Daniels didn’t ask anything more, but he continued to size me up—my city clothes, my trim bun. “I better get back to work. Got a lot to do before we harvest.”
“Next time check for cars first, okay?” Max advised.
“Yeah. Sure, Max,” Daniels said. He nodded at me. “Have a good visit.”
“Strange guy?” I asked, when Max and I were back in the car. Daniels seemed just a touch off. The way he looked at me, it felt as if there were a disconnect there.
“Yeah,” Max said. “Jim’s kind of an odd one—inordinately quiet, not very social. He moved to town eight years ago. Never any problems with him, though.”
A hundred or so feet farther down the road sat a white-sided, double-wide trailer, more battered than I remembered it. Perched on cement blocks and anchored to an electric power meter on a wooden pole, it had five cement steps leading to a rusted screen door. Behind the trailer, as far as the eye could see, row after row of corn stalks spread, leaves reaching up like hands splayed out to praise the bright mountain sun.
Max pulled off the road and stopped. He waited.
“Do you want me to walk up with you?” he asked.
I hesitated. “No.”
The sound of the car door echoed in the air. Gravel pricked the worn-thin soles of my black loafers as I took deliberate steps toward the trailer. My heart pounded as if I’d stopped running mid-sprint. At the foot of the steps, I paused. I glanced back at the car. Max had gotten out. He stood at the passenger-side door, arms folded across his chest.
I took the first step. The second. No doorbell. I rapped. The door clattered loose against the jamb.
Silence.
I knocked again. Harder.
Moments later, a teenage girl, long dark hair like mine, wide-set dark brown eyes like my own, stared out at me. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Lily! Come here, girl!” a familiar voice bellowed from inside.
“L-Lily, is it you?” I stammered. I routinely stared down criminals, hunted killers, but my kid sister gave me a suspicious glare, and my voice cracked. I managed a smile. “I’m Clara. Your big sister. You were young when I left. Four, maybe five? Do you remember me?”
“Lily! Inside! Now!”
As ordered, my sister stepped back and was swallowed by the trailer’s darkness.
In her place, a tall woman appeared. Ardeth. My mother. Her hair formed a soft crown around her lean, hollow-cheeked face. Her dark brows arched in irritation. She looked as I remembered her in a high, ruffle-necked calico dress that ended at her ankles. I took a breath and smelled something reminiscent of a pungent cheese, realizing it had to be valerian. I must have interrupted her at work.
Many in town relied on Mother for the herbal remedies she concocted in her kitchen: tinctures, poultices, compresses and salves. She brewed potions for colds, flu, gallstones, bladder infections, even heart disease. It was rumored in Alber that Mother once conjured up a particularly potent mixture that cured breast cancer. Knowing that the patient probably never had a mammogram or biopsy, I had a few doubts.
“Mother, how good to see you,” I said. She wiped her hands on her apron and stared at me as if I’d materialized from on top of the mountain. “It’s been a long time. How are you?”
Her lips turned down, never threatening to edge up into a smile. “Clara? Why are you here?”
I fought back my emotions. This woman with the dour frown was my mother, true, but she was also a source I needed to cultivate, someone I had to win over. I took it slowly, not to come on too strong. “To see you and the family. I heard about Father, all that has happened. I’m concerned for all of you.”
Mother opened the door, and I hastily backed down the steps, making room for her. She took the steps quickly, one after another. She hunched slightly forward at the shoulders. She was in her mid-fifties, but looked a decade older.
Feet on the ground, we stood eye to eye. Mother methodically inspected me, looking at my face and hair, my clothes, and my dust-covered shoes. She examined me as if I were a specimen on a glass slide. Although she hadn’t seen me in years, she made no move toward me. She didn’t reach her arms out to offer an embrace. I saw no joy at my return.
Max walked toward us, his uniform and marked patrol car conspicuously undermining my attempt to portray this as a social call. Mother looked over at him. Her lips pulled tight, an expression that brought back difficult memories.
She turned back to me and fury dripped from each word. “You just show up, after all these years, dressed like that, in city clothes. You act like you never left? And you bring the authorities?”
I held back. I hadn’t come to argue. I had one purpose—to find Delilah. “Mother, you remember Max Anderson, I’m sure. He’s the chief deputy for the county sheriff. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m a police officer, too. A detective in Dallas.”
“And why have you come here, knocking on my door? Are you here to repent? To fall on your knees and beg forgiveness?”
“No, Mother. You know that’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why?” she challenged.
“We’re here about Delilah,” I said, narrowing my eyes, returning all the intensity in hers, knowing there was only one way to play this. “Max called me after he tried to talk to you yesterday. We’re following up on a tip that Delilah’s been abducted. Is she missing?”
My mother didn’t answer. Her frown compressed, pinching tight at the corners.
“Clara, you have to leave,” she finally said, her gravel voice rough with years of disappointment and anger. “You have to leave and never come back. You aren’t welcome.”
Her words cut into my heart, but I stood straighter and did my best not to let her see me bleed. “I am happy to do exactly what you’re asking. Do you think
