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“Wanting to make a better life for us. Trying to get her to try harder, get ahead in the world. Realize her potential.” He was bitter. “Joy was always screaming at me and she listened to that bitch for too long. Shut her right down.”
Then, as if he’d had enough of reviewing an unhappy past, he picked up the remote and pointed it at the television. “When you talk to her, don’t believe everything she says. I loved that little girl. She just got everything turned all around.” Music came on in a blast as the television came to life. “Ellen’s on,” Lendel Gaines added, and that pretty much took care of that.
“I didn’t like him,” Ravinia said on the drive up the coast, back toward Costa Mesa. It was getting dark, the headlights of other cars bright against the coming night. She was thinking over the events of the day, the people she’d met. Bernice Kampfe was nice, Gaines, a pain in the ass. But, she reminded herself, she was closer to finding Elizabeth.
Rex maneuvered around a slower vehicle, a white van of some kind and just nodded.
Ravinia leaned back into the seat. She should be gladder than she felt that she was close to finding her cousin, but she felt oddly anxious. Something was niggling at her and she couldn’t figure out what it was. A memory, or a thought, or a voice in the back of her head. That was it. That described it. Something new she couldn’t figure out. A twinge of the mind, almost as if she were receiving a message. The hairs on her arms lifted a bit. A voice . . . not clear, but faint and scratchy as if the words were dulled by static, was teasing at her brain. Elizabeth?
Closing her eyes, Ravinia tried to concentrate, to hear the words. Was Elizabeth aware that they were getting close? Was she trying to send her a mental message? Stranger things had happened.
Come on, come on, Ravinia thought, hoping that Rex just thought she was sleeping. The words in her mind remained garbled, however. Just out of reach. Was she trying too hard to understand? Expecting a sign of Elizabeth’s gift? As a little girl Elizabeth had cried that the bridge was falling and then a pedestrian bridge had fallen. That was the kind of thing that happened to the women of Siren Song. Was it that far-fetched to believe she was trying to contact Ravinia?
I’ll see you soon, Ravinia sent back, hoping she could respond to the sender.
But though she stayed still and tried to empty her brain, she never received a clear response. Who are you? she asked silently, but Elizabeth or whoever was on the other end, didn’t answer.
Elizabeth pushed the speed limit as she hurried to collect her daughter before six P.M. She’d meant to pick her up early but had gotten trapped at the office with a deluge of phone calls. Then she’d hurried to the grocery store for the making of another cheese quesadilla for Chloe, and a raft of salad greens, tomatoes, carrots, red and yellow peppers, scallions, avocados, and several boneless chicken breasts to put together a salad for herself. She wasn’t eating enough, she knew. The lunch with Gil Dyne hadn’t sparked her appetite, and what he’d said dropping her off had made her stomach clench in knots. And Peter Bellhard had called in the afternoon, trying to set up that coffee date, which made her want to clap her hands over her ears and yell, “Stop!”
She wanted nothing to do with either of them. All she wanted was to be with her daughter and feel safe. In fact, the way she was feeling about men in general, she was pretty convinced she would never want another one again. She couldn’t trust them. Her father had only been truly i
nterested in her when he’d discovered her extra abilities, and Court’s love had been too narcissistic to count.
He said he loved you, but I think he did some bad things.
Chloe hadn’t been talking about Court. Elizabeth was sure of it. She had to have a heart-to-heart with her daughter and get to the bottom of that statement, if Chloe would let her.
But when she collected Chloe from school, her daughter was in such a good mood that Elizabeth couldn’t find the heart to bring her down with questions she wouldn’t want to answer. Chloe skipped up the front steps, making straight for the television and her favorite animated program about the hive of bees that solved mysteries. Deciding to concentrate on dinner, Elizabeth pushed aside all the fear and static in her mind. She kept looking over at her daughter as she put together Chloe’s quesadilla and began sautéing the chicken breasts and cutting up the peppers and scallions. She knew ways to broach subjects with Chloe, but it was tricky. She had to come at her sideways or risk raising her stubborn streak with too many questions.
The house phone rang as Elizabeth was taking the pit out of an avocado. Startled, she nearly cut herself with the knife. Swearing softly under her breath, she reached for the receiver. None of her friends called her on the landline so she worried that it was the detective, remembering as she examined caller ID that Thronson had her cell number.
GAINES, LENDEL R was followed by her father’s number.
Elizabeth paused a moment, half-inclined to send the call to voice mail. She hadn’t spoken to her father since she’d called him to tell him about Court, and that had been a singularly uncomfortable conversation. Her father had awkwardly tried to comfort her even while both knew that he hadn’t liked Court one bit. Add that to their own estrangement, and Elizabeth had been eager to get off the phone and was probably rude in the process. She’d been too upset to worry about her dad’s feelings, and let’s face it, he’d never really cared about hers.
“Hello, Dad,” she answered. “What’s up?”
“Hello, Elizabeth. How’re you doing?”
She clenched her teeth, then forced herself to relax. “Fine. Better. Is that why you called?”
“I suppose it should be.” He sounded kind of sad for him, but she knew better than to believe it. Her father had practically ignored her until he’d thought she was special, then he’d nearly driven her mad with the questions and ideas on how they could make a fortune. She’d done her best to keep from having another episode, however, purposely thwarting him and saving herself in the process. Whenever she’d had one of those crystalline moments that meant impending disaster, she’d shut herself down completely, even to the point of being sent home from school because her teacher thought she’d fallen into a coma.
Her gaze suddenly flew to her daughter and her stomach tightened. Chloe. Was that what was happening to her?
“I didn’t quite believe her at first, but she looks a lot like you and that’s what she says,” her father was saying. “The guy was a private investigator, but it was the girl who wanted your address.”
“What are you saying?” Elizabeth suddenly demanded.
“The girl . . . Raven something. I don’t want to fight with you, Elizabeth, but if they’re coming your way, I think you should know.”
“Who is she?”
“I told you,” he said, annoyed. “She says she’s your half sister.”
Elizabeth froze. She knew nothing about her birth parents. “What are you saying? When did you see this girl?”
“Open your ears. She and the guy came to the house.”
