“‘Did we get the okay from the cops?’” Kevin used that mocking voice, like she was some four-year-old. “Ooh, let me check my special notebook.”
“You’re such an asshole.” She was honestly going to k-
“What’s it to you?” Kevin shot back.
“Huh?” Keefer sat up, blinking. “What time is it?”
“Show time.” Kevin twisted around in the front seat, narrowing his eyes at her. “Listen, sister. If it makes you feel any better? Keefer and I’ll do it. By ourselves. We’re not gonna clean till later, but we’ve gotta go scope.”
Kellianne puffed out a breath. It was the middle of the freaking night. Almost. The clock on the van’s dash said 11:15. The cops had gone about half an hour before. The cute one by himself in the cruiser, the tall one in the white van with that woman. And the whole time, for freaking ever, they’d been rotting here in the Afterwards van. “What can you do tonight that you can’t do tomorrow?”
“Who died and put you in charge?” Kevin said. “Keefer, you set?”
“Rock and roll,” Keef said.
15
“Listen, Tuck, I gotta interrupt you.” Jane turned off the ignition. All the way to the Riverside train station this morning, Tuck insisted Jane was “the only one” who could help her. No wonder Tuck had been such a kickass reporter. She made it impossible to say no. “This Ella Gavin is going to freak if I walk in with you.”
Jane draped her arms across the steering wheel of her Audi, staring through the windshield at the front window of the Dunkin’ Donuts. The wipers flapped against the tentative snow, the defroster blasted on the highest setting, the radio muttered the news. Coffee-toting commuters, heads down and in full Monday back-to-work mode, hustled through the flakes to their buses and trains.
“What if she recognizes me from when I was on Channel Eleven?” Jane continued. “Even if she doesn’t, who are we going to say I am?”
“You worry too much, Jane.” Tuck unclicked her passenger-side seat belt, then flipped the sun visor down, checking her glossy pale lipstick in the mirror. “I’m pissed off now. Truly. I’m getting to the bottom of this. And I’m so grateful for your help.”
“She’ll be the pissed off one,” Jane said. “The last thing Ella Gavin wants is a reporter sniffing around. That’s the last thing anyone wants. I’ll wait for you here.”
Tuck tugged the black cap from her head, revealing a cascade of newly auburned curls.
“Whoa,” Jane said.
“Told you I was pissed,” Tuck said. “I had to do something. Anyway, why don’t you wear this hat, stick your hair underneath, and here, wear my sunglasses. I’ll say you’re my friend. Can you do a Southern accent?”
“It’ll never work.”
“It’ll work.”
Jane watched a stocky young woman in a toggle-front wool jacket and lace-up snow boots appear from between a row of cars, pause, and draw a fringed black-and-white woolen scarf closer around her neck. The sun glared off the hoods of the rows of cars, and scarf lady shielded her eyes with a mittened hand.
“I bet that’s her.” Fine. Maybe Tuck would finally explain why she thought the Brannigan had made a mistake. Fine. As a favor to a former colleague, she’d go in, find out, get it over with, leave. “She’s looking at her watch, but not running for a train.”
“Fab,” Tuck said. “We’ll let her go first, then we’ll-”
Jane closed her eyes, changed her mind, turned on the ignition. “Tuck. Wait. This is so… personal. I feel like I’m intruding. You go in and get the scoop. I’ll go to the paper, work on my own stuff like I’m supposed to, and meet you for lunch. Then you can tell me everything. If you want.”
“Hey, turn that thing off, Jane. I want you to come. And what if this is a huge story?” Tuck said. “I mean, Ella Gavin called me back, right? She’s gotta know something. Or be guilty about something. Maybe she discovered the woman I met in Connecticut is a… a… some kind of con artist. Who pretends to be people’s mothers and then rips them off. That’d be a story, wouldn’t it?”
Jane faced Tuck, looking at her from under her lashes, skeptical. This was Tuck’s life, not a news story. “You’re kidding, right?”
The woman in the muffler had scurried into the coffee shop, disappeared through the revolving door. Their appointment was for 8:15. The dashboard clock said 8:15.
“Okay, so no.” Tuck dismissed the idea with a flick of her palm. Then she touched Jane on her sleeve, entreating. “But Jane. Seriously. I have to find out. I do. What if…”
This had the potential for disaster. Tuck should be prepared for a truth she didn’t expect.
“Tuck? ‘What if’ this Ella Gavin has confirmed Carlyn Beerman is your birth mother? And that’s what she’s about to tell you?”
Jane worried she was crossing some line. But Tuck had put her there. “What if you really are Audrey Rose?”
Ella Gavin wished she’d brought a hat, wished her feet weren’t so cold, wished she were anywhere but here in the parking lot of the Riverside T station. And this was all her idea. She squinted against the sun-how could it be so bright and be snowing at the same time? It was like everything was happening at once.
Which it was.
All she had to do was turn around, hop back on the T, show up at the Brannigan, and if anyone asked, say she’d gotten the all-clear from the dentist. She’d e-mailed Ms. Finch about her “early-morning appointment,” reassuring her supervisor she’d be in by 9:30. The folder of paperwork-in her Target shopping bag in case she had to take it back to the Brannigan-would be well-camouflaged. She could throw it away, or shred it, or, heck, toss it in a trash can here at the station. Done and done.
She was leaving.
But what would she tell Tucker Cameron? It was Ella’s suggestion they meet. If she canceled, or didn’t show up-that didn’t mean the inquisitive Miss Cameron would go away. It meant she’d persist. Certainly call the Brannigan, and probably reveal Ella had called her, bad enough, then, even worse, tell how she’d bailed on their appointment. After that, Ms. Finch-even Mr. Brannigan-would get involved. And probably lawyers.
She was staying.
Will I never learn to keep out of people’s lives? She took a deep breath, her nose wrinkling from the cold-but that was her life, wasn’t it? Everything she did changed people’s futures, whether it was saying yes, or saying no, or saying… guess who called us? And then, life went on. The dominoes would fall.
This time, though, the dominoes could end up falling on her.
Ardella Morgan Gavin, she scolded herself. You are a grown-up with an important and responsible job. Get a life.
She turned and marched through the slush, heading toward the door of the Dunkin’ Donuts, whatever was about to happen.
“I’m only trying to help,” she whispered. “That’s always a good thing.”
16
“I think I understand this,” Jake said.
“Alert the media,” DeLuca said. “And it’s only Monday.”
Jake ignored him, nosing the cruiser into the parking space in front of the once-bright-yellow clapboard house. When they first showed up this morning, every shoveled space on Hinshaw Street had been taken. Not by cars, but by metal trash cans, webbed lawn chairs, and in one parking space, an orange plastic playpen. Neighborhood rules said once you cleared the snow from your parking spot, it was yours. Ignoring the rules would get you a punctured tire, or the gash of a key along the paint. D had lugged two battered aluminum folding chairs to the sidewalk so they could park. Aware of the social contract, they would put the chairs back in place when they’d finished their visit.