The Mother

Unfortunately, she recalled exactly what she’d been dreaming when she awoke so suddenly. She and J.D. Cass had been dancing, just as they had been last night at Willie’s birthday party. Except in the dream, they had been alone, just the two of them, and he had kissed her.

It would never happen. Not in a million years.

If and when you see him again, you’ll be cordial to him and yet distant. Whatever was going on last night between the two of you meant no more to him than it did to you. It was nothing more than a harmless flirtation.

But her unwanted attraction to J.D. Cass was minor compared to what was really troubling her. If only she could lay all the blame for her restless night on her encounter with J.D., it would be easy enough to dismiss. In the course of that one evening, she’d come face-to-face with far more than an unwanted attraction to a man she instinctively disliked. Troubled family relationships and personal insecurities were far more to blame for her discontent.

She couldn’t dismiss her concerns about Hart or her regrets about her relationship with her father. Until last night, she hadn’t seen her stepbrother in weeks, not since she had bought him the new suit for his job interview. When she hadn’t heard from him and he hadn’t answered her phone calls, she had contacted Garth. He’d told her that Hart had gotten cold feet at the last minute and had blown off the interview.

“He can’t face you right now,” Garth had said. “He feels pretty lousy about disappointing you again, especially after you not only lined up the interview for him, but bought him some new duds, too.”

Uncle Garth always made excuses for Hart, always played the role of protector. They had disagreed more than once on what to do to help Hart. She had finally given up trying to persuade Garth that maybe a little tough love would do more good than continuously enabling Hart to make poor choices.

Garth Hudson had his faults, but no one could accuse him of not loving his nephew. He had gone that extra mile for Hart so many times she’d lost count. He had paid for Hart’s repeated rehab treatments. He’d given him a place to live when he’d been between jobs, which he was on a regular basis. And he’d called in favors several times to keep Hart out of jail.

Hart had faced her last night with a shy smile and a sincere apology. He’d been apologizing to her for one thing or another since they were kids. And she always forgave him for whatever misdeeds he’d committed. With his big blue eyes, so like little Blake’s, and his sweet, boyish smile, Hart could be irresistibly convincing.

God knew Hart was his own worst enemy. If only he could get his act together and not keep screwing up. And if pigs had wings, they could fly.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, sis. You and Uncle Garth,” he’d said last night during their brief conversation. “I don’t know why either of you put up with me.”

“Because we love you.”

She did love Hart. He was family. They shared a history. They had survived Blake’s kidnapping, Enid’s suicide, and her father’s complete emotional withdrawal. They were irrevocably bound by the scars of their childhood tragedies.

Hart had promised they’d get together soon, that he’d drop by or they could meet for lunch one day. “I’ve got a line on another job,” he’d told her. “It’s minimum wage, but at least I could start paying Uncle Garth some room and board.”

That indefinite promise from Hart that they’d see each other again soon had been more than she’d gotten from her father during their brief conversation. Her dad had mentioned how pretty her dress was and told her he was glad to see her. But he hadn’t looked her in the eye, hadn’t smiled at her, and certainly hadn’t hugged her. She had asked how he was enjoying his retirement and he’d mentioned that he was doing a lot of fishing. Audrey couldn’t remember one time in her thirty-four years that she and her father had ever had a meaningful conversation.

Enough introspection, especially this early in the morning.

She might as well get up. There wasn’t much chance she’d go back to sleep. She needed her morning cup of hot tea, something she looked forward to every day.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, Audrey headed for the kitchen. She filled the white enamel kettle with fresh water and placed it on the Jenn-Air range to heat. A hint of daylight peeked through the closed blinds of her Walnut Hill town house as she padded around on the Brazilian cherry hardwood floor, set out her favorite teacup on the granite countertop, and removed a bag of Earl Grey from the maple cupboard. If anything, Audrey was a creature of habit. She lived her life on a flexible schedule, appreciating the peace that the familiar gave her on a daily basis.

As a child, she had experienced enough drama to last her a lifetime. She supposed that was why she craved normalcy, why she chose to live a quiet, uneventful life. Beginning with her parents’ divorce, her childhood had been riddled with tragedy. Only a year after her parents’ bitter divorce when she was five, her mother had been killed in a car wreck when a drunk driver swerved into oncoming traffic. Then her baby brother Blake—her father’s pride and joy—had mysteriously disappeared. And a few months later, her distraught stepmother had committed suicide.

Just as Audrey opened the blinds to let in the morning light, the kettle whistled and the phone rang. On her way to take the kettle off the stove, she grabbed the portable phone and hit the On button without checking caller ID. It was barely six o’clock, so odds were that the caller had bad news.

“Hello.” Audrey tipped the kettle and poured boiling hot water into her tea cup.

“Audrey, this is Don Hardy.”

Why is the mayor calling me? “Good morning, Mayor Hardy.” She set the kettle on the counter and dunked her tea bag down into the steaming water.

“My wife is going to need you this morning,” he said. “Can you come to our house as soon as possible?”

“Yes, sir, but I don’t understand. Why does—?”

“I just got off the phone with Sergeant Hudson. He thinks they’ve found my wife’s cousin, Debra.”

Audrey swallowed. Instinctively she knew without asking that the police had not found Debra Gregory alive.

“I see. It’s not good news.”

“No.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Our worst fears have been confirmed,” Don Hardy said. “Sergeant Hudson was on the scene when he called me. A passerby on his way to work just happened to see something he thought was odd and called the police. The officers first on the scene found a dead woman sitting in an old, broken rocking chair at an illegal dump site out in Soddy-Daisy.”

“And Garth believes the woman is your wife’s cousin?”

“Yes. She fits the general description, and your uncle said that she looks exactly like the photo the police have of Debra. If it is Debra, and I’m pretty sure it is, Janice is going to fall apart. They were very close. Debra was like a kid sister to my wife.”

“Do you want me to come to your home or—?” Audrey asked.

“Yes, please, as soon as possible. I … uh … I haven’t told Janice yet, but I can’t put it off much longer. I’ll have to leave her to go ID the body. Janice is Debra’s closest relative here in Chattanooga.”

“If you’ll give me your address and directions, I’ll be there within the hour.”

“Thank you.” He hurriedly rattled off the street address and then went over the driving directions with her twice.

Audrey laid the portable phone on the counter, picked up her cup, took two quick sips, and then dumped the tea into the sink before heading straight back to her bedroom. There was no time for breakfast or even a leisurely cup of morning tea.

J.D. had left Zoe a note stuck to the refrigerator with an orange and white UT emblem magnet. They had pretty much fallen into a routine during the past year, each giving the other plenty of space, neither able to truly connect with the other. Most weekday mornings, they ate breakfast together and he dropped her off at Baylor—the outrageously expensive private school she attended—on his way to the office. But whenever he was called out before breakfast—weekdays or weekends—he’d leave her a note as he had done this morning. Since it was Sunday, he wouldn’t have to make arrangements for someone to take her to school, and at fourteen, she was old enough to be left alone without adult supervision during the day.

After several come-to-Jesus talks with Zoe, he pretty much trusted her to do what she was told. She didn’t like it, but that’s just the way it was. She was a kid. He was her father. He made the rules. She followed them or else.

Or else what?

Damn it, sometimes he had no idea how to handle her.

She had pushed him to the limit more than once. He had grounded her, taken away certain privileges, and tried to talk sense to her. Only once had he threatened to send her packing. The fear he had seen in her eyes that day was something he never wanted to see again. As much as she hated living with him, as often as she grumbled and complained about how much she disliked him and what a piss-poor excuse for a father he was, Zoe knew he was the only game in town. Nobody else wanted her. If not for him, she would be living in foster care.

The thought unnerved him more than a little. He had heard the horror stories. He’d run across more than one juvenile delinquent who had come out of the system the worse for wear, neglected, and occasionally abused. If Carrie hadn’t gotten in touch with him before she died, if she hadn’t told him he had a daughter …

Pushing aside thoughts of how bad he sucked at being a father, J.D. took the Soddy-Daisy/Hixson Pike exit off US-27 North and followed Garth Hudson’s directions to the illegal dump site in Soddy-Daisy. After taking TN-319 and following Tsati Terrace, he veered off onto what appeared to be little more than a winding, narrow paved lane. Within minutes, he saw the row of emergency vehicles lined up along the roadside and the swarm of personnel already on site. He carefully parked his ’68 Dodge Charger at the end of the line, got out, and then walked a good two hundred yards before reaching the edge of the crime scene. Ordinarily, he didn’t use his dad’s old car as a daily driver, but his ’07 Chevy Camaro convertible was in the body shop. Some goofball had rear-ended him last week.

In a semiwooded area, less than twelve feet from the road, a band of investigators milled around a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot pile of discarded items. An old refrigerator. A ratty, seen-better-days love seat. A twin-size mattress. Empty paint cans. Several overflowing plastic garbage bags. And one old, broken rocking chair, the floral cushions faded with age and stained from exposure to the weather.

Tam Lovelady turned just as J.D. flashed his badge to the officer guarding the entrance to the cordoned-off area. She threw up her hand and motioned to him. As he approached Officer Lovelady and Sergeant Hudson, his gaze focused on the woman in the rocking chair. Her body sat upright, rigid, as if made of stone. Her pretty face was unblemished, her long, dark hair had been draped about her shoulders, and a small skeleton, wrapped in a blue baby blanket, lay nestled in her lap.

“Looks familiar, doesn’t it?” Tam said.

“Yeah,” J.D. replied. “This is too similar to the scene at the Lookout Valley Cracker Barrel to be a coincidence.”

“You think?” Garth Hudson said sarcastically.