Lie in Plain Sight (11 page)

Things were changing. Life was different. People moved on.

She wondered where she would fit in once all of the pieces were shuffled and reassembled.

She stood and stretched, her eyes still on the field below. From the street side of the field, a car pulled into the parking apron and came to a stop. The Farringville police weren't great at hiding the fact that their one unmarked car was a Dodge Charger that anyone with one good eye could tell was a cop car. Chris got out of the passenger side as his chief, a taut and thin brunette named Suzanne Carstairs, got out of the driver's side. Maeve had seen her photo in the local paper a few times. They approached the field with purpose, standing to the side until Barnham made his way over, commanding the girls to keep drilling until he returned, something Maeve gleaned from his hand gestures and the fact that the girls kept running without breaking stride.

In the distance, Chris put a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, looking around the area, his eyes landing on Maeve, high on the hill above the field. Maeve couldn't see his expression—time for progressive lenses, which her ophthalmologist had recommended the year before and which she had never gotten around to getting—but if she had to guess, she would say that he was confused, wondering why she was there, if he could even tell it was her in the distance.

She wasn't so big a soccer fan that she could profess to wanting to see the girls practice, so she got up and started for her car, thinking that she'd have to come up with a reasonable explanation for why she was watching soccer practice.

Whether he believed her or not would be the question.

She took one last look down at the field, watching the girls congregate midfield, running some kind of drill that looked like it would be painful in execution. She didn't recognize any of the girls anymore, or so she thought. Because suddenly she did recognize one.

Heather.

 

CHAPTER 15

The next day, the store was closed but Maeve decided to go in and bake, asking Jo if she would come in and help with any potential customers who might see the lights on and decide that it was the perfect day for a cupcake. She was far behind on her baking and although she had told Trish that it was a six-day-a-week routine, it was really seven and always had been. After making two batches of scones and cleaning out the refrigerated case, Jo took a seat at one of the café tables, a break being “just what the doctor ordered,” according to her. She had tired of reading the local news to Maeve and turned to national stories, unfolding the
Times
with a snap of her wrist and starting her recitation.

“Dateline, Miami, Florida. U.S. Marshals are hot on the trail of the international drug lord known as El Gato, Mexico's most wanted criminal.” She looked over at Maeve. “El Gato? The Cat?” She thought on that for a moment. “If I were an international drug lord, I think I'd have a better nickname.”

Maeve surveyed her quiche inventory, half listening. “Like what?”

“The Jaguar. The Cougar,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay, maybe not the Cougar, because that implies something completely different. The Shark? It would have to have a kick-ass Spanish translation, though.”

The phone rang, but it wasn't until Maeve raised an eyebrow at Jo indicating that she should pick it up that her assistant moved from the bar stool. Jo blanched at the number on the caller ID.

“The daycare,” she said. She listened intently. “One hundred?” She looked at Maeve and mouthed “Is that high?” Since Maeve had no idea what she was talking about, she shrugged in response, continuing her review of the items in the refrigerated case. “I'll be right there,” she said, slamming the phone down on the counter and stripping off her apron. “I've gotta go. Baby's got a fever.”

“A hundred?” Maeve said. “He'll be fine, Jo. Don't worry. Is this his first fever?” Judging from Jo's reaction to the news, it had to be.

“Yes,” Jo said, grabbing her knapsack from under the counter. “Do you think it's because I put him in daycare?” she asked.

“Babies get sick, Jo. You've been lucky so far.” But as she watched her friend race out the door, she acknowledged that the child, who up until this point had only been with his mother, had probably gotten sick from being in daycare. It was inevitable. She hoped that this didn't bring an issue that existed between Jo and Doug to a head and would leave her without a trusted employee at the store. Outside, a large clap of thunder telegraphed an inevitable downpour of rain, one that Jo just missed before she jumped into her car and sped off.

Maeve looked at the clock; school was almost out for the day. She texted Heather.
SOS. I need you at the store. Can you help?

As was usually the case, the text was met with virtual stony silence, but fifteen minutes later, Heather walked through the back door, surly, sullen, and more than a little wet, and threw her backpack on the counter. “Where's Jo?” she asked.

Maeve handed her a cupcake. “Baby's sick.”

That softened the girl's demeanor, but only slightly. “Will he be okay?”

“Just a fever,” Maeve said.

Heather donned the apron that Jo had left on the counter. “Devon had a fever once and Dad took him to the emergency room.”

“I'm sure it's fine, Heather. Babies get fevers all the time.”

“Did I ever get fevers?” she asked, standing behind the counter and watching her mother rearrange items in the case.

“All the time. You got a lot of ear infections.”

“And what did you do?” Heather asked.

Maeve got up from her crouch; her legs were achy. She continued to look into the case, making sure that everything was as she wanted it, arranged so that it would sell. “I'd hold you and rock you until you fell asleep.” Memories of Heather's sweaty head, her dark hair matted to her forehead, her breath coming out in yeasty gasps, were what she remembered of that time. Rebecca had been hale and hearty and her younger daughter a little more illness-prone, chronic ear infections the bane of Maeve's existence until a kindly nurse practitioner at the pediatrician's office suggested garlic oil drops as a homeopathic cure for what ailed the little girl. They had worked like a charm. “I used to put garlic oil in your ears.”

Heather approximated a smile. “I remember that. Smelled nasty.”

“Yeah, but it worked.” Maeve pulled a cake past its sell date from the case and put it in a box to take home. “Hey, I have a question for you.”

“What?” Heather asked, standing at the far end of the counter, her back stiff and straight, preparing herself for whatever it was. Her mother never asked innocuous questions.

“You're playing soccer?”

“What do you mean?”

Maeve laughed. “What do you mean, what do I mean? I saw you at the field yesterday. You don't play sports.”

“I do now.”

“Really? Why?” Maeve was suspicious. Heather had lasted two days in soccer back in the first grade, just long enough for Maeve to pay for her membership and uniform, walking off the field after some overzealous coach had yelled at her for letting in a goal. Maeve was happy she had quit because otherwise, she probably would have killed the guy; the sight of Heather's humiliated face walking off the field and toward the car made her heart hurt even now.

“I need extracurriculars for my college applications.”

“Huh,” Maeve said. “And soccer? You've never really played soccer.”

“Have you seen the team since Rebecca graduated? They aren't exactly what I'd call all-stars.”

“And you can just join midyear? Just like that?”

“They stink. And they're short-handed. It didn't take much to get on the team. Coach Barnham didn't even care that I haven't played in ten years.”

Rebecca's words about the coach rang in Maeve's ears. “You like it?” she asked, not looking at Heather, trying to make her line of questioning seem innocent, just small talk.

“Not really,” she said.

“So?”

“Extracurriculars,” Heather said and brushed past Maeve on her way to the kitchen, the conversation over.

“You could go to Mississippi. That would be a great extracurricular.”

“Trip's too late. I'll already be in college somewhere by the time it happens.” She frowned. “Hopefully.”

“Yeah, but interviews. You could mention that you're going.”

Heather turned and looked at her. On her face was a look that Maeve recognized because it was the same look she got on her own face when she didn't want to do something, when the discussion was ended. “I'm not going to Mississippi.” She closed her mouth and then opened it again. “Plus, I hate—”

“What?” Maeve said, cutting her off. “Mississippi?”

“No, not Mississippi.”

“Then what?”

Heather walked toward the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind her. She muttered something before the door closed, something that sounded to Maeve like “Not what. Who.”

Maeve followed her into the kitchen, getting the message and letting the conversation go for now. “Can you dust the cases and handle anyone who might come in? We'll close up at four like usual.”

“Sure,” Heather said and, without being asked, grabbed some glass cleaner and a paper towel and started wiping away the smudged fingerprints left by the preschool class who had come in earlier that day to meet “Miss Maeve, the Cupcake Lady.” Her daughter was adopting a work ethic that Maeve recognized as being second only to her own. She wondered how she could get Heather to train Jo in the finer points of executing closing tasks prior to the end of the day.

Maeve stayed in the kitchen and planned the rest of her day, watching the clock for the stroke of four, when she could close up and do what was next on her to-do list. She had been without a mission for a while, and it felt good to have one again.

“Mom, go,” Heather said at ten minutes to four. “I've got it covered.”

And she did. So Maeve hung up her apron and prepared to leave, Heather confirming she knew what the security code was and how to make sure the store was closed up tight.

In the kitchen, going through her bag to make sure she had everything she needed, she heard the bell over the front door ring, a final customer arriving before close. Maeve peered through the round window in the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the retail area and spotted Mark Messer, his DPW shift done for the day. Heather was still behind the counter, and if Maeve wasn't seeing things, she could swear that Heather smiled at the guy, her face tinting pink at his entrance. He leaned on the counter and ordered a coffee and a cupcake, the two of them chatting amiably. Mark looked up and spied Maeve in the window, waving at her to come into the front of the store.

“Hey, Maeve,” Mark said as he ingested the cupcake in two bites, “your chocolate cupcakes are the best. What's your secret?”

“Butter! Lots of butter!” Maeve said as she exited the front of the store, hearing his hearty laugh behind her. She didn't know what made her happier: his compliment for her cupcakes or his ability to make her daughter smile.

She didn't tell Heather where she was going; it was better that way. The kid already thought her mother was insane and paranoid; why give her the evidence to back that contention up? Maeve went back to the high school and parked a few spaces down from a pickup truck. The day she had been to the field there had been one parked on the grass and since cars, most cars anyway, weren't allowed to drive past the gate at the top of the hill, she assumed it was Barnham's.

She looked out the window of the Prius and watched as Coach Barnham sauntered out of the school building, a big bag of balls slung over his shoulder, his lips puckered as he whistled. He was alone, and Maeve was relieved. Nothing would have set her off more than seeing a gaggle of devoted acolytes following their coach, one or more maybe jumping into his red pickup truck, the kayak in the back a fitting accessory.

Maeve waited until he was in the car and had driven around the bend before she left her spot. She trailed behind him, only losing sight of the pickup once, until they had traveled about a mile and he turned into a driveway that Maeve knew led to a house tucked back in the woods off a hiking trail. If Maeve had had to choose a house for the guy after having seen his truck and his kayak, this would have been it. She couldn't follow him down the driveway without revealing herself, so she parked the car on the side of the road and walked along the edge of the driveway until she got closer to the house.

At times like this, she was happy she had a silent hybrid and was a small person. And middle-aged. She was coming to that age where she was invisible to most everyone, especially younger men, and for her darker pursuits, that served her well. That's not to say that he wouldn't notice her if she was out in the open, as she was now, walking along his driveway, the look on her face suggesting that this wasn't a social call. She forced herself to smile. Her nonsmiling face, she had been told by the girls, was not friendly, and the last thing she needed was for him to get his hackles up at her arrival. She crept forward, stopping a hundred feet or so in, noticing that in addition to the pickup truck, kayak, and house in the woods, Barnham had another obvious accoutrement of the young, single jock—a giant dog, who spotted Maeve lurking in the trees and sounded the alarm that there was an unknown person in his master's midst. The dog, playing in a giant puddle that had formed from the earlier downpour, ran toward her. The coach saw her among the pines and followed close behind the dog. By the time he reached her, he was smiling.

“Mrs. Callahan, right?” he said. “Rebecca and Heather's mom?”

Maeve came out from behind the copse of trees and tried to affect a nonchalant stance. “Yes, hi, Coach.”

“I got my mother's birthday cake from you,” he said. “She's still talking about it.”