The Secret Sister (31 page)

30

I
t was a perfect eighty degrees in Lafitte, Louisiana, less than an hour's drive from the airport in New Orleans. Keith had slept on her couch before getting up early and showering so they could leave at first light. Then he dozed through the whole plane ride and he'd been subdued since she'd rented the car. Maisey assumed he was fighting off one of his dramatic mood swings, or craving another fix.

Rafe had followed them to Coldiron House, where they'd dropped off their mother's truck without speaking to anyone. After that, he'd driven them to the airport in Charleston, even though it meant waiting for the car ferry. He'd claimed he could make up for missing a few hours of work, which was nice of him, because her mother would be looking for any excuse to fire him. That worried Maisey—but it had been convenient not to have to hire a taxi to pick them up where the ferry docked in Charleston.

Rafe had been so good to her. It was going to be hard to leave him. She hoped they'd be able to continue getting to know each other, but she understood how difficult a long-distance relationship would be.

“What are you expecting to find here?” Keith asked, breaking into her thoughts as Maisey drove slowly through the center of town. According to the Google search she'd performed before leaving Fairham, Lafitte was named after the notorious pirate Jean Lafitte, who'd once owned the port. The place Gretchen had chosen for her new home was located in the heart of the Baratarian Basin, with its dark bayou waters and moss-covered trees. There'd been plenty to read about the town on Google—but nothing showed up when she put in the name Paul Phillips.

“I told you,” she said to Keith. “I want to talk to Gretchen's son.”

“What if he won't talk to us? I can't imagine he'll be eager to implicate his own mother.”

“I'm not suggesting Gretchen
pushed
Annabelle—just that she wasn't watching her closely enough. Guilt over something like that might've made her tell the truth to the people who were closest to her. Anyway, that incident happened so long ago, when Paul Phillips was only a child of ten. Since his mother's gone and can't be harmed no matter what he reveals, he shouldn't be
too
guarded. Maybe we'll get lucky.”

“He could still be protective of her memory. Or...what if he doesn't see any point in even wasting his time with us?”

“Then we'll talk to the people around him. He might have a wife who's heard about it.”

Wearing a dark scowl, he peered out at the businesses slipping slowly past his window. “How do you plan to find this man and his wife—if he has one?”

“I told you.”

“Ask around.”

“That's it.”

“Isn't that like looking for a needle in a haystack?”

“Not at all. Do you see this place? It has less than a thousand residents. There's got to be
someone
who knows him.”

“That sounded more plausible when we were on the plane. Now I'm realizing how unlikely it is that he even lives here anymore.”

Maisey hoped Keith was wrong about the likelihood of tracking down what was left of Gretchen's family. She didn't have the resources necessary to turn this into an extensive search.

Still, she was her mother's daughter in one respect—she didn't give up easily. “If he doesn't, we'll figure out where he went and go there.”

“You're
that
determined?”

“If we don't ask now, more time will go by, and that'll diminish our chances even further.”

“If we have any chances to begin with.”

“I'll hire a private detective, if I have to. I might have to wait until I'm earning regular money again, but...”

“All this to learn that I'm not worth the time and expense?”

She sent him a sharp glance. “Stop it. You didn't mean to hurt Annabelle—if that's what actually happened. You're not that kind of person.”

She pulled into a gas station with a small convenience store.

“Wait a sec.” He stopped her when she unfastened her seat belt. “You can't just waltz in and ask for Paul Phillips. You need a pretext.”

“Pretext?” she repeated.

“An excuse they'll believe, so they don't feel you pose some kind of threat to one of their fellow townsmen.”

“I'm familiar with the definition. I was just surprised to hear you say that. You're taking this more seriously than I thought, Mr. Skeptic.”

“I want what you want, but I'm not as optimistic about finding it. So what are you going to say?”

She collected her purse so she could buy something as an excuse to approach the register. “How about I tell them that I knew Paul growing up? That I was one of the children his mother once cared for and I'd like to reconnect with him. That makes it sound as if we were friends, even though I don't remember him, but it's basically the truth.”

“Sounds harmless,” he said.

She opened her door. “Aren't you coming?”

“No.”

He was afraid of being disappointed. And, as it turned out, he would've been.

“Any luck?” Keith asked when she returned.

She tossed her purse and the local paper she'd bought in the backseat before climbing in. “No.”

“So we're going to keep looking.”

“Of course. Everyone in that store was a teenager, way younger than Paul would be. Even the cashier didn't look to be more than twenty. Why would they have any reason to know him? It's not like he would've been in school with them.”

Next, she stopped at a swamp tour place. The only employee in the building shook her head when Maisey asked about Paul. So Maisey moved on to a small café that was quite busy, since it was close to dinnertime.

Maisey waited at the hostess station until a server—or maybe it was the owner since she looked to be sixty or older—hurried over to address her while carrying a coffeepot. “One for dinner?”

“Actually, I'm hoping to find an old friend who grew up here.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“Paul Phillips.”

She frowned. “Sorry, he doesn't live here anymore.”

That was a letdown. But at least she'd found someone who recognized the name. “Can you tell me where he might've gone?”

“No clue. But you could ask his sister.”

His
sister
? Maisey had been told she'd died of kidney disease. “Sarah's here?”

The woman gave her a sad smile. “No, I'm afraid Sarah passed away a long time ago. Poor thing. She was a sweetheart. I'm talking about the youngest in the family, Roxanne.”

Maisey supposed Gretchen could've added to her family after she left. But she'd already been forty-five or so when she moved... “Can you tell me where I might find Roxanne, then?”

“Sure.” She gestured with the coffeepot. “She owns the video store around the corner. Go down one block and make a right.”

Maisey thanked her and hurried out.

“You found him,” Keith guessed when she reached the car.

“It's that obvious?”

“You were almost sprinting to the car.”

And her excitement was contagious. He was perking up, too. “I didn't find
him
, but I found his younger sister.”

“I thought Gretchen only had two kids.”

“Apparently she had at least one more. A girl named Roxanne, who's supposed to be nearby, so we should be able to talk to her.”

That hit him hard. “Holy shit. Do you think she might know something?”

“It's possible.”

“Wouldn't it be great if we learned for sure that I
didn't
push Annabelle?”

She reached over to squeeze his hand. “Why don't you come in this time?”

He said no, but once she located the store and parked in the gravel lot, he seemed less certain.

“You might want to hear this,” she coaxed.

“That depends, doesn't it?”

“One way or the other. Even if you pushed Annabelle, that doesn't mean you knew what you were doing.”

He unbuckled his seat belt and unfolded his tall frame as he stepped out. “Fine. Let's go.”

There was a mother with four little kids in the store, picking out children's movies. Maisey and Keith waited for her to leave before approaching the woman behind the cash register. She appeared to be in her late thirties, a bit older than Maisey had expected, but even with minimal makeup and her blond hair piled on top of her head as if she hadn't bothered to go to any trouble this morning, she was beautiful.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” she asked.

Maisey couldn't help noticing the unusual color of her eyes. They were that particular shade of blue—which gave her a strange feeling, a sense of déjà vu that she told herself couldn't really mean anything. “Actually, we didn't want to get in the way while you were taking care of business. We're not here to rent a movie. We were hoping you might be able to answer a few questions for us.”

She seemed uncertain. “About...”

“Your mother.”

“Who are you? Why would you want to know anything about my mother?”

“I'm Maisey Lazarow, and this is my brother, Keith—”

“What'd you say?” She glanced at one of them, then the other, her smile long gone. “Is this some kind of cruel joke?”

Maisey blinked in surprise. “I don't understand.”

“You must know that I once had a brother and sister with those names. They were killed, along with my parents, in a car crash when I was six. So...maybe now you can see why this isn't funny.”

The sound Keith made revealed his shock. Maisey understood what he was feeling. She had to steady herself by putting one hand on the counter. “We're not trying to be funny. We're...” Maisey peered more closely at Roxanne's eyes, so close to the color of hers and Keith's—a distinctly Coldiron trait.
It can't be
, she thought. But even the woman's age seemed to confirm what her mind was suggesting.
“Annabelle?”

The blood drained from her face as she rocked back and covered her mouth.

“Oh, my God!” Keith cried. “It's you! It has to be you.”

“We were told you fell off a cliff, into the ocean,” Maisey said. “That
you
were the one who died.”

Keith must've been overwhelmed by relief as well as surprise. He hadn't hurt anyone, just as they'd both hoped. But Maisey couldn't focus on that. She was too stunned—and waiting for Annabelle's reaction.

“I never...fell off any cliff,” Annabelle said.

“Then how... It doesn't make sense,” Maisey whispered. It
didn't
make sense. What had Gretchen done? How? And why? “Lindsay was right,” she said. “Gretchen lied. Gretchen lied about everything.”

Keith grabbed Maisey. “That's why they could never find her body!”

Annabelle lowered the hand that had been covering her mouth. “Then why would you believe it?” she asked. “Why would
anyone
believe it?”

“Because they...they found your doll, the one you took everywhere,” Keith said.

Annabelle shook her head. “That can't be. My mother—Gretchen,” she quickly amended, “told me she took the doll to the hospital and had it buried with my family. And now you're telling me that she...what?
Staged
the whole thing?”

“She had to have,” Maisey said. “She told you we were dead, and she told us you were dead so we'd never look for one another. So she could take you and move on as if we'd never existed.”

“You're saying she kidnapped me.” Annabelle was growing angry. “
Why?
Why would she do something so terrible? She was a wonderful woman. A kind and loving mother.”

Maisey had no answer. Keith didn't seem to have one, either. With Gretchen dead, how would they ever find out?

But then Maisey thought of Gretchen's son. “The only person who might be able to answer that is Paul, right? He was older than you by what...four years? Maybe
he
remembers something.”

Tears began to stream down Annabelle's cheeks. “He's never mentioned my birth family. Neither did Sarah before she...before.”

“I'm not trying to upset you,” Maisey said. “But they probably wouldn't have said anything, especially if Gretchen swore them to secrecy. Maybe...because of Sarah's disease, she meant for you to be her daughter's replacement.”

“No. She didn't know Sarah had kidney disease. Not back then,” she said. But then a hint of clarity entered her expression and she wiped at her tears. “I think I know why,” she said. “She
hated
my real mother. Said it was a blessing she was gone, that she wasn't taking proper care of me and I deserved better. But she felt bad about my father, who was a nice man.”

“Gretchen thought our father was a nice man, and yet she was blackmailing him?” Keith said.

Annabelle's eyebrows flew up. “What are you talking about?”

Maisey jumped in. “She claimed
Keith
pushed you, and to save Keith from the stigma that would create, Dad paid her handsomely.”

Before she could react, Keith slapped the counter. “Wait a second.
That's
why she claimed it was me! Without that, she wouldn't have had anything to hold over Mom and Dad. There would've been no way to get money.”

“She probably saw it as child support.” Maisey could tell that Annabelle was getting defensive on Gretchen's behalf and wanted to appease her. “A way to give Annabelle—you—more than she could afford on her own.”

“I don't understand,” Annabelle said. “I can't—I can't believe what I'm hearing.”

“We'll explain,” Maisey told her. “We'll explain it all. And, hard as this might be to hear, we can prove it.”