Pretty Girls

Claire smiled, because this sounded just like something her father would say.

“You watched everything. You noticed everything.” Helen shook her head. “I would see you sitting in your high chair, and your eyes would follow my every move. You were so curious about the world, and so keyed into everybody else—­the tempers and the passions and the overwhelming personalities—­that I was afraid you’d get lost. That’s why I took you on our little outings. Do you remember?” Claire had forgotten, but she remembered now. Her mother had taken her to art museums in Atlanta and to puppet shows and even participated in an ill-­fated pottery class.

Just the two of them. No Pepper to ruin Claire’s perfectly formed clay bowl. No Julia to spoil the puppet show by commenting on the patriarchal structure of Punch and Judy.

Helen continued, “I was a really good mother to you for thirteen years, and then I was a really bad one for about five, and I feel like I’ve spent every day since then trying to find my way back to that place where you see me as a good mother again.”

Claire had been either seeking or avoiding this conversation with Helen for the last twenty years, but she knew if they had it now, she would fall apart.

So she asked, “What did you think of Paul?”

Helen twisted the ring on her finger. Paul had been wrong. Claire twisted her own ring because she had seen her mother do it so many times.

She said, “You won’t hurt my feelings. I want to know the truth.”

Helen didn’t hold back. “I told your father that Paul was like a hermit crab. They’re scavengers. They don’t have the ability to make their own shells, so they cast around until they find abandoned shells, and then they move in.”

Claire knew better than anyone that her mother was right. Paul had moved into her shell, the one that had been abandoned by her grief-­stricken family.

She told Helen, “I’m supposed to drive to Hapeville in half an hour. To a bank up from the Dwarf House. It needs to seem like I’m there, but I have to be somewhere else.”

“What bank?”

“Wells Fargo.” Claire took another bite of biscuit. She could tell her mother was desperate for more information. “They’re tracking me. I can’t go to Hapeville, and I can’t let them know where I’m really going.”

“Then give me your phone and I’ll drive to Hapeville. I should probably take the Tesla. They might be tracking that, too.”

The phone. How could Claire have been so stupid? Paul had known she was in the FBI building. He had known her exact location on the street. He had told her to take a left toward the hotel. He was using the Find My iPhone app because he knew that Claire would not go anywhere without her only connection to Lydia.

She told her mother, “I need to be able to answer the phone if it rings. It has to be my voice.”

“Can’t you use call forwarding?” Helen jabbed her thumb toward the hotel gift shop. “They have a display for prepaid phones. We can buy you one of those, or I can give you my phone.”

Claire was dumbfounded. In less than a minute, Helen had solved one of her biggest problems.

“Here.” Helen pulled her car keys out of her purse along with a light blue parking ticket. “You hold on to this. I’ll go check on a phone.”

Claire took the keys. Ever the cataloguer, her mother had written down the floor level and parking space number on the back of the ticket.

She watched Helen talking to the clerk in the store. The man was showing her various models of phones. Claire started to ask herself who this confident and efficient person was, but she knew this person. This was the Helen Carroll she had known before Julia was taken.

Or maybe it was the Helen Carroll who’d come back to Claire after mourning the loss of Julia, because Helen had called Wynn Wallace the second she got off the phone with Claire. She had been searching for Claire all night. She had rescued her from Fred Nolan. She had distracted Harvey Falke so that Claire could get away. And now she was sitting in the lobby of a hotel doing everything possible to offer her aid.

Claire longed to enlist her mother’s help in solving her other problems, but she was incapable of coming up with a believable story that didn’t reveal the truth, and she knew there was a limit to Helen’s restrained curiosity. She couldn’t believe how resourceful her mother had already been. She had even looked for ammunition for the gun. Paul would be shocked.

Claire caught herself a moment too late. She wasn’t going to tell Paul this story when he got home from work tonight. They would never share a moment like that ever again.

“That was easy.” Helen had already taken the phone out of the box. “The battery has a half charge, but I got a car charger and the nice man behind the counter had a coupon, so you got an extra thirty minutes for free. Inasmuch as paying for something to get something is free.” Helen sat back down beside Claire. She was obviously nervous because she was babbling the same way Claire babbled when she was nervous. “I used cash. I’m probably being paranoid, but if the FBI is tracking you, then they might be tracking me. Oh.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a wad of cash. “I got this at the ATM while you were asleep. Five hundred dollars.”

“I’ll pay you back.” Claire took the money and stuffed it into her purse. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Well, I want to make it clear to you that I’m terrified about what you’re involved in.” She was smiling, but her eyes glistened with tears. “The last time I was terrified about one of my children, I failed everyone in my family. I failed your father and I failed you and Lydia. I’m not going to do that ever again. So, mea culpa all the way to federal prison, if that’s what it takes.”

Claire realized that Helen thought this was about the embezzled money. The FBI and the police had questioned her. Nolan had brought in Claire for a twelve-­hour interrogation. Claire was sending her to a bank in Hapeville. She clearly thought she’d put all the pieces together, but she had absolutely no idea what was really happening.

Helen picked up Lydia’s phone. “The nice man at the store told me that you go into settings.”

Claire took the phone. “It needs the password.” She angled the screen so her mother couldn’t see the last thing she’d looked at—­Paul’s photo of Lydia in the trunk. She got rid of the image and pretended to tap in the password before handing the phone back to Helen, then watched in amazement as her mother navigated the software.

Helen entered in the burner phone’s number, then exited out of the menu. “Oh, look.” She turned the screen toward Claire. “See that funny thing at the top, the image of a phone and an arrow? That means the calls are being forwarded.” She seemed impressed. “What a wonderful little device.”

Claire didn’t trust the funny thing at the top. “Call the number and make sure it’s working.”

Helen took out her iPhone. She found Lydia’s number under recent calls. They both waited. Several seconds passed, then the burner phone started to ring.

Helen disconnected the line. “My mother used to scold me for calling her on the phone. She said, ‘It’s so impersonal. Why don’t you write me a letter?’ And I scold you for emailing instead of calling. And all of my friends scold their grandchildren for their illiterate texting. Such a strange gallimaufry of needs.”

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, Sweetpea.” She cleaned up the mess Claire had left on the coffee table. Helen was trying to appear casual, but her hands were shaking. She still had tears in her eyes. She was obviously conflicted, bu

t she was just as equally determined to do whatever she could to help. “I should get going. How long do I need to stay at the bank?”

Claire had no idea how long it took to access a safety-­deposit box. “At least half an hour.”

“And then?”

“Get back on seventy-­five. I’ll call you on your phone and let you know.” She remembered what Paul had said. “Be careful. That’s not a great area, especially in the Tesla.”

“The bank will have a security guard in the parking lot.” Helen touched Claire’s cheek. There was still a slight tremor in her hand. “We’ll have dinner after this is over. With drinks—­lots of drinks.”

“Okay.”

Claire checked the time so she didn’t have to watch Helen walk away. Adam Quinn had said his presentation was first thing this morning. The offices opened at nine, which meant that Claire had half an hour to walk ten blocks.

The burner phone went into her back pocket. Her purse went over her shoulder. She finished her coffee as she walked back toward the bathroom. Claire’s appearance had not improved since she’d seen her reflection in the mirror behind Fred Nolan. Her hair was plastered to her head. Her clothes were a mess. She probably smelled sweaty from running full bore through the city.

The cut on her cheek was still tender. The dark circle under her eye was turning into a full-­on, black bruise. Claire touched her fingers to the skin. Paul had punched Lydia, too. He had made her forehead bleed. He had made her eye swell shut. He had done other things, too, things that had made Lydia give up, to believe that no matter what Claire did, she was already dead.

“You are not dead, Lydia.” Claire spoke the words aloud for her own sake as much as her sister’s. “I am not going to abandon you.”

Claire ran water in the sink. She couldn’t go to Adam Quinn looking like this. If Adam was clueless as to what Paul was really involved in, then he’d be much more likely to help Claire if she didn’t look like a homeless person. She washed her face, and then quickly took a whore’s bath. The underwear Helen had bought came up past Claire’s belly button, but she was in no position to complain.