Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(60)

She was there all right, standing solemnly in the center of the room, her round, cherubic face full of its usual gloom.

“Lucia.” I pressed a hand to my pounding heart. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that. You seriously scared the crap out of me.”

She said nothing. She merely stood there in her riding clothes, her heels together, her bangs curling into her large, dark eyes, her mouth a tiny, reproachful pink rosebud.

“Look,” I said, coming into the room and closing the door behind me so we wouldn’t be overheard. “I’m sorry about the dog. He’s shut up in the garage so he won’t bother you anymore. And thank you for the flowers. But you shouldn’t have done what you did to Father Dominic. He’s a good man, and he wasn’t there to hurt Becca. No one wants to hurt you, either, Lucia. We all want to—”

She lifted one arm. I flinched instinctively and took a stumbling step backward, toward the door. Normally I’m not such a coward, but I remembered only too well the strength in those pudgy little arms.

She wasn’t trying to hurt me, however. She was pointing at something on the wall.

I looked in the direction she was pointing. It was Debbie’s “inspiration board.”

Debbie had shown it to me earlier, though I hadn’t paid too much attention. It was one of her crafts. She’d had each of the girls make one, too. Theirs had been more amusing. Cotton-tail, it turned out, was heavily inspired by the theatrical work of Jiminy Cricket.

“What?” I asked Lucia, stepping toward Debbie’s inspiration board. “Is there something here about what happened to you?”

Lucia looked angry, which I’d come to realize was her go-to expression.

But before I had a chance to duck for cover, she disappeared, which was admittedly a relief. I had to hand it to the kid: she was learning to handle her emotions. Now instead of lashing out, she was going to her happy place, wherever that was. I didn’t care, as long as it was far away from me.

I switched on a desk lamp so I could examine Debbie’s board a little more closely, looking for what Lucia had been trying to show me. It was an elaborately decorative thing, corkboard covered over with ivory wrapping paper, then bound with gold ribbon and strands of imitation pearls. She’d pressed photos of supermodels onto it with thumbtacks shaped like crowns, and here and there were also photos of the girls, a few as babies, but most of them were more recent, many of them from events I recognized. There were no photos at all of Brad, or of me. I tried not to take it personally.

At first I couldn’t see what Lucia could possibly have been pointing at. There was nothing at all on it to do with her, nothing about horses, or Sacred Trinity, or Becca, or even Kelly Prescott Walters, Becca’s stepmom and Debbie’s best friend.

Then I realized Lucia hadn’t been pointing at something connected to her. It was something Lucia wanted me to see because she thought it was connected to me. Maybe it was another way of her saying she was sorry? She must have sensed the bougainvillea blossoms hadn’t been a hit, but this, this would really help me out.

It was CeeCee’s alumni newsletter, printed out from Brad and Debbie’s home computer, and turned to a page with a photo of Paul Slater, looking dark-haired and blue-eyed and tanned and relaxed as he leaned against a sports car, his muscular arms folded across his chest, a self-satisfied smirk on his handsome face. The car was a Porsche (of course it was. He’d always driven expensive sports cars.).

The caption beneath the photo read, Business Is Booming for One Mission Academy Alum. The article beneath it read, Paul Slater Becomes Overnight Success.

Ouch. Really, CeeCee? I was going to have to have a word with her about her hyperbolic headlines.

Hanging next to the photo was the tassel from Debbie’s high school graduation cap. I recognized it because I had one just like it.

Or I’d had one, anyway. It had disappeared the night Paul had shoved me up against that wall and I’d kneed him in the groin, then run right past Debbie, who’d been so delighted to find him there, since her own boyfriend, Brad, had been busy throwing up on Kelly Prescott’s Louboutins.

How had Paul put it?

Oh, right. I’d left him to Debbie’s not-so-tender ministrations. “She straddled me like she thought I was a damned gigolo,” Paul had complained.

Well, so what if Paul and Debbie had had their fun graduation night? Brad’s the one who married her. Seven months later, Debbie had given birth to triplets.

Triplets born prematurely and with the gift of mediation, which neither of their parents or grandparents possessed.

And then, like a bolt from the sky, I knew what Lucia was trying to tell me—why she thought this would help.

It didn’t help, though. It kept me awake for the rest of the night.

It was probably going to keep me awake forever.





diecinueve


I drove the girls to school the next morning, while Jesse drove to the Crossing to drop off Max, then to the hospital to check on Father Dom.

I didn’t mention anything to him—or anyone—about my suspicions concerning my stepnieces. What was I going to say, exactly? “Guess what? Okay, you’ll never guess, so I’ll just tell you: I’m pretty sure my stepbrother’s kids aren’t really his.”

No. Just no.

And even if in her quest to get me to open up more during our therapy sessions Dr. Jo is always telling me how keeping secrets leads to elevated levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, how do I know what Lucia suggested is true? So she pointed to a photo of Paul hanging from my sister-in-law’s bulletin board. That doesn’t prove anything.