She's Not There (26 page)

“Better dramatic than dead.”

“You can't actually think Lili intends to harm us?”

“I don't know what to think and neither do you. She seems sweet enough, I'll grant you that, but you never know. We have no idea who she really is. What if she robs us blind and takes off in the middle of the night?”

“Then I guess you'd be right about her.”

Michelle shook her head. “Has it ever occurred to you that I'd rather be wrong? That a big part of me hopes she really
is
Samantha? That I'd give anything to have my sister back?”

Caroline took a deep breath. The truth was that it
hadn't
occurred to her. She'd been so caught up in her own feelings that she hadn't even considered what Michelle might be going through. “I'm sorry,” she said softly.

“Apology accepted,” Michelle said, pulling back the covers. “Now can we please get some sleep?”

W
hen they woke up the next morning at just past seven
A.M.
, Lili was gone.

“Well, at least we're alive,” Michelle said, standing behind her mother in the doorway to the spare room. “Guess we should check the silverware.”

“Lili?” Caroline called, trying to stem the too familiar panic that was rising in her gut. “Lili? Where are you?” She raced down the stairs and into each of the first-floor rooms. “Lili?”

“Relax,” Michelle told her as she clomped down the steps after her, Lili's overnight bag in her hand. “I doubt she'd go anywhere without this.”

“Lili?” Caroline called again, running back into the kitchen, her eyes searching the backyard. “Where the hell is she? Where could she have gone?”

“Maybe I should check this thing for explosives.” Michelle began riffling through the bag. “Here's her passport.” She opened it to its picture page. “Yep, that's her, all right. Lili Hollister. Born August 12, 1998. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Samantha was born in October.”

The doorbell rang.

Caroline froze. She pictured a policeman standing outside her front door.
I'm sorry to have to inform you, but there's been an accident…

“The prodigal daughter returns yet again,” Michelle said, pushing past her mother into the hall and opening the door.

“Sorry,” Lili said sheepishly. She was wearing the same jeans she'd had on the day before and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Kate Moss. “I just wanted to feel the warm air. I didn't realize the door would lock automatically.”

“How long have you been standing out there?” Caroline asked, ushering Lili into the foyer and glancing up and down the street before closing the door.

“Not long. I woke up really early, about five. Couldn't get back to sleep. So I got dressed and came downstairs, waited for the sun to come out, then stepped outside and got locked out. I didn't want to wake you up so early, so I went for a walk.”

“A walk? Where?”

“Just around. This is a really beautiful neighborhood.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“A couple of joggers.”

“Lovely,” Michelle said. “Any of them happen to have cameras?”

“I don't understand. Did I do something wrong?”

“Of course not,” Caroline said. “It's just that sometimes we've caught reporters hanging around…”

“They hang out in the street…behind bushes…inside grocery stores,” Michelle said pointedly.

“Not to mention the neighbors,” Caroline said, cutting her off. “They don't mean to be nosy, but…”

“It's probably better if you don't take any more early-morning walks,” Michelle advised.

“It would be quite the media circus if this were to get out,” Caroline said.

“I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking.”

“You're sure about that?” Michelle asked.

“Michelle, please.”

“I already told you I'm not interested in publicity. Is that my overnight bag?”

“And your passport.” Michelle handed them both over to Lili.

“We didn't know where you'd gone,” Caroline started to explain.

“I'm really sorry if I worried you.”

The phone rang.

“And so the start of another fun-filled day,” Michelle said, returning to the kitchen and answering the phone in the middle of its second ring. “Shipley Home for Wayward Girls. Michelle speaking. How can I help you?” She extended the phone toward her mother. “It's Dad.”

“Hey,” said Caroline in greeting.

“Have you spoken to Peggy?”

“Not yet.”

“Call me after you speak to her.” He hung up.

Caroline stared blankly at the phone in her hand. “Yes, sir. I'll take care of that immediately.”

“You don't think it's a little early to be calling anyone?” Michelle asked, as Caroline pressed the digits of Peggy's phone number.

“Why don't you make us some coffee?” Caroline suggested.

“I can do it,” Lili offered.

“I'll do it,” Michelle said.

Peggy answered the phone immediately. “What's wrong?” she said instead of hello.

Caroline immediately filled her in on the events of the last twenty-four hours.

“Holy shit,” Peggy said. “How can I help?”

“Do you know anyone at the San Diego DNA Medical Clinic in Mission Hills?”

“I don't think so. But let me ask around and get back to you. What time were you thinking of heading over there?”

“As soon as it opens. Probably around nine.”

“Make it ten. It'll give me more time to make some calls. I'll meet you there.”

“You don't have to do that.”

“You couldn't stop me if you tried. Besides, you'll need a witness, right?”

“Yes.”

“I'll see you at ten.”

The clinic occupied the bottom floor of the modern white stucco, two-story building located at 40 Upas Street. Hunter was already waiting in the building's lobby when Caroline, Michelle, and Lili arrived.

“You really didn't have to come,” Caroline told him—the same thing she'd told him on the phone after talking to Peggy. While all DNA clinics tested for paternity, the clinic in Mission Hills was one of the few in the state that also offered maternity testing. Mothers, it seemed, were generally expected to know their own children.

“I want them to test me, too,” Hunter said.

“They don't need…”

“I want them to test me, too,” he repeated, as if she hadn't spoken.

“Okay. If you think it's necessary.”

“I think it's necessary.”

“Why don't they test all of us?” Michelle said. “Maybe I'm not really your daughter either.”

“Michelle,” Caroline and Hunter said in unison.

“Sorry—a failed attempt at levity. But hey, you guys—a gold star for presenting a united front. I think that's a first.”

Hunter turned his attention to Lili. “How are you this morning, Lili? Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“She was up kind of early, did some exploring of the neighborhood,” Michelle said.

“You let her go for a walk?” Hunter asked Caroline.

“I—”

“That's probably not such a good idea,” he told Lili. “If the press were to get wind of this…I think it's best that you stick around the house until we get the results of the test.”

The front door opened and Peggy marched into the lobby. She was wearing a pair of gray slacks and a pearl pink blouse, and was obviously dressed for work. She walked directly over to Caroline and hugged her. “How are you holding up?”

“I'm okay.”

“The rest of you?”

“Just peachy, thank you,” Michelle said.

Peggy's gaze moved past Hunter and Michelle to the girl at their side. “This must be Lili.”

“Lili,” Caroline said, “this is my friend, Peggy.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Lili said.

“What do you think?” Hunter asked. “You knew Caroline when she was seventeen. Do you think they look anything alike?”

“I don't know,” Peggy said, all but swallowing Lili's face with her eyes. “They're different, but at the same time, there's something so familiar…I just don't know.”

“Excuse me, but isn't that what we're here to find out?” Michelle asked.

“Micki's right,” Hunter said, snapping back into lawyer mode. “There's no point in speculating. Let's just get on with it. Were you able to talk to anyone?”

“I made a few calls,” Peggy said, “and I finally managed to connect with the person in charge. He said he'll do everything he can to get the results back to you in a timely fashion.”

“He understands the need to be discreet?”

“He does. He gave me the name of his most trusted technician, said she's been with the clinic ever since it opened.”

“Then shall we proceed?” Hunter asked, opening the door to the inner reception area.

“Ready?” Caroline asked Lili.

“Ready or not,” said Michelle.

The test went exactly as Michelle's notes had outlined. After Hunter paid all charges in advance, they proceeded to an inner office where an unsmiling middle-aged woman collected buccal swabs from Caroline, Hunter, and Lili. If she recognized any of them, she gave no sign, although the receptionist kept sneaking peeks in their direction. Peggy then signed the witness forms, and they were told they'd have the results back from the lab in three to five business days.

“Well, that was pretty anticlimactic,” Michelle said as they were leaving the clinic.

“I assume we'll have the results by the end of the week,” Hunter said, ushering them through the outer door.

“Never assume,” Michelle intoned solemnly. “Didn't you once tell me that's one of the first rules of law?”

“Nice to know you occasionally listen to your old man,” Hunter said, kissing her on the forehead. “Anyway, I've got to get going. Call me if you hear anything. Immediately,” he added unnecessarily.

“Of course.” Caroline watched her former husband walk toward his car.
Out of one life and into another,
she thought, finding his ability to compartmentalize nothing short of amazing.

“I better get a move on as well,” Peggy said. “Monday's always a bitch. Are you coming in today?” she asked Michelle.

“From four to eight.”

“Good. See you later.” Peggy gave Caroline another hug. “You heading off to school?”

“No, I called in sick. Told them I might be coming down with something.”

“You
are
looking a little green around the gills.”

“I'm fine,” Caroline said, although the truth was that she
was
feeling kind of queasy. While the DNA test had been as quick and painless as advertised, the simple swab had taken more out of her than she'd thought it would.

“And you,” Peggy said, turning toward Lili. “You seem like a nice girl. Very composed and mature for your age. Whatever the test results, I really hope your intentions were good. Because my friend here has been through a hell of a lot, and if it turns out this is some sort of scam, well”—she flashed Lili her most beatific smile—“I just might have to kill you.”

“She's kidding, of course,” Caroline said quickly.

“Don't be too sure,” Peggy said.

It was Michelle's turn to smile. “Guess we'll find out in three to five business days.”

“N
eed some help?” Lili asked, entering the living room to find Caroline struggling to put together the six-foot-tall artificial Christmas tree that had been stuffed in a cardboard box in the basement, like Count Dracula in his coffin, for the past five years.

“I think I've almost got it,” Caroline said. “Just this top part here.” She stretched on the tips of her toes to attach the final clump of plastic branches, then stood back to survey her handiwork. “There. How does it look?”

“A bit squished.”

“Yeah, well, it's been cooped up in a box for a long time, so…” She started pulling on the ends of the branches, turning some up, some down, twisting them this way and that until they began to fall more naturally. “There. That's better. What do you think?”

“Starting to look good.”

“Luckily the lights come already attached,” Caroline said, plugging the extension cord into the wall socket and watching hundreds of miniature white bulbs sparkle to life, like tiny stars. “And voilà! The magic of Christmas.”

“It's beautiful.”

“It'll look better once we get all the ornaments on.” Caroline glanced toward the bags of Christmas decorations on the floor.

“You lugged all this stuff up by yourself?”

“Well, Michelle's at the hospice, you were in your room, I had all this energy…”

Lili knelt down and reached into one of the bags, pulling out a small box containing a dozen silver balls. She lifted one into her hand, staring at her distorted reflection in its shiny surface.

“Go ahead,” Caroline urged. “Put it on the tree.”

“Can I?”

“Please.”

Lili hesitated. “Maybe we should wait till Michelle comes home.”

Caroline shook her head. “She was never very interested in this sort of stuff. That's one of the reasons I stopped bothering. Every year I was dragging the damn thing up from the basement, and every year she'd find another excuse not to help decorate it—she didn't like artificial trees, she'd ruin her manicure, she was going out with friends…Eventually I thought,
Why am I doing this?
It wasn't like Michelle was tree-deprived. Her father had one—a
real
one. So did my mother. Hers was artificial, but it came completely decorated already, so…”

“You're not very close with your mother, are you?” Lili interrupted, hanging the silver ornament on one of the tree's middle branches and watching the bough bend slightly with its weight.

“Sorry if it was so obvious.”

“She seems nice.”

Don't be fooled,
Caroline thought, but she refrained from saying it out loud. “She has her moments.” She opened another box of ornaments, this one filled with red-and-white-striped balls.

“She and your brother look pretty tight.”

“I guess some women make better mothers of sons than they do daughters.”

“My mother always says that boys are much easier than girls,” Lili said.

Caroline blanched at Lili's use of the word “mother.”

“Sorry,” Lili apologized immediately. “I mean
Beth
.”

“No need to apologize.” Caroline swallowed once, and then again. “She's been a good mother to you, hasn't she?”

“Oh, yeah,” Lili said easily. “A little strict, maybe, definitely old-fashioned, but I always felt loved. That's something I've never questioned. It's what makes what I'm doing now so hard.”

“If it helps, I think you're being very brave,” Caroline told her honestly. “And I want you to know that no matter how the test turns out, whether you're my daughter or not, I believe you acted honorably. I don't think you're a con artist. I don't think this is some sort of scam. I think you're a sweet and lovely young girl that any mother would be proud to call her own.”

Tears filled Lili's eyes. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

They spent the next several minutes decorating the tree in silence. “I called her again,” Lili said, opening a bag containing half a dozen plastic Santas with flowing cotton beards.

“You called Beth? When?”

“After we got back from the clinic. I should have told you.”

“How is she?”

“She's kind of freaking out about everything. Especially after I told her we'd taken the test.”

“What did she say?”

“She insisted I come home immediately.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That we should have the results back in a few days, that you have a friend who's trying to expedite things. That's the right word, isn't it? Expedite?”

“It's the right word.”

“I left out the part where she threatened to kill me.” Lili smiled to indicate she didn't take Peggy's threat too seriously.

“Sorry about that.”

“It's all right. She's just being protective. Like Michelle. I understand.”

“Did Beth say anything else?”

It was Lili's turn to take a deep breath. “She said that if I don't come home, she's coming to get me.”

“What?”

“She said that if I'm not on a plane to Calgary first thing in the morning,” Lili elaborated, “she'll be on the first one to San Diego in the afternoon.”

“I don't understand. She doesn't even know where you are.”

“She knows.”

“How?”

“I told her.”

“You told her?”

“I had to. She was threatening to contact the FBI and the Mounties and the local police, and whoever else she could think of, and if she does that, then for sure the papers will get wind of it and all hell will break loose.”

“Do you think she'd do that? Come here, I mean?” Would Beth really take that chance? Caroline wondered. And if Beth was willing to come to San Diego, what did it mean? That she was confident the test results would prove that Lili was exactly who her passport said she was: Lili Hollister, born August 12, 1998, and not Samantha Shipley, born in mid-October of that same year? Surely Beth Hollister wouldn't risk crossing the border and exposing herself to criminal charges if there was any chance that Lili was not her child.

Unless she was no longer thinking rationally. Unless the fear of being exposed, of losing the child she'd raised as her own, had literally driven her out of her mind.

I've been her,
Caroline thought.
I did lose my mind.

Was Beth just as desperate?

“I don't know,” Lili was saying. “I'm causing so much trouble. Maybe it
would
be better if I went home. We've taken the test. It's been witnessed. You could just call me with the results.”

“No, you can't leave. Please. Please, you can't go until we know for sure.” She couldn't allow Lili to return to Calgary before she knew the truth. If Lili
was
Samantha, she couldn't risk losing her again. If Beth was truly that desperate, who knew what she was capable of?

“So what do we do?”

“Maybe I could call her,” Caroline offered, “try to make her understand…”

“I really don't think that's a good idea.”

“No, you're probably right.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Why would I be angry?”

“What if I've put both of you through all this for nothing?”

They sat on the floor in silence for several seconds, the question flickering between them like a faulty lightbulb. “Are you hungry?” Caroline asked, hearing faint rumblings from her stomach.

“Starving.”

“Feel like a pizza?”

“Double cheese, pepperoni, and tomato slices?”

“I'll make the call.” Caroline scrambled to her feet and headed for the kitchen, forcing all troubling thoughts from her head. “You keep decorating the tree.”

“Wow,” Caroline said, taking a few steps back to admire the tree that was now dripping with ornaments, and almost stepping into the large pizza box containing two leftover slices. “It's gorgeous. You did an amazing job.”

“The pinecones came in really handy for filling in the empty spaces.”

“And I love these little glass slippers and ballerinas. I'd forgotten we had those.”

“We just need an angel for the top.”

Caroline began riffling through the remaining bags with one hand while balancing a half-eaten piece of pizza in the other. “One angel coming up.” She located a glittery gold-and-silver cardboard angel that Michelle had made in grade school and held it up to the tree. “I think we're going to need a stepladder.”

“Do you have one?”

“In the kitchen.”

“I'll get it.” Lili was halfway down the hall when Caroline heard a key turn in the lock and the front door open. She checked her watch. It was eight-thirty, which meant that Michelle was home from the hospice.

“What's going on?” Michelle asked from the entrance to the living room, her eyes sweeping across the room, registering the Christmas tree and the various bags and boxes littering the floor.

“I thought it would be nice if we had a tree this year,” Caroline said. “You want some pizza? There are a few slices left.”

Michelle said nothing, the roll of her eyes answer enough. She approached the tree, her fingers reaching for one of the silver balls. “A little premature to be celebrating, don't you think?”

“I just thought it would be nice,” Caroline said again.

Michelle nodded. “And it never crossed your mind that I might like to participate?”

Caroline fell silent.
One step forward. Two steps back.

“You can put up the angel,” Lili said brightly, returning to the living room with the small stepladder.

“Oh, thank you,” Michelle said. “That's so considerate of you.”

“Michelle…”

“There's some pizza left,” Lili said. “I can heat it up for you.”

“Well, aren't you just the sweetest, most thoughtful little sister in the whole universe?”

“Please don't take your anger at me out on Lili,” Caroline implored. “It was
my
idea to put up the tree.
My
idea to decorate it. Lili said we should wait till you got home.
I'm
the one who said you wouldn't be interested.”

“Because you think I enjoy being left out?”

“Because you've never shown any interest before.”

“Because you always made it seem like it was such a chore,” Michelle shot back, her anger escalating with each pronouncement. “Because it was so obvious your heart wasn't in it, that there was no reason to decorate a stupid tree and pretend to be happy, when how could we be happy if Samantha wasn't here to celebrate with us? God knows
I
wasn't reason enough. God knows
I
never made you happy.” She tore the angel from Lili's hand and ripped it apart, tossing what was left to the floor. “And by the way, Lili, or Samantha, or whatever the hell your real name is, just so you know, there are no such things as angels. Because there is no such thing as heaven.” She spun toward the hallway. “It's all one big crock. A scam—just like you.”

“Micki, wait.”

“What exactly am I waiting for?” Michelle said, turning back. “For you to acknowledge that I matter as much as my sainted sister, that my actual presence is as important to you as her memory?”

“That is so unfair.”

“Is it? What's it going to take, Mother? Do I have to disappear for you to love me?”

Caroline sank to the floor, crushing what was left of the cardboard angel beneath her weight, as Michelle ran from the room.