34.
Riley
As soon as Christine arrived the following morning, I left the house for a run. I’d timed it that way. Every minute away from Christine was a good minute. But as soon as I descended the porch steps, the Kyles’ old Ford pulled up to the curb in front of my house.
Oh, no, I thought. I’d wanted an hour’s peace. Was that too much to ask?
The passenger side window of the car rolled down and I could see it was Verniece rather than Tom in the driver’s seat.
“Riley, dear!” Verniece called, all sweetness and light. “Can we talk for a minute?”
I stood with my hands on my hips. I looked behind me at the house, knowing Jeannie would show up any minute and wouldn’t be happy to find Verniece there. Crossing the lawn, I pulled the car door open and got in. After hearing bits and pieces of Verniece’s argument with Tom the previous day, the older woman no longer gave me that warm cuddly feeling.
“We can’t talk here,” I said. “There’s too much going on.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” Her voice shook the way it had that first morning, when she told me how my so-called adoption had inspired them to adopt their son. She put the car in gear and gave it a little gas. “How about we find a shady spot to sit by the water? It’s too hot to stay in the car.”
“Fine,” I said. “What’s going on?”
She ignored my question, seemingly focused on her driving, and I didn’t press. I would find out soon enough.
She parked in the lot near Union Point Park and we sat on a bench in the shade of a couple of trees. I looked toward the river. In the distance a couple of kayakers paddled slowly away from shore.
“This is really hard for me,” Verniece said. “Extremely hard. I feel like I’m under Tom’s control, sometimes.” She shrugged. “Embarrassing to admit that, but that’s the way it is.”
Spit it out, I thought. The fact that I could no longer trust her made me angry. Since my arrival in New Bern, Verniece had been the one person I thought I could count on to have my best interests at heart. I’d been wrong. No one in this town had my best interests at heart.
She waited for me to respond to what she’d said, and when I didn’t, she nervously plowed ahead.
“First, I have to get your promise that you won’t tell your brother what I’m going to tell you,” she said.
“I can’t promise that,” I said.
“Please, Riley. There’s information you should know, but if you tell Danny and he tells … anyone, well, frankly, it will ruin my life. Mine and Tom’s. And I didn’t tell you this before, but I’m very ill.” She looked at me. “Heart disease.” She laid her palm flat against her chest. “I’m looking at open heart surgery soon, and all this is taking a toll on my health.” When I didn’t respond, she continued. “You probably wonder why I stay with a difficult old coot like Tom,” she said. “I’m sure it’s hard for someone like you to understand. You’re young and healthy with marketable skills, but I have none of those qualities. So I put up with what I have to to survive.”
I nodded in spite of my desire to remain cool and detached from her this morning. I understood what she was saying. Probably a lot of women her age were in the same boat.
“All right,” I said. “Just tell me what you want.”
“Okay.” She took in a deep wheezy breath and I thought she might be telling me the truth about her heart. “I know this will sound terrible … it is terrible,” she began, “but Tom is desperate. Well, we both are, I guess.” She laughed nervously. “The thing is, Tom knows more about your sister’s … disappearance than he was letting on yesterday. I don’t know all what he knows,” she added quickly, “just that he wasn’t telling you and your brother the truth.”
“Her disappearance?” I said. “You mean, he knows for certain she didn’t kill herself?”
Verniece nodded, and my own heart skipped a beat. “That’s what he says,” she said. “And he told me to let you know”—the corner of her mouth twitched—“that he’ll tell you where she is in exchange for the deed to the RV park.” She looked toward the river instead of at me so she didn’t see the shock in my face.
“I can’t possibly do that!” I said. “You’re talking about extortion!”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that!” she said. “And I do know it’s a terrible thing to ask and I’m so embarrassed, but remember, it is what your father wanted, and…” Her voice faded away. She wrung her hands in her lap. “It’s all Tom’s idea,” she said. “This is a part of him I never knew existed.” She grabbed my hand. “Please don’t say anything to Danny!” she pleaded. “Tom wants you alone to have the information. You deserve to know what happened to your sister, but surely you don’t want the police involved, and your brother … we just don’t know what he’d do if he—”
“Is she still alive?” I drew my hand away from hers.
“She was alive the last time he saw her.”
“Saw her?” I pressed my hand to my own chest and felt my heart thudding beneath my palm. “He actually saw her?”
“He says he was involved, but I don’t know how exactly. It sounds crazy to me. But he knows a lot, Riley. He has a good idea where she is.”
I did the math in my head. Twenty acres at ten thousand dollars an acre. Was finding my sister worth two hundred thousand dollars? Danny couldn’t care less about his half and we already had my father’s money plus whatever we got for the house. I knew Verniece was playing good cop/bad cop with me, pretending she was an innocent victim of her husband in this scheme. I knew that in my head, but my heart didn’t give a damn.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Oh, my good Lord!” Verniece slapped her hands on her thighs. “You will? Oh, thank you, thank you, Riley! You’ve just given me a future!”
“I’ll come over this afternoon and Tom can tell me how to find her and then I’ll have my father’s lawyer draw up whatever papers we need to turn the park over to you.”
She lost her smile. “Tom said we need you to do that first. Get the documents taken care of first.”
Whatever, I thought. “All right.”
“And you won’t tell Danny any of this?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. At least I wouldn’t tell him right away, although I hoped I could someday. “I don’t know how quickly Suzanne—my father’s lawyer—can get this done, though.”
“Well, Tom said it has to be soon. Before he loses his nerve.”
What absolute gall, I thought. I pulled my phone from my pocket, and she panicked.
“What are you doing? You didn’t record this, did you?”
“Relax,” I said. I wished I had thought to record her. “I just want to put your number in my phone. I’ll call you when I have the papers drawn up.”
“Oh.” She gave me her number and I added it to my contacts.
“You won’t regret this, Riley,” she said. “I think Tom knows a lot and can really help you.” She stood up. “Come on and I’ll drive you home.”
I shook my head, not budging from the bench. “I’ll run,” I said.
She looked worried as she reached down to touch my shoulder, tentatively, like she wasn’t sure her touch would now be welcome. She drew her hand away quickly, and I thought she must have felt the cold stone my shoulder had become. “We’ll wait to hear from you,” she said.
I watched her walk away, then stood up and started running toward the waterfront. Was I really going to go through with this? It was insane. And risky. I’d have to track Lisa down with care, keeping Danny out of it. Keeping the authorities out of it. I needed to protect her. If I hurt her by finding her, I’d never forgive myself. And if she’d ever cared about me, if she’d ever loved her little sister, that love would vanish like vapor. I would ruin her life. I’d ruin her.
Two weeks ago, I was the proud owner of six thousand dollars. If it took every new cent I was due from my father’s estate, I would spend it to find Lisa. I was certain Daddy would have wanted that. My eyes filled with tears as I ran, and I brushed them away with the back of my hand, but they were instantly replaced by more. How my parents must have tortured themselves over Lisa’s suicide! I was sure Daddy would have given up everything he owned to learn the truth. I’d do this for him as much as for myself.