The Orchid Tattoo, page 2
“Do you recognize him?” I asked. “What’s he talking about?”
“Damned if I know. Why is she getting calls from some strange man?”
I ignored him and the ridiculous implication. David had been the one to mess around, not Peyton. “Maybe you should call the ER? Just to make sure she wasn’t in an accident or something.”
As he dialed, I decided to look upstairs for some clue, anything. Their bedroom looked normal. The brocade bedspread had been pulled back, leaving a perfect triangle of pristine white sheets. Two plump pillows lay propped against the sleigh bed headboard, as though she had just been here, curled up with one of her public health textbooks or a trashy novel. I half-expected to turn around and find her coming from the bathroom.
I made my way to Lindsay’s room. When I hit the light switch, yellow walls and marigold curtains glowed against the black of night. The comforter made an untidy bunch at the foot of her bed, the pillow nowhere to be seen. My niece has always been a stormy sleeper, kicking and tossing and grumbling in her dreams, the way I had done as a child.
I heard a noise. So soft, a gentle rumble. Another voice? No, outside of me. Then silence. I took another step. There it was again. I glanced out in the hall, expecting David to be there, but I was alone.
Or maybe I wasn’t. I held my breath, not sure what to do. And then came a quiet shooosh, like someone taking in air. I turned to the closet. If it was an intruder, I should have a weapon, but curiosity made me open the door. I saw tiny shirts and dresses. The princess costume from last Halloween. I scanned down: Lindsay’s shoes all in a jumble, a stray Nerf ball in the corner. And on my right—a hand.
I dropped, sweeping sneakers out of my way to crawl closer. My niece. There. Hidden, under a blanket and three stuffed animals, pillow balled under her head. Thumb wedged between pink petal lips. I reached for her, feeling the shallow rise and fall of her chest. “Lindsay?” I nudged her. Groggy eyes opened. The hand uncorked itself from her mouth and reached for me. I pulled her into my arms.
“David! Can you come up here?” I tried to keep my voice steady against a tangle of emotions. Her little body showed no sign of injury. She looked okay, whole. But if she was here, where the hell was Peyton?
David burst into the room, nearly stumbling when he saw the bundle I held. “What the . . . where was she?”
“Hiding in the closet.” She had on her favorite Dora pajamas. One arm around my neck, the other squeezing her loyal stuffed dog, School Bus.
“Honey, are you okay?” he asked.
She held out a hand for him. He took her, closing his eyes and holding her close. “Thank God. How did I miss her?”
“Lindsay, why were you in there?” I asked.
She scrunched her shoulder up, pressing her face into her father’s neck.
“Do you know where Mama is?” David asked.
Lindsay turned to blink at me. She had soft blue eyes, topped with thick lashes.
“Sweetie, it’s important. Do you know where Mama went?” I asked. She keyed into the tension in my voice and pulled back, frowning.
“Did she say anything?” David pressed. “Maybe she said she had to go somewhere? Do you remember?”
Another head shake, which troubled me. This kid’s a chatterbox, a thousand questions for every situation. Her eyelids pulled down, thumb taking its usual station in her mouth.
I reached for her. “Maybe I should put her to bed.” As I placed her between the yellow sheets, she hugged School Bus at his stuffing-depleted neck, her face against his ear, a perfect fit.
“Did Mama tuck you in tonight?” I asked.
She blinked at me as though the question confused her.
“How did you get in the closet?”
She shifted on her side, lashes fluttering against the pull to sleep.
“Please, Peanut. Think about it. Did Mama say where she was going?” Her eyes closed, thumb in mouth. I would get no more answers from her. I stroked her blond hair and whispered, “I love you, Peanut.”
When I went back downstairs, I passed the narrow marble-topped table where Peyton dumped stuff: her purse, umbrella, books, and travel mug. Her purse was gone but a hardback on statistics rested on top of a pink plastic case. Peyton’s cell phone. I swiped it with my thumb, but it was out of juice. Odd that she left it, but maybe that was why.
I showed it to David. “You know where the charger is?”
“In her purse I expect. Mine won’t work on her phone.”
“Okay. I’ll take it home and juice it up.”
He nodded. David is a small, sloped-shouldered man, and looked dwarfed in his easy chair. He held a glass of what I suspected was his favorite scotch.
“The police are on their way,” he said.
I sat in the rocking chair Peyton always used, gripped the arms like she always did, her missingness a pall over me. “When was the last time you talked to her?”
He lifted the glass, downing the rest of it. “Yesterday.”
“Yesterday! Where have you been?”
“I’ve been here. I came home late last night; she was already in bed. This morning when I got up, she was gone. Jenny was here. She said Peyton was going to work on her research project.”
Jenny was Lindsay’s sitter. “What project?” I felt a pang of guilt that I didn’t know.
“No clue. Like I said, she’s been like that for weeks. Acting mysterious.” He eyed the telephone beside him, probably thinking about the man who had called.
When David stood and crossed over to the window, blue lights flashed through the glass. “The police. Maybe they can find her.”
Not likely, the advisor said. I hoped he was wrong.
CHAPTER TWO
The lady said she would come just after sunrise.
These words thrummed in Kitten’s mind as she stared out the window, hoping for the first trace of light and her chance to escape. Even at that hour, the trailer had a strange percussion. Roman’s snores rumbled in the living room. A box fan in Dulce’s room thumped against the window. The steady hum of an ancient refrigerator. Kitten wouldn’t miss the smells either—pot and cigarette smoke that had soaked into the furniture. The sour garbage from the overfilled trash can in the kitchen.
Once the last buyer left, Roman had finished a six-pack and a joint before passing out on the mustard-colored sofa just like most nights. Dulce had come in from working the streets and closed herself in the other tiny bedroom. Hopefully, enough hours had passed that Dulce was now fast asleep.
Kitten grabbed the knapsack from under her bed. The secret phone—the one the lady gave her—was in the front pocket. She snatched a small photo she kept tucked in the mirror frame; Mama, her brother Brandon, and Kitten sitting on their porch steps, taken the day after her fourteenth birthday. The photo was all she had of the before-life. She placed it with the crumpled twenty-dollar bill her last buyer had slipped her.
The lady had said not to bring too much, she needed to be quick. But that wasn’t a problem. She wanted no reminders of her time in the trailer when she fled. She put on a T-shirt and shorts that fit more loosely than everything else Roman dressed her in. She laced up the high-tops that she wasn’t allowed to wear except to work the cantina. She was escaping Roman’s rules, too.
As she tiptoed through the galley kitchen, she snatched a bruised banana to eat later. The floor creaked when she passed the ratty rocker, which silenced Roman mid-snore. She froze, backpack dangling from her arm like a caught fish, and waited. Roman turned over and the snores resumed.
He always locked them in at night, but Kitten knew he kept the key in the right pocket of his leather jacket slung over the arm of the couch. She groped the scuffed leather, found the key, and crept toward the door. She slid it into the double-bolt lock and turned it, casting a frantic look back at him when the door squeaked. If he catches me . . . He huffed, smacked his lips, then growled out another snore.
The rickety steps twitched as she stepped down them for the very last time. Kitten smiled, shrugged the knapsack onto her shoulder, and took off running.
She blew past the scattered trailers along the dusty clay road—almost as old as the one Roman rented. Lights blinked on in a single-wide, so she picked up her pace. Nobody needed to see her now, not with freedom so close she could taste it.
She slowed as she reached the Blue Rose Cantina, a squat cinderblock building with metal bars across its windows. This was where Roman sold her. For sixty bucks, you got a drink and a dance with Kitten. Add a hundred and Roman escorted you to the trailer for time alone with her. Add four hundred and you had her all night.
Not anymore. She looked toward the road, toward the future. Once she reached the highway, she just had four blocks to get to the meeting spot—the 7-Eleven on the highway.
No cars waited in front of the store, but the sun had barely inched over the horizon. Soon the lady would come. Kitten didn’t know her name. She’d asked once, but the lady said, “The less you know the better. That’s what they told me.” Kitten didn’t know who “they” were, but she didn’t care. What mattered was her escape. “My number is programmed into the phone. Call me if something happens,” the lady had said.
Kitten pushed through the front door and smiled at the whiskered man snoring behind the cash register. She’d never been inside; Roman always made her wait in the car when he stopped by for cigarettes or beer. The candy aisle overwhelmed her with its choices. She settled on a Snickers bar and a bottle of cold water from the cooler, making enough noise to rouse the guy as she approached the counter. She used the twenty-dollar bill to pay.
“You new around here?” The man slapped her change into her hand.
That word, “new,” jolted her, but Roman wasn’t here. New didn’t always have his awful meaning.
“No,” she said. “I mean sort of. Just passing by.”
“Passing by without wheels?” He smiled. His front teeth crossed each other like fingers.She shoved the money in her knapsack. He leaned over. His hot breath smelled like cinnamon gum. “You one of Roman’s girls, ain’t ya?”
Kitten fought a wave of dread. What if he called the trailer?
“You a pretty little thing.” His hairy-knuckled hand slid across the counter. “Probably cost more than I got. But maybe we cut Roman out of the deal.”
Kitten could handle this guy. She handled men like him all the time. Her brows quirked up in a flirtation. “Maybe we can. But later.”
“Later?” He licked his lips.
“Sure, baby. I got a customer meeting me right now, but I’ll be back at noon. Will you be here?”
“For you, little lady, I’ll make sure I am.” She winked, spun around, and sashayed out the door.
Once outside, she hurried to the dark side of the building. She leaned against the wall, burying her shaking hands between her knees. She had to be more careful. When headlights from a lone car approached, she prayed, prayed it was the lady, but this car didn’t look familiar. What if the lady changed her mind? What if she didn’t come?
But she would. She had promised. Kitten sat cross-legged on the grass and retrieved the cell phone from her knapsack. She pressed the lady’s number. Nobody answered. Maybe she’s on her way and doesn’t want to use the phone. Safer that way. Kitten could be patient.
A man climbed from the shiny silver car and opened the gas tank. Kitten unscrewed the top from her water bottle and downed a third. The Snickers bar went into the knapsack; fear and dread had taken away her hunger.
Her head bumped back against the brick. How long had she been in this hellhole? A year? Longer? Time had a different meaning now.
Up the road, Kitten spotted two cars approaching. Finally, enough light splashed across the road that she could see that the second one was dark—maybe gray. That could be her. Kitten stuck the water bottle in a pocket of her pack and stood, brushing bits of dirt from the back of her shorts. She’d dash to the car and slam the door. She’d lie down in the seat so nobody could spot her. She’d imagine Brandon and the possibility she might see him again as the lady drove her away.
She’d breathe in, for the first time in so long, real freedom.
CHAPTER THREE
I don’t know why I even tried to sleep. I’d left my sister’s house around 4 a.m, after answering a hundred questions from a uniformed cop who’d been excruciatingly polite but unhelpful. She had focused on the phone messages, which annoyed me. Peyton wasn’t having an affair. Unlike her husband. But who was the guy with the accent who called? What was the plan that had to change?
When I got home, I crawled in bed, tucked the foam-covered plugs into my ears, and listened to a recording of white noise. Sometimes the schweesh-schweesh-schweesh filled my mind like an ocean surf, lulling me to sleep. But not that night. The terror just under my skin kept me wide awake.
Shortly after dawn, I showered, letting the water beat down on shoulders knotted with tension from all the what-ifs bouncing through my brain. What if Peyton had been in an accident? Or kidnapped? Or . . . or . . . Enough!
I climbed out to be greeted by an unfriendly mirror. My brown hair, threaded with too much silver, hung down my shoulders like limp seaweed. I’ve often wished I had Peyton’s honey-blond curls or her dimpled smile, but I inherited the hard-edged angles of Mom’s face and her mouth no wider than a green bean. Most wouldn’t put my age at only thirty-eight. I blame the job for that—six years as an overworked, ridiculously underpaid social worker had taken its toll. Not to mention the little matter of my psychiatric issues.
I got the coffee going before checking my voicemail for the tenth time. Nothing. I lifted Peyton’s cell phone, which I’d left charging while I tried to sleep. When I swiped the screen, a photo of Lindsay bloomed to life. My thumb traced her blond bangs, her squinty smile. This child was Peyton’s world. What would happen to Lindsay if . . . and how in God’s name had she ended up in that closet?
I got to work. I could see she’d gotten five calls last night from the same number and another this morning from a different one. I tried the first. After a dozen rings, nobody answered. I started to try the second one when my own cell buzzed. Peyton’s home number. I answered with a rush of hope. “Peyton?”
“No. Me,” David said.
“Any news?”
“I talked to Jenny. She worked her usual hours. Peyton came home, said nothing about leaving again. You haven’t heard anything?”
“No. How was Lindsay this morning? Did she remember anything about last night?”
“She keeps asking where Mommy is. Wish I knew what to tell her.” He sighed. “A detective’s coming over. They were going to trace the calls from last night. I told him you had her cell. He wants you to drop it off.”
“I can swing by during lunch.”
He clicked off without saying goodbye.
I lifted Peyton’s cell and tried the most recent number again. Nobody picked up. This was getting maddening. As I hung up, I glanced at the clock. At 7 a.m., I dialed the one place where someone would answer.
“Sunrise Community Care Home.” It sounded like Bernice, a first shift nursing aide. “This is Georgia Thayer. Is Mom up?” Mom has lived at the home for three years. She’s spent a good part of her life in and out of hospitals, but when Alzheimer’s began to ravage her brain a few years ago, she landed in the extended care facility. She had good days and bad days, but a private room and decent meals kept her fairly stable—even though she gripes about the runny eggs and biscuits “hard as hockey-pucks.” For some of us Thayers, “fairly stable” was as good as it got. Peyton and I supplement Mom’s monthly disability check to pay for the home, but it’s worth it.
“No, she had a rough night so we’re letting her sleep in.”
“What happened?”
“A tangle with another resident about her garden. Miss Adele don’t like nobody picking her flowers.”
“Bernice, has my sister been there? Or called?”
She must have caught something in my tone. “Everything okay?”
“She’s disappeared. I hope maybe Mom heard from her.”
“Oh, no. Let me check the sign-ins.” In less than a minute she came back on the line. “Last time Peyton came was two weeks ago. And the last call was Saturday. That was you.”
“Don’t tell Mom I called.”
“It ain’t like Miss Peyton to miss visiting this long. I hope she turns up soon. I’ll be praying for all of you that she comes home safe and sound.”
I hung up, picturing Bernice with her multiple black braids and her gap-toothed smile. She meant it when she said she’d pray. I needed all the prayers I could get.
The best thing to do was to get busy, starting with caffeine. I poured a cup of high-test coffee, took a seat at the kitchen table, and started assembling a list of all the relatives, friends, and acquaintances I could think of. I’d met one of Peyton’s friends from the university, a woman named Candace Galloway, though Peyton hadn’t mentioned her in months. Come to think of it, whenever I asked my sister about school, I got vague answers like “a helluva lot more than I bargained for.” Why was she being evasive? Why hadn’t I pushed harder?
I found Candace’s name in Peyton’s contacts and dialed. “Sorry to bother you.” I explained who I was and about my sister’s disappearance. “Have you talked with her recently?”
“No. She’s missed class the past couple of weeks. I made copies of my notes for her thinking she’d ask for them, but she hasn’t.”
My alarm heightened. My sister would never miss class without a damn good reason.
“Of course, she’s been up to her eyeballs in her thesis project,” Candace said.
It embarrassed me that I hadn’t heard anything about this project until last night. “What can you tell me about it?”
