On the Road [again] Page 9

  Carolyn had to concede. “True.”

  Anna continued, “We are going there with open minds. We are going to have no preconceived ideas that will set us on the wrong path, and whatever happens, we will deal with it. The truth is that your Suzi and her child will have all the love and care they require, provided by the best great-grandmother in the world, and they will both flourish because of it.”

  “Thanks. I really need to hear that sometimes. I’ve been doing a bit of research on my own, and this whole genetics issue is wearing on me. Genetics are much stronger than I ever imagined. It scares me. A lot.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Carolyn. You do research, but you are just looking for things that support your fear. I bet you if I did the same research, I’d come up with very different answers.”

  “I would welcome that, Anna. I really would. I’ve lost sleep over this whole situation. I’d never breathe a word of it to my Suze, but the thought of her raising a child with Barry’s blood coursing through its veins has me worried. Have you seen all the news reports of children assaulting their parents these days? I just can’t imagine. It would never have dawned on me to raise a hand to my parents. Never would have thought of it. What is happening to our young people?”

  “That conversation could last all the way to Houston. I think our time would be better spent putting some positive thoughts and energy out there into the universe. What do you say?”

  “That sounds like a great idea.”

  “I tell you what we are going to do. There is a rest stop in twenty-seven miles. We are going to stop, stretch, maybe see if they have anything interesting in the vending machines. After we make a visit to the restroom, we can have a little bit of a picnic with the stuff that is in that ice chest and then get back on the road. We can hit reboot and start the trip over.”

  Carolyn was crushed. “Have I already ruined the trip for you girls?”

  “Not at all. I was suggesting the reboot for you.”

  “I see. I appreciate the thought, but until I get this Barry project under control, I fear that he is never going to be very far from my thoughts, and the thought that I could have missed something so obvious and potentially important will eat at me until we have some answers.”

  “You save your eating for the sandwiches in the ice chest. We will get to the bottom of this, and your Suzi will be none the wiser, as well as protected for years to come.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears.”

  The sandwiches were good. As always, Anna had prepared them with love and a bit of extra butter. Sitting on a slightly dirty bench at a roadside stop, with truckers walking back and forth, silly little dogs yipping and yapping about, and more than one sullen teenager tromping to the restroom, with Adeline looking completely serene and quite aristocratic all the while, put Carolyn back into a good mood.

  She’d always loved to people watch. She thought that doing so no matter her surroundings gave her a look into life. Every vignette a microcosm of the bigger picture. It was the couples holding hands or the children entertaining each other or the gentleman taking a moment to hold a door for a lady or a little one giggling that reassured her that when all was said and done, there was still hope for mankind, even if the newspapers and television reports sometimes made her wonder.

  The drive to Houston turned out to be a great deal of fun once Carolyn relaxed a little bit.

  Perhaps it was Adeline’s off-the-cuff comment about having the resources to see to it that Barry was never a problem for Suzi that put her at ease. She’d never thought about it before, but once she did, it dawned on her that Adeline had the money, and quite possibly the connections, to see to it that Barry never saw the light of day. She would, of course, never ask Adeline to do such a thing. Well, not unless the situation had become drastic.

  The thought that she’d even had such a thought both amused her and horrified her, but at the same time, she relaxed just a bit.

  The worst thing in life is fear, and people are most fearful when they have no options. Knowing that she had the option of asking Adeline for such a favor — even knowing full well she would never do such a thing — made her less fearful and more determined to take care of the problem herself.

  Anna had a list of every hotel they might want to stay at along the highway.

  They ended up going a little bit out of the way and staying at a casino near Biloxi. Anna had found a hotel spa that was connected to a casino that had multiroom suites that were not quite the level they had enjoyed in Las Vegas, but were more like a room with a seating area that had a connecting door to the other girls’ rooms. The price was right, less than a hundred dollars each, including breakfast in the morning and some free drinks and gambling.

  They were all checked in, showered, and headed to the hotel restaurant before sunset. After a leisurely dinner followed by a swim and a massage, they settled in Adeline’s room for a nightcap before retiring.

  Anna spoke softly. “I have to tell you, Adeline, I never knew people lived like this, and had I not been blessed to meet you, I would have gone to my grave not knowing. Never in my wildest dreams would I think to have a massage person come to my room and give me a massage, just because.”

  Carolyn added, “It really isn’t all that expensive either. No more expensive than if we had gone to a movie and eaten too much popcorn and had a super large soda.”

  “And maybe some jujubes.”

  “And brought a date.” The girls laughed.

  “I think it well worth the investment, and girls, at our age, that is exactly what it is. I think it is a matter of good health. A sense of well-being. We could even justify it as medicinal. Sitting all day long, it is important to get the blood flowing again.”

  Anna laughed. “That young man in the bar seemed to be willing to help you with that, Carolyn.”

  “Wasn’t that funny? Does everyone today think that women of a certain age are cougars? Or what is the new one? Oh yes, snow leopard. I have to wonder what comes after that.”

  “I don’t even want to know. I’m not interested in a younger man. I’d have nothing in common with him. We’d have nothing to talk about.”

  “I don’t think that snow leopards are doing much talking.” Anna laughed.

  Adeline lightened a bit. “I am not interested in any sort of male companionship right now, but if I were, and the young man were willing, I can certainly remember why there might be advantages in youth.”

  “The advantages are far outweighed by the disadvantages.” Carolyn shook her head.

  Adeline allowed a gentle chuckle to escape. “And what would those be?”

  “I could never be with someone I could have given birth to, so anyone more than fifteen years younger than me is out of the question, and if there is only going to be a fifteen year difference, well, we aren’t talking Studly Do-me-right, are we?”

  Adeline and Anna could only laugh. They’d not seen this side of Carolyn, and had to admit, they liked it on her.

  The breakfast included with the rooms turned out to be a voucher for a rather nice buffet. The girls enjoyed a light breakfast, got their bags to the car, and were back on the road earlier than expected.

  The drive was a bit shorter than the day before, and they found themselves in Houston sooner than expected.

  Lots of NASA signs and elevated freeways, they got turned around a time or two, but found a hotel and figured out how to navigate the freeway system without too much trouble. They decided to stick to the feeder roads, whatever the locals called them, because getting on and off the freeway seemed to be an art form in and of itself. People in Houston drove big trucks, drove them fast, and seemed to know where every square inch of the truck was, because they were quite comfortable pulling in front of you with only inches to spare at rather high rates of speed. Getting on and off the freeway was another challenge. You dove off the freeway onto a feeder road. The locals were supposed to yield to you, and they did, but they often were close eno
ugh to owe you a dinner and were not the least bit shy about gunning the engine and introducing themselves to your back bumper.

  Carolyn was glad Anna was doing the driving. Adeline didn’t seem the least bit rattled. Anna, although she decided to stay on the feeder roads, handled the whole thing with grace and even commented that she loved the way that the freeways were created, with a road to the side and an area to make a huge U-turn — usually under the freeway — quite often. She’d have to look it up and see what all that was called and if that approach actually lowered the accident rate. It would be interesting to know if any other states had the same approach to freeways. She found that when she was on the freeway, she liked that the freeway numbers were printed right there in the lane so that you knew where you were going when you had to transition from one freeway to the next.

  They couldn’t not look for Pickles once they got to town.

  They decided to go to the hotel, check in, then drive past the place that they thought was Pickles’s.

  They were disappointed when they found a nondescript little house at the address that Anna had found. No toys in the yard, nothing that screamed axe murderer or stellar citizen. The neighborhood was an older one, but reasonably well kept.

  They parked across the street and two doors down, and Anna pulled out a map so that should anyone pay attention, they would assume the girls were just some harmless old ladies who were lost. There was a time that would have drawn more attention to them, people wanting to be of assistance, but they thought those days had passed.

  Not in Texas.

  Minutes later a lovely young man approached the car and asked if they needed some directions.

  Anna, always quick, had an answer for him. She explained that they were looking for their hotel, gave him the name and address. She explained that they were trying to stay off the freeway and that they knew they were all turned around once they were well into a residential area.

  With the out-of-state tag on the car, it made perfect sense.

  After he dutifully gave them step-by-step directions, and Anna wrote each step down, she informed him that since they were stopped they’d just take a moment and have a sip of something cool to drink to calm their nerves. That seemed to make sense to him, he wished them a good night, even insisted that Anna take down his cell number — just in case she needed further assistance — and rambled back to the garage he had been working in.

  Carolyn was impressed. “I may have to move here. You could sit on my street for a week of Tuesdays, and nobody would come out to ask you if you needed help.”

  “Maybe he figured you are a snow leopard.” Adeline wiggled her eyebrows.

  Carolyn laughed. “I’ve got age spots, not leopard spots, but that’s a whole other matter.”

  They sat for several minutes, didn’t see any movement in or around Pickles’s house, and knew that she was, at the least, well protected by neighbors, and little else.

  They headed back to the hotel to eat, and to rethink their plan after a nice meal and maybe even a drink or two at the hotel bar.

  They decided to sleep on it and go see Pickles in the morning.

  Morning came sooner than Carolyn wished. She’d been awake until almost three, unable to turn her brain off. She was so close to having answers and yet wasn’t even sure of the questions.

  The girls dressed carefully. Not too casually — they wanted to be taken seriously — but not so businesslike that Pickles would be spooked.

  They had decided before retiring the night before that they would come up with a cover story at breakfast. Anna seemed to have the best approaches, and she always came up with the best stories at the last minute.

  Anna came up with no cover story at breakfast. Carolyn was concerned that Pickles might be a flight risk. What if they made contact with her, just to have her freak out and run? What if she decided not to tell them what they needed to know? Not only would they not have answers, but Pickles would know them by sight and be on alert.

  By the time they drove up in front of the little house, Carolyn was a bundle of nerves.

  Anna pulled in on the opposite side of the street they had parked on the night before, took out her map just in case a different neighbor came to call, and they watched.

  Nothing.

  No movement.

  Frustrated, Carolyn blurted, “Well, now what?”

  “Now we go to where I think she works.”

  Carolyn was frustrated to the point of tears, but she held them back. “Now that we are here, I feel so foolish. Why did we come all this way without so much as making an appointment?”

  “What would you have us do? Call her and say ‘Hi, Miss Pickles, your old boyfriend Barry is in prison, and we’d like to keep him there. How about we meet up Tuesday so that you can pour the most intimate information you have on him out to us, total strangers. We’d really appreciate it.’”

  It seemed to Carolyn that Anna’s voice had been particularly harsh.

  “See, I am foolish.”

  Adeline cajoled, “You are not foolish, you are frightened. That is what we are here for. To end the fear. Relax. This will turn out well. I have a feeling.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. Now I really do feel foolish.” Carolyn gave it her best effort not to whine.

  “Look at it this way. If we find nothing, we had a lovely little trip, and we got out of town for a few days. We said from the start that we were going to avail ourselves of any and all adventures. Not every one of them will be fruitful in the way we would hope, but each will be rewarding in its own way.”

  “You’re right. Just keep reminding me.”

  SIX

  THE BUILDING WAS not far, the parking lot was atrocious, and the cars parked in it were far beyond their years of grace.

  “This doesn’t look good. What happened? The building she owns in our area was actually quite nice. This is just depressing.”

  “Let’s go find out. Isn’t that her?”

  Carolyn’s heart started to race. “Did you come up with something to say to her?”

  “Yes. I’m gonna ask her name. Then I’m gonna be honest.”

  Carolyn panicked. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

  “I think that is what will work.”

  Before they could discuss it further, Anna was out of the car and walking directly toward the young woman.

  She didn’t look all that much like the pictures from the Internet; it was her smile that gave her away. While walking past a man collecting bits of paper from outside his business, Pickles commented to the man and smiled. The smile identified her better than a driver’s license.

  Anna took action.

  Carolyn and Adeline could just hear what Anna said as they hurried to catch up with her.

  “Excuse me, do you have a daughter named Melissa?”

  Pickles looked confused. “I’m sorry?”

  “I asked if you have a daughter named Melissa.”

  “No, I don’t have any children.”

  Carolyn was amazed that Anna had not only made contact with potential Pickles, but if it was her, they now knew that she didn’t have any children.

  “My mistake, you look just like a young woman I need to talk to. You see, my friend’s granddaughter was married to a young man named Barry… ”

  The blood drained out of the young woman’s face before Anna could finish her question. She looked as if she might faint right there on the spot.

  Pickles’s voice was tight. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

  “Gwendolyn, it is obvious that we found you. It is equally obvious that we are not a threat to you. What are three old women going to do?”

  “It’s not you that concerns me. Please, I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want to have to move again. Please, let it go. Let me go. Please.”

  Carolyn was devastated for the young woman, such fear in her eyes, but she had to continue for her own granddaughter’s sake. She decided to go for broke and explain the whole sit
uation to Pickles. Maybe Anna’s approach was best, but before she could form the proper sentence in her head, it was Adeline who took over.

  Adeline’s head tilted back, just a fraction, which made her look very aristocratic. “There is no reason for you to be afraid. Barry finds himself incarcerated. We would like to talk to you in the hopes that you can, quite anonymously, assist us in keeping him there, preferably until long after he has taken his last breath. Each of us has a personal interest in keeping Barry in prison, and we hope that you will join us. If you instead choose to rabbit from this area, we will simply track you down again, but let me assure you that each time we find you, and we will find you each time as we have on this occasion, it will be more difficult to make our journey and our findings completely private. This time we simply told those involved that we were taking a short trip as practice for taking one of our own on vacation soon.”

  Anna jumped in. “Our families know where we are, but not what we are doing.” Just in case Pickles was as disturbed as Barry. Realistically, although the girls assumed she was a victim, they didn’t know her or her motivations.

  Pickles’s shoulders drooped. She was the poster child for total defeat. “Follow me.”

  The tension level rose just a bit — don’t they say never allow the perpetrator to lead you from the first crime scene to the second? — but the girls had initiated this meeting. Each of the girls took a deep breath and followed Pickles without verbal question, although Anna was on full alert.

  As she followed at the back of the line, she also hit several buttons on her smartphone that identified their exact coordinates. By the time they were inside Pickles’s office, she had also started the record function on her phone. JENNIFER

  “I’m sorry there aren’t enough seats for everyone. I run a small Internet business from this office. It isn’t my business, really, but I run it so that I can learn, and I’ll have my own business one day.”