The Silent Sister(95)

“I don’t need to,” he said. “I’ve done enough thinking.”

I looked at his computer where it rested on the counter, the image of Jasha Trace a bright light in the dim trailer. Lisa stared at me from the life I was no part of.

I turned back to my brother. “There’s something you don’t know,” I said quietly, using the only card I had left to play. “Something you couldn’t have figured out, no matter how skillful you are at searching the Internet.”

“What’s that?” he asked

I swallowed hard. “Lisa’s my mother,” I said.

Two sharp lines creased the space between his eyebrows. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s the truth,” I said. “Jeannie told me. Lisa’s my mother. She had me when she was fifteen. Mom and Daddy adopted me.”

“Shit,” he said, and his face softened, but only by a small degree.

I knew that wasn’t going to be enough.





50.



When I left Danny’s trailer, I drove straight to Jeannie’s small, one-story white brick house in the DeGraffenried neighborhood. She was dressed in a blue robe when she opened the door, and it only took a glimpse of my face in the porch light to let her know something was very wrong.

She reached for my hand and drew me inside. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

“Danny knows everything.”

“You told him?” She looked shocked, and I told her how he’d come to learn the truth about Lisa. I spoke so quickly that my words tumbled over one another.

“Will he go to the police?” she asked.

“He hasn’t yet, but I know he plans to.”

We were still standing by the front door, and now she motioned me into the room. “Come in,” she said. “Let’s calm down so we can think.”

I walked into her softly lit living room and felt a jolt at seeing our old baby grand piano nestled in the bay window. I dropped onto an armless upholstered chair, my head tipped back to look at the ceiling. “I have to warn her,” I said. “He plans to tell Harry Washington … do you know him?”

She nodded. “He’s a good guy. Why Harry?”

“They’re friends. He wants Harry to arrest her … or at least apprehend her at the New Bern concert. I’m not sure what Harry will do exactly, but if Danny tells him, I’m sure he’ll have to do something.”

“You have to e-mail Lisa, then,” Jeanne said. “You really don’t have much of a choice.”

I looked out the window into the darkness. “Unless I could find a phone number for her,” I said, “but she’s probably unlisted. And she’s on the road right now anyhow.” My heartbeat sped up at the thought of calling her. Telling her who I was. I would scare her to death. What if she hung up on me? I was too chicken to risk a hostile response. Lisa had managed to fly under the radar for over twenty years until I started digging into her life.

Suddenly, I seized on an idea. “Her tour schedule!” I said. “It’s on their Web site.”

Jeannie stood up and walked toward the door to get her briefcase. “Let’s look,” she said, pulling her laptop from the case and carrying it to the couch. I moved from my chair to a seat next to her, and we were quiet as I guided her to the Jasha Trace Web site.

“There’s the schedule,” I said, pointing to the link.

She clicked on it and I quickly scanned the dates. Tonight they had off. Tomorrow night they’d be at Dulcimer, a little club I’d been to a couple of times in Chapel Hill, and the night after that was the New Bern concert. “I have to go to the one in Chapel Hill,” I said. Chapel Hill was only a few hours from New Bern and right next to Durham. “I can spend the night in my apartment.”

“What will you do?” Jeannie asked slowly, and I guessed she was trying to imagine the scene, the same as I was. “What will you say to her?”

I sat back on the couch, gnawing my lip as I thought. “I’ll tell her about Danny,” I said. “That he knows. That he won’t leave it alone and that his best friend’s a cop. She’ll have to decide what to do from there.” I pressed my fingers to my temples, rubbing hard. “And I’ll apologize,” I said. “It’s my fault she’s in danger, Jeannie,” I said. “I never should have tried to find her.”

“You didn’t know what you were getting into,” she said. “You’re hardly to blame.”

I stared into space, unconvinced. I doubted Lisa would see it that way.

“Do you want me to come to Chapel Hill with you?” Jeannie asked.

I thought about it. It was strange that Jeannie was the person I felt safest with these days. “I should go alone,” I said finally. I tried to imagine approaching Lisa at Dulcimer. I tried to imagine the look on her face. It wouldn’t be welcoming. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” I said, my apprehension mixed with excitement.

“You need to.”

“I’m nervous.” I glanced at her. She was watching me intently. “I’m afraid she’ll act like she doesn’t know me. Turn me away. That would be the worst. Maybe she’ll sic security on me.”