All the Pretty Girls

Fifty-One

Quinn Buckley was lying on the sofa in her library. She hadn’t moved since the police had left, simply stretched her feet to the right and her arms to the left and had gone horizontal with the minimum amount of effort. She was numb. Her sister was dead. Her husband was gone. And her son was wanted for murder.

For so many years, Whitney and their parents had fought about it. Whitney was willing to take on the responsibility, to call Reese her own. She wasn’t afraid of the scandal. She wasn’t afraid of anything. But their parents had decided.

The word had gone out. Eliza Connolly had been blessed with a late-in-life pregnancy. A wondrous miracle, and weren’t they so deserving, after what the whole family had been through. Why, Peter Connolly had comforted his wife in the only way a man truly knows how to comfort a woman who’s grieving, and look at the result. A son to call their own. Of course, Eliza had the baby a couple of months prematurely, but no one quibbled about that. It just wouldn’t be the right thing to do, now, would it?

Reese Connolly had come into the world the object of wonder and innuendo, but never, never to his face. The child was brilliant, precocious, so beautiful with his Raphael black curls and his cherub mouth. The eyes that took in everything, let nothing slip him by. No, there was nothing Reese didn’t excel at.

Quinn shifted slightly. Her life’s punishment was her inability to be brave at the appropriate times. She should have kicked Jake out the minute he yelled at her when she tried telling him the truth. When he cheated on her the first time. The tenth. The twentieth. She lost count. She should have stood up to her parents like Whitney had. Insisted that Reese get the recognition of his own heritage when he was old enough to understand. No, she’d never had the strength her sister possessed in abundance. It had driven them apart-Quinn, her compatriot, her fellow victim, siding silently with the grown-ups, refusing to admit what had really happened.

Yes, she cosseted Reese while Whitney shunned him. She tried, as she got older, to make up for some of the things she’d neglected to help him with in his past. That’s why she took him in when their parents died. She could be his mother now, not that he’d be allowed to see that. She made sure he ate well, got to school, paid for his college education as well as medical school. Reese had gotten his own share of the inheritance, but she didn’t want him to be troubled with the financials. He didn’t need her coddling anymore. He was all man now.

A man wanted for murder. Dear God, where had she gone wrong with him? She laughed softly to herself. Where hadn’t she gone wrong with Reese?

The phone rang. She tried to ignore it, but its shrill insistence finally drove her to get up, drag herself four feet away and pick up the receiver. When she reached it, the noise ceased and no one acknowledged her greeting.

She realized it was dark outside. She’d been lying on the couch for hours. A thought crossed her mind. The twins. Did Jake have them? He must, she hadn’t heard a peep from them all afternoon. She didn’t remember telling him he could take their children with him when he took off this afternoon. She figured she’d best call his cell phone, insist he bring them home.

She dialed the number, surprised when he answered after only one ring. She tried to be courteous. “Jake, I’d appreciate it if you brought the children back for the night. I don’t know where you’re staying but they have their own needs, their own beds to sleep in… What? You don’t have them? Did you drop them off somewhere? Oh my God, Jake, where are they?”

She was wailing, running through the house calling their names. There was no sign of either child.

The phone rang again. She rushed to it, thinking it was Jake, telling her he was kidding, just punishing her for kicking him out. It wasn’t.

The voice on the other end of the phone was so soft, so low, she could barely hear it. Even months later, she’d swear she hadn’t really known what was said.

“Meet me in the clearing. Come see your children die.”