The Moon Pool (31 page)

“No, wait. Before we do... there's something I haven't told you, either. Kristine... she's pregnant. With Paul's baby.”

“
What?
How do you know?”

“I didn't tell you because... I guess because I was embarrassed. The girl at the truck stop, the one who gave me her number, she told me. And when Kristine came and I asked her about it, she didn't deny it. Oh, Shay, listen, if Paul knew his girlfriend was having a baby, there's no way he'd do anything to jeopardize his job.”

Maybe
, Shay thought darkly. She herself had had to tell a man that she was carrying his unplanned child. His response gave her little confidence in men's ability to absorb that kind of news. “How do you feel about it?” she asked carefully.

“I don't know—so many things. I mean, shock, I guess, mostly. And worry. And—oh, I don't know, we just have to get through this and then I'll think about what comes next. I mean, it's new, she can't be very far along, they just met at the end of October.”

“Then she could be almost three months.”

“Well...” Colleen frowned, her forehead wrinkled. “I mean, if it happened... I don't know when it happened.”

Shay didn't say anything, letting Colleen reach the same conclusion, if she hadn't already. If the baby was only a few months along, it could still be made to go away.

“Maybe that's what she wants to talk about.” She told Shay about the text, about Kristine's insistence she come right at twelve twenty. “We still have plenty of time to get there.”

“Is it okay if I come along?”

“Of course. We... I could stand to have another set of ears. You know, to talk to her.”

“There's one more thing. Even though I feel like this is nothing, I'm guessing it wouldn't hurt to let someone know where we're going.”

“You mean like Andy?”

“Sure, that works. I just figure whenever we go somewhere, we should text someone, either Andy or Brittany or her husband, Robert, so there's a record. Not to be all paranoid, but we're stirring up some big shit now. Like at the rig, what if that guy had run you down?”

“Well, I guess you would have had to run faster.” Colleen's attempt at humor was forced.

“Yeah. Anyway, at least we'll be building a record you can give your detective or, like if they ever get
real
cops in on this. Or OSHA, or the Feds. You give your husband the names and numbers of everyone we've talked to, tell him not to use them unless... you know. Unless something happens.”

Colleen was silent for a moment. “This is crazy,” she said. “I came here to look for my son. All I wanted was to find him, not to get involved in some huge cover-up. And now I'm trying to leave a trail in case something happens to us too.”

“We didn't ask for any of this, Col,” Shay said. “But this is what we got.”

COLLEEN CALLED ANDY
on the way back to town. “I'll explain more tonight,” she said. “For now I just need you to write a few things down.”

“What the hell's going on there, Colleen? I got a call today from Hunter-Cole corporate. The
head
of Hunter-Cole. He says there was an incident yesterday where Shay assaulted an employee on one of their sites.”

“
What?
” Colleen hadn't told him the whole story in the message she'd left the night before, only that they'd gotten a chilly reception.

“He says they've turned up the heat on their own investigation, but they can't move forward until they have a guarantee that you'll stay off their property. Colleen, that woman is a menace. Have you given any more thought to me coming out there?”

“It's... complicated, Andy. But listen, I was there, Shay didn't do anything. I mean, not until after the guy hit
her
, anyway.”

“Look, Colleen.” She could hear the frustration in Andy's voice. “I understand you have feelings of loyalty to her, that you've been through something very emotional together. But I'm coming out there Thursday. Vicki's working on my flights. She's helping me sort through the calls we've been getting. And I talked to Steve—he'll fly out this weekend and use the other room you booked. Hunter-Cole has offered to work with Steve, to share their findings as the case progresses. And they're in full cooperation with the Lawton PD.”

He waited. Colleen knew he expected her to respond, but she was still stuck on something he'd said:
Vicki's working on my flights.
Not so much the words, but the
way
he said it. There was that... faint sense of intimacy, of arrogant familiarity. To Andy's credit, he lapsed into that tone only with his assistant... and with Colleen.

With the women he bedded.

Colleen sucked in her breath. Had she really just thought that? About her husband, about her best friend? She couldn't even prove the thing with the assistant, and she wasn't at the firm anymore—the girl had gone back to grad school—but
still.

“Listen, Col, I think you're too close to it,” Andy pressed. “You've been under a lot of stress, but I think you need to step back a little. Come on. Be reasonable.”

Colleen had said nothing when she found the texts from the assistant on Andy's phone a few years back. And since Vicki seemed to be spending most of her time trying to help find Paul, Colleen supposed she didn't care all that much if she screwed her husband on her breaks. And she had to admit that Andy would probably make more headway with the authorities than she ever could.

But this was the last time he would ever tell her to be reasonable.

“Are you ready to write these names down?” she asked coldly. “Otherwise, you can hang up and I'll just text them to you.”

“Colleen, come on, I—”

“I really don't have time for this.”

“
Fine.
”

Once she'd hung up, Shay glanced over. They were almost back to town, taking it slow on the icy roads. “You okay?”

“Yes.” Colleen didn't bother keeping the irritation out of her voice. “I didn't even get a chance to tell him about Kristine and the baby, because he lit into me about yesterday the minute he picked up. Get this—he says that guy who hit you is thinking of filing assault charges.”

“Of course he is,” Shay said, rolling her eyes.

“And then I feel like he didn't even listen to my side. You ever feel like everyone in your life thinks you're incompetent?”

“Only most every day of my life,” Shay said. “Fuck 'em. You really need to get past that, Col. Tell you what. You can do the talking in there. Just keep repeating it to yourself—
fuck 'em.
”

“Hey, better slow down,” Colleen said. “Look at all that.”

At the intersection ahead, police and fire vehicles were taking the right turn, lights and sirens going.

“They're headed toward the Hunter-Cole rig,” Shay said.

“Not necessarily, they could be headed anywhere.”

“Seriously, what else is even out there? We didn't see a single damn house on the way to the rig.”

“We can't do anything about that now,” Colleen said. “We have to get to Kristine.”

“Kristine will be there later today. What if this is important? If we get there now—if there's been another accident, there's going to be chaos, no one will pay any attention to us. Maybe we can find something out.”

“No,” Colleen snapped. Panic clutched at her throat. She couldn't miss Kristine, couldn't miss the chance to find out the truth. “We can go as soon as I get done talking to Kristine, I
promise.
If it's any kind of big accident, the rig will be shut down for hours.”

Shay hesitated only a moment longer, then she peeled forward, her jaw tight. “I'll drop you off. Then I'm coming back here.”

“Fine.”

They got to the apartment complex, a seventies-looking three-story brick building, in less than five minutes.

“Just let me out here,” Colleen said impatiently, already opening the door as Shay pulled in front of the building. The dash clock said twelve twenty-one. “Come get me when you're done.”

“Good luck,” Shay called. As soon as Colleen shut the door, she made a U-turn and headed back the way she'd come.

Standing in front of the homely building, Colleen adjusted her scarf and ran a hand through her hair, thinking that she should have freshened her makeup in the car.

Apartment 102 was dead center, its view obscured by the stairs outside to the building. Sheer curtains hung in the windows. Before Colleen could knock, the door opened, and Kristine was standing there in a black skirt and emerald green blouse. She was wearing black tights and, incongruously, fuzzy blue slippers. Her hair had been pulled back into a tight bun, and her eyes were accented by carefully drawn eyeliner and a thick coat of mascara. She smelled like shampoo and toast.

“Come on in, Mrs. Mitchell.” She seemed nervous, stepping out of the way for Colleen to enter, and then shutting the door quickly behind her.

The apartment was a tight little box with a pass-through to a tiny kitchen. To the right was a narrow hall. Through the partially open bedroom door, Colleen saw a neatly made bed topped with a pile of pillows in various pastel shades; one was embroidered with the words
LIVE LOVE LAUGH
. The furniture was neat and scrubbed, but it looked hand-me-down, with sagging cushions and worn trim. An old TV sat on a large doily on a pressboard stand.

“I have tea,” Kristine said. “Or soda?”

Before Colleen could answer, a girl came out of the bedroom. She looked about sixteen and was startlingly pretty, with wide blue eyes and thick pale hair that cascaded around her shoulders. “Hi,” she said shyly, not quite meeting Colleen's eyes.

“Okay.” Kristine clasped her hands together and took a breath. “Mrs. Mitchell. This is my cousin. Elizabeth. She's on her lunch break from school.”

“Hello,” Colleen said, confused.

The girl burst into tears. “Oh, my
God.
I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm such an idiot. Maybe I should just go.”

“You're not going anywhere,” Kristine said sharply. “Sit down.”

The girl sat on the edge of the love seat, twisting her hands in her lap. Colleen grabbed a box of tissues from the coffee table and handed it to her. Elizabeth accepted one gratefully, dabbing at her eyes.

Kristine took a seat at the far end of the sofa, leaving Colleen the other side, between the two girls.

“I need to apologize to you,” Kristine said. “Mrs. Mitchell—”

“Please, just call me Colleen.”

“I wouldn't blame you for being furious. You have so much to deal with. The thing is, I'm not really Paul's girlfriend. I was covering for Elizabeth.”

Colleen looked from one girl to the other. Elizabeth looked miserable; she'd taken the decorative pillow from the love seat and was clutching it to her stomach.

“Covering... how? You mean
you
were dating Paul? But you're...”

“I'm almost eighteen,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“Not until June,” Kristine said. “Elizabeth came to the Halloween party where I told you I met Paul. She told Paul she was nineteen. She made up this whole story about how she waitressed with the rest of us. None of us knew about it until they'd been dating like a whole month.”

“I told him right away.” Elizabeth's voice had gotten very small. “The second time I saw him, I felt so bad about lying. I just... I wanted so bad to talk to him. At the party. And I knew he'd never talk to me if he knew I was still in high school.”

“Wait a minute,” Colleen said, putting her hands out on either side of herself on the couch. “Wait just a minute. You're telling me you're his girlfriend? Even after he knew how old you were? Are you... are you
pregnant
?”

“Oh, Mrs. Mitchell, I wish I didn't have to meet you this way,” Elizabeth said, tears dampening her cheeks. “I've been thinking about it so much, the way I wanted it to be, Paul and I wanted to come tell you ourselves, we were going to come see you on my spring break. And now... now...”

She couldn't speak, she was sobbing so hard. Colleen patted her knee awkwardly while Kristine watched in stony silence, her arms folded across her chest.

“Why—why did you lie?”

Both girls started talking at once, but then Kristine pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes. Elizabeth blew her nose.

“My dad would kill me if he knew. He's super protective. He and my mom are very strict, they're really religious. The only other boy I ever went out with, my dad hated him. So now I'm not supposed to date at all. When Paul and I got serious, I told Kristine. She's all I have. She's like a big sister to me. She said Paul and me could meet here after school while she was at work. So whenever Paul had night shift, we met here before he had to go to work. And if he had to work days, I'd just say I was going to study over here after dinner and meet him.”