Feeling like an asshole for pushing, I stood and walked over to the sofa, sitting on the opposite end. “Do you have any idea where your sister is now?”
She pulled the blanket from her shoulders. “No. My only guess is that things got too tough for her to handle and she ran off.”
I tried not to look at her sexier-than-fuck body, but my own body had a mind of its own and I could feel my blood coursing hot through my veins. “Tell me what you know.”
Elle turned sideways to face me and pulled her legs up, covering herself with the blanket again. “Not much. Almost four months ago I got a call out of the blue from my sister. I have no idea how she got my number, though we do have a mutual acquaintance in California. Like I said, we hadn’t seen each other or spoken in fifteen years. When she called, she told me that she thought she was in trouble.” Elle took a deep breath.
“Go on,” I prompted.
With a slightly hesitant nod, she did. “She asked me to look after her baby if anything happened to her.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. I wanted to wipe it away but I didn’t. “Did she say what she thought might happen to her?” I asked.
Elle folded her hands together. “No. I was in shock that she was even calling me and even more shocked by what she was telling me. I would never have guessed she’d be married, let alone that she’d have a child. Before I knew it, she was telling me she’d be in touch and then hung up before I could get any further information out of her. When I tried to reverse the number, I couldn’t. I had no idea what part of the world she was in. Our friend in California couldn’t give me any info. So I did nothing.”
“What else could you do?” I asked.
“Something. Anything. Look for her. I don’t know,” she said tightly.
My mouth opened, then shut. I wasn’t sure what else I could say.
“You probably think I’m heartless.”
Again, I resisted the urge to reach for her hand. “I don’t think that at all.”
Her face went a little blank, like it had in the car. Silence filled the space between us and I let her have a moment. If she was anything like me, memories had surfaced that she didn’t want to remember. Finally, she took a breath and spoke. “It’s just . . .” She waved her hand in the air. “Lizzy disappeared from my life and never looked back. When things got tough, she left.”
“Were you close?”
She looked a little lost. “Yes and no. For so long she’d been the big sister, the protector I needed, but then as we grew older, she rebelled against my father and just kept getting into so much trouble. She was three years older than me, but sometimes I felt like the older one. Still, we’d shared so much in our childhood that I thought we were connected forever. I was wrong, though. She knew I needed her, yet she left, and after that she never called or told me where she was. I never heard from her until that day.” She paused for a moment to gather herself.
My muscles went stiff as I watched the pain she felt flash across her face.
A few seconds later, she put a finger to her lips as if trying to quiet herself down.
The gesture made my heart pound like that of a wounded animal. It killed me, but there wasn’t anything I could do to ease the pain of the past. This I knew all too well. All I could offer her was my ear. “It’s okay, Elle. Go on.”
As if determined to brush off the feelings, she lifted her chin. “One day I got a phone call from Michael. He told me who he was and asked me if my sister had been in contact with me. I guess he’d found my number among her things. I told him she had, but nothing else. He asked if she was with me and I told him no. That’s when he told me she had left the morning before and never came home. She was missing and he was worried about her. I’m not sure why, but I felt compelled to come to Boston. And once I did, once I met Clementine, I couldn’t leave. It wasn’t until after I decided to stay that Michael told me what she had been involved in and explained why he hadn’t involved the police. It made sense, then, anyway. Now I’m not so sure.”
Elle’s bare toes were sticking out of the blanket and her fingers were clutched around her knees. Her nails were glossy but she wore no color. They were short but shaped. I could tell she didn’t care about the shit that didn’t matter. In New York, I’d spent so much time around artificial beauty—boob jobs, plumped lips, fake nails, haute couture. In Boston, I never even looked at women. She was like a breath of fresh air.
Focus, asshole.
Focus.
“What does O’Shea think happened to her?” I asked.
“We’re being honest with each other, right?”
I nodded.
“According to Michael, she was running some kind of white-collar drug op. He said as far as he knew she had been clean since Clementine was born, but then started up with the coke again. Something happened and her last deal went bad. He thinks she’ll come out of hiding sooner or later. Or he’s hoping.”