Drawing Blood

by Deirdre Verne

  “Dr. Corey might think you’re working with my father,” I said to Frank.

  “I realize that,” Frank replied as he paced the small bedroom. “She might think your father has a cop in his pocket, and she certainly won’t come forward if she believes that to be so.”

  “I’m not so sure she’d go to the cops, anyway,” I countered. “It doesn’t help her credibility that she stole my egg,” I said, and then I turned to Kelly. “I’m sorry, there’s more here than you realize.”

  “What about the school buses?” Frank asked. “When we were here before, the bus was still making stops. Corey was in her BMW and heading toward the bus. She might have met her niece at a bus stop farther up the road while we were still talking to the neighbor.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. If that’s so, then at the least we know the two are together,” I said.

  Kelly Goff breathed a sigh of relief. “But where are they now?”

  “We don’t know,” Frank said. “But we’re going to find out.”

  I moved gingerly from my chair to the bed and placed my hand on Kelly’s. “What’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Gayle.”

  “Gayle,” I said as if trying the name on for size. “Like a storm.”

  Kelly smiled and squeezed my hand. “We had no idea when we named her, but as it turned out, she’s a bit of a hurricane.” He paused, and then as if to apologize to me, he said, “She’s difficult, but in a good way.”

  No apology required, I cheered to myself. My most notable quality, a challenging personality, had just been assigned to my daughter. Little did Kelly know it was the greatest compliment I had ever received. Having spent years lamenting the differences between myself and my brother Teddy, finally I had proof that at least one other person on the planet shared my traits.

  Kelly opened his wallet and produced a school photo of his daughter. I gulped a pound of air. The girl in the picture had long, straight blond hair, just as I’d had at that age.

  “She’s got my hair,” I said proudly.

  Kelly frowned. “Well, the hair has proved to be a bit of drama. A whopper of a fight,” he said. “Her hair was as smooth as silk and the color of fresh wheat. Now it’s dyed black, and she’s got it cut in this severe-looking bob.”

  “What?” Frank yelled.

  Kelly seemed surprised at Frank’s outburst. For all he knew, it was just hair.

  I yanked my sketchbook out of my bag and flipped to the faceless woman with the short-bobbed hair, whom I had seen outside of Bob’s house. “Hair like this?”

  Kelly nodded yes.

  I turned the pages again to the sketch of the calves. “How about pants like this?”

  “Always,” Kelly said. “That’s what teen girls wear.”

  I reached for Gayle’s picture and stared directly into the eyes of my own daughter. Upon closer inspection, I could see that Gayle bore a familiar resemblance to my own mother. Elizabeth Prentice had a regal, almost handsome appeal, and I recognized the similarity in Gayle’s face. Unlike a giggly teenager, my daughter’s image had an air of maturity. With her jaw raised and her shoulder’s square in the frame, this girl could easily pass for a woman in her early twenties.

  “Shit, Frank,” I said. “Gayle is the skinny jeans woman. I must have seen her in family photos at Corey’s house and not recognized her with her natural blond hair. I think she looks a bit like my mother in this photo.”

  Frank was silent for a moment and then said, “Your father has been in Corey’s house and has seen photos of her as blond too. He doesn’t know to look for the new black hair.” Frank turned to Kelly. “When did she color her hair?”

  “About two months ago.”

  “My God,” I said. “Her rebellion might have saved her from my father.”

  Frank asked Kelly to come to the window. He drew up the shade and pointed in the direction of the recycling center. “Do you know what’s over there?”

  “The recycling center,” Kelly said.

  “Does your daughter ever hike on the trails?”

  “Not that I know of,” Kelly said, “and I would be furious if I found out she had been in those woods. That’s where the high school deadbeats hang out to smoke. In fact, that’s why I thought you were here at first. We’ve had issues with kids starting fires in the woods.”

  Frank regarded Kelly for a moment. I couldn’t decide if Frank was confused by Kelly’s answer or annoyed that the man was unable to own up to his daughter’s questionable actions. “You’ve got a daughter who by your own admission had disobeyed your rules, and you still think she hasn’t been in those woods for the drug scene?”

  Frank was back on the drugs theory and at this point, I couldn’t blame him. We knew how Gayle was connected to Corey, my father, and myself, but we had no clue how or if she was connected to Bob. The only definitive fact was that a female matching Gayle’s description had been seen leaving the recycling center in the direction of the trails on the day Bob died, and conveniently, she lived where the trail ended.

  Kelly Goff had a good two inches and fifty pounds on Frank, not to mention the wrath of a father whose daughter was missing. He turned to me and said, “What would you say if I described a preschooler who refused to eat meat when she found out how it was processed, a sixth grader who refused to attend school on the day women received the right to vote, and a young woman who sent a video with a personal plea for gay marriage to the goddamn Pope?”

  I swallowed hard. “I’d say she sounds an awful lot like me.”

  “If she was in the woods,” Kelly said in a firm voice, “it wasn’t because she was up to no good.” And then he turned to Frank. “Don’t misinterpret my daughter. You need to get a handle on who this kid is, because although she doesn’t walk the straight and narrow, she always has a purpose.”

  Before Frank could apologize, Kelly’s phone buzzed. He fumbled in his pocket for his cell and read a text. “It’s Carolyn. She wants to know if Gayle is with me.”

  Frank grumbled, and then turned to Kelly. “Can you come with us?”

  forty-four

  Kelly was surprised when we pulled up at Harbor House.

  “Where are we?”

  “I live here,” I replied.

  “Why aren’t we at the police station?”

  “It’s a long story,” Frank said as we made our way into the house. “I need to make a few calls. I’ll meet you two upstairs.”

  I led Kelly into the conference room and opened the windows. The room was stuffy, but the cool night air brought the temperature down. It was almost eight o’clock, and the last sliver of sun had plummeted below the horizon. It was officially nightfall, and Gayle, my sixteen-year-old non-birth daughter was missing.

  “I’m overwhelmed,” Kelly confessed. “This is a horrible way to meet my daughter’s biological mother.”

  I pointed to the conference table, and Kelly and I sat down.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Kelly nodded.

  I was about to ask if Gayle was a happy child, and then I changed my mind. “Is she connected?”

  Kelly smiled. “She’s the most present person I know.”

  Frank entered the room. He was sensitive enough to realize that Kelly and I had just had a moment.

  “All good?” he asked, and we nodded.

  “Okay. According to her high school, she was in attendance today, and she was seen on the bus at dropoff,” Frank said. “It sounds like Dr. Corey missed the connection at the bus stop. I think maybe Gayle saw CeCe and me at the house and got spooked. Kelly, I need you to contact all of her friends and their families. Cheski and Lamendola are on their way, and they will help you make the calls. She must have taken refuge somewhere.”

  “I can do that,” Kelly said, although he seemed completely spent at this point.

 
“One more thing,” Frank said. “Has Carolyn said anything else besides texting to ask if Gayle is with you?”

  “No. I’ve sent her about a hundred texts, but she hasn’t replied.”

  Frank said, “Before I send out an Amber Alert, I’m going to ask you one more time. Is there any reason Gayle would be in the woods that connect to the recycling center?”

  “If she had been, she never told me about it.”

  Frank pulled out a chair and sat down. “Had you ever been to the recycling center with Gayle?”

  “No,” Kelly replied and then hesitated. “Mike, my husband, handled most of the household duties. But now that you’re asking, I believe Mike was friendly with the guy that runs the place. I think he might have even come to Mike’s funeral.”

  Had I heard right? “Mike knew Bob?” I asked.

  “Big guy, right?” Kelly said.

  “Did Gayle know Bob?” Frank asked.

  Kelly stood up abruptly. “I don’t know why you’re asking me these questions. My daughter is missing, and my sister-in-law is in hiding. Why the hell do you care about the fat guy at the recycling center?”

  “Because he’s dead,” Frank said. “And we think Gayle witnessed his murder.”

  Kelly slumped back into his chair. His frame, although nowhere near the size of Bob’s, filled his seat and then some. However, in his present defeated form, he looked as though my mother could have taken him in an arm-wrestling contest.

  “We also suspect she was friendly with Bob. She had been seen with him more than once around town.”

  “What?” Kelly yelled. “Where? Where could my daughter have possibly been seen with the guy from the recycling center?”

  Frank hesitated. The one thing Kelly didn’t want to hear was that his daughter had been seen at a bar or motel with Bob. The truth, however, was even stranger.

  “It seems they were attending storage unit auctions together,” Frank said.

  For Kelly, the comment about the auctions came out of left field and drained his face of expression. His cheeks dropped as if Frank had physically punched him with the news of his daughter’s strange activities. “But then how is my sister-in-law involved?”

  “We don’t think Carolyn is involved in Bob’s murder. We do, however, think she’s trying to keep your daughter’s identity secret.”

  “From whom?” Kelly said, and then made a stopping motion with his hand. “Forget it, I understand,” he said to me. “Carolyn wants to keep Gayle away from your father. He was the one in the local papers last fall, the former head of the Sound View labs. If I remember, he may have used the labs’ resources unethically.”

  “Yes,” I confirmed.

  “So you two think my daughter—who just happened to witness a murder at the same point your father, after sixteen years, has chosen to find her—is in danger?” Kelly chuckled sadly. “I don’t believe it, and I’m going to repeat what I told you earlier. If my daughter was at the recycling center, she was there for a reason. She’s not an outdoorsy kid, and she wasn’t hiking in the trails for exercise. I also don’t believe your father suddenly decided to reappear in her life at the same time she supposedly witnessed a murder.”

  Frank shifted uncomfortably in his chair. We had come so far in this investigation, but we were tripping over holes. Kelly was right. The facts didn’t add up. What were the odds Gayle had simply strolled by the recycling center at the exact moment Bob was being pushed? Even if they had been friends, the timing seemed odd. I was also curious about my father’s involvement. Why would he choose to step out of the shadows to find Gayle now?

  “What does your daughter do in her free time?” Frank asked.

  Kelly groaned. “Honestly, I don’t know anymore. Mike was a stay-at-home dad, and he managed Gayle’s afternoons. When he died, our family began to deteriorate, and I lost Gayle to her computer. That’s why Thai Tuesdays are so important. She spends way too much time on those virtual social sites.”

  At the mention of social sites, Frank’s eyebrows shot up. “Where’s her computer?”

  “In her backpack,” Kelly replied. “That’s another reason I knew she wasn’t in the house. Her best friend, that damn computer, wasn’t on her desk.”

  I reached for Frank’s arm and pointed to the door. Cheski and Lamendola had arrived and sat down to help Kelly contact Gayle’s friends. Frank and I stepped into the hallway.

  “Let’s get out of earshot,” he said.

  Frank and I headed up another flight to my attic studio, where one of my first drawings of the skinny jeans woman was propped up on my easel.

  “I think Gayle knows Bob,” I said. “I think Kelly is right. If she was at the recycling center, then there must have been a connection between Gayle and Bob.”

  “And we know they both spent time online.”

  “Not unusual for a teenager,” I added.

  “But odd for someone like Bob,” Frank said. “We also know that Bob had an online conversation with someone named the Maid, to establish a meeting time at the recycling center.”

  “At the exact time Bob had the encounter with the doughy man.”

  “Is it possible that Gayle is the Maid?” I asked. “Was the social site their channel of communication?”

  “It’s possible,” Frank confirmed. “Bob was a grown man. Whatever their relationship, he wouldn’t want to leave a trail on Gayle’s phone.”

  “Okay,” I paused. “We also know they were collecting computers.”

  Frank nodded. “And that one of Gayle’s dads was at least friendly with Bob.” Frank reached his arms toward the ceiling and grabbed for a beam, stretching his shoulders and back while he processed the seemingly disconnected information. “The recycling sting is tomorrow night. We’ve got to get this right. We’ve got to find out why Gayle and Bob were collecting used computers.”

  “We will,” I said. “We have to. She’s real, she’s scared, and I think she’s gotten herself into something she can’t handle.” I walked over to Frank and hugged him, unable to let go. His body felt firm and safe—all the qualities I struggled to maintain.

  He released his arms from the rafters and held me for a minute. Then he peeled me off his solid torso.

  “We’ll have time for this. I promise,” he said, kissing me lightly on the lips. “For now, we need to find Gayle.”

  We made our way back down the attic stairs when I heard Katrina call for me. I rushed to the first floor expecting to find Katrina with an amniotic puddle at her feet. I wanted to smack Frank for shrugging off the arrival of this baby. I was just about to ream Frank when I saw that the floor below Katrina’s bare feet was dry as she stood holding the front door open.

  Katrina held her stomach with one hand and pushed the screen door forward with the other. Dr. Carolyn Corey walked into Harbor House.

  I recognized her because I’d stalked her. Still, her presence rattled me, and I could see she felt the same way. Given the events of the day, none of us felt great, but Corey was a hot mess. Her hair, a halo of ratted frizz, framed the bursting bags under her eyes. Part of me wanted to punch her. To grab her matted rat’s nest, slam her against the wall, and demand answers to questions that had plagued me for the last year. Instead I put my arm around Corey and led her into the library.

  “My brother-in-law texted me and said he was here.”

  “Where is Gayle?” I asked. “Has she contacted you?”

  “About an hour ago,” Corey croaked, her voice raw with emotion. “That’s why I came. I want to see Kelly. He needs to know she’s safe.” The three of us moved into the library. “Gayle wouldn’t tell me where she was, but she said she was okay.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “I do,” Corey said. “She’s pretty savvy for a sixteen year old.” She paused and looked at me. “You were no dummy yourself at that age.”

&n
bsp; Quite an ice-breaker, I thought. By making a direct reference to my life, Corey all but admitted our connection. Her veiled diplomacy, however, wasn’t sufficiently forthcoming for Katrina.

  “Why did you take CeCe’s embryo?” Katrina demanded as she accelerated to the punch line.

  “Look, I came here to help Kelly find my niece,” Corey replied. “I’m not sure we need to rehash history right now. Besides, I think we all have a good idea what happened at the labs.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I said. “I was twelve. I have no idea what happened.”

  Corey rose to leave. To be polite, I grabbed her hand and not her hair. “You can’t leave. The details may help us find Gayle.”

  “Fine, if you think it will help,” she acquiesced and resumed her position on the couch. When she lifted her head, I could see the pain in her face. Her mouth was pulled down at the corners, and her brow was heavily creased. With a good night’s sleep and some serious salon treatments, I’m sure Dr. Corey could pass unnoticed in a crowd. Tonight, she looked like a refugee. “I don’t even know where to start,” she mumbled.

  “Tell me about the day of my procedure.”

  Corey’s frown increased. This was sensitive ground. She sighed and started from the beginning. “Your procedure had been completed by the time I’d arrived to work. I had been under the assumption that the morning patient was William’s wife, your mother, but the detail on the medical chart indicated otherwise.” Corey stopped, and her mouth hung open as she recalled what would turn out to be an unpleasant day for both of us.

  “Go on,” I urged.

  “According to the birth date on the chart, the patient, as you mentioned, was a kid.” Corey’s chin trembled. “I was horrified. I felt as though I was the only one who had seen the discrepancy. At first I thought the birth date was a typo, but your father’s blinding passion for his genetic research had begun to make me nervous in the months preceding your procedure. He had become increasingly obsessed with his studies, aloof in a way, and I didn’t think I’d get a straight answer if I had asked directly. So I drove to your house to see for myself.”