I was again awakened by a knock at the door. At least this time, it wasn’t an anxious pounding.
“Beth, you’ve got a call. Wake up, you’ve got a call,” she said from the other side.
I slipped out of bed and went to the door. I opened it without touching my bedhead hair. “I do?”
“Hey, good morning,” Viola said. She was dressed, and the cut on her face had been cleaned up. She wasn’t wearing the Indiana Jones hat, and her hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail. I’d never seen it pulled back before. “You have a call in my office.”
“Who?”
“It’s someone calling herself Mill.”
I caught the word before it made its way out of my mouth—Mom?
“Okay,” I said. I reached over to the small table where I kept my room key and grabbed it. I closed the door and followed Viola to her office.
She didn’t ask if I wanted privacy, just let me go in by myself and closed the door after I was inside.
My heart was racing in my chest. How did my mother find me? What did she want? Was she okay?
There was only one way to find out. I picked up the landline handset.
“Mill?”
“Hey, girlie,” she said.
“How? What’s going on?” I said.
Mill sighed, then took a sizzling pull on one of her ever-present cigarettes and blew out the smoke. “I had to talk to you.”
“Text me?”
“I tried. You didn’t respond.”
Shit. I had destroyed the burner phone tied to the number she’d last used. I hadn’t used the new phone yet. I should have fired it up immediately and let her know the new number.
“Jesus, Mom, how in the world did you get this number?”
“I went to talk to Detective Majors. Saw a note on her desk that said ‘B.R.’ and this phone number. Figured it was her code for you. Here we are.”
“Shit. That’s…”
“Brilliant on my part, idiotic on her part? Yep. Couldn’t agree more. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know, but…”
“I memorized the number and then destroyed the note. Mostly just to mess with her. I had her go grab me a water and I ate it.”
“You ate it?”
Mill snorted. “Not really. But I took it and destroyed it good.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course. You always got me, kid, you know that.”
“I do.” My heart rate started to slow, and I blinked back tears I hadn’t even noticed had welled in my eyes.
The note had been a careless oversight. Why hadn’t Detective Majors known that? Even if it hadn’t specifically included my name, just the letters were enough for someone like my mom to figure out or make a good guess. Why had she kept it—out in the open?
I sighed. “How did it go?”
“Never got around to bringing up the reason I wanted to talk to her, but I have a name and a picture of our other problem.”
“She told you, showed you?”
“That she did, and I gotta give her a little credit. It takes a million years to test DNA, but I think they got a solid answer in about half the time. Now we just have to find him. And I will. I think…”
“What?”
“I think I’ve seen him, girlie.”
“Where? Recently?”
“Listen, this is going to upset you and I don’t want it to. It is what it fucking is, right? Knowledge is power. Blah, blah, blah.”
“Okay.”
“I think I know him from Milton, but I can’t place how or when, and I thought that before the good detective told me that’s where he’d been hatched. I’m going to work on it. I’ll get Stellan the stud involved.”
I didn’t tell her I’d talked to him because she’d be upset I hadn’t told her first, that I’d let Detective Majors give her the news. Frankly, from this vantage point, as I now knew about the note, I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision not to send the email I’d drafted to Mill. So often since my abduction, nothing seemed completely clear or understandable.
“You need to be careful,” I said.
“Always. You know that. Don’t tell Majors. I didn’t tell her I thought he looked familiar. None of her beeswax, you know. Once I was there, I decided not to mention that you-know-who might be alive, too. It just all felt like too much info.”
In fact, it was the police’s beeswax, but I wouldn’t point that out right now. Mill was speaking in code, just in case someone was listening. No one was, probably, but on the phone Mill always spoke as if someone might be listening. “All right. She might figure it out on her own. And why do you think he might be alive?”
“You know how our subconscious sometimes picks up on things that our conscious selves don’t?”
“Sure.”
“That name you saw on the envelope, the one you thought was attached to the man who took you?”
“Levi Brooks?”
“Jesus, darlin’, let’s not say it out loud. Anyway, even though I do think there’s a chance you really did see it on an envelope, I think it struck a bell with you for another reason. I think that since that was the name of the man who burned down a barn, you glommed on to it, because your subconscious remembered that fire from when you were little. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was somehow discussed in that … van. I hate thinking of you in that vile thing.”
“Right, but…”
“I found Brooks, girlie. Shit, now I said it. Oh well. I talked to him. He knew your dad back in the day. Shit. I mean, he knew you-know-who, your dad. Crap, I’m just gonna say it—he knew Eddy.”
“What?”
“He told me that … he saw Eddy a couple years ago.”
“What?” I said, louder this time. My mind tried to make sense of what she was saying. “Come on, Mill. If you found the same Levi Brooks, who we know is a bad guy because he burned down a barn, he’s probably lying to you.” I didn’t much care about being careful with names now. We needed clarity.
“I don’t think so, but that’s what I’m looking into. He told me stories about him and your dad, things they did when we were all younger. They were friends. Brooks said he met me, met you when you were a little girl. I don’t remember that. Do you?”
“No.”
“Hold tight, I’m not ready to believe him all the way. I’m looking at it, that’s all. It … it just feels more solid than other things. I really need you not to tell Majors about any of this; this time it’s extra important. Please.”
My head was swimming. I had questions, but I also knew Mill would do whatever she wanted to do. And maybe she really was onto something.
Mill and I were a team. A strange team, one that had stayed together maybe only because my grandfather had had vision enough to know that even though my mother had all but abandoned me like my father had, she still loved me, and she would come back to me every time she went away. She’d proved that much. And she’d been there for me when I’d needed her the most.
After a few moments of digging deep inside myself to try to predict ramifications I couldn’t possibly yet understand, I said, “Okay. I promise.”
“Atta girl. Gotta go. Got work to do. Send me a different number if you don’t want me to use this one.”
“I will do that. Love you, Mill.”
“More than Cheerios with extra sugar, baby girl. Later.”
She disconnected the call, and I sat there a long moment, holding the handset, my head still swimming.
The part we hadn’t discussed but was making its way up to the top of my thoughts now was that her call to me meant that, really, anyone could find me if they wanted to badly enough. Anyone.
But “anyone” wasn’t Mill Rivers, and I had to remember that too.
I hung up the handset and sat back in Viola’s chair. I glanced at the old digital clock on the edge of Viola’s desk; it was only five thirty in the morning. My people in St. Louis needed a better understanding of the time difference between here and there. I smiled to myself, but I was still riddled with shaky nerves.
How could Detective Majors have left that note out when she knew my mother was coming in? She should have known Mill was always looking for clues.
My eyes were absently wandering over Viola’s desk when they landed on almost the exact thing I’d been thinking about: a note with an address, a handwritten scribble in a notebook on the corner. It read: “Girls’ address—end of village. Brayn.” Pretty easy to memorize.
It seemed the universe might be trying to tell me something.
I pushed away the overload of information Mill had shared and left the office with only the Brayn address on my mind.
Viola wasn’t in the hallway, but I thought I heard activity coming from the dining room again. It sounded less violent than the noises the night before, but I hurried toward it anyway. The scents of breakfast hit me before I turned the corner.
“Eat your eggs,” Viola said to Ellen.
They sat next to each other at a table overflowing with food.
“Hey, Beth, since you’re awake, you might as well come on in and join us. We’ve got plenty,” Viola said.
Ellen didn’t look like the same woman she’d been only about seven hours earlier. Her still-blemished face wasn’t gray anymore; her eyes weren’t sunk as deep in their sockets. She still had an unhealthy waxiness to her skin, but she seemed to be on the mend.
I joined them, sitting across the table and serving myself some scrambled eggs.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked Ellen.
“Better than I was,” she said. “Still not good, but better.”
“I understand.”
Ellen pushed the food around on her plate. It was only a guess, but I would have bet that Viola made her prepare all this food just so she would get up and get moving, have something to focus on other than her situation.
“I remember last night, and I’m sorry,” she said as she looked at me. She rushed to add, “I wasn’t always like this.”
I nodded and didn’t ask for further clarification.
“I got in trouble, got into the bad stuff when I was thirty-five. Before that, I was a teetotaler. Really.”
“Happens. Unfortunately,” I said. My heart wanted to go out to her, but my head told me not to be too quick with my sympathy.
“I hurt my back. That’s all it was, a pulled muscle in my back. A doctor gave me some pills, and that was the end of me. I can’t believe it happened,” Ellen said.
“Do you have a family?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to ask personal questions, but Viola didn’t send me a sideways glare.
Ellen nodded. “Well, I did. I doubt I’ll ever get them back. My husband left me, took our eleven-year-old daughter.” Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t much care. I care today and it hurts more than you can imagine.”
“You’ll care tomorrow then, too. Care one day at a time, don’t try to dilute your feelings with the bad stuff, and maybe you’ll get them back,” I said.
“I doubt it,” she said again.
“They’re worth a try, right?” Viola said.
“Yes. Of course.” Ellen sniffed.
“Eat your eggs,” Viola said again.
Ellen blinked. I sent her a quick smile before I put my attention back to my food.
I hoped she’d find it in herself to stay clean, but her one-day-at-a-times were only just the beginning. I realized how perfect Benedict was for her situation, but the rest of the world would work against her. I didn’t know her, but I wanted to believe in her. Maybe I would in another few days.
She scooped up some eggs and took a bite.
“Your call go okay?” Viola asked me.
“It did. Thanks for that.”
“Beth runs our local paper,” Viola said to Ellen. “She puts in notices about some of the classes offered at our community center. Knitting tonight. Any desire to go?”
“I’ve never been a knitter,” Ellen said.
“Me either,” I said. “The instructor is Serena, and she’s patient. Viola’s sister, Benny, sometimes attends. The town’s best knitter is a young blind woman named Janell who attends with her mother, Larrie. Some guys come, too—when they’re in town between shifts on an oil rig up north. It’s a great group of people. I’ll go with you, if you want.”
“Really?” Ellen said.
“Sure. Want to?”
“Is that okay?” she asked Viola.
“Sure, if you think you can handle it. If you run away, you’ll just die of exposure. Keep that in mind.”
Ellen nodded, her fork in midair. “All right. I’ll go.”
In those few moments, I saw glimpses of the woman she used to be. She’d never be that person again, but she might find a roughed-up version. Who of us wasn’t like that? Life was way too full of opportunities to take some hits, make some scars.
I finished breakfast, and with the address from Viola’s desk on my mind, I offered to help clean up. I was glad when Viola sent me away, saying that was Ellen’s job now and she’d start cooking all breakfasts and dinners as of the next day. Ellen seemed surprised by her new duties, but she didn’t argue.
I made my way back to my room, ready to conquer a new mission.