"What did you want me to do? I figured you had a reason."
"Look, I came back here because... because I don't know why, okay. It just seemed like the thing to do. I can't remember anything. All I feel is hatred and resentment for this woman who is my mother and I don't know why," she finished in a whisper.
"Jack had a lot of women, did you know that?"
"What? You believe what she told you? You didn't know him. He wasn't like that."
"Roger said the same thing."
"Jesus Christ! So you've been gossiping about my life?"
"It wasn't like that, Jessie."
Jessie gripped the railing and stared out, seeing nothing. She remembered that night, that night that Jack and Annie had been screaming at each other. Annie accused him and he denied it. She was the one who had a lover. She was the reason for... everything.
"Well, who could blame him? There was certainly no love waiting at home for him."
"How do you know that?"
"I lived there. I saw. She never spoke to him. She never did anything with us. She never went anywhere with us. She wouldn't even share a bedroom with him. She didn't love him. She didn't love me."
"Maybe she wasn't allowed to go anywhere with you. Maybe she wasn't allowed to love you."
"That's ridiculous. Is that what she said?"
"Why do you think she didn't love you?" Chris asked.
"She never talked to me. She hardly acknowledged that I was around."
"But you had meals on the table and clean clothes, all ironed for school?"
Jessie turned around slowly, a frown on her face.
"What about when you didn't come home for dinner?" Chris asked gently.
"Like when?"
"Fishing after school?"
Jessie thought back, then cleared her throat. "Jack would pick me up after school sometimes and we would go fishing. We'd cook them and eat them right there," she said in a distant voice, remembering.
"And when you got home, the table would be set for dinner and Annie would be waiting," Chris said.
Jessie looked away again, remembering the times Annie was sitting by herself at the table, dinner long cold.
"What then?"
"I would go to my room," she said quietly. She thought back, hearing her father laugh at Annie as she sat at the table. But she pushed that thought away. She was the one hurting, not Annie. But why?
"Jessie, there's more to it than you're letting yourself remember," Chris said, wondering how much she could coax from Jessie.
"So, do you and Annie just sit around and talk about me or what?"
Chris could tell she had lost her. The brief moment of uncertainty had passed and in its place was the anger. "No. We're just friends. She's been locked in that house for thirty-two years. She needed to talk."
"What do you mean?"
"They call her the 'hermit lady' around here. Ellen owns the grocery store and she's been here five years and has never even seen her. She doesn't leave the house. Roger brings her groceries a couple of times a month. But she has her hobbies," Chris added bitterly.
"Hobbies?"
"She paints. She reads," she said pointedly. She saw Jessie's head turn quickly, but she looked away again.
"I don't care about that. I don't care about her," Jessie said stubbornly. "And if you don't mind, I'm really not in the mood for dinner, McKenna."
"Jessie..."
"No. Just leave. I want to be alone."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I just wanted you to know about Annie. I didn't mean to upset you," Chris said.
"Well, you have, McKenna."
The dark eyes still sparked with anger and Chris lowered her own. She had said too much. She had delved into things that were not her business. And she had destroyed any friendship that she and Jessie had started. For that, she was sorry. But she wasn't sorry for bringing up Annie.
Chris left without another word and Jessie went inside, standing in her small kitchen with her arms wrapped around herself. But she refused to think. Her head was already pounding and she opened the bottle of wine that was to go with their dinner.
"My life's a fucking mess," she whispered to the empty cabin.
Chapter Seventeen
Chris was assisting the sheriff's department the next morning, along with Matt and Roger. It turned out the missing girl was Wendy Dearborne, granddaughter of Phillip Dearborne, the famous San Francisco district attorney. Needless to say, the case had top priority, and all those around Sierra City cursed the fact that the accident had happened in their area. Heads were rolling from the top down, and now they were participating in a search, starting where Jeffrey Jackson's body had been found and covering the forest between there and where the car went off the road. Another group was starting at the accident site and Greg and Bobby were helping them.
Chris was trying to concentrate, looking for any evidence, but her mind kept wandering back to the night before. She had handled it poorly, she knew, but it was too late for that. She could have just ignored the whole thing and gone on like they had been. Have a little fun while Jessie was here, someone to have dinner with, maybe more, she thought. But she liked Annie too much. The woman didn't deserve to suffer any more. And Chris knew that if Jessie would just go talk to Annie, get everything out in the open, maybe they could repair the damage that had been done all those years ago. But what damage? Even Jessie didn't know the answer to that.
They walked until noon, then stopped to rest and eat the lunch they had brought. She and Matt sat on a downed tree and Roger leaned against a rock.
"We're not going to find anything. I can feel it," Matt said.
"Yeah. I agree," Chris said. But they were just following orders.
"We'll be out of it after today," Roger said. "The senator has the FBI on it. Then we can get back to our menial duties of managing the forest."
Chris noticed the bitterness in his voice and knew he hated the fact that his office had been taken over. She did, too.
"Where the hell is Hatcher, Roger? Why isn't he out here?"
"McKenna, don't start with me. You know damn well where he is."
"You know he doesn't like to get dirty, McKenna," Matt said with a grin.
"Somebody had to stay at the office, the phone was ringing off the hook," Roger said. "Might as well be him."
Chris just shook her head, remembering how Robert Hatcher had nearly fallen over himself when the FBI showed up.
"Kay said that his father and the senator are friends. You'd think he would be out here looking, too," she said.
It was another couple of hours before they met up with the other search group. No one had found a thing.
They all stood in a group as the sheriff addressed them.
"I want to thank you all for helping out. Roger, thanks for lending your SAR team. The senator has asked the FBI to take over the investigation so we'll just be assisting them if they need us."
Chris and Roger exchanged glances. So, even the sheriff was being dismissed.
It was after five o'clock when Chris got back. She wanted a shower and a cold beer. She had told Matt she would meet him at the Rock for dinner. Anything was better than sitting in her cabin alone, even one of Dave's surprises. Dillon met her at the door and she scooped him up and kissed him before filling his bowl with food. She took a beer from the fridge on her way past and undressed as she went. Her clothes were scratched, stained and sweaty and she piled them in the clothesbasket in the corner of her room. It was time to hit Roger up for dinner so she could do laundry, she thought. She stood naked in the bathroom, downing her beer before stepping under the hot spray.
With her head tilted back and the water pounding against her breasts, she thought of Jessie and wondered what kind of day she had. Chris was tempted to drive to her cabin and check on her but she didn't want to take a chance on getting thrown out again.