The Silent Sister(68)

“Who knows?” Danny asked as he started driving down the gravel road. “Could’ve been a bunch of incompetents working on it. All I know is, something doesn’t add up, and I—”

“My phone!” I interrupted him, patting my shorts pocket. “I left it on the counter.”

He pressed the brake and I reached for the door handle. “Don’t back up,” I said. We’d only driven thirty yards or so from the Kyles’ RV. “I’ll just get out here.” I opened the door and got out. “Be right back,” I said.

I started toward the RV at a jog, annoyed with myself. The last thing I felt like doing was seeing Tom and Verniece again right now. I slowed to a walk as I neared the motor home and was circling the rear of it when I heard shouting. I stopped walking. The voice I heard wasn’t Tom’s or Verniece’s and I was suddenly afraid to move. Had someone else been hiding in the trailer? But then I realized it was Verniece’s voice I was hearing, although she sounded nothing like the Verniece I’d come to know and like.

“… might as well have gone straight to the police, you jerk!” she yelled. “He’s friends with Harry Washington! How are we supposed to—”

Tom shouted something unintelligible, and whatever Verniece said after that was muffled and lost … except for the word Riley. I rested my hand against the rear of the RV. Verniece was always so soft-spoken. So sweet and gentle. This was a side to her I hadn’t imagined existed. Beneath my palm, I felt the metal siding vibrate with their voices, but they spoke more quietly now, too softly for me to understand them.

I coughed loudly to give them a moment’s warning, then walked around the side of the RV and called out, “Verniece!” Their voices fell completely silent as I neared the steps to the door. “Verniece? I forgot my phone.”

I heard a scrabbling movement from inside, and in a moment Verniece opened the door, my phone in her hand. “Here you are, love.” She smiled and reached out to hand it to me. Her face was bright red and shiny with perspiration. “Wouldn’t want to forget that, now, would you?”

“No,” I said, unable to return her smile. “Thanks.”

I turned and walked back to Danny’s car, wanting to look over my shoulder to see if they were watching me. Might as well have gone straight to the police, you jerk! I didn’t know what she was talking about. All I knew was that, for now at least, I’d keep what I’d overheard to myself.





CHRISTMAS 1995

33.

Portland, Oregon

Jade

“A special toast!” Celia’s father, Paul, raised his wine glass high in the air above the broad dining room table, which nearly sagged under the weight of an enormous roast turkey and huge bowls of potatoes and vegetables and stuffing. “To Celia’s friend Jade,” he said. “We’re happy she could share Christmas dinner with us for the first time and we hope it won’t be the last.”

“Thank you,” Jade said from her seat next to Celia. She smiled across the table at Celia’s brother, Shane, and his wife, Ellen, a petite, very cute strawberry blonde, as they raised their glasses in the air.

She was in love. Deeply, wildly, passionately in love. She and Celia had spent that one week together in Ocean Beach before Celia had to go back to Portland to teach. Then Celia returned to San Diego for a few days after Thanksgiving, staying with Jade instead of Charlie that time, although they were careful to include Charlie in everything they did. Well, almost everything. He loved that Jade and Celia were together. He told them so a million times.

After that visit, Jade knew she wanted to tell her father about Celia. She needed to share the joy she felt with someone who’d care. Was it a “dire emergency”? Yes, she told herself. From an emotional perspective, it was. Maybe her father didn’t bother checking his post office box any longer, although she checked hers every month, hoping for a peek into the world of her family. But since the day three years ago when she’d received the money for her car along with his one-line note—you are loved and missed—there’d been no communication at all between them.

She wrote a carefully worded message:

Dear Fred,

Just to let you know, I’ve met someone I care deeply about. Be happy for me. I’d love to know how everyone is doing.

Ann

She mailed it, imagining the note languishing in her father’s dusty old post office box, never to be read. Maybe she should have risked adding her return address in case his box had been closed, but it was too late.

Only a week later, though, she had a reply.

Ann,

Be cautious. A friend can easily become a foe.

Yours,

Fred



P.S. We are fine.

It wasn’t the response she’d been hoping for—far from it—and the cool tone of the note hurt so much that she broke down in tears in one of her classes and had to leave. What did “we are fine” mean? She wanted details! Riley was seven and Danny twelve, and she longed to know them. How did Riley like school? Did she love music, the way Lisa had? Did she play an instrument? Did her hair smell the way it used to, like sunshine and baby powder? How was Danny doing? Did he miss his big sister? And had her mother recovered from Lisa’s “suicide”? She wanted to know, but it was clear her father would not be the one to give her the answers.