Fragile (43 page)

“I know you do.”

She reached out to touch his face. “You always were a good boy, Jones Cooper.”

He didn’t know if his mother-in-law was being sarcastic or not, but he supposed it didn’t much matter.

Maggie slipped back through the door that led to her office and closed it quietly. She’d been headed to the kitchen to see if Jones was back from picking up his things, and overheard him talking to her mother. She decided to give them some space to finish their conversation.

She’d stayed out of sight and eavesdropped like a kid. She was feeling bad about it when she looked up to the top landing to see Ricky and Charlene listening, too. They all exchanged guilty glances, but none of them moved. Maggie and Ricky locked eyes as Elizabeth told Jones what she’d been keeping to herself for decades.

Now she sank into the leather chair behind her desk and looked at the flock of unopened e-mail messages on her screen—Angie Crosby checking on Marshall’s progress; Henry Ivy wanting to get coffee; a referral from a friend who practiced in the next town. But she found she couldn’t really focus. Her mother’s conversation with Jones had triggered a flash flood of memory. And suddenly, she was remembering the thing that had been nagging at her since the night Charlene disappeared. The thing she couldn’t quite remember.

A few days before Sarah disappeared, Maggie had stayed late after school to work on the yearbook. A senior girl on the project, Crystal James, someone her mother approved of, was supposed to give her a ride home. But as Maggie waited by the entrance to the building, the dusk deepened and Crystal was nowhere to be seen. Maggie walked around the back of the school to the parking lot, wondering if Crystal was waiting for her there. She came around the building to hear raised voices. Some boys had gathered around the bus yard where Tommy Delano was working.

She’d seen it too many times. It angered her, and she walked over to
the group. Even now she couldn’t remember who it was—maybe Dennis and Larry, possibly Greg.

“Stop it, you guys. Just cut it out.” Her voice sounded weak and insubstantial, not at all strong and commanding like her mother’s voice.

The boys turned, ready to fling insults in her direction by the looks on their faces. But when they saw it was her, they all went quiet. There were some benefits to being the principal’s daughter.

“We’re just playing around, Maggie.”

“It’s not funny,” she said. She felt embarrassed suddenly, with so many eyes on her. “Go home.”

She remembered the look on Tommy Delano’s face, a kind of sheepish gratitude, and something else. After the boys had walked off, she stood awkwardly, looking into the distance for Crystal’s car, a yellow Volkswagen Bug.

“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot. You’re a really nice girl. A lot like your mom.”

She bristled a little at that but knew he meant it as a compliment. “They shouldn’t hassle you,” she said. “It’s not cool.”

“I’m used to it.”

She turned to look at him, and something about the expression on his face made her back away. There was something needy and strange about his energy, and she felt uncomfortable being alone with him, even though a chain-link fence stood between them.

“What are you doing here so late?” he asked, moving closer to the fence.

“I’m waiting for Crystal.”

“I saw her leave a while ago,” he said, lacing his fingers into the fence. “Maybe she forgot she was supposed to give you a ride?”

Maggie felt her heart start to thump, for no reason she could name.

“I could give you a lift home, Maggie. I’m just finishing up here.” His tone was sweet and mild, but every nerve ending in her body started to tingle.

“I’ll just call my mom.”

He gave a nonchalant shrug that didn’t come off. “Your mom used to drive me home all the time when I went to school.”

“She did?”

Maggie relaxed a little then. If her mom liked Tommy Delano, he was probably okay. She couldn’t remember ever hearing her talk about him.

“Hey, Maggie.”

She looked over to see Travis Crosby in his beat-up old Dodge that was always breaking down.

“I just passed Crystal on Old Farmers Road.” He had his arm out the window. “Her car is dead. She was worried sick that you were standing here in the dark. She wanted me to drive you home.”

She didn’t even think about it for a second, started jogging toward his car.

“Thanks anyway, Tommy,” she called behind her.

She wasn’t allowed to ride in cars with boys, and her mother did
not
approve of Travis Crosby. She’d get in trouble if Elizabeth found out.

“Don’t worry,” Travis said as she got in the car. “I won’t tell your mom.”

“Thanks,” she said, surprised at her breathless relief to be away from Tommy.

“You shouldn’t be talking to that guy. He’s a weirdo, you know. He killed his mother.”

“That’s just a rumor,” she said, looking back. Tommy was still leaning on the fence looking after her.

“No,” said Travis. “It’s true. My dad told me. He pushed her down the stairs and sat on the top step to watch her die.”

Maggie felt a shudder move through her. Travis reached over and cranked the heat. “It’s still cold,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like spring.”

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”

Then, “Thanks for the ride, Travis.”

“No problem. Crystal is hot; maybe she’ll like me now.” He gave her a goofy smile, and she laughed. She remembered the smell of his cologne; Polo was what all the jocks wore then. She remembered the song on the radio, “Angel in Blue” by the J. Geils Band. There was a can of Pepsi wedged in between the seats; she could hear the liquid swishing around as the car moved.

“You’re a dog, Travis.”

“Bow, wow, wow,” he said.

They chatted all the way home, and she forgot that moment with Tommy Delano. Even in the days and weeks that followed, she didn’t think about that conversation with him again. It was buried deep, not available for examination until now. What would have happened to her if she had taken that ride home? Or if he hadn’t been in prison a few weeks later and died there? Tommy Delano had written to Eloise that he couldn’t have kept his appetites at bay much longer. How long would he have served for mutilating and violating the dead body of a girl if the whole truth of that night had been revealed? Would he have been out roaming The Hollows again while she still lived there?

As Travis pulled into her drive, the bottom of the car ground against the steep incline where the paved surface met the road. There was the unpleasant sound of metal on concrete, and then the car sputtered and died. Maggie and Travis exchanged a look.

“Shit,” he said.

They both looked toward the house to see Elizabeth standing in the doorway and then stepping onto the porch. Travis tried to start the car, but there was only a sad coughing noise. Elizabeth approached, arms folded around her middle, a scowl on her face.

“You’re dead,” said Travis. “Sorry.”

Maggie got out of the car, and Travis rolled down the window, both of them talking over each other to explain.

“Into the house, Maggie.”

“But, Mom—”

“Now, please.”

“Crystal’s car broke down,” she said. Maggie remembered that rush of angry frustration. It was something she still often felt with her mother, at Elizabeth’s unwillingness to listen, at her occasional arrogance.

“You don’t know how to use a phone?” Elizabeth asked. A question that didn’t require an answer. “Now, go. I’ll deal with you in a minute.”

There was no way to explain the energy of that moment with Tommy Delano, how she would have gotten into anyone’s car just to be
away from him. She tried to explain to her later, but Elizabeth wasn’t listening, as usual, thought Maggie was just making excuses for breaking the rules. Her punishment was no television for a week.

“I expect more from you, Maggie.”

Now, as she sat in her office, all those feelings crashed over her, one wave after another, as though days, not decades, had passed. The implications were enormous, but at the same time almost too nebulous to contemplate. Maggie had always suffered through worry. Even as a kid, she’d fret about exams and projects, this or that drama at school. She’d turn problems—hers and others’—over and over in her mind. As an adult she was prone to a random dark dread, the occasional but powerful feeling of foreboding. It would wake her up at night sometimes, keep her wandering the house in the wee hours. She remembered her father’s advice as clearly as Elizabeth did, how he’d sit beside her on the bed and put his hand on her forehead, gently admonishing against worry.

But she knew that it was impossible to live a life that way. It was all woven together in one great tapestry—the past, the present, the future—colors and textures mingling and entwined. It was nearly impossible to extract the present moment from what came before it, from what might lie ahead. She knew this from her patients. She knew it in her own heart.

What if Travis’s car hadn’t broken down that night after hitting the steep incline in her drive? Maybe then he wouldn’t have needed a ride from Jones; they wouldn’t have been together that night, and Jones, by his own account, would have driven by Sarah without a second glance. Sarah might have returned home unharmed. And Tommy Delano would have still been wandering free in The Hollows, struggling and probably eventually failing to keep those terrible appetites at bay. She struggled to make meaning of it all. But like all what-ifs, it had no real answer, nothing solid to hold on to. Just imaginings, fantasies that slipped through her fingers like sand.

“Mags?” Her husband’s voice broke her from her thoughts. She saw, with surprise, that he was standing in the doorway. She didn’t remember
ever seeing him enter her office. It was strange to have him there, and oddly thrilling.

“You okay?” he asked, stepping over the threshold. “You look pale.”

“Yes,” she said. She stood and went to him, let him take her in his strong embrace.

“How was it?” she asked. “Your last shift?”

“You know what? It was good. I feel … pretty good, considering.” Then, “What were you thinking about just now?”

“Jones, I overheard your conversation with my mother.”

He pulled back to look at her. “I’m sorry. It’s disturbing, I know.”

“I just remembered something. Something from so long ago.”

She moved over to the couch, and he came to sit beside her. On the coffee table, she saw the catalog she’d ordered from an art school in the city. She was thinking of taking an oil painting class once a week, maybe on Saturdays, after Ricky went off to Georgetown. She was hoping that she could convince Jones to join her, that maybe they could start spending more time in the city, doing the things she loved and had put on hold for so long. Life was short. So very short. Who knew how much time any of them had?

Then she turned back to her husband and told him about the thing that she hadn’t been able to remember. As she talked, Ricky drifted in and, without asking, flopped into the chair across from them. Then Elizabeth was standing in the doorway. Jones must have left the door to her office open, something she never did. And, for some reason, her son and mother followed him into her space. It was okay to have them here; it was even good.

As she told them all about her buried memory, she felt an awe at how all their separate lives were twisted and tangled, growing over and around one another, altering, aiding, and blocking one another’s paths. Not just her family but people who seemed so distant, like Travis, Marshall and Melody, Sarah and Eloise Montgomery, Tommy Delano. And how the connections between them were as terribly fragile as they were indelible.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A lifetime ago, a girl I knew went missing. I lived in a small, quiet town in New Jersey with my family. I was fifteen years old. This missing girl was someone I knew … we played in the same school orchestra, said hello in the hallways. I wouldn’t have said we were friends. But her disappearance and the eventual discovery of her body, the chaos that followed, the fear and sadness that lingered in the wake of her murder, have stayed with me in ways that have only recently become clear to me.

That said, this novel—one I have been trying in various ways to write for twenty years—is not about that event or about that girl. It is not my intention to exploit her memory, or to cause any more pain. In fact, I won’t even mention her name here. Nothing in this book bears more than a passing resemblance to the events that occurred in the mid-eighties. I have done little or no research to improve my fuzzy recall of chronology or details. This story and the characters that populate it are wholly products of my imagination; even the town itself is fictional, not based on any place I have ever been.

As always, any inaccuracies and liberties taken for the sake of the narrative are my own.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Every writer needs touchstones, places where she can go and remind herself what is real, what is solid, what has value. And as much as writers work in solitude, living inside their heads, publishing is a business of relationships. I have been blessed personally and professionally with people who keep me grounded and help me reach for the stars. I’ll take this opportunity to shower them with love and gratitude.

My husband, Jeffrey, and our daughter, Ocean Rae, are the sun and the moon. Everything I am and everything I do is for them. They nourish, delight, bolster, and energize me every day, and fill my life with love. Whenever I need a reminder about what matters in this world, I look to them. I am weak with gratitude for my beautiful, funny little family.

My brilliant agent, Elaine Markson, and her wonderful assistant, Gary Johnson, control my professional universe and are the most loving and supportive friends a girl could have. This year will mark ten years working with them. At this point, I can’t even begin to list everything they do for me. Let it suffice to say I’d fall to pieces without them.

I have said this many times, but it demands repeating here. A home like Crown/ Shaye Areheart Books is every writer’s dream, full of intelligent, creative, passionate people who really care about books. Shaye Areheart is a magnificent editor and one of the most spirited, passionate, and loving people I have known. I am as grateful for her friendship as I am for her brilliance as an editor and publisher. Jenny Frost is a ferocious and unflinching supporter of her authors and a truly brilliant businesswoman; I have been so grateful to be under her umbrella in a stormy industry. I also offer my humble thanks to Philip Patrick, Jill
Flaxman, Whitney Cookman, David Tran, Jacqui LeBow, Andy Augusto, Kira Walton, Patty Berg, Donna Passannante, Katie Wainwright, Annsley Rosner, Sarah Breivogel, Linda Kaplan, Karin Schulze, Kate Kennedy, and Christine Kopprasch. They each bring their unique talent to the table, and comprise the most remarkable team I have encountered in my career. And, of course, I can never heap enough praise on the topnotch sales force. They are on the front lines of a very competitive business. I know that every one of my books that makes it out of the warehouse does so largely because of their tireless efforts on my behalf.