“I found Annabelle.”
“You weren’t going to tell me that?” Jane leans over to get a closer look at the pages. “Can’t I see?”
Callie doesn’t feel right letting Jane see the notebook, wonders if it is a breach of Annabelle’s trust. An active investigation. But, she does need to soften Jane for what she needs to say to her before she goes. Opal asleep, Damien gone. They might not have a chance to have this conversation for a long time, if she doesn’t do it now.
She hands the notebook to Jane, who flips through the pages, frowns once, flips back between the two images of the shoreline.
“Not quite the confession you might hope for, huh?”
“No, not really. Annabelle had been the one who was pregnant. She is sure Sabrina was murdered. That she was supposed to be there when Annabelle gave birth but disappeared before it happened. Apparently she was off to threaten the guy. Demand he give her money. She said he was with other young girls. Teenagers. That he used to talk about them to Sabrina, taunt her.”
“She sure could pick ’em,” Jane says. She gets to the page with the picture of the star, traces her fingers around the points.
“A necklace that Sabrina took from the Coyote—that’s what she calls the father. They were both with him, apparently. But Annabelle doesn’t even know his real name. Sabrina was always nabbing stuff from him, trinkets and whatnot.”
Jane hums. “Taking whatever she could get.”
Callie looks down the hall toward Opal’s room. It’s now or never, she thinks. “Janie. There’s something we have to talk about.” Callie reaches into her wallet, puts the green glassine bag on the coffee table.
“What’s that?” Jane asks, but Callie can tell by her voice that she already knows.
“Opal gave it to me. She was keeping it in her room. It’s the packaging that the dealers use. For drugs. But I think you know that.”
“I don’t know where she got that. Must have picked it up outside. That’s fucked up. Here, I’ll throw it away.” Jane moves to pick up the bag but Callie slaps her hand over it.
“Jane.”
“Callie.”
“It’s Damien’s, isn’t it?”
“No. It isn’t, Cal.”
“Come on, you can be straight with me. I’m not here to get him in trouble. But he needs help. If he’s on this stuff…”
“He isnoton anything, Callie.”
“How can you be so sure? Why would your kid have this? And what business does he have with Billy Fauver, then? We’re looking at him for dealing, and Opal said the snake man came to your house—he’s got that black rat snake tattoo up his arm, right? She said that you and Damien fight when he shows up here. You yourself have said things are rocky between you. So now, don’t play dumb with me, Jane, please. You know how this story goes. You can’t have Opal growing up the way we did. He needs help.”
“You’re going to listen to a three-year-old? Yesterday she had atantrum because I flushed the toilet before she could look. Callie. Please. I’m telling you. He doesn’t have a drug problem.”
“He does, Jane, and he can’t take care of you and Opal if he’s…”
Jane stares at Callie, her expression both irate and anguished. “It’s mine! Jesus Christ, Callie! The bag is mine! You are so smart but you can be so fucking stupid sometimes.”
No, Callie thinks.Oh no.She takes a long inhale. How did she miss it? It was something they talked about often in college. How they vowed to make their lives different from their parents’, but they knew that their genes could tilt them that way. “Okay, Jane. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll get you help. You’ve been through so much. It’s understandable that you’d be trying to cope—”
“You don’t need to pull this therapist shit with me. I wasn’t using. I’m not using.”
“Then what—”
And then it snaps into clarity, and Callie has to put her head in her hands. Jane the track star. Jane the chemistry whiz. Jane isn’t using. She’s hardly touched the painkillers from the doctors, even on her worst days.
Jane is dealing.
“I would have told you, if you weren’t the damn police chief. And I don’t know. I didn’t want to know what you’d think about it. I didn’t want to put you in a bad position at work, with Frank…”
“Does Frank know?”
