Having built a good rapport to this point, Livia didn’t dare reveal her suspicions. And the truth was that she had no idea what to think about Nicole and Casey. “Of course not. I’m just looking for anything I can find about that summer. Anything I can learn about my sister before she went missing.”
“You know,” Barb said, pouring more vodka into the white Styrofoam cup, “we’re a lot alike, you and me.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“My older boy, Joshua, he went missing. He was nine. Out with Casey and their daddy at the fair. Their father was such a piece of shit, excuse me. Worthless as a husband and no good as a father. Knowing this about him, I still let him take my boys to the fair that day. He came home with Casey. Never saw Joshua again.”
Livia paused at the revelation. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Me too. So I know how you feel. About your sister. Casey would’ve known, too.”
“When did that happen? Your other son?”
“July twelfth, 2000. He’d be twenty-seven now, but I only know him as that nine-year-old boy stuck in my mind.” Mrs. Delevan looked off into the corner of the room.
“Joshua was never found?”
Barb shook her head. “My Joshua is gone. Police questioned my husband for a long time, but they finally gave up on that angle. There was a predator at that fair, and he waited until Joshua drifted far enough away from his daddy. That’s all it was. The police checked in with me for a year to tell me about their leads and about the case. But they stopped calling eventually. After a while, I gave up hope. Me and their daddy were never the same. I still blame him. He didn’t have nothin’ to do with Joshua’s disappearance, but he was the one supposed to be watchin’ my boy that day. He knows it, too. So he took off about a year after we lost Joshua. Casey and me never seen him again. Casey hung around until he was eighteen, then he took off like his daddy. Ain’t talked with him for three, four years. Then I get a call from the police. Now both my boys are gone.”
Livia listened to the sad life of Barb Delevan. The self-destruction and drawn shades and dark house and reclusive lifestyle made a great deal more sense. And so, too, did Nicole’s attraction to Barb’s son. Their cousin Julie’s disappearance—a turning point in Nicole’s childhood—was something Casey Delevan would have related to. Livia imagined Nicole finding comfort in that connection, something she hadn’t found from her family. Livia had been off at college when Julie disappeared and didn’t see the ramifications until the following summer when Nicole was withdrawn and confused. A nineteen-year-old kid herself, Livia wasn’t equipped with the tools to comfort her younger sister about something so tragic. Her parents tried to shield the horror of it by moving on and hiding the details from her.
“I’m really sorry for your loss,” Livia said. “I won’t take up any more of your time. If you need anything, or have any questions, please call me.”
“Thanks for coming all the way down, Doc. And for setting my mind to rest that my boy didn’t suffer.”
“Of course.”
“And it does get easier,” Barb said, sitting up and pouring more vodka. “Day by day, I miss him less and less.”
Livia stood. She knew Barb Delevan was talking about her missing son whom she hadn’t seen for nearly twenty years, not Casey. That Barb and Casey had lost touch, Livia was sure, had to do with the nine-year-old boy trapped in Mrs. Delevan’s mind.
“Thank you,” Livia said as she headed for the door and the fresh air outside.
CHAPTER 11
Megan McDonald pulled up to the house in West Bay. It was dark and dreadful, but she’d never had the heart to tell Mr. Steinman how hard it was to come here. He was lonely, and Megan understood that if she didn’t visit him, no one would. His wife was a number of years older than he, the love affair originating from two separate marriages and now, on the downhill side of life, culminating with Mr. and Mrs. Steinman in separate rooms much of the time.
It was a sad life that Mr. Steinman had described to Megan over the past year, and she had decided not to let him live out his days alone. She owed him something, and company is what she had to offer. That she needed to drive along Highway 57 and past the spot where Mr. Steinman had found her staggering the night she escaped from the bunker was an added element to the silent sacrifice Megan made to visit the man who had saved her life. But Megan couldn’t claim full martyr status for her visits to Mr. Steinman. With all her friends away at college, she actually looked forward to their cribbage games.
She climbed from her car and knocked on the door.
“Come in, my lovely young lady,” Mr. Steinman called from his couch. He sounded in a jovial mood this evening.
Megan pushed through the front door to the smell of old people, a combination of talcum powder and antiseptic. Some might be turned off by the home. It was less than organized, and with some neglect could be featured on a hoarding reality show. But Megan was always flattered when she visited Mr. Steinman. He was not elderly, just sixty, and his self-awareness had not abandoned him. She knew the stacks of clutter in the corner were his way of tidying up for her presence. The smell of rubbing alcohol and antiseptic, she knew, could not be avoided.
Mr. Steinman sat in his worn green recliner, a deck of cards neatly arranged on the coffee table next to the cribbage board. This was, Megan knew, the highlight of his week.
“Hi,” Megan said.
“Long one or short one?”
“Short. Sorry, I’ve got to get home and then to therapy.”
Mr. Steinman leaned forward and shuffled the cards. “Sit,” he said. “Soda?”
“Sure.”
The cards fluttered together as he shuffled them. “Help yourself.”
Megan grabbed a soda from the kitchen and then she sat at the corner of the couch. Mr. Steinman dealt six cards.
“I’ll let you have the crib to start,” he said.
Megan smiled and analyzed her cards. “Go easy on me.”
“Never. Where’ve you been lately?”
“Book stuff. Interviews and all that.”
Mr. Steinman regarded her over the top of his cards. When their eyes met, he looked back to his hand and discarded two cards into the crib. “You’re not fooling me, you know that?”
“We’ve just started playing, I haven’t tried to fool you yet.”
“I mean with the interviews.”
Megan paused briefly, but then discarded her own cards to the crib.
“It’s the way you smile,” Mr. Steinman said. He looked up, held eye contact this time.
“How’s that?” Megan asked.
“When you’re here and you get a good run or a string of fifteens, you smile. You really smile. Not that fake thing you do with your lips together when you’re on TV.”
“Oh, I have different smiles?” Megan let out a halfhearted laugh that she didn’t even believe.
“Yeah, like that. It’s as fake now as it is when you’re gabbing with Dante Campbell. I don’t like it.”