Mother May I(72)

He flashed his PI’s license and used the same lie he’d offered Gabrielle, about working for a law firm seeking the Pines with news about an inheritance. Both the story and the heavier southern accent he unleashed to tell it played well with her. It would be good for most anyone in this working-class, rural neighborhood with its tidy lawns and older, well-kept cars. He knew, because he’d grown up on a street much like this.

Back on Toby Leland’s block, folks would have assumed he was a cop or a bounty hunter or a loan shark, lying, seeking the Pines with bad intentions. Here the woman warmed near instantly. She’d only met Coral at the closing, she said, but she pointed out the houses of the residents who had lived here longest.

Marshall hit those houses first, talking to about ten neighbors in total. They’d all known the Pines well enough, as one said, “to borrow sugar from,” but none were truly close with Coral. She had left no forwarding address. Only one couple had even known she was ill, and she’d downplayed it with them. They had no idea where she might be now.

He was grinding. If this led him to Lexie, it would take a level of luck most lottery winners didn’t get. Maybe he should ask around at the sparse local businesses? He’d seen a DQ and a gas station with a hot bar in it on the way. Close. Perhaps someone working in one of those places had known the Pines. He should hurry. They would close soon, and every minute that passed felt like time shaved off of Robert’s already so-brief life.

He was walking back to his car when his phone rang.

Bree. He knew it, heartsick. He didn’t want to answer. She was a single, exposed nerve. She would know from his hello how poorly things were going. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was Gabrielle. Her name was a reprieve.

“Hey,” he said.

“They knew the Dentons!” She yelled it, almost.

He’d been so deep in his own failure it took him a sec to remember who the Dentons were. The owners of Funtime. Her excitement sparked his.

“Tell me,” he said.

“They were members at the same church. When Lexie’s father was alive, the Pine family went to Funtime almost every Sunday. They’d have a picnic, let Lexie ride the carousel, and eat pink and yellow cotton candy. She didn’t like the blue. The families were close. So close they gave Coral a job at Funtime after her husband died.”

Her information was so detailed. “You talked to them.”

“I talked to her. Mariah. Her husband is deceased. I did use your inheritance story, so thanks for that. She’s in her eighties but still has her own apartment in an assisted-living place in Dawsonville. You know where that is?”

“I do,” he said, but she was still talking.

“She moved there to be near her sister’s children and grands. That’s all I got, because she has a hard time on the phone. Her hearing isn’t good. But she knows that Coral is sick. You understand? That means she talked to her after the diagnosis. If you drive over, she says she’ll talk to you.”

He was already turning the car around. “This late?”

“Yes. Her place has its own entry, and she sets her own hours, she says. She’s feisty! She told me, ‘Honey, don’t you know old ladies never sleep?’ She’ll be up if you can get there before midnight.”

He could be there by eleven-thirty if he gunned it.

“You are amazing,” he told her.

“I know,” she said, cocky. It made him grin, reenergized. “So are you. We’re going to get Robert back, Marshall.”

As he got off the phone, he was praying she was right. He drove southwest in the darkness, and her hope stayed with him. Gabrielle had found a close family friend. A former employer. One who had known child Lexie. Sober Lexie. One who’d been in contact with Coral Pine after her diagnosis. She might straight-up know or at least have a damn good guess where Lexie was. She would definitely know Lexie’s pre-addiction safe spots, friends, contacts. His odds had just dropped from lotto level to a long shot in a horse race. He could work with that.

Speeding toward an interview that seemed like something solid, he felt as if a heavy cloud of fog had cleared. In the space he found himself thinking of Trey’s story.

The events Trey had recounted were more than enough to send a vulnerable girl—one already prone to self-medication and away for the first time from the sharp judgment and rigid rules of a difficult mother—into a spiral that would end in addiction and prison time. The story confirmed that Spence was exactly the asshole that Marshall had known. So Lexie’s history could have played out that way. Bree clearly believed it.

But deep in the logical left side of his brain, the chilly piece that housed his inner cop was calling bullshit. The tale left Trey’s hands too clean. Trey, who was a good guy, came off as absolutely the goodest guy humanly possible, given the circumstances.

The drugs, the threesome, none of these things had been Trey’s idea. He’d been tempted and pulled in, like some dewy maiden being coaxed inch by inch off her unicorn. In Trey’s version the deepest moral blame belonged to Adam, the guy that Trey liked the least. Spence, who was dead, got thrown a little ways under a bus, too, for pushing and orchestrating. Lexie came off sympathetic, which made Trey sympathetic for presenting her that way, but still, she’d instigated the whole night and brought the drugs. And yet Trey was such a good guy in this tale that he didn’t point a judgey finger at her. Instead he’d done some straight-up hero work. First punching Adam, who had dearly needed punching, then burning the pictures, seeking out Lexie, giving her the money.