Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel (23 page)

“You cooking?” I could hear the grin in his voice.

“A Hank casserole from my freezer.”

“You’re on. Who knows, maybe I can get some more info out of Flan.”

“That would also be great,” I said, because right now she could probably have poured out her entire life story to me and I’d miss it. The minute Kade and I hung up and I had time to think, normal went out the way it came in and the faces on Maharry’s walls were the only thing in my mind, like an assault on my sanity.

They were not the work of bored teenage taggers looking for action on West King. Nor could I believe some whacked-out druggie did the deed. Addicts always looked for cash, and Maharry hadn’t even locked his up. Or his twenty-two.

Zelda might be right, especially if Marcus Rydell was capable of that kind of artwork. I wouldn’t know. My only experience with that hideous hulk of a human being did not involve creative talent. Besides, there was something else about it that didn’t ring true. I just couldn’t get it to come into focus.

My phone rang and I jumped so hard it fell out of my hand and onto the deck. By the time I answered it, on hands and knees, Nick Kent was about to hang up.

“Hey, thanks for being there today,” I said, “even though it wasn’t your case.”

I waited for him to say that he’d keep an eye on it and update me. He didn’t. He ended the awkward pause with, “I looked into that Hastings thing.”

“Oh. And?”

“There’s a Brenda Donohue living there. Thirty-eight years old. I have an address.”

I sat back on my knees. “Could she be Flannery’s mom?”

“There’s no way to tell. All she has is a driver’s license. There are no properties or utilities in her name, and there’s no Flannery Donohue registered in the public school system.” I could hear him tapping computer keys. “She doesn’t have any credit cards, not even a bank account.”

“That’s really strange. I mean, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m happy to give you her address.”

There was something final in his voice.

“What’s wrong, Nick?” I said. “You sound funky.”

He paused again, long enough for the truth to dawn on me.

“Dad-
gum
it!” I got up and paced the porch, free hand in my hair. “Kylie, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. He called me in at the end of my shift and accused me of giving you information.”

I flopped miserably onto the porch swing and knocked an innocent cushion over the edge. “Nick, I am so sorry. I tried really hard to make him think I checked out the arrest records myself. I definitely didn’t mention your name.”

“I knew when I told you I was taking a risk. It’s not your fault.”

I could almost see his eyes going Opie Taylor–sad.

“Are you in serious trouble?”

“No. He knows he can’t prove anything.”

“But.”

“But he’ll be watching to get me on some stupid little thing.”

“Jackal.” I pulled down at the sweat beads I could feel forming on my upper lip. “Okay, so, you need to stop giving me information. I don’t want you going down for this.”

“If I can do it without—”

“No. Absolutely not. Unless you’re on duty and it’s something you can report, I’m leaving you out of it.”

In my mind, his eyes drooped even further.

“I’m sorry, Miss Allison.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry. Don’t worry about it. Just watch your back.”

He thanked me and hung up. I pushed the swing into motion with my foot and rocked until my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. I’d just lost a valuable ally.

When I was on the verge of nausea again, I looked at the clock on my phone and forced myself to get up. Time to thaw out the casserole and get ready for Kade. Then I’d call Hank and check on Maharry and Sherry.

“Desmond,” I called out as I pushed through the back door and into the kitchen. “I need you to set the table. Cappuccino’s coming over. ”

Normally anything Kade-related brought him out of sulk mode, but there was no answer from his room. Probably had his headphones on, which was his MO when he was pouting. I pounded on his door, but he still didn’t respond. When I realized I wasn’t feeling the vibration of his subwoofer in the floor I opened the door. The room was empty.

Although I told myself it was ridiculous to panic, I was already praying
pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod
as I searched the dining room, the living room, the foyer and the closet under the stairs. The shrill panic in my voice as I yelled, “Desmond! Desmond, answer me!” was enough to bring him all the way from St. George Street.

But he couldn’t have gone out. From the screen porch I’d have seen him leave, even through the front door. His room was windowless, so nobody could have climbed in and snatched him.

That, however, was exactly what I was convinced had happened as I took the steps two at a time, still crying, “Des-
mond!
Where are you?”

It didn’t dawn on me until I’d virtually ransacked the bathroom and checked the windows in my room that my hysterical shrieking hadn’t brought Flannery out of
her
room either. I stopped in the middle of the upstairs hall and stared at her door. It was hard to hear anything over my own ragged breathing, but there it was: just-audible whispering from the other side.

It was a Sacrament House rule to knock before entering anyone’s space, but I marched to her door and pushed it open. Desmond looked up from the bed where he leaned against the headboard with a sobbing Flannery in his arms. He didn’t even have the good sense to look guilty.

Lucky for him I was more relieved than angry, at least for the moment.

“You need something, Big Al?” he said.

“Yeah, I need something. You.”

He nodded as if he totally understood that and yet … “Flannery needed me too.”

Flannery sat up and pushed herself away from Desmond. The front of his T-shirt was soaked.

“I’m okay, Desi,” she said.

Ah. We were back to you’re-my-best-friend.

“Go ahead with your mom. I’m fine now.”

Desmond got up and started past me but I planted a hand in the middle of his damp chest.

“Nobody goes anywhere until you two tell me what’s going on. Desmond—dish.”

He began to turn his head toward Flannery, but my eyes must have been steely enough to stop him. Yet he still sighed as if I just didn’t get this at all.

“I was down in my room and I heard her up here cryin’ and you was on the phone so I thought I oughta come up and make sure she wasn’t in some kinda trouble.”

“Even though you know this room is off limits.”

“I was thinkin’ this’d be one of those times when we got to be flexible.”

“If I hadn’t been here, sure. But I was right there on the side porch. All you had to do was stick your head out the door and tell me.”

“She was cryin’ real hard.”

I looked at Flannery, who was doing absolutely nothing to get Desmond off the hook. Her tear-swollen eyes went from one of us to the other as if she were dumbstruck by the conversation.

“Were you being attacked by aliens when Desmond came to the door?” I said to her.

The chin came up. “What? No!”

“Were you getting ready to slit your wrists? Hang yourself from the ceiling?”

“Hello-o!”

“Suffering from severe abdominal pain? Bleeding? Vomiting? Experiencing a fever of over 102?”

She shook the curls, mouth hanging open. I turned back to Desmond.

“Since the answer to all of the above is no, son, you should have left the room and come down for me.”

“I asked him to stay,” Flannery said.

I shot Desmond another look but decided not to beat that already dead dog. This was a glimmer of a chance to get something from this child.

“All right.” I pressed my shoulder against Desmond’s. “And you, being the compassionate person you are, wanted to help.”

Desmond stiffened.

“I’m being serious,” I said. “I know you didn’t hang out up here just for fun.”

“That’s what I told you,” he said.

I sat on the edge of Flannery’s bed. “And why did you need a friend?”

“I was upset.”

“By whatever happened when we were driving down West King.”

Her eyes startled just enough for me to know I was right before she hugged her knees and lifted her chin yet again. “It’s whatever made you grab my arm,” I said.

“Whoa,” Desmond said to her. “You can’t be doin’ that now. I done that once and me and Mr. Chief …” He cut himself off and nodded at me. “Go on ahead, Big Al.”

“Whatever it was that scared you, Flannery,” I said, “we can help you get beyond it—even if it was just something that reminded you of something else bad.”

Her nod was too quick. “That’s it. It just made me think of the night I ran away and got lost and ended up right there, where we were today, and that guy wanted … you know.”

Her eyes darted to Desmond, and I realized I was seeing the first sign of shame she had shown us.

“Des,” I said. “Kade’s coming for supper. Would you go down and set the table and get that casserole out of the freezer, the one that says ‘mushroom ravioli’?”

“Kade’s going to be here?” Flannery said. “When?”

“In about thirty minutes, so until then you and I can talk—”

“I have to take a shower,” she said, and leapt from the bed, hands dancing through her hair. The switch in mood was dizzying.

I could feel Desmond’s heart shrivel and Kade’s voice echoed in my head:
Step away from the teenage romance.

It was one hard, reluctant step.

By the time supper on the porch was over and the kids were cleaning up the kitchen while Kade and I sat in the living room with a stack of files, I was almost too brain dead to care if I went bankrupt. Hank had assured me on the phone that Maharry was stable and so was Sherry, and that Liz was seeing after Zelda. Maybe it would be okay to just shut down until tomorrow morning.

Kade flipped open a folder and grinned into it.

“I have never found anything even a little bit funny about my bank account,” I said.

“It’s not that. I was just thinking about Flannery. Does she ever take a breath? I don’t think any of the rest of us said more than two words through the whole meal.”

“Oh, she talks, all right. She just never tells us anything we want to know.”

“Give me ten minutes with her.”

“Unh-uh.” I sat up straight in the red chair. “She’s crushing on you so hard, you can’t even look at her without her making wedding plans in her head.”

“Get outta town.”

“In her mind, she’s Julia Roberts and you’re Richard Gere.”

“Huh?”

“You never saw
Pretty Woman
?
”

“Is that a movie?”

“Omygosh you’re so young.” I leaned toward him. “Listen, I would appreciate whatever you can learn from her about her past, but don’t do anything that would even remotely encourage her romantically. The child is smitten with you.”

“Does Desmond see that?”

“Are you serious?”

“Aw, man. I feel like—”

“What was that?”

Kade followed my gaze to the kitchen. “What was what? Did you hear something?”

“I thought I heard the side door close.”

He cocked his head and nodded at me. “What’s weird to me is what I don’t hear.”

He was right. The kitchen was quiet. Too quiet for a pair of teenagers who five minutes before were arguing over who had to scrub the burnt cheese off the casserole dish.

“You think they’re in
his
room this time?” Kade said.

“If they are, Desmond’s never going to sit on a Harley again until he graduates from high school.”

But even as I said it I dismissed it. I had clearly heard the latch on the back door click into place.

“Will you check his room?” I said. “I’m just going to look outside.”

“What do you want me to do if they’re in there?”

“Read them their rights.”

I went to the foyer and eased the front door open. A soft darkness had fallen, and the streetlights had winked on so I could see clearly up and down Palm Row. A breeze ruffled from the bay, only slightly stirring the palm fronds. Other than that, all was still.

I slipped out, swatting at the night bugs swarming around the front porch light, and padded barefoot across the grass to the side of the house. Kade had flicked that light on too, so that my property, all the way to Miz Vernell’s, was flooded in yellow. The porch was just as we’d left it after supper, complete with the fading scent of the tiki torches.

Forcing myself to look up, I scanned the edge of the roof, although what I thought I was going to find there I had no idea. Despite the shiver that went through me I told myself I was being as ridiculous now as I had been earlier, before I found Desmond playing Cyrano to Flannery’s Roxanne in the upstairs bedroom.

Come on. It wasn’t Sultan’s style to simply have Desmond kidnapped from the kitchen. He could have done that a hundred times before. He was more about forcing people to join him at the edge of sanity and trying to shove them over it—

“Allison!”

I clawed at my chest and stared at Kade, who was tilting out the side door.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “But I think you better come talk to Desmond.”