Darkness My Old Friend

behind the desk. Jones took this to mean that he’d been dismissed. He could just have left, but curiosity got the better of him.

“Her card was declined here yesterday,” he said. He raised his voice a bit so that she could hear him in the next room. There was silence, and he didn’t think she would come back, but then she filled the doorway.

She wore a deep frown. “I thought you said you weren’t a cop.”

“I’m not.”

She took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose. He could see the red impression of her frames.

“Sometimes people need a break. Don’t you think?” she said.

“I do,” he said. “But in this business I wouldn’t think you could afford to give too many of them.”

“True. And I don’t. But Robin’s a good girl. She’s not our usual patron.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Why don’t you go see for yourself?”

This time when she disappeared through the doorway, he knew she wouldn’t come back. He liked people like that, solid, sure of themselves. They were good judges of character, good witnesses. He remembered what Paula had said about Cole, that he was a good boy, that someone had loved him and done a good job raising him. It jibed with the old woman’s assessment of Robin O’Conner.

He knew her right away, because her son had inherited all her beauty, the raven hair and almond-shaped eyes. She looked tired and too thin, her collarbone straining against the skin, the knobs at her wrists too prominent. Something about that made him think of Eloise, then in turn about Marla Holt. And he wondered how he had wound up with all these missing and injured women in his sights. You never could resist a damsel in distress, Maggie had said. Maybe she was right.

Robin O’Conner was working the counter. There was one trucker there, with more food on his plate than Jones had eaten in two days-eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, and two biscuits drowning in gravy. And yet the guy, stooped over his meal and eating with gusto, was about the size of one of Jones’s legs. Was there any justice in the world?

She came over and leaned on the counter with a sweet smile. “Help you?”

“Just a coffee,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Are you sure? You look hungry.”

Jones glanced over at the trucker. “I’d have what he’s having. But I’d drop dead on the spot.”

“And just look at him,” she whispered. “I bet he looks better in a skirt than I do.”

“I doubt that.” But he said it in a gentle, fatherly way. Non-intimidating, nonsuggestive.

“Charmer,” she said with that same sweet smile. “I’ll get you some egg whites and toast.”

“Sounds good.”

When the trucker left and Jones had finished his meal, they were alone in the diner, except for whoever was cooking in the back. He could see why she couldn’t make rent. There were no businesses in the area to attract a lunch crowd. The diner was perched across from the motel on a lonely two-lane road. Truckers pulling off the highway, motel guests, the stray tourist heading up to the mountains for camping or hiking-that was probably the extent of their clientele.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

“I’m not here just for the meal. Can we talk?”

Fear pulled her face long. She looked toward the back, stepped away from the counter.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. He lifted a hand. “Paula Carr asked me to find you.”

She still didn’t say anything. He decided to go on. “The best I can figure is that she wanted to get away from her husband, but she didn’t want to leave your boy behind.”

He watched her eyes fill with tears.

“But now she’s gone. I don’t know where.”

“And where’s Cole?” Her voice was a tight whisper.

Jones hadn’t considered that point. Stupid. “I’m assuming he’s still with his father.”

“He wouldn’t have left his dad,” she said. A single tear fell down her cheek, and she batted it away. “He loves Kevin.” He heard sadness and not a little bitterness in her voice.

“I saw Cole the other day,” he said. “He seemed healthy, well cared for.”

She offered a relieved smile. “I miss him so much.”

“Kevin told Paula that you had asked him to take Cole because your new boyfriend couldn’t be bothered. He implied that there were drug and alcohol problems.”

She started to sob in earnest then. “No,” she managed. “No, never.”

He motioned for her to come sit at one of the booths, and she came around from the counter and sank into one of the red vinyl seats. No one came from the back to see what was happening. The parking lot was empty of cars.

“I have to pull myself together,” she said. She took a napkin from the dispenser and wiped her eyes, blew her nose. She was pretty even while crying. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jones Cooper,” he said. “I’m an investigator hired by Mrs. Carr.”

The words felt like a lie, even though they were as close to the truth as possible. She seemed to accept his answer without question. He guessed he fit the part.

“It was just supposed to be for the summer,” she said. She stopped then, laced her fingers, and seemed to consider how to go on. “Cole and I were battling constantly. He was hanging out with thugs at school. I found a joint in his backpack. We were fighting every day. It was terrible. I was thinking of sending him to one of those discipline camps.”

Jones found himself watching her body language, the lacing and unlacing of her fingers, rubbing at her forehead. The inside points of her eyebrows turned up in the middle. She was stressed and sad.

“Then Cole told me he’d gotten in touch with his dad, even though we hadn’t heard from him in years. He wanted to spend the summer away. Away from me.”

“And you agreed?”

“Cole wanted to go. Kevin showed up in his shiny car and laid on the charm. Said all the right things, like how he’d been an absent father, maybe that’s why Cole was so out of hand. Maybe a summer together would straighten him out. He wanted the chance to be a better dad, for Cole to know his half brother and sister. After all, I couldn’t really afford to send him to one of those camps.”

She stopped, looked out the window. “And honestly, I was tired. Working so hard just to meet our bills, fighting every day with him. Cole is smart, wants to go to college. I had no idea how I was going to pay for that. Kevin said he’d pay. He always knew how to say what I wanted to hear. I should have known. In my heart maybe I did.”

“Known what?”

“That either you go along with Kevin when he’s being nice or he gets ugly and you go along the hard way.”

“Meaning?” But Jones had a feeling he knew exactly what she meant.

“At the end of the summer, the day Cole was supposed to come back, Kevin came alone. He said he wanted Cole to finish school in The Hollows. And if I let him do it, Kevin would pay for college.”

“I said no. I wanted my boy back. Even though it was a relief in some ways to have him gone for the summer, I missed him terribly. It was like an ache in my heart to walk past his room and see it empty.” Her eyes filled again, but she seemed stronger.

“You have kids,” she went on. “I can tell. You love them so awful, don’t you? It takes everything to raise them well, but, man, that love fills you up.”

“So true,” he said. And it was. “Did he get ugly with you when you said no?”

“Not at first,” she said. “He implied he’d come alone because Cole was so happy in The Hollows. He loved Paula and the kids; they had such a stable, loving family. He said it like he was trying not to hurt my feelings, but that’s what he was trying to do. And he did. It cut me deep. I thought about letting Cole stay. But no, that was my son. Plus, we’d been talking and e-mailing. He’d said he missed me, was ready to come back and do better at school. I knew my boy. We fought, but we always had a good relationship at the core. Lots of love.”