The Lies I Told(61)

She grabbed a cup of coffee and came toward me with a plate sporting two doughnuts with green sprinkles. She sat, settled her camera bag by her chair. “I remember you eating doughnuts once when I came by the station.”

“No more.”

“Just one?”

“Tell it to my blood pressure. Doc says limit the sugar, fat, and cigarettes.”

She slid off her jacket and then sipped her coffee. “If you don’t mind then?”

“Have at it. Enjoy that youthful metabolism while you can.”

“Hit the big three-oh. Not so young.”

“Baby,” I growled. “What I wouldn’t give.”

“I heard a lifetime’s worth of aging jokes last Friday,” she said. “But I’m not complaining.” Bracelets on her wrist jangled as she popped a piece of doughnut into her mouth and then wiped green sprinkles from her fingers.

“Any luck remembering your car accident?”

“No, none. But I visited the site early this morning. Met a woman whose roommate saw the accident happen. She said there was a man on the scene who stayed with me while she called 9-1-1, but he was gone when the cops and rescue squad arrived.”

“Her name is Jenny Taylor.”

“Good memory.”

“I made a point to read up on your accident. Ms. Taylor couldn’t remember much. Said your guardian was a white guy. Thirties to maybe late forties. Not fat or thin.”

“Could be half the city.”

“Exactly. In high-adrenaline situations, our brains don’t process details as well.”

“My phone went missing after the accident. I think that guy might have taken it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I have a faint memory of someone reaching into the car, and it goes missing. I don’t suppose you could ping it or something? Find the phone, find the man.”

“I can try. But if he took it, it’s long been traded or sold.”

She picked up another hefty doughnut fragment. “Still.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.” She took a couple of big bites, making me pine for my youth and the cartons of ice cream I could eat. “Did you bring me here to talk about the accident or my sister?”

“Your sister.” I sat back in my chair and met her unwavering stare. “I told this to your father, but he never wanted me to tell you or your sister. I promised I would keep it private as long as I didn’t think it stood in the way of solving the case.”

“Maybe you should have told me.”

“I thought about it. But I wasn’t interested in piling more onto your shoulders. You were already in a bad place, and by the looks of it, you’d been there for a while.”

“I looked that terrible?”

When she’d overdosed two years ago, I’d known if she kept up her pace, she’d be dead within the year. And here she was. “I know troubled when I see it.”

“That obvious? I thought I was better at hiding it.”

Her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks still came back to me from time to time. She’d needed a lifeline. And I had wanted to help but knew there wasn’t much I could do other than keep tabs on her.

“What do you have to tell me?” she asked.

Bad news was best delivered swiftly with no drama. “Clare was pregnant.”

She stared at me, her eyes reflecting a jumble of shock, confusion, distrust, and then anger. “That can’t be right. She would have told me.”

“She wasn’t that far along.”

“How do you know this?” Anger tightened her tone.

I cleared my throat. “The autopsy.”

Pale features grew a little whiter as she sat back, her mouth opening slightly. She’d always been so consumed with anger it was hard to tell what else was going on in her head. “Are you sure she was pregnant?”

I listened for signs of deception in her words and searched for more in her body language. I wanted to find anything that hinted that she’d known Clare was pregnant. Marisa would’ve been the logical person for Clare to talk to. But I saw only pure confusion and then sadness. “Yes.”

She cleared her throat. “How far along?”

“Five or six weeks, according to the medical examiner. She might not have known herself. Did she appear different to you?”

“Over the holidays I was sick. My stomach always got worse at the holidays. If Clare had been off, it would have been easy for me to miss.”

“Was she dating anyone?” I asked.

“Kurt. They’d been together about six months. And you know they were sexually active.”

“Anyone else?”

She shook her head. “Everyone assumed I’d be the one to get pregnant, but I didn’t sleep around. The idea of physical contact was always unsettling to me. But Clare craved it. She needed to hear she was loved. And as you and I both know, young males will trade sweet words for sex. I could tell when she’d been with a guy, but I never asked with who.”

Finding love in dangerous places. “I can’t believe you didn’t know something, Marisa. You were twins, you shared a room.”

“There was nothing. She was her regular self. But clearly she kept more secrets than I realized.” She traced the rim of her cup. “She used to carry that stupid point-and-shoot camera with her. After she died, I looked everywhere for it but could never find it.”