Chapter Eleven
Baxter shows up at nine o’clock on the dot Wednesday morning, denim jacket in place. Today he’s wearing red jeans, sandals and a faded Dixie Chicks T-shirt. I’d dressed down for the outing, but not nearly as much, opting for loose-fitting beige linen pants and a white tank top with minimal jewelry. My hair is in its standard chignon.
“You look like a catalog model,” Baxter comments as we climb into his neon green smart car. “Like one of those women pictured drinking wine while standing on a boat that’s still tied to the dock.”
I don’t see Baxter nearly enough, and we talk the whole way to Springfield, a three-hour trip. Dr. Dona Cortez works in the emergency room at the second-largest hospital in the city, and Baxter and I spend a good ten minutes trying to convince the nurse at the admitting desk to page her. She finally relents and we spend an additional half an hour in the waiting room, thumbing through old magazines.
“You must be Baxter.”
Both Baxter and I glance up as a tired-looking middle-aged woman in scrubs drops into the seat beside us, waving off his effort to stand and greet her.
“Dr. Cortez?”
“Who else?”
She’s got a disposable cup of coffee in one hand and downs half of it. Almost immediately I know she’s not the Dr. Cortez we’ve been searching for: Hector Nunes described his doctor as beautiful, with blond hair and dark eyes, and not to take anything away from the woman next to us, but she doesn’t fit the description. Dr. Dona Cortez might be attractive with a few more hours sleep and stain-free clothing, but this woman has a stubby red ponytail and pale blue eyes and is about fifteen years older than the one we’re looking for.
“Thanks for meeting with us,” Baxter says with a charming smile. I’m impressed at his sudden transformation; despite his casual—to use the term loosely—style of dress, he seems professional, competent and utterly trustworthy.
“What more can I help you with?” Cortez asks.
I see Baxter’s eyebrows lift in surprise, a split-second reaction that’s gone as quickly as it appeared.
“Can I buy you a real coffee?” he offers, gesturing distastefully to the sludge in her hand. “Anything you want.”
Cortez smiles faintly but shakes her head. “Thanks, but I’m done for the day, or night. Whichever. I just want to shower and go home.”
Baxter smiles again. “No problem. I just have a few questions about the Arthur Street Medical Clinic, if you don’t mind.”
Cortez shrugs. “I don’t mind, but my answer hasn’t changed.” At Baxter’s blank look she continues. “Did you not get my message?”
I’m half peering over his bony shoulder, but I see Baxter shake his head, expression neutral, wheels turning behind those guileless eyes.
Cortez sighs, and though she looks doubtful, offers, “Maybe I dialed the number wrong. I told you I’d never worked in Chicago and know nothing about this case you’re working on—something about metal? Or poisoning?” She smoothes a hand over her tiny ponytail. “In any case, I’m sorry to say I can’t help you. I’ve never heard of this clinic, and I don’t know anyone who has.”
She starts to stand, but Baxter halts her with the touch of his fingers on her forearm. “I appreciate your time, Doctor. I’m sorry I missed your call. Do you remember when you left that message?”
Cortez squints at the flickering television in the corner. “Sunday,” she decides finally. “In the afternoon. I bought groceries and when I put them away the tub of strawberry ice cream fell on the ground and exploded. It reminded me to call you.”
I fail to see the connection here, but Baxter is unperturbed.
“And when did you receive my initial message?”
“I listened to it the night before when I finished my shift. Am I talking to the right person?”
Baxter stands and I follow suit. “You are.” He smiles again as he shakes her hand, but there’s a tension in him now that wasn’t there before. “Thanks again.”
“Sure.”
Cortez gives me an odd look as I nod and hurry after Baxter, who’s rushing out of the hospital as though he’s forgotten I was there.
“Hey,” I call, kitten heels clicking over the pavement. “Slow down, detective.”
Baxter turns and waits. “I’m an investigator.”
“What was that in there? Did you forget you called her?”
Something dark moves across his face and he shakes his head. “I didn’t call her. I was waiting for you.”
“So what’s going on? What just happened?”
“I didn’t call her, Rachel.”
He stares at me expectantly.
“Uh-huh.”
“But somebody did.”
“Who?”
He cocks his head to the side, an angry gesture, as though he’s trying to shake something loose from his brain. “I’ll find out.”
But as I follow him across the parking lot to the neon green car, I have a sneaking suspicion that he already knows.
* * *
The ride back to Chicago is tense and quiet. I try to get more information out of Baxter, but he’s uncharacteristically reserved, his answers curt. Eventually I give up, staring out the window at the passing cars and soon dozing off.
“Hey.”
I wake up at the feel of Baxter’s fist on my thigh, lightly nudging me.
“Rachel. Wake up.”
My eyes flutter open and I blink, momentarily disoriented. “Did I fall asleep?”
He smiles thinly. “Yeah. Look...”
He doesn’t mean it literally, but I do look up, just in time to see the exit for a town an hour south of Chicago zip by.
“What’s happening?”
Baxter sighs. “I’ve got one doctor left to interview. I want to get it in now, while there’s still time.”
I glance at the clock. It’s nearly four. “Time?”
“Before she gets any more messages.” He says this meaningfully, and I stare at him.
“Who do you think called the last Dr. Cortez?”
“I don’t want to guess.”
“But you think you know.”
“It’s my job to know things.”
“And not tell me.”
“And tell you what you need to know.”
I cross my arms, annoyed.
“Dr. Donna Ash works at a family practice in Cranston,” Baxter says.
I straighten. “What?”
“She’s the last lead. Changed her name when she got married nine months ago. I haven’t been able to get hold of her—she rotates through practices, but on Wednesdays she’s in Cranston.”
Cranston is a short drive from Riverside; it’s where we were bussed for high school, where I hitchhiked to buy groceries, where I washed dishes at the truck stop after school. It’s where Dean held up a jewelry store. The memories it holds aren’t as depressing as the ones from Riverside, but they’re not much better. And I don’t know who from my past, if anyone, might live there. I’m hardly coping well with my first reunion.
I try to act normal, but I’m fidgeting in my seat. “Why didn’t you drop me at the office?”
Baxter glances at me. “You said you wanted to come along.”
“To Springfield.”
“What are you worried about?”
And then I know that Baxter knows. The only thing that surprises me is that I’m not more surprised by the realization. He knows about Riverside, the trailer, my mother, my life. I’m aware the firm does background checks on its employees and that somewhere along the line someone would have looked into me, but I’d been so careful to ensure there was nothing to find.
When applying to colleges, I’d told my boss at the truck stop that someone was stealing mail in Riverside and pleaded to use their P.O. box as my own, even offering to pick up the mail on my way in each day as incentive, and they’d reluctantly agreed. Anyone who’d looked into me would find nothing more than a greasy diner with awesome strawberry pie and runny scrambled eggs. Or so I’d thought.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask eventually.
“I told you. Someone contacted Dr. Cortez in Springfield—”
“You know,” I interrupt.
Baxter’s silent for a moment. “So?”
“So I don’t want to go to Cranston. I haven’t been there in ten years.”
“It’s Cranston, not Riverside.”
“I don’t want to go to either place.”
“You can wait in the car. I’ll give you a hat and sunglasses—you’ll be incognito.”
“You don’t understand.”
Baxter taps his fingers on the steering wheel, keeping time with an internal clock. “It’s not a crime to grow up poor.” He shrugs, then adds, “Officially.”
“I know that.”
“And sure, there are people who might dwell on it, but for the most part, people only know you as you are now. They don’t care whether you grew up in a big house or a yurt.”
“What’s a yurt?”
“A Mongolian tent.”
“Oh, God.”
“I do background checks on everybody, you’re not special.”
“Thanks.” I swipe at imaginary dark circles under my eyes, glaring into the side mirror as though it will transport me somewhere—anywhere—else.
“Why do you think people like you?”
“I don’t care if they like me.” That’s not true, and we both know it.
Baxter sighs. “Look, Rachel. You’re down-to-earth. You’re smart. You’re funny. You have a good job. What’s to hide?”
I fix him with my meanest look. “Don’t try to analyze me, Baxter. And if you must, keep it to yourself. You don’t know me, and I’d rather keep it that way.”
His grip on the wheel tightens, but he nods.
I feel guilty for snapping at him, but I don’t want to explain. Yes, I’m embarrassed to have had a mother who loved vodka more than me. Yes, I’m ashamed of the men that came in and out of our trailer on an hourly basis, each time leaving behind just enough money for another bottle. I hate the fact that I had lice every year until seventh grade, when I’d cut off my hair and boiled all the sheets and towels in our trailer, unwilling to start a new school with those things crawling over me. I don’t know how to tell people that three weeks after I left town in the middle of the night, my boyfriend robbed a jewelry store at gunpoint and went to prison for eight years. And I have no clue how I might explain that I’m seeing him again. How I ran and ran for ten long years, checked every box, did everything right and still ended up right where I started.
“It’s just bad timing, Baxter,” I mutter finally.
He glances over. “Why?”
We’re three exits away from Cranston; two from the turnoff for Riverside. We pass a sign boasting all the wonderful things we’ll find if we take the next two turns, not least among them fast food, gas and a graveyard.
“I think about coming back here every July, but I never do.”
“What does July mean?”
“Are you going to type this up in some report?”
He shoots me a wry smile. “Just for personal use.”
I mock gag. “My mother’s buried here. She died on July twenty-eighth. Every year I tell myself I’m going to visit her grave, and every year...I don’t.”
“What are you afraid of?”
I let out a shaky breath. Damn Baxter and his caring. “That I haven’t really changed. That I might come back and never leave again. That there might be people out here who still hate me.”
“Why would anyone hate you?”
An image of Dean flashes through my mind. I shake my head and tell Baxter the one thing that only those I left behind know. “I left in the middle of the night. Packed up everything and drove away. I never looked back.”
“And your mother?”
“She wanted me to go. But she died before...I don’t know. Before I could ask if she still felt that way.”
“What was she like?”
I laugh roughly. “She was an awful mother. She was depressed. Drunk. She never wanted to live.”
“And you did.”
I hesitate. “Yes.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I know.” But the tremor in my voice belies the statement.
Baxter flips on his blinker and takes the Cranston exit. My heart pounds so hard I swear I can hear my pulse in my ears.
“You going to make it?”
“Is Sterling your father?”
Baxter gives me a strange look, half smile, half perplexed. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Do you really like the Dixie Chicks?”
“Is this revenge? I know your secrets, you need to know mine?”
“Just for personal use.”
“Yeah, I like the Dixie Chicks.”
“Name three songs.”
He rattles off twelve. “That’s just the first album,” he adds. “Should I go on?”
“Do you think this woman is the one we’re looking for?”
Baxter laughs. “If I knew for sure, I’d have started here.”
* * *
The Cranston Family Clinic is located in a small plaza just a short trip from the highway. We pull into the crowded parking lot and I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly as I scan the long, one-story structure. It’s changed little since I last saw it, the addition of a large grocery store on one end being the most notable improvement. The orange roof, post office, drugstore, fast-food restaurants and shops have gone untouched.
Baxter squeezes past an abandoned shopping cart and into a space close to the plaza. My hand is clammy when I push open the door and step out into the humid air.
“Am I crazy or is it much hotter here?” I wheeze, fanning myself as I feel sweat gathering at the back of my neck.
“It’s hot. No mountains, no water sources... Why do you think they called it Riverside if there was no river?”
We pause at the crosswalk to let a rusted pickup roll by and I consider the question all Riverside residents have asked at some point. The only time we saw running water outside was when a particularly heavy storm flooded the drainage ditch, sending pathways of filthy water winding through the park.
“Marketing ploy, I guess.” I follow Baxter up to the clinic. He pulls open the heavy glass door, peeling letters identifying the three physicians regularly on call, Dr. Ash not among them.
“After you.”
I take another breath and step inside. Anxiety about being in Cranston mingles with my hope that this woman is the one we’ve been searching for and makes me particularly jittery.
“Hi.” Baxter smiles at the tired woman running the front desk, her bleached hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. My name is Adam Jones, I have an appointment with Dr. Ash at five.”
The receptionist consults a file on her desk and nods at the crowded waiting area, three rows of plastic seats scattered with toys. “Have a seat.”