Kara looked around. Maybe that explained some of the uncharacteristic disarray she'd noticed during her own search.
"So we're back to murder," she said.
"I don't know where we are, Kara," Rob said. His voice was tired. "But I promise you: I'll keep this case open as long as they let me."
"Thank you, Rob." She believed him. "Can I call you again on this?"
"Call me any time. You know that."
"Thanks."
Kara hung up and stared across the room at the pile of papers she had pulled from one of the closets. She was going to go through everything there until she found an answer.
Kelly a suicide? No way.
"Was that Aunt Ellen of the phone?" Jill said.
Kara suddenly had an insane urge to tell her the truth. No, bug. That was your father.
"Just a policeman."
She looked at Jill. She so resembled Rob. The idea of Jill and Rob being in the same city was almost unnerving. If they ran into each other, there was no way he could miss the resemblance. And then he would know that he had a daughter.
Rob was a good man. Seeing him again had released an almost overwhelming attack of guilt. She never should have kept her pregnancy a secret from him. She saw that now, but at the time it seemed the only thing to do. Nothing was going to deter her from having the baby, and nothing was going to convince her to raise the child in the city. And there was no way Rob was going to leave the city willingly. She could have used the pregnancy to coerce him into quitting the NYPD and moving to the suburbs, but what kind of marriage, what kind of life would that have been? He would have felt like a prisoner, or a hostage. He would have come to resent Kara, maybe even resent his child. The result would have been intolerable for the three of them.
So Kara had done the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. She left the man she loved and returned home to have her child and raise her by herself. The idea had shocked, offended, and embarrassed her mother, and even Kelly had thought she was crazy, but they'd all stood by her just the same. For awhile the farm had been a war zone… until Jill was born. Jill brought them all together again.
It hadn't been easy raising a child on her own, but Kara had managed. She'd done it away from the city where they were safe, where she could instill in Jill the values she thought important. She was proud of the result. Jill was her own little person and Kara loved her more fiercely than she had ever believed she could love anything.
But did she need a father? That had plagued Kara for the past ten years. Soon the vague questions Jill had asked about the father she had never seen were going to become more pointed. Vague answers would no longer suffice. What was Kara going to do then?
And Rob. Kara realized she still cared very deeply for him. He had a right to know he had a daughter, just as Jill had a right to know her father.
What had seemed so simple, so clear, so cut and dried, so black and white ten years ago was now a mass of confusion. A mess. One she would have to straighten out someday.
Someday, Kara thought. Someday she'd get them together, and pray that they'd both forgive her.
▼
5:45 P.M.
"Aren't we going to Aunt Ellen's now?" Jill said. She was getting whiny, which meant she was hungry.
"After dinner."
"Where are we going to eat?"
"Anyplace close where we don't have to wait," Kara said as she stood inside Kelly's door and helped Jill into her coat. On the way in they'd passed someplace called Pancho Villa a couple of blocks down on First Avenue. "How's Mexican food sound?"
"What's that?"
"Tacos and stuff. We had tacos once, remember?"
"I think so. Are you mad, Mom?"
The question caught Kara by surprise.
"No, Jill." She smiled for her. "At least I don't think I am. Why?"
"You've got a mad face."
"Do I?" Yes, she thought, I probably do. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to. Actually, I'm not mad. Just frustrated. And it's got nothing to do with you."
"What's frustrated?"
"Let me see. Imagine you're paddling a canoe in a river and you want to get to a certain spot on shore but the current keeps pulling you away. And no matter how hard you paddle, you can't get to shore. As a matter of fact, the current keeps pulling you further and further away. How would you feel?"
"I'd feel scared."
Kara laughed and hugged her daughter. "I guess you would!"
And maybe I'm scared, too.
Scared because she couldn't get a handle on what had been happening in her twin's life. Kelly had become an enigma. Kara had more questions about her now than before. Except for the hidden clothing, everything Kara had found was so damned ordinary. She had spent much of the afternoon going through Kelly's papers. Her sister, it seemed, was a scrupulous record keeper. Kara had found a copy of her apartment lease, the warranties and instruction manuals on all her appliances, and a shoebox crammed with receipts for what looked like every single purchase she had made last year. Kelly, it appeared, was preparing to do her taxes. But nowhere was there a single receipt for the sexy clothes Kara had found.
She kept receipts for toothpaste, damn it! Why wasn't there one for that new leather skirt under the dresser?
Why was the sleazy part of Kelly's existence so rigidly walled off, so tightly compartmentalized from the rest of her life? Who was she hiding it from?
Kara had always thought she knew her twin. Now she wondered if she had known Kelly at all.
But there was someone who might at least know something: the Dr. Gates on the label of Kelly's sleeping pills. Kara had called the drug store on the label and the pharmacist had told her that the prescription had come from a Dr. Lawrence Gates, a psychiatrist in Chelsea. Kara hadn't been that surprised at the specialty. Maybe he was just what Kelly had needed. Getting to him was the first thing on Kara's list of things to do tomorrow.
Tomorrow. She hated the idea of staying overnight in the city, but couldn't see any alternative. Silly to waste a couple of hours each way fighting the traffic in and out every day. For years Aunt Ellen had been asking her to come and stay with her for a few nights. This time Kara would take her up on it. No rush to finish up here. She could take her time. Kelly's check book showed that her rent was paid up to the end of the month.
"Come on," she told Jill. "It's taco time."
As she led Jill out through the front door of Kelly's apartment building into the chilly twilight, she almost bumped into a man standing on the front steps.
"Very sorry," he said with the start of a smile.
Kara was about to smile in return and excuse herself when she noticed his eyes widening in shock and the color bleaching from his cold-reddened cheeks.
"My God! It's you!" he cried. "Dear sweet Jesus, it's you! You're alive!"
Startled, Kara clutched Jill against her and pressed back against the building's front door which had closed and latched behind her.
"What's he saying, Mom?" Jill cried. Kara could hear the terror in her voice. "What's he saying?"
Kara didn't answer. Her mind was racing, trying to recall the various options she had been taught in her women's self-defense courses. But she'd been poised and ready in those classes, and standing on a padded gymnasium floor. This was on a set of stone steps with a child clinging to her.
But the man didn't seem to be threatening them. More confused and frightened than anything else. And he was backing down the steps, away from them. Well dressed, like a fortyish yuppie, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a nut case. Kara decided to hurry him on his way.