Page 46

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jude watched as Emmy’s mouth opened, then closed, then she wordlessly exited the building through the glass doors.

Tommy said nothing. Did nothing. Then he let out a long sigh that bypassed the last forty-plus years.

They could’ve been crammed in beside Henry under the hatchback of Myrna’s Chevy Vega waiting for Gerald to finally stumble out of the bar.

But they weren’t kids anymore. Henry was long dead. Tommy had the rounded posture of a man who’d spent too much time behind a desk. Dark circles were under his eyes. He hadn’t shaved. He was completely bald.

Jude asked, “You’re not going to go after her?”

“She’s not the go-after-her type.”

Jude wasn’t surprised. Cliftons liked to make a clean exit.

Tommy crossed his arms. He studied her for a moment, then said the most Tommy thing ever. “Does Billy Idol know you stole his look?”

“Does Kojak know you stole his?”

He smiled his same, long-ago half-smile. “Are you here to dance on Dad’s grave or …?”

Jude waited for the or , but he didn’t finish. “How’s Myrna taking it?”

“She doesn’t take anything these days.” Tommy scratched the stubble on his cheek. “She’s got Alzheimer’s. Late stage. Doesn’t recognize any of us. Forgot she’s supposed to eat. Can’t bathe herself. Wakes up in the middle of the night screaming about—”

Jude heard the abrupt stop in his voice. She watched Tommy take a long look at his watch to give himself an excuse to hide his grief.

“Wow, didn’t realize how early it was.” He cleared his throat before looking back up. “She’s being transferred to a home at seven thirty sharp, so just a few more hours. Dad arranged it before he died. Didn’t give us much of a choice.”

Jude took her own moment to process the information. She had braced herself for Myrna’s sharp tongue and cutting glances. To learn that her mother was effectively gone made Jude realize that she had been secretly hoping for some type of reconciliation.

She said, “You don’t seem surprised that I’m alive.”

He smiled again, a nervous affectation. “Mid nineties, two FBI agents knocked on my door. Said they were doing a deep background check as part of your potential employment.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“Did a lot of stuttering and stammering at first. Kind of shocked that they were acting like you were alive. Then I told them the truth. That I hadn’t seen you in over a decade. That you liked to party back in the day, but I couldn’t guess what you were up to lately.”

Jude guessed he’d done her a favor. “Did they talk to Dad?”

He shrugged. “It’d make sense, but he never mentioned it to me.”

Jude knew the follow-on to his answer. Tommy hadn’t mentioned it to Gerald, either. She looked at the doors Emmy had just left by. “She clearly knows.”

“Dad sat us down last year and told us.”

“And you acted surprised?”

“Don’t know if you remember, but I’m pretty good at acting.”

Jude watched the nervous smile return. She gathered that Tommy was still not one for confrontation.

He’d always had a loner quality about him.

Henry and Jude had been Irish twins, born fourteen months apart.

They’d been each other’s shadow. There hadn’t been much room for Tommy to get what he needed.

Jude figured that was a good place to start. “One of the many things I regret is that Henry and I left you out so often. I’m sorry we excluded you. We should’ve all stuck together. You were a good brother, Tommy. It was never about you.”

“Probably a bad idea to dig into regrets right now.” He scratched at his stubble again. “Dad stopped drinking after you left. Went cold turkey. I came home from college and all the bottles were gone.”

“Did he say why?”

“Nah, but I figured it was because of Emmy.” The smile was genuine this time. “She was like a ray of sunshine. Gave them another chance—gave all of us one, to be honest. They were so good with her. Better people. I can’t explain it, but if I didn’t love her so much, I’d be jealous.”

“They were like that with Henry. At least in the beginning.”

“No, it wasn’t the same. They didn’t worship her. They adored her. Mom even took a whole year off from school just to be with her when she was a baby.”

Jude felt herself smiling, too. “Who corrected everybody’s grammar while Myrna was gone?”

They both said the answer at the same time.

“Celia.”

Sharing a moment of laughter with her brother helped lift a little bit of weight from Jude’s chest. She was glad that Emmy had gotten a better version of Myrna and Gerald than she’d had. “Every kid gets a different set of parents, even if they grow up in the same house.”

He seemed puzzled by the insight, but then he said, “The FBI guys told me you were a shrink.”

“Criminal psychologist. And you’re a history teacher and Celia’s the principal at your high school.”

His right eyebrow arched. “Does the FBI know you’re monitoring us?”

“You put all of that on your Facebook page, Hot4Teacher81.”

He laughed. “You married? Got kids?”

“Divorced, but he was a good guy. And I was never the mother-type.” Jude looked at the doors again. The street was dark and empty. “She’s really beautiful.”

“Tough as hell,” he said. “When Emmy was little, we had to put a nightlight in her room, but not because she was afraid of the dark. The dark was afraid of her.”

“Jesus, Tommy.”

He gave a dry chuckle. “She’s so damn smart. Dad took her under his wing. Taught her how to be a cop.”

“Like he did with Henry.”

“No, I meant it when I said they were different. None of the pressure or anger. Dad was patient. Kind. Just trying to help her do something she’s naturally good at.”

Jude couldn’t wrap her head around the notion of a kind and patient Gerald. “She’s good at the job?”

“Better than him in a lot of ways because she gets that people aren’t so black and white.” He shrugged, but it was a big thing. “Her son—Cole—he’s amazing. Got his mother’s smarts and his father’s charm.”

Jude had overheard Emmy’s argument with Jonah. She wouldn’t have called that charm. “She was there when Dad was murdered.”

“They both were. Cole’s a cop, too.” Tommy’s faint smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Neither of them had the guts to go into teaching.”

Jude smiled, too, but she could see this was still a sore spot for Tommy.

He was the oldest, but Henry had always been Gerald’s golden child, the one he’d trained to fill his shoes.

She said, “I remember Dad telling me that he wasn’t going to waste his time teaching me to be a cop because I’d end up quitting when I got married. ”

“I remember, too.” Tommy shrugged again, but she could tell he still felt the slight on her behalf. “Dad wasn’t like that with Emmy. He completely supported her. We all did. Mom watched Cole so she could go to college. Dad gave her time off from work. Celia and I helped when we could.”

“One big happy family.”

Tommy gave her a sharp look. No more smiling. “Don’t hurt her, okay?”

Jude felt a strange kind of emptiness in her body, a pull to disassociate. She’d forgotten the sensation over the decades. This family. This town. These people. Her soul held onto the memory of the pain they’d caused. Some things you could never leave behind.

The Jude back in San Francisco would’ve talked it out, but this was North Falls and she had come here for a reason. “Okay.”

Tommy nodded. “Okay.”

He left by the chapel. Jude watched until he disappeared through the door behind the lectern.

Her brother would find Gerald laid out in the embalming room.

Milo sitting at his desk. The disbelief on the funeral director’s face when Jude had walked into his office had been quickly replaced by wariness.

She was glad for the icy reception. It told her that no matter how much time had passed, North Falls people had remained the same.

Jude stuck her hands into her jacket pockets as she left through the front doors. She was still on West Coast time, but the five-hour flight, then the three-hour drive, had taken its toll on her body. Then there was the added stress of being back in a place she used to call home.

Downtown North Falls hadn’t changed since she’d fled in the middle of the night with a stash of money and a handle of Jack Daniel’s.

The storefronts had different signs, but the buildings were all the same.

Low-slung, one-story shops lined either side of Main Street.

The sheriff’s station was at one end. The hardware store was at the other.

Jude could still remember making the trek between the two with Henry by her side.

Checking to see if their father was at work, then skirting through the back alley to see if their mother’s car was parked behind the stacks of lumber where Myrna used to meet Louis Singh for after-school trysts.

Jude looked down at the sidewalk. Watched her boots hit the concrete.

Tried to ground herself in the present instead of letting herself get yanked into the past. There was a long speech stuck in Jude’s head, one that she’d silently composed as she’d waited at the gate for her flight, as she’d sat on the plane beside a flirty businessman, as she’d driven down from Atlanta.

Mom, I’m not here to cause trouble. Give me this opportunity to help.

Jude knew what Alzheimer’s looked like. Natalie Daniels, Freddy Henley’s sixth victim, had been the only child of a single parent.

Doug Daniels had acted as a liaison between the FBI and the families.

He was a peacemaker, a gentle man, and someone whom Jude had enormously respected.

She’d been one of the first people Doug had told about his diagnosis.

She’d also been one of the few people who’d visited him long after he’d lost his mind.

The fact that she hadn’t been able to bring Natalie home during his lifetime had been one of Jude’s greatest professional failures.