“It did in Becca’s mind,” Vanessa answered. “She never wanted you to know it, but she still had feelings for AJ.”
Shea kept Vanessa’s gaze. “But she introduced us. She told me it was over between them.”
“Maybe for AJ,” Vanessa said.
Shea glanced at Dru, hunting for reassurance, but Dru had none to offer, because quite possibly there could be some element of truth to what Vanessa was suggesting. It wasn’t an unreasonable stretch. Joy had commented on occasion, ruefully, about Becca’s fickleness, her tendency to create drama.
Leigh said, “I didn’t know, either—that Becca still had feelings for AJ.”
“I’m not making it up,” Van said, looking to Shea and then Kate for support.
Kate shifted her glance.
Keeping her opinion to herself, Dru thought.
“Well, I’m sorry if she was still carrying a torch,” Shea said. “But it doesn’t mean anything.”
The girls exchanged glances, and Dru saw their reactions, how they might have protested. Becca was in AJ’s apartment. He left work early and was seen there. Now he’s disappeared.
But no one spoke.
Leigh doodled a line along the table’s edge with the tip of her finger. She’d been the first of the five of them to marry. Right out of high school, the boy she’d loved since sixth grade. She’d told Dru once it was all she wanted, a husband and children and a home to take care of. At the wedding, Terri, Leigh’s mom, had tipsily told Dru she and Leigh’s dad had wanted more for their daughter. But once a kid turned eighteen, it didn’t matter what the parents wanted, she’d said. Remembering Shea at fifteen, the tattoo on her neck that every morning before school had to be covered if she wanted to avoid suffering a range of consequences from her peers, from school authorities, Dru had thought that as far as stubborn went, age had nothing to do with it.
“I know how it looks, trust me,” Shea said. “But how things look isn’t always how they are.”
“The last couple of times I talked to Becca, she seemed pretty stressed out.” Kate looked around the table. “Did y’all notice?”
“Yeah,” Van said, “it was like she had something on her mind, but when I asked, she blew me off.”
“That whole deal about her being sick yesterday when we went to pick up the jars?” Leigh said. “I didn’t believe it.”
“No, me, either,” Vanessa agreed.
“Something was going on with her,” Kate said.
“Well, she seemed fine to me,” Shea said, “but maybe I’m just in wedding la-la land.” A beat passed, and the furrow in Shea’s brow deepened. “She’d decided not to go back to school.” She went on, thoughtfully. “Did you guys know? She seemed relieved, too. Happy.” Shea looked around, but no one offered a response. “She had a plan.” Shea was insistent now. “She was going to take the summer, stay with her folks, and enroll at GCC in the fall.”
GCC was the community college in Greeley. Dru knew a lot of the local kids went there after graduating from Wyatt High before moving on to four-year universities.
“She thought she might like to teach elementary school, like her mom,” Shea said.
“Well, she never said anything about that to me,” Kate said. Her phone rang. “It’s Erik.” She looked stricken.
“Oh,” Shea said, “I’ve been trying to get hold of him. Answer it. Maybe he knows where AJ is.”
But it was clear, listening to Kate’s side of the conversation, that while Erik had heard about Becca’s death and the gruesome circumstances, he hadn’t heard from AJ and had no idea where he was.
Ending the call, Kate said, “He thinks maybe he’s here somewhere, hiding out at the ranch or something.”
“That’s what AJ’s mom thinks,” Shea said.
“Why would he hide?” Dru asked the most obvious question—at least to her, it was.
“He isn’t hiding, Mom.” Shea was impatient.
“Erik is coming by here later when he gets off work.” Kate didn’t sound especially happy about it.
“Are you guys ever going to pick out a ring?” Van asked.
Dru had heard Vanessa calling herself the old maid of the bunch. She had never dated anyone seriously that Dru knew of. Shea said Van was too opinionated. She had a tongue like a lash. Not many guys wanted to contend with Van’s cynical view of them, herself, the world.
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “I’m not in a rush. Especially now after what’s happened. It’s the last thing on my mind.”
“Did Erik say when he last talked to AJ?” Shea was pleading with Kate.
Dru’s heart turned over. She wanted to go to Shea, to wrap her daughter in her arms, but she knew better, knew Shea wouldn’t have it.
“Yesterday, at lunch,” Kate answered. “AJ called him to find out when he was planning to get his tux fitted. But you talked to AJ after that. You must be the last one who did.”
“That we know of,” Shea said. “Something terrible has happened to him.” She paced to the breakfast-nook window. “I can feel it.” She turned to face them, her mother, her friends. “I’m going to get people searching for him. I don’t care what anyone says. We need to get flyers up, get the word out.”
“Where?” Dru asked.
“In Dallas, around the apartment complex and the neighborhood where the school is. Here, in town, too. There are places up and down 1620 between here and the turnoff for the xL.” FM 1620 was the main road, running east and west through Wyatt. There were a few small businesses scattered along the section Shea had mentioned, a convenience store, one or two gas stations.
Kate said, “He could be anywhere, though.”
Shea said that was her point. “He could be hurt. Someone could have him locked up somewhere; I don’t know. But somebody does. That’s why we need to get photos of him out there. Someone might recognize him. If only we could get news coverage—”
“If someone has him, they could be dangerous,” Vanessa said. “Maybe you should leave it to the police to do the looking.”
“But they aren’t looking for him; they’re hunting him down like he’s a criminal.”
Van ducked her gaze.
Shea looked back at Kate. “Will you help me make flyers? We can do them on the computer.”
Dru, stepping through the archway that separated the kitchen from the breakfast room, said, “Maybe you want to come with me to the Westins’. I’m going to drop off this meal and give them my condolences.”
“What?” Shea stared at her. “Are you crazy, Mom? What if they’re like the police and think AJ is responsible?”
Vanessa said, “I heard the police in Dallas called her parents to come and ID her body.”
“Oh my God, that’s awful,” Kate said.
Dru got the sack with the food inside it from the kitchen. “I’ll leave this with the neighbors if they aren’t home.”
“You’re really going?” Shea was in disbelief.
“Yes, because no matter how it occurred, Joy and Gene have lost their daughter. Taking them a meal is the least I can do.”
“Okay, but don’t be surprised if they slam the door in your face.” Shea sounded more forlorn than bitter.
“You’ll be here when I get back?” Dru asked her. She looked around at the other girls. “I could pick up a pizza.”
Her query was met with a chorus of maybes. Shea said flat-out she couldn’t eat.
Letting it go at that, Dru walked outside to her car. A SUV she didn’t recognize pulled up the driveway, a Lexus so new the dealer tags were still on it. She recognized Erik Ayala at the wheel. She clicked open the garage door, a signal to him that she was leaving and he should park on the apron.
“Hey, Mrs. Gallagher,” he said, coming toward her.
“You have a new car,” she said.
He glanced at the SUV. “Nah. It’s off the lot where I’m working. One of the perks of the job, driving the cars. Pretty sweet ride, though, huh?” He didn’t wait for Dru’s answer. “God, I ca
n’t believe this is happening, can you? Poor Becca.” His dark eyes were somber, worry filled.
“I know. It’s terrible. Shea, Kate, Leigh, and Vanessa are inside. You haven’t heard from AJ at all?”
“I wish to God I had.” Erik shifted his glance. “I know how it looks, too, what everyone’s saying.”
“Shea had to talk to a detective in Dallas. The police there seem to think she knows where AJ is, that she’s involved in some way.”
“Yeah, I talked to them. They think the same thing about me.” Erik brought his gaze back to Dru. “Because we’re close to him, you know? How’s Shea holding up?”
“She wants to put up missing-person flyers. Lily’s got her half-convinced he’s at the ranch, hiding. But I don’t know why he’d hide. Do you?”
“I hope he is at the ranch, because like I told Kate, the alternative—what scares me is that AJ was the target. They took him, and they’re holding him for ransom.”
“God, I hadn’t thought of that.” It sounded so dramatic, like something from the movies or television. Dru held Erik’s troubled gaze. “You said they just now. You think if he was taken, there was more than one person?”
“AJ’s a big guy.”
Dru saw Erik’s point. AJ was over six feet and strong. It would have taken a lot to subdue him. “There hasn’t been a ransom demand, has there?” she asked.
“Not that I’ve heard, but the cops may not publicize it.”
Erik was right, Dru thought. They might insist that even Lily maintain secrecy.
“Becca was such a good person,” Erik said. “Really sweet and kind. She never hurt anyone. It’s fucked-up. Sorry.”
For the language, he meant. Dru said it was fine, and after a beat, she said, “Vanessa thinks Becca still had feelings for AJ.”
Erik frowned. “Really? I guess—I set them up. New Year’s Eve, a year ago. They split a few weeks later.”
“They weren’t serious then?”
“AJ wasn’t. He’s the one who broke it off.”
“Becca was unhappy about it?”
“Yeah, but she knew AJ wasn’t coming back.”
“She introduced Shea to AJ, though, right?”
Erik chuffed a wry breath. “She did, but it wasn’t like she could have known she was bringing together the couple of the century.”
“She regretted it?”
“Becca could be a bit of a drama queen, but she was a good sport. She was happy for them. She bragged about what a great matchmaker she was.”
“So what was she doing at AJ’s apartment?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she did think she could change his mind.” Erik shrugged.
“He let her in and they argued—” Dru was thinking out loud.
“She could have let herself in,” Erik said. “AJ kept a key outside, in one of the gas lamps. We all knew about it.”
Dru shifted the weight of the grocery sack to her other arm.
“What’s Van trying to say, anyway? That Becca was stalking AJ, so he killed her? That’s total bullshit. Sorry, my mouth gets away with me.”
“It’s all right.” Dru asked Erik about his mother. “I heard she went home to Oaxaca, that her mother died. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” Erik said. “They weren’t really close, but Mom felt obligated. You know Catholics, big on guilt.” He grinned briefly. “My grandmother never forgave Mom for leaving there, for wanting a better life. She always said Mom turned her back on her heritage.”
“Well, it must have been hard for your grandmother, having her daughter and her grandson so far away—in another country.”
“That’s not my heritage, though, and Oaxaca isn’t my country. I was born here. I’m an American. I barely speak Spanish.”
He sounded annoyed, even defensive. But maybe that was how he dealt with it, the hard fact that his dad was there, in Oaxaca, instead of here, where he could be part of his son’s life. Dru had wondered about him—whether it had been Erik’s father’s choice, or Winona’s, that he stay away. If the tongues in town had an answer to that mystery, they’d kept still about it.
“I’m taking the Westins a meal,” she said, indicating the bag. “I told the girls I’d pick up a pizza on my way back. I hope you’ll stay.”
Erik thanked her and started toward the house.
“Congratulations, by the way,” Dru said after him.
He turned, brows raised.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you since you got your new job, and I heard Kate said yes.”
“She did. Last week. Her mom loves me,” he added.
“Charla, yes, I know.” Dru made an effort not to roll her eyes at the idea of Charla’s devotion. “It pays to have your fiancée’s mother in your corner.”
Erik’s grin was quick, spontaneous, a reflection of his total joy, and lasted only moments before he seemed to remember AJ, the terrible circumstances, and the uncertainty of the outcome. The memory of his engagement to Kate, this happy time in their lives, would forever be marred by this, Dru thought, no matter how it turned out.
The Westins lived on the east side of Wyatt in the Mustang Hill subdivision, an older neighborhood of winding streets, lined with a mix of Craftsman bungalows, small stone-faced Tudors, and Queen Anne cottages. The overall effect was charming, a throwback to another era, one that might have been pictured in a Norman Rockwell illustration for the Saturday Evening Post. When Dru and Shea had first moved out here from Houston, after Dru accepted the teaching position at the middle school, she had looked at houses in this neighborhood, but the yards were too small. Although most of them were beautifully landscaped, they were the size of postage stamps.
It had been a stretch financially, buying the three acres of land and the farmhouse on the outskirts of town. The house, built in 1910, needed constant attention, but Dru loved it. And over time she’d gotten pretty handy at plumbing and wiring. Last summer, with Shea’s help, she’d gutted the laundry room, exposing the oak beams and longleaf-pine flooring. She’d learned enough that she was ready to tackle the kitchen. She wanted to enlarge it and take down the walls that separated it from the breakfast nook and dining room. Her catering business was growing; she could use the space.
Dru pulled to the curb in front of the Westins’ tidy bungalow. Evening shadows encroached on it, softening the porch corners, erasing the eaves. The windows were dark, the driveway empty. No one was home. Dru’s relief felt wrong when she thought of where the Westins were, the terrible task confronting them.
She was on the front porch with the sack of food when she heard a car approach, and turning to look, her heart faltered on recognizing Joy’s Suburban. Gene was at the wheel, looking grim. Joy was staring in Dru’s direction but not with any kind of recognition, or even animation. Gene parked in front of the garage, and as he and Joy were getting out, the next-door neighbor’s front door opened, and TC, the Westins’ eight-year-old son, shot across the yard, flinging himself at Gene, throwing his arms around his dad’s hips. Gene tousled his hair, saying something that sounded like “Hey, little buddy.”
TC tilted back his head, looking up at Gene. “Did you find Becca, Dad? Did you bring her home?”
Gene knelt in front of TC on the sidewalk. “We did find her,” he said, “but we didn’t get to bring her home. Not yet. We couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Gene looked at Joy, but she was mute, her face knotted with grief.
Dru’s throat closed. She met the neighbor’s eyes. Sharon Jefferson shook her head. How awful. She might have spoken the words aloud.
Gene took TC’s hand. “Let’s go inside, okay?”
He gave no indication he knew Dru was there until he reached the porch steps when she—not knowing what else to do—stepped forward and said how sorry she was. He stopped and thanked her then—thanked her! He looked hollow eyed and haggard, as if he’d aged twenty years. She felt terrible for him. She felt like running with the bag of food to her car. What use was a meal? She shouldn
’t have come. But here was Joy—and as Gene unlocked the front door, TC clinging to his free hand—Dru reached for her, enveloping her in a one-armed hug, murmuring her regret, her useless apology.
Joy tolerated Dru’s attention without reciprocating it.
“I brought a meal, some chicken, a pasta salad,” Dru said, releasing Joy.
“It was kind of you,” Joy said, “but you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.”
“It was no trouble,” Dru protested. Joy was dry-eyed, and Dru wondered if she was in shock, if there was someone she should call. Was there family close by? She and Joy had been out of touch long enough that Dru couldn’t remember.
“I’ve got food prepared, too,” Sharon said. “I’ll just go and get it.”
Dru would never be certain if the Westins invited her into their home, or if she took it upon herself to follow them inside. She’d once known them better, Joy more than Gene, but that had been back when Shea, Kate, and Becca had been inseparable. Although it had been a while—a few years, in fact—Dru remembered the layout of the house, and while Joy, Gene, and TC went into the great room, she went to the kitchen and unloaded the food, stowing the dishes in the refrigerator. The shelves weren’t entirely empty, but looking at them, Dru would have bet Joy planned to grocery shop in the next day or two. She could do it, Dru thought, if Joy would let her.
Closing the refrigerator door, she looked around, feeling helpless, wondering what else she could do. There must be family to notify, funeral arrangements to make. But the house was so quiet. The phone wasn’t ringing; no one else was here. Where was Pastor Ingalls, or any of the folks from United Methodist, where the Westins attended church? Dru was a member there, too, although she hadn’t been in a while. She didn’t go as often as she had when Shea had lived at home. She didn’t like attending alone.
She walked back through the house to the great room, thinking she would offer to call Pastor Ingalls before she left. Joy was sitting on an ottoman, and Gene was sitting on the sofa, holding TC between his knees, telling him that Becca was in heaven.
“She’s an angel now?” TC asked.
“Yes,” Joy said. “She’s your angel, and she’ll always be with you.”
The Truth We Bury: A Novel Page 6