Until the Day I Die(79)

“Take me to Gigi’s,” I yell, “or I’m going to call the police!”

“Shorie, no.” He turns to me, and I’ve never seen an adult’s face look so scared. “Please. Promise me you won’t call them. When it’s time, I swear I will do it, but right now I need to talk to Sabine first. I think there’s a way to handle this—”

Listening to him is getting me more and more confused. I feel like I’m underwater, drowning, bursting for a breath. And now we’re at Montevallo and Church, and even though the light is green, traffic is backed up and we’re inching along.

I claw at the door handle, jump out, and take off across the wide intersection, dodging the line of cars. A chorus of car horns fills my ears as I leap over a honeysuckle-twined picket fence and run through the yard of a little white house with a rain-faded Cozy Coupe on the front walk. I cut through backyards and side roads like some kind of fugitive from the law, keeping an eye out for Ben’s truck.

My grandparents’ house is a stately red-brick Georgian with a yellow climbing rose that canopies the front door. Two gas lanterns flicker on either side of the door at all times, day and night, and there’s a thick slate roof. It’s one of those houses that announces I’m rich, but don’t like to talk about it. Still, when you look closely, you can see paint’s peeling on the shutters, and the grass is patchy and overgrown.

I hunker down in the azalea hedge that borders the rise behind the house. It gives me the perfect view into Gigi’s 1980s-era kitchen.

Sure enough, she’s cooking away, wearing a white button-up blouse with the collar turned up, a pair of pink pleated linen pants, and a full face of makeup. She’s done this, made supper five nights a week, every week of the year, ever since I’ve been alive. A meat, starch, and veggie, with a sourdough roll on a separate plate. Sweet lemon iced tea and maybe a glass of sauvignon blanc with one ice cube.

I open my Jax on my phone. There’s a new connection request from some rando. But Mom hasn’t responded to my message yet. And there’s nothing new from Ms. X’s account either, except she got gas and ate a roast beef sub sandwich at Subway.

When I look up, Gigi’s gone. I stand, panicked. What if Ben followed me here, and now he’s at the front door, asking Gigi where I am?

I run around the house and see Gigi returning from the mailbox with a handful of mail. Ben is nowhere in sight.

“Shorie.” Gigi manages a hug and an air-kiss about a foot from my cheek. “It’s the middle of the week. What are you doing here?”

“I got homesick,” I say in my most pathetic voice. “My friends brought me up yesterday, and I stayed the night at Ben and Sabine’s.”

She ushers me in the front door and back to the kitchen. It smells like pot roast, and even though I haven’t eaten in hours, I feel slightly sick.

“Why didn’t you stay here?” she asks.

“I wanted to talk to Ben.” I hesitate. “Gigi, I really want to go see my mom.”

“Oh, hon. I know. But we don’t want to interrupt her rest. We need to give her time, let her heal in peace and quiet. Soon enough she’ll be home and we’ll all go shopping and to Red Mountain Grill, okay?”

“Okay. I just really miss her.”

“I know. But we have to buck up and be strong. That’s what she would want.”

She’s talking as if Mom’s dead. It makes my stomach hurt even worse.

I twist my fingers. “Hey, Gigi, do you mind if I use Arch’s computer? Schoolwork.”

“Of course not, hon. Supper’s soon. I’ll call you.”

Arch’s office is wood paneled, with a huge leather-topped desk at the far end against bookshelves packed with spy novels and a cushy leather chair that I used to spin around in when I was a little girl. I have no interest in that now. All I want is my grandfather’s computer.

But his desk is empty, except for a few piles of paper and a fountain pen. I look in the drawers, but they’re mostly empty too. Some files stacked in manila folders, old contracts and receipts for stock trades.

No computer.

I bang my fists on the desk, then grab my phone. I google the FBI, and right away a short form pops up—a tip sheet for anyone who wants to report a crime. I stare at it a minute, then quickly fill it out: name, address, and phone number. In the very bottom field, I tell them about the fluctuating balances on Sabine’s account. I don’t mention how I accessed it. Then I tell them I think my mother may be in danger at Hidden Sands. I think whoever is stealing money from my mother’s app is also trying to kill her, I write.

They’re going to think I’m a nutcase.

“Shorie,” Arch says from the open doorway.

I hit “Send” on the form and put down my phone.

He grins, then lifts his crystal tumbler to me. As always, I think how dashing he looks, like he’s stepped right out of one of those old movies where the men always dressed in slim-cut gray suits and the women wore dresses and bouffant hairstyles. I run to him, and he folds me in his familiar whiskey-aftershave-starch-scented embrace.

“What are you doing in my office, June bug?”

“I was hoping to borrow your computer. For research.”

“A school paper?”

“Flannery O’Connor.”