Page 59

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jude was tempted to drive away, but she wasn’t going to let herself revert to the Clifton norm of evading uncomfortable situations.

She got out of the car, walked toward the porch.

Jude could see a woman standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes.

Her button nose and narrow features put her firmly in the Rich Clifton camp.

She was mid forties, probably cousin Cynthia and Ruel’s daughter, who had been so small when she was born that they had called her Tiny Baby, which in the way of these things had been shortened to Taybee.

Jude guessed by her obvious height that the name had fallen away sometime around puberty.

“Hey there!” The woman met Jude at the kitchen door, holding open the screen. “You must be my cousin Jude. I’m Taybee Clifton-Clifton. Welcome back to town.”

Jude couldn’t help herself. “Did you marry another cousin?”

“Oh, now, we’re not gonna be like that.” Taybee looped her arm through Jude’s as she dragged her into the kitchen. Nothing had changed. Not even the light blue phone on the wall. “We’re both Cliftons, lady. We’ve gotta have each other’s backs.”

Jude watched her hook the screen door. Then she took off the hook and dropped it in again. Then again. “How’s your mother?”

“Dead, just like my daddy.” Taybee turned away from the door.

“Cervical cancer took my mama. I was at UGA doing my JD, so it was a long time ago, God rest ’em.

” Taybee took a mug from the drying rack.

She lined up the handle perpendicular to the counter before pouring the coffee.

“So, an FBI agent, huh? Your people were all over my farm yesterday, searching it top to bottom looking for signs of that poor girl. What’s that like being a G-Man? G-Woman, I mean?”

“Lots of paperwork.” Jude watched as Taybee adjusted the carafe in the Mr. Coffee three times in a row. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

“You didn’t like my mama.”

“No, we never got along.” Jude took the mug and placed it haphazardly on the table. “But it’s like you said, we were both Cliftons.”

“That’s right.” Taybee straightened the mug.

“You just missed Myrna, though bless her heart, she wouldn’t know you from a stranger.

The ambulance is taking her to that new place in Verona where the old hospital used to be.

Tommy’s with her, but Celia’s upstairs. Cole’s still asleep, poor angel.

He’s been running on nothing but fumes, then Myrna had one of her fits when the ambulance got here.

I don’t know how anybody’s managing to show up for work right now with Gerald gone. ”

Jude wasn’t going to talk about her father. “Where’s Emmy?”

“Lemme check.” Taybee picked up her red leather purse from the chair and slid out a phone in a matching case. “Oh, that’s sweet. She’s at Dylan’s.”

Jude could see the Life360 map on Taybee’s phone. “You track her?”

“’Course I do. I don’t know about you, but I just feel safer knowing where everybody is.”

“Uh huh.” Jude took a sip of coffee, watching Taybee as she pulled out another red leather case, this one for business cards. She slid one out, then tapped the edge of the card on the case three times, then offered it up to Jude.

“Here’s my deets if you need me. I never turn off my cell.

I already got your number from Father Nate.

Wow, he certainly had a lot to say about you.

” She looked at her watch. “Son of a biscuit. I’m due in court.

Tell Emmy the stove’s back on. I just turned the thingy with a wrench, so I hope the house doesn’t blow up.

I put some groceries in the fridge. There’s some breakfast in there, too.

Don’t put it in the microwave. I already pre-heated the oven.

Pop it in for ten minutes and you’ll be good to go. ”

Jude drank from the mug again as she watched Taybee spin around the room. She touched the fridge door three times. Then tapped the counter three times. Then she looked ready to leave.

“All right then, have a good one.” Taybee touched her fingers to her lips and blew Jude three kisses as she walked out the door. Then she turned back around and made sure the screen was closed again and again before trundling down the stairs in her ridiculously high heels.

Jude watched her from the kitchen window.

Taybee tapped the hood of the red Mercedes three times, then got into the car, then started a routine of adjusting the mirrors and the seat and the steering wheel in a textbook example of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It was a terrible way to live. Jude hoped that she was getting help, but she also knew it wasn’t in the nature of a Clifton to ask for assistance.

Doubly so for a Clifton-Clifton. Or triply, as the case could be.

Regardless, the kitchen felt empty without Taybee’s nervous energy.

Jude had the sense of a trespasser. She was standing behind her old chair at the table, but she couldn’t remember the last time she was in this exact spot.

The night she’d left home, Jude had been forced to stand outside on the porch while she talked to her father.

It was gone midnight. The rain was pelting down.

She had looked past Gerald’s shoulder and seen Myrna sitting at the table.

Her mother had been so angry that she’d stared at the fridge, refusing even to turn her head to say a last goodbye.

Jude rested her hand on the back of the chair.

Melancholy threatened to take hold. She looked at the doorjamb.

The marks were still there where Myrna had tracked the progress of their growth.

Tommy. Henry. Martha. Jude felt a sadness over the relatively new additions. Emmy. Cole. She’d missed everything.

The silence was broken by a creaking sound from the upstairs hallway.

Jude closed her eyes. The noise took her straight back to her childhood.

Sitting with Tommy and Henry at the table.

Myrna screaming that supper was getting cold.

Gerald swaying at the top of the stairs, so drunk that it was a wonder he never fell down.

Jude secretly hoping that he would.

“Emmy?” Celia’s voice had the same soothing tone as it had decades ago. She’d been Jude’s best friend from kindergarten on. Then Jude had left town and never spoken to her again.

“Oh,” Celia stopped on the stairs. “You got old.”

Jude laughed. Except for the gray in Celia’s hair, she looked almost exactly the same as she had in high school. “You’re driving your dad’s Alfa.”

“I promised him I’d donate it to the car museum when he died. Stupid old fart believed me.” Celia studied her as she came into the kitchen. “God, is it really you?”

“You want me to take off my jeans and show you the scar from when you took a chunk out of my leg with that lawn dart?”

“That was Henry.”

Jude’s smile felt bittersweet. She had forgotten what it felt like to share Henry with someone. “It’s good to see you, Ceals.”

Celia smiled back, but she didn’t return the sentiment. “Why are you here?”

“Because—” Jude silently chastised herself for not preparing a better answer to the most obvious question. “Because I got the missing child alert for Paisley Walker, and I clicked on the link and saw the photo of Emmy with Dad.”

“That sounds like a sequence of events rather than an explanation.”

Jude laughed because it was easier. “I heard you’re a high school principal now. It suits you.”

“You knew that before you got here, though.” Celia opened the fridge and started pulling out Tupperware. “You’ve been following us on Facebook.”

“Tommy ratted me out.”

“He didn’t have to. You think I couldn’t put together the clues?

” Celia took a plate from the drainer. “You always hated the name Martha and loved Paul McCartney, plus there was no way you’d go by Judean.

And Archer, well that’s from Isabel Archer, isn’t it?

The Portrait of a Lady . You did your junior paper on Henry James. ”

Jude had worked with seasoned agents who weren’t as clever. Of course, they hadn’t grown up with Jude like Celia had. “Why didn’t you ever message me?”

“Probably for the same reason you never messaged me.” Celia placed two biscuits on the plate, added some bacon.

“I met Paisley Walker at ninth-grade orientation. I don’t remember what she looked like or what she said, but there’s a photo in the paper of me shaking her hand like I do with all the incoming ninth-graders. ”

Jude could hear the sadness in her voice. “What do you know about the family?”

“Elijah handles our car insurance.” She popped open the microwave door. “I don’t like him, but he’s who everybody else uses. You know how it is.”

Jude did. North Falls people used North Falls businesses. “Taybee told me to heat those up in the oven.”

Celia placed the plate in the microwave. She closed the door. Then closed it again. Then again.

Jude didn’t want to laugh, but she did.

“I’m going to hell for that. Taybee really has been a massive help these past few years.” Celia turned off the oven. She sat in Henry’s chair. Motioned for Jude to join her. “All right, out with it. Why are you really here?”

Jude took her time sitting down. “My job is to find missing children. There’s a child missing. I thought I could help Emmy.”

“Emmy’s not the kind to take help.”

“She’s so much like Gerald.” Jude couldn’t keep the sense of wonder out of her voice. “She sees clues the way he did. Cuts through the bullshit. Knows how to get to the truth. And she’s as prickly as Myrna. I haven’t been talked to like that in a very long time.”

“Emmy is the best of both of them, but she’s always been her own person.” Celia shrugged, but she was clearly proud. “Did Tommy tell you about Gerald’s cancer?”

“Milo filled me in at the funeral home.” Jude had worked past the shock of her father’s death only to be hit with a second wave of sadness. Gerald had known he was going to die, and he still hadn’t reached out to her. “Who’s Dylan?”