“I don’t have to tell you, of all people, anything about my family.”
That one word stung more than any of the others; it wasn’t our family but hers. “Show Delilah to me. Bring me to her. Prove that she’s safe. Then I’ll leave. But not a moment sooner.”
“Delilah is…” Mother started, but then she eyed me. She glanced at Max again. Her expression chilled winter cold. “Clara, I am the mother, not you. I will not take your orders. You must obey mine. And I tell you to leave.”
“No!” Shouting that one word at her quickened my pulse. I had rarely defied Mother, only the once, the day I ran. But Delilah could be in danger, and I had to know the truth. “There’s a simple way for you to get what you want. Show me Delilah or tell me where I can find her, Mother, and I will leave. And you won’t have to worry about me returning. Not ever again.”
Instead of answering, my mother shook her head, as if in disgust, and then nodded toward Max. “I told him to stay away. We don’t need the likes of him around here.”
Max edged forward, until he stood at my side. “Mrs. Jefferies, I—”
“Get out of here, Max Anderson,” Mother seethed. “Get out and don’t come back.”
My hardline tactics weren’t working, so I changed them. That helped sometimes. A different approach threw people off guard. My voice a whisper, I implored her, “Mother, please—”
“You, too, Clara. We don’t need the likes of you.” My mother stared at me, as if I were the source of all her troubles. An angry rasp in her voice, she insisted, “We take care of our own. We don’t need Max Anderson’s help. Or yours.”
Enough of this, I thought. “Mother, we need to see Delilah. Now.”
My mother glared at me as if she didn’t know me. I had truly become one of them, the strangers she’d warned me about as a child.
Behind Mother, the screen door banged. Lily stood on the porch with tears rivering down her cheeks. “Tell them, Mother. Please tell them. Tell them that Delilah is—”
“Lily, go inside!” Mother ordered, her voice so shrill it felt like a slap.
“Finish what you were saying, Lily,” I begged. “I am here to help Delilah.”
Lily stood her ground, but looked at my mother as if stricken. Then her voice became small, frightened, pleading. “Mother, tell them. Tell them that Delilah is—”
“I am your mother. You will obey me!” Mother commanded, her face twisted in rage. My sister fell silent. “Go inside, Lily!”
“Mother, let Lily talk!” I pleaded.
“Mrs. Jefferies, we’re trying to help,” Max pushed. “Please, where is Delilah?”
Mother scowled, and I turned back to my sister still standing on the stoop, staring down at us with a look of unabated fear. “Lily, tell me,” I said. “Where is our sister? Where is Delilah?”
Mother didn’t speak, but she glowered up at Lily. I remembered how I felt as a girl when Mother sized me up that way, as if she saw inside me. I felt exposed. Unworthy. Lily turned, her shoulders heaving. The screen door banged behind her as she ran inside, sobbing.
Mother gave me one last frigid glance before she turned her back and trudged up the stairs toward the trailer.
“It’s true. Delilah is missing, isn’t she?” I shouted.
She said nothing.
“Please, Mother. Tell me what happened.”
My heart pounded, hard and angry.
My mother’s hands shook on the door handle as she shot me a warning glance. Then the screen door rattled shut behind her. The inner wooden door slammed.
Seven
“I shouldn’t have come with you. It might have been better if you’d gone alone,” Max said. Disappointment hung heavy in the car as we drove back to his office. “Without me, maybe Ardeth would have talked to you.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. From the moment Mother saw me, she was seething. She’s not a woman who opens her arms to an errant daughter.”
“I wish she’d let Lily talk,” he said. “The way it is, we don’t know any more than when we got here.”
He was right that we didn’t have anything concrete, but the fear on Lily’s face said all I needed to be convinced. “Max, we do know more. Lily looked terrified. All Mother needed to do was show us Delilah. She’s hiding the truth. Something grave is wrong.”
“Something, but—”
“It has to be that Delilah is in trouble.”
“Maybe, but—”
“But what?”
“But that’s nothing more than a guess. What if Lily was going to say something else? How do we know?” he said, his voice firm yet a bit wary.
Max had a point. I couldn’t predict what Lily wanted to tell us. But all my instincts told me that it would have been that Delilah needed help. “Max, we need to start looking for Delilah.”
Max shook his head. “We need more information. We know nothing that will help us look for her. Where do we start? And we can’t jump to conclusions.”
“We can’t ignore our suspicions either,” I said. “You and the sheriff need to…”
I stopped talking when I saw the glum expression on Max’s face. As soon as I’d brought up the sheriff, Max shook his head. “Clara, you need to understand, Sheriff Holmes is dubious about that note. He didn’t want me to call you.”
“Why wouldn’t he—”
“My boss is a good guy, but he doesn’t know Alber like we do. He doesn’t understand how guarded this town is. He can’t fathom that Delilah could be missing if no one has filed a report.” Max glanced over at me and frowned. “Clara, if Lily had actually said Delilah was gone, I might be able to convince the sheriff to let us run with this, but without that…”
I had a hard time listening to Max. I didn’t care what the sheriff thought. I knew without question that my sister was
