The Truth About Comfort Cove

Sandy’s shoulders slumped and contrition hit Lucy hard.

“I wouldn’t put you through this if I didn’t have to, Mama.”

“I just wish… I’ve spent almost thirty years trying to forget everything about that man, Luce. I’m scared.” She shuddered and her eyes glazed. “I don’t want to see his face again. The nightmares will come back and… His hands…oh, God, Luce.”

Sandy started to cry, buckling in on herself, and Lucy stepped forward, using her body to hold her mother upright as she wrapped her arms around Sandy’s upper arms and back. “Shhh. I’m right here, Mama. And I’m always just across the street. If the dreams start again, I’ll sit with you. Remember all the good times we had, sitting up watching movies and eating ice cream and popcorn in bed when I was little?”

Sandy lifted her head, wiping her eyes as she tried to smile. “Yes, of course I do. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Luce. I just wish I’d given you a better life.”

“You gave me a fine life. You were always there for me, too, Mama.” Not always sober, but always there. “I had what I needed.” Food, nice clean clothes, help with homework and projects. A parent sitting in the front row during the Christmas play. And on the sidelines the year she’d taken up cheerleading. In the bleachers the year she’d gone out for volleyball. And at her police academy graduation, too.

“We have to do this for Allie, Mama. Try not to think about what this jerk did to you. Think of him as the man who can tell us where Allie is.”

Sandy’s chin stiffened, her eyes hardening. “Yes. He will pay for taking Allie from us.”

Lucy was hoping he was eventually going to lead them to her older sister. Allison Elizabeth Hayes. A girl she’d never known. A baby who’d been abducted before Lucy was born.

“You have to hold it together this morning, Mama. If you exhibit signs of instability that the defense will be able to use to discredit your testimony, the prosecutor might choose not to use you. Then we’d be left taking our chances with the possibly contaminated sample of DNA. This guy could walk.”

Nodding, Sandy backed up a couple of steps. “I’ll try.”

Lucy straightened to her full five-feet-two. “‘I’ll try’ isn’t good enough this time, Mama. I have to know I can depend on you.”

“I won’t let you down.”

Lucy didn’t relent, her gaze boring into her mother as if she could inject Sandy with the strength she didn’t have. Lucy had lost count of the number of times she’d heard her mother’s promises only to end up on the other side of another broken vow.

“Do you hate me, Luce?”

“No, Mama.” Pulling the slightly taller woman back into her arms, Lucy held her tightly, held her in the cradle of her heart, just as Sandy had done for Lucy in years past—both sober and drunk. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Luce. More than anything.” Sandy clung to her, burying her face in Lucy’s neck. “You know that you are the most important thing to me on earth. The only important thing.”

Because Allie was gone. “I know.”

She did know.

Just as she knew she’d never be enough. They needed Allie.

“Ramsey, is that you?” Leaning back in the well-used rolling desk chair, Ramsey Miller looked around the vacant office of the Comfort Cove detective squad early Saturday morning. There were six fulltime detectives, among the more than fifty officers who made up the Comfort Cove Police Department. Others would be filing in soon, but for now he had the partitioned detectives’ office to himself. “Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”

“How are you, son? It’s great to hear from you! You getting enough rest?”

“Yeah.”

“And enough to eat, too? You know your mother’s going to ask.”

“How is Mom?”

“She has her good days and her bad days, but overall we’re doing just fine.”

He wanted to ask if she knew his father. If the dementia had robbed his mother of her memories of Earl yet. But he didn’t. Just like he hadn’t during last month’s call. Or the calls before that. If his mother had worsened to that extent, his father would only lie to him about it.

And to himself, too.

Earl Miller was never going to admit that his wife was leaving him, slowly but surely, one day at a time. He wasn’t going to give up on her.

Or see that she didn’t have enough love left in her heart to keep her with him. He had love enough for both of them.