The Mirror and the Mask (23 page)

By evening, Jane was sitting on the couch in front of the fire, wondering if she should call her doctor. It wasn't exactly an emergency. She had some pain pills upstairs in the medicine cabinet, but they were old, most likely ineffective. She'd been reading for hours but now felt restless. She'd left a message for Annie with her manager at the Lyme House, telling her that something had come up and that they'd have to reschedule. If it hadn't been for her leg, the kiss they'd shared last night would have completely dominated her thoughts.

Pulling her cell phone out of her pocket, she thought about calling
Annie, but instead she punched in Kenzie's number in Nebraska. She'd called her dozens of times since the breakup, but assumed because of caller ID that Kenzie saw who was phoning and refused to answer.

Tonight was no different. The phone rang exactly six times, after which Kenzie's voice mail picked up. Jane had never left a message, it just didn't feel right. Neither did e-mail. She'd tried writing a couple of letters, but both were still in her desk drawer. She listened to Kenzie's voice ask her to state her name and leave a message. At least it was a different message this time. In this one she sounded more upbeat. Happier. That was probably good. She was getting on with her life. Maybe she'd found someone else, someone who could spend more time with her. Jane recalled something Kenzie had once said referring to Jane's penchant for helping people with their problems, getting too involved in criminal matters. It was a comment Annie, with her background in Greek and Roman myth, could appreciate. “You're like Atlas, Lawless. The man who held the world on his shoulders. His fatal flaw was that he couldn't find it in himself to put the world down. That's you.”

Jane held her breath as the voice mail beeped.
Hang up
, she told herself.
Hang up
. “Kenzie, hi. It's me.”

Now she was stuck. She had to say something, even though she hadn't thought it through. All her emotions tumbled together with no focused thought emerging. “I guess . . . I thought—” She took a deep breath. “I just want you to know how sorry I am. For everything. I never meant to hurt you. If we could just talk sometime, if I could just know what you're thinking—not what I
think
you're thinking. It's hard, you know?” She was starting to cry. This hadn't been one of her best ideas. “That's all I wanted to say, I guess. Except . . . I'll never forget you. I wish you . . . everything good.”

She hung up. She loathed people who wallowed in self-pity, but
since that seemed to be the direction she was headed, she might as well do it up right.

Mouse followed as she limped into the kitchen with the help of the cane and took down a bottle of Jameson and a glass tumbler from the cupboard. The whiskey would help both the pain in her leg and the deeper one in her heart.

By eleven, she wasn't exactly pain free, but she was well on the road. When the doorbell rang, she wiped tears from her eyes and got up to answer it. Her leg did feel a little looser, but then so did the rest of her. Those Irish distillers knew what they were doing.

She drew back the door without looking through the peephole because she was sure it had to be Cordelia. It wasn't.

“Annie?”

“I took a chance that you might be home by now. Can I come in?”

She hesitated. “Sure.”

“You've got a fire going. Wow, this is a really great house.” She rubbed her hands together for a few seconds, then bent down to greet Mouse, who seemed to be particularly interested in her hiking boots. “What a sweet Lab.”

“Let me take your coat.” Jane hung it up in the front closet as Annie crossed into the living room and took a seat at the end of the couch. She warmed her hands near the fire.

“I opened a bottle of Irish whiskey. Want some?”

“Sure.”

Jane returned to the kitchen and came back with another tumbler. She was almost past the point of caring what she looked like—almost, but not quite. She'd undone her French braid when she first got home, so her hair tumbled around her shoulders and probably looked a mess. She'd spilled some soup on her shirt at dinner. She'd wiped it off halfheartedly, but the stain was still there.

“It's been a brutal day,” said Annie, staring into the fire.

“Really? Why?”

“You're still limping.”

“I'm okay. Tell me why it was such a bad day.” She poured Annie a drink and then sat down on the rocking chair opposite her.

Annie took a swallow. “Sunny, Curt's younger sister, is missing. Nobody's seen her since Friday night. Curt left a couple dozen messages on her cell phone in the last two days. He's called all her friends, got them out looking for her. We spent the day doing that ourselves.”

“Have you called the police?”

“Jack did. Curt thought he'd pitch in and help us look for her, but Susan's body was released to him yesterday. He's planning the funeral for tomorrow morning at St. Jude's Catholic Cemetery in Woodbury.”

“Isn't he worried about her?”

“Apparently not as much as we are. He thinks she'll show up sooner or later.”

“Is Jack Catholic?”

“Susan was. Normally, I think there should be a Mass before someone is buried, but Jack's arranging everything and probably couldn't be bothered. He's having a catered gathering at his house after the service. You're welcome to come. In fact, I wish you would. I'll be going with Curt, but it would be good to have a friend there.”

“Of course I'll come,” said Jane.

“Anyway, I was hoping that, maybe, if you had any free time, you could help Curt and me find Sunny. I can't pay you—”

“Don't worry about money. You think she ran off?”

“That's Curt's theory. I think she didn't want to be interrogated by the police. I'm not sure, but it might have something to do with Curt's past. He has a juvie record, although I can't imagine why the police would be interested in that. Curt thinks something bad happened to her.”

“Something like . . .”

“I don't know. All I can say is, it really bothers me that my dad was the last person to see her.”

The words “my dad” caused Jane to wince. “He's not your dad. He's your stepfather.” Maybe it was a good thing that she'd had a few drinks. It meant she could cut to the chase a lot faster than she normally would have.

Annie thought about it for a few seconds as she gazed at the fire. “Not even that.”

“Why all the secrets? Why lie about when you left home? I know you didn't graduate from high school in Michigan. I know all about the arrests for prostitution in Colorado. Who
are
you, Annie?”

“I'm nobody.”

“That's too easy. You said you came here to get answers from Jack Bowman. Is that the truth? I feel like, from the moment we first met, you've been playing me.”

“I warned you. We talked about it when I helped you clean out that storage room. Masks. Mirrors. Sometimes I try to reflect back to people what I figure they want to see. I'm good at it. Most of the time I hide behind a mask. I'm so used to lying about Jack, about my past, that I do it without even thinking.”

“Why?”

“Oh, come on. Use your imagination. You think I'm proud of what I've done? You think I liked sleeping with guys with six-word vocabularies? Besides, I don't get you either. Why do you care so much?”

“You don't see yourself as worth caring about?”

“Truthfully? Not really.”

“You think
that
little of yourself?”

“If you knew who I was, you would, too.”

Jane got up and sat down next to her. “What did Jack do to you?”

“Not what you're thinking.”

“He never . . .”

“Molested me? No, he never touched me.”

“Then I don't understand.”

“I would have done anything for him. When he came to live with us, he said he wanted to be my friend. And then later, as we got to know each other better, he called me his best friend. I believed he was. He made me part of his dreams. He's good at that. He painted a picture of our future that I wanted, desperately. Mom and I had always been poor. The apartment we were living in when Johnny got out of prison was the nicest place we'd ever had. But Mom had to work all this overtime just so we could stay there. Almost everything went for living expenses. Johnny showed me pictures of mansions, said that when he got enough money together, he'd start building ones just like them. We'd have our pick. We'd be rich. He'd buy me a new car, all new clothes. We'd travel. We'd have our own pool, maybe even our own tennis court. I bought into it. I was absolutely mesmerized by the picture he painted. But mostly, I just wanted him to be happy and for us to be together. I loved him more than anyone else in my life. My mother was all rules and regulations, but Johnny didn't care if I did my homework or smoked pot. He was all about living in the moment, taking risks, living your dream. And he was fun, always doing something exciting—at least, exciting to a teenager. In some ways, I think that's what he was. He never really grew up.”

“But you left before you finished high school. What happened?”

“Reality happened.” Annie downed another gulp of whiskey. “See, because Johnny was a felon, he had a terrible time finding jobs. I felt sorry for him. I've always thought of myself as streetwise, cynical, but really I'm kind of a soft touch. Johnny was good at playing the pity card. He hooked up with Glennoris, a real lowlife, and they started rehabbing houses for this other guy. After a couple of years, he and Glennoris formed a partnership and started their own company. But neither of them had two cents. They had to find financial backers, fat cats who needed to be charmed to part with their cash.”

Jane closed her eyes. She knew what was coming.

“Johnny and I were sitting around one afternoon. I'd just turned sixteen. He started talking about a guy who might lend him some money to buy a HUD house. The poor guy was really lonely because his wife had just died. Johnny said he felt sorry for him. He asked if I'd like to go out to dinner with the two of them that night. I said, sure, why not? Mom worked a lot of evenings. Johnny suggested that I get all dressed up. He even picked out the clothes he wanted me to wear. Half an hour into the dinner he excused himself to go make a phone call. When he came back to the table, he said there was an emergency at one of his job sites and he had to get over there right away. He told me that Don—that was the asshole's name—would bring me home. He brought me home, all right, after he basically raped me in the backseat of his car. Don told me that Johnny had promised him that I'd be cooperative, that I liked older guys. That's why I said he ‘basically' raped me. I never consented, but I didn't fight him as hard as I should have.”

“It was a rape, Annie.”

“I know.”

“Did it happen more than once?”

“What do you think? For the next two years, I served as bait for Johnny's get-rich-quick schemes. I went along with it because I thought I was doing it for him, for the family, for our future. After the first time, I learned how to shut my eyes and grit my teeth until it was over. After a while it stopped hurting so much.” She took another swallow of whiskey, wiped a hand roughly across her mouth. “I'm so fucking stupid.”

“Don't say that,” said Jane. “You were young. It wasn't your fault. What Johnny did was child abuse.”

Annie refused to make eye contact. “Sex is easy. It's meaningless. A way to make money. A way to get what you want.”

“Is that what that kiss was all about last night?” asked Jane. “Just a way to manipulate me? Is there something I have that you want?”

The muscles along Annie's jaw line tightened. “Sure. I want your life. Can you give it to me?” She stood, set her empty glass on the mantel. “Poor dumb Annie, right? Stupid, but pretty. What a waste of a human being.”

Jane carefully pushed off the couch, afraid to put too much pressure on her bad leg. She wanted to say something to help, to make Annie's past fade to a distant memory, but words couldn't change what had happened.

“I have to go.”

“Don't. Stay with me tonight.”

“Why? So you can feel sorry for me? I don't need anyone's pity, especially yours.”

“It's not that,” said Jane, reaching for Annie's arm.

She shook the hand away. “It would feel like pity to me.”

“I care about you. Not just as a friend, as someone I tried to help. But more than that.”

Walking quietly to the front closet, Annie found her coat and put it on. Before she left, she said, “I care about you, too.”

 

 

 

W
earing a basic black dress with a revealing neckline, the only dressy piece of clothing Annie had brought with her, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror in Curt's condo, applying the last of her makeup. Curt, dressed in his best dark blue suit, the one he said he reserved for weddings and funerals, stood in the doorway watching.