Evidence of Life

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Finally, when she felt calm enough to drive properly, she started the car, and it was when she reentered the freeway that she noticed the dark-colored sedan parked on the feeder some distance behind her. But it didn’t register; she didn’t take the memory with her, and a few days would pass before she would think about it again.

  * * *

  Jake came home that weekend ostensibly to do his laundry, but Abby thought he had come to check on her, and it both pleased and annoyed her. He was heaving a tangled mass of jeans mixed with bath towels into the dryer when Abby walked in with the groceries.

  “How many times have I told you not to overload the machine?” she asked, kicking the door shut.

  He took the sack from her, bringing it into the kitchen. “That machine can take it,” he said. “Trust me.” He popped a couple of grapes into his mouth.

  She held the rest of the bunch under running water.

  “I’ve been thinking, Mom.” Jake leaned against the counter.

  “Uh-oh.” Abby sounded lighthearted, but inside she was dismayed. She knew what he was going to say, that he was dropping out of college. She braced herself for it.

  “Ha, ha,” Jake said, “but, seriously, I’ve been thinking how Dad said you could wait too long to figure out what really matters, you know?...and I think he was talking about finding out what you want to do in your life, not what someone else wants you to do. Like, he wanted me to be a lawyer, but that’s not what I want. I can’t live his dream anymore.”

  Abby finished rinsing the grapes and started scrubbing the sweet potatoes she’d bought to go with the pork roast they were having for dinner. She knew she couldn’t stop him, not on her own, not without Nick’s support, and it infuriated her to think that Jake’s degree would be lost, too, one more casualty of the calamity that seemed never-ending. She needed to stay calm, but inside she felt like screaming.

  Jake said, “I want to transfer to Sam Houston State. I want to study law enforcement.”

  Abby glanced sidelong at him. “In Huntsville?” The university was just up the road, maybe a thirty-minute drive. She’d see more of him.

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Dennis told me the criminology program there is one of the best.”

  “Dennis?” Abby turned off the water, picked up the kitchen towel and dried her hands, unsettled at how the mention of his name brought a flush of warmth to her face, but she wouldn’t call it pleasure. She couldn’t. “You talked to him about it?”

  “Yeah. He’s a good guy, Mom.”

  Abby didn’t answer. She couldn’t give that to Jake, her validation.

  “Look, he’s really sorry—”

  “I’m sure he is,” Abby said, adding, “It’s fine, Jake.” And because she didn’t want to talk further about Dennis, she brought up the coroner’s office. “They called the other day,” she said gently. “They want to know what arrangements we’ve made for the remains.”

  * * *

  “I’m so angry,” Abby said to her mother a couple of weeks later.

  They were in her mother’s kitchen, having just finished planting a few dozen ranunculus tubers. The ruffled, brightly colored flowers with petals as thin as crepe paper were one of her mother’s favorites, and Abby brought fresh tubers every year in November and helped her mother plant them.

  “I’m just mad enough to kill, and it scares me. I’ve never felt such anger in my life.” Abby finished washing her hands and turned off the water.

  It had been misting earlier, and outside the window, fat pearls of moisture dripped from the eaves. A robin fluttered to perch on the fence post that held the mailbox and sat preening in the somber light. Ordinarily Abby would have called her mother to come and look, but not today. She scarcely registered the robin’s presence.

  “Who are you angry at?” her mother asked.

  “Nick, and at Sondra, but mostly myself. I knew something was wrong; I knew Nick was unhappy, but I ignored it. I thought it would pass.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself,” her mother said. “When you’re running around after two children, you’re so busy doing, there isn’t a lot of time or energy left to pause and reflect. You trusted him. You’ve always been trusting. It’s your nature.”

  “Not so much now.” Abby came to the table and sat down. “Hank Kilmer called the other day.”

  “Do you think it’s wise, keeping a relationship with him?”

  “At least he never lied to me.”

  Abby’s mother looked startled. “But you must realize Jake never meant to lie. Neither did Katie. She feels awful for what’s happened. Just dreadful.”

  Abby averted her glance.

  “She is so sorry, honey. We are all so sorry.”

  “Do you know how sick I am of hearing that?” Abby pursed her mouth. She felt her grief swell hard against her ribs. It rose into her throat, bitter-tasting and as black as ink, and she was frightened by it. The tears came in spite of her, brimming over her lashes, scalding her cheeks with their pent-up fury. She bent her face into her hands, shoulders heaving from the force of her sobbing.

  Her mother brought her a warm, damp dishcloth and rubbed her back again.

  “I don’t want to hate Nick, Mama.” Abby forced the words through labored hiccups.

  “It isn’t in you to hate.”

  “You don’t think they were wrong? Kate and George and Jake? They knew things, each one of them knew different things about Nick and kept them secret, when if they’d told me, I might have stopped him. At the least I would have kept Lindsey home with me.”

  Abby’s mother sat down. “Maybe they were wrong and maybe they weren’t, but it’s in the past now and you can’t change it. What matters is they acted out of love for you. They wanted to protect you. They still do.”

  Abby rose and returned to the window. The robin was in the grass now, pecking among the flattened yellow blades.

  “What will you gain by blaming them?”

  Abby didn’t answer.

  Her mother tried again. “You’re still here, Abigail. Kate and Jake—”

  “Don’t say it again, Mama. How I have to go on for Jake’s sake. Don’t say I have to live for him or Kate or you so you can be okay.”

  “No, that isn’t—”

  “Your granddaughter is dead!” Abby wheeled, voice rising, shattering. “He took her. Took my daughter from me, Mama, to be with that woman! Maybe you can get over it, maybe you can forgive him, but I can’t!”

  “You think I don’t feel Lindsey’s loss? That it isn’t the gravest pain to bear? Seeing you, what you and Jake are going through? You think I don’t grieve, as you do, for the loss of our precious girl?” Her mother’s voice broke.

  Abby knelt at her side. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry.”

  It took several moments, but Abby’s mother gathered herself, and once the air between them settled, she said, “Can’t you see? If you dwell on the injustice, you become the victim of his mistake, his cruelty.”

  Abby straightened. “But he was cruel.”

  “Yes, and I deplore his actions, but hating him only hurts you.”

  “But isn’t it so convenient? Nick dying? If you ask me, he got off easy.”

  “He might argue that point,” her mother said dryly.

  The sudden smile that twitched on Abby’s lips felt unnatural. Hideous. She touched her mouth.

  “Forgiveness is hard,” her mother said. “Harder than anger, but forgiveness is what heals. Forgiveness and love.”

  Abby reached out with her hands. “He’s taken my memories, Mama. Even those I can’t trust.”

  Her mother rose and came to Abby and pulled her into an embrace. “Give it time, sweet,” she murmured.

  Chapter 23

  A dark blue sedan was parked behind the house
in Abby’s spot when she came home from visiting her mother’s, as if it belonged there. Abby braked for a moment, considering, and then pulled in behind it. Nadine wasn’t leaving until they had it out. If Abby had to call the police on the reporter, she thought, she would do it. She pulled her keys from the ignition, got out of the BMW, and walked around the blue sedan. It was an Impala, not a Taurus, and it was empty. Abby started for the house and then looked back, suddenly remembering her wild drive the other night. She’d seen the blue car then, too, parked behind her on the feeder. It was ridiculous. The woman was following her, obviously. But why?

  “Nadine?” she called, rounding the front of the house. There was no answer, no sign of the reporter.

  Abby took her cell phone from her purse as she retraced her steps, but then she was unsure whether to dial Charlie’s number or 911. She’d never changed the locks as he’d advised. And she should have, she thought, when the backdoor opened without the assistance of her key. Somehow she wasn’t surprised, although she distinctly remembered locking it when she’d left. She pushed the door a bit wider even as she told herself it might not be the smartest thing to go inside on her own. But she was on her own now, right? She had to learn to take care of things by herself, and certainly she could handle Nadine Betts. Abby gripped her phone tightly in one hand and her keys in the other.

  “Nadine?” she called and she didn’t bother keeping the annoyance from her voice.

  “No,” a woman answered.

  Two steps took Abby into the arched doorway that divided the den from the kitchen, and she knew that instant whom she would find instead of the reporter. Abby knew just as surely as if Sondra had announced herself.

  “You.” The word out of Abby’s mouth was an accusation, an indictment.

  “Yes,” Sondra answered. She was sitting on one end of the sofa, all blond elegance in her oversize white linen shirt and slender jeans. A smooth turquoise medallion framed in ornate silver hung from a chain around her neck, a vivid splash of color against the warm honey shade of her skin. There were bracelets on her wrists, rings on her fingers. Her feet were as narrow and slim as the rest of her and cased in pale blue flats that tapered into points at her toes. She looked relaxed, sitting there with her legs crossed at the knee, one flat dangling. She looked as if she belonged on Abby’s sofa. She had even pushed the bed linen Abby slept under to the opposite end.

  “How did you get in?” Abby demanded.

  Sondra held up a key.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Nick gave it to me.”

  “I doubt it,” Abby said, because she didn’t want to imagine that he would do something so unconscionable, so heartless. “You need to leave. Now.”

  “I will when you give me Nick’s jacket.”

  Abby stared, nonplussed.

  “You took it,” Sondra sat forward. “Out of my cabin the day you came there with Hank. I want it back.”

  “I saw you!” In her mind’s eye, Abby recalled the view from the cabin’s back window, the fringe of woods, the figure she’d seen slipping among the trees.

  “I nearly froze my ass off waiting for you to leave.”

  “Well, that’s not my problem. Please, go.”

  “Nick gave the jacket to me,” Sondra said matter-of-factly. “It’s mine now.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  Sondra grinned smugly and reached for her purse, a huge soft-sided tote, the same shade of blue leather as her flats, and pulled it onto her lap.

  Watching her fish through the contents, Abby wondered in a distracted corner of her mind what she was hunting for.

  “You met Kim, right?” Sondra glanced up at Abby. “Hank’s idiot of a sister? She’d love to see me committed, or better yet, dead. But never mind that. I’ve been in here before, did you know?”

  There was a spark of glee in Sondra’s voice now, as if she were pleased to announce this, to share the good news. But something else was swimming in her expression, too. Something darker and frayed.

  Unbalanced. The word appeared in Abby’s mind. Her heart paused. She held up her cell phone. “Leave. Now. Or I’m calling the police.”

  “Oh, I know how angry you must be.”

  “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

  “Really. Well, I know what happened to Nick and your daughter. I was there.”

  Abby’s breath left her; she felt as if she’d been blindsided. “Tell me,” she said, and her need to know, that had haunted her for months, was as searingly hot as it had been when it had been fresh. Nothing else mattered; nothing else was in her mind. Shaking, she dropped her cell phone onto a side table and gripped her arms above her elbows.

  “It wasn’t my fault.” Sondra was maddeningly cool.

  “What wasn’t? Screwing my husband? Involving my daughter in your dirty affair? Driving her off a cliff? Which?”

  “I don’t particularly care for your—”

  “Oh, my God! It was you, wasn’t it?” Abby was struck by a fresh realization. “Those times on the phone, when I thought it was Lindsey, it was you pretending to be her.” Abby didn’t know how she knew; she just did, that the phone calls she had believed in and treasured for the hope they brought her had been a prank just as Jake had suggested. There had never been a chance of finding Lindsey alive, never a moment when Abby might have saved her. “How could you be so cruel?”

  If Sondra heard Abby or cared, she didn’t respond. She was intent on her search through the contents of her purse, muttering to herself. Then, suddenly, her hands stilled, and she looked up and smiled unnervingly.

  Abby’s heart stalled; a tendril of fear hooked her spine. “You should go now,” she said.

  But Sondra remained where she was, blandly smiling, as if the upturned corners of her mouth were secured by a series of tiny hidden stitches. “I wanted Nick to tell you about us,” she said. “I hated always having to sneak around. That’s partly why I came today. I want Nick’s jacket, but I also thought you, of all people, deserved to know the truth. I mean, we both loved him, right?—and he’s dead now.”

  She lifted one hand in a vague gesture, kept the other hidden inside the purse. Abby looked there as if she might see through its leather walls. Something was going on, something worse than seemed apparent.

  “Of course, you had him longer than me. I didn’t even know who he was until the Helix Belle case came to trial.”

  Abby remembered Hank telling her how obsessed Sondra had been with the case.

  “When I saw him the first time in action in the courtroom, I was amazed. Mesmerized. He had such a—a—” She looked away, and, bringing her fingertips to her mouth, she apologized. She said she could scarcely speak of him without losing her composure.

  A fresh wave of panic broke in Abby’s mind. Her ears were ringing and she wondered if she was in some kind of shock. Otherwise, wouldn’t she do something? Pick up her phone and call 911? But she had a sense that Sondra could go off at the slightest provocation. She looked relaxed enough, sitting there on the sofa. She might have been a neighbor who had dropped in for a short visit, but there was a kind of tension in her posture, a certain hyper alert quality about her that struck Abby as unnatural. And there was her hand tucked into her purse.

  Abby was awfully afraid of what might be hidden there; she didn’t want to think about it, the possibility that Sondra had brought a gun into the house. It couldn’t be. People—ordinary people—didn’t do that.

  Sondra said, “I was there for him every day of that trial, every day court was in session, but you—you,” she repeated with sharp disgust, “only managed to come for the closing arguments. Nick said you had no interest in his career, that you mainly saw him as a paycheck.”

  “He wouldn’t have said that.” Abby defended herself without thinking.

 
“Did you even know the man?” Sondra set her purse aside, and Abby’s worry over it eased a bit. She eyed her cell phone.

  “I tried to save him when those bastards accused him of stealing the settlement money. I did everything I could. I went to everyone I knew—the mayor, the district attorney. I called the governor. Nick didn’t want me intervening on his behalf, but somebody had to.” She scooted to the edge of the sofa, bracing her elbows on her knees. “Judge Payne fired me over it.”

  Hank had said Sondra quit her job. Had he lied or was Sondra lying now? Abby looked at her. She fiddled with her bracelets.

  “People never want to face the truth,” she said. “Have you noticed? Even the judge said he was letting me go because I was unreliable. The asshole suggested I get help, but the truth is that he disapproved of my relationship with Nick, our—” Sondra touched her upper lip delicately with the tip of her tongue as if, unlike Abby, she couldn’t bring herself to say it, the word “affair.”

  How did I not know, Abby wondered. How could I have been so blind? She remembered her impatience with Nick and his mood swings, and her decision to leave it alone. This, too, shall pass. But maybe on a deeper level she had known there was something more beyond the trouble with Helix Belle. Now that she thought about it, Nick had been cleared of suspicion within a matter of days. Less than two weeks had passed when Helix withdrew its allegations, yet his moodiness had dragged on through the holidays, into spring. He’d not been himself on the day he left for the Hill Country.

  Sondra said getting fired was probably the best thing that could have happened to her. It had forced her to leave Hank, she said, to open her design business. It sickened Abby to listen to her go on about her intention to divorce Hank and marry Nick. Sondra mentioned the sale of the cabin, that Nick had promised to help her arrange it. “There would have been enough money then that we could have gone anywhere and started over. I wanted that desperately,” Sondra said. “I tried to explain it to Nick, that he couldn’t—” She broke off.