Chapter Twenty-Five

Saturday November 2008

Vicky paced around the campsite Saturday morning. “I’ve been thinking.”

Pete glanced up from making breakfast, bowl in one hand, fork in the other.

“Like, Don, for starters,” she said. “What’s with him? He tells me about his pop bootlegging, and he makes it sound like, nudge-nudge, this is more than a little tale about a family business, wink-wink. Then he gets all coy.”

He stirred the contents of the bowl and nodded.

“And Mike,” she went on. “Jesus, he’s like, Mr. Mysterious Swamp Dude. But boy, I know that guy has more to tell.”

Vicky made another trip from the picnic table to the awning and back, then paused next to the camp stove. “Mike, Joan, Rita, Sam. I swear, it feels like every single person I’ve talked to has something to hide.”

“You just met ‘em. They’re not going to tell you everything.” Pete pointed his egg-beating fork at the skillet, where strips of bacon were close to the point of perfect crispiness. “Ten minutes.”

Pete was precise. Competent. Deft, intuitive, and very, very thorough. In all ways. Everything would be delectable and ready at the same time. In ten.

“Yum.” Vicky paused to kiss him. “You’re growing a beard. Nice.” She ran her fingers along his still-scratchy stubble. Her skin was still a bit sensitive from last night. “Do you need me to do anything?”

He shook his head.

“Okay, I’m on cleanup.” She resumed pacing. Now might be a good time to talk about the Dallas job offer, but she was focused on the missing girl. “I really hope something comes out of the fundraiser tomorrow. We have to help find Rose. It breaks my heart that she’s still missing.”

“You are helping. This fundraiser is really coming together.”

“Feels like there are connections I’m not seeing.”

“What kind of connections?”

Mmm. She so loved that he asked. “For one, Joan. And her mystery woman, her bag, this human trafficking thing, which I still think makes sense…”

Pete flipped the bacon. “A woman with a hand-tooled bag and the levee girl escape from the same bunch who nine years later happen to see Rose and snatch her—it does seem a bit unlikely, doesn’t it?”

Ouch. True, but ouch. “Maybe not happened to see. Yeah. I know, I know. It sounds lame when you say it straight up, but I’m sure something connects them. Maybe not just like that.”

Vicky sat at the table. “Mmm, everything smells good. Making rolls tonight should be interesting. I’ll have hours to talk with people. And we’ll see who shows up at the fundraiser tomorrow.”

****

That afternoon, Vicky entered the back door of the diner, toting grocery bags in both hands. “Hi, I’m back.”

Sam, Rita, and Liz Ann paused their cinnamon roll-making-motions to greet her. Sam had closed early to prepare for the fundraiser which was scheduled to start at eleven o’clock sharp the next morning. One of the St. Louis TV stations—Kerry’s—was going to carry it live on their Sunday morning news.

“Mmm. Smells like cinnamon heaven.” Vicky opened the refrigerator to put away the groceries. “I bought up all the butter the store had. Pete’ll get more when he picks up the stage equipment. He drove the RV to haul everything, should be back by nine.” Along with making supply and equipment runs, Pete had organized dozens of volunteers, using his sales skills to recruit people and assign duties.

She closed the fridge. “He’ll park in your lot, so we’ll have a place for the speakers and performers tomorrow.”

“Good idea.” Sam held up a floury hand. “Oh, Mike said he can help out tonight.”

“Excellent.” Vicky had worked out the schedule with Sam and Pete to make sure she’d have time alone with certain people. “Don was at the store. He offered to help with the rolls.” Don didn’t appear anywhere on the volunteer roster. “I told him I’d tell you, but you have a system worked out and there’s only room for four people to work. He didn’t like it.”

Vicky washed her hands next to cloth-covered mixing bowls, pans, and cinnamon rolls at various stages of production. The small kitchen was designed for turning out high-quality lunch and breakfast food, not big-batch baking. Sam had said her baking corner seemed like a big splurge of space when she redid the kitchen, but now seemed impossibly tiny.

She put on an apron. Things were coming together nicely. “I bet your regulars are grousing. You’re in here making cinnamon rolls and they can’t have any.”

“Until tomorrow. It’s good advertising,” said Rita.

“Listen to you! That’s the way to think about it.” Vicky put on a hairnet and gloves. “All righty. What can I do?”

They talked baking logistics for a few minutes as they adjusted to the rhythm of sharing work—mixing, rolling, filling, slicing, placing. After they fell into cadence, Rita asked, “How long have you been with Pete, Vicky?”

“We met about eight months ago.”

“And you live in an RV? What’s that like?”

“No, no, we don’t live together. Just for this trip. It’s good. It’s different.”

“How’d you meet?”

“Furniture shopping. He sold me a couch.”

Vicky had called a patterned sofa too fussy, so Salesman Pete pointed to a sleek couch that sported dark burgundy leather and sharp angles. “This would be perfect in a more contemporary setting.”

She’d laughed out loud at the pivot. Pete chuckled, too. “Yeah, it doesn’t exactly invite you to get nice and cozy reading on a rainy afternoon.”

Since that was exactly the standard she had in mind, she’d taken another look at him. He was interesting enough to flirt with, but she was looking for a couch, not a new commitment. Then he called to see how the sofa was working out, and their relationship took off on its current highly stimulating trajectory.

“You smile a lot when you talk about him.” Liz Ann sounded a bit wistful.

“Do I? He’s funny, honest, smart. We feel good together.” Vicky paused when her baking buddies laughed.

“It’s been a long time since I talked about a guy like that,” Liz Ann sighed.

“I never have,” Sam said.

“Me neither,” added Rita.

That led to a lively discussion about exes and endings. Rita talked about her disastrous marriage which had lasted almost thirteen months. “That’s what happens when you fall for someone who peaked in high school.”

Perfect. Yes, let’s talk about Bill Beck, Junior. Vicky exaggerated her sigh. “I hear you. I had a boyfriend like that. You’re talking about Rose’s father?”

“No, thank God.”

Vicky wanted to ask the obvious follow-up—Rose’s birth certificate said “UNK” in the space for “father”—but Rita firmly changed the subject. “Have you ever been married, Vicky?”

“Yes, we divorced three years ago. He left me for someone he met at the gym.” Her ex had completed the cliché by moving into a condo with his much younger girlfriend. Vicky didn’t dwell on it. She’d focused on making her life the way she wanted it to be. It took a while to get around to upgrading the furniture.

“Hang on one second, let me get this going.” Sam flipped a switch on the mixer and walked away from the resulting whirr. The women gathered near the back door. The kitchen was warm and homey, but there was nowhere to get comfortable. Rita handed Sam a cup of the tea they were all drinking, lightly flavored with lemon-infused vodka.

Vicky lifted her mug. “Pete’s different. I almost hate to say it but, if I could pick and choose features in a man, I might put together Pete.”

“I know what I’d like to put together.” Liz Ann purred in her sultriest librarian voice. She snickered. “I ran into an old boyfriend once, a few weeks after we broke up. And he comes up to me, all warm and sincere, to let me know he’s doing fine. He said he’d thought a lot about why we broke up, and he finally understood my problems.”

A pause, then they all burst out laughing.

“Yeah, he was sympathetic I had so much wrong with me. Breaking up with him was definitely the right decision.”

The timer chimed. Rita joined Sam at the counter. They took dough from bowls and began kneading, their graceful motions harmonious, almost lyrical.

Vicky stayed near the door. “I think a lot about why people make the decisions they do. Whether their reasons are personal. Or financial. Or professional.”

Rita added. “Or purely pissed-off.”

“Or in lust.” Liz Ann’s whole body got into those three words. She made them count.

When Vicky stopped laughing, she said, “Exactly. We don’t necessarily know why people decide something.” She had wasted plenty of time on decisions that ended up being no big deal. She’d also handled complicated ones as if they were as simple as coffee/tea or heels/flats.

“It’s the same with stories. People have their reasons for how and why they tell a story. Or don’t tell. And people tell the same story different ways. Rub the edges off the truth to make it fit better. Plus some people flat-out lie.”

“That’s the truth.” Rita slapped the dough for emphasis. “Like that little shit Aaron.”

“Little Shit sounds like part of his name now. Yeah, that was bad.” Vicky paused. “People want to edit their own history a little, I get it. One thing about reporting though—we verify facts. And consider other sides.”

Rita scoffed. “Nice theory. Too bad that’s all it is.”

Vicky softened her voice, as she always did when she spoke with victims. She knew what it was like to be one. “Have reporters made mistakes covering Rose?”

“I guess not.” Rita frowned. “Some are too dramatic. And they keep trying to talk to me.”

“I’m sorry you’re going through any of this. Sometimes reporters can be insensitive.” An understatement. Vicky certainly could be. But she had long ago lost count of how many times she’d had this discussion. Reporting was serious business. Journalists were real-time historians, even when they were “just” reporting on local incidents, crime, heroics, politics, zoning issues. Everyday life. And death. Better get it right.

“But there aren’t many stories more important than a lost child. We need to make sure people know what’s going on. They might be able to help.”

Rita’s shoulders sagged. “I guess.”

“Let’s hope something good comes from tomorrow.”

They worked in silence for several minutes, then Rita said, “What are you getting out of all of this, Vicky? I still don’t get why you came from wherever you came from, asking so many questions, doing this fundraiser.” She didn’t sound antagonistic, but clearly wanted an explanation.

Sam had the same friendly-but-don’t-BS-me look. “Yeah. What’s your story? That travel article?”

“Yes, I’m planning to write an article. But sure, there’s more to it.” Time to give a little. “Did you ever catch yourself in a mirror when you aren’t expecting to? When I look back at how I left here, it’s like I saw myself from a different angle, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“Not physically, though.” Vicky cocked her hip and put one wrist behind her head, posing as she smoothed her apron. “At the time that was very fine.”

Nobody laughed, not even Vicky. “I told you I reported for one of the St. Louis stations. I don’t like how I left things.”

“So you’re here to finish something?” asked Sam.

“At least find out what happened.”

“What happened with what?” Sam was young but already had the command presence of a seasoned boss who expects real answers.

“It had to do with my job.”

“You’re digging into all our business, but you won’t tell us yours?” Sam scoffed. “That’s gotta feel at least a little hypocritical.”

Gotta hand it to her. Sam didn’t water down what she had to say.

“Sometimes. Yeah. But I’m here for good reasons. I want to help find Rose.” And maybe, just maybe, ease a fraction of the pain in her own life.

“Uh-huh.” Sam crossed her arms. “Your motives are pure, so we should spill our guts but you won’t spill yours.” There was a hint of humor in her voice, but just a hint.

“I am being honest. My story’s not what’s important.”

“For heaven’s sake, Vicky. Just tell us,” Liz Ann said. “Why are you here?”

Vicky took an unintentional deep breath. It wouldn’t hurt to hear other opinions. “Okay. This guy I knew, a cop, we’d been talking for a few hours. Honestly, I was interested and thought he was, too. We hugged, but it was just a hug.”

She’d enjoyed everything until Rick shoved her away. His voice was harsh. “Hey. Back off. Now I see what you’re doing, sneaking around, spying. Get the hell away from me.”

She had been so shocked it sucker-punched any hint of romance out of her.

“No zing?” asked Liz Ann.

Vicky shrugged. “We weren’t meant to be. When I stepped back, I spilled a glass of water. I picked up some papers so they wouldn’t get wet. And he assumed I did it to read them. He accused me of trying to seduce him to get information.”

“Ouch.” Liz Ann pursed her lips. “That can’t feel good.”

“Anyway, ancient history.” Though not so long ago that she didn’t still wonder, a whisper of a wonder, if it was possible Rick wasn’t entirely wrong. She’d seen the paperwork. Did she bump the glass on purpose? Or because he pushed her away?

Rita asked, “What’s that got to do with Rose?”

“Maybe nothing. But the document had to do with an investigation into the old sheriff and illegal distribution. Of what I don’t know, but this was at the same time as when the little girl turned up on the levee. I should have followed up but didn’t. Your house is less than two miles from there. Way out here in the country.”

There was that, plus the mystery woman, and what Rick and Mike saw that sure sounded like human trafficking. Not to mention Vicky’s own observations at the time of Lisa’s appearance.

“Surely the cops know if there was any connection.” Liz Ann sounded skeptical.

Rita rubbed her face with both hands. Being a modern parent, no doubt she’d already thought plenty about sicko abusers, predators, killers—the vile cesspool of repulsive beings who would do harm to a child.

No need to add more to her nightmare. Time to move on. “You’re probably right, Liz Ann.” Though that’s assuming some of the cops weren’t bad guys themselves. “One probably has nothing to do with the other.”

Vicky smiled and waved her hand around the kitchen. “My gosh, we’ve gotten so much done. We’re going to have great turnout tomorrow.”

“Yes, we are.” Sam flourished a towel as she covered a large bowl. “But we still have a lot to do. We’ll start the next batch after Pete gets here with supplies.”

“We’re doing pretty good, considering we usually do four dozen a day.” Rita sounded determined to be upbeat. She had mixed, rolled, and cut dough for hours, but she looked less tired now than she had in days. Her face was rosy, perhaps from the heat of the kitchen, though her eyes held sorrow that might never go away.

“We make a great team.” Liz Ann untied her apron. “But I need to get going. Good night, ladies.”

“Me too. I’ll be back bright and early.” Rita was brisk and efficient as she prepared to leave. “Working with y’all is good therapy.” She hugged Sam and Liz Ann, then gave Vicky a sad smile and warm shoulder squeeze. “See you in the morning.”

“Get some rest.” Sam adopted a dramatic movie voice. “Tomorrow, we bake!”