When Never Comes Page 6

  “Love?” Missy’s eyes went wide. “Good grief! Who said anything about love? Like I said, he’s nice to look at, but I’ve got two little boys at home, which is all the testosterone I need in my life at the moment.” She feigned a shudder as she turned to Christy-Lynn. “I bought the whole love and marriage T-shirt a few years back but wound up returning it for a full refund, if you know what I mean.”

  “Defective merchandise?”

  Missy wrinkled her nose. “Something like that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m happy. Mostly. Even if it does feel like my hair’s on fire most of the time.”

  It was the mostly that caught Christy-Lynn’s attention, but she thought it best not to ask. She’d be gone in a few days, and she had her own baggage to carry. “How old are your sons?”

  “Six and eight. Nathan and Christian. Both monsters and both adorable.”

  Divorced, a businesswoman, and a single mom. Christy-Lynn was impressed. “How do you do it? Run an inn and raise two little boys on your own?”

  “Oh, I have help. My parents live close, and I have a great sitter. She’s with them now. I feel bad sometimes, leaving them after working all day, but sometimes it feels like all I do is take care of other people. If I didn’t get out once in a while, I seriously think I’d lose my mind. Oh, look, Marco’s back.” She grinned up at him, all but purring. “That for me, sugar?”

  He set down Missy’s margarita and a fresh basket of chips, then took Christy-Lynn’s drink order, flashing an Antonio Banderas smile as he turned to leave.

  “Good grief,” Dar huffed when Mario was safely out of earshot. “I thought you were going to start stuffing dollar bills down his pants.”

  Missy’s mossy-green eyes gleamed mischievously. “Jealous?”

  Dar shook her head slowly, like a teacher with an incorrigible student. “Not everyone’s looking for tall, dark, and handsome. Some of us are looking for substance, someone capable of holding a conversation or a settling down with a good book.”

  “Ah, yes. Your soul mate.”

  Dar picked up her wineglass, glaring petulantly as she sipped. “Go ahead. Make fun. But I’m not the one who married a guy right out of school because I liked the way his jeans fit.”

  Missy picked up her margarita, chasing her lime wedge around with her straw. “You’ve got me there. That’s what I did, all right. And all I’ve got to show for it are two beautiful boys I wouldn’t trade for the world.” She glanced at Christy-Lynn then, smiling one of her brilliant smiles. “Oh, honey, don’t worry about us. We’re not fighting. This is how we show our love for each other. We’re different as night and day, but she knows I’ll always have her back, and I know she’ll always have mine. You know how it is with girlfriends.”

  Christy-Lynn nodded, but the truth was she didn’t know. She’d heard about the bonds of female friendship but assumed it to be the stuff of movies and cable TV, imagining it involved lots of chardonnay and shoe shopping. But now, as she observed the connection between Dar and Missy, she saw that real female friendship bore little resemblance to such trite stereotypes. It was deeper and messier and quite beautiful in its own way. And suddenly—perhaps for the first time—she felt its absence keenly.

  But there were reasons for that.

  EIGHT

  Monck’s Corner, South Carolina

  August 9, 1994

  Christy-Lynn’s gaze slides to the girl walking beside her—the new girl. She has a terrible overbite and a head full of wiry red hair. She’s also covered with freckles. None of these things are her fault, of course, but that hasn’t stopped the kids at Berkeley High from slapping a bull’s-eye on her back and labeling her a freak. It isn’t fair. You can’t help who your parents are—or the genes they saddle you with.

  She jerks her eyes away as the girl turns to look at her. She’s used to being invisible, to simply not being seen, so it’s a little weird that Linda Neely has suddenly wandered into her usually empty orbit.

  It had taken some time for Linda to finally speak, almost two weeks, but eventually, after days of hovering in the lunchroom and in study hall, she had startled Christy-Lynn by blurting out her story. Her family had moved from Norfolk because her father had been transferred to Trident, in North Charleston. She didn’t have any friends, and she was having trouble in most of her classes, especially English. Her father was threatening to send her back to private school—the kind run by nuns—if she didn’t get her grades up by her next report card.

  It’s hard not to feel sorry for her. After five moves in three years, Christy-Lynn knows what it’s like to be the new girl, the one everyone stares at and whispers about. The outsider. But over the years, she’s gotten used to it, even gotten good at it if there’s such a thing. Which is why it feels weird to be bringing home a classmate to help her with her term paper. It’s not like she doesn’t have the time—her own paper has been finished for a week—or that she minds really. Words are her thing. She likes the way they feel, the way they taste. It’s just . . . weird. New weird. Awkward weird.

  They’re cutting across the parking lot now, past a dumpster overflowing with beer cans and dirty diapers, and cars that haven’t moved in months. Christy-Lynn wonders if there’s any food in the apartment. She doubts it. There’s rarely money for cookies or chips these days. Please, God, let there at least be some real Coke; not the generic stuff her mother brings home when cash is low and there are still five days till payday. Linda Neely might be unfortunate-looking with her freckles and her big teeth, but her Fossil watch and trendy Dr. Martens are clearly not from Goodwill.

  They’re climbing the steps now, three slabs of broken concrete with weeds growing out of the cracks. From the apartment above, Reba McEntire’s “Fancy” bleeds through the broken screen, along with the high-pitched wail of a baby. She has always hated the song—just a little too real life for her taste.

  There’s a tug on her coat sleeve as she digs for her key. Linda’s eyes are wide, almost disbelieving. “This is where you . . . live? I thought we were just cutting through the parking lot.”

  Christy-Lynn is still trying to think of something to say when she realizes the apartment door is ajar. She nudges it open with her knee and peers in. The curtains are drawn, the TV off. Nothing out of place. She breathes a sigh of relief. Not a break-in then. Just her mother, running late as usual and not paying attention when she left for work.

  Christy-Lynn holds the door open as Linda steps across the threshold. She’s never brought anyone home, and suddenly she wishes she hadn’t today. The apartment is shabby and small, and the greasy scent of tater tots and fried onions lingers in the air from last night’s supper. She wonders briefly as she lets her book bag slide to the floor what Linda’s house smells like. Fried chicken, probably, or pork chops. Biscuits and gravy. Green beans with ham hocks and red velvet cake.

  Linda is still clutching her book bag, eyes round in the gloom as she slowly takes in her surroundings, and Christy-Lynn is struck by how it must look to a stranger seeing it for the first time. The dingy shag carpet, worn to the jute in places. The rump-sprung couch left by the previous tenants, the battered coffee table that has seen too many moves. The lamp with the dented shade her mother had salvaged from the dumpster after their last eviction. Thank God, at least, the curtains were closed.

  It’ll be better once they get to her room, she tells herself. Not that her room is great, but it’s not as shabby as the living room. There are her Beanie Babies—the ones not ruined by the rain—and her precious books, painstakingly scored from library sales and secondhand stores. The kinds of things any fourteen-year-old girl might have in her room. Normal things. She tries not to think about what Linda Neely’s room looks like. She doubts her books are secondhand or that her things have ever been tossed into a parking lot. The thought stings.

  “I thought you said your mother wasn’t home.”

  Christy-Lynn turns back to her guest. “What?”

  “Y
our mother—I thought you said she’d be at work.”

  “She is.”

  Linda jerks her chin at the floor. “Is that her stuff?”

  Christy-Lynn follows Linda’s gaze to the trail of items strewn on the carpet: purse, shoes, keys, jacket. They look like they’ve been discarded hastily. But that doesn’t make sense. Her mother never misses work. At least not for a while now—not since she dumped Shane Taylor and got hired at the Piggly Wiggly. But Charlene Parker has been feeling a little off lately and looking a little off too, since she started picking up bartending shifts at the Getaway Lounge, burning the candle at both ends to keep the rent paid and the lights on.

  And then Christy-Lynn catches a whiff of something sour over the lingering aroma of last night’s supper. It’s acidic and vaguely familiar, like the stench of spoiled milk. She knows that smell, knows what it is and what it means. There’s a moan from somewhere down the hall, a low, grating sound that sends a chill down Christy-Lynn’s spine. It comes again, louder now, ending in a series of coughs and spluttered retches.

  Something hot and hideous scorches up into Christy-Lynn’s throat as she heads down the narrow hall. Rage. Dread. The awful realization that it’s starting all over again. Please, please, let her be wrong.

  But she isn’t wrong.

  Charlene Parker is draped over the toilet when Christy-Lynn walks into the bathroom. Her hair and clothes are streaked with vomit, her cheeks smeared with a soup of purple eyeliner and melting mascara.

  “Mama?”

  Charlene lifts her head, her pale face a ruin. “Baby . . . I’m sick.”

  Her voice is thick and slurred, her eyes unfocused. And then suddenly she’s scrambling onto all fours, back arched as she retches emptily into the bowl, heaving as if she’s trying to turn herself inside out.

  Panicked, Christy-Lynn drops down on one knee, doing her best to avoid the splatters of yellow-green goo that seem to be everywhere. The mingled reek of alcohol and bile is overpowering.

  By the time the retching finally subsides, her mother’s face has become a blur. Christy-Lynn swipes impatiently at her tears, but they keep coming, running unchecked down her cheeks. “You promised, Mama. You said no more.”

  Her mother’s eyes open slowly, heavy lidded as she drags a hand across her mouth. “Thirsty . . .”

  It’s little more than a cracked whisper, and for a moment, Christy-Lynn’s anger turns to pity. She is reaching for the glass on the sink when she notices that her mother is still wearing her bartending clothes—jeans and a skimpy black tank top—instead of her cashier’s uniform. Had she not even bothered to come home last night?

  “Mama, how long have you been here like this?”

  “Thiiiirrrsty!” Charlene wails like a petulant child. The word rings in the tiled space. And then, without warning, she begins to cry, great ragged sobs that rack her knobby shoulders. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.” She reaches for the front of Christy-Lynn’s shirt, using it as leverage as she curls her body in on itself. “Don’t be mad,” she croons as she begins to rock. “Please, baby . . . don’t be mad.”

  A bit of movement, perhaps an intake of breath, makes Christy-Lynn turn. Linda is standing in the doorway, transfixed by the sight of a grown woman whimpering like a baby on the bathroom floor.

  Christy-Lynn blinks at her, her throat suddenly full of razor blades. “My mother’s sick,” she manages, struggling against the fresh round of tears she will not let come. “You’d better go.”

  Linda nods slowly, her expression part horror, part fascination. “Sure. Yeah.” She backs slowly out of the doorway, unable to tear her eyes away. “See ya in class.”

  Christy-Lynn says nothing, wondering as Linda backs away how long it will take for the story to spread through the halls of Berkeley High. Then she looks down at her mother, asleep or very near to it, her sticky dark hair fanned out on the bathroom tiles. She had been the prettiest girl in Monck’s Corner once—a poor man’s Ava Gardner. At least that’s how her mother told it. And once upon a time, it might have been true.

  NINE

  Sweetwater, Virginia

  November 29, 2016

  Christy-Lynn stared at the sea of papers scattered about her on the bed, documents hastily scooped from Stephen’s safe the night she left Clear Harbor. The idea had been to get them into some kind of order. Sadly, they were more of a mess than when she’d started.

  Last night’s dinner with Missy and Dar had been a pleasant surprise, but when Dar asked if she’d given any thought to what her future plans might be, she had frozen. The truth was she hadn’t the foggiest idea. She had her editing business—ten or twelve clients she had cultivated over the years—but that could hardly be described as a life. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure what she had shared with Stephen even qualified as a life.

  She’d been living with her head in the sand and not just since his death. But she couldn’t just keep hiding. Downstairs, Missy was closing up her kitchen and seeing to her guests, while Dar was somewhere downtown, selling crystals and new age books. Life was going on all around her—without her. The time had come to take her head out of the sand and face what needed facing.

  The insurance would have to be sorted out, the bank accounts and other financial assets seen to, the house in Clear Harbor closed up and sold. The thought startled her, but she suddenly knew she wouldn’t be going back. There was nothing there for her. No family to comfort her. No friends to miss. Nothing but empty memories. It was time to wrap things up and move on. But before she could do any of that, she was going to need Stephen’s death certificate.

  It took a moment to power up her laptop and connect to the inn’s Wi-Fi. The connection was agonizingly sluggish, but eventually she was able to type Maine death certificate into her browser’s search bar. The page blinked briefly, and a list of options appeared. She clicked on a site for the Maine Division of Public Health and followed the prompts. It all seemed remarkably simple until the RECORD NOT FOUND message popped up in bold red letters. She stared at it a moment, then tried again, only to receive the same message.

  Frustrated, she reached for her cell and dialed the Clear Harbor Police Station. She was put on hold while they connected her to the medical examiner’s office, but eventually a man picked up, his voice brusque as he droned through a list of questions. And then she was back on hold again. After a few moments, he came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, but that certificate hasn’t been filed yet.”

  “I don’t understand. It’s been almost two weeks.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Things have been a little bit backed up.”

  “Do you have any idea when it might be filed?”

  “Not exactly, no. We’ve got the flu going through the department, and one of the docs is out on maternity leave. All I can recommend is to keep checking back.”

  Christy-Lynn was about to hang up when she changed her mind and asked to be connected to Detective Connelly in Homicide. He’d blown her off the last time they spoke, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Maybe she’d catch him in a better mood.

  “Connelly,” came a gruff voice, more bark than greeting.

  “It’s Christine Ludlow, Detective. I just called—”

  “Christine? Jesus! Where the hell are you? The media’s gone crazy. Half of them have you dead. The other half say you’re in a rubber room somewhere after swallowing a bottle of pills. The entire country’s looking for you!”

  Christy-Lynn bit back her initial response, reminding herself that she was about to ask for his help. “The reason I’m calling is that I just spoke to the medical examiner’s office about Stephen’s death certificate, and I thought I’d check in and see if you had any new information about his case.”

  She was almost certain she heard a sigh, the kind that usually accompanied exasperation. “Christine, we’ve been over this. There is no case. It was a car accident, a vehicular fatality.”

  “It was two fatalities.”

  “Fi
ne. Yes. Two fatalities. But there’s no case. There’s nothing to investigate. The car skidded on the ice and ended up in the bay.”

  It was Christy-Lynn’s turn to be exasperated. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “The woman.”

  “Yes, the woman. Was that so hard? I think I have a right to know who was in the car with my husband when he died, Detective, even if you don’t.”

  Another sigh. Heavier this time. “We’re not doing this, Christine. We’re not rehashing why I can’t give you her name even if I did know it—which I don’t. It’s like a goddamn witch hunt around here since those photos were leaked, and the last thing I need is for Internal Affairs to get wind that I’ve been talking to anyone about it.”

  “You’re saying they still don’t know who the leak was?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, yes. And I sure as hell don’t need anyone looking in my direction. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got work to do. But if I should want to call you, where can I find you?”

  Hope flickered briefly. Perhaps he would change his mind and pick up the phone when there was less chance of being overheard. But something made her hesitate. Perhaps it was his attitude, or the fear that he might accidentally let her whereabouts slip, but a tiny voice in the back of her head told her it was wiser to err on the side of caution.

  “You have my cell if you need me,” she said coolly. “Leave a message.” She didn’t wait for a response before ending the call. She’d had enough of being treated like a nuisance.

  Still fuming, she turned her attention to the stacks of paperwork on the bed. She was looking for the name of Stephen’s broker when she spotted the letter-size envelope tucked between her birth certificate and marriage license. It was dog-eared and yellow with age, but there was no mistaking it. She hadn’t thought about it in years, and now, like a bad penny, it had turned up again. She picked it up, turning it over slowly. It felt almost weightless and yet substantial somehow; a twenty-year-old promise—broken. She wasn’t sure why she’d kept it all these years, a reminder perhaps, about the dangers of placing your faith in another person. She wasn’t prepared for the sting behind her lids as she peeled back the flap and spilled the contents into her lap.