Undercover in Copper Lake

by Marilyn Pappano - Undercover in Copper Lake

  The thought sent an all-too-personal pang through Sophy. She knew how it felt to have a father who didn’t want you and a mother who couldn’t take care of you, and she wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

  She pulled a hanger holding a pastel dress from each side of the closet. Daisy’s was white with her favorite cartoon characters, while Dahlia’s was simple, a pale green shift with a forest-green ribbon that served as a belt and a three-quarter-sleeved sweater in the same shade.

  Daisy’s natural response on seeing her dress was a smile of pleasure, but after an elbow poke from Dahlia, she wiped it away and scrunched her face into a frown that matched her sister’s. “We have to wear that?” Dahlia asked.

  “Yes, you do.” Sophy hung each dress on hooks on the closet door, then gestured toward the bathroom. “Teeth, hair, dress. Go.”

  As they stomped across the hall and into the bathroom, her phone rang from the kitchen counter. Her heels made soft taps on the aged wood floor as she strode to the phone, picking it up on the fourth ring.

  “Are you skipping church again today, or did you decide to catch the later service?” her mother asked without a greeting.

  “Uh, no, Mom, we’re just running a little behind.”

  “How are the children doing?” Caution seeped through Rae Marchand’s voice. It underlaid everything she and Dad had said to Sophy from the moment she’d told them she was becoming a foster parent and that her first kids would be the five-and six-year-old Holigan girls.

  “They’re getting ready now. They’ve never been to church before, so they’re not eager for the experience. They’ve been dragging their feet.”

  I want to give back, Mom, she’d told her. Someone fostered me when I needed it, and you and Dad adopted me. I just want to pay that along.

  Rae had choked up. You’ve got a good heart, and I love you for that. But Maggie Holigan’s kids? Honey, that’s like going to buy your first kitten and coming home with a Siberian tiger. Jill Montgomery told me they’re the hardest kids she’s ever had to place. No one wants them.

  That was why Sophy wanted them: no one else did.

  “Will you be over for dinner?”

  Dinner at her parents’ house was another Sunday tradition. Her older sister, Reba, and her family always came, too—four kids who adored their aunt Sophy. Maybe they would be a good influence on Dahlia and Daisy. “I plan to, but it depends on how things go at church.” Whether the girls tried to escape, went on a rampage, maybe burned down the sanctuary. They could well be the first kids ever kicked out of Sunday school in Copper Lake and banned from returning. Even the Lord’s patience had limits.

  Matching stomps sounded in the hallway—amazing how much noise two skinny little girls could create—and Sophy’s fingers tightened. “Here they come, Mom. I’ll let you know about dinner.”

  As she laid the phone down, she watched Daisy and Dahlia enter the room. As far as she could see, they’d done as she’d instructed. Their teeth had been brushed, if the toothpaste stains on Daisy’s chin were to be trusted. Their hair was combed with zigzag parts and bangs wetted and pasted flat against their foreheads. Their dresses were on, though Dahlia’s belt hung untied from two slender loops and her sweater was askew. They even wore shoes—ratty sneakers Dahlia had brought with her and bright yellow flip-flops Daisy had fallen in love with when they went shopping.

  The best advice Sophy had been given so far: pick her battles carefully. She wasn’t going to argue about shoes.

  “Wipe your chin,” she said, handing a napkin to Daisy. “You look lovely. Let me grab my stuff and we’ll go.” She slid her cell into a pocket of her purse, handed each girl a breakfast bar and grabbed her Bible, then went to the door, undoing multiple locks, ushering them out.

  “Why’re you taking a book?” Daisy asked. “You plannin’ to read while we have to go to Sunday school?”

  Sophy blinked. “It’s a Bible.” Seeing no comprehension cross their faces, she explained, “This is the book we study at church.”

  Still no understanding. It was hard to imagine the girls having zero exposure to something as common as the Bible. Sophy had received her first one—white leather with her name embossed in gold—her first Christmas with her new family. She still had it.

  But Daisy and Dahlia were Holigans. Enough said in this town.

  It was entirely possible to live life comfortably in Copper Lake without a car, though naturally Sophy had one. Her apartment was above her quilt shop less than half a block off the downtown square. Her favorite restaurants and the businesses she primarily dealt with were within a few blocks. The house where she’d grown up and the elementary school she’d attended were along the way to church. The grocery store was a nice walk away, and living alone, she didn’t have to worry about buying more than she could carry.

  But she wasn’t alone anymore, she reminded herself as she took Daisy’s hand, waited for Dahlia to claim the other one, then headed across Oglethorpe with them. They might be skinny little girls, but they’d increased her shopping list by about 500 percent. Instead of frozen dinners and ice cream, she now had to buy milk, fruit, veggies, snacks, green and yellow and red foods, chicken fingers and hot dogs and hamburger fixings.

  It was almost like having a family of her own.

  “Why do we have to walk everywhere?” Dahlia asked, scuffing her feet along the pavement.

  Sophy kept her voice measured and calm. “I like walking.”

  “I do, too,” Daisy echoed. “It’s fun.”

  “Daisy!”

  “Sorry!”

  Dahlia’s chiding and Daisy’s apology were so habitual that their voices overlapped. They were close, not only in age but also in heart. It was a good thing, since they didn’t appear to have anyone else.

  “Daisy’s allowed to have an opinion of her own,” Sophy said, earning a scowl from the older sister.

  “We don’t walk nowhere ’less Mama don’t have the money for gas.” Daisy hopped over a crack in the sidewalk where a tree root reached for the surface, then swiped a strand of hair from her face with the hand clutching half an oatmeal bar. “When is she comin’ home this time?”

  Her chest constricting, Sophy avoided looking at either girl. They were young, but they’d experienced things no kids ever should. If she lied, they would recognize it, or at least suspect it. “I don’t know.”

  Truth was, Maggie wasn’t coming home from jail this time, not unless she had something substantial to offer the district attorney in exchange for leniency. This was the third time she’d been caught making meth in the house with the girls. With a lengthy list of previous offenses, this one would surely send her to prison.

  Before either girl could respond, Sophy gestured to a house fifty feet ahead of them. “Bet you didn’t know that’s where I lived when I was a little girl.”

  Dahlia’s look and shrug made clear her response: Bet we don’t care. Daisy, though, stared wide-eyed. “It’s got a porch. And a swing. And grass and flowers. And it’s yellow. That’s my favorite color.”

  From their time spent together in the quilt shop, Sophy had learned that Daisy’s favorite color changed on a whim. Yesterday it had been lime-green. The day before it was red stripes with purple polka dots. “I used to sit on the porch swing and pester my sister while my dad mowed the grass and my mom knitted in that rocker. We had a big ole Irish setter who stretched out across the steps, so we always had to climb over him to get in or out.”

  Her smile was a little pained. Those had been happy times, doubly precious because of the heartache she’d been through leaving North Carolina and her first family behind. She still loved her birth mother, two sisters and brother, still resented the hell out of her birth father, but she would forever be grateful to her Marchand family.

  “What’s an Irish setter?” Daisy asked.

  “A dog.”

  The girl sighed longingly. “We had a dog once. She licked my face and slept on my feet and had really stinky breath. Her name was Missy, an
’ I loved her. But she had babies, and we had to move, and Mama said she couldn’t come, so we left her behind.”

  For the hundredth time in a week, Sophy wondered how the Maggie she’d known in school had turned out to be such a poor excuse for a mother. Sure, her situation at home had been tough. She’d been born into the world with automatic strikes against her. But people could overcome their upbringings. Sophy’s sister, Miri, was a perfect example.

  When their father abandoned them to the care of their mentally ill mother, Miri, ten years old at the time, had taken charge. When the state had terminated their mother’s rights after a failed inpatient treatment, Miri managed to stay with her, doing whatever it took to survive and keep her safe. When their mother had died, Miri had buried her, mourned her and finally, for the first time ever, begun to live her life.

  Now she lived in Dallas with a job she loved and a husband she loved even more. She used her computer skills to locate men who abandoned their children and denied them support, and private investigator Dean did the rest. Just as Miri had looked out for Sophy, Chloe and Oliver when they were little, she was still looking out for kids, making their lives a little easier.

  While Maggie used drugs and drank and neglected her babies.

  “Is that it?”

  Daisy’s question was accompanied by a tug on her hand, pulling Sophy from her thoughts. She glanced up and saw her church across the street, the redbrick-and-white-wood structure glowing in the morning sun, looking solid and strong and peaceful. She hoped the girls found a measure of peace inside.

  Failing that, she hoped they didn’t destroy it.

  “Come on, kids, we’re just in time. Let’s get you to your Sunday school class.”

  * * *

  Sean let himself into Kolinski’s Auto Repair and Restoration, closed the door and walked to the middle of an empty bay before taking a deep breath. Grease, metal, paint, solvents, leather, sweat—it all smelled like home to him. As a kid, he’d spent more hours at Charlie’s Custom Rods than in school, learning the basics of car repair and restoration from Charlie himself. It had been the first practical use he’d found for fractions and the first place he’d felt safe, and he’d known then that working on old cars was what he wanted to do.

  Craig had given him the chance to do that and make decent money. This was the best garage in three states for turning old rusted heaps of junk back into the classic beauties they were meant to be, and Sean had pretty much free rein.

  Over the legal part, at least. He didn’t mess with the stolen auto parts, and he stayed hell and gone from the drugs. He was a Holigan. He didn’t need cops or pharmaceuticals to screw up his life.

  The coated concrete floor softened the sound of Craig’s footsteps, along with the running shoes he wore. He never ran, he joked, but he never knew when the sport might be required, so he was always prepared. “Some people start their days with coffee. You start yours with engine grease. You’re just not happy without it, are you?”

  You used to be the same way. When the old man had died and left the broke-down place as his only inheritance, Craig had worked hard to make a go of it. Like Sean, he’d been tinkering with cars most of his life. The work was in his blood.

  Unfortunately, it flowed with a good supply of greed. Keeping the garage in the black, building a reputation as the best, making more money than his dad had ever dreamed of—none of that had been enough for him. Once he had a taste of success, like an addict, he’d wanted more.

  He had more now. An expensive condo, a collection of restored cars whose value ran into seven figures, a weekend place near the beach, a different gorgeous woman every week, regular vacations to Atlantic Beach, Las Vegas, New York and Miami...and his own secret squad of DEA agents tracking his every move. Would he learn something when he lost it all, or would he somehow manage to skate on the charges and go on with life as usual, if more discreetly?

  “Goober said you wanted to talk.” Sean gestured toward the small door in the back that led upstairs to Craig’s big fancy office above. He didn’t need to see the bodyguard to know he was there in the shadows; one or two beefy brawler types went everywhere with Craig. He didn’t bother to see which one it was, either. He called them all Goober to keep from having to learn their names, and Craig kept them from kicking his face in for it.

  “I need you to do something for me, man.” Craig tore off a length of heavy-duty paper toweling, scrubbed the surface of the chair behind him, then tossed the paper onto its mate before sitting.

  Feeling like a puppet with everyone else pulling the strings, Sean obeyed the unspoken order and sat on the second chair. Damned if he’d clean it like a fussy old maid first. Wadding the paper, he tossed it into the nearest trash can, then laced his fingers loosely together, arms resting on his knees, waiting.

  “I know we agreed I’d leave you out of the stolen-parts business. That’s why I never told you about my other, uh, income source. I wouldn’t be telling you now except I’ve got a big problem and it involves your sister.”

  Sean had wondered if he’d be able to fake surprise when Craig brought up Maggie, but he didn’t have to fake anything. His eyes narrowed, and he felt the blood leaving his face, turning his skin pale. His lips barely moving, he said, “If you’ve gotten her involved in anything—”

  “I wouldn’t do that, man. You’re my family, and she’s your family. I would never have let anything happen. I just didn’t know about it in time.”

  Craig dragged his fingers through his hair. He paid a hundred bucks every few weeks for a haircut that always looked as if he’d just dragged his fingers through it. His shirt cost two hundred, his shoes three, his watch five grand. His jeans, on the other hand, looked a lot like Sean’s—old, faded, ragged along the hems. Maybe thirty bucks a lot of years ago.

  “Moving auto parts from the South to New York isn’t the only thing that turns big profits. I expanded into the drug market a few years back.” Craig raised his hand to head off any reaction Sean might have. “Don’t preach to me, okay? I knew you wouldn’t go for that. That’s why I kept it secret, totally separate from the garage. Anyway, my guy in Copper Lake obviously isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He hooked up with your sister—did you know she has a meth problem?” He waited long enough for Sean to shake his head grimly. “They started living together—him, her, her kids. Did you know she has kids?”

  Sean’s gut knotted, and his hands grew sweaty. That girl’s gonna be pregnant before she’s sixteen, their dad always predicted. On her sixteenth birthday, though Sean was locked up, he said his annual prayer. Don’t let her be pregnant. On her seventeenth, the prayer had been, Don’t let her get arrested. Every year since then, it had been, Let her have a better life than all those bastards in Copper Lake thought she deserved.

  A meth head with kids and a drug-dealing boyfriend.

  Apparently, God hadn’t been listening.

  “Yeah, two girls.” With two fingers, Craig pulled a photograph from his pocket and handed it across. “Pretty little things, aren’t they? Someday I’m gonna have kids. A whole houseful of ’em. I’ll join the PTA and we’ll go to church on Sunday mornings and have dinner together every evening. You know, they say kids who sit down to dinner with their parents regularly get in less trouble.”

  Sean took the picture, and his hands began to shake. Two familiar little faces—dark eyes; lank hair awkwardly cut, straight, black. The younger one grinned from ear to ear, while the older scowled, arms folded over her chest, one hip cocked and one bony knee turned out.

  They were Maggie twenty-some years ago, happy when she was younger, convinced everyone in the world loved her, sullen and put out when she was older and discovered what a lie that had been. She shone in the little girl’s face and lurked in the shadows of the older one’s.

  Craig knew when to talk and when to be quiet, and he didn’t know that Alexandra Baker had already coerced Sean into agreeing to his yet-unasked request. He waited, giving Sean plenty of time to
notice every detail in the shot. The house in the background, shabby and well-worn when he’d lived there himself. The yard, mostly bare of grass thanks to the tall pines that covered the ground with their needles. Two rusted lawn chairs, one missing a screw so it tilted drunkenly to one side, the other with a hole punched through it. The carcass of a beat-up pickup, wheels missing, balanced on cinder blocks. Birds had made nests on its dash, and the bed was half-filled with trash.

  Trash. That was what the Holigans had been for the past hundred and fifty years. Poor white trash. Drunks, fools and thieves; irresponsible, lazy and worthless, uncaring about the children they brought into the world.

  Heat ignited inside Sean, burning outward until his face gleamed with it, until it felt as if it would singe off his ears. It was fueled by anger and resentment and bitterness, but mostly shame. He was so damned ashamed of where he’d come from, who he was, what he was. Yeah, he’d gotten out; he’d escaped the town and his family and made something better for himself, but he’d left Maggie behind to ruin her life just as surely as he would have ruined his.

  He’d left her to ruin her babies’ lives.

  “So.” Craig leaned forward, hands together. “The thing is, my guy got arrested a couple weeks ago, along with Maggie. I know he’ll keep his mouth shut, but...Maggie isn’t exactly known around town for her discretion. If the D.A. offers her some sort of deal, she might tell him everything she knows.”

  After committing the two faces to his memory, Sean looked up and offered the picture back to his boss, but Craig gestured. You keep it. Sean held it carefully in one hand. “So you want me to...”

  “Impress on her the importance of staying quiet. She’s a doper, Sean, a meth head, and she’s locked up. She’d sell her soul for a little comfort. She’d sell her kids’ souls. She needs to understand how bad that would be for everyone.” Craig waited a moment before adding, “Especially those pretty little girls.”

  His skin that had been burning a moment ago cooled with the chill that exploded through him. Sean had never been any more violent than was necessary. In Copper Lake, it just wasn’t possible for a Holigan to reach eighteen without his share of fistfights, but he’d never let it go beyond self-defense. Even at twelve, fourteen, sixteen, he’d had a plan to get out, and self-control was a part of it.