I said, “When I was that age, I don’t think I even knew a guy with a car.”
That was true. I had been in high school before I knew a boy with his own car. He had been Maureen’s boyfriend, Harry Henry, who had driven an old dented hearse with a rusty tailpipe that made sparks on the street.
Guidry said, “I’ll see what I can find out about the stepfather’s connection to the Key Royale. In the meantime, if you see Jaz again, tell her to stay away from those boys. Particularly right now.”
“Is she in danger?”
“If you see her, try to get her to stay at Ms. Soames’s.”
As if he’d said what he’d come to say, he stood up. His face told me not to ask for an explanation, but I’d got the message. In the law enforcement world, something big was getting ready to happen regarding organized gangs. If Jaz was involved with a gang, she would be hurt. If Hetty and I could keep her away from gang members, she would be safe. Or as safe as a girl could be when she doesn’t have caring parents.
But why tell me to try to make Jaz stay at Hetty’s? I didn’t have any influence over the girl. I didn’t have any influence over Jaz or Maureen or Guidry or anybody else in the whole friggin’ world. I didn’t even have any influence over myself.
I stood up too. “If the stepfather’s involved with a gang . . .”
I didn’t finish the sentence. We both knew the futility of trying to save a child from a destructive family.
Guidry’s eyes held mine for a moment. “I like that dress.”
My nipples jerked up like soldiers saluting. His irises spread again. Okay, it had been my nipples all along, and not Pete Fountain.
Ella chose that moment to jump to the floor and twist around my ankles while she made scatting sounds.
Guidry looked down and grinned. “I see you’ve got your watchcat trained.”
For two cents I would have told him I wasn’t wearing underwear. Heck, I would have done it for free, but he didn’t give me a chance. His hand hovered above my bare shoulder for an instant, and his head tilted to the side a little bit the way a man’s does when he’s ready to kiss you, but then he straightened his head and lifted his hand and went out the french doors like he’d suddenly remembered a pressing engagement on the other side of the world.
He didn’t say goodbye until he was safely on the porch. Then he raised his hand and grunted, “Thanks, Dixie.”
I didn’t answer him because I suddenly felt like a hollow reed without wind to give me music. I lowered the shutters, shambled into the bedroom, and crawled into bed with the sheet pulled over my cold shoulders. When Ella slipped under the covers and settled behind me, I scooted backward a fraction to get closer. The next thing I knew, I was weeping hard, and I wasn’t sure why.
I would like to think it was because my old friend’s husband had been kidnapped, or because kids were growing up with nobody home to give them milk and cookies after school, but I don’t believe that was the reason. There are times when tears just demand to be shed, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Sometimes I feel as if my heart has been held hostage for a long time by some unknown assailants—alien beings who have abducted me and transferred me to a world very similar to but not the same as the world I knew before Todd and Christy died. In that alternate universe, I go about my business, I talk and walk and eat and sleep and to all outward appearances lead a real life. But my true self is locked inside somewhere looking out, and I’m not entirely sure that other people are their true selves or empty vessels like me.
At times like those I think I should start a club for other empties. I could call it Empties Anonymous and we could have meetings and eat cookies and drink tea and not pretend to be. That would be a relief. To not have to pretend for the sake of others who love me that I am a person of substance. I’ll bet other Empties feel the same way. We could all get together and support one another’s not being.
When I was all cried out and not feeling so hollow anymore, I fell asleep and slept until almost time to leave for my afternoon rounds. With Ella on my desk, I made quick work of transferring notes to client cards, then got dressed in my usual cargo shorts and sleeveless T.
My thoughts kept going to Maureen, wondering what was happening now that she’d gone public about Victor’s kidnapping. I wondered if she was cooperating with the sheriff’s department. I wondered if they could be of any help to her now, or if it was too late.
I left Ella snoozing on my bed and headed for Tom Hale’s condo. He and Billy Elliot were watching Oprah, where two couples were describing how they kept romance in their marriages by having open affairs. Oprah didn’t seem to like the idea, but she was trying to be respectful. I’ll bet sometimes after she talks to certain guests, Oprah goes backstage and hollers into a wadded-up towel.
Tom clicked the show off and turned his chair to watch me clip Billy Elliot’s leash to his collar.
He said, “A marriage counselor on that show said romantic love lasts exactly eighteen months, no more and no less. I guess that means if people wait eighteen months to get married, they won’t.”
I said, “Oh, phooey, I know lots of people who’ve been married forever and they still have the hots for each other.”
He grinned. “You oughta go on Oprah.”
“Tom, did you see Maureen Salazar on the news?”
He was still grinning when he looked up at me, and the grin died as he registered my question.
“The oil broker’s wife? Good God, Dixie, was Salazar the guy you asked me about yesterday?”
“You saw her?”
“She said her husband was kidnapped and that she’d given the kidnappers a million dollars to get him back. She got that money out of her home safe, didn’t she?”
Billy Elliot whuffed to let us know he’d endured our chatter as long as possible, and I let him lead me out the door. Billy was right. My job was to run with him, not to prod Tom into speculating about why a man like Victor Salazar would keep buckets of cash in his home safe.
18
On the way to Big Bubba’s house, I made a quick stop at the market for more fresh bananas. At the cashier’s stand, a young girl at her mother’s elbow was doing that maniacal thumb-dancing that kids do when they text-message. Her attention was so rapt on the minuscule screen that her mother had to poke her arm after she’d paid for her groceries and was ready to leave. The mother rolled her eyes at the rest of us so we could share in her long-suffering patience with her text-messaging kid, and several people muttered amused understanding.
As my underripe bananas moved forward on the conveyer belt, the checker said, “Kids are going to give themselves carpal thumb syndrome with those things.”
A woman behind me said, “I caught my grandchildren text messaging their friends during our seder.”
The checker read my total aloud and I handed her money. As I grabbed my bag of bananas, it hit me that I had never seen Jaz with one of the phones that every other kid in the world has. No BlackBerry, no iPhone, no anything, not even the old kind without a keyboard for texting.
Girls talk to one another. My generation did it by phone, now they do it via typed messages on teeny little computer screens. They tell secrets, what boys they like, what they had for lunch, what music they like, what TV shows they watch, and what they’re doing right that minute. Why wasn’t Jaz doing that?
I thought about that all the way to Big Bubba’s house. I was convinced that Jaz had described one of the honeymoon cottages to somebody she knew, and that person had passed along the description to the thugs who’d come in Reba’s house. How had she done that? It was entirely possible, of course, that Jaz had a cell phone at home and that she text-messaged like nobody’s business when she was alone. I didn’t think so, though. In fact, I could not imagine Jaz alone without seeing her huddled in fear.