The Truth About Family Read online

  DANNI FIDGETED WITH THE strap on her father’s digital camera and waited anxiously for Erin to arrive. They were going to shoot more pictures today after school. She wasn’t sure where they were going, but she was up for anything that kept her from spending time with her dad.

  Who was she kidding? She missed her dad. They used to do all sorts of things together. Tobogganing down Sanguigan Hill was her favorite. They’d stay out until their fingers were numb from the cold and their snow pants were nearly frozen stiff. Afterward, it was their tradition to share a heart attack special—double-decker cheeseburger with an order of chili cheese fries—at Sammi’s. Sometimes, they’d even split a sundae. Up until this point, Danni had thought her life was pretty good; now, her life sucked.

  Danni thought of Erin and wondered how much longer she was going to hang around Granite Hills. Probably not long, she realized with an unhappy frown. Once she finished her personal business and got enough pictures for her assignment Danni doubted it would take much longer after that for Erin to hop the next plane out of this place. She sighed. She didn’t blame her. If she could leave, she would, too.

  Danni glanced out the window, relieved to see Erin’s SUV pull into the drive. Finally! As she grabbed her jacket, her cell phone rang and she paused long enough to see who it was.

  Allen.

  She bit her lip, wondering if she should answer. Erin’s horn beeped and she made the decision to shut her phone off. He’d probably never call her again; he was always accusing her of being too young to hang out with him and his friends, but Danni had proven to him that she was no baby. The memory of that night came to her in uncomfortable detail and Danni grimaced as the feeling of being forever stained invaded her system.

  Erin beeped again and Danni slid her arms into her jacket, almost glad that she wasn’t taking Allen’s call. There was no telling what he’d want her to do this time.

  IT WAS EARLY EVENING BEFORE Colin got home. The sight of the darkened house caused alarm to ring his senses. Danni was supposed to be home by now but he knew just by looking that the house was empty.

  Maybe she went to the library, he reasoned as his stomach muscles started to spasm with worry.

  Or maybe she’s out with that hoodlum Allen Johnson again. The kid had a rap sheet longer than most adults and Colin didn’t want him anywhere near his baby girl. Yet, Danni had taken a shine to the bad boy; no doubt, to piss him off.

  Opening the door, he called her name, hoping for once she was hiding in her bedroom.

  No answer.

  He went through the house, calling her name, only to receive silence in return.

  Damn it!

  Grabbing the cordless, he quickly called both his sisters to find if Danni had stopped by. The surprised tone of their voices when he asked told him all he needed to know. Danni hadn’t been there, either.

  Dialing the station, he quickly apprised Joe of the situation, asking if the night patrol could keep an eye out for her.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask,” he said, grimacing at the bitter taste in his mouth as the acid in his gut started to eat away at the lining of his stomach.

  “No problem, Col,” assured the dispatcher. “If she’s out there, we’ll bring her home. Don’t worry.”

  Right.

  “Thanks, Joe,” he muttered, knowing worry was all he could do these days when it came to his daughter. “I owe you one, buddy.”

  Joe laughed. “We’ve all had teenagers, Col. It’s part and parcel of those so-called growing pains.”

  If only.

  Colin accepted Joe’s sentiment and hung up. Suddenly, the light of headlamps flashed through his living room as someone pulled into the driveway and Colin was up and out the front door two seconds later.

  “Where have you been?” he nearly shouted, as Danni emerged from the passenger side of what he realized was Erin’s SUV. “I’ve been worried sick.”

  The driver-side door opened before Danni could answer and Erin intercepted, her expression instantly apologetic. “I’m so sorry, we lost track of time. I’d thought we’d be back before sunset but this happens a lot when I get into a groove. Time ceases to exist.” She flashed Danni a proud smile, faltering only a little when she noted the mutinous expression Danni was sending his way. “You have quite the budding photographer here. Um…am I missing something?”

  “She was with you?” Colin asked, his pulse slowly returning to normal.

  “Didn’t you get the note?” Erin asked, shooting Danni a confused look. “You did write one, right?”

  Danni shrugged. “I guess I forgot.”

  “To your room, missy,” Colin instructed sternly. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Danni stalked past Colin without seeming the least bit apologetic and all the good feelings Erin had had that day quickly evaporated. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted, feeling like a complete idiot for not asking Colin’s permission to take Danni. “I should’ve checked first.”

  “Yes, you should have.”

  The stern rebuke, although warranted, made her bristle. “I said, I know that.”

  “You can’t just take off with someone’s kid and not let them know where they are. Do you realize if any of the patrol guys had caught you with Danni they might’ve hauled you in for kidnapping?”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Because I’d just called and told them she was missing. How was I supposed to know she was with you?”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know Danni hadn’t left you a note?”

  His expression faltered as he considered her point. “Well, you still should’ve called,” he added.

  “Point taken. It won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you,” he said, blowing a short breath as if he’d been holding it, the action only making Erin feel worse.

  “I should go.” Before I can do any more damage to this family. Colin started to say something but Erin wasn’t in the mood to listen. She climbed into the Tahoe even as Colin approached.

  “Erin, wait….”

  She paused before closing the door. “What?”

  Although the lines of frustration were still bracketing his eyes, there was something else there as well. A long moment went by as he struggled to put into words what was showing in his expression. “This is the second time you’ve kept my daughter safe. I’m sorry I snapped,” he admitted, his mouth drawing to a tight line. “At first I thought she was hanging out with that kid, Allen, and I went out of my mind with worry. I’m sorry.”

  Erin felt herself softening, wishing Danni knew what a good father she had. “I don’t blame you for worrying.” When Colin raised an eyebrow in question, she explained. “Generally, I’m not one to judge by appearances but if Allen is a kid who looks about sixteen and hangs out with a posse that would do Snoop Dogg proud, I’d worry, too.”

  His expression disintegrated and Erin could almost feel the weight dragging on his shoulders. “You need to tell her the truth,” she murmured without thinking.

  “What?” Colin looked at her sharply and Erin cursed her inability to keep her mouth shut when it really mattered. “What did you say?”

  Now you’ve done it. Well, since she’d already put her foot into it, she thought with a resigned sigh… She met Colin’s inquiring stare. “Tell her the truth. That’s what she needs from you.”

  Colin stiffened. “You don’t know what my daughter needs.”

  “Yeah? Well, apparently, neither do you,” Erin shot back, bristling all over again at his tone.

  “I think I know how to raise my daughter,” he said, pulling away, his tone so defensive she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  “Yeah, I can tell you’re really doing a bang-up job of reaching her when she needs you the most. Interesting technique.”

  Colin glowered at her but Erin held her ground. She knew how it felt to be the last to know what was going on when it was nobody else’s business. She really didn’t care what Colin’s reasons were for
keeping the truth from Danni. If the kid wanted to know, she had a right to. Plain and simple.

  A tense silence followed and Erin wondered how long she should wait for him to say something. She wasn’t quite sure what she expected him to say, but she didn’t feel right leaving it like this. “Colin—”

  “I appreciate you bringing her home,” he interrupted stiffly, obviously still smarting from her blunt observation. He turned to go back inside, leaving Erin to stare after him. The door closed behind him and Erin shook her head. Men. She was half-tempted to follow and demand an apology for his attitude, when she was only trying to help him reach his daughter.

  Don’t get involved, McNulty, she warned herself. You’ve got your own problems. If he didn’t want her help, she shouldn’t force it on him.

  The last thing Colin needed was for her to start meddling in something she had absolutely no experience in fixing. And if she started to forget that small fact, all she had to do was bring up the image of Charlie, lying broken and defeated, to remind her.

  Her breath hitched in her throat and something too close to regret threatened to swamp her mind and drown out her good sense.

  “Oh, Caroline,” she murmured, wiping away a suspicious drop of moisture from her eyes. “A little advice wouldn’t be uncalled for in this instance…because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore!”

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING ERIN opened both eyes reluctantly. The distinctive chirping of chickadees preening for the attention of a new mate just outside Erin’s window was more effective than any alarm clock, but unfortunately lacked a snooze button. Throwing an arm over her eyes to blot out the bright sunlight that was attempting to thaw the frozen landscape, she knew the effort was useless. Within minutes she’d be fully awake.

  Her thoughts still fuzzy from sleep, she offered little resistance when her mind returned to the events of last night.

  Why’d she stick her nose into it? It wasn’t as if she knew them very well, anyway.

  Danni.

  The kid was practically screaming for her dad to validate the pain she was suffering, yet he refused to start the healing process by telling her what she needed to know. Erin wondered if it would’ve made a difference in her life if Caroline had been forthright with her about whatever had happened in the past. Of course, it didn’t matter now, but it could matter in Danni’s case. She was poised at a precipice and Erin couldn’t just watch her dangle on the edge without at least throwing her something to hold onto. Honestly, she thought irritably, why couldn’t Colin see what was so obvious?

  She groaned, pushing a vision of Colin’s wounded expression from her memory and choosing to remember a less complicated time.

  He wasn’t hard on the eyes but he was almost as stubborn as she was. Before she realized it was even there, a tiny smile played on her lips.

  Snuggling deeper into the blankets, she pushed away those types of thoughts and drifted into a hazy dream state.

  A small fragile dragonfly carved from a hunk of white wood materialized in her mind, perched on the surface of a dresser that looked familiar. Larger than actual size but detailed to the point of delicacy, it looked as if it waited for a stiff breeze to put it to flight.

  Erin slowly opened her eyes, still wrapped in the warmth of the dream. Had it been real? Erin couldn’t remember owning a whittled dragonfly but the vision in her mind didn’t recede like most dream imagery, it remained vivid, almost as if she had seen it just yesterday. An inexplicable sense of loss filled her. Where was the dragonfly now? After another long moment spent searching her memories and finding nothing that matched, she gave up and grudgingly dismissed the vision as nothing more than mental garbage, meant to be forgotten in the light of day.

  She heard Butterscotch walk into the room and whine softly, reminding her of her new responsibilities as a pet owner. “Hold your horses,” she grumbled as the dog licked her chops and whined again. “I know, I know, you’re hungry and you probably need to go to the bathroom. Well, join the club.”

  Rubbing the sleep from her eyes and shivering as she pushed the thick blankets from her body, she donned her robe and slippers and left the cold room and its unsettling images behind.

  After letting Butterscotch out the front door, she wandered into the kitchen with a yawn. As she skirted the large antique table that was one of Caroline’s most prized possessions, she tried not to think of what she was going to do with it. Her apartment was entirely too small for a table that seated six, without the leaf, but she couldn’t just sell it. Caroline used to tell her the story of how her great grandmother, Mum-Mum, had brought it over from Europe by boat in the early 1900s.

  Opening the refrigerator, she pulled out a carton of orange juice and gave it a sniff before pouring herself a glass. As she sipped the juice, all the while wishing it was a hot cup of coffee, her mind returned to the dragonfly of her dreams. She frowned as she knew without a doubt she’d seen it before. Where, she wasn’t sure.

  Setting down her half-empty glass, she walked to the pantry, ostensibly to find something to eat that didn’t require firing up the stove, but when her search found a photo box perched upon the top shelf, her hunger disappeared as she removed the box and sat down at the table to survey the contents.

  Erin lifted the lid. She sucked in a surprised breath as she saw pictures of her mother. Lifting one, then another, she realized she’d never seen them before.

  “Oh, Caroline—” She released the breath she’d been holding to sift through the pile, torn between wanting to examine each one for minute details and desperately tearing through them like a starving woman who’d just caught a whiff of New York steak on the grill. “What is this?” she whispered.

  She examined the one in her hand, two girls linked arm in arm, smiling for the camera. They could almost pass as twins. Both shared jet-black hair secured by thick white swaths of ribbon, short white, sleeveless dresses and matching patent-leather sling-backs.

  She flipped the picture and read the back, the words written in the playful penmanship of a young girl.

  Me and Rosie. Sept. ’64.

  It was surreal staring at her mother, a woman she’d never been given the chance to know, yet Erin was transfixed by the cache of pictures in her hands. More of the same greeted her as she quickly went through the box.

  Sudden tears crowded her sinuses but Erin held them back as she returned to the first photo. The girl in the picture had been happy. What caused a girl who looked like that to kill herself? What kind of woman robbed her daughter of knowing her? Had being a mother been so horrible?

  Replacing the picture, she carefully shut the box and clamped hard on the urge to succumb to the awful rending in her heart. Why hadn’t Caroline showed her these pictures? Why had she kept them from her? Erin stared at the box, the questions it raised pushing away her grief and replacing it with a potent mixture of anger and frustration. She needed answers.

  At one time her mother had posed for the camera, mindless of her slightly crooked front tooth and lopsided grin. Laughter had erupted from her lips and happiness had shone in her eyes.

  What had sucked the joy out of her smile? What had changed her from the girl who’d loved life to the woman who’d discarded it?

  The common denominator was obvious. Charlie. It would seem hers was not the only life he’d ruined with his selfish disregard for others. Yet, she thought with a troubled frown, Caroline would never abandon him—no matter what he’d done to Rose. A flutter of trepidation grew in her stomach until she could no longer ignore it. Perhaps Colin was right about the past having something to do with the accident. She couldn’t imagine how but she knew something wasn’t right. Forgetting about breakfast, she left the box on the table and hurried upstairs to get dressed. She needed to talk to Colin right now.

  CHAPTER TEN

  AS SHE DROVE INTO TOWN, the questions that had started with the discovery of the box continued to play through her mind. Apparently, there was much her beloved Aunt Caroline had kept
close to her breast, only Erin had been too self-absorbed to notice or care. Snippets of a past phone conversation with Caroline rang in her mind.

  “You know, I’m not the only one who finds the single life rewarding,” she’d retorted after Caroline had brought up the subject of her single status yet again. “Why didn’t you remarry after your husband died?”

  Caroline, startled by the unexpected topic, sounded flustered. “Oh, goodness,” she exclaimed. “It’s been so long I hardly remember my reasons by now.” She chuckled, but the effort was forced. “What an odd question. What made you ask that?”

  “I was just curious. I don’t remember much about him and I just wondered what kind of man had captured my favorite aunt’s heart, I suppose.”

  Another nervous chuckle and Erin’s smile had faded, wondering what Caroline wasn’t saying. “Hank was a one of a kind, that’s for sure. Lord, that was a long time ago.”

  “Hard act to follow?” supplied Erin, hoping her aunt must have found all other men lacking after her husband died. It was exactly the type of romanticism she’d expect of Caroline.

  “You could say that,” she answered, making Erin wonder at her evasiveness.

  She hadn’t grasped the significance of their conversation at the time, but suddenly Erin realized how little she knew about her aunt’s past. Hank had died around the same time as her mother and she’d been too young to remember either with any clarity. There weren’t any pictures of him in the box, or out of the box for that matter, and she was ashamed to admit she’d never asked why. That ominous feeling returned for no good reason other than she felt something bad was coming her way and she could do nothing to stop it.

  WITH HIS THOUGHTS STILL CENTERING on Erin and the unexpected effect she was having on his life, Colin walked straight to his desk, almost missing the cordial hellos from passing colleagues.

  “How’s the home life treating you?” Leslie asked, coming to lean against the partition, the rookie Missy Reznick right behind her. “Things getting better between you and the Rugrat?”