One We Love, The (25 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

H
anging up, I sat
back to ponder the conversation. Mitch must have gone straight to Karissa after
we’d talked. She’d have told him about my visit to the trailer and he’d have
connected the dots pretty quickly. On top of my worry that he might pursue the
complaint—and how would I explain my “kitchen work” ploy?—was the sour
realization that if we’d just stuck with him, he’d have led us straight to
Karissa. Now I didn’t know how I’d ever find her.

Before dropping me off at my car, Paul had made me promise
that I wouldn’t do anything without him. He had way more faith in my ability to
come up with a new plan than I did.

Unfortunately, I could foresee no clever ideas on the
horizon. I stretched out on the couch and entered into a serious funk over how
I’d blown it. Despite Paul’s lack of gas-preparedness, I knew the real failure
had been mine. I’d spooked Mitch and now he was on alert. For me, in
particular. If that meant he’d be more protective of his family, in general,
that was good. Unless he was so busy watching for me that he’d let Lachlyn slip
by. Or Clotilde. Or Astrid, or Joyce, or whoever the hell it was. Even if I
went back to him and tried to explain who I was and what I was doing, he’d
never believe me. And if I tried staking out his house again, he’d either call
the cops or kill me dead. The man had access to concrete and basements after
all.

Siggy hopped up on the coffee table.

“Siggy, get down.” I flapped a hand at him. He ignored me
with catly indifference and began biting a slip of paper. He loved chewing
paper. Maybe he needed more fiber in his diet.

I took the paper away, receiving an irritated tail flick in response.
It was the scrap that I’d had Paul write the phone numbers on. No help there.
It wasn’t like phoning Mitch or his cousin would be of any use.

But I could Google the cousin’s number.

I snapped myself up and flung myself across the room toward
the desk. Plugging in Cousin Tyler’s phone number brought me to one of those “find
your high school boyfriend” sites, and for a mere $39.95 (with 20% off, mind
you) I could find not only his full name and address, but his marital and
divorce history; relatives, including those living at the same address;
bankruptcies; property ownership; sex offender status and criminal background.
I shuddered at how easy it was to invade nearly every area of a person’s life in
this new age. The loss of privacy was staggering.

Then I got my credit card out.

I
’d promised Paul
I wouldn’t go off on my own. It wasn’t that I hadn’t broken promises before. I
had. Lots of them. But I’d never broken a promise—not since getting sober at
least. It would suck. I’d have to admit my dishonesty in a meeting. Sue would
kick my butt. Worse, I’d have to look Paul in the eyes if I broke my word. And
I
had
been a wee bit bossy with him yesterday. So I owed him honesty, at
the very least.

Of course, he was home and happy to join me. Lucy and Ethel
ride again.

I picked him up just after noon. When I GPS’d the address
that Big Brother had helpfully provided, I found that Cousin Tyler lived just
north of Bloomer on County Highway F. Rural. Very rural. Even if we had
followed Mitch we probably would have had to abort the mission because there’d have
been no way to blend into the surroundings traveling down those back roads.

It was a beautiful drive, especially when we turned off on F.
Autumn had sparked off a thousand different shades of orange and red. It wasn’t
hard to find the mailbox with the address painted on the side. Bright
green-and-yellow John Deere with a teensy little tractor fixed to the top.
Quite the eye-catcher.

I slowed on the gravel driveway, not wanting to ping rocks
off my car. Someone was keeping up with the maintenance on it, though. It
looked recently graded, and I wasn’t scared of dropping into a crater hole. The
driveway was at least a quarter mile, but it was hard to estimate the length
because it curved around the side of a hill, causing the house to be nestled in
a nice windbreak. A big, old wooden barn stood a short distance away from the
house, outbuildings and pole sheds scattered around it like satellites. An
elaborate wooden swing set off to the side indicated the presence of children.

I’d expected an old-fashioned, two-story farmhouse but found
a tidy little ranch, almost a clone of Mitch and Karissa’s, instead. My heart
skipped a beat when I sighted the Wrangler parked out front. I pulled in and
parked next to it.

“Think anyone’s home?” Paul asked.

It was quiet. Nobody came to the door or window to see who
had pulled in. It
felt
like somebody was home, though, and I could only
hope that the somebody wasn’t currently loading the “Welcome, strangers!”
shotgun.

Paul and I got out and he followed me to the front door.
“Don’t look so scared,” I said, voice trembling.

“I’m not,” he whispered.

I knocked. We waited. Knocked again. Still nothing.
Gesturing to Paul to stay put, I walked back out to stand on the sidewalk in
front of the windows.

“Karissa?” I called. “We’re not here to hurt you. I know
what happened. I just want to make sure you’re safe.” I kept my hands out a
little from my side, palms open, standing in full view. “Karissa?” I tried
again. “I know what happened to Regina. I know that you know what happened and
that’s why you’re scared and running. Mitch is helping you, too, isn’t he? I’m
sorry if I scared him yesterday. I was just . . . just trying to help.”

The door flew open so fast I thought it was going to knock
Paul off the stoop. Without the wedges, Karissa looked like a pixie. A thin,
haunted pixie with circles under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises. I
double-checked to make sure they weren’t.

“That was you?” she said.

“Yeah. It was. I’m not here to hurt you, I promise. I think
I know what’s going on.”

“Oh, now you
think
you know what’s going on, huh?  A
minute ago, you knew.”

I swallowed. Possibly because I’d just noticed the fillet
knife she held at her side. I had history with knives, and it wasn’t good. “I
know Regina was killed. It wasn’t an accident. She was pushed, wasn’t she? Did
you see it?”

Her face paled. “No. I didn’t.”

At first, I thought she was denying the whole thing, but then
I realized she was just being literal.

“I’ve got Mo-mo,” I said. “I should have brought him.” A
seemingly stupid non sequitur, but she understood and nodded. Neither of us
wanted to say it out loud. She hadn’t seen Regina killed. Mikey had.

“How is he doing?” I asked. Paul stood next to me, a
bewildered look on his face, but he had enough sense to stay quiet. Maybe he’d
seen the knife, too.

She stood silent, eyes boring into my own. Reflecting the
horror and futile anger of a helpless mother. Helpless, because she couldn’t
change the past. Couldn’t go back and erase it from her child’s mind.

She opened the door wide, motioning us in.

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

S
he stopped off
in the living room to pluck her fourteen-month-old out of an old-fashioned
wooden playpen. The new-and-improved Elmo lay on its side in a corner. Mikey
had, indeed, moved on.

Karissa led us to the kitchen. After dropping the knife in
the sink, she settled the baby in a high chair and scattered a handful of
cereal on the tray for Myka to pick at. The rest of us sat at the table, hands
wrapped around cups of hot coffee trying to find solace in the warmth.

“He’s having nightmares about it. At least, I think so.”

“What do you mean ‘think so’?” I asked.

“He won’t tell me about them. He wakes up crying, though.
And he’s wet the bed twice. He stopped doing that years ago.”

“Have you asked him if he saw anything?”

She looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid to. I didn’t want to
make it worse, you know? I figure he’ll forget about it a lot quicker if we
just leave it alone. That’s why I brought him here. He knows he’s safe here.”

The house was quiet. Grammy didn’t seem to be around and
Mikey had yet to make an appearance either. “Where is he now?”

“He’s got a fort up in the barn loft that he plays in. He
likes to pet the horses, too. I took him out of school for a few days.”

I licked my lips. “Is it just the nightmares that he won’t talk
about? Has he said anything at all? That night, maybe? Or the next day?”

She just shook her head, looking away, out the window to the
barn. If she didn’t ask Mikey what he’d seen that night, then maybe it wouldn’t
be true. Maybe there wasn’t a murder. Maybe they weren’t hiding from the
killer.

“Do
you
know who it was?” I asked.

Again, Karissa shook her head. “I was afraid to ask. I still
am.” She started to cry. Denial can only carry you so far, and then you have to
face the truth. Unless you’re an alcoholic—then it’ll last as long as the booze
does.

Myka studied her solemnly, then his face crumpled and he
started to whimper. He had stray cereal O’s stuck all over his face and body.
One dotted his cheek, like a grainy teardrop.

Paul walked over to the drainer and poured a drink of water.
He brought it to Karissa, then stood next to her, resting his hand on her
shoulder. He didn’t pat. He didn’t fidget. I was proud of him.

 Karissa took a deep, shuddery breath, drank the water off
in one gulp, and pulled herself together. She smiled at Myka and gave him some
more cereal. Thankfully, the baby calmed as soon as his mother did. Paul sat
back down.

“You’re a shrink, right?” she asked. “Can you talk to him?”

“I can, but the important thing is to make sure he’s safe.
You need to go to the police, Karissa. He has to tell them what he saw,
who
he
saw.”

I felt her retreat emotionally. I understood; I’d been
indoctrinated in an avoid-the-police-at-all-costs mentality myself.

“I don’t like the police. What if they take him away?” Her
voice cracked on the last sentence.

“Why would they?” I asked.

She met my eyes. “Because I didn’t keep him safe,” she
whispered.

“That’s not your fault,” Paul said. “You can’t help it if
someone at the shelter is bad. And you
are
keeping him safe. You got him
away.”

“But there was that thing with Mitch. You know . . . going
to the shelter in the first place and all that. That was all my fault.”

Paul and I both frowned at the classic victim mantra.

“No, really,” she said. “I mean, he pushed me, yeah, but he
was pushing me
away
. We were arguing about the bills again and the baby
started crying. I was so mad I went after Mitch. I didn’t see him pick the baby
up or I wouldn’t have . . .  Anyway, he just stuck his arm out to fend me off,
kinda.” She paused as though there was something more she wanted to say. Her
face registered guilt.

I waited, but when it seemed like she wasn’t able to go on,
I asked, “Were those your meds at the trailer?”

“What were you doing in there?”

Whoops.
I reverted to honesty again. It was getting
to be a habit. “Looking for you. And cleaning. Tallie needs to rent it out. You
guys left a lot of your stuff behind.”

“Grammy did. All those dolls.” She shuddered. “Can’t say I’m
sorry to see those go.”

I made one of those therapist “mm hmm” sounds designed to
acknowledge a comment without judging. Handy things, those. Without it, I might
have whooped in agreement.

“I wanted to send Mitch over to get our stuff, but we were
afraid someone would see him and realize he still had contact with us. How did
you
figure out where we were, anyway?” Her face grew tight again. Apparently,
reminders of my snooping were not confidence builders.

Again, with the honesty. “Through Tyler’s phone number on
the side of Mitch’s truck and, um, we followed him on Sunday. Only to the
Cornell exit. Not all the way here.” As if only partially stalking wasn’t
creepy at all. I left out the part about nearly running out of gas. Maybe if
she believed we had second thoughts, she’d ignore the utter disregard for her
and her family’s privacy. For good reason, though. Time to remind her of that.

“Who scared you off, Karissa? Tallie said a social worker
came to your grandmother’s house. You took off right after.”

“Tallie’s got a big mouth.” After a short pause, she said,
“It was Clotilde. She said she was just following up. Checking on us since we
left under such ‘tragic circumstances.’” Her fingers wiggled quote marks over
the last two words.

“Did she ask you to come back to the shelter?” Paul asked.

“She tried, but Grammy ran her off.” We smiled in mutual
Grammy-appreciation. “I knew something was wrong. I even knew it the night it
happened, but I didn’t know exactly what. Mikey had been off playing. He can
kee”p himself busy, not like some of those kids with their noses stuck to the
TV. When I found him, he was hiding in our bedroom and had peed hisself. He
wouldn’t talk to me. Not at all. I thought he was upset that he’d had an
accident, so I just got him changed and made him go to bed.

“The next morning . . .  That’s when I figured out that he’d
seen it. But I didn’t think it was . . .  I mean, I just thought he’d gotten
scared at seeing her fall. I pulled him in the bathroom and asked him did he
see her fall, but he still wouldn’t say anything. And then I got afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid because he wouldn’t say what happened. I thought,
maybe . . .” Karissa’s face convulsed, tears and snot streaming. She put a
shaking hand over her mouth, unable or unwilling to speak her greatest fear out
loud. Just like her son.

“You thought maybe Mikey did it?”

She covered her face and sobbed. And
sobbed
. Paul
went for more water and I started a search for tissue. Not finding any, I
located the bathroom and appropriated a roll of toilet paper.

Several moments later, as Karissa came up for air, I noticed
her son crossing the lawn in front of the barn. Karissa saw him coming, too.

“Oh, crap. You guys have to go.”

“Karissa, you have to let us help you. If we found you, so
can they.”

“I don’t want him to see you. You need to leave.” She began
herding us out of the kitchen, shooing us ahead of her like errant chickens
fleeing the coop.

It wasn’t really fair to press the point, but this was about
a child’s life. She was under so much pressure, operating on instinct alone,
and she was getting stubborn in her fear. I stopped in the middle of the hall,
refusing to budge. “The police can keep him safe, Karissa. You
can’t
take the chance.”

 “I’m
not
going to the cops. What if you’re wrong
about this? What if Mikey was just freaked out because he saw her fall? Or saw
her body? That would scare a kid, too. Or what if they blame him? They can
twist things, and Mikey gets confused easy.”

I’d been raised by a woman who would have sung the
Halleluiah Chorus to that speech. And raised by a man who’d died while under
police “care.” But I also knew some cops—two, in particular—that I felt I could
trust.

I told this to Karissa and practically begged her to let me
talk to one of them. Mikey was coming in the door, his shoes rasping across the
porch outside the kitchen door as he took them off.

“Fine! Whatever. Just go.” She shoved me out the door,
closing it with a snap.