The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (121 page)

“Jesus, Tara! If anyone had seen you, they would have called the cops.”

She shook her head dismissively. “But they didn’t. Anyway, I looked in, and you know what I saw? This big old dollhouse. One of those Barbie Dream Townhouse things with the elevator and shit? Right in the middle of the living room. And I was thinking about those poor little kids losing their mama, and how cool the Dream Townhouse was, but how it didn’t really matter anymore because they’d lost the most important thing and their little lives were pretty much changed forever. Then the next thing I knew—” She stopped, looked at Reggie, said, “You gotta swear not to tell anyone this. Not even Charlie.”

Reggie nodded.

“The next thing I knew, I was in Andrea’s house. The freaking back door was unlocked. So I walked right in.” Tara eyed Reggie cautiously, like she was wondering if she should be telling her all this.

“You broke in?” Reggie gasped.

“I
said,
the door was open,” she snapped. Then she seemed to relax, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “And it didn’t feel like trespassing,” she said almost dreamily. “It felt like . . . like the place was familiar. It was like I wasn’t me. Like I was her and I was coming home.” She gave a shy smile.

“Tara,” Reggie said, “I don’t think —”

“Just let me finish, Reg,” Tara said, holding up her hand with its freshly painted nails. “I got inside and I sat down at the dollhouse. All the furniture was in the wrong place—there was a bed in the kitchen and the bathtub was up on the roof. It was like Cyclone Barbie had hit—clothes everywhere, naked dolls on the floor.” She reached into the pocket of her torn jeans and pulled something out, holding it clasped tightly in her fist.

“I found this there,” she said. Then, like a magician producing a rabbit from the air, she opened her hand in a dramatic, tah-dah way. And there in her palm was a tiny pink doll’s shoe with a high heel.

“You took that? A Barbie shoe?” Reggie said, squinting in disbelief at the shoe. “Why?”

Tara shrugged, clearly disappointed by Reggie’s reaction, and tucked the tiny shoe back into her pocket. “I just wanted something from her. From Andrea. A little piece of them. Something solid and real. Something they’d never miss. Do you understand?”

Reggie just stared. She did not understand.

“Swear you won’t tell anyone, Reg. Please.”

C
HARLIE SPENT THE NEXT
few days avoiding Tara and keeping himself busy with his lawn-mowing business. Reggie hated not seeing him, so she offered to help him do lawns. Charlie put her in charge of the Weedwacker and gave her a third of whatever he earned. On Wednesday morning, when they were in front of Charlie’s house, gassing up for the first lawn of the day, Reggie finally brought up Tara.

“You really like her, huh?”

Charlie didn’t respond. He poured gas into the Lawn-Boy, then screwed the cap on.

“I just miss us all hanging out together,” Reggie said. “Summer vacation is gonna suck if you two don’t start talking again.” She didn’t say what she really wanted to—that she was actually kind of worried about Tara. The thing with the Barbie shoe seemed . . . well, it seemed more than a little eccentric; it seemed possibly certifiably crazy.

“You don’t get it,” Charlie said.

“What? What don’t I get?”

“How impossible it is for me to be around her.”

Reggie bit her lip. “I do get it,” she said.

Charlie shook his head dismissively, like she was a kid who didn’t understand anything. He stood up and started pushing the mower down the street. Their first lawn was the widow Mrs. Larraby, who lived five houses down from Charlie. Reggie finished putting gas in the string trimmer and joined him. They worked together, both engines screaming, the smell of cut grass and gasoline following them. Reggie did around the house and along the rock wall at the back edge of Mrs. Larraby’s yard. Charlie walked back and forth in neat rows.

When Reggie was done, she sat and watched him finish up. The morning was hot and Charlie’s back was soaked with sweat. She could see it running down the back of his neck, which was already tan. She imagined herself touching him there, how warm and moist it would be, how if her fingers circled around, they’d be at the front of his neck, touching his Adam’s apple, moving down to the hollow beneath it. She longed to put her fingers there, in this soft indentation above his collarbone.

Mrs. Larraby came outside with two glasses of cold lemonade and Charlie stopped the mower.

“Have you heard?” she asked as she handed Reggie a heavy glass wet with condensation. “That waitress from the Silver Spoon was found this morning. Strangled, poor thing, just like that other girl. She was on the front lawn of the town library, naked except for the bandages. Her body was laid out right next to the statue there.” Mrs. Larraby shuddered.

Reggie could picture it clearly—the granite statue of a stack of books, the word
Knowledge
engraved beneath. And there, in its early morning shadow, was Candy’s body.

How about a little sugar for Candy?

W
HEN
R
EGGIE GOT HOME
to Monique’s Wish, she headed down the hallway to the kitchen. Lorraine was talking in the living room, and she sounded pissed off. Was she on the phone? And then, Reggie heard her mother’s voice. The relief flooded through her, a physical sensation. She stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and listened.

“I won’t have it,” Lorraine hissed. “Not in this house. If Father were here—”

“Don’t you dare start in about what Daddy would say,” Vera warned. “And if you want to go down that road, may I remind you that you of all people are in no position to judge me.”

“I don’t know what—”

“Oh you know exactly what I mean. Call me whatever names you want. You’re no saint, Lorraine. Don’t think I don’t know what goes on in that garage of yours.”

Then Reggie heard the unmistakable sound of a hand slapping a face and little grunting noise.

Footsteps came toward her. Reggie looked around the kitchen frantically—could she hide somewhere? But then Lorraine was in the kitchen.

“Regina,” she said, voice shaking. Lorraine’s face was pale. She had on the old fishing vest and hat. Reggie froze, waiting to see what might happen next. Lorraine looked at Reggie a moment, then continued through the kitchen, down the hall, and out the front door. Reggie looked out the window and watched Lorraine cross the driveway and enter the garage.

What did Lorraine do in the garage other than tie flies for trout fishing?

Reggie went into the living room and found her mother sitting on the couch, hand on her cheek. She was wearing a shiny blue dress Reggie had never seen before.

“Hey,” Reggie said. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Vera told her. “Just fine.” She pulled her hand away from her cheek and Reggie saw that it was bright red.

Reggie looked away, down at her sneakers covered in grass clippings, and fiddled self-consciously with the new ear.

Reggie had always been a quiet kid, even with her own family, and part of the reason for this was that she never knew the right thing to say. Words didn’t come easily to her, they were stumbling blocks rather than lines of connection. And only later, after the fact, when she was replaying conversations in her head late at night, did the right words come—a cruel joke, too little, too late.

Now, as she watched her mother move her ruined hand up to her reddened cheek again, Reggie had to say something that would break the spell. But even as she opened her mouth and felt the words tumbling out, she realized once again she was saying the wrong thing.

“Candace Jacques is dead,” Reggie told her.

“What?” her mother asked, moving her scarred hand away from her face, putting it carefully in her lap, under her left hand.

“They found her body in front of the library this morning. Strangled. Just like Andrea McFerlin.”

As soon as she saw her mother’s face, it hit harder than ever: this was real life, and Candace Jacques had been a real person—a woman who ate burgers with onions and took the time to wrap up a slice of pie for her mother at the end of a long shift. She wasn’t just a news story but an actual, physical person. Reggie suddenly understood why Tara had ridden out to Andrea McFerlin’s house; why she carried that little pink Barbie shoe everywhere. It was proof. Proof that this woman existed beyond the full-color photo on the front page of the
Hartford Examiner.

“My
God,
” was all Vera said, the tears starting. Then she turned and left the room, climbing the dark wooden steps of their failed castle.

Chapter 13

October 16, 2010

Brighton Falls, Connecticut

“I
DON’T REALLY CARE
for pizza,” Lorraine said for the third time as she frowned at what remained of the slice on her plate.

“Well, we had to eat, didn’t we?” Reggie snapped, honestly a little relieved that Lorraine had set fire to the fish that would have peered up from their plates with gruesome little eyeballs. “And Mom seems to be enjoying it.”

Vera was sitting up in bed, having her second slice. The medical supply store had delivered an electric hospital bed, a walker, and a bedside commode and set everything up in Vera’s old bedroom. Reggie and Lorraine had dragged two dining room chairs up and were eating greasy Domino’s Pizza off of good china plates balanced on their laps. It was only seven o’clock and Reggie was exhausted. The pizza was the first solid food she’d put into her stomach all day, and she was starting to wonder if it had been the greatest choice.

Reggie had offered to cook, only to discover the fridge was empty except for skim milk, margarine, some limp carrots, and a freezer full of Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese. “I’ll go shopping first thing tomorrow,” Reggie had said.

The live-in nurse Lorraine had hired was due to arrive any minute.

Reggie had been very skeptical of her aunt’s ability to hire someone qualified. “Did you find her through a service?”

Lorraine smiled tightly. “She’s someone I know.”

“But she’s experienced, right?” Reggie pushed. “You asked for her résumé and references?”

“She’s a registered nurse with hospice experience. More importantly than that, she’s someone we can trust.”

Reggie imagined one of the dowdy old women Lorraine knew through her work at the Historical Society, probably hadn’t worked for fifteen years. It couldn’t hurt to explore other options.

But she had spent nearly an hour on the phone with Medicaid, the county home health and hospice service, and a private duty nursing agency. In the end, she hadn’t been able to find anyone who could start right away. There was all kinds of bullshit about Vera not being a Connecticut resident, and Reggie had to agree to give her aunt’s candidate a try. She’d meet her, ask for references, and make different arrangements as soon as possible if necessary.

The doorbell rang and Lorraine shot up excitedly. “She’s here. I’ll show her in.”

Reggie stayed in the bedroom, pulling her phone out to check for messages. There was one from Len. Reggie smiled, listening: “Hey. Just checking in to see how Worcester’s going. I miss you. Call me when you get back to town.”

The truth was, she missed him, too. She wished she could call him, tell him everything that had happened to her today. Soon, she promised herself. When she had a better handle on things. Once things with the nurse were squared away, maybe Reggie would drive back home for a couple of days to catch up on some work and see Len.

Reggie stuck the phone back in her bag and grabbed another slice.

“Good pizza, huh, Mom?”

Vera said nothing but took another bite.

“Who am I kidding? It’s crap. But anything’s better than hospital food. And whatever they fed you in the shelter. Did you have meals there at the shelter? Or did you have to go someplace else? A soup kitchen or something?”

Her mother smiled. “Sister Dolores made sure I got enough to eat. Ham on Tuesdays. Fish on Fridays. Learn and clean and serve.”

Reggie set down her plate. “Sister Dolores, huh? Did she work at the shelter?”

What the hell was
Learn and clean and serve
? It occurred to Reggie that she should have asked the broccoli-in-her-teeth social worker for a few more details about where her mother had come from. Reggie had Carolyn Wheeler’s card in her bag—she’d give her a call in the morning.

“Regina?” Lorraine said from the doorway. “Everything okay?”

“Peachy,” Reggie said, plastering a nice fake smile on her face as she prepared to meet the stodgy old nurse whom she could hear shuffling down the hall toward them. Reggie visualized a woman in an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform, complete with a little white cap. White chunky shoes, maybe, with orthotics and support hose.

Behind Lorraine, a figure appeared in the doorway who was neither old nor dressed in anything resembling a nurse’s uniform. She wore jeans, knee-high biker boots, and a Jackson Browne T-shirt with a hooded zip-up sweatshirt over it. She had long coppery hair in a braid and a pierced nose, and was shouldering a black backpack.

Reggie did a double take.

“Tara?”

“Mrs. Dufrane,” Tara said, going straight for Vera’s bed and touching her lightly on the arm. “It’s so good to see you again.”

Reggie would know her anywhere, even without the thick black eyeliner, spiked hair, and hourglass necklace (which Reggie herself now wore, hidden under her shirt). Tara ignored Reggie, her gaze focused on Vera. Reggie flashed her aunt a what-the-hell-is-this? look and Lorraine responded with a big, proud smile.

“I’m not Mrs. Dufrane,” Vera complained, dry lips pursed in a tight little bow. “I’m not Mrs. Anyone.”

Tara smiled. “How about Vera, then? Would that be okay? And you can call me Tara. I’m not Mrs. Anyone either.” She gave Vera a wink. “I’m an old friend of Reggie’s. Do you remember?”

Vera nodded, but there was no recognition in her eyes.

“I had crazy hair back then, black with blond tips.”

Vera smiled. “Did you know I was the Aphrodite Cold Cream girl?”