I cut him off. "Vernell, they're at your parents' place. That's the only beach house Sheila knows. That's where she'd go. She knows nobody'd be there this time of year."
Vernell just stared at me for a moment, as if reading my lips and hoping to make sense out of what he saw and heard. His little girl, marrying a skinhead on the beach outside of his parents' beach house. It was all more than he could imagine. Then something else happened. Vernell returned. Not the Vernell I'd seen drunk and out of control, but Vernell the self-made man, Vernell the survivor, Vernell the man who wasn't about to let a boy ruin his daughter's life.
"All right," he said, his voice strong and filling the frilly bedroom, "let's ride." He moved past me, down the hallway, down the stairs, and over to the hat rack by the front door where he grabbed his white straw cowboy hat. He stopped by the front hall table, scooped up a set of keys and his cell phone. We were outside in the cold morning air, heading for my car, before I remembered that it wouldn't run.
"Vernell," I said. "Wait. My car died in the driveway. Let's take Sheila's car."
Vernell stopped on a dime and looked over at me. "Can't," he said.
"Why not?"
"I don't got a key. Sheila has it."
"Well, where's your car?" We were taking too long. We needed to be leaving. For all I knew, the wedding could be taking place first thing in the morning. It would take four hours to reach Holden Beach, and we'd have to be flying to do that.
"Calm down, honey," he said. "My car's at the office. We gotta take the truck. Let's go!"
Vernell had opened the door, hopped up in the cab, and started the engine before I reached the passenger side. So much for keeping a low profile, I thought. The satellite dish groaned as it began to turn, and we were off, backing down Vernell's driveway, and out into the street "Rock of Ages" bellowed out into the silent cul-de-sac, and one by one lights began coming on. Vernell's neighbors had to hate him.
"Vernell, can't you cut that down?"
"Say what?" he yelled. "I can't hear you with the music on."
"Turn it off!" I screamed.
Vernell calmly reached up under the dash and hit a toggle switch. "You don't have to yell," he said.
"Just drive, Vernell." I sighed and looked out the side window. He was impossible.
"Where to?"
"Keith lives three doors down from my place. I suggest we ride by, see if his truck is there, and if it isn't, check my place. Maybe she came back after I left." But I knew it was pointless. Sheila was in Holden Beach.
Vernell drove the truck like a sports car, careening around corners, sliding up on curbs, and running the truck flat-out and wide-open. If our mission hadn't been so serious, we might've enjoyed ourselves. It was like the old days, in high school, when we rode around the Virginia countryside, whooping out the windows and feeling the air fresh in our faces. Back then, we were reckless and carefree. Back then we would've done anything on a dare. Now our daughter had replaced us, and it was up to us to save her from herself.
"He's not there," I said. We were running down my street at fifty miles an hour, narrowly squeezing past cars parked on either side of the street. Vernell was either one hundred percent sober, or a very skilled drunk driver.
"Stop in front of my place and I'll run in and check."
Vernell stood on the brakes and skidded to a stop. "Hurry it up!" he said.
We both knew it was pointless. I ran up the steps, slammed the side of my fist into the front door, and stepped inside my darkened house.
"Sheila?" I called, switching on the light and moving rapidly toward the back of the house. No answer. "Sheila?"
Of course she wasn't there. Her room was undisturbed, except for the slight rumpling of the quilt where she'd lain sleeping the last time I'd seen her. I moved on to my room and glanced at the answering machine. No blinking red light. No messages.
"I'm having a bad feeling," I said aloud to the empty room. I picked up the phone and dialed the number that had stuck in my head, unwanted, since the first and only time I'd called it. "A really bad feeling," I said again.
"This is Corporal Marshall J. Weathers of the Greensboro Police Department," a familiar deep bass voice said. I sucked in my breath, about to answer him, but he went on. "I am away from my desk or out of the office. Please leave me a brief, detailed message and I will get back to you as soon as possible." There was a pause and then the familiar beep.
"Detective Weathers, this is Maggie Reid. Sheila's run off with her boyfriend, to Holden Beach, and I think she intends to get married, maybe in Myrtle Beach. She's underage, as you well know, and I don't like this guy. He's been arrested before, but I guess you know that. Can you call down there? Do you know anyone? I'm heading down there, but I don't know if I'll make it in time." I was running out of time and breath. "Oh, shoot, I know what. Never mind, I'll page you."
I hung up and dug deep in my jeans pocket for his card. "If you need me, page me," he'd said. I needed him. I punched in the number, waited for the series of beeps, and then punched in Vernell's cell phone number. I hesitated for a second, then punched in 911. "That oughta get you," I said to the lifeless phone, and ran out of the house.
Vernell was still sitting in the middle of the street, the Jesus satellite dish spinning around like a dancing girl on top of his truck. When he saw me, he gunned the engine and motioned for me to hurry.
"What'd you take so long for?" he asked.
"You got your cell phone on?"
Vernell gave me a "Do you really take me for an idiot?" look, and pointed to the cell phone that lay on the seat between us. A green light winked on and off. "Of course," he said. "I am never out of communication." He meant he was never off Jolene's leash, but I didn't say a word.
Lying under the phone was an assortment of papers and junk. A thick white envelope with a Flatiron and Scruggs, Attorneys at Law, return address caught my eye.
"Vernell," I said, pulling the envelope out from under the phone. "Aren't these Jimmy's lawyers?"
Vernell looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, technically, they're the attorneys for the business, but he used them to do his estate stuff, too."
"So, is this about Jimmy's estate?" I asked.
Vernell looked over at the envelope and changed the subject. "Let's not talk business," he said. "Not at a time like this, limes like this make me remember what we had, Maggie,"
"Vernell," I cautioned. But it was too late. We were headed out of town on Highway 220, in a fluorescent orange panel truck, with Jesus dancing on top of our heads, trying to save Sheila from a fate worse than death, and Vernell was choosing this moment to get nostalgic.
"Maggie, face facts. Jolene don't love me. She thinks I'm a withered up old man, made of money." I looked over at him, and was surprised to see that Vernell Spivey was actually crying. Tears ran down his weather-toughened cheeks.
"Oh, Vernell," I said, "now that just can't be so. She married you. She chased up after you for years." The words were hollow comfort, and I knew it as well as he did. Vernell had driven his ducks to bad market and they were coming home to roost.
My fingers picked at the envelope in my hands, bringing my attention back to it.
"Is this a copy of Jimmy's will?" I asked.
"No." He moaned. "She never did love me. Even Jimmy knew that. He tried to warn me right before he died." Vernell was milking this act, I could tell from the way he kept casting nervous little looks over at the envelope. He was trying to lead me away from the envelope, like a papa bird leading a cat away from the nest.