The Good Sister (23 page)

Taylor takes a deep breath of air sweetly perfumed by the Stargazer lilies and turns off her bedroom light.

As she walks down the hall, she can see a silhouette in the glass front door, and her heart beats a little faster.

The pace quickens when she opens the door and sees the person standing on the threshold.

It isn’t Rick Riley.

And it isn’t his cousin Rachel.

Of all people, it’s—

“What are you doing here?” Taylor asks incredulously. “Is this some kind of—”

She breaks off, seeing the gun, and she looks into those familiar eyes for a hint of humor.

But one glance into those lethal depths tells her this is no joke.

Entry from the marble notebook

Friday, February 7, 1986

It’s no accident that I was practicing parallel parking on the street near Cardinal Ruffini this afternoon. I remembered that it was a Friday when Father had his heart attack, right around five o’clock. I figured the basketball team must leave practice around that time every Friday, because I noticed on the sign out front that there’s bingo in the school gym every Friday night at six-thirty, so the team would have to leave early that day so that all the tables can be set up.

Pretty smart, right?

Right! Because sure enough, at a few minutes after five, the doors opened and out came a bunch of guys in basketball jackets.

I spotted the cute one right away. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since I sat behind him at church on Sunday. He was even better-looking than I thought, which was based on the first time I saw him under traumatic circumstances and the second time when it was mostly just the back of his head.

I pretended not to see him and his friends, but they obviously saw us. My car window was open because Father kept making me stick my head out to see how close I was to the curb.

I heard one of the guys—it turned out to be Eric, the one who drove—shouting to us. He was asking how Father was feeling.

I let Father do all the talking when the boys came over to the car, but I couldn’t stop looking at the cute one. He didn’t say anything, just stood there dribbling his basketball.

Father was pretty nice to the guys—he actually managed to make himself seem like a normal person, which I’ve seen him do before, whenever he’s out in public. No one would ever guess what a monster he really is.

While the other guys were talking to Father and I was staring at the cute one, I noticed him noticing me. He kind of smiled at me.

And this crazy thought popped into my head right then: What if he likes me, too?

I can’t stop thinking about it.

I can’t wait until next Friday.

Chapter 12

W
hen the doorbell rings on Saturday morning, Jen breaks off in mid-conversation with Thad—about the girls’ latest traumas, of course—to glance at the clock on the microwave.

“It’s only five to nine. Who can that be?”

“Your parents. Who else?”

“They don’t come over without calling anymore.”

“Sometimes they do,” Thad points out with a forced grin, followed by a wince as if it hurts just to move his facial muscles, courtesy of his fierce hangover.

“Not in a long time.”

“Maybe they heard Frankie snuck into town yesterday without telling them and they want to scold her.”

“But they never come to the front door and they don’t ring the bell.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“I don’t want to go to the door looking like this.” Jen gestures at the flannel shirt and sweatpants she threw on when she rolled out of bed, and at the hair she hasn’t brushed in almost twenty-four hours.

“I’m not looking so hot myself,” Thad points out unnecessarily, “and I’m not feeling so hot, either.”

“Really? I had no idea!”

Managing another grin, he forces himself to his feet. “Okay, okay . . . I’ll go see who it is if you’ll pour me a refill. I need more coffee if I’m going to get to the office.”

“Maybe you can work at home today. We’ll all be over at my mother’s so the house will be quiet.”

“Can’t. I have clients coming in.” He slides his empty coffee mug across the breakfast bar toward her and heads for the hall.

With a sigh, Jen puts her own empty coffee cup into the sink and dumps what’s left in the carafe into Thad’s, then sets about making a fresh pot. Frankie is still upstairs asleep, as are the girls, but judging by the amount of red wine she consumed last night, she’ll be looking for strong black coffee when she wakes up, just as Thad was.

As her husband and sister overindulged into the wee hours and got into a string of lively, good-natured debates—about religion, politics, sports—Jen sat brooding about her daughters. Finally, she left the two of them in the kitchen and went to bed. Somehow, she managed to fall into a deep, blessedly dreamless sleep, only to be jarred awake when Thad crawled in beside her at three-thirty.

He was snoring within seconds, but her mind kicked right back into gear and she lay sleepless until dawn. Finally, she got up and checked her e-mail, which she hadn’t had a chance to do yesterday.

There was a message from Sister Linda suggesting a meeting on Monday afternoon. Jen confirmed that she’d be there.

Then she shut down the computer and started doing all the laundry that’s been piling up for a week. Between loads, she cleared clutter from surfaces, went through stacks of neglected mail, sorted the contents of kitchen drawers that didn’t really need sorting.

Anything to keep busy. Anything to keep her mind away from persistent dark thoughts. She was looking forward to going to church later to pray her novena to Saint Anne.

When Thad came downstairs half an hour ago looking decidedly green, Jen wanted to feel sorry for him, but instead found herself resentful. She can count on one hand the number of times he’s overindulged, and he’s certainly paying for it today. Yet it stills seems somehow unfair that he got to enjoy a few hours of lighthearted reprieve from parental concern while her every waking moment has been consumed by worry.

Now, standing at the sink running water into the coffeepot and staring at the overcast morning beyond the window, Jen remembers, yet again, how Carley lashed out at her last night. It was one thing for Emma to act as though Jen had severed her lifeline when she took away the Internet, but
Carley
?

The coffeepot overflows and Jen turns off the tap in time to hear Thad coming back to the kitchen talking to someone—a female voice, but it isn’t Frankie’s.

Startled, then dismayed, to see the impeccably dressed Marie Bush in the doorway beside rumpled, stubbly, bleary-eyed Thad, Jen belatedly remembers: She’d invited Marie to come by on Saturday morning to discuss piano lessons for Carley, telling her to come early, before they had to leave for her parents’ house to do the cooking.

“Genevieve—it’s so good to see you again.” Marie sweeps in to hug her, smelling of lavender and mint and fresh air, leaving Jen feeling all the more stale and disheveled.

“Marie, I—I’m so sorry—I completely forgot. Carley is—she’s not—she’s—”

“I’ll go get her out of bed,” Thad offers, and quickly disappears.

“Wait a minute, don’t wake her up. If you weren’t expecting me then I can come back another—”

“No, it’s okay,” he calls, already on his way up the stairs, “she’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Marie looks at Jen, who musters a smile. “Um, that was Thad. My husband. I should have introduced you.”

“We met,” Marie tells her with a little laugh. “He seems like a nice man.”

“He is. He’s . . .”
He’s got a raging hangover from drinking too much whiskey, but . . .
“He’s a nice man. Have a seat, Marie. I was just about to make another pot of coffee.”

“Is everything all right?”

Jen nods.

“Are you sure? I’m intuitive, you know.”

Jen smiles.

“I’m serious. I spend my summers down at Lily Dale. Ever hear of it?”

Jen raises an eyebrow. “Of course.”

Everyone in western New York is familiar with Lily Dale, a summer colony about an hour south of Buffalo, populated by psychics and spiritualists. Her parents always dismissed it as “a hocus-pocus circus” and said that believing in that stuff went against the teachings of their own faith.

“So you’re psychic?” she asks Marie.

“Psychic, intuitive. . . . whatever you choose to call it. But it doesn’t take much to know everything is not all right with you today. What’s going on, sweetie?”

“It’s just been a rough week, between Nicki and . . . you know.”

Marie squeezes her arm gently. “I know.”

But she doesn’t know. And no matter how intuitive she is, she couldn’t possibly guess.

Tempted to pour out her troubles, Jen thinks better of it. Marie, who’s raised three kids of her own, would undoubtedly lend a sympathetic ear. But Jen finds herself wanting to protect Carley, lest Marie get the wrong idea about her before she even meets her.

She’s a good girl who made one bad decision . . .

As far as Jen knows, anyway.

Frankie said there’s more to the story. Jen wanted to steer her sister back to that topic of conversation last night, shamelessly hoping her guard would be down once she’d had some wine. But it didn’t happen.

I wish I were psychic.

“Genevieve—” Marie is watching her closely. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better if I—”

“No, please, sit down,” she says quickly, “and call me Jen. Here, let me take your coat and I’ll make some fresh coffee.”

They make small talk as she hangs Marie’s tan trench over a hook by the door and gets the coffee going. Footsteps creak into the hall bathroom overhead and water gushes into the pipes.

“That must be Carley in the shower. I’m sure she’ll be down soon.”

“How has she been coping?”

For a moment, Jen assumes Marie is referring to the school suspension. Then she realizes—Nicki.

“It’s not easy.”

“No, it isn’t.” Marie pauses. “Nicki’s piano lessons were scheduled for Friday afternoons at four. Yesterday would have been the day, but—well . . . Anyway, I was in the neighborhood, so I stopped over there at four to see Debbie.”

“How was she?” Jen asks.

“As well as you’d expect. She was alone. She said her husband went back to work on Thursday morning. I have to admit, that surprised me. She said it was his way of coping.”

Debbie had told Jen the same thing when she visited.

At the time Jen found herself trying to fathom Thad leaving her and going back to work under those circumstances, then hated herself for entertaining the heinous scenario yet again.

“To each his own, I suppose,” Marie says now.

Jen nods, sitting beside her at the breakfast bar. “I suppose.”

Suddenly remembering that
The Virgin Suicides
was sitting on Nicki’s bedroom shelf, she wonders if Debbie even noticed it there. If she’d seen the book before her daughter’s death, was she beating herself up because it was a red flag she should have noticed? And if she hadn’t spotted it until afterward, when it was too late, was she blaming herself for not having paid more attention to the little things, to
everything
?

Was that the source of her guilt, or was there something more to it?

“The loss of a child has destroyed even the strongest of marriages.”

Jen wonders whether Marie deliberately meant to imply weakness in Debbie and Andrew’s. Catching a hint of a gleam in her eye, she decides that she might have.

Don’t ask her about it
, she warns herself.

But when she opens her mouth, words—the wrong words—fall out of it. “I was surprised to see Mike Morino at the funeral.”

“Oh?”

Marie knows something. Or at the very least, she’s been suspicious, too.

“I didn’t realize they were in touch again,” Jen says. “Debbie and Mike, I mean. I’m surprised she didn’t mention it to me.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Mike and I dated all through high school, and it seems . . . it just seems like something you would mention. You know, that after all these years, you’ve been in touch with someone’s ex. Doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Marie agrees, studying the pattern on the granite breakfast bar, and Jen abruptly decides it’s time to stop sidestepping the elephant in the room.

“Do you think they were seeing each other, Marie?”

“Who?”

She knows darn well, but Jen obliges with a patient, “Debbie and Mike Morino.”

“I don’t like to gossip.”

“I don’t, either. I just picked up on something between them.”

“So you’re psychic, too.”

Marie is teasing, Jen knows. But when she thinks about the nightmare that felt like a premonition, a strange apprehension oozes into her gut.

“Not psychic at all,” she tells Marie, “but . . . I wondered about it, that’s all. I’ve been so worried about Debbie, and Mike is . . . well, he’s not . . . he’s . . .”

He’s a bastard; that’s what he is. He’s the last thing Debbie needs in her fragile state.

“Look, I’ve known Mike for years,” Marie tells her. “Not well, but he’s always been pleasant to me, so who am I to speculate about his personal life?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I was just concerned about Debbie, and . . .”

No. Something more about the possible connection, something beyond worry for Debbie’s welfare, is bothering her.

What about the suicide note?

If there in fact was a note, Mike and Debbie chose to cover it up. Why? To protect themselves, or to protect Nicki?

Who am I to drag it out into the open?

“Forget it, Marie. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I don’t want to spread rumors. In the grand scheme of things, I guess it really doesn’t matter whether Mike and Debbie are involved, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t matter, but . . .” Marie tilts her chic blond head, as if she’s deciding whether to confide something. Then, mind apparently made up, she says, “Just so you know you’re not the only one with suspicions . . . It wouldn’t have even crossed my mind until yesterday . . .”

Jen’s pulse quickens. “Why? What happened yesterday?”

“While I was visiting Debbie, Mike stopped over. Obviously he didn’t expect to find anyone there with her. It was such a nice day that I had left my car parked around the corner, where I had my three o’clock lesson, and walked over to the Oliveras’ . . .”

“So Mike just showed up there?”

“Yes. And it was awkward.”

“How?”

“She went to answer the door and the way he started talking to her—then I guess she must have shushed him and he realized I was in the next room, and he changed his tone completely.”

“I wish I could talk to her about it.”

“And tell her what?”

“I don’t know . . . warn her, maybe, that he’s a jerk?” Even as she says it, Jen realizes it sounds ludicrous.

Her warning would be based on the teenage Mike she once knew. But Debbie knew him, too. Knew how he’d treated Jen; knew about the cheating and the lies; knew he wasn’t the nicest guy in town, by any stretch. It follows that Debbie also knew—should have known—better than to get involved with him.

Anyway, maybe he’s changed. Maybe—

Come on, who are you kidding?

Mike hasn’t changed one bit. He’s married, having an affair . . .

And what he does now is none of your business
, Jen reminds herself.

“I’m sorry,” she tells Marie as the coffeemaker beeps to indicate that it’s finished brewing. “I didn’t mean to even bring this up. But sometimes my tongue ignores my brain.”

Marie smiles. “That’s because you care about people—not because you don’t.”

“That might be one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. Thank you.” Jen stands and goes over to the counter to pour Marie a cup of coffee. As she lifts the pot, a loud rapping startles her and she nearly spills it.

Turning, she sees that someone is standing on the deck, knocking on the sliding glass door. Two
someones
.

“That just about gave me a heart attack.” Marie presses a hand to her breastbone.

“I’m sorry. It’s my parents.” Jen carefully sets down the coffeepot and hurries over to the door, shaking her head.

Her mother is wearing pantyhose, makeup, and a dark coat; her father, a blazer and dress shoes. They’ve just been to Mass at Our Lady, Jen knows, and they’ve undoubtedly brought over a box of doughnuts. Her mother probably wants to go over the menu for Sunday and talk about the cooking they’ll be doing today.

Unlocking the door and sliding it open, she’s about to remind them that they’re supposed to call first when she realizes that they haven’t brought doughnuts after all—and that her mother looks upset.

Uh-oh. Did she find out Frankie snuck into town early?

“Hi, Ma, hi, Dad. What’s going on?” Jen steps back to let them in, along with a blast of damp chill.