A Mother's Lie

by Jo Crow

  “Blue plastic pot by the side door of Mr. Field’s house. I remember how he used to always try to grow sunflowers in it, and the squirrels would get them every time. Got it.”

  “Yup!” Amanda once lived in one of those houses as a child. We’d met in the halls of the McNair house, although my memory of those times was too spotty to recall exactly when that had been—but we were young; just kids. A lot of my childhood memories were forgotten or discarded by time. “Everything should be clear. We don’t have too much with us, so I run the laundry regularly.”

  “It’s all good. If he wakes up when I’m carrying him to bed, I’ll drive him over and we’ll get some pajamas. It’ll be fun—baby’s first sleepover. He’s been a really good sport about it so far.”

  “I’m glad.” And I was, deeply and inexpressibly. Sticking my nose where it didn’t belong was risky, and when James was with Amanda he was safe. After the car graffiti incident, I couldn’t say the same thing about the house we were staying in on the McNair estate. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

  “Drive safe.”

  “Have a good night.”

  Goodbyes were said. The call ended, and I took a deep, satisfying breath. For now, the pressure was off my shoulders. In Charlotte, I reasoned, I didn’t have to worry about who might break into my room in the middle of the night. Whoever the killer was, he wouldn’t follow me here—would he? I was safe. And as long as James was with Amanda, he’d be safe, too.

  According to my GPS, the address Gino had given me led to a destination located in Charlotte’s downtown district. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have given me an address leading to an isolated place. Downtown Charlotte was nothing to worry about, I figured.

  I would sleep like the dead tonight.

  I pulled out of my parking space and took to the road again. Traffic was clear. I coasted down the street, headed toward town, keeping track of the businesses I passed. I was familiar with Charlotte from childhood excursions into the city, but it had been a long time since I’d been in North Carolina, and Charlotte had changed. The landmarks I remembered from my youth were either gone or so drastically altered I barely recognized them. The little inns along the way I was most familiar with had vanished. The further I went into the city looking for somewhere for the night, the more the traffic picked up, and the less likely it seemed I’d come across anywhere affordable.

  Dismayed, I took a right onto a quiet street, intending to backtrack. The lights from the car behind me swept around the corner. Was it following me?

  I took another right. The car behind me did too.

  Black. Tinted windows. A visible dent in the driver’s side bumper.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. There wasn’t anything innately wrong with the situation but, all the same, it was disquieting. I’d left danger behind in Hickory Hills, hadn’t I? This had to be a coincidence. It was only natural I’d be on edge.

  Just to make sure, I pulled up to the side of the road and let the car behind me pass. It slowed—almost an unnoticeable amount—then continued on its way. I watched it go until it turned a corner and disappeared.

  My heart beat a desperate rhythm, hammering against my sternum like it wanted to break through it. I tried to defuse the stress by exhaling deeply.

  It was all in my head, I told myself. I was being too dramatic about a non-issue. There was no way someone would have followed me here. With a good night’s sleep, and some food, I’d start thinking straight again. I was too wound by the unknown.

  After a minute’s rest, I resumed my travels and found a cheap motel with a vacancy. Relieved, I pulled into the parking lot and was about to undo my seatbelt when I noticed a car pass by the motel and continue on its way.

  Black. Tinted windows. A visible dent in the driver’s side bumper.

  It couldn’t be the same one, could it? I was seeing things, projecting my fear.

  A fresh chill shot down my spine as I locked the car and hurried for reception. A good night’s sleep and food were exactly what I needed. I was starting to get too paranoid for my own good.

  In the morning, I’d feel better. In the morning, if he rearranged his schedule, I’d meet up with Gino Hunt and hopefully get some clarity on what my father was doing in the spring of 2007.

  12

  I opened my eyes, gasping for breath. Daylight streamed into the window through a crack in the curtains. The motel bedroom overlooked the parking lot, and from where I lay I glimpsed three construction workers standing on the sidewalk, chatting. Cars passed by on the street. My car, carefully scrubbed down, graffiti removed, and cleaned by the production crew, was exactly where I’d left it.

  The door was locked, the window was in one piece, and I was uninjured. Despite my paranoia, I’d made it through the night without incident…

  Apart from the same old nightmare.

  I scrubbed at my eyes and sat up in bed. The blankets pooled at my hips, leaving my bare torso uncovered. I’d stripped off my shirt and left it folded on the dresser, but I’d left my bra on just in case I needed to make a quick escape. The band dug into my side, and I plucked at it in an attempt to reposition it somewhere a little more comfortable.

  It was time to get dressed and hit the road. If the address Gino gave me was legitimate, I had business to attend to.

  With a stifled yawn, I climbed out of bed and grabbed my shirt from the dresser. The nightmare had my heart racing but, apart from the familiar creeping terror it left in its wake, I appreciated the jolt. Getting out of bed was a hell of a lot easier with some motivation: I did not want to go back to such a fragmented, confusing dreamstate.

  I knew it by heart.

  The blinding light. The shadows. The feeling someone was close, but never being able to tell who it was.

  The burning.

  God, the burning. The phantom sensations still tingled in my palms and danced in the tiny bones of my wrist. It was the strangest feeling, and I hated it. As I crossed the room, I shook my hands out—one, then the other—but the sensation remained. In time it would fade but, for now, I had to endure. Though, it wouldn’t be too tough with so much going on.

  I had a date that morning with Gino Hunt, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  With the address plugged into the GPS and my phone hooked up, I left the motel and took to the streets. Twenty minutes later, I found myself exploring a part of town I remembered vaguely from my childhood; it had grown distant from my memory with age.

  Street-side parking was available, so I backed into a space and fed the meter my credit card. It spat out a ticket, and I slipped it onto my dash before I headed across the street to check out the address in question.

  Rothford and Neuman Law Firm was at 2487 Sycamore. I squinted against the sun as I looked up at the signage. A new kind of dread settled in my chest. Fear of the unknown froze me to the spot, and it wasn’t until a pedestrian bumped into my shoulder that I was shaken from my stupor. What kind of secret legal trouble had my father been in that he’d hire a private investigator?

  I swallowed hard and pulled open the front door. It opened into a small reception area where a bright-eyed young man was just getting settled with some coffee. He lifted his eyebrows in delighted surprise as I stepped into the room. When the door closed, he spoke.

  “Mrs. Smith?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m Clara McNair. Gino Hunt asked me to meet him here?” I stepped toward the desk, closing some of the distance between myself and the young man. He couldn’t have been much younger than me, but there was a wide innocence in his eyes and a sharpness in his expression that hinted at youth. “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am.” The chipper attitude toned itself down immediately. The young man folded his arms and frowned. A lock of his dark curls fell before his eyes, and he broke his somber stance to brush it away. “I understand it can’t be easy. If you’ll give me a second, I’ll check you in and make sure both Mr. Rothford and Mr. Neuman k
now you’re here.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have an appointment with them.”

  The young man frowned. “If you’re here to consult Mr. Hunt, you must be getting ready to file for divorce, aren’t you?”

  Divorce?

  The word was so foreign to my expectations I barely knew what to do. My parents had been happily married for years. What would my father be doing with a private investigator partnered with divorce lawyers?

  “I’m not married.” The words emerged through sheer force of will. I glanced to the side, searching the room for any sign of Gino Hunt. “I was looking for some information, and I was told I would find it here. Mr. Hunt is here, isn’t he?”

  “Let me make a few calls.” The young man behind the desk lifted a phone from the cradle. He held it against his ear with his shoulder and shot me a quick look, then spoke in hushed tones with whoever was on the other end.

  I was eighteen when my parents went missing and, although I’d been a fiercely independent teen who was seldom in the house, I’d been around enough to know my parents had a happy relationship. They’d gone on regular dates. My mother had hung off my father’s arm. They still kissed and slept in the same bedroom up until their disappearance. On Sundays, they’d held regular family dinners that I only sometimes attended. For Christmas, we’d traveled as a family to Aspen, and vacationed for two weeks in the summer in the Caribbean. In fact, on the night they’d gone missing, they’d planned to go out together. My mother in her red dress, and my father in his evening suit with his engraved cufflinks…

  “Ms. McNair?” the man behind the desk asked. I snapped my head up to look at him. While he talked on the phone, I’d fixed my eyes on an arbitrary spot on his desk. “Mr. Rothford and Mr. Neuman will both see you now. I’ll show you to the meeting room.”

  “Thanks.”

  If they were interested in seeing me, I knew whatever they had to say likely wasn’t good. Gino must have called ahead to warn them of my arrival. If so, what had he said?

  Breath stuck in my lungs, fingers curled and clenched, I followed the young man to a solid wood door. He knocked three times, then opened it and bowed his head. I bowed mine in response.

  “Good luck in there,” he whispered.

  “Thanks.”

  I didn’t know what I would need luck for but, as I pushed the door open the rest of the way, I braced myself for the worst, recalling Jerry Appleton’s warning—I had a feeling what I was about to discover wasn’t going to sit well with me.

  And when I looked into the eyes of the two stern aging lawyers already sitting at the conference table, that feeling grew a thousandfold.

  “Please sit, Ms. McNair.” They both had full heads of silver hair, but it was the slender one with the startling, crystal blue eyes and hawkish nose that spoke to me. His partner, a rotund man with a red face and a tan suit, kept an eye on me as I approached. “I’m David Rothford, and this is my partner, Eric Neuman. We received word from Mr. Hunt you would be coming to see us this morning.”

  That bastard. He did phone this in.

  “I’m sorry for any complications. I know this is very last minute.” I drew a chair out from the conference table and sat. They kept me under surveillance, their thinned lips and expressionless eyes impossible to read. Was I the enemy here? “To be honest, I wasn’t even aware I would be meeting with you this morning. I went to see Mr. Hunt yesterday afternoon, and he asked me to meet him here sometime today. I thought I’d be speaking with him.”

  “Mr. Hunt is a very busy individual,” David Rothford said. He folded his arms on the table, almost dainty in the way he moved. “The sensitive nature of the work he does prohibits him from predictability. We’ll be fielding your questions this morning. But first, do you mind presenting your driver’s license?”

  I blinked, taken by surprise.

  “No offense is meant,” Eric Neuman added. It was the first time he’d spoken since I’d arrived, and I found his voice stuffy, like he was speaking while holding marbles in his mouth. “While Mr. Hunt often works on instinct and impulses, we are professionals bound to certain standards. We’ll need to see proof you are who you say you are before this conversation continues any further.”

  That I could understand. Whatever sensitive information these men had on my family might have been catastrophic if shared with the wrong people, and I appreciated their commitment to confidentiality.

  “Right. Of course.” I fished my driver’s license from my wallet and handed it to David. He turned it in his hand to examine the back, then returned it to me. “Do you need me to provide any other proof?”

  “It won’t be necessary.” David sighed. “Well, Ms. McNair, as our first order of business, I’d like to extend our condolences over the loss of your mother and father. I’ll admit, when the news broke in 2007, I was shocked. That the circumstances surrounding their disappearance continue to be shrouded in mystery astounds me. It’s a reality I wish on no one.”

  “Thank you.”

  So news hadn’t spread about the discovery of the remains? I didn’t catch any tell on his face that would lead me to believe he was lying.

  Eric cleared his throat and shifted back and forth, sitting straighter in his chair. “Our second order of business is to state that it is very seldom we agree to speak with any relative involved in one of our cases, but this is a rare, and needed, exception. Ten years is a long time to be missing, and I imagine you’re looking for closure if you’ve found your way to us.”

  It was mostly the truth, and I didn’t want to complicate matters or bring too much information to light. As much as I didn’t want to think about it, I figured, the threat against my life was real. But the less I shared information about the danger, the better.

  “In light of your parents’ disappearance, and your subsequent interest in your mother’s inquiry with our office—”

  “My mother?” I blurted it out before I could think better of it. “You mean it was my mother coming here to see you?”

  “Mrs. McNair was the one who first established contact with our office, yes.” Eric rose from his seat, his chair groaning. He walked across the room and drew a set of keys from his pockets, then unlocked the drawer of a filing cabinet. “We worked extensively with Mrs. McNair over six months before her disappearance.”

  “Glenda McNair?” I couldn’t wrap my head around the thought. Geno Hunt’s name had appeared in my father’s belongings—in my father’s handwriting.

  “The one and only.” Eric returned to the table. He’d drawn a folder from the cabinet, and he set it before me. “In this file is the work we did with your mother to establish grounds for divorce.”

  The red dress. The laughter. The dewy-eyed looks.

  All those years, my mother had been acting?

  “I…” I didn’t know what to say. “Why?”

  “Adultery, mostly.” David shook his head. “A pity. If I recall correctly, Mrs. McNair was an intelligent and beautiful woman. Mr. Hunt discovered four separate affairs during the six months he worked for her. Deplorable behavior.”

  My stomach twisted into a knot, and my lungs shriveled in turn. My father had been cheating on my mother?

  “What else?” There had to be more. One layer had been peeled away; I needed to dig deeper. What other secrets were there? What other betrayals?

  Eric drew a noisy, rattling breath through his nose. “Mr. Hunt uncovered several other unsavory practices while he was investigating your father’s adultery.”

  “Like what?” My voice was strained but I couldn’t help myself. The perfect image I’d had of my parents was crumbling. All I could do was grit my teeth and try to brace myself against the wreckage. “What kind of unsavory practices are you talking about?”

  “There were several foreign accounts in your father’s possession, according to Mr. Hunt. Although he was unable to draw a solid conclusion before Mr. McNair disappeared, Mr. Hunt concluded it was very like
ly Mr. McNair was laundering money.”

  I sank back in my chair, unsure how to process the news. My father was a criminal? Why hadn’t anyone from the investigation told me? There had been sparse communication while I was in Europe, but something so important?

  “Was it ever proven?” My tongue felt too large for my mouth. “It was only ever suspected?”

  “That’s correct.” Eric cleared his throat, then continued. “Private investigations came to the same dead-end as the police investigations. There are strong signs pointing to it, but there is no conclusive evidence.”

  “Phone records and security footage from McNair Furniture show he was in communication with some unsavory individuals. We will not disclose who those individuals were, but it’s safe to say they weren’t the kind of people average men contact on a semi-regular basis.”

  “Like the mob, or-or what are we talking about, here?” Tears welled behind my eyes, but they didn’t yet pool in their corners. For now, rage and betrayal held back my grief.

  “We’re not at liberty to disclose that information.”

  “But dangerous people?” It made sense. The death threats, the hostility, even the black car with the tinted windows. If my father owed a criminal organization money, who knew what lengths they’d go to in order to see their investment returned. “The kind of people who would want to make him disappear?”

  “We’re not at liberty to disclose that information.”

  This couldn’t go on. If there was something they knew that I didn’t, I needed to know. “Did you ever tell the police what was found? Did it influence their investigation any? Please, tell me someone else knows about Mr. Hunt’s investigation into my father’s business dealings.”

  Eric shook his head slowly. “The authorities know what the authorities know. We are not at liberty to disclose that information, just as they are, likely, not at liberty to disclose what information they hold. I suggest taking the cause up with them if you really want to know.”