Kiss Her Goodbye (18 page)

Is it so surprising that they expect nothing of him? Nothing other than trouble. Is it so surprising that it's all he's given any of them all these years?

Everything is hanging in the balance.

Clenching the phone against his ear, he makes his decision.

“Look, I have to go,” the voice says impatiently. “Meet me in a half hour. Either you'll have her with you, or you'll have the money.”

Moments later, he's back in his car, heading back home to get the coffee can from the top of his closet, certain that he made the right choice.

He'll get a job. He'll start looking for one today . . . just as soon as he's handed over the money, then gone to the police to tell them that Jen Carmody's life is in danger.

 

 

So this is what it feels like to be fourteen,
Jen thinks glumly as she shuffles into biology. So far, it sucks. If today is any indication of what the year ahead holds, she'd probably have been better off if Robby had rammed them into that utility pole after all.

Her parents and brothers wished her a happy birthday this morning when she came downstairs.

Only the boys seemed to mean it.

Dad is still obviously angry about the detention thing yesterday, his voice as cold as his expression whenever he speaks to her—which he does only when absolutely necessary. Even his birthday wishes were cursory. Not that she'd expect anything else from a man who isn't even a blood relative.

She frowns at the nagging, increasingly vocal inner spokesperson for her conscience, wishing it would shut up already.

So what if she isn't being entirely fair to the man who raised her?

And then there's Mom. When she stumbled into the kitchen in her robe, she looked as though she hadn't slept all night, and she sounded slightly hoarse. She hugged Jen, but her arms felt stiff—especially when she felt Jen's whole body go rigid in her embrace. Jen
did
feel a pang of regret when she saw the hurt in her mother's eyes, but she couldn't help her reaction.

She knows she's the cause of her mother's exhaustion; her mother has been losing sleep over Jen even before she got herself into trouble yesterday. But that has been easy to ignore until now.

At least nobody has made Jen sit down and discuss the circumstances of her birth and adoption. Not yet, anyway.

She heard her parents discussing her last night after she was in bed. From what she could piece together, they're in disagreement over how to handle this. Her father wants the whole family to see a shrink. Her mother doesn't think that's a good idea, which is somewhat surprising, since Mom usually is a big fan of talking things out. She claims it's healthy.

When Jen was little and heard her parents arguing, she'd worry that it meant they were going to get divorced. She still remembers how her mother used to hug her and assure her that all mommies and daddies argued sometimes, and it didn't mean they didn't love each other.

That she is the direct cause of friction in their marriage now should probably bother Jen, but it doesn't. Not much, anyway.

You're beyond caring about them,
she reminds herself.

She would probably feel differently if her family were really the wholesome unit she had been duped into believing they were: happily married parents, three happy kids. That was something special, as far as Jen was concerned—something that set her apart from most of her friends.

She was different from Erin, being raised by a single mother. Different from their friend Rachel, the product of a third marriage with a trail of stepparents, stepsiblings, and half siblings along the way. Different from Robby, whose mother took off when he was a kid and whose father is an unemployed alcoholic.

Jen figured she was one of the lucky ones.

Boy, was she wrong.

At least her friends never had any illusions about who and what they are. At least
they
weren't blind fools, Jen thinks bitterly.

To find out that she herself was the result of her mother getting herself pregnant by some other guy, that her father isn't her father and her brothers aren't her brothers . . .

Well, who cares if their marriage doesn't last now? The family is already splintered, as far as Jen is concerned.

Wishing this miserable day were over, Jen slips gloomily into her seat at the lab table she shares with Garth Monroe, whose seat is still vacant.

“Hey, Jen, I heard about you and Robby,” Rachel Hanson leans across the aisle to say. “Did you guys really get arrested?”

“Arrested?” Jen shakes her head, rolling her eyes. “No, we weren't arrested.”

Rachel is obviously disappointed. Erin once told Jen that if Rachel were paid for gossiping, she'd be driving a BMW by now.

Erin, again.

The thought of her brings another little pang of guilt. Her former best friend is no angel—far from it. But Jen knows she's the one who trashed their friendship. She chose Robby over Erin.

Well, it wasn't something she set out to do. It's not like she was falling all over him, the way Erin accused her of doing when she found out. No, Robby was the one who came after Jen, and she tried to resist him. Really, she did.

Okay, she probably would have tried harder if her parents hadn't spilled their horrible secret and turned her world upside down. At the time, she was hurting so badly she didn't care who else she hurt.

And do you care now?
that infuriating inner voice asks, as Jen again pictures her mother's face when she pulled back from the hug this morning.

Life is easier when your conscience is obeying gag orders, that's for sure.

“I thought Robby was in jail,” Rachel presses on.

“Well, he's not.”

Not that Jen would know. She hasn't spoken to him since the truant officer ushered her away from the car. When she snuck out of her room to use the phone last night, nobody answered at Robby's apartment. She paged him again, too, but he never called back.

“Well, he isn't in school today,” Rachel informs her.

“Yeah, I know.” Jen shrugs. From what she overheard in the hallway this morning, he's been suspended—unless that, too, is a rumor. She has to figure out a way to get in touch with him.

Naturally, her parents have forbidden her to see him again.

Naturally, Jen has no intention of obeying their orders.

If she was momentarily scared straight yesterday afternoon in the moment before the cop pulled them over, she's long over it by now.

She watches Garth come through the door of the lab, laughing and talking to Jackie Chamberlain. Jackie is one of those annoying girls who has it all together, and whose biggest fault is that she knows it.

For a moment, Jen finds herself watching them wistfully, forgetting that she no longer has a crush on Garth. He's tall and well scrubbed in a cream-colored roll-neck sweater, neatly pressed khakis, white leather sneakers—the proverbial good guy dressed head-to-toe in pale shades that compliment his golden coloring.

Jen looks away, thinking of darkly handsome, devil-may-care Robby in his black leather jacket and new black boots.

Bad guys wear black.

Black.

White.

Yeah, right.

If only anything in Jen's world were that simple.

 

 

Okay, the kid is five minutes late.

Either it took him longer than he thought to convince the girl to come with him, or he's not going to show.

What if he's already gone to the police?

Yeah, sure. What's he going to tell them? That somebody hired him to lure Jen Carmody to this deserted stretch of waterfront and kill her?

Why would they believe a messed-up druggie?

There's no evidence.

He's got the cash, yes. But there are no prints on the bills.

He's got the typewritten notes. No prints on those, either.

None of the phone calls can be traced.

If the kid is smart, he'll finish the job he was hired to do.

Doesn't he realize that either way, Jen Carmody is going to die?

And that either way, so is he?

Ah, but he doesn't know that. As far as he's concerned, all he has to do is deliver her to this spot, collect the rest of his fee, and walk away.

Yeah. Right.

An elderly man with a schnauzer on a leash passes by with a nod and a smile.

Damn it. This is what happens when you stop paying attention to details for even a moment. You find yourself grinning like an idiot as you walk down the street, and the next thing you know you're making eye contact with a stranger. A stranger who might later be questioned by the police about whether they've seen anything unusual in this neighborhood lately. Anything, or anyone.

Well, look at that.

There's the kid after all, walking in this direction.

Alone.

With a coffee can clutched in his hands.

So the local bad boy has a conscience after all.

Oh, well.

As they say, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

 

 

“What are you doing here?”

Maeve turns to see Gregory striding into his office in blue dental scrubs.

“Didn't Nora tell you I was here?” Nora is his longtime receptionist, an ill-tempered old biddy who blatantly dislikes Maeve. The feeling is mutual, of course.

“She said you were here, but she didn't say why. And you'd better make this quick because I'm taking molds on a patient and they'll be set in a minute.”

“I need more weekly support from you. I can either do this through the lawyers, which will wind up costing you, or we can settle this like adults.”

“Maeve . . .” He breaks off and exhales, looking at the fluorescent-lit drop ceiling. “Do we have to discuss this now? Right this second?”

“Erin needs a new coat. She needs boots, and she wants to join a ski club.”

“How much can that possibly be? I'll write a check for—”

“If she's going to join a ski club we're going to get her into lessons on Saturdays,” Maeve goes on.

“I thought we were talking necessities, here, Maeve.”

“I'm not willing to risk our baby's neck on the slopes. Are you?”

He sighs. “How much is all this going to cost?”

She hands him the notes she jotted this morning over a grande mocha latte and cranberry scone. “This is what I came up with.”

He glances over the paper, his eyes narrowing to a frown behind his unfashionable aviator glasses.

“I could pay the mortgage on a ski chalet for this, Maeve. This is ridiculous.”

She shrugs.

A hygienist Maeve has never seen before pokes her head into the doorway. “Dr. Hudson? The molds . . . ?”

He spins on his heel. “I have to get back to my patient,” he informs Maeve. “You and I will have to discuss this later.”

“We definitely will, Gregory.”

Watching him walk out on her without a backward glance, she reminds herself that all she wants is what she has coming.

Rather, what Erin has coming,
she amends with a smile, as she rises and walks airily out of the office, unfazed by Nora's glare.

 

 

As Kathleen climbs out of the SUV, a frigid wind whips her hair across her cheeks. She pauses to button her wool peacoat against the chill, then reaches into the backseat for the tissue-wrapped bouquet.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves and prepare for what lies ahead, she inhales the scent of roses along with the promise of snow that seems to hover in the air.

November already, and Buffalo has yet to see its first snowfall.

As Kathleen closes the door and walks along the gravel path, she wonders idly if her hometown's legendary weather has changed that drastically since she left. She can remember taking her sled out in October and riding it well into April.

Not that she cares one way or another when the first flakes fall. Contemplating global warming is a way to keep her mind from registering where she is—and why she's here.

The path between the gravestones has become a familiar route in the six months since she came home again—back to the western New York suburbs, back to this place. By now, she's grown accustomed to the somber silence; she finds it more comforting than macabre.

But today is different.

Today is November second.

Today is supposed to be about life, not death.

Yet here, surrounded by countless epitaphs of lives lived long and well, of lives cut tragically short, it's impossible for Kathleen to think of anything other than profound loss. She's here not to commemorate the child she first held in her arms fourteen years ago today, but to grieve the life that was over far too soon.

She leaves the gravel path, the heels of her boots sinking into the marshy grass. She slows her pace as she approaches the red maple tree, its branches left nearly bare after yesterday's stormy weather. The bouquet begins to tremble in her wind-chapped fingers. Tears spill from her eyes, stinging her cheeks in the cold air.