Summer Girl Read online

  “Well, if it isn’t the criminal’s best friend,” he shot back.

  He was glaring at her. She was glaring at him. I could swear there was some serious heat there.

  “This is ridiculous and it will never hold up in court, by the way. She was on her family property, in a house that she’s been vacationing at every single year since she was born.”

  I waved her over to my cell, and she leaned in so I could talk to her quietly. “I don’t have that much money,” I told her. “I can pay you a few hundred bucks now, and make payments on whatever else I owe you for your legal fee.”

  She waved her hand in dismissal. “This one’s a freebie, doll. Don’t worry about it.”

  She turned back to Sheriff Blackstone. “Her family claims that they specifically forbade her to step foot on that property. Ask her why she pried open the door to her father’s office and was rummaging through her family filing cabinet,” Blackstone snapped.

  “I have a better idea,” I said. “Call up my father and tell him that I’m going to run an ad in the town newspaper to help me find Consuelo Rodriguez.”

  There. I’d said her name. The invisible girl, the girl who my parents wanted to vanish. I’d made her real.

  I told Aurora my father’s phone number, and she made the call. While she was talking to him, I went to the back of the jail cell, pulled my pen out of my purse, and wrote my name, and the date of my arrest, on the wall by Dottie’s and Aurora’s names. I put a little smiley face next to it.

  A minute later, she walked over to me, holding her cell phone. “That sure rattled him,” she said cheerfully. “He says that he wants to speak to you. I told him that first he has to drop the charges.”

  “Agreed,” I said. She walked away again, speaking into the phone.

  Five minutes later, the deputy was unlocking the jail cell door.

  “You seem like a nice girl. One week of hanging out with Slade Monroe, and I’m locking you up in my jail,” Sheriff Blackstone said. “Keep that in mind.”

  I shook my head. “This has nothing to do with Slade,” I said.

  “Okay,” he shrugged, like there was no point in arguing. “Who is this Consuelo person?”

  “My younger half-sister. The daughter of Maria Rodriguez, the maid who used to work for us,” I said out loud.

  I’d done it. I’d made it official. My father wanted to play hardball? Back atcha, dad.

  I fished around in my purse and pulled out the picture that I had of her, and showed it to him. It was a picture of an exotically beautiful little girl with Hispanic features and shocking blue eyes.

  Tremaine eyes.

  And my dad was holding her in his arms with a pained smile on his face, but neither of them were looking at the camera. In fact it looked like the picture had been taken by a hidden camera, like neither of them knew that a picture as being taken.

  “Do you know where she is?” I asked. He looked at the picture and shook his head.

  “Sorry. I’ve never seen her. Why are you looking for her?”

  “Long story. She’s my younger half sister. I’d like to get to know her; my parents don’t approve. ” That was partly true, but I still wasn’t ready to reveal everything. I was playing my cards close to the vest. “Anyway, I’m having no luck.”

  “Well, the Rodriguez family moved out of town a long time ago, as I recall,” Sheriff Blackstone said.

  Aurora’s phone rang, and she answered it and then handed it to me.

  Ice ran through my veins when my father started speaking.

  “Heather, you’ve got to stop this,” he said, without even a hello. “You’ll destroy our family. You don’t know what this is doing to your mother.”

  “You lied to the police when you said you’d told me never to set foot in that house again. And getting me arrested for trespassing? Nice one.”

  “I did not lie,” he said, lying again.

  “You lie all the time.” I felt as if I were a million miles away from him. Who was this man whose genes were entwined in my body? I felt as if I were an alien, as if I’d been spawned by a stranger.

  “You will not speak to me in that manner.” Once upon a time, his disapproval had made me quake, made me want to crawl into a hole and die. Now it just made me sick and angry. And bitterly amused, at the thought of him barking orders like that. He still thought that he had power over me.

  “Or what? You’ll slap me in the face, for accidentally talking about the truth? I will find my sister, and I will do whatever I can to help her.”

  “Heather, are their people there? Can they hear you?” My father’s voice was frantic.

  “Yep,” I said coldly.

  “You’ve got to stop this! I made one mistake, one time, and you are determined to ruin us because of this! To destroy the Tremaine name, to destroy your family! After everything that we’ve done for you, all your life! The person that you are speaking of doesn’t need any help.” He couldn’t even say her name.

  “And yet, she sent that letter. Asking for help. So I’d have to assume you’re lying again.”

  “Give me the letter,” he begged. “Just let me see it. What did the letter say?”

  “If you tell me absolutely everything, tell me the truth for once in my life, then I’ll let you see it.”

  Dead silence on the other end of the line. Which was ridiculous, because I already knew the truth, or a good part of it.

  “Goodbye, Daddy.” I felt an odd sorrow and loneliness wash over me as I hung up the phone.

  Chapter Nine

  “Heather, Heather. I didn’t know you had it in you,” Slade said admiringly.

  Dottie, Slade, Aurora and I were sitting at a booth at The Greasy Spoon, chowing down on cheeseburgers to celebrate my release. Except Aurora, who was a vegetarian, so she just had a salad.

  “Free at last, free at last!” I said, shoving a french fry into my mouth. “Oh, I missed the feeling of sunshine and the wind on my face. What have I missed? Do people still use cell phones, or are they telepathic now? Have we colonized Mars yet?”

  “Let’s not get carried away. You were in jail for what, an hour and a half?” Dottie was clearly unimpressed.

  “Don’t try to take this away from me. I’ve never even jaywalked. Now I’m a bona fide criminal. I’m a bandit queen,” I bragged.

  “No you’re not.” Dottie shook her head. “All the charges were dropped.”

  I threw a French fry at Dottie, and she caught it and stuffed in her mouth.

  “I touched that with my hands. That has jail cooties on it,” I warned her.

  “No, it doesn’t. You washed your hands like 20 times since we picked you up,” Slade said.

  “She used up my whole bottle of hand sanitizer,” Dottie added.

  So sue me! I’d been in a police car and a jail cell! I’d probably been rolling in Hepatitis A through Z, with a healthy dose of super-syphilis thrown in! Forgive me if I’m a little germophobic.

  “So, you and Mr. Sheriff, it seemed like there was some kind of…you know …” I said to Aurora.

  “What? Why do people always say that?” Suddenly Aurora looked rattled. In fact, I could swear she was blushing, and she had a sudden need to root through her purse to look for something that she couldn’t find.

  Slade turned to look at her speculatively. “Hmmm. Interesting. I could see it.”

  “Absolutely not! Believe me, I am certainly not his type.” She paused, looking around at us. “And he’s not my type either!” she added hastily.

  “So, the sheriff is single?” I mused.

  Slade dragged a French fry through a red lake of ketchup. “His wife is dead. Drunk driver killed her a few years ago.”

  I winced in sympathy. “Sorry to hear that.” I glanced at Aurora with a raised eyebrow, and she shook her head frantically, holding up her hands as if to shield herself from the very suggestion.

  “Okay.” I wasn’t convinced, but it was her life.

  “All right, explain to me
what this is all about.” Slade’s expression turned serious. “You’re running around town looking for this girl, you could get yourself in serious trouble, and you don’t even know where to look. Let us help you.”

  “Yeah, seriously. Before you end up getting carted away to the big house for realsies,” Dottie added. “You’d never make it in prison. You’re too pretty.” She winked at me, and I choked on my French fry, laughing.

  I glanced around the table and felt a small ember of warmth inside me start to glow. I had friends. I had walked away from the wreckage of my old life…and my life wasn’t over.

  “All right, here’s what I think I know,” I sighed. “Up until I was eight, every year, when we came here, the Rodriguez family worked for us. They would move into the servant’s quarters for the summer. Mr. Rodriguez was the handyman and groundskeeper, Mrs. Rodriguez was the cook and maid. She was really beautiful; she looked like Sofia Vergera. Her kids would even move in; they were a little older than me. Trinidad would do my nails and braid my hair. Pedro would give me piggyback rides. Then, the summer when I was eight, there was a new maid and handyman. I asked where the Rodriguez family were, and my father said they’d quit. I kept bugging him about it, and suddenly my father freaked out and slapped my face.”

  “So, you’re thinking that he got Mrs. Rodriguez pregnant the summer before, and that’s why the family disappeared?” Slade said. “You were seven, so you’re looking for a twelve year old.”

  I reached into my pocketbook and pulled out the picture I’d been carrying around, and the letter.

  “That’s what I think. We kept coming back here every summer, but I never saw the Rodriguez family again. Not at the house, not in town. And from what little I’ve been able to find out, they moved out of town a long time ago. The last time my family came here for the summer was when I was 16. While we were here, my mom went away on a weekend shopping trip with her friends. She came back early. I was in my room. I heard her screaming at my dad; she yelled, I saw your whore and your daughter today!”

  “Where was she when she saw them?” Aurora asked.

  “I never found out. If I knew that, I’d know where to look for them. The next day, mother took me to summer camp. And then I found out that I was enrolled in boarding school. No one in the family has set foot in Hidden Cove since. I’ve barely been home since. My mother does everything she can to make sure that I never set foot in the house any more. My brother never knew about it, and they never sent him anywhere.”

  “They blamed you for it?” Dottie looked indignant.

  “I guess. I don’t really know why they sent me away. Maybe because they couldn’t stand to have anybody seeing them as they really are. Image is absolutely everything for my parents. When anybody in their social circle falls from grace, it’s like everyone else turns into pack of vultures waiting to rip them apart. People are shunned, lose their country club memberships…it’s like that movie Dangerous Liasons.”

  “It still seems like a huge over-reaction. I mean, he banged the maid, big deal. This is the 21st century,” Dottie said.

  “My parents are psycho. What can I tell you,” I sighed.

  “So, here’s what I don’t get. They sent you away to boarding school, they sent you away to college, everybody was pretending everything was going fine…” Aurora stirred her tea.

  I winced. “I know. I was a coward. I just let it go and let them bully me into acting like nothing was wrong.”

  “I’m not condemning you,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just trying to figure out what changed this summer.”

  I opened up the letter.

  “It all happened a couple of weeks ago. This summer, I was home from college. My mother had made it really clear that she didn’t want me to be there and she was going to pay for me and…and a couple of friends to tour Europe together.”

  I stumbled over that part. I wasn’t actually lying – I was just not going into detail about the friends.

  And if I were being honest with myself, it was because I was sitting right next to Slade and there were some things I just didn’t want him to know.

  I should have told him. I would wish, later, that I had told him.

  “I went out to get the mail one day, and this letter was there in the mail box. And it had the picture in it. It looked like it was taken by a hidden camera, and it shows my father holding this little girl. And it said, Why won’t you help us? And it was signed, Consuelo Rodriguez. And that’s it.”

  “So you asked your family about it?” Dottie asked.

  “I hid the letter and picture, and I asked my parents about it, and they freaked out. Screaming, threatening me, swearing they’d never talk to me again if I didn’t give them the letter and just forget about it. So I told them fine, I can find out on my own. I told them that I was coming to Hidden Cove to get some answers, and they just lost it. Disowned me, disinherited me, dis-everythinged me.”

  “Huh.” Slade stared at the picture, looking thoughtful. “I’ve only lived in town six years. From what you’re saying the Rodriguez family was gone by the time I came here.”

  “I lived here my whole life, but I didn’t know them except to say hi to at the grocery store,” Aurora said. “I remember they were a stunning family. Maria didn’t look like she was in her 30s at all; she could have passed for a 20 year old.”

  “I’m sure that’s what my dad liked about her,” I said sourly. “But I just can’t figure out what’s going on now. I’m sure that my father paid them hush money. Why would he stop paying them? Maybe Maria died. Which leaves Consuelo living somewhere with Mr. Rodriguez, the man who knows he’s not her father – I mean, it’s incredibly obvious. Maria, Trinidad, Pedro, Mr. Rodriguez – I think his first name is Jose – were all dark skinned and brown eyed. This girl barely looks like them. And those are Tremaine eyes if I ever saw them. Maybe he’s treating her horribly; maybe that’s why she wrote that letter.”

  “Well, the first thing to do would be to find out where the Rodriguez family went 11 or 12 years ago.” Aurora said.

  “I’ve gone on the internet and tried to find them. I even googled obituary notices for Maria. Unfortunately it’s a pretty common name, and all kinds of names came up, but all of the obits that came up were for other people, and I don’t even know where in the country I’m looking. Heck, they could have left the country, for all I know.”

  “The envelope that was sent to you. Did it have a postmark on it?” Aurora asked.

  I smacked my forehead. “Oh my God, I am so stupid. I threw it away.” I stopped to consider. “Okay, wait…it definitely wasn’t an international postmark.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. “You know, I think it was a North Carolina postmark. I think.”

  I opened my eyes, exasperated. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to start.”

  “Well,” Aurora said, “I can start by asking around, talk to people who might have known the family back then. Check through court records, that kind of thing.”

  “Really? You don’t mind? You’ve already done so much for me.” I could feel a small flame of hope trembling inside me.

  Maybe I was finally one step closer to the truth.

  Slade

  Later that night…

  “Are you sure it’s okay if I come?” Heather asked me for like the hundredth time.

  “Of course it’s okay.”

  “But it’s your friend’s birthday party. They invited you, not me.”

  “I can bring a guest.”

  We were almost there, and Heather was squirming in her seat, restless.

  “Are there going to be like a million of your ex girlfriends there?” she asked quietly. She was staring at her lap, clenching and unclenching her hands, and I felt a sharp pang. I didn’t want her to feel badly on my account. Not ever.

  So that was why she was so nervous.

  “I don’t really do the girlfriend thing,” I said. “There will be girls there that I’ve hook
ed up with.” I hadn’t really given it any thought before we’d headed over there, but now that she mentioned it, yeah, it could be awkward.

  I wasn’t used to thinking about the feelings of the girls that I was with, or worrying about anyone’s hurt feelings. I always made it as clear as glass with the girls who fell into bed with me: one night, no commitments.

  If we ran into each other again and decided to go for the random hookup, fine. But there would be no candy and flowers, no phone calls, no text messages.

  But now I was in uncharted territory, and I didn’t know how to act. How not to hurt her.

  How not to touch her.

  “Oh.” We pulled up in front of my friend Ronnie’s beach house. She turned to look at me. “I know I don’t really have any right to ask you that. We’re not dating. We’re…” She looked at me. “I don’t know what we are.”

  “I’m your friend. I’ll always be your friend. I’m trying not to hurt you, because I’m no good for you or for anyone else.”

  “Is this the whole wrong side of the tracks thing?” she asked, exasperated. “Because I am permanently on your side of the tracks now. My parents tried to have me arrested for coming near their mansion. I am working for minimum wage and tips at a diner. I’m crashing on your couch because I’m homeless and all the possessions I have in the world are in my suitcase.”

  “No, it’s not that. Did you see me the other night? Drunk asshole crazy guy getting hauled off in handcuffs? That’s me. I don’t remember the last time I went a day without drinking. It’s a slow week if I don’t pound someone’s head in to the ground. Sheriff Blackstone’s always telling me if I don’t get my act together, I’m going to end up dead or in prison. And he’s right. That’s my future. It shouldn’t be your future.” I was talking louder than I meant to.

  I shut the door, and she climbed out on her side and walked over to me.

  “He was starting to say something about your past. Something about –“

  I held my hand up abruptly.