Lie in Plain Sight (23 page)

He apologized as soon as he walked in.

“It's okay, Chris. I was exhausted last night,” she said, handing him his usual: a blueberry muffin and coffee, light and sweet. She worked on a tray of muffins, arranging them to her liking, then carrying them into the front of the store and putting them on the counter. When she returned to the kitchen, he had a hard time meeting her eye. “You look tired.”

“I am,” he said, pushing the muffin away as if he didn't have an appetite. “Do you know Jane Murdock?”

Maeve searched her overstuffed brain for a face and came up with one. “The owner of Chrysanthemum Jewelry?” Maeve asked. She refrained from adding,
The store with the name no one can spell?

Chris nodded. Maeve heard someone knocking at the front door even though she still had three minutes before she had to open.

“Yes. Why?” she asked.

“She hired a private company to fix the camera over the store.” He paused. “The one that the village abandoned and that we all thought was broken. She just returned from being away and realized she might have something of use to us.”

“That's good, right?” Maeve asked, knowing where he was going before he could get the words out.

“Depends,” he said, looking up at the ceiling, anywhere but at Maeve.

“Why?” she asked, looking through the window in the door. A line had formed outside the front of the building, and people were waiting to get in. But she didn't recognize them. It was only later that she realized they were media types, begging for a chance to get into the store, to find out what she knew.

“Because we looked at the tape, and the last person seen talking to Taylor Dvorak on the afternoon she disappeared was Heather.”

 

CHAPTER 29

Maeve closed the store at the news, and Chris provided cover as she left the building, on her way to find Heather. It was early, but when Maeve called home, there was no answer, and Heather wasn't responding to texts. She went straight home, hoping she would find her there.

It was already clear that the Farringville Police Department had someone who was feeding information to the local media, so it was no surprise that reporters had shown up at the store at the crack of dawn. While Maeve's involvement in the story hadn't been considered newsworthy, Heather's certainly was. She was now a potential witness, supposedly the last person who saw Taylor before she disappeared, and someone who hadn't mentioned a word about it to anyone. Not her mother. Not her exalted father. Certainly not Chris Larsson or anyone else who had been in the store or around town desperately trying to find an eighteen-year-old girl who had vanished into thin air.

Chris followed Maeve, giving her a gentle beep as she sped from the parking lot and raced toward the house, the sound meant to slow her down. It had the opposite effect, and she ended up at home, leaving her car at the curb, illegally parked, the keys in the ignition. She went into the house and charged up the stairs, practically kicking open Heather's bedroom door. The girl was home and sleeping, her mouth hanging open slightly, a light breeze rustling the curtains in her room. It was peaceful and quiet, the only sound a muffled buzz from the phone under her pillow.

Heather awoke, her only reaction an eyebrow raise at the sight of her mother.

“Get up,” Maeve said.

“What?” Heather asked.

Maeve pointed to the door. “Detective Larsson is outside,” she said. “Not Chris, not Mr. Larsson, not my boyfriend, but a detective in the village. And you want to know why he's here?” Maeve closed her eyes. “And if you shrug or have some kind of snotty response, I will not think twice before slapping you silly.” She didn't think she would do it, but Heather didn't know that. The warning was there. She was not playing, as the kids would say.

Heather waited a beat before responding. “Is this about Taylor?”

Maeve opened her eyes. “What do you think?”

“Do I have to go to the police station?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears.

“Yes,” Maeve said and relaxed slightly at the sight of the tears that started to spill onto Heather's cheeks. “You can go with me,” she said, looking down the stairs and seeing Chris getting out of his car, starting for the door, ready to begin controlling the conversation that would take place. “But you have to tell them the truth. Everything. That's the only way this is going to end. For all of us.”

They walked down the stairs and into the hallway.

Heather nodded and turned to face Larsson. He opened the door and looked at her. “Ready?” he asked, cutting their conversation short.

Before she drove off, she texted Cal:
911. Emergency. Call me as soon as possible.
When he didn't respond immediately, she called his phone, but it went straight to voice mail. In her rearview mirror, she could see Chris, waving his hand to indicate that he was impatient to get to the station and get the questioning under way.

At the station, Chris took Heather away to talk, and Maeve sat in a suffocating room with fake wood paneling, alternately texting Jo to tell her what was going on and checking her e-mail for any messages from Cal or in relation to her business. But there were none; it was almost as if everyone, with the exception of the media, knew to stay away from her. She and, now, her offspring were poison and needed to be avoided. Liars, both of them, they hid the truth from the people they loved and wondered why things didn't turn out the way they planned.

Reporters had been camped out in front of the station house and shouted questions at them as they walked in.
“Heather, where did Taylor go?” “Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?” “How come you never said anything?”
And then over and over until it became something of a mantra:
“Where's Taylor, Heather?”
As Maeve rushed up the steps, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. By dinnertime, footage of her and her daughter would have run at least eight times, and she would have just as many messages from her sister, excited that she had seen Maeve and Heather on television during the day.

She put her phone away as the second hour ticked by. A brief rap at the door announced Suzanne Carstairs's entrance, the chief in another smart pantsuit and expensive heels. She sat down next to Maeve in the other uncomfortable chair and folded her hands in her lap. “What a shit show, huh?” Carstairs said.

“You could say that.”

Next to each other, neither had to look into the other's eyes, and Maeve was happy about that. The other woman sensed Maeve's frustration, her anger. “She's a kid, Maeve. Scared. She wouldn't be the first person who didn't tell something that was important. You know, germane to a case.”

“She should have known better.”

“Hell, shouldn't we all?” Suzanne said, laughing softly. “If we knew better, then I wouldn't have married a complete ass wipe as soon as I graduated from the academy, and you probably wouldn't have done some of the things you've done.”

Maeve stiffened.

“Am I right?” the chief asked. In her voice, or so Maeve detected, was a hint of something else, something not quite as innocuous.

“Yes. You're right,” Maeve said, her monotone hopefully giving nothing away. All of the things she had done she couldn't undo, and she lived with that every day fairly easily. It was living with the memories of them, the fallout, that was hard.

“She keep a lot of secrets from you?” Suzanne asked. “And remember, I have a teenager, too. I'm right there with you, sister.”

Maeve could see where this conversation was going. By making the connection, Suzanne was building camaraderie, hoping Maeve would tell her what she wanted to know. That her daughter kept secrets. Went out when she wasn't supposed to. Had a mysterious boyfriend Maeve didn't know and, as a result, couldn't keep track of. Maeve, however, could play this game, too. All she did was nod and smile in a gesture of commiseration.

The chief could tell she wasn't going to get anything so changed the subject. “He's a good guy, Larsson. You found yourself a good one.”

“Yep. He's the best,” Maeve said.

“How does he get along with Heather? They talk at all?”

Maeve continued staring straight ahead. “Why don't you ask him?” she said.

“Oh, I have,” she said. “Said Heather is a bit of an enigma.” She crossed her legs. “But aren't they all at this age? I know I was.”

“Me, too,” Maeve said, but there was no commitment in her voice. It was just agreeing for agreement's sake. The room, already stuffy and hot, closed in a little bit, the smell of Carstairs's last cigarette hanging heavy in the air.

“You get along with your mother, Maeve? Or did you give her hell?” she asked.

“My mother died when I was small.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Carstairs looked at Maeve. “You had a cousin who died, too? Am I correct? And then your dad?”

“Yes. Right. All of that,” Maeve said, feeling her body go into shutdown mode, only answering those questions that she felt she could without giving anything away.

“All of that. Tragic. Your family's been through a lot, Maeve.”

They had. And the chief would never know how much.

The chief popped up out of her seat suddenly. “Well, shouldn't be long now,” she said, touching Maeve's shoulder. “We'll get what we need and send her home. Or back to school. Whatever you think is best.” She started for the door. “Oh, and Maeve?”

Maeve looked up, having to make eye contact with the chief.

“How long has Heather been dating Jesse Connors?”

Maeve did her best to remain impassive, but the surprise was writ large on her face; she could feel it. “Jesse?”

“Yes, Jesse.” The chief held tight to the doorknob. “How long?”

Maeve couldn't lie. There were too many lies and half-truths to remember, and she didn't see any reason to add another one to her growing collection. “I don't know, Chief Carstairs.”

“Oh, call me Suzanne,” she said, smiling.

“Suzanne.”

“No idea?”

“None.”

“Huh,” the chief said and opened the door. “That's odd. A protective mom like you.”

“What do you mean?”

The chief stepped through the door and into the hallway. “Sit tight. Won't be long now, Maeve.”

 

CHAPTER 30

I spend so much time looking outward, fighting the good fight, that I don't even know what battles are right in front of me.

That was the thought that went through her head after she washed her face that night, catching sight of her sunken eyes and slack jaw in the bathroom mirror as she applied moisturizer. Heather was at Cal's, the decision unspoken between both of them when they left the station house, Maeve driving straight to the Tudor and dropping her daughter off, not a word exchanged between them. He knew he was in the wrong having not answered her text or voice mail, his consternation over her rejection having taken precedence over everything else that day. This time, his immaturity had bitten him in the ass. It wasn't Maeve who had an emergency, who needed his help and guidance. It was his daughter and his own pride had kept him from helping her when she needed it.

Good cop, my ass, Maeve thought.

Let him handle it. Let him ask the questions that should be asked. Let him try to get answers from a girl with the personality of a sphinx.

Let him raise her.

That was her final thought as she pulled off her T-shirt and pulled a new one on over her head. She crawled into bed. There had been eighteen messages from Evelyn, each one more excited than the one before, one telling Maeve she looked pretty on television, another saying that she should fix her ponytail. Still another said that she had icing on her backside and she should change her jeans. If she needed honesty, she had Evelyn. For duplicity, she had everyone else.

She thought of Evelyn, how she had neglected her the last few weeks. The next day, after the store closed, she would pick her up and take her to dinner.

Chris had given her a quick glance before she left the station with Heather, and in that glance was a host of unspoken sentiments. “I love you” was one of them. “I'm sorry” was another. For what, she wasn't sure, but she waited for the other shoe to drop, the call that would come saying that she was too complicated and he was looking for something different, something easier. It was coming, the breakup. She was sure of it. She hoped that he would tell her sooner rather than later, like ripping off a bandage instead of peeling it off slowly, so that she could deal with the pain.

There was a knock at the front door, and she raced down the stairs, hoping it was Chris, starting before she even got to the door to beg him for his forgiveness for being who she was and for what she had wrought with her enigmatic daughter. But it wasn't Chris and it wasn't Cal. It wasn't Jo.

It was Gabriela.

It was all Maeve could do not to laugh. She opened the door. “This day just keeps getting better and better,” she said, the words falling from her lips before she had a chance to think about what she wanted to say, how she wanted to greet her ex-husband's more recent wife. “You're back?”

“I'm back,” she said.

“For good?” Maeve asked, a question Gabriela didn't answer. “What can I do for you, Gabriela?”

“May I come in?” she asked, sounding calmer and more sedate than Maeve was expecting.

Maeve brought her into the living room, her T-shirt and sweatpants in stark contrast to Gabriela's pencil skirt and fitted white blouse. Maeve looked outside and saw Gabriela's little sports car at the curb. “Where's the baby?”

“At home,” Gabriela said, taking a seat on the couch. “He's with Cal.”

“Nice of him to let me know that this mystery has been solved.”