Keep Her Safe

  I pause to digest this shocking new information. It’s hard enough imagining your parent as a person who had an entire life—an identity—before you came into the picture. But when that identity includes a sister you’ve never heard of . . . “What happened to her? Did she leave with Brian?”

  My mother swallows hard, then shakes her head.

  The alternative hits me. “She died.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she is dead by now.” My mom studies the picture for another long moment. “Betsy was fourteen when she ran away. Nan phoned us in hysterics, the goodbye letter in her hand. Your dad hopped in his car and drove through the night to go looking for her. He grilled her friends and found out that she’d been seeing this older guy. He was buying her clothes and things, making all kinds of promises for a better life.

  “Abe looked for days, but she was gone. He figured she was picked up that same night and taken out of the city right away. That’s how those things work. Steal ’em young and in the night.”

  “Those things? What things?”

  “Human trafficking. They bring in young girls from broken homes and force them into prostitution. Betsy was stolen, and sold.” Mom’s voice cracks with emotion.

  Oh my God. “And you never heard from her again?”

  Another solemn head shake, my mom’s eyes glazing over with the threat of tears. “Abe felt responsible for what happened to Betsy. He convinced himself that he should have seen the signs. He didn’t like Brian right from the second he met him. I figured it was because Brian had a thing or two to say about me marrying a black man. Abe said it wasn’t that. My stepfather was an ignorant fool, and he expected as much from him. He couldn’t peg exactly why, but Brian rubbed him the wrong way, and your daddy could find the good in most anybody. That’s why we stopped coming here—”

  “Wait a minute, what do you mean, ‘he should have seen the signs’?” I interrupt.

  Mom pauses. “Brian was abusing Betsy. Touching her and stuff.”

  My stomach drops. “In our trailer? In my room?” I feel my face twist with disgust. “And Nan didn’t know?”

  “That’s the thing . . . Betsy tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Bullshit.” How could my nan—my sweet grandma who made me pancakes on weekends and smothered me with hugs—ignore that?

  “Gracie, you have to remember, I grew up in that trailer, too. And I had never come to her so much as suggesting something like that was happening to me. In her mind, it didn’t make sense. And Betsy was a wild kid. She was getting into all kinds of trouble—shoplifting, neighborhood mischief, that sort of thing. She and Brian were butting heads all the time, so your nan assumed Betsy was lying, that she was being an uncontrollable teenager.

  “It wasn’t until Betsy ran that she confronted Brian. And he admitted to it. Nan kicked him out, but it was too late. Betsy was gone. Nan never forgave herself. When I phoned her to ask if we could move in, she packed up everything to do with Betsy.”

  “And you both went on like she never existed.” I can’t help the accusation in my tone.

  My mom’s fingers fumble with the charm dangling from her necklace. “Believe me, neither of us ever forgot about Betsy. But Nan couldn’t handle you asking her questions. She’d have to lie because she couldn’t handle telling you the truth.” After one last look, she passes the picture back to Noah, who hands it to me.

  I study Betsy’s—my aunt’s—face. “I thought this was you.”

  Mom smiles sadly. “We’re both spitting images of your nan when she was young. People called us twins, ten years apart.”

  “And the necklace she’s wearing . . .”

  “I sent Betsy that half for her tenth birthday. Told her I’d always wear the other half. It wasn’t anything fancy, just this cheap metal. Thank God, or I would have traded it for a high, I’m sure.”

  Noah, who has sat and listened quietly through this, asks with a thoughtful look, “Did Abe ever say anything to you about seeing Betsy in Austin?”

  “In Austin?” She frowns. “No. Why?”

  He tells her about the night Jackie killed herself, and how Jackie mentioned Betsy. Mom’s left with an equally perplexed look.

  “The morning after Abe died, I found that picture of Betsy in the top drawer of the desk. I thought it was strange that it was there. It’s the picture Nan gave to Abe, to show around Tucson, right after she’d run. I had put it away, in a box of photos in the closet.”

  “And he never said anything to you about seeing her again? Maybe while working? Are you sure?” I can’t help the doubt in my voice. Would she even remember at this point?

  “Your father never talked about work with me. He didn’t want to bring that into our house or our marriage. But he would have told me about seeing Betsy in Austin. Wouldn’t he?” Even as she says that, I can almost see her mind clawing at her memories, first with a shadow of doubt, and then with a touch of realization.

  “What is it, Dina?” Noah asks, seeing the same.

  “He started working a lot of overtime in those last couple weeks. Or at least that’s what he told me. APD said he wasn’t clocking in extra hours for them. That it was a cover he’d been using to lie to me, to be out at all hours with prostitutes and drug dealers. I could never make sense of that. I figured the department was covering up something, because I knew he was not selling drugs, no matter what they accused him of, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d lie to me, and why he’d be at that seedy motel. For a while I started to wonder if maybe he was cheating on me. But that wasn’t Abe. If you knew him, you’d know he just didn’t have that in him.”

  “But what if he had reason to believe Betsy was in Austin? What if he was looking for her?” Noah finishes.

  My mother gasps, as if everything suddenly makes sense.

  “But why wouldn’t my dad tell her that he’d seen Betsy?” I ask.

  “If he was going around looking for her for weeks, then that means he couldn’t find her. Maybe he didn’t want to get your hopes up?” Noah offers, looking toward my mother.

  “It would make sense. That whole year . . . it was hard on me.” My mom’s voice cracks.

  Despite my anger, my chest pangs with sympathy for her. While I giggled and rode my father’s back and demanded attention like any normal child, I was oblivious to my mother’s silent pain.

  “And if Abe was looking for Betsy, that could explain why he was at that motel,” Noah says.

  I hold up the picture. “Then why didn’t he take this with him?”

  Noah stares at Betsy’s face, considering my question. Finally, he says, “Maybe he thought he didn’t need it.”

  “Because he was convinced she was there?”

  “He got a call that night,” my mom recalls. “We were sitting on the couch, watching TV. It was late. He answered, and then told me he had to go out for a bit. Something for work. I wasn’t happy, but I knew that it must be important if Abe was leaving me at that hour. He seemed in a rush.”

  “And then?”

  “That was the last time I saw him alive.”

  “Did you tell the police this?”

  She nods, her mouth twisting with bitterness. “They said the call came from the phone found on that dead drug dealer who was in the room with Abe. That he called Abe to meet up for a drug exchange. It just . . . it never made sense. Nothing about that night ever made sense to me. When Abe left, he took his Colt .45 with him. I know because I watched him take it out of his safe and check the bullets, and then slide it into the holster I gave him for his birthday, the one with his initials on it. But the police said Abe had been found with a stolen gun on him. I told the police about the Colt .45. They said they’d make note of it.”

  I look to Noah, only to see his subtle head shake. Don’t mention the gun holster, he’s saying.

  Anger begins to burn in my mother’s eyes. “Why was Jackie talking about Betsy that night?”

  “I don’t know. I swear, Dina. I don’t.” N
oah’s head is in his hands, as if the weight of listening to this is too much. Or maybe he’s as overwhelmed by all the new questions swirling as I am. Then he looks back up. “What about this video you mentioned earlier? You said someone was looking for it? Who?”

  “Yes.” Mom turns to me, her gaze full of both fear and resignation. “The man who held a knife to my throat and threatened to take Grace if I didn’t give it to him.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Noah

  By the time Dina has finished describing the night she woke up to find a masked man standing over her bed, holding a knife to her neck while her six-year-old daughter slept peacefully one room away, Gracie’s face has taken on a sickly pale color.

  “So you didn’t have the video that he was looking for?”

  She shakes her head. “But I’m pretty sure I know what it was about. A few nights before Abe died, I came into the office and he was watching something on the computer. It was a video taken in a parking lot, and there were police surrounding a guy.”

  “APD?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure. They were shouting at him and their guns were pointed. That’s all I saw. Abe shut it off when he realized I was there. He said it was some YouTube video, but I could tell he was lying. His face . . .” She frowns. “It was this weird mix. As if he was angry, but also ecstatic. I didn’t think any more of it, until that morning after he died and I found that newspaper clipping in the office. The one with the notes Abe made.”

  “This is Abe’s handwriting?” I study the scrawl—all caps, with slanted ligature strokes, the tops of the letter T’s exaggerated.

  Dina nods. “I thought it was strange, that it had happened at the same motel Abe died in, The Lucky Nine. But I still hadn’t connected it with the video. Not until the day I drove over there. I needed to see if I could, I don’t know, feel him there . . .” Her voice cracks. “I saw the flashing green neon sign. That’s when I remembered.”

  “Did you check his computer for this video?”

  “The police had already taken the computer when they searched the house, but I mentioned it to them. I gave them the original newspaper clipping, too. They said they’d look into it. And then that very same night, the guy showed up. He kept insisting that I give him the video, all while holding that knife to my neck.” Her fingertip skates over a tiny scar.

  “He was trying to scare you to see if you had it,” I say.

  “He did that, alright. I didn’t know what to tell him. I couldn’t even think up a lie. He kept threatening me, first with the knife, and then with Grace. He said he’d take her away and let”—Dina’s voice wobbles, cracks—“men do horrible things to her. I could barely get out a word, I was shaking so bad. I was scared that Grace would wake up and come in. I don’t know how long he was there. It felt like hours. He told me that the police report would say Abe was guilty of dealing drugs and nothing I told anyone would change that, but that if I said a word to anyone about his visit or about the video, he’d come back to take Grace away from me. He promised that I’d never see her alive again. That’s when I knew it all had to be connected—the video of that bust at the motel. And Abe dying.

  “So, I packed through the night, stuffed everything I could fit into our car, filled the garage with trash bags of personal things we couldn’t take. Then I got Grace and drove away. Left the house for the bank to repossess it. The way I saw it, our lives in Texas were already over. The man holding a knife to my neck and threatening my daughter was making sure I knew it.”

  “And this video?”

  “I waited, hoping the police might uncover something on Abe’s computer.” Dina gives a weak head shake, her energy visibly draining, her eyes darting to the bottle of medication on the table. “And then, just like he promised, they released the official findings, and Abe was labeled a corrupt cop who got himself killed in a drug deal gone wrong.”

  Turns out Dina knew far more than she’d ever let on to her daughter. “Any guesses about who the guy was?”

  Another head shake. “But, I got the feeling he was a cop and that he knew Abe. The way he used his name . . . you know, in that familiar way. It was odd. He seemed so confident about how the investigation was going to go. As if he had some say in it.”

  The fact that the guy showed up the night after Dina went to the police with talk of this video makes me think she could be right.

  “And you think the guy in your hospital room today is connected to him?”

  She gulps back water, a light sheen forming over her forehead, her skin tone sickly. I don’t know how much longer we can press her for information. “I haven’t seen or heard from anyone since we left Austin. And then, all of a sudden, I open my eyes today and a man is standing over my bed. He flashed a badge. At first, I thought I was being arrested.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Blond hair. No . . . brown hair? Tall?” She frowns. “I think he was tall.”

  “Was he in uniform?”

  “Yes . . . I mean, no. I don’t think so?”

  “That’s okay. What exactly did he say?”

  Again, I see her searching through her thoughts, struggling. “He asked if I’d been talking to anyone from Texas lately about Abe. He asked me if I remembered how Abe died. And then he asked me when I saw you last, Grace. And where you were, I think. I can’t remember his exact words. I was so scared. I begged him to leave you alone. I swore up and down that I hadn’t said anything to anyone.” Her brow furrows. “And then he . . . disappeared. He was there one second, and gone the next. That’s when I got up and ran out of there.”

  Gracie hasn’t said a word in all of this, simply sitting and listening, her fists balled in her lap.

  Dina’s glassy eyes shift to her. “I’m sorry, Grace. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being afraid that someone might show up and steal you away, hurt you terribly. It was bad enough that I was terrified. Constantly. And then you got older and I . . .” She sighs. “It wouldn’t have changed anything, you knowing that part of it.”

  “It would have changed everything!” Gracie bursts out. “I would have known that my dad was innocent! I wouldn’t have spent so many years hating him for ruining our lives!”

  “And then you would have had to live with what I know, and believe me, it’s not any better. Knowing who your father was, how good he was and what someone did to him, what they got away with . . .”

  Gracie’s anger flares. “No one’s getting away with this!”

  “They already have.”

  “That’s because you didn’t do anything! You should have gone to the police, or the newspapers, or . . . I don’t know . . . the mayor’s office! You should have told everyone about the guy in your room and about the drug bust that Dad must have had some doubts about. There are so many things you should have done instead of pumping drugs into your body and hiding in this deep, dark hole a thousand miles away for all these years!” Gracie blinks away tears.

  “I was so scared for you. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. Especially not like that. Knowing Betsy was out there was bad enough.” Dina’s voice cracks with a sob.

  “I’m not Betsy. And I’m not letting some asshole scare me into silence.”

  “This is why I’ve never told you. You’re so much like your father. So stubborn. I needed to protect you from that.”

  “You call this protecting me?” Gracie flings an accusing hand toward the pills by Dina’s bedside. Dina flinches. “I don’t need your version of protection. Besides, I’m not six years old anymore.” Gracie storms through the entryway to the adjoining room, pushing my door until it is nearly closed.

  I offer Dina a reassuring smile. “She’ll come around once she cools down.” Maybe. I can’t say if the revelation of these secrets has shrunk or expanded the chasm that exists between them.

  All these years of living with this . . . The fact that Dina managed to keep it buried, even in her drug-induced fog, seems impossible. But maybe it
’s only because of that fog that she was able to. “Why didn’t you go to my mother with this?”

  “Jackie?” Dina hesitates. “Your mother wanted nothing to do with us. I went by your house and she wouldn’t even let me inside. All she said was that it didn’t look good for Abe and she didn’t want to be pulled into the scandal. She seemed more focused on her own reputation and what damage it might cause to have an ex-partner—a friend—who everyone was saying looked as dirty as a sewer rat.”

  I’m already shaking my head. It echoes what Gracie told me yesterday, but it doesn’t make sense.

  “I was there, Noah,” Dina says softly. “She said the words to me. I wasn’t high when she said them. Besides . . . she and Abe were already at odds when he died.”

  “What? You mean they were fighting?”

  “I mean, he’d cut her out of his life. Something happened between them not long before that. I don’t know what; he wouldn’t say.”

  I frown. “But . . . Abe came over the same day that he died.” He said he’d try to get tickets to a Spurs game.

  “Abe wouldn’t let what was going on between the two of them affect you.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “But don’t you?” Dina’s eyes soften.

  “I sold my soul for what I did and there ain’t no coming back from that.”

  Did my mom’s treatment of Dina have more to do with a guilty conscience than concern over her own reputation?

  Dina reaches with a feeble hand for a pill bottle but struggles with the cap, her complexion tinged a sickly green.

  I gently slip it from her weak grasp and open it for her. But it’s a long moment before I’m able to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “None of this is your fault, Noah.”

  No. But it is my mother’s. And I’ve been protecting her.

  Dina sets the pill on the nightstand and pulls herself out of bed. “Go to Grace. She trusts you.” She stumbles toward the bathroom, using the wall to catch her balance.

  “Are you sure I can’t . . .”

  The bathroom’s pocket door slides shut and a moment later, I hear her start to heave. Saliva pools in my mouth at the sound, and I’m forced to go to my room before I follow suit.