Lie in Plain Sight (25 page)

Maeve heard the water running in the bathroom and knew she only had a few seconds before they would have to leave. “Please.”

The woman wouldn't look at Maeve, opting instead to survey the view outside the kitchen window. “There are things that are better not known, Maeve. Leave it alone.”

“Leave what alone?” Maeve asked, the door to the bathroom opening and her sister starting down the hall. “Leave what alone?”

Evelyn appeared in the doorway. “Thank you.”

Mrs. McSweeney turned, tears in her eyes. “You're welcome.”

Maeve beseeched the woman with her own tear-filled eyes before starting for the door. “Please.”

Evelyn grabbed the taller, older woman around the waist and hugged her tightly. “You have a nice house,” she said.

“Thank you.” Mrs. McSweeney kissed the top of Evelyn's head. “And you have grown up into a lovely woman,” she said before realizing the indictment in that statement, that she remembered her as a girl. She looked at Maeve. “But now you have to go. I have company coming.”

Maeve hesitated at the front door. “Please,” she said again, but she knew it was no use. “Tell me.”

Mrs. McSweeney surprised her by hugging her, too. “Good-bye, Maeve. Be well,” she said before closing the door behind them.

Outside, on the sidewalk that Maeve had run up and down countless times, she put her arm around her sister's waist. “I love you.”

Evelyn looked up at her, her eyes innocent and bright. “I love you, too. And I love cheeseburgers. I'm hungry, Maeve.”

Maeve buckled her sister into the car and drove away, watching the neighborhood grow smaller and smaller in her rearview mirror.

 

CHAPTER 32

“Tell me everything.” Maeve was at the kitchen table sitting across from Heather later that night, her rage simmering below the surface but apparent to the girl, whose eyes didn't leave her folded hands. It wasn't the first time she would say those words to her daughter, nor would it be the last. She was ready, finally, to hear the details of the girl's conversation with Taylor on the day she had gone missing and find out why, if Rebecca was to be believed, she continued to have such terrible taste in men.

Heather wasn't her usual sullen self, but she wasn't hostile either. What she was seemed far more concerning to Maeve. She seemed dead inside, without life, a shell of a girl who had lost the ability to feel. She stared across at her mother, words failing her.

Maeve led her along in the story. “You saw Taylor.”

“Yes.”

“And what did she say?”

Heather traced a circle on top of the old wood table, a knife mark left by one of the girls when they were small and didn't know the lasting damage that one minor act could do. “She told me to stay away from Jesse Connors.”

Maeve knew why, but she had to hear it from Heather. “Why?”

“She said he was bad news.” She rolled her eyes; she didn't believe that. But then again, where boys were concerned, she rarely did.

“Did she mention that Jesse is related to her?”

Heather looked surprised, a little spark returning. “No. I only found out about that later.”

Maeve considered her next questions carefully. “Did she say anything about a party? Something that happened there?”

Heather sighed. “Dating a cop has made you even more annoying. Do you know that?” she asked.

Maeve slammed her hand down on the table, knocking over the ceramic napkin holder that Rebecca had made at day camp, shattering it into what seemed like a million pieces. “Enough,” she said, her voice a low growl. “Enough of this.”

Heather was not fazed by her mother's outburst. She held her gaze. “You're not the only one who looks for answers,” she said, and before Maeve could respond, she was out the door.

Maeve leapt from her seat, slamming into the kitchen table, a piece of ceramic napkin holder getting stuck in her shoe and leaving a rut in the oak floor as she raced to the front door. Outside, the street was empty, the only sound the train going by, its horn blaring in the distance drowning out the sound of Maeve's call for her daughter.

She went back inside and grabbed her car keys, getting into the Prius and driving around the village, coming to rest in a park in the center of town where she knew the kids hung out after school and into the evening hours. It was nine o'clock. She pulled out her phone and called Chris; they hadn't spoken since the day before, both needing physical and emotional distance from the situation.

From each other.

He hadn't looked at her when he released Heather into her care yesterday. She didn't know what Heather had told him, but it was enough to make him want to avoid her. He had been uncomfortable and nervous, so she was glad when he picked up the phone.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he said, and there was a smile in his voice. It was faint, but it was there.

“Hi.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Mathers Park.”

“Looking for an adult to buy you beer? A little pot?” he said. “No one over the age of eighteen hangs out in Mathers Park at this hour unless they are up to no good.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Are you up to no good?”

“No. Not right now.” He was going in a different direction with her, flirting a bit to take the edge off of what had happened the day before, but she wasn't in the mood. Anyway, he would be shocked to know what she actually did when she was up to no good.

“So what are you doing there?”

“I don't know.” She paused. “Well, I'm looking for Heather.”

“She's gone?”

“Left in a huff. I want to talk to her.” She peered out the window, spying shadowy teenage figures in the distance but none with the mannerisms or physicality of her daughter. “What did she say yesterday, Chris? Because she's sure not telling me.”

He was silent. and Maeve mentally kicked herself for not demanding a lawyer at the time—a real lawyer, someone who wasn't Cal—thinking that while it would have made Heather seem guilty, it would have protected her as well. In some ways, Maeve was the consummate rule follower, accepting what people in authority said or did without question. No doubt about it: Catholic school had done a number on her.

“She didn't tell us much at all, Maeve. If she's keeping something to herself, she certainly didn't let on. She saw Taylor. They had a quick conversation. She didn't mention it to anyone because it didn't seem important. That's all we got.”

“Is she in trouble, Chris? Just tell me that.”

His sigh filled the space between them. “No,” he said unconvincingly, the sigh indicating otherwise. “No, she's not in trouble.”

“I should have gotten her a lawyer.”

He stayed silent.

“How did you raise such a good kid, Chris?” she asked. She didn't know Chris's son well, but what she did know of him she liked. He was more like Chris than he would probably care to admit, but to Maeve, that was a good thing.

“The same way you did,” he said, referring, she thought, to Rebecca. “Vigilance. Saying no more often than yes. Love.”

Odd order, she thought, but he was right. And honest. She had tried to lead with love, and it was successful the first time, unsuccessful the second. “Just promise me you'll tell me if there's something I need to know about her. Promise me that.”

“Trish Dvorak's confession was a game changer, Maeve. You don't have anything to worry about.”

Maeve asked a question that had lodged itself in the back of her mind. “Why did you just find out about the tape? At Jane Murdock's store?”

“We didn't know she had a camera.”

Isn't it your job to know those things?
she wanted to ask but couldn't. “And she didn't think to let you know?”

“People aren't suspicious by nature, Maeve. They don't think the worst. They don't realize that they may have information that we need. It's that simple.”

He was dead wrong, but she would never say that. She was suspicious. She thought that other people were just like her.

“Really,” she said.

“Really.” The next stretch of silence went on longer than she cared for. “Okay.” He was cooking; she could hear the sounds of water running, a pot being put on the stove. “Come over. I'll make you dinner.”

She had things to do and places to go. “No,” she said. “Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow.” Before he could ask again, and she knew he would, she hung up, knowing where she was headed.

 

CHAPTER 33

The person who answered the door was not expecting to see Maeve; that was clear. Tall, wearing a lavender polo shirt and expensive jeans, his feet bare, he regarded Maeve with a question on his face, respect in his voice. “Can I help you, ma'am?”

Okay, Junior, she thought, let's not lay it on too thick. “Hi. I want to talk to you.”

He stood inside the immense foyer that fronted the house, his hand on the doorknob. “Is this about the Relay for Life?”

“What?” Maeve asked. “Relay what?”

“Yes. Relay for Life? Team Connors?”

“No,” Maeve said, shaking her head. “It's not about Relay for Life. I'm looking for my daughter. Heather Callahan. I'm her mother,” she added unnecessarily, trying to reconcile two competing thoughts in her brain.

He's bad. The police think so. But he looks like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. She knew better, though. The bad ones always looked like that.

Tommy, the former boyfiend, was up front about his wayward habits. He had the requisite tattoo, the DUI on his record, the sullen disposition of the teenage rebel without a cause or a clue. But this kid standing before her, six feet three inches of well-fed, well-bred Anglo stock, was a specimen to which she was not accustomed, at least where Heather was concerned. Just where had he come from, and why was Heather interested?

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Callahan, but Heather isn't here.”

“When's the last time you spoke with her?”

He looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “A week ago? We're in the same English class.”

“Last week?” Maeve asked. Out here on the grand stone porch, she felt small and insignificant. “I thought you were dating,” she said before taking the time to measure her words.

“Dating?” he asked, his large white teeth appearing in the most charming approximation of a smile. Only problem was that it didn't go up to his eyes, his eyebrows never moving to join in on the hilarity. “No. We're not dating.”

“Why?” Maeve asked.

“Why what?”

“Why aren't you dating?”

He looked confused, as if he had just been presented with a four-syllable word on the SAT, something that would be a formality, likely, his acceptance into Brown or Dartmouth or Boston College assured, a conclusion Maeve jumped to based solely on the existence of the lavender polo shirt. “I don't know.” He stammered a bit. “I wouldn't call it dating.”

“Well, what would you call it?” Maeve asked.

“We're friends.”

What she wanted to ask, she couldn't; she already looked crazy.
Did you abuse that girl? Do you know where she is? What was it? Was she going to talk? Tell the whole story about what happened at that party! Is that what it was?
She stood there instead, her mouth hanging open slightly, the words on her lips but unspoken.

They looked at each other, this entitled boy and this rumpled woman, neither sure what the other was capable of. Heather wasn't here, and that was all she needed to know. Although part of her wanted to get inside the house, wanted to see Charles Connors and ask him how he had conceived a child with Trish Dvorak, there was no way she was getting past this kid who seemed to have leapt off the pages of
The Preppy Handbook.
Behind him, his mother appeared.

“Can I help you?” she asked, a touch of a Scottish brogue in her voice.

“I'm Maeve Conlon. I'm looking for my daughter.”

She smiled, but like her adopted son, not sincerely. “Well, she's not here, Mrs. Conlon.” She stood next to her son, putting a protective arm around his waist. “There's no one here but us.”

“Do you know my daughter?”

“I don't.”

“The police think your son does.”

“Mom, Heather is in my English class. But that's it.”

Mrs. Connors smiled again. “So there you have it.”

“The police seem to think they're dating,” Maeve said. On the porch, it was getting cold, but it didn't appear that she was going to be invited in.

“The police?” Mrs. Connors said. “Why would the police be involved?”

“Taylor Dvorak? Her disappearance?”

At the mention of the girl's name, the woman's face turned hard. “Which has absolutely nothing to do with us.” She turned and called out, “Charles!”

Charles Connors appeared at the top of the staircase in the foyer and, at the sight of Maeve, raced down the stairs. “What are you doing here? I thought we settled everything the last time we spoke.”

“You know her? You've spoken to her?” Mrs. Connors asked, looking from her husband to Maeve.

“Just that once, Genevieve.” He looked at Maeve. “Please leave us alone.” He closed the door, Mrs. Connors's angry, blotchy face the last thing Maeve saw before she heard the dead bolt slide across inside.

“I'm sorry I bothered you,” Maeve said to the closed door, thinking that if she didn't get off their porch and out of their neighborhood, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that she, too, would end up in the Farringville police station, this time for trespassing. She jogged to the car and hopped in, keeping an eye out for a police car coming this way, but all she passed was commuters whizzing home on the narrow rural roads, and one deer who seemed to have lost her way.

Back at the house, spent from the day, her argument with Heather and her confrontation with the Connors making her bone tired, she sat on the front porch steps and looked down toward the river. Her house was old, like all of the houses in the neighborhood, and that alone kept it affordable. She wondered if in years this whole area would be gone, the landed gentry returning and razing what was once old Farringville and making it new again, every house facing the beautiful river. In her hand, her phone vibrated, and on its face appeared a message from Heather: