrounds, but I can’t figure out why she was at the river and no one saw her. Why would she leave a party to be alone?”
Mark stormed into my personal space, leaning his chest toward mine and glaring down at me. “Your sister is dead, Mercy. It’d do you good to remember that and leave it the hell alone. There’s no bringing her back. Who knows why Faith did half the shit she did? Her death ruined our lives too, man. Can’t you see that?”
Behind him, Brady started to cry.
Mark swore and turned back to his brother, pleading with him to go inside. “Come on, let me get you a drink.”
The weight of the situation settled in my hard head. I had no idea where Brady had been for three years. His father and his brother blamed Faith’s loss for ruining their lives. Brady was an addict or alcoholic or something. He lived at home. He hadn’t gone to school or played ball and the Dobbses hid his problems the way my dad hid mine.
I jumped forward and grabbed Mark’s arm. “Are you kidding? Offering him another drink?” Good grief. Was the entire town hiding their dysfunction as well as we were? “Brady, you need to talk to someone about this. Mrs. Allen at the church is a wonderful confidant, or you can talk to my dad. Dad can help you. He’ll want to help you.”
Brady’s tears turned to rage. “Right. Like she helped Faith or your mom? Or you?”
Mark pressed his phone against his ear and stepped away looking defeated and a little frightened. “I’m calling Dad. You’d better get off our property, Mercy.”
Adrenaline flooded my system. The sheriff was coming. I had minutes at the most. My dad would kill me for bothering the Dobbses if he had any idea how bad it was over here. “Brady. Why do you think she was at the river? Why would she leave the party? What was the last thing you heard about that night? Any detail you give me will help. I’ll hunt down everyone who spoke with her and question them, I swear it.” I grabbed his hand. “I promise you. I will find out who did this. I can’t bring her back, but I can make it right or at least give us some peace and closure. Tell me anything. Do you think someone hurt my sister?” Huge tears blurred my vision. “Let me fix it.”
He jerked free of my gentle grip. “You can’t fix it. No one can fix it. Can’t you see that? She’s gone! She’s not coming back and she took my life with her when she left. No one wants to change that night more than me.” He growled. “Jesus, Mercy. I could’ve saved her. Why’d she leave me at the festival?”
Mark shouldered his way between Brady and me. “Dad’s on his way. Go inside, Brady. Why don’t you go back to the river, Mercy? Get back in bed with those dirty Gypsies I see you with. They have the answers you want, not us. Leave us alone.”
Blood drained from Brady’s face. “Not you too?” He looked into the distance and back to his brother. “The Gypsies came back?”
Murderous rage changed his expression from broken to dangerous. “What is wrong with you Porter girls? What do you want with those traveling freaks? They told Faith she didn’t have a future.” His scream reverberated through my bones. Brady slid onto the wide oak floorboards and dropped his forehead into open palms. “They knew she had no future.”
“Someone said that?”
Brady lifted swollen eyes and stared. “She had no future.”
The siren on Sheriff Dobbs’s cruiser sent me flying off their porch. The sheriff could come to my house to arrest me if he wanted, but I couldn’t stay there another minute. His boys were crazy and angry, and one was drunk. I’d rather plead forgiveness and hide behind the preacher than face the three of them alone.
How did I miss the tidal wave of disaster Faith’s death had brought our town?
Someone had told Faith she had no future. Of course. Nadya. Anton said Nadya read Faith’s palm. Had she really known? Was that her big rush to leave town? Sobs banged in my throat as I erased the distance to home. Brady Dobbs hadn’t taught me anything about Faith’s last night, but he’d shown me I wasn’t the only one permanently damaged by her loss. Plus, he’d given me my next person of interest. Evil stares or not, I had to face Nadya again.
The sheriff didn’t follow me home. A Sunday miracle. I locked the front door behind me and ran to my old bedroom. The scent of Faith’s perfume hit me like a punch to the chest. I stopped short, baby-stepped through the room and turned in a circle. Faith was everywhere.
I spoke into the emptiness. “I don’t believe the rumors about you. You didn’t leave us on purpose. You loved us. You shielded me from things I still don’t understand and Mrs. Allen says you helped Mom.” A humorless laugh rolled off my tongue. “Mom was depressed before we lost you, and I had no idea. You kept her secret too.” My knees buckled and I sat on the end of my old bed.
“Maybe it’s the grief talking or the fact I need to do something after doing nothing for so long, but I don’t believe you drowned accidentally. You were a good swimmer. Really good. Drunk or not, you wouldn’t have gone into the river alone at night. That scenario makes no sense. You what? Went for a leisurely swim in your clothes? Knowing you had to sneak back into our room soaking wet?”
I moved to her desk and ran a finger through the dust. “Your phone was ruined. I have no idea who you called last or who called you. I don’t know which picture was your wallpaper. What was on your playlist that night? I have no idea. The whole night is a mystery, but I’m putting it together for you. I’ve read about other deaths like yours online. Drowning is hard to prove beyond accidental, especially in moving water. You floated into the milkweeds on the other end of town the next morning. Your body crossed the rapids at Serpent’s Bend. I can’t imagine what the rocks did to you.” I sighed. “That’s a lie. My imagination is top notch for all things macabre. I’ve imagined what you went through a thousand times. I woke, covered in sweat, to the sound of your frantic cries every night for a year after you left.”
I puffed air onto the dust covering everything. “I hope you’ll understand why I’m doing this. I don’t want to intrude on your secrets, but I want to know you. This is the only way I have left.”
I pulled stacks of notebooks and paperbacks from her drawers. Art books. Classic novels. Sketchpads. Things every teenage girl owned. I settled on the floor, surrounded by yearbooks and trinkets, balancing her memento box on my lap. Dad had made the tiny cedar chest for her sixteenth birthday and carved a cross into the top. The letters of her name ran left to right across the wood. Faith. Our names had been chosen as symbols to guide our lives. Had Prudence been born on time, instead of two days late, she’d be Mary Grace. Unfortunately for Pru, Mary Grace’s mother had scheduled a C-section for Pru’s due date and stole the name Mom had picked. She’d narrowly missed being called Temperance. There was no nickname for that.
The hinged lid of Faith’s memento box creaked open. Lines of photo booth pictures covered corsage ribbons and letterman pins. Her class ring lay in the corner beside the promise ring Brady had given her at graduation and the purity ring she got from Mom. Folded scraps of paper with tiny sketches and lines of poetry cluttered the small space. I shut the lid.
A stack of lidded plastic tubs stood in the corner beside her dresser. She’d started packing her things before graduation and stopped a few weeks afterward. The bottom tub was filled with winter clothes and boots. I’d help
ed with that one. The middle tote was filled with gifts from graduation meant for her dorm room. Pink desk lamp. Teal trash can. Unopened art supplies. Everything else had had to wait until it was time to leave. If she’d packed things she needed, she’d only have had to dig for them all summer.
Dad’s voice bellowed from downstairs.
I scrambled to my feet, hiding the stacks of books on the opposite side of Faith’s bed. I replaced the memento box in her drawer. “Coming!”
Pru stomped up the stairs and stilled as I pulled the door shut behind me.
Dad’s feet hit the steps. “Mercy?”
Pru and I answered. “Here.”
“Oh.” Dad rounded the corner and stopped on the landing. “Pru brought you home a turnover from her last taste of freedom.”
Pru rolled her eyes. “You said I could go.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked.
“What? You did.”
I passed her on the steps and hugged my arms around Dad’s middle. For a moment, he stood stock-still. Then his arms wrapped around my back and his cheek fell against my hair the way Vanessa had posed with her baby.
“I love you, Mercy.”
“I love you too.”
I released him before I was ready. I had the town sheriff on my tail. “You want to split a turnover?”
He nodded and followed me to the kitchen.
It was only a matter of time before Sheriff Dobbs came and ruined our budding relationship. Our family needed a peaceful moment before it all went to crap again.
Dad brought two forks to the table.
I poured my cold latte into a mug and shoved it in the microwave.
Pru slid onto her seat at the table. “Mary Grace says Miss Gold from the library kissed one of the firemen after the parade.”
“So?” I opened the microwave a few seconds early and tested the coffee temperature. Good enough.
“So, Miss Gold went to the fireworks with John Burgess. They held hands the entire time.”
I pulled out my chair and set the coffee aside. “Interesting.”
Dad groaned. “It’s not interesting. It’s gossip.”
Pru lifted her eyebrows. “No. Gossip is that bit about the new kindergarten teacher at St. Mary’s elementary.”
Dad pressed the tines of his fork against the flaky puff pastry. He didn’t ask.
I leaned both elbows on the table, fork in hand. “What about her?”
Pru perked. “She posed in Playboy her senior year of college and lost her last teaching job when someone recognized her.”
I pushed a bite of turnover between smiling lips. “No.”
“Yep.”
Dad centered his attention on the pastry. He shifted in his seat. “Who recognized her?”
I giggled. “Excellent question.”
Pru slapped the table. “Her old principal!”
We laughed. Irony at its finest. “He fired her for posing in a magazine he admits to reading?”
Dad dropped his chin. “Reading is a very generous assumption.”
“Dad!” Pru tipped her chair back and hooted.
The dessert disappeared long before our conversation. Best of all, Sheriff Dobbs didn’t ruin it for us. No matter what happened next, we were a happy, untroubled family again, at least for one afternoon.
Chapter 13
The Shadow
Pru poised a tiny brush over my fingernail. “So, Mark Dobbs became a minion of Satan to hide his older brother’s addiction?” Her eyebrows quirked. “That’s almost honorable.”
I rolled onto the bed, admiring my metallic-black manicure. “I don’t know he’s addicted, but he was definitely drunk. Depressed. Withdrawn. He needs help.” I bicycled my feet and waved my arms for faster drying.
Pru twisted the little brush back into its bottle. “Fine, but neither of them had any reason for being mean to you.”
“True.” I moved into a seated position and blew on my fingernails. “When do you think Sheriff Dobbs will tell Dad I was there?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he won’t. I mean, why would he? You didn’t do anything wrong. You visited Brady and asked him normal, reasonable things about our sister. You can’t help he was drunk before lunch or that Mark’s an overzealous brother-protector whack-job. Sheriff Dobbs probably told them to relax and get some perspective.”
“Maybe.”
Pru set the polish aside and climbed onto the bed beside me. “What were you doing in your old room today?”
“Looking.”
“Yeah? See anything good?”
I nodded to my dresser. “That’s her old address book. She had a contact sheet in the back with names and numbers for all the color-guard girls. When I talked to Patricia and Vanessa after church, they told me to try Sara. I guess Sara was with the Lovells that night too.”
“And?”
“I called the home number listed. I told her mom who I was and what I wanted. She gave me Sara’s new cell number, but there was no answer. I left a rambling message of incoherency with my number. I guess Sara’s in New York now. Her mom says she moves every year. I hate bothering everyone. Stirring this up after so many years seems unfair to the people I’m questioning.”
Pru shook her head. “It’s never too late to want the truth.”
“Okay, but what will we even do with the answers I get? Am I selfishly upsetting a bunch of people I barely know so I can get closure?” I pressed the heels of my hands against my closed lids. “Why is this so complicated?”
The mattress shifted beneath me. Pru’s thin arm wrapped over my shoulders. “You deserve closure. That’s reasonable and no one thinks otherwise. Is there anything I can do?”
“Forgive me for checking out on you when you needed me? Everyone left you. Jeez, Pru, you were twelve. What was I thinking?”
She clucked her tongue. “There you go again. Let it go. Stop looking for reasons to hate yourself. You were thinking the same thing I was thinking. We lost everything, and Dad hid from us at the church. We went into survival mode. Hey, and for the record, I don’t care how you got through it. I’m glad you’re here now. You stayed.”
I bit back a pointless argument. Pru was right. The girl in my head wanted blame. She wanted a reason to give up again, but every day I refused was a day the voice grew weaker and I grew stronger.
Something occurred to me. “Don’t you need closure?”
Pru wrinkled her nose. “I have closure. My sister drowned accidentally. My mom killed herself. Mom was depressed. Faith was apparently drunk. I accepted what Dad told me and I went on with that as gospel. Being young had an advantage. I didn’t know enough to rebel or fight it. I just went on. When kids said Faith committed suicide, I didn’t listen. She didn’t have that problem. Mom did.”
My shoulders slumped. “You didn’t worry about Mom passing her depression on to us?”
“No. I saw how Mom lived. Dad and Faith catered to her. Dad worried about her all the time. Faith treated Mom like she would break. I knew something was wrong with Mom for as long as I could remember, but I didn’t know what until Faith died.”
Huh. “I assumed you were too young to know anything. You saw more than I did. I was clueless until the world fell apart.”
“Doesn’t matter. I came to terms with their deaths. Now, it’s your turn.”
I drew a pattern on the blanket with the pad of one finger. “Do you think any member of the Lovells had anything to do with Faith’s death? Dad must have some reason to blame them after all this time.”
Pru shook her head. “He’s buddies with the sheriff. Don’t you think they’d have hunted the Lovells down or at least brought someone in for questioning when they came back last week if there was any evidence? I think the way the Lovells left is shady, and there’s suspicion, but I don’t think they hurt Faith. I think it helps Dad to place blame. He needs to assign names to problems so he can fix them. You know that. He blamed a clo
sed door for what I did with Jason.”
“All right, but why do you think the Lovells ran?” My gut clenched. “Oh, wow. I almost forgot.”
“What?”
“Right before I left the Dobbs’ place, Brady said a Gypsy told Faith she had no future.”
Pru’s cheeks flushed. “Mean. That doesn’t mean they killed her.”
“No. I know. I didn’t mean that. I meant, what if they really can read palms or the future or whatever? What if Nadya knew something bad was coming and that’s why she insisted they leave in such a hurry?”
Pru frowned. “I don’t believe in that stuff. Don’t you hear anything Dad tells us in church? Fortune telling isn’t real. It’s a scam played on vulnerable people. The most I’m willing to concede is maybe…only maybe…Nadya saw something happen to Faith that night and she wanted to get away from the crime scene so the Lovells wouldn’t be associated with the crime. However”—she lifted a finger—“I don’t think anyone hurt Faith. I think she made a stupid, alcohol-hazed decision and it cost her her life.”
I fell against the pillows. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
“How well did you really know her? How well do we ever know anybody?”
I huffed. “When did you get so deep?”
“I was born this way. Wise beyond my years.” She scooped my hand off the bed. “Ooo la la, I see a dark and dangerous guy in your future. He has menacing brown eyes and a hot-ass lip ring.”
I smacked her with my free hand. “Stop.”
Pru smiled.
“He’s not dangerous, and his eyes aren’t menacing.”
“Well, he’s definitely forbidden, and I notice you didn’t argue about the lip ring.”
I turned my face away to smile in private. The mirror reflected my face and hers.
“I saw you kissing on the roof the other night.”
Fire bloomed across my chest, rising over my neck, cheeks, and forehead until I felt like a human thermometer. “How?”
“I left Dad at the fireworks and ran into Anton. He walked me home.”
In Place of Never Page 14