by Lisa Jackson
“She also brought a pie,” Ed added. He took off his trucker cap, showing off a bald spot in his snow-white hair, then unzipped his down jacket, beneath which were bib overalls and a flannel shirt.
“I had to!” Tilly insisted. “I wanted to try out this new recipe I found in the Better Homes and Gardens, last year’s holiday edition. It’s pumpkin custard with sour cream.”
Trace eyed the pie. “Sounds great. But, really, it wasn’t necessary.”
“Course it wasn’t.” Tilly was already stuffing the pie into his bare refrigerator. “But I wanted to give it a whirl before I served it on Thanksgiving. Ed’s sister, Cara, she’s pretty picky, so you and Eli are my guinea pigs.”
“Nothin’ wrong with the old recipe,” Ed grumbled.
“The one on the pumpkin can?” she demanded. “We’ve had that every year for the past forty-five years! Time to try something new.”
“It’s a tradition.” Ed was unmoved.
Tilly rolled her eyes. “Oh, show some originality, would ya, Ed?”
“Cara likes it,” Ed pointed out.
“What does she know?”
“You’re the one trying to impress her.”
“And I don’t know why,” Tilly admitted. “Ever taste her banana cream? Soggy crust. Overripe bananas. Horrible! Just ... horrible!”
“Then quit tryin’ to impress her, and make the damned recipe that comes with the fillin’.” Her husband sighed broadly, his teeth stained slightly yellow from years of chewing tobacco. “I always say, if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it.”
“You always say a lot of things, and I don’t listen to too many of ’em! Now, let’s quit bickering and I’ll heat up the stew.”
“She’s a bossy one, ain’t she?” Ed said to Trace.
“And you love it!” Despite the bite to her words, she sent him a fond glance, the kind they’d shared since high school, some fifty-odd years earlier.
“Seems to have worked out between you two,” Trace observed.
“That’s because he usually does what I ask.”
She began fiddling with the stove as her husband said, “I thought I’d help you with the livestock. Tilly, here, was frettin’ and fussin’ over at the house, worried you wouldn’t be able to get the chores done with Eli laid up.”
Tilly’s features pulled into a knot as she turned to Trace. “It’s just that I didn’t see how you’d leave the boy and take care of the cattle all at the same time.”
“Dad?” Eli called from the living room.
“Right there, bud!” Trace slipped through the swinging door and found his son in his stocking feet, looking groggy. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Who’s here?”
“The Zukovs. Come on into the kitchen.”
“Is that my boy?” Tilly called loudly, and for the first time all day, Eli smiled.
He was already tossing the blankets aside when Trace said, “I think she brought you something.”
“I heard that, and I sure did!” Tilly raised her voice and added, “Eli, you come on in here and sit up to the table. We’ll have ourselves some cookies and milk and a quick game of checkers. That is, if you don’t mind being beat.”
“I’m pretty good!” Eli was already through the swinging door and finding the box of checkers on the shelf in the dining cove.
“We’ll see how good you are.... Oooh weee, take a look at that cast, would ya, Ed?” Tilly had placed a plate of cookies on the table and had poured Eli a glass of milk as she spied the boy’s arm. “Blue as a summer sky!”
“That it is,” her husband agreed.
Beaming, Eli scrambled onto his chair and began pulling the checkerboard out of its battered, taped-together box.
Ed, who had snatched a cookie, was at the back door. “Let’s go deal with the cattle.”
Trace snagged his jean jacket from a hook near the back door, then stepped into his boots and followed Ed along a cement path that petered into a trampled dirt trail on the other side of the gate that separated the yard from the barnyard.
Snow was still falling steadily, covering the ground in a fine layer that allowed patches of grass to poke through. Most of the cattle were already inside the barn, and when Trace pushed open the wide doors, rolling them aside, the smells of hay, dust, and dung reached his nostrils.
He climbed to the hayloft, his boots ringing on the metal rungs as the cattle mooed and shuffled. Once in the loft, he pushed bales through the opening in the old floorboards. They landed with soft thuds, and Ed took over, slicing through the string and breaking the bales before strewing them in the manger where part of the herd of Hereford and Angus mingled.
Once the bales were scattered inside the barn, they carried several outside the doors to a covered area, where the roof was supported by poles, and mangers and a water trough filled the inner area.
Cattle shifted and lowed, their black and red hides wet where snow had melted upon them, their breaths fogging in the cold air.
After the herd was cared for, Trace and Ed walked to the stable, and the whole process started over again, though Trace owned only four horses, so the job was quicker. They added grain to the mangers, and Trace rubbed the palomino’s muzzle and scratched the ears of the dun, who tossed his head, his dark eyes gleaming with fire.
By the time they returned to the kitchen, the scents of garlic and rosemary filled the room. Tilly’s stew was simmering on the stove, and it looked like Eli was beating his mentor at their game of checkers.
“You’re sure you didn’t cheat?” Tilly teased him.
“No way!” Eli insisted. Half his milk had disappeared, and the crumbs on the table in front of him indicated he’d had at least one of Tilly’s cookies.
Trace had just taken off his boots when his cell phone jangled.
“Second time that’s happened since you went out to feed the cattle,” Tilly observed as her final checker was captured by a beaming Eli.
“Better see who it is.” Trace gave his son a high five, then scooped up the phone as it jangled for the fourth time. “Hello?”
“Trace? This is Mia Calloway. I’m the school secretary at Evergreen and . . . well, how’s your boy? Eli?”
“Doing better. I already talked to the principal.” He was walking out of the kitchen and into the living area, where he could have a little more privacy.
“Yes, yes, I know. . . . This isn’t really about Eli,” she admitted and seemed a little nervous. “It’s about Jocelyn Wallis.”
His stomach tightened, but he didn’t say a word, just let her ramble on.
“She didn’t come to school today and didn’t phone in, didn’t leave a lesson plan for a sub or . . . anything. No one here heard from her, but I know . . . Well, she said you two had been going out, and I thought you might know . . .” Her worried voice faded away.
“I have no idea why she didn’t show up,” he said.
“Oh . . . well ... I’m just concerned, that’s all. We’re friends, and I drove to her house, but all the windows were closed. I couldn’t see in. There were lights on, but that doesn’t really mean anything. I know she wasn’t feeling well, but I tried to call and voice mail answered after one ring. I mean ... I don’t know what to think. Did she leave town? Is she just too sick to answer the phone?” She let the suggestion hang in the air and, when Trace didn’t answer, added, “As I said, I’m just trying to find out what happened to her.”
“If I hear from her, I’ll let you know.”
“Oh . . . okay. Uh, you don’t have a key to her place, do you? I mean, before anyone calls the police, or whatever it is you do, maybe it would be a good idea to go inside?”
“I don’t have a key,” he said. “I haven’t seen Jocelyn for months.”
“Oh! I thought she said she called you yesterday. . . .”
“She didn’t.”
“Then . . . well, I’m sorry to have bothered you. If you hear from her, would you have her call Mia?”
“I won’t. But, yeah, su
re. At the school?”
“That, too, but if she could call my cell?” Mia sounded seriously worried. “This is just not her usual style. Jocelyn is the most focused, dedicated teacher I know. She just wouldn’t not show up and leave her students high and dry. . . . It just doesn’t make any sense. Well, thanks.”
He hung up and turned to find Tilly standing in the doorway, not even trying to hide the fact that she’d been eavesdropping. “That was the school again, right? About Jocelyn Wallis?”
“A friend of hers,” he admitted.
Tilly’s expression was dark. “I heard from my niece that she didn’t show up today. It was odd.”
“The niece again,” Ed clarified.
“Her friend said she called me yesterday, but I didn’t get a message.” Trace saw Eli slide farther down in his chair. “Or did I?”
The boy shook his head, but Trace walked to the ancient wall phone that was an answering machine as well. No light was blinking, no message waiting, but when he pressed the button to see who’d called, WALLIS, J. showed on the screen.
“Did you hear a message from Miss Wallis?” he asked his son, but Eli was already shaking his head.
“Uh-uh . . . there wasn’t any message.” The boy looked stricken, but Trace believed him. He poked a few buttons, heard nothing, and a cold feeling crawled slowly up his spine. He hung up and found Tilly staring at him.
“Maybe you’d better go check it out,” she suggested. “We’ll stay here with Eli.”
“But I want to go, too,” his son protested.
“What?” Tilly said with mock horror. “And get out of a rematch? No way, Jose! This is my chance to dominate!” She sent Trace a quick glance, and he got the message.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said and headed out the door, leaving the Zukovs in charge as he strode to his pickup with Sarge at his feet. “Fine. You can come this time.” He opened the driver’s door of the cab, and the dog hopped inside, settling into his favorite spot in the passenger seat.
Trace climbed behind the wheel, started the old Chevy, and wondered what the hell he’d find at Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment.
“Probably nothing,” he told himself, ramming the truck into gear and flipping on the wipers. But the sensation that he was about to step into something bad hung with him as he stared through the windshield to a dusk that promised a darkness he couldn’t comprehend.
CHAPTER 6
Once again, Pescoli’s daughter was a no-show.
“I assumed you knew that Bianca wasn’t in school today.” The counselor, Miss Unsel, sat behind a massive desk piled with folders and surrounded by bound copies of college catalogs and directories. The only natural light came from windows mounted high overhead, and the room had a slightly musty smell to it.
“I dropped her off right before the first bell.” Pescoli was terse.
Miss Unsel, with a thick black braid that fell over one shoulder, turned her palms upward. “She wasn’t in her homeroom for attendance. Mr. Cohn marked her absent, as did every other teacher in her block.”
“She hasn’t been here all day. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“Yes.” Peony Unsel was nodding her head in agreement, the end of her braid moving against the bright stripes of the serape she was wearing. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“That’s why I’m here. I was hoping you could tell me, well, us, because she was supposed to be here.”
The counselor picked up a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and studied her computer screen, then typed in another command or two and said, “She’s failing two classes, Spanish and algebra, and just getting by in the others.” Miss Unsel regarded Pescoli over the rims of her glasses. “But she missed two major tests today, one in U.S. history, the other in English.”
Pescoli’s heart sank. “She can make them up?”
The counselor was nodding. “If she has a valid excuse and her teachers agree, I don’t see why not. It’s our mission to help our students become successful adults.” She offered Pescoli a beatific, “Kumbaya” type smile that Pescoli couldn’t help thinking had to be fake.
“Just one more question. Out of curiosity. Was Chris Schultz in school today?” Pescoli asked.
“Let’s see ... this is confidential information, you know.”
“Chris is my daughter’s boyfriend.”
“I know. But—”
“I am a cop.”
“I know that, too. But we have rules about the privacy of our students. . . .” Miss Unsel turned back to her computer, typed on the keyboard, and sighed. She looked up at Pescoli but didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.
“Thanks,” Pescoli said, worried sick.
By the time she left the counseling area and walked through the hallways lined with lockers and benches, Pescoli remembered how much she, herself, had hated high school, how often she’d cut class. But she had never let her grades drop, had never jeopardized her future.
And that was what Bianca was doing.
Throwing it all away.
Just like her older brother.
Outside, Pescoli turned her collar to the brittle wind and watched a few kids scurrying to their cars or carrying athletic bags, hurrying toward the gym. Daylight was fading fast. A thick layer of snow had already covered the tracks she’d made when she’d wheeled into the parking lot, and more of the white powder continued to fall.
Climbing behind the wheel, she turned on the engine, and as the wipers pushed a thick white film off her windshield, she tried texting her daughter.
Where R U?
She hit SEND and waited.
Nothing.
“Damn it, Bianca!” she burst out as the phone suddenly rang in her hand. “Pescoli,” she snapped, expecting her daughter’s apologetic voice on the other end.
“Santana,” Nate said, mimicking her tough, no-nonsense tone.
“Oh. Hi. Thought you might be my kid.” But her voice softened a bit.
He chuckled, and she imagined his face, all bladed planes and taut dark skin, evidence of a Native American ancestor somewhere in his family history. And then there were his eyes, deep set and so sharply focused, she sometimes wondered if he could see straight into her soul. Except, she reminded herself, she didn’t believe in any of that romantic garbage.
“I’m not disappointed,” she said. “Just worried. She ditched school again.”
“With the boyfriend.”
“Seems so.”
“Sounds like she needs a father figure.”
“Sounds like she needs a better father figure. She’s got Lucky, remember?”
“He know about this?”
“I haven’t talked to him,” Pescoli admitted as the windshield, now cleared of snow, began to fog.
“You could move in with me,” he said. “All of you.”
Something deep inside of her melted, and she was tempted. “Look, you know how I feel about this. Until the kids are set—”
“Some people might think you’re putting your own life on hold for your kids.”
“That’s what you do if you’re a responsible parent.”
“Is it?”
“Look, I’m not in the mood for any psychological mind games, okay? I just left the counselor’s office, and let’s just say it wasn’t a great experience. Now I have to run down my kid.”
He didn’t say anything, and she closed her eyes for a second. “Santana, don’t do this. Okay? Not now. I’ll call you later.” She hung up before he could argue, even though she knew he wouldn’t. As she drove out of the parking lot, she felt empty inside, as if she were intentionally undermining her one chance at happiness.
Maybe Nate Santana was right.
Maybe she should do what she damned well pleased and let her kids just deal with it.
Then again, maybe not.
Knowing nothing good would come of this, Trace pulled into the lot of Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment building and parked his truck in one of the few vacant visitors’ spaces.
He glanced around the snow-covered grounds as his windows began to fog with the chill. Lamplight glowed from Jocelyn’s apartment, one in the living area, another in her bedroom, but the shades were drawn.
He walked to the front door and knocked, then waited.
Nothing.
No sound of a television or music coming from her unit. He probably should just call the manager, or Jocelyn’s sister, but decided that since he was here, he’d check her place out himself. She kept a spare key hidden in the beam that supported the roof of her porch, so he used the bench near the front door and hoisted himself upward to a spot where he could see the key hanging on a small nail.
Without a second’s thought Trace snagged the key, hopped down, and after one more try at knocking, let himself in.
A blast of heat hit him full force, but he knew the minute he stepped through the door that he was alone in the apartment. It was just that still.
“Jocelyn!” he called loudly. “Hello?” But he sensed it was useless as he slowly walked from room to room, noting that her purse was on the kitchen counter, her schoolbag, filled with papers and books, on the seat of one of the two bar stools.
The bed was unmade; a half-drunk glass of water and some crumpled wrapper of over-the-counter flu medication were on the night table, next to a paperback novel and her cell phone charger. Clothes were tumbling out of a laundry basket on the open bedroom floor, and the remote control for a small television had been left on the mussed coverlet.
Suddenly music erupted.
He nearly jumped out of his skin, turning quickly. For a second he thought someone was inside; then he realized it was probably her cell phone’s ringtone. He followed the sound to the living room and a small recliner. The music stopped abruptly, but he dug through the cushions and finally found the phone under the chair.