* * *
Inside the cottage, Jade looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She was a disaster. Her hair was clean now, but it hung limply around her pale face, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Although she’d dyed her eyebrows, her eyelashes were their usual white and if that wasn’t a giveaway, she didn’t know what was. She had to get mascara. And more of that dye for when her roots started coming in.
She put on her sandals and grabbed her purse. Once on the street, she walked in the direction Ingrid had pointed. North. She was winded by the time the market came into view. There were loads of people on the street and most of them seemed to be close to her age. Blond boys on skateboards. Long-haired girls with holey jeans and cutoff T-shirts. They glanced at her. Some even smiled and said hi. She was not in northern Virginia any longer. People were happy and friendly and unrushed here. The sun shone brighter and crisper. Nobody was thinking about the murderous girl from Alexandria.
Once in the market, she realized she should have brought Ingrid’s cart with her. She limited what she bought so it would fit in two paper sacks, picking out some fruit and chicken breasts and a paperback cookbook called Healthy Cooking on the Cheap. She paged through it for a chicken recipe and bought the rest of the ingredients she’d need to make it. She’d never learned to cook. Her mother always said she’d rather have her practice the violin than do housework. She bit back tears at the memory of her mother, and that’s when she saw the little girl. She was tiny, no more than two, crouching down in the pasta and rice aisle with her back to Jade as she poked at a plastic bag of noodles. A woman—most likely the child’s mother—stood nearby, reading the labels on jars of pasta sauce. The girl’s black hair shimmered in two high pigtails. Jade stopped in the middle of the aisle, staring, willing the girl to turn around and be Riley. If only! The little girl chattered to herself as she poked the bag, and Jade fought the urge to pick her up, swing her around, and bury her face in that chubby little neck that she was certain would smell exactly like Riley’s. But when the girl looked up at her with the face of an adorable stranger, the magic spell was broken, and Jade quickly walked past her toward the checkout counter before the child’s mother could catch her staring.
She walked back to Ingrid’s as fast as she could with the bags in her arms. They weighed a ton and she had so little strength. She was out of breath after the first block, and she couldn’t get her heart to slow down. It was even skipping beats, the way it had the day she was arrested and the police dragged her down to the station. She’d been nearly comatose in the back of that police car and her chest had felt like it had a pinball banging around inside it. Her jeans had been stiff with blood; her hands sticky and red. She didn’t care then if she died. A heart attack would have been just fine with her. She’d wanted it to be over, because she knew that whatever was ahead of her was going to ruin her life. She felt a little the same way now. Her life no longer seemed to matter. If she dropped dead on the street, they’d find this girl, Jade, this girl who didn’t exist, and they’d try to contact her family, only to discover her family didn’t exist, either.
By the time she got back to the cottage, she was sweating and crying. She dumped all the groceries in the kitchen, flopped onto her bed, and stared out the window at the orange trees. Did Jade have anyone who loved her? The family she ran away from—did they love her? What did it matter, she told herself. They were make-believe people. The people who loved Lisa—her parents and Riley and Danny and Matty—now only loved the ghost of Lisa. Except for Daddy. Nobody else knew she was still here. Nobody else knew the hollow girl she was turning into.
20.
Riley
In spite of Verniece’s warning to wait a day to talk to Tom, I couldn’t do it. I went back to the park after dinner and was relieved to see him and Verniece sitting in the webbed chairs on the patio, two beers on the small table between them.
I parked at the end of the gravel lane and they watched me as I walked toward them.
“Would you like a beer, Riley dear?” Verniece asked when I reached the patio. I thought she looked nervous, her smile shaky.
“No, thanks.” I lowered myself into the third chair without waiting for an invitation. A mosquito promptly landed on my thigh, another on my wrist. I swatted one and missed the other, but I didn’t care.
“Look.” Tom sat forward, not waiting for my questions. He still wore the shirt and pants he’d had on at Suzanne’s office. “I was only saying what the police said. They never found her body. It was suspicious, that’s all.”
“So you don’t know anything?” I heard the plea in my voice. Please tell me you know something! “You were just guessing?”
“Exactly,” Verniece said. “He was just guessing.”
Tom lifted his beer and took a long pull on it. He glanced at his wife. “They found more than one set of footprints in the area where her car was parked, like she had help,” he said.
“Tom,” Verniece protested.
“Like someone helped her fake her suicide,” he added, in case I wasn’t following him. I was. Very well.
“How do you know about the footprints?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I read it in the paper somewhere. Your sister’s so-called suicide was written up all over the damn place.”
“My father cut out a ton of articles about what happened,” I said. “I read them all. There was nothing about two sets of footprints.”
“Well, he must have missed one,” he said. “I didn’t pull it out of thin air. What’s it matter, anyway?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You want a murderer in your life? You want to have to split your inheritance with someone like that?”
“Tom…” Verniece had red splotches on her throat.
“If my sister is alive, I want the chance to know her.” I felt the threat of tears behind my eyes.
“Oh, see now what you’ve done?” Verniece snapped at her husband. “Stop teasing her. What’s wrong with you, old man?”
Tom leaned back in the chair with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to get you all worked up.”
“He didn’t mean it, Riley, truly,” Verniece said.
“But … you honestly don’t believe she killed herself?” I couldn’t let it go. I would keep the possibility alive as long as I could.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I think she’s probably still alive and free as a bird somewhere.”
“Stop it!” Verniece leaned over to smack him on the arm. “She’s vulnerable. Can’t you see that? I told her about her adoption and upset her to bits and now you’re filling her head with all sorts of crap!”
“I’m not adopted,” I said tiredly, then looked at Tom again. “It’s just the way you said it. You know, when you were in your car before you drove off? Like you knew for sure.”
“I was pissed off,” he said. “But that doesn’t change what I believe. About her being alive.”
We were both ignoring Verniece, who was making tsking sounds of distress.
“Verniece told me my father said he was going to give you the park,” I said, “but there’s nothing about that in his will. There’s nothing to indicate that at all, and I’m sorry if you had your hopes up. I honestly think the pipe collection was pretty generous.”
The look he gave me was evil. “You have no fucking idea.” He got to his feet so quickly I drew back in my chair, afraid. Picking up his half-empty beer bottle by the neck, he walked away from us toward the creek. I watched him go, wishing I hadn’t mentioned the park. Wishing I hadn’t come at all.
I looked at Verniece. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize it was such a sore subject.”
She let out a long sigh and brushed a fly away from her damp face. “We’re hurting for money a little right now,” she said. “That’s all. You know how it is … well, you don’t know, actually.” She smiled. “But you reach a certain age. You’re on a fixed income, yet expenses keep going up. Your house is falling apart.” She laughed mirthlessly, pointing to the dented RV behind her. “It gets a little frightening.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I felt wealthy, my share of Daddy’s money on its way to my own bank and more to come when I sold the house and the park. I’d done absolutely nothing to earn that wealth. “You know you can stay here without paying any rent until I sell the park.” Oh, God. Where would they go then? “I hope the pipe collection will give you a little bit of a cushion.”
She wore a sad smile, reaching over to touch my hand. “I’m sure it will,” she said. “And don’t you worry, now. We’ll be fine.”
* * *
I felt far worse as I drove away from the Kyles’ motor home than when I’d driven toward it half an hour earlier. I wanted to believe my sister was alive, and yet I knew there was a good chance Tom was toying with me.
Two sets of footprints, he’d said. Was he making it up? Even if he wasn’t, what did it mean?
All I knew was that I didn’t want to be alone with this possibility another minute. I drove past the exit of the RV park and onto the rutted lane that would take me to my brother’s trailer.