The Vision (14 page)

chapter 23

I half expected an article about a dark-street homicide, but when I finally found her obituary, it was an in-column write-up like any other. It was two days after her death and, having read and discarded the obits from each prior day, I'd started to wonder if the police had written me off as a crank caller. I imagined her still sitting, undiscovered, in that alley. But a mention of the West Norwood Women's Shelter caught my eye. Her age fit. Lucy Edwards was her name. She'd died of pneumonia. It sounded so normal.

I barely noticed Ryan entering the break room, completely absorbed in the paper. The mental image of how we'd found the woman—the alley, the horrible condition of her clothes and belongings—was still so vivid, I guess I'd been looking for that description in her death notice. But of course it wouldn't be there. They don't tell you that someone died a terrible, lonely death, filthy and surrounded by squalor.

“What's wrong?” Ryan said, sliding into the chair across from mine.

I glanced up, frowning. “Nothing. Why?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You're staring at the obits and looking like your best friend died.” He paused. “She didn't, did she?”

“Of course not.” I looked back at the paper. “It's just this woman …” I wanted to talk about it even though I knew Ryan was the wrong person. Zander was probably the best choice, though I wasn't sure he'd really understand either.

“What about her?” He leaned forward, taking hold of the page to turn it so he could read. “This one? Lucy Edwards?”

I nodded and let him take the paper from me, figuring out what I wanted to say—what I
could
say—while he read.

He handed it back to me, shrugging. “What about her?”

“It just seemed weird to me,” I said slowly, “how she had all this history, this normal life. A job at a bank, a family—daughters, grandkids.” Things I never would have expected that sorry, rag-wrapped woman in the alley to have had. “And yet her last residence was a homeless shelter.”

Ryan looked confused. “So?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I just wonder how it came to that. Why didn't she wind up a happy grandmother, reading or playing with little kids or something instead of dying in a dirty, frozen alley?”

“Did it say that?” Ryan reached for the paper.

Shit. “No.” I pulled the paper away, waving my other hand dismissively. “It's just an example. You know what I mean: how does someone with all the stuff of a normal life end up in a homeless shelter? Why didn't her family help her?”

“Maybe she was on drugs. Or was an alcoholic,” he said. “Happens more than you'd think.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“If you're so curious, go to the wake,” he said, smiling a little. “Spy on the relatives. That's your thing anyway, right?”

“Ha-ha.”

“You could do it right out in the open,” Ryan said. “See who shows, what they're like. Tell them you were …” He thought for a minute, then finished triumphantly, “A volunteer at the shelter!”

It wasn't a bad idea. I'd never been to the actual service of someone I'd seen with the mark. Never felt like I'd be able to handle it. This was the one to go to, though. A test to be sure that what Zander and I had done was really, truly right.

“Listen”—he leaned in conspiratorially—“I'll even go with you. We'll say we were both volunteers come to pay our respects.”

“Oh no, you don't have to do that, Ryan.” But it was too late, he was already swept up in the idea.

“I don't mind,” he said. “Really.”

Maybe it'd be better to have him along. He might do the talking, letting me concentrate on who was there and what kind of woman Lucy Edwards had been, what had happened to bring her to where I'd found her. And, most important, whether redemption might have been possible if I'd given her another chance.

“Okay,” I told him.

We got there just after five thirty, the start of visiting hours.

“Ready?” he asked as we parked in the lot across from the funeral home's heavy wooden door.

I shook my head, feeling nauseated. I'd seen plenty of dead people and plenty of people with the mark. But I'd never seen a before and after.

“Come on,” he said, nudging my arm gently and smiling. “Don't tell me you're nervous? Not the Cassie Renfield who tiptoes around the funeral parlor, catlike, spying on unsuspecting mourners. I don't believe it.”

“I guess I wouldn't make much of a secret agent, would I?”

“Terrible,” Ryan agreed, getting out of the car.

I followed him to the front door, both of us walking quickly in the dark winter night. The truth is I was beyond nervous. About talking to her relatives and seeing her, but mostly that I might learn that Zander and I had made the wrong decision.

He'd thought I was ridiculous when I told him about the obituary. “Of course she had family,” he'd said. “What do you think—homeless people's mothers and fathers and siblings just evaporate when things go south for them? Life is a series of decisions, Cassie. Somewhere along the line, this woman made one—or a bunch—that sent her life in the wrong direction. The other people in her family didn't. It's not hard to understand and it certainly doesn't change the fact that her life was over. Done. Physically, emotionally, potentially.”

I could tell he was getting tired of reassuring me. But it
did
help. I always felt better in the face of his certainty.

The entry hall of the funeral home—one of the nicest in the city, according to Ryan—had polished wood floors covered with a dark Persian carpet. A brass chandelier glowed overhead. I scanned the mourners as we waited for our coat-check slips. There were about thirty people milling around, surprisingly well dressed in conservative suits and skirts, like any of the visitors I'd seen at Ludwig & Wilton. I tried to pick out the family members, but none resembled the slumped and slovenly woman I'd seen in the alley.

Until we passed the portrait. It was an oil painting, two girls and a boy in their early twenties, a dog, a fireplace. The girls looked so similar they might have been twins. Next to the painting were two smaller photographs. One was a group shot, a bride and groom in the center. The other was the three siblings again, in a similar pose, perhaps thirty years later. I stared at it, hardly able to believe that the dark-haired woman smiling tentatively at the camera was actually Lucy Edwards.

“I guess one of them is her,” Ryan said. He nodded toward the chapel entry just ahead and to the right. “Should we find out which one? Pay our respects?”

I wasn't sure I could. My throat felt too tight and I desperately wished I hadn't come. This was everything I'd hoped not to see. Family. A history that wasn't squalor and abuse and poverty, but the kind of upbringing that should have led to … well, anything but where it had.

“Cassie?” Ryan, who had taken a few steps toward the doorway, turned and looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “Are you coming?”

I nodded mutely. My feet felt encased in cinder blocks, but I forced them forward. One, then the other, until I was beside him.

He frowned, whispering, “You okay?”

I nodded again, forcing another step.
Clomp.
I could see into the room now: wooden chairs scattered throughout, wall sconces dimmed, groups of people talking in hushed voices, glancing now and then toward the front of the room. And the casket. Just the foot edge of it. Dark wood, gleaming like the surface of a frozen pond. It stopped me cold.

Ryan stepped closer, gently touching my arm. I looked up at him, standing beside me with real concern in his eyes. It was a tenderness that was hauntingly, achingly familiar and I realized three things simultaneously:

One, Ryan liked me.
Really
liked me. In a way I should have—and probably had—recognized a long time ago, though I hadn't wanted to admit it.

Two, I felt things for him, too—except they weren't for
him
. They were for the honest and caring part of him that reminded me so much of Jack, who always made me feel like things would be okay, even when they might not be. Something I desperately,
desperately
needed now.

And three, Ryan wasn't Jack.

I took a deep breath and smiled weakly. “Sorry,” I whispered. “Felt a little dizzy. Maybe something I ate.”

“Do you want to sit?” Ryan glanced toward the small sofas lining the wall. “We could—”

“No, no. That's okay.” I smiled again, but it felt more like a grimace. “Let's just go in.”

“Okay.” Ryan took my hand and gave it a little squeeze. It might have been comforting if I didn't feel so bad about who'd
really
been on my mind each time I was with Ryan. Still, I let him lead me into the chapel and to the casket.

We stood silently facing Lucy Edwards. I didn't recognize the woman laid out before us any more than I'd recognized her in the photos and painting out front. She looked like a slightly older version of any one of my friends' mothers. Lightly wrinkled with tasteful makeup and brown-gray hair neatly framing her face.

It struck me that there was every possibility this
wasn't
the woman Zander and I had seen. All I'd been going on was her age and the fact that she'd spent some time at a shelter in the same neighborhood where we'd found the woman with the mark. Nothing concrete, really. This whole excursion could very well be a colossal waste of time. The woman from the alley wasn't someone who had a family like this that might have helped her, cared about her, reconnected with her, had they known. She was nothing like that at all.

I nudged Ryan. “You ready?” I wanted to go. Quickly.

He glanced down at me. “Not feeling good?”

I shrugged, noncommittal. I was feeling fine. Just ready to be away from this scene—the dead woman, her family, Ryan-who-wasn't-Jack. All of it.

He nodded, still grasping my hand as we started toward the foyer.

I recognized Lucy Edwards's sister near the exit and almost headed for the opposite door, but Ryan saw her too, automatically steering us that way to offer the required condolences before leaving. If there's one thing you learn working at a funeral home, it's the importance of etiquette.

“You're Ms. Edwards's sister?” he asked when the guest before us moved on.

“I am. Julia Redmond,” she said, her voice thready, her smile forced but kind.

“We knew your sister from the shelter,” Ryan said smoothly. “She was a lovely person. I'm so sorry for your loss.”

“My condolences, as well,” I added formally, thankful for Ryan's years of practice and my months of eavesdropping.

Julia Redmond looked like she'd been punched.

In a moment of perfect clarity, I knew there was no use pretending this was a mistaken identity and unfortunate waste of time. Lucy Edwards
was
the woman from the alley.

Her sister's mouth opened and closed once, then twice, fishlike, before she spoke. “Why didn't you contact us?” she said, obviously strained. “Don't you try to find the families?”

We should go, I thought. Now. But Ryan, who had no idea where and how Lucy Edwards had been found—something I was certain from her expression that the sister
did
—said calmly, “I'm so sorry. We're not always able to—”

“We had no idea what had happened to Lucy.” Julia Redmond's voice was tighter, speaking over him. “Surely
you people
”—she spat it disdainfully—“can recognize
problems
like Lucy's. Why weren't you watching her? Why wasn't she at your ‘shelter' instead of freezing to death on the street?” Her voice was rising, louder and more shrill with each question. “How could you let her die in a pile of garbage?” People were listening, turning to look at the three of us.

Julia Redmond realized it and leaned in close, her face twisted with anger and bitterness. “She came to you for help,” she hissed. “And you let her die. You killed her.”

It was as if she had spoken to the deepest part of my conscience. Any small bit of assurance I had shattered. “I'm so sorry,” I whispered. “We … we'll go.” I walked toward the door fast, dragging Ryan behind me. I kept my back to the room as we stood at the coat check, praying the girl would move faster, even thinking of leaving without them, and waiting to feel the hard, accusing hand of the sister or brother or any of the other people standing in the room.

“What do you—”

“Shh,” I hissed at Ryan. “Not now.”

After an eternity, our coats came. I shrugged mine on, hurried Ryan into his, grabbed his hand, and pushed out into the freezing night.

“What on earth just happened?” Ryan asked, turning to face me on the porch as the door shushed closed behind us. “Why was that lady—”

“Well, isn't this cute?”

I can't even pinpoint the feelings that flooded me—relief, anxiety, longing, fear—at hearing Zander's voice. He stepped out of the shadows, where he'd been leaning, into the dim light from the front door.

“You kids have fun in there?” he asked lightly.

“Who the hell are you?” Ryan's hand tightened on mine.

Zander looked at me meaningfully. “Would you like to introduce us, Cassandra?”

I swallowed hard. Could this get any more awkward? “Zander, this is Ryan. We work together. Ryan”—I glanced from one to the other—“this is Zander. We go to school together.”

Ryan looked at me, waiting for more of an explanation probably, but I turned to Zander instead. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to keep you company.” He walked closer, his eyes holding mine as he added more softly, “And to stop you from doing what you just did.”

I looked down, feeling the awfulness of facing Julia Redmond all over again.