Mortal Sin (12 page)

But this thing with Kit had knocked her for a loop. She hadn’t realized the extent to which she’d built her life around the girl. Kit’s disappearance had placed her life on hold indefinitely. If the worst happened and Kit didn’t come back, that hold was likely to become permanent, because without Kit, she couldn’t see much reason to go on.

She finished off the glass of wine, muted the CD player, and picked up the telephone. She knew Clancy Donovan’s cell phone number by heart because she’d spent hour after hour, day after day, staring at that flyer with Kit’s picture on it. She hated that picture, had always hated it. School photos were so stiff and unnatural, and Kit was such a lovely girl.

He answered on the second ring, his voice soft, mellow, familiar. For a brief instant, she wanted to give in to the aching desire to cry. Instead, she said, “Do you think I’m crazy?”

There was a measured pause before he said, “Sarah?”

“Never mind. I guess that gives me my answer. You must not know very many crazy women.”

“I recognized your voice. Moonlight, magnolias, balmy southern nights.”

“That’s your story, anyway.”

“And I’m sticking to it. Why would I think you’re crazy?”

“My ex-husband thinks I’m obsessing too much about Kit. I just wondered if you shared that opinion.”

“I think that under the circumstances, you’re allowed to obsess until the cows come home.”

“Josie’s been at me, too. She keeps telling me it’s time I started dating. The universal panacea. Like I have any interest in men right now.” She wrapped the phone cord tight around her index finger, let it spring free, and watched the flow of blood return. “The longer this goes on, the more frustrated I get. I guess I had this naive idea that we’d just cruise downtown, pick her up off a street corner, and bring her home. Rather simplistic of me, wasn’t it?”

“It’s a normal expectation. Not particularly realistic, but normal. This kind of thing is an education in itself. Unfortunately, the degree comes from the school of hard knocks.”

“In the beginning, I was fueled by anger. I was furious with Kit for running away in the first place, furious with the police for not being more helpful. Now—” She paused, sighed. “Now, I think I’ve run out of fuel. I’m so tired. And so discouraged. This is my fault, you know.”

“How is it your fault?”

“I was lousy at being a mother.”

“Do you think that’s really fair to yourself? Have you ever had any previous parenting experience? Did you ever take parenting classes?”

“Most people don’t take parenting classes. They still manage to raise normal kids.”

“Most people start with infants, and work their way up to teenagers. They have a little bit of experience under their belts before they get to Bedlam. You’re being far too hard on yourself.”

“I could have made better choices. Kit’s been dragged from pillar to post all her life. So what did I do? I uprooted her one more time and took her fifteen hundred miles away from everything that was even remotely familiar. I knew she was unhappy, but I didn’t know what to do about it. That girl’s just starving for love, and God knows, I tried to give it to her. But I couldn’t get through. That’s my failing, and I know it. Now I’m terrified she’ll go looking for it in the wrong place, and it’ll be all my fault.”

“Have you talked to anyone about this guilt you’re feeling?”

“Well, Father, in case you haven’t noticed, it appears as though I’m doing just that.”

There was a brief silence at his end of the phone. “Yes,” he said, sounding surprised. “So you are.”

“I’m sorry I bothered you. I really wasn’t looking for a therapy session. I’m not even Catholic. And you’re off duty. But I appreciate you listening to me. I guess I just needed to blow off a little steam.”

“You’re not bothering me. And I’m never off duty. You know, there’s a local support group for families of runaway and missing children. I think it meets somewhere in Lynn. If you’re interested, I can get you information on where and when.”

“Is that what you think I need? A support group? You don’t strike me as the touchy-feely type.”

“I think any of us, when faced with a life-altering crisis, can benefit from the wisdom and support of people who’ve already been there.”

“A cagey response if ever I heard one. All right, Father, you might as well get me the information. I suppose it beats psychotherapy.”

“I’ll see what I can do for you. Sarah—” He paused, and she waited, breathing a little too hard, still playing with the phone cord, trying to mold it back into its original neat coil. But it was too late for that; the damage was already done. “We’ll find her,” he said. “I promise.”

“You keep telling me that,” she said. “Maybe one of these days, I’ll start believing it.”

The next time she saw the man who called himself Rio, Kit was hovering at the top of the stairs inside the entrance to the Park Street T station, trying to stay warm. Every time the door opened to let commuters into the old stone building, the March wind sliced through her with knifelike precision. But she was loathe to descend those stairs and part with even a dollar in order to pass through the turnstile and rest her weary body on a bench. Last night, she’d slept in the foyer of a dilapidated apartment building somewhere in the South End. At least she’d been indoors, out of the wind and the cold. But when she woke up, her backpack was gone, stolen while she slept right next to it.

It was the closest she’d come to crying since she left home. Her clothes were gone, and so was the photo of Momma she’d carried since she was four years old. Her last joint had been in that bag, along with the candy bar she’d bought yesterday afternoon and vowed to save for morning, no matter how much her stomach gurgled and growled in the meantime. Now all she had left was Freddy, who’d been cradled in her arms while she slept, and a five-dollar bill tucked into the pocket of her grimy jeans.

For the first time, she considered the possibility of going home. Kit was familiar with the concept of hitting rock bottom, and she was pretty sure she was hovering in the vicinity, if she hadn’t already arrived. But to go home now—assuming Aunt Sarah would even take her back—would be to admit she’d failed. Failure was a weakness, and only sissies were weak. Kit Connelly was no sissy. Life with Daddy had toughened her, and she would spit in the eye of anyone who possessed the audacity to suggest otherwise.

If only she wasn’t so very hungry.

He materialized out of nowhere. One minute, she was standing alone, squeezed against the wall as harried commuters dashed by in a mad rush to catch the train that had just pulled into the station. The next instant, Rio was standing in front of her, a bagel in one hand, a steaming cup of coffee in the other. She wasn’t sure which looked better to her, the man or the bagel, but if she voted on the basis of smell, the coffee won, hands down. Anything that smelled this good couldn’t possibly be bad.

“Hey, Julia,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Eyeing the bagel, she said, “Hi.”

He glanced down at the bagel in his hand, then back up at her face. “Buy you breakfast, gorgeous?”

Suddenly, it was more than she could stand. The cold, the hunger, her stolen belongings, his generosity. A single fat tear spilled from the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She swiped at it viciously. Without another word, Rio took her by the arm and led her outside, across the street and into the bagel shop on the corner.

“Anything you want, babe,” he said. “My treat.”

She picked out a raisin bagel and two chocolate honey-dipped doughnuts, a carton of milk and a bottle of Fruitopia. They sat in a booth and he watched in silence while she ate every last morsel. She washed it all down with the milk, and then she opened the bottle of juice for dessert. For the first time in a week, her stomach felt satisfied, full almost to the point of discomfort. “Thank you,” she said. “You can’t know how hungry I was.”

“Anything for you, sweet thing. I wondered if you’d still be around. I thought maybe you would’ve gone back home by now.”

Over the rim of her bottle, she said, “I’m not going back.”

He nodded knowingly. “That’s what I figured when I saw you. You seem like the type of girl who knows what she’s doing. If you left home, you must’ve had a good reason. It wasn’t just to get attention.”

“Hah. Like I ever got any.”

He took a sip of coffee and said casually, “Folks ignored you, did they?”

She studied him, debating whether or not she should trust him. She didn’t know him, not really. They’d conversed a couple of times in a crowded subway station. For all she knew, he could be a modern-day equivalent of Jack the Ripper.

But he was looking at her with those amazing blue eyes, waiting patiently for her to tell him the story of her life. And he’d bought her breakfast, the most wonderful breakfast she’d ever eaten. “All I have is my dad,” she said, playing with her bottle cap. “My mom died when I was little.”

“That’s tough,” he said. “I lost my mother when I was twelve. Never really hit it off with my old man. I left home at sixteen, and I never looked back.”

“I’ve been living with my aunt. Daddy got married a couple of years ago, and his wife hates me. So he dumped me on Aunt Sarah. We don’t exactly get along.”

Sympathy flooded his eyes. “She didn’t want you either?”

Kit shrugged. In spite of her conflicts with her aunt, it seemed disloyal to bad-mouth Sarah to someone else, even if that someone had bought her breakfast. “It’s not that she’s so bad. I mean, she took good care of me. But I couldn’t even turn around without her breathing down my neck. And she blamed me for everything that’s gone wrong since the Year One.”

“Bummer.” He pointed to Freddy, propped up beside her on the seat. “Who’s this?”

She flushed hotly, tucked Freddy closer against her side, and lowered her eyes. “Nobody,” she mumbled into her Fruitopia bottle. “Just some dumb stuffed animal.”

“Hey, I wasn’t making fun. Really. Everybody needs somebody.”

She hazarded a quick glance in his direction, but detected no levity on his face. He seemed sincere. “Freddy,” she said. “His name’s Freddy.”

“Hi, Freddy. Nice to meet you.”

Freddy just stared back with his lone eye. “He doesn’t talk much,” she said.

Rio laughed. “I imagine he doesn’t. You know—” his expression grew somber “—I meant what I said the other day. You’re as pretty as any of those girls out in Hollywood. Have you ever thought about being an actress?”

Only since she was old enough to walk and talk. But she’d never admitted it to anyone. Until now. There was something about Rio. He was so easy to talk to. “Sure,” she said. “I’ve thought about it.”

“I knew it. I could tell. You have this aura. So, do you have a portfolio?”

“A what?”

“Portfolio. You know, pictures, to take to casting calls and so forth. Every aspiring actress has to have a portfolio.”

“I didn’t know about that.”

He leaned back, rested an arm on the back of his seat. “I do those things all the time. I’m a photographer. Maybe I could help you out, throw something together for you. Of course, I’d give you a discount.”

It was probably just a pick-up line. As if he thought she could afford pictures, when she couldn’t even afford to buy her own breakfast. But he was so cute. And he dressed as though he’d never had to worry about money a single day in his life. “Thanks,” she said, “but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little short on cash right now.”

“No problem, Princess. We can work something out. You know, I’ve been thinking about hiring a helper. Somebody to run errands, do paperwork, keep the dog fed. When I’m in the darkroom, sometimes I lose track of time. You know how it is.”

Was he offering her a paying job? The details seemed a little hazy. Then again, she wasn’t exactly in a position to quibble over details.

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” he said. “I’d never suggest anything even remotely improper, and if this makes you uncomfortable in any way, I want you to say so. But if you’re looking for a place to crash, I’d be glad to put you up for a while. Just until you get on your feet.”

She bit her lower lip. Rock bottom was one thing. But bad things happened to girls who were too trusting. “I don’t know. I mean, I hardly know you.”

“Hey, no problem.” He held up both hands, palms up, and leaned backward in the booth. “I’m glad you trust me enough to be honest with me. It’s just something you might want to think about.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, withdrew a business card. Sliding it across the table to her, he said, “Give me a call if you change your mind.”

Kit picked up the card and studied it. In a classy font on a creamy matte background it read Design Solutions. Beneath that, a phone number. Rio stood, took his time draining his coffee cup, while Kit thought about rock bottom, about the cold weather, about the five dollars in her pocket.

“See you around,” he said, and turned for the door.

The hand that held the card trembled. Kit wet her lips. “Wait!” she said. “I’m coming with you!”