She's Not There

by P J Parrish

  “I did a lot of things,” he said. “But no more. It’s over.”

  Tears welled in Megan’s eyes, but unlike all the other times she had cried for him, he felt no sympathy. He just wanted her gone.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

  She brushed her hair from her face. “That’s the problem with you, Alex. You’re always sorry.”

  She grabbed her trench coat and purse and left the office.

  He stood there for a moment and then reached for the vodka bottle to refill his glass. After slugging it down, he sat back in his chair and opened the scrapbook.

  Mel had looked so different then, her hair the color of brown November leaves, her eyes the color of pale tea. He thought back again to that moment in the car in Georgia, how Buchanan’s eyes had lingered on Mel’s picture before he handed it back over the car seat.

  Buchanan’s words came back to him, too, what he had said about Mel.

  She’s a different woman. And you’re going to have to be a different man to get her back.

  The bastard was right. Things had to change. He had to change. Ending the affair with Megan was just the first step. He wasn’t sure what else he needed to do but he did know one thing—that he would do whatever he needed to get Mel back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  As Buchanan swiped his room key against the lock, his thoughts were still on Megan McCall and how she’d sounded when they had talked in the bar. Could a daughter’s voice have any more venom in it when she spoke about her father?

  Since then, he had been trying hard not to think about his own daughter, but Owen McCall’s words kept coming back to him, what the man had said in the darkness of the car back in Georgia.

  A daughter who by all accounts hates you because she thinks you killed her mother and baby brother.

  Buchanan set his canvas bag on the desk, then dropped down onto the bed, thinking now about Gillian.

  She had been only six when it happened. But she was eleven now, old enough to feel the ache of a mother’s absence, old enough to listen to the lies poured into her head by Rayna’s parents, and old enough to believe that someone had to pay.

  In the rational part of his brain, he knew the courts would probably be on his side. The idea of repressed memory, especially in children, had been dismissed repeatedly by the courts in the last ten years. The doctors even had a new name for it—false memory syndrome. A memory, especially if it was fed by outside forces, might be factually wrong.

  But the person, especially a girl, could still believe that it was true and carry it in her scarred heart for the rest of her life.

  His phone pinged with an incoming text. He was tempted to ignore it, but finally he rose slowly and grabbed the phone off the desk. It was from Pitts, his lawyer in Nashville.

  indictment coming 15 days

  Buchanan deleted the text. It took almost all that was left of his energy, but he pushed Gillian’s face from his mind and let Amelia’s take its place. There was no time for anything now but doing his job. He didn’t have much time to find her. He had to get this over with.

  Using his iPhone, he scrolled through his e-mails, looking for something about his payment from Owen McCall, but there was nothing. He was about to delete the e-mail from someone named HKarmon.nybc@gmail.com when he read the subject line: INQUIRY EX DANCER. He called it up:

  Dear Mr. Buchanan,

  Elise Cummings in our administrative office forwarded me your inquiry regarding Carol Fairfield. I researched our records going back as far as 20 years and found no such person ever listed as a dancer for the New York City Ballet. You might check with other companies in . . .

  He threw the phone to the bed in frustration. His check of Amelia’s Amex bills for the last five years revealed she bought a ticket to Minneapolis every August. If she wasn’t visiting Carol Fairfield, why had she lied to both her husband and Joanna McCall about it?

  His eyes drifted to the cardboard box sitting in the corner. He went to it, hoisted it up, and emptied the contents onto the bed. Amelia’s past tumbled out onto the bedspread—the kids books, the yearbook, clothing, the plastic flamingo, ballet shoes. Photographs fluttered out of the Capezio shoebox, clutter spilled from the plastic jewelry box, and the envelopes from Afghanistan slipped from their blue-ribbon binding down onto the carpet.

  Buchanan stood staring at the mess for a long time, his anger and frustration building. He let it roll over him like a wave and when it finally receded, he sat down on the edge of the bed.

  He scooped up a handful of photographs, but he had been through them already and found nothing helpful, just family snapshots of Amelia, her brother, and some of her mother.

  He tossed the pictures to the bed and looked down at the floor. Ben’s letters were scattered at his feet, and Buchanan felt a pang of guilt, like he had somehow desecrated a soldier’s grave. He began to gather the envelopes together but paused when he noticed a single postcard. He picked it up, staring at the front. It was an old picture, like from the fifties, and showed people wading into a lake. There was a white diagonal band that read GREETINGS FROM ARNOLDS PARK.

  He turned it over, recognizing the half-printed, half-cursive handwriting from Amelia’s Day Runner.

  Bennie: I found this old postcard in Mom’s things and thought you’d get a kick out of it. Summer feels like a lifetime ago. Am going to see The Bird next month. Stay safe. Love, your Mellie.

  It had no stamp on it. Why hadn’t Amelia sent it? Then he noticed the date she had written—July 2011. He remembered that her brother had died that same month, so that was likely the reason the card was never mailed. He stared at the date. July . . . which meant Amelia was planning to visit “The Bird” in August. Did that have anything to do with her annual trips to Minneapolis? And what the hell was The Bird?

  He flipped the card back to the front. Arnolds Park . . .

  He went to his desk and fired up his Acer. It was the first entry that came up in Google.

  HOME | ARNOLDS PARK AMUSEMENT PARK

  www.arnoldspark.com/

  Arnolds Park

  On the shores of beautiful Lake Okoboji sits Arnolds

  Park Amusement Park a unique destination for summer fun.

  Shit . . .

  He hurried back to the bed and dug until he found the old blue T-shirt. The writing on the front said UNIVERSITY OF OKOBOJI. Clutching the T-shirt, he went back to his laptop and Googled “University of Okoboji.” It took him to a souvenir store called “Three Sons” in the town of Arnolds Park that sold the shirts for novelties. When he typed “Okoboji” into Google Maps, he found the lake was in northern Iowa, a five-hour drive north from Morning Sun. His brain was firing fast now, and he typed “Minneapolis” in the Google directions box. It was only a three-hour drive south from Minneapolis to the lake.

  He sat back in the chair, staring at the Google map. Amelia flew to Minneapolis every August but it wasn’t to see the non-existent Carol Fairfield. It was to go to this lake. But why?

  He looked down at the other things on the bed. There had to be something here he was missing.

  And then he saw it. The jewelry that had spilled from the plastic box lay in a tangle. It looked to be just the normal cheap junk a teenage girl might keep except . . .

  There was an ornate gold brooch in the shape of a peacock, the tail set with colored gemstones. And a second pin, a big gaudy red and green parrot. He picked them both up. They were not the kind of things a teenage girl would wear. They were old-lady pins.

  Am going to see The Bird next month.

  The Bird wasn’t a thing. It was a person. He had no clue who it might be and no way of knowing how much of Amelia’s memory had returned. But if The Bird was someone she was compelled to visit every August, someone she needed to lie about, then the connection might be powerful enough to cut through the fog of amnesia and pull Am
elia to go there now.

  It was a long shot, but he had to trust his instincts. He slipped the bird pins in his pocket and began to put the rest of Amelia’s past back into the cardboard box.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Dolly dropped her off in West Memphis, Arkansas, at a gas station near the exit ramp. The bus station was only a few blocks away, so Amelia grabbed a coffee and walked along a boulevard of small factories, convenience stores, and empty storefronts.

  At the bus station, she almost wanted to cry when she discovered there were no buses to Morning Sun. The woman behind the counter suggested that Amelia rent a car from a Klinger’s Klunkers, a place down the street owned by a man named Ed Klinger who offered use of his rust-bucket cars for a few dollars a day.

  She knew she couldn’t rent a car without a credit card, but as she stood outside the bus station in the wind, sipping her coffee, it occurred to her that maybe Ed Klinger would sell her one of his junkers for the right amount of cash.

  And he did. A 1998 red Impala for five hundred dollars, the bill of sale and title paperwork made out to Amelia Brody without question. Another five hundred bucks persuaded Klinger to leave the license plate on the car.

  “If you get stopped by the cops, just tell them I forgot to take the plate off,” Klinger said, handing her the keys.

  “I won’t get stopped,” she said.

  He just nodded as he tugged his ball cap tighter down on his head. “The doors don’t lock, and the trunk latch is broken,” he told her.

  “That’s okay,” she said as she got behind the wheel.

  He leaned into the open window. “You plan on driving far?”

  It was almost five hundred miles and seven hours to Morning Sun. “No,” she lied.

  “Good. The tires ain’t so good either.” Ed Klinger paused, giving her a stare that wasn’t unkind. “You be careful, missy.”

  It was snowing when Amelia turned off Highway 61 and began her last mile to Morning Sun. The flat land was littered with crushed cornstalks and the sun was a blurry white glow behind frosted-glass clouds. The landscape held only a vague sense of familiarity for her, something she found disheartening. She had hoped, when she crossed the state line, when she started seeing farms and barns and water towers, everything would come rushing back.

  A sign came into view, and Amelia slowed the Impala to a crawl, squinting into the snow flurries to read it.

  South Blair Street.

  She turned right, into a neighborhood of big leafless trees and a long row of wood-frame homes. Her heart started racing. She knew this street.

  The house on the corner—the one with the blue shutters—that had been where Mrs. Addison lived with her daughter Margie who had Down syndrome. And the next house . . . that was owned by an old man who had called the cops on her and Ben for stealing apples from his yard.

  Then, as the trees parted, she saw an open field with goalposts and beyond that a big brick building. She hit the brakes, overwhelmed with memories: a band playing off-key, laughing faces around a bonfire, blue and gold streamers in a dimly lit gym, and her pink junior-prom dress, the one she had found at Kohl’s in Burlington. For a while, she couldn’t move, but finally, as the swell of emotions waned, her eyes settled on the sign on the yellow lawn—Crusade High School.

  I was here. I existed here. And I know now where I need to go.

  She made a right turn, then a left onto Kearney Street. The vision of the house—her house—was crystal clear in her head even before she stopped the Impala on the side of the street. And it hadn’t changed at all. A double-peaked A-frame home, painted burgundy with white shutters, surrounded by a large porch. Her gaze swung up to the second-floor windows, and she knew that her bedroom was the one to the left, the one with the green curtains. Her curtains had been . . . pink.

  But who was here now? Her mother?

  For a week, she’d been living with the feeling that her mother was alive, but suddenly the certainty of that was gone, replaced by an overpowering feeling of loss, like her brain was trying to prepare her for something.

  Drawing a deep breath, she got out of the car and walked to the front door and knocked. When the door swung open, the heaviness inside her deepened. This woman was large, with black curly hair and small brown eyes that squinted hard at the stranger at her door.

  “Hello,” Amelia said softly.

  “What can I do for you, miss?”

  “This might sound silly, but can I ask you, I mean, could you tell me if . . .”

  God, she didn’t know her maiden name.

  “I’m looking for a woman who used to live here,” Amelia said.

  “You mean Barbara Bloodworth?”

  She had a name. She had a mother.

  “Yes, that’s her.”

  “Why you trying to find her?” the woman asked.

  “She’s my mother and I . . .” She faltered and cleared her throat. “We lost track of each other many years ago.”

  “Oh, well,” the woman said, shifting her weight. “I hate to be the one to tell you this but Mrs. Bloodworth . . . your mother . . . she died about five years back.”

  Amelia put a hand to the doorjamb to steady herself.

  “Are you okay?”

  Amelia nodded slowly. “Did you . . . did you know my mother?”

  The woman shook her head. “This house was empty for a long time. I bought the place last summer for a little more than the taxes that was due. I’m sorry.”

  Amelia stepped to the side, trying to see beyond the woman. But the living room was dark and it gave out a fusty closed-up smell. The woman started to close the door.

  “Wait, please,” Amelia said. “Do you know where her son might be? His name is Ben.”

  “I don’t know anything about him, sorry.”

  Again, the woman tried to close the door.

  “May I come in for a few minutes?” Amelia asked.

  “In my house?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “No, I’m sorry, miss. My husband’s been real sick and I don’t really think it would be a good idea. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Wait—”

  The door closed with a soft click. Amelia stood there for a moment and then returned to her car. Tears burned in her eyes, but she angrily wiped at her face and started the engine. She would see her mother the only way she could—at the cemetery. And when she realized that she knew exactly where the cemetery was, a wave of hope returned. As hard as this trip had been, her past was re-forming. She was getting better.

  Elmwood Cemetery was in the northwest corner of town, backdropped by fallow snow-crusted cornfields that stretched to the horizon. She drove a short distance inside the gates, then got out of the car and looked around, pulling the collar of her sweater coat up against the cold wind.

  Her head was filled with fragmented memories of a graveside service held under a cold white sun not so long ago. Had she been here for her mother’s funeral? Yes, she remembered that now. She remembered, too, that she had stayed in the house on Kearney Street for weeks, tending to her mother before she died. And she remembered that they had been alone there.

  Amelia stood still for a moment, unsure which direction to walk, then decided to trust her instincts.

  The wind grew stronger, kicking up leaves that skittered around her feet. She tucked her cold hands inside her sweater pockets and kept walking, her eyes constantly moving across the gray rows of headstones. Then she saw the name—BLOODWORTH.

  She moved slowly toward it. It was a plain square headstone, the granite weathered from the hard winters, but the letters were clear.

  George Miller Bloodworth

  1942–1994

  A pit formed in Amelia’s stomach as the first image of her father pushed forward in her brain. A tall skeletal man sitting alone in the sha
dows of the living room, his face a blue-gray mask in the reflected light of the television, his long gnarled fingers wrapped around a shot glass filled with Old Crow bourbon.

  Don’t bother your father, Amelia. He’s in one of his moods.

  Amelia wanted to look away from the name on the headstone, uncomfortable with the memories and sensations, but she knew she had to do this; she had to remember it all.

  You’re getting fat as the pigs. Going to have to start calling you Jelly-Belly.

  A wash of humiliation warmed her face. Here she was, a grown woman, and those words—suddenly familiar words—still hurt. She closed her eyes, but her father’s voice kept coming.

  We can’t afford them damn dance lessons, Barb. She’ll have to quit.

  And her mother’s voice, quavering but with a strange ferocity. She needs to keep going, George. She loves it and she’s good at it.

  Amelia opened her eyes and let her gaze move to the next stone, new enough to still have a shine on its granite face.

  Barbara Martin Bloodworth

  1946–2009

  More memories moved in, unclear but powerful. Her mother’s light brown hair and sad hazel eyes. The sharp jut of her shoulder blades beneath a thin yellow dress as she hung white sheets on a clothesline. A single word came to Amelia as she thought of her mother . . . enduring. Enduring the starkness of a house where quarters were hoarded in Mason jars and small comforts were found in the shelves of the town library and the pews of the Baptist Church. Enduring an unaffectionate husband who spent his days dulling his misery with whiskey while he stared out at the walls of cornfields that edged their lives.

  With the memories came a new heaviness. Was it guilt? She had been here during her mother’s illness, but was that all? Had she done anything to make her mother’s life better after her father was gone? Had she left this place and run away? Yes, she remembered that now. She had left to go to New York to study ballet. But what about after that? Had she ever come back here to visit? Had she ever brought her mother to that grand pink house in Fort Lauderdale?