PART 3
The man holding him was younger, but there was no mistaking him.
Delbert.
My husband.
My husband of forty-five years.
The man who had told me my baby sister died alone on a Nevada highway.
The man who had brought home her ashes.
The man who had stood beside me while I buried a box that apparently never contained my sister at all.
I slowly raised my eyes.
“Who is Samuel?”
Dorrit swallowed.
“He’s Delbert’s son.”
“No.”
I said it automatically.
She didn’t argue.
“He was born in January of 1984.”
I stared at her.
“That’s two months before you supposedly died.”
“I know.”
“Then how did you know about him?”
She reached into the envelope again.
This time she pulled out a money order stub.
The paper was yellowed and brittle.
“Because Delbert paid child support.”
I felt something inside me go very still.
“How long?”
“Thirty years.”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Dorrit looked down at the money order.
“Not every month. Sometimes cash. Sometimes money orders. Sometimes through people. But enough that Samuel’s mother kept the records.”
“Why would Delbert have a child in Nevada?”
Dorrit shook her head.
“He didn’t.”
I frowned.
“He was born in Kansas.”
The Casey’s parking lot suddenly seemed too small.
The sounds of cars pulling in and out seemed far away.
A truck started somewhere behind us, its engine rumbling.
I stared at Dorrit.
“Then why did Delbert drive to Nevada?”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“He didn’t.”
I felt my fingers tighten around the photograph.
“What?”
“He never went to Nevada, Ros.”
I laughed once.
It wasn’t a happy laugh.
It was the kind of laugh that escapes when something is so impossible that your brain doesn’t know what else to do.
“I watched him leave.”
“I know.”
“He packed a suitcase.”
“I know.”
“He told me he was going to bury you.”
“I know.”
“He came home four days later with your ashes.”
Dorrit’s eyes filled with tears.
“Those weren’t my ashes.”
I stopped breathing.
For forty-two years, I’d kept a cardboard box in the back of a closet.
A small box wrapped in a white handkerchief.
I had never opened it.
I couldn’t.
That box represented the last physical piece of my baby sister.
Now Dorrit was telling me it wasn’t her.
“Where were you?”
She looked through the windshield.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“Colorado.”
My head snapped toward her.
“What?”
“I was living in Colorado.”
She took a breath.
“I had changed my name.”
“Why?”
She looked at me for a long time.
“Because Delbert told me you were going to kill me.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He told me you blamed me for everything.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know that now.”
Her voice cracked.
“But I was twenty-six, Ros. I was scared. I was pregnant. I had nowhere to go.”
I felt a strange pressure behind my eyes.
“Pregnant with Samuel?”
She nodded.
“Delbert was the father.”
I looked away.
The windshield blurred.
I blinked hard.
“Dorrit, you were married.”
“Not to Samuel’s father.”
“You ran away with a truck driver.”
“That was the story Delbert told you.”
My stomach turned.
“Then what happened to the truck driver?”
Dorrit looked down.
“He was Delbert’s friend.”
I closed my eyes.
The pieces were beginning to move.
Not into place.
Into something much worse.
“Why would Delbert do this?”
Dorrit shook her head.
“I don’t know everything.”
“You know enough.”
“I know some.”
“Then tell me.”
She hesitated.
“Not here.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because I think he knows I’m back.”
My blood ran cold.
“Delbert?”
She nodded.
“He found me once before.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
I stared at her.
“And you didn’t contact me?”
“I tried.”
“How?”
“I sent a letter.”
“I never got a letter.”
“I know.”
She pulled another folded paper from the envelope.
“I sent it to your house.”
I stared at the paper.
“Then why didn’t I get it?”
Dorrit gave me a sad smile.
“Because your husband intercepted it.”
I couldn’t speak.
For forty-five years, I had believed my husband was the one person in the world who had never lied to me.
Maybe that was the cruelest lie of all.
I looked at the photograph again.
The baby.
Samuel.
Delbert’s son.
Then I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
A small bracelet was around the baby’s wrist.
Blue beads.
A silver charm.
I recognized it.
It had belonged to Mama.
She had given it to Dorrit when she turned sixteen.
Dorrit had worn it for years.
I pointed at the photograph.
“What is that?”
Dorrit looked.
Her expression changed.
“You remember.”
“I gave that to you.”
She nodded.
“I gave it to Samuel.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted him to have something from our family.”
My voice dropped.
“Does he know who I am?”
Dorrit didn’t answer.
“Dorrit.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He’s the one who told me to come back.”
I stared at her.
“Where is he?”
She looked toward the Casey’s entrance.
“Not far.”
“Bring him to me.”
She shook her head.
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because Samuel doesn’t trust Delbert.”
I felt a chill.
“Why would he?”
“Because Samuel knows what his father did.”
I gripped the steering wheel.
“What exactly did Delbert do?”
Dorrit’s eyes filled again.
“He didn’t just lie about my death.”
She took a long breath.
“He tried to make me disappear.”
I waited.
“When I left Kansas, I took nothing. No money. No identification. Nothing. Delbert found me three weeks later.”
“How?”
“He had people looking.”
“People?”
“Friends. Coworkers. Men from the trucking company.”
I stared at her.
“He told me if I came back, you would be destroyed.”
“Why would he care about me?”
“Because he didn’t want you asking questions.”
“What questions?”
She leaned closer.
“About the money.”
I frowned.
“What money?”
“Your money.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“My money?”
“The money from your parents.”
“My parents left me the farm.”
Dorrit nodded.
“And something else.”
“What?”
She looked at me.
“Life insurance.”
I stared at her.
“Mama and Daddy had a policy.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Dorrit looked away.
“Two hundred and forty thousand dollars.”
I almost laughed.
“That isn’t possible.”
“It was in 1983.”
My hands began shaking.
Mama and Daddy had died within eight months of each other.
Daddy’s heart attack.
Mama’s cancer.
I remembered the funeral.
I remembered Delbert helping with everything.
The paperwork.
The insurance.
The bank.
The lawyers.
I had been twenty-four.
Dorrit had been twenty-five.
I was grieving.
Dorrit was already gone.
And Delbert had stepped in.
He had told me he would handle everything.
He had told me I didn’t need to worry.
I suddenly remembered something.
A sentence.
One I hadn’t thought about in decades.
“You don’t need to sign this, Ros. I’ll take care of it.”
I looked at Dorrit.
“Did I receive that money?”
“No.”
“Then where did it go?”
Dorrit’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“That’s what Samuel has been trying to find out.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because the money was transferred into an account in his mother’s name.”
My heart stopped.
“His mother’s?”
Dorrit nodded.
“Delbert’s girlfriend.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Girlfriend?”
“Before you.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
“He met her before he married you.”
“No.”
“He promised her he’d leave you.”
My hands went numb.
“He didn’t.”
“He didn’t because she found out about the money.”
I felt sick.
“Dorrit…”
“He married you instead.”
I turned toward the windshield.
The parking lot swam before my eyes.
Forty-five years.
Forty-five years of marriage.
Forty-five Christmases.
Forty-five anniversaries.
Forty-five years of believing my husband had chosen me.
And now my sister was telling me he might have chosen my inheritance.
I whispered, “Why did he kill you on paper?”
Dorrit looked at me.
“Because I found out.”
I turned back.
“What did you find out?”
“That Delbert had taken the insurance money.”
She reached for my hand.
“And I threatened to tell you.”
I pulled my hand away.
Not from her.
From the world.
From the entire life I thought I knew.
“So he staged your death.”
“Yes.”
“Why Nevada?”
“He had a friend there.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“But he had your ashes.”
“No.”
“Then what did he bring home?”
Dorrit shook her head.
“We don’t know.”
I looked at her.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Then how do we find out?”
She looked at the photograph again.
“Samuel found something.”
“What?”
She handed me a second envelope.
This one was thicker.
“There are records inside.”
I didn’t open it.
Not yet.
I couldn’t.
Instead I asked the question that had been sitting in my chest since she first said my name.
“Why did you come back now?”
Dorrit’s expression changed.
“Because I got a phone call three weeks ago.”
“From whom?”
She looked at me.
“Delbert.”
My heart pounded.
“What did he say?”
“He said he knew where I was.”
“And?”
“He said I had one week to stay away from you.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because he said the truth would destroy you.”
I shook my head.
“The truth already destroyed something.”
Dorrit reached for my hand again.
This time I let her take it.
“I know.”
For the first time since seeing her at the Casey’s, I looked closely at her face.
The lines around her eyes.
The gray in her hair.
The tiny scar above her eyebrow.
My little sister.
Not a ghost.
Not ashes.
Not a photograph.
Alive.
Forty-two years older.
But alive.
I started crying.
Dorrit cried too.
We sat in that car holding each other’s hands like two children who had finally found their way home.
Then her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her face went pale.
“Who is it?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
The phone kept ringing.
Finally she turned the screen toward me.
There was no name.
Only a number.
But Dorrit recognized it.
She whispered,
“It’s him.”
“Delbert?”
She nodded.
The phone stopped.
A second later, a text appeared.
Dorrit read it.
Then she looked at me.
“What does it say?”
She handed me the phone.
There were only seven words.
You should have stayed dead, Dorrit.
I stared at the screen.
And for the first time in forty-five years, I was afraid of my husband.
PART 4
I read the message three times.
You should have stayed dead, Dorrit.
The words didn’t look real.
They were just black letters on a little glowing screen, but somehow they carried the weight of everything that had happened since 1984.
I handed the phone back to my sister.
“Don’t answer him.”
Dorrit nodded.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Did he know where you were?”
She looked toward the Casey’s building.
“I think so.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at the rearview mirror.
A pickup was parked three spaces away.
An old Ford.
Dark blue.
The engine was running.
My stomach tightened.
“Is that his?”
Dorrit followed my eyes.
She went completely still.
“I don’t know.”
“Does it look familiar?”
She stared at it.
Then she whispered, “Yes.”
I started the car.
“Get your seat belt on.”
“Ros—”
“Now.”
She did.
I pulled out of the parking lot slowly.
The blue pickup pulled out behind us.
I didn’t say anything.
Neither did Dorrit.
I drove south on Main Street.
The truck followed.
I turned toward the grocery store.
It followed.
I turned into the school parking lot.
It followed.
Then I drove around the back of the school and stopped.
The truck continued straight.
We waited.
It disappeared around the corner.
Dorrit let out a breath.
“You believe me now?”
I looked at her.
“I believe somebody doesn’t want you talking to me.”