by Kylie Logan
“Okay.” Eileen reached up and grabbed the rest of the papers from the locker, then braced the pile against her chest. “How does that help us?”
“I’m not sure it does,” Jazz admitted. “Especially now that we know my whole theory about Bernadette being Maddie’s mom is bogus. But what I’m wondering is why this one note isn’t tied up in the bundle with the rest of them.”
Eileen dug through the pile and pulled out the notes tied with yellow ribbon. “And that one…” She glanced at the note card on the floor. “It’s not dated like all the others, is it?”
“It’s newer,” Jazz decided. “Maddie hasn’t even had a chance to tuck it away with the others.”
“Who wrote it?” Eileen wanted to know.
Jazz thought about biting back what she was about to say, but there didn’t seem to be much point. What mattered was finding Maddie, and if she looked like a fool for pushing the envelope, making the effort, putting words to the crazy idea that popped into her head, they’d never accomplish anything.
“Well, the poem is about someone coming back from the dead,” Jazz said.
For a moment, Eileen fell under the spell of the suggestion. “And Maddie has been awfully excited and happy,” she said, then instantly stepped away from Jazz, and the very idea. “No! No way.”
Jazz knew Eileen was right, but she still felt the need to defend herself. “You know I don’t mean that literally. I’m not talking about someone rising from the dead like some sort of vampire.”
“I hope you’re not!” Eileen made a face and shook her shoulders. “What are you talking about?”
“What if…” It was no more than a glimmer of a thought, and a wild one at that, but Jazz tried to explain. “What if Odessa Harper is more involved here than we realized?” When she called Eileen about Maddie’s disappearance, she’d also told the principal about the duplicate resignation letters so she didn’t have to explain again. “That whole letter thing is just too strange to be a coincidence. And Bernadette was consulting her.”
“Yeah, about suing us.” Eileen’s words were acid.
“But that’s the whole point. If Bernadette thought she could actually make a case against us, she would have had to give Odessa all the details.”
“Like the fact that we thought Bernadette and Maddie were too close.” Eileen nodded.
“And maybe even the fact that one of the things they did to keep in touch was write notes. Maybe Bernadette even borrowed the notes back so she could show them to Odessa. That would explain why the older notes are tied together.”
The idea was tantalizing and that was too bad, because Jazz could see it still didn’t make any sense.
“But why would Odessa want to send a note to Maddie three years after Bernadette’s death and make it all about coming back from the dead? It’s almost as if…” There was no breeze there in the hallway, so Jazz couldn’t explain the icy chill that touched the back of her neck. “It’s like Odessa wanted to fool Maddie into thinking Bernadette really was back. That she’s still alive. Think about it. The DNA results on the skeleton aren’t back. A girl as impressionable as Maddie might be holding out hope. If she thinks there’s any chance Bernadette might not be dead, it does explain why she’s been so happy.”
“And it might explain where Maddie is.”
“And why she’s keeping whatever she’s up to a secret. If she thought she was going to find out—” They had already turned away from the locker and were on their way back downstairs, and Jazz froze. “What if she thought she was going to meet someone who could tell her what really happened to Bernadette?”
Eileen’s face paled. “You think she’s in danger?”
“I wish I knew.”
Eileen went into Jazz’s office to sort through Maddie’s papers just as Rick Randall showed up with Lucy.
“Nothing and nobody,” Rick said. “Want us to check outside?”
Jazz needed air. Maybe it would clear her head. “Can I come along?”
“Are you kidding?” Randall laughed. “When I’m with you, I feel like your dad’s back. You’ve got his instincts when it comes to dogs.”
It was the best compliment Jazz had heard in ages, and in spite of all the questions she had about Odessa Harper and Bernadette and Maddie, in spite of the worry that jackhammered her insides, when she stepped out into the warm evening air she was smiling.
At least until Gary Lindsey stuck his head out the door.
“You can leave,” he told her. “We’ll take it from here.”
Nick stood behind Lindsey and Jazz darted him a look, and his expression told her he didn’t agree, but he wasn’t in charge. “But—”
“Sister Eileen will be here to handle anything we need.”
Jazz stepped nearer to the school. “But I—”
“We appreciate you getting your friends and the dogs here, but like I said, we don’t need your help.”
* * *
When Jazz got home, Sarah was pacing her front porch.
“School grapevine,” Sarah said, and held up her phone. “Is it true? Maddie’s missing?”
Jazz had spent the walk home grumbling to herself, and now she slammed her purse down on one of the two white Adirondack chairs on her front porch and propped her fists on her hips. “Yes, it’s true, and that son of a bitch Lindsey sent me packing before I could do anything to help.”
“You said he was stupid.”
Jazz shoved her key into the lock on the front door. “Come on in,” she told Sarah. “Only don’t expect me to be very good company.”
When Jazz got back from taking Wally out in the yard, Sarah already had a bottle of wine open. “You look like you need this.” She handed Jazz a glass.
“I need to punch that jerk in the nose!”
“Not sure that’s going to help.” Sarah sipped her wine.
“It would make me feel better.”
“Maybe dinner would do that?” Sarah suggested. “My treat.”
Jazz juggled her wineglass in one hand while she dished up Wally’s dinner. “I’m not hungry.”
“I am.” Sarah rooted through the cupboard and found nothing on her list of approved foods. “Come on, you’d be doing me a favor. And you can fill me in on what’s going on.”
As usual, Wally breathed in his food, then scampered over to Jazz to tell her he was ready for his after-dinner walk. She hooked the leash to his collar. “Coming?” she asked Sarah.
The three of them walked as far as the park, and that was usually far enough to make Wally happy. That evening, it wasn’t nearly enough to relieve Jazz’s anger, or the tension that strained her insides and made her breaths come in short, quick gasps.
“You could walk a little slower.” Sarah scrambled to catch up. “I’m an art teacher, not a track star.”
Jazz waited for her at the next corner. “Sorry. I just—”
Sarah put a hand on her shoulder. “I get it. I do. But running through the neighborhood isn’t going to help. And it’s sure not doing me any good.” She looked down at her feet and the sandals encrusted with phony jewels that glittered in the last of the evening light. “These shoes are killing me!”
“Sorry,” Jazz said again. “I’m just feeling so—”
“Frustrated. Yeah, I bet.”
“And helpless. I think there’s a connection between Bernadette’s death and Odessa Harper, the attorney who was going to represent Bernadette in her case against the school. I think Odessa might be the one Maddie’s gone to meet.”
“And what did Lindsey say when you told him?” Sarah wanted to know.
Jazz spit out a curse. “He didn’t give me a chance to tell him. I sure hope Eileen mentioned it to him. But what difference does it make, anyway? He won’t listen.”
“Nick would.”
He would and the realization warmed Jazz inside and out even if it didn’t raise her spirits. “I’ll give him a call later. Maybe he can head over here when he’s done at school and I can tell him what I’m thinking.”
“What do we know about this Harper chick?” Sarah asked.
“Not much.” They stopped at a corner to let traffic pass, and when Wally sat at Jazz’s side she patted his head and praised him. “She quit her law firm at about the time Bernadette died. But her resignation letter…” They were walking past one of the popular bars and music washed over the sidewalk. “I made copies of both their resignation letters. I’ll show you when we get back to my house. It will be easier than trying to explain.”
“So she quit. And where did she go?” Sarah wanted to know.
Jazz shrugged. “No one at the firm seems to know. Or at least they’re not talking. She lived here in the neighborhood. At least she did when she was working at the law firm. I looked up the address. It’s that big blue house—”
“What?” When Jazz froze with the rest of the sentence unspoken, Sarah walked right past her and had to turn around and come back to look her in the eye. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Maybe something’s right.” She handed Wally’s leash to Sarah. “Take him home.”
“Me?” Wally knew something was up. He jumped and barked. “You know I’m not very good with—”
“He’s a puppy. How much trouble can he be?”
“Where are you going?” The truth dawned and Sarah’s mouth fell open. “Odessa Harper’s house?”
“It’s not like I’m going to break in or anything,” Jazz assured her. “I’m just going to walk by.”
“Then Wally and I will walk by with you.”
“You’d better not. Maybe I’ll knock on the door. Just to see who’s home.” When Sarah opened her mouth to tell her this was as bad an idea as Jazz already knew it was, she held up one hand to stop Sarah in her tracks. “I’ll just see if she answers, that’s all.”
“And if she does, what are you going to do, ask if Maddie’s there?”
“Maybe.” Jazz considered the idea. “That wouldn’t seem so weird, would it? We’re all concerned about Maddie. We all care about her welfare. It’s only natural that I’d be looking for her.”
The sun had slipped over the horizon and the street was bathed in pale gray light that made Sarah’s face look ghostly. “And if this Odessa had something to do with Bernadette’s murder?”
A shiver climbed Jazz’s spine. “That’s all the more reason for me to get over there and talk to her as soon as I can.”
* * *
The house that had once belonged to Odessa Harper—and maybe still did—was one of the oldest in the neighborhood, a sturdy home built by the early New England settlers who’d come to the area from Connecticut to farm in the years after the Revolutionary War. The house had a small front porch and that most unusual of all Tremont features, a large yard. Unlike so many of the houses in the neighborhood, this one wasn’t built smack up against the ones on either side of it. There was a picket fence (it needed paint) around the entire perimeter of the property, a wide stone walk leading up to the front door, a spacious yard planted with tall trees that probably dated to the establishment of the homestead, and snowball bushes all the way around the house. They were so overgrown, they must have kept any light from ever invading the downstairs windows. Not that it mattered. Not that night anyway.
All the curtains were closed.
There were lights on inside the house, though. Jazz could see their warm glow through the chink between the curtains.
Someone was home.
To her way of thinking, this was good news, but it didn’t explain why an icy hand touched her insides and advised caution.
She sloughed off the thought. All she was going to do was knock on the door and see who answered. And if it was Odessa Harper? Then they would chat. About a girl who was missing from the neighborhood. Not about murder.
The thought firmly in mind—along with the reminder not to forget it—Jazz pushed open the gate and walked up to the house. She’d just raised her hand to knock when she saw a shadow slip across the curtains on the windows to her right. Another one followed it, a blocky splotch that didn’t move as smoothly or as steadily as the shadow that preceded it but hopped and squirmed as if the very act of walking normally was somehow impossible.
It was a pleasant night, and the windows were open.
“Shhh.” She heard the hiss from inside. A woman’s voice? Or a man’s? It was so low and so hushed, Jazz couldn’t tell. “Did you see someone? Did you see someone at the gate?”
The only reply was a gurgle of tears.
Jazz’s heart stopped. She fought the urge to pound on the door and instead flattened herself against the front of the house to make sure she couldn’t be seen.
“Over here.” It was the same voice she’d heard the first time. “Get moving. We’ll sit here and wait another hour or so. Just until we know the coast is clear.”
“But I can’t … I don’t want to … We can’t do this. I told you, we can’t do this.” The words were edged with tears and despair, but the voice was unmistakable.
Maddie.
Jazz’s heart pounded. Her breath raced. She reached for her phone to call Nick or 911, or both, but she knew she couldn’t make a call from where she stood, not without being heard. She started down the steps, but in the dark, it was impossible to see a loose brick. Jazz’s foot hit it and slid, then caught. She grabbed the railing to keep herself from falling, but her phone flew out of her hand and ended up somewhere behind one of the snowball bushes. There was no chance of finding it in the dark, and no time, either. Not when she heard the voice from inside the house again.
“Did you hear that? Did you hear something?” Before the voice had been low and furtive. Now it was louder, more frantic. “We can’t wait. We’ve got to leave. Don’t just stand there. Get moving. We’ve got to leave now!”
The lights in the front room flicked off and Jazz waited for the door to open, and when it didn’t she realized Maddie and whoever she was with must have gone around to the back of the house. She raced toward the back door, and she was waiting there, poised and ready for when it popped open. Her plan was simple—she’d confront the person in the house. She’d demand to know what was going on. And there was no way in hell she was leaving without Maddie.
But the door opened.
And Jazz stood rooted in place, speechless and stunned.
Of all the people she had expected to see, she’d never thought it would be Bernadette Quinn.
* * *
“‘Come from the silence so long and so deep.’” The words whooshed out of Jazz along with every last bit of air in her lungs. They made sense now. So much horrible sense. It was just like she’d told Eileen. Like a poem about someone who had come back from the dead.
That dead woman reared to a stop just inside the kitchen door and dropped the duffel bag she’d been carrying onto the green ceramic tile floor. As if it was some kind of crazy reminder of everything that had been, Bernadette was dressed in an ankle-brushing gray-and-white-plaid skirt and a white blouse. Her hair was longer than Jazz remembered it. Her face was fuller and paler. She had a set of car keys in her hand.
There was no way she could be as surprised to see Jazz as Jazz was to see her, but she’d been caught off guard. That would explain why her eyes were wide and round, why her hands clenched and unclenched the keys and they clattered together. She wasn’t expecting company, and she sure wasn’t expecting Jazz to recover in a heartbeat and step forward, settle herself with her feet apart, and block the way out of the house.
“What’s going on here?” Jazz demanded.
Bernadette opened her mouth to say something, but before she could a strangled sound came from the far corner of the kitchen where Maddie was folded into the space between the refrigerator and the dishwasher, her eyes squeezed shut and tears streaming down her cheeks. Her hands were duct-taped together in front of her. It was no wonder she wasn’t able to walk without an effort; her ankles were bound, too.
“What the hell!” Jazz pushed past Bernadette and went to the girl
. She put her hands on Maddie’s shoulders. “Maddie, it’s me: Jazz.”
As if she wasn’t sure it was true and she didn’t want to find out it wasn’t, Maddie slowly opened her eyes. “Ms. Ram-m-msey?” The words stuttered over a sob. “Ms. Ramsey, you found me!”
“I did.” Jazz tightened her hold on the girl and inched her away from the wall. “And now I’m going to take you home.”
“She’s already home.”
The words were pure venom.
Jazz gave Maddie a reassuring pat, then turned to face the woman Eileen and Jazz had thought was the victim they found on the fourth floor of the school.
Bernadette’s eyes blazed. Her jaw was tight; her arms were close to her sides; her nose flared.
That’s when Jazz knew. That’s when she knew she was right.
“You are Maddie’s mother.”
Behind her, Jazz felt Maddie flinch, but Jazz knew better than to take her eyes off Bernadette. She’d seen the same burning light a time or two in the eyes of an aggressive dog. She knew she couldn’t show any fear
“Who was Odessa Harper?” Jazz asked Bernadette.
“Odessa was the woman who stole my baby!” Bernadette’s lips barely moved over the words. “She was the attorney who worked at the hospital where my Margaret Mary…” She looked at Maddie and tears welled in her eyes. She swept them away with the back of her hand. “Where my Margaret Mary was born. Margaret Mary…” When she took a step closer, Maddie whimpered and Jazz warned Bernadette off with a look.
Jazz wondered if Bernadette even noticed. Her gaze was focused over Jazz’s shoulder, on the girl who was sobbing uncontrollably now.
“Margaret Mary and I were supposed to be a family. I was going to keep you, honey,” she told Maddie, her voice suddenly as sweet as it had been rock hard only seconds before. “Don’t you ever doubt it. You were such a surprise. Such a gift! And at first, I didn’t know what to do about you. But after a while…” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “It didn’t take me long to realize you were all I wanted in the world. I gave up my vocation for you. And I made plans. I’d work in a gas station, or a fast-food joint. I’d do anything I could to support us and keep us together. It was all that mattered.