Tell No One

by Taylor Sissel, Barbara

  “You didn’t have to, Ma.” Harris regrets how he sounds, as if he’s blaming her.

  “Of course I did,” she says, and her voice, although barely above a whisper, is harsh. “You’re my son, no matter what you’ve done.” She stops again, fighting for composure.

  His own throat jams. “Have you seen them, Holly or Kyle or Connor?” he asks when he can speak again.

  “I went to your house. I couldn’t believe—didn’t want to believe it when Holly called Saturday to say you’d been arrested, that you had—but then I saw Kyle, his face, with my own eyes. My God, Harris, what were you thinking? Your own son? How could you do that to him? Was it the drugs?”

  His eyes feel scalded with an unwanted threat of tears, and he raises his cuffed wrists, pinching the bridge of his nose to stop them.

  “Oh, Harris.” His mother’s sorrow breathes through the words.

  He can’t look at her.

  When he lowers his hands, she slides her palm over them, leaving it there. He feels her warmth seep into his knuckles. “I’ve spoken to an attorney,” she says. “He says if you’ll agree to go into rehab, you might get off with probation. You can say it was the drugs, that you were hallucinating and didn’t realize—”

  Harris locks her gaze. “It wasn’t the drugs, Mom. You and I both know—the drugs are—”

  “You take them because you’re in pain with your back.” She’s insistent, pleading with him to go along. It’s the party line, the rote excuse, and it’s bullshit. She’s got to know they can’t keep it up.

  “C’mon, Mom—” He holds her gaze, willing her to see it, how it’s eating him alive from the inside.

  Her eyes are sheened with tears, and yet she broadens her smile, which is more a terrible grimace, wrung with anguish. “I know you can get off them, Harris. Look at you now. Three days, and it’s okay, isn’t it? I know you don’t feel great, but if you can keep going, if you can stay away from them, in time, you’ll feel better, stronger. Rehab will help—”

  “No!” Harris raises his wrists and brings them down with a clatter on the table.

  The officer—Jason—comes off the wall.

  “It’s fine,” Harris tells him. He faces his mother. “I’m losing it, Mom. When Kyle came at me, I didn’t even know who he was. It scares the shit out of me when I think about it. He’s got every right to be pissed at me for doing drugs, every right to come at me, but what if the cop hadn’t shown up? Huh? What if I keep on losing it? Am I going to end up in a padded cell somewhere?”

  “Harris—”

  “Mom, please, I’m trying to tell you—” His voice breaks, and he stops, fighting to keep his cool, keep his voice down, keep it steady. “We both know what the drugs are about. I try so hard—but I can’t fight it. Look what I did to my kid—”

  “He’s hurt by all of this, Harris. Connor and Holly are too. They don’t know what’s happening to you.”

  “You aren’t listening to me—”

  “Of course I am. You need to get help.”

  “How, Mom? What kind of help?”

  “This is my fault.”

  “What?” He looks at her, nonplussed.

  “All of this.” Her arm encompasses the room. “I’m a counselor”—she thumps her chest with a closed fist—“trained to help kids in trouble, but I didn’t help you. My own son is suffering, in jeopardy, because of my mistakes. I’m afraid for you, Harris, afraid of what’s happening to you.” Tears slick her eyes; her head wobbles on her neck. “I should have known—should have realized—”

  “Don’t do this, Mom. Don’t beat yourself up.” Harris darts a glance at the guard and looks back at his mother, bending toward her, keeping her gaze. “It’ll be fine. I talked to a deputy yesterday. It’s possible I can make a deal with the DA and get off with probation.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Let’s wait to talk about it until I get out of here, okay? It’ll be a good thing, maybe.”

  She pulls in a chest full of air, swiping at her eyes, the hair at her temples, settling herself. “I hope so,” she says.

  Harris looks off into the middle distance, thinking hope is what you hang on to when you’ve got nothing else.

  19

  Caroline—Wednesday, January 17, and Thursday, January 18

  A bit over five hours after leaving her mother’s house, Caroline had reached the Hill Country and managed to get herself lost. She was parked on the darkening shoulder of some numberless, caliche-topped nowhere road, studying a road map on the screen of her cell phone when it went off, and she flinched, almost dropping it. Looking at the tiny screen, her heart almost stopped. Steve. Making the connection, she said his name out loud and then went silent, heart tapping hard against her ribs.

  “Caroline?”

  She bit her lip, stifling an urge to laugh and repeat his name, making a joke. She thought of severing the connection. Instead she said, “I think I’m lost.”

  “Are you here in the Hill Country? You said in your message—”

  “How did you get my phone number?”

  “My caller ID. You gave me your number in October. I added it to my contact list.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t remember.”

  Her face warmed. “Well, to be honest, that whole evening is something of a blur. I—I don’t usually drink like that, you know, one after the other. I was—I was kind of a wreck.” Why was she repeating this? “I’m really sorry to have been so much trouble.”

  “You weren’t any trouble. It’s fine. In fact, I’ve thought about calling you a time or two to see whether things worked out with your husband, the business.”

  “Thank you. I mean for your concern that night and, well, everything. Nothing has really changed, though.” She looked through the windshield. She was parked up against a rock outcropping, but across the road the land was flat. It might have been a meadow or a farmer’s field. There wasn’t enough light to tell.

  “I truly wish I could be of some help, but as I said before, the kind of trouble you mentioned, it’s not my field of expertise. Did you contact an attorney? I still think that’s your best bet.”

  “I remember you said that, and no, I haven’t. Actually, I was calling about another matter.”

  “You mentioned—it has to do with your dad?”

  “Yes. I could probably star with my family on reality TV.” Caroline’s laugh was short, inappropriate. She didn’t know how to interpret Steve’s silence. Fresh humiliation burned in her throat. “Never mind.” Her gaze drifted, unseeing.

  “A minute ago you said you were lost? Where are you trying to go?”

  “A little town called Lone Pine. Do you know it?”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t call it a town. There’s not much there other than a gas station, a liquor store, and a graveyard.”

  “No hotel?”

  “No. There are hotels here in Greeley. You would have gone through it a while back.”

  “I turned off 73 just north of there. I remember passing a restaurant, where a lot of eighteen-wheelers were parked.”

  “Bo Dean’s. It’s a combo truck stop / café. Terrible coffee and worse food. Lampasas might be a better option for a hotel, though. It’s not as far, maybe five or so miles on up 73, if you can get back there.”

  Lampasas. Just south of there was where Bill Devlin, the private investigator Ryan Kelly had hired, had met the truck driver and found the waitress who had both identified her dad as having been there.

  Steve spoke into her silence. “I can probably figure out where you are, try and come to you—”

  “No, that’s okay. I should go to Lampasas. I have a lead—”

  “Why don’t you tell me what this is about, Caroline? What are you looking for?”

  Not what, who. Her thought came and went. “I might have told you, I mean years ago, that summer after high school—”

  “When we dated?”

  “Yes.” She was relieved the fact was acknow
ledged at last. She couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t mentioned their prior relationship when they’d run into each other last October. Looking back at the kids they’d been, reminiscing about old times—after so many years it should have been easy. Instead she’d felt—she still felt—a kind of tension between them, even a certain wariness. But maybe her feelings were the lingering effect of her embarrassment over her behavior then.

  “When we dated,” she repeated. “I think you knew this—that I wasn’t in touch with my dad?”

  “I remember.”

  “I’ve never heard from him, no one has, not in years.” She looked through the windshield, and there, in the farthest glow from her headlights, she glimpsed a doe as it leaped across the road, and the sight caught her up in an undercurrent of subliminal joy. Closer by, dozens of moths swirled in the same light, glittering like tiny stars.

  “Have you found him?” Steve prompted.

  “Maybe. There’s a man in Lone Pine who could be him.” She rubbed her eyes and sighed. “I shouldn’t bother you with this.”

  “Can you get back to the truck stop?” Steve asked. “Bo Dean’s? I could meet you there. We could drive somewhere else for coffee. Or dinner. Have you eaten? I was about to go out for a hamburger. There are other places—”

  “Just how bad is the coffee at Bo Dean’s?”

  He laughed, and she joined him, but inside she was shaking.

  She stood inside the door of the truck stop, and when her eyes connected with Steve’s, she suffered a fresh outbreak of anxiety mixed with regret at having involved him. He was little more than a stranger, a boy she used to know, grown now into a man. Although they were looking directly at each other, he lifted his hand, indicating his location in a booth near the back, or perhaps he was waving away her hesitation, which must have been obvious.

  He stood up as she approached, seemingly glad to see her. His smile, the way it quirked one side of his mouth and crinkled the corners of his eyes, was as endearing as her memory of it. But the blue of his eyes seemed more weathered, his look more rugged, as if he spent a lot of his time outdoors. His hair was still dark but cut short now, military style. She remembered running her fingertips through it where it had curled over his shirt collar in high school. She recalled the sense of his breath warm on her face when he’d turned toward her and smiled. He had told her once—the last time they’d been together before she had left for Iowa—that he loved her.

  You shouldn’t, she had advised him.

  It was a mistake walking back into his life now. The thought rose and was replaced by another, an admonishment not to flatter herself. They’d been eighteen when they’d had feelings for one another. It was ancient history. She made herself walk toward him. He was likely as married as she was. If he’d said last fall, she didn’t remember. Hopefully his marriage had aged better.

  He looked uncertain, a bit abashed, as if he couldn’t decide now that she was close enough whether to shake her hand or hug her. They did neither.

  She slid into the booth, and he sat across from her. The red vinyl felt lumpy and cold beneath her jeans-clad legs. She made a production out of setting her purse to one side, tugging at the sleeves of her black wool blazer. She was wearing it over a cream-colored cashmere sweater, but still, she was chilled and wished she’d brought her coat.

  His gaze was congenial but seemed guarded.

  “I’m sober, I promise.”

  “I can see that,” he said. His gaze on hers was steady, penetrating.

  “I’m truly sorry about last time, that night—”

  “It’s fine. You were upset. I understand.”

  “I don’t remember much about it, what all I said.”

  “You were worried your husband might have committed some illegalities with your business. You didn’t know your liability if that was the case.”

  “Well, that was definitely the case, and I still don’t know my liability.”

  “As I explained—”

  “I know. Business fraud isn’t your area of expertise.”

  He kept her gaze.

  She felt her face warm. The waitress came. They ordered coffee. Steve asked for extra cream.

  “I’m embarrassed to say this, but I don’t know anything about your life now,” Caroline said when the waitress left. “If you told me before—”

  “You don’t remember.”

  “No. I’m sorry. You’re married? Children?”

  “No to both. I was married once for a short time. It didn’t work out.”

  “I’m sorry.” She offered the customary bromide, while inside she fought regrettable fillips of amazement and delight. A stern voice in her brain warned she wasn’t here to hook up with him.

  “No reason to be.” He shifted his weight on his elbows. “You have a daughter, you said.”

  She smiled. “Yes. Nina. She’s in college at Denver University, in her sophomore year.” How much longer would she be able to stay there if Rob’s actions cost them the business, put them into bankruptcy? Caroline pushed the questions away.

  “You’ve lived in Des Moines since you graduated college, built a transportation business, and in your spare time you like to garden—so much that you’ve wondered lately if you wouldn’t like to take a few landscape architecture classes. I’m pretty sure that’s what you said.”

  “I told you all of that?” She was delighted again in spite of herself.

  “Uh-huh.” He grinned. “You also said you hated winters up there worse than you ever hated the long, hot, sticky summers down here.”

  She smiled. “It’s nice to know I don’t lie when I drink.”

  “No. Drinking or sober, you’re one of the most honest, down-to-earth people I’ve ever met—always were.”

  His words—as deeply touched as she was by them, she could have argued she didn’t deserve them. Instead she thanked him. “It means so much to me, hearing that from you.”

  He shrugged. “Honesty is rare these days. Trust me, I’m a cop. I know.”

  “It surprises me, you being in law enforcement. Did I say that before? You were going to veterinary school.”

  He shifted a bit, dropping his gaze.

  “What happened?” Something in his demeanor made her ask.

  “My roommate at U of H—his sister was held hostage for the better part of a day by her husband.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Actually, she’d filed for divorce, and he was angry enough about it that he came back to their house with a gun and threatened to shoot her unless she agreed to stay married to him. Ha! Yeah, like that was going to happen.”

  “He didn’t—?”

  “No. The cops were able to talk him down. She got away from him, unharmed, and he went to jail for a while. She was damn lucky, though, and so was he.”

  “Her ex.”

  “He got a year or thereabouts. Had he gone through with his threat and killed her, he could have gotten life, possibly a death sentence. She could be six feet under, but because of the police, the way they handled the situation, both of them are still alive, still breathing. It made an impression on me.”

  She was intrigued. “So . . . what? Did you decide then and there to go into law enforcement?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. I thought what if I could do that, save lives like that? I was a kid. What did I know?” He laughed. It wasn’t humorous. At her look he said, “The cops don’t always get it right, or they don’t get there fast enough. People die. The wrong people, the right people.” He shrugged.

  “The switch you made, becoming a cop, it’s not so very different, really, from becoming a veterinarian.”

  Steve angled his head, perplexed.

  “You always said whatever you did, you wanted to be a force for good on the planet, and here you are, but instead of helping four-legged animals, you’re helping the two-legged variety.” She smiled.

  He grinned, looking self-conscious. “What about you? You think you’ve found your dad?”

  “I
don’t know for sure.” Caroline paused when the waitress reappeared.

  She set down the mugs of coffee and four small pitchers of cream.

  When she left, Steve said, “You still drink your coffee black?”

  “You remember that?” She was surprised, somehow touched.

  His gaze on hers was underscored with humor. “You said sugar and cream wouldn’t help the taste. I think the only reason you drank coffee at all was to look grown up.”

  “Probably.”

  “We didn’t have a Starbucks on every corner back then.”

  “It’s a good thing. I’d probably have been enticed to drink all those concoctions they make with whipped cream and gotten as big as a house.” She picked up her mug, sipped, grimaced. “That’s too bitter even for me.”

  “Add both creams. Even a spoonful of sugar helps.”

  She did as he suggested and tried it again. “Tolerable,” she said.

  “About your dad,” he said.

  “There’s a man—not in the town of Lone Pine itself but outside it—who could be him. He’s kind of a hermit, I guess.”

  “What makes you think he could be your father?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got no plans.” His smile was one sided, easy in the way Caroline remembered, that way that made her heart turn over.

  “I’ve been in Houston, helping my mom pack up her house—she’s moving into a condo community for seniors—anyway, I found an old letter my dad wrote to her when I was sixteen. I didn’t even know they were in touch. Mom never said—she always made me feel I shouldn’t talk about him to her.” Caroline stopped, hearing how she sounded: resentful, self-pitying—still sixteen. She couldn’t look at Steve.

  “Maybe she avoided the subject for your sake,” he said. “You were pretty angry at your dad back then.”

  Caroline looked up. “You said then I should give him a chance.”