“Seems like.”
“You’ve got yourself into some risky situations before without knowing you were in danger. Most recently with Gary Conklin.”
“And yet, I’m still here.” I patted my chest, belly thighs. "All intact."
He rolled his eyes.
“Look, does it matter? I’m gonna do this, either way. We have to untangle this mess. For Jeremy’s sake.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
We finally got our food. I found a relatively empty space in the parking lot, and shut the motor off. I felt the uncomfortable and unusual tension between us and I hated it. Eventually, I said, “What are we gonna do about Jeremy, anyway?”
“The drinking,” he said, like it wasn’t a question.
“No. Not the drinking. The drinking is easy. We kick his ass all the way to rehab if he takes another sip. He’s not gonna throw his life away on booze. That’s a no-brainer. It will not be tolerated, that’s all.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” Mason muttered.
“I meant, his questions about his father. I think you have to tell him the truth about Eric, Mason.”
His eyes widened so much I wondered if I’d sprouted antlers. “Rachel, if writing about his mother sent him into a binge, what do you think finding out his father was a serial killer is going to do to him?”
“I think he already knows. Or has a pretty good idea. I think it’s the uncertainty bothering him. That and the fact that the person he trusts most in the world is keeping the truth from him.”
He looked at his burger, then dropped it back into its box.
“You always knew it was going to have to come out someday, Mason. Secrets like this can’t stay buried. He’s gonna be a cop. If he doesn’t ruin his life first. Sooner or later he’s going to dig into this and find out on his own. And I’m betting on sooner. Don’t you think it’s better coming from you?”
He took a breath, sighed it out again, shook his head. “I’ll talk to him.” Then he looked at me sharply. “Not Josh.”
“Hell, no. Josh is too young.”
He nodded again. “Okay. I’ll do it tonight.”
“Maybe arrange an overnight for Josh with Hunter, so you can have time alone with him, since I won’t be home to run interference.” I unwrapped my burger, and bit in. The fries’ temperature window had closed. I sucked a swig of my shake through the foldable metal straw I kept in my purse, a gift from Misty. Then I checked my watch. “We need to get moving.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cause I want to be at Dilmun Elementary when the teachers leave for the day.”
He looked at me and his eyes said, I don’t like this one bit, and mine replied, I didn’t say you had to like it.
I needed to get this thing done. We needed it done. It was tearing our perfect little family to hell and gone.
12
“U still ok?” The text was from Mason.
I was parked in my crossover, because it was less conspicuous than the T-bird even though it was burnt orange, outside a Methodist church all the way out in Endwell. Ivy had gone inside, and so had five other women.
I was nervous as hell and watching everyone around me. I’d just had an anonymous call from someone who said she thought I should know Gary Conklin was missing. He’d been in-patient since his return to Binghamton on the social worker’s recommendation, but this morning, they’d released him. He was stable on his meds, and doing everything he was supposed to. You know, make your bed, take a shower, pick up your room. The way violent psych patients can demonstrate their sanity these days is equivalent to the way an 8-year-old earns his allowance. Except the mental patient can go home and buy a gun after. Great system.
The informant said someone had found Gary’s meds in the trash can near the exits. I was kind of scared shitless.
“I’m fine,” I texted back. “Ivy went into a church. Looks like an AA meeting sort of thing. Weird she comes this far, though. I’m going in.”
“She’ll see u.”
“No. She won’t.” I silenced the phone and pocketed it. I was wearing that perky little visor, but that would look odd indoors, without sun. So would the sunglasses. I left the shades on anyway, and as a last resort, ditched the visor and grabbed Josh’s Maroon baseball hat off the back seat, Whitney Point Eagle and all. Not even a little conspicuous, right? I stuffed my hair all up inside it. Then I went to the red double doors on the side of the beautiful stone church and walked in as the other women had done.
A hallway that only went one direction led me deeper into the building. Rooms with doors lined it. Most were closed, a few were open, one was a restroom, but all felt empty. Voices, the sounds of scraping chairs, and the smell of bad coffee wafted from the end of the hall where it formed a T. There were two entrances on the facing wall. One led into the room where the women were pulling their chairs into a circle. The other was closed, and closer to me. I ducked around the corner, and holding my breath, opened that door.
Storage closet. Score.
I ducked inside, pulled it closed, and listened. I could hear them in the meeting room. A second door in this closet led directly into the room where the women had gathered.
“So glad everyone could come,” someone said. She had a good voice, strong, but soft at the same time. An approachable voice. “How’s everyone’s week been?”
“Mine sucked,” someone said. “So much in the news triggers me. All this Me, Too stuff.”
If Me, Too was a trigger, then these women were survivors of sexual assault. My brain put that together as quick as a eureka! finger-snap.
“I love the Me, Too stuff,” another woman said. “Don’t you feel like it’s about time?”
“I feel like, why the hell didn’t I have the gall to say something when it happened to me? Why didn’t any of us?”
It wasn’t time then, I thought. Too few of us were woke. Now the scale’s starting to tilt the other way.
“It makes you feel ashamed for not speaking up,” the first woman said. I took her to be the group leader. “But how many eight-year-olds do you see speaking out against their parents, even now?”
Eight-year-olds? Oh my God, they’re survivors of childhood sexual assault.
So…Ivy was sexually assaulted as a child?
My stomach tied itself into a knot. I imagined her aquamarine eyes in a little girl’s face. I heard giggles, glimpsed pigtails, and wanted to vomit. Suddenly her closeness to a wealthy old man took on a sinister hue.
“Children aren’t strong enough to speak out.” I recognized Ivy’s voice, and it reminded me that she’d survived. She was okay. You know, aside from possibly being a vigilante serial killer. Serial vigilante killer. Whatever.
“That’s why it’s so vital that the adults in their lives protect them,” she went on. “And I think for the most part, we do a crappy job of that in our society.”
“You never did anything wrong,” said the leader, refocusing on the woman who felt guilty for not speaking out against her childhood abuser. “Not one single thing you did was wrong. Telling isn’t wrong. Not telling isn’t wrong."
Another woman said, "But abusing children is wrong. There’s no redemption for it. There’s no cure for it. No surgery, no medication that can make it go away. There’s no sentence long enough and no God forgiving enough. Not for that. It was his fault. Every single part of it was entirely his fault. It was never your fault.”
She sounded angry. I wished I knew who she was.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Everyone repeated. They said it several times, all in unison. I heard chairs scraping, footsteps, some sniffling. I think they were hugging her.
My eyes burned, and I couldn’t swallow for a minute.
There was muttering, kind of hard to distinguish as several small conversations broke out between individuals. It felt like they were taking a break.
“Where’s Gloria?” I heard Ivy ask. “Why isn’t she here?”
No one seemed to have an answer. I tapped my phone to light it up, typed a note to myself. Find out who Gloria is. Then I noticed my surroundings in that muted glow and switched to the Flashlight app to take a look around. Folding chairs. Folding tables. Brooms and mops. A big Tupperware tray with a tight-fitting cover stood on a shelf beside stacks of paper plates, napkins, a giant can of cheap coffee, foam cups, and a two-gallon jug of Hi-C, fruit punch flavor.
I could see storing everything in a closet except for the cookies. That didn’t make any sense at all.
As if in response to my thoughts (that’s how it works, folks, it’s not coincidence), one woman said, “These cookies are fantastic.”
“That reminds me,” said the leader, and her chair scraped. “I have a batch of peanut butter, too.” I heard her footsteps coming nearer. The footsteps stopped. I clicked the phone to douse its light, moving quickly to the door I’d come in by. But there wasn’t time to duck out. That second door was opening. There was nowhere to hide. So, I just bent my knees and dropped into a crouch so deep I worried about leaving organs on the floor. I pressed my face to my knees and held my breath.
I heard rattling, breathing, then the door swung closed again.
I lifted my head. Door, closed. Cookies, gone.
Holy shit that was close.
Too close, Inner Bitch.
I ducked out of that closet so fast I was surprised I didn’t knock things over, and headed back up the hallway to the exit. I heard heels tapping behind me, too close to not see me, unless they were blind like I used to be. I didn’t look back, though. Just went right out the double doors, up the sidewalk and crossed the street.
I’d parked in a space on the opposite side of the road, and I headed for my car, but didn’t get in. I sat on the curb beside it, instead, completely out of sight, but with a view of the stone church. It would’ve been stunning by itself. But instead it was wedged in between The Corner Cigar Store on one side, and a brick building currently housing an insurance agency on the first floor and a lawyer’s office on the second. I watched the red doors to see if anyone came out looking for me. Seconds ticked by.
But no one emerged. Then something moved in the glass part of the door, and I swore a blue streak. She’d been looking out the window, whoever she was. One of the members? The leader? Ivy, herself? Someone had been looking out the window. Had I made it to my cover before she’d cupped her hand to the glass? Or had she seen me, and therefore my car. Had she jotted down the plate number?
Normal people don’t go around jotting down plate numbers, Rachel, Inner Bitch pointed out. That’s more a you thing.
That’s what living with a cop will do for you.
There was no more sign of anyone looking at me, and I breathed. It felt like the first time since the closet.
It had turned gloomy while I’d been inside. The sun hadn’t set, but it was hiding behind a thick bank of clouds, and a stiff breeze was whipping up dead leaves along the sides of the pavement. The entire length of the short side street had parking spaces along one side, angling outward from the curb. Anyone going into that support group would probably have parked there, just as I had. Just as Ivy had.
I got upright again, and looked at the cars parked side by side, their asses facing the church, and their noses, the little park at my back. It had a couple of benches and a fountain.
There were five cars besides mine and Ivy’s. I took out my phone, and walked the edge of the park, snapping shots of all five license plates. Breech of privacy? No doubt about it, but it wasn’t like I was going to out them on social.
Were they watching me?
I couldn't tell a thing by looking at the church. Its windows were black mirrors. Unless someone moved, I didn’t think I’d know if anyone was on the other side, looking out. On top of that, the meeting might let out any second.
I took a pic of the final plate, then jogged around the cigar store’s corner. There was a bench there and a Bus Stop sign. I sat on the bench, and I texted the photos to Mason.
“We need names, addies.”
He texted back, “Why?”
“Later.”
Every inch of me was yearning to check the car doors, starting with Ivy’s and go through the shit inside the unlocked ones. See if anyone was carrying a homemade garotte with braided picture wire. I wasn’t going to do that, though. It was broad daylight. People were walking and driving past. I pocketed my phone and went to look back around the corner.
The church door was open and the women were coming out. I pulled Josh’s baseball cap down lower and leaned on the building like I belonged there. I could hear them talking, female voices, low and confidential. Not loud and laughing like when I hang out with my friends.
What friends? Inner Bitch asked.
You. And you know, Sandra and the girls, and Amy.
Sister. Nieces. Employee.
And friends. Stop being so literal.
You should snap pics of these friends, my alter ego suggested softly inside my head.
I leaned around the corner for another glance. Three had emerged and stood on the sidewalk talking. I had a full-face view of two of them, and I snapped a quick shot. Another came out and I snapped again. The third one turned my way and I snapped. She saw me, and I moved my phone around, like an idiot looking for a signal. By the way, holding your phone as high as your arm can reach will never give you more bars. Still, I did that, and turned and walked out of sight. I entered the cigar store, and pretended to browse until they’d all driven away. Then I went back to my Crosstrek and pointed it toward home.
My phone, face-up on the seat beside me, lit up. Sandra.
I smiled and poked the button on the dash to answer hands-free. “I was just thinking of you.”
“Good. I like when you’re thinking of me. What were you thinking?” Sandra asked.
“I was counting my women friends–”
“What women friends?”
“You, among others.”
“I’m your sister.”
Told you so.
Shut up, Inner Bitch.
“Jim wants to cook steaks for dinner Saturday. You want to come over?”
“Sure. Unless you want to do it at my place.”
“He was hoping you’d offer.”
“I know he was. Why wouldn’t he? I have a lake.”
“It’s not your lake.”
“It is in my head.”
“I bet it is. How’s Jere? And why did I have to hear about all the drama from my daughter? He punched a professor who later went missing, and was taken to the police department for questioning?”
“Misty buried the lead. He’s drinking again.”
“Holy fu–dgesicles.”
“Yeah. He’s home. I think his on-campus living days are over for a while.”
“You can’t make him live with you forever, sis.”
“Who says?”
She sighed. “He has to learn how to deal with this on his own.”
“Why? He has us.”
“Arguing with you is hard work.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t do it. How are things? How are the trouble twins?”
“Senioritis. They don’t want to go to school, they don’t want to stay once they get there. They don’t want to do anything. Mentally, they’re done. All Christie wants to do is party with her friends, and the justification for it is, ‘I might never see them again after June.’”
“It’s only September.”
“I’ve pointed that out. It hasn’t helped.”
“And Misty?”
“Wants to hurry up and graduate so she can go to college. I’d be excited about that, except she could care less about college. To her, going to BU is something like her and Jere moving in together. She says she’s not even applying to any other schools.”
“And this is why men have been in charge for so long. Women are idiots until thirty-five.”
“Um, AOC?”
“A rare exception,” I
replied. “She’s gonna be president someday.”
“Twenty twenty-eight,” Sandra said. “If we haven’t all gone extinct by then.”
“Amen, sister.”
“So what’s up with this missing professor?”
“We’re looking into it.”
“Well, duh. What are you finding out?”
“Nothing yet, other than that Jeremy had nothing to do with it.” I knew more than that, and she knew I knew more than that. But she didn’t ask. I’d driven around the block, and spotted Ivy’s old Subaru at a traffic light. I followed from three cars back, until I was sure she was going home. I mean, there’s not much else on the way to Dilmun. Less than there is on the way to Whitney Point, even, which is why I love it.
“I’m not…comfortable with Misty being around him when he’s drinking,” Sandra said. “I can tell you that because you’re my sister. I know you love Jeremy, but–”
“If she dumps him, he brought it on himself. I’ve got no sympathy for this, Sandra. Mason’s all, ‘but it’s a disease,’ and I just call bullshit on that. It’s a choice. Period.”
“Not everyone’s as strong as you are.”
“Everyone is as strong as they choose to be. Not everything I write is bullshit, you know. And hey, I’m on your side here. I don’t like him seeing her when he’s drinking, either. "
“Easier to put a halt to a runaway train than a pair of lovesick teenagers.”
“I can guarantee you he’s not drinking now. He's home where we can keep an eye on him. And he knows how badly he fucked up."
She sighed. “I hope he can beat it."
“Me, too.”
“Maybe he should consider therapy,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that’s the agreed-upon norm in these situations, isn’t it?"
"We’ll talk before Saturday. Love you, Rache.”
"Love you, too." I hit the end call button on my dash and pressed the accelerator harder, eager to get home. I swear I must be getting old. Were you old when home was your favorite place to be?
Not old. Just lucky. Very, very lucky.
13
The guys had already eaten and were engaged in a raucous video game battle by the time I dragged my sorry ass home. I walked in with a box of donuts I’d picked up at Dunkin to ease my guilt for missing dinner.
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