Ugly As Sin (5 page)

Melissa blew her nose into a handful of napkins before replying, “Sophie is your granddaughter.”

†

She had a story to tell. It was a long one. Where minutes ago he had begged her to open up to him, a flood of secrets gushed out of her now. Occasionally she paused to light another cigarette, or to gaze out the window again. But even when she stopped speaking for a minute or more Nick kept his questions to himself.

His mind, body, and soul felt numb as he listened to his daughter’s every word...

†

She said:

“When I was a teenager, I made Mom’s life a living hell. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. I used to come home late every night smelling like pot and beer. I ran with a bad crowd, guys older than me who only wanted one thing but I was too stupid to realize it.

“I guess you can see where this is going. A few weeks before my sixteenth birthday, I got knocked up. I was such a mess I didn’t even know who the father was.

“I named the baby Sophie. Sophia Lynn. I wasn’t mature enough to raise a child. I was just a kid myself. But after Mom and I saw her for the first time, we couldn’t bring ourselves to give Sophie away to some stranger. You remember Mom’s sister, Aunt Patty? We worked things out so
she
would take Sophie. That way we could see her any time we wanted.

“For the first twelve years of my daughter’s life, that arrangement worked out fine...

But the summer before last, I decided to come clean with Sophie. She always knew she was adopted—up till that point, I was ‘Aunt Melissa.’ The older Sophie got, though...it hurt so much, driving up to Hickory to visit her every few months, seeing how my little girl was starting to look just like me. I couldn’t live a lie any longer.

“I was afraid she’d never wanna see me again when I told her the truth. But that wasn’t how it turned out at all. We couldn’t wait to start over, to catch up on all that mother-daughter stuff I used to worry I’d never be worth a damn at. I realized how much I had missed out on. I felt like I’d been given a chance to right all my wrongs. I didn’t want to spend another second of my life without Sophie by my side.

“I think that’s why I can’t find it inside of myself to hate you, Dad—er,
Nick
. God knows I wanted to hate your guts, after Mom died and I felt like I didn’t have anybody in the world who gave a shit about me. But I couldn’t. ’Cause I had done the same thing to Sophie. I checked in on her, sure, I dropped by Aunt Patty’s to see her, but it was always at my convenience.

“The first time she called me ‘Mom,’ when I took her back home one evening after we’d spent the weekend together, I stayed up all night crying into my pillow. I felt like some missing piece of me had finally been put into place.

“I really thought we were gonna make it, Sophie and me. I know we would have been okay, if it wasn’t for this guy I’d been seeing...

“I met Eddie a couple years ago. A girl I used to work with had been trying to hook us up as long as I’d known her. I finally agreed just to shut her up. Next thing I know, I’m sitting in the bleachers at the Polk County Race Track with Deb, her old man, and Eddie at a freaking
demolition derby
. It wasn’t the most romantic date I’ve ever been on. Should’ve been a sign right there. Something about Eddie, though...I don’t know how to explain it. I fell for him, head over heels. I let my trailer get repo’d so I could move in with him. I quit my job at the Waffle House. He told me I didn’t have to worry about anything, he’d take care of me ’cause I was his
gal
.

“Looking back, I knew Eddie was no good. I knew it, but I stayed with him anyway. I’ve always been like that. Ever since I reached that age when I started acting all boy-crazy, I always chased after the ones I knew were bad for me.

“When we first got together, Eddie told me he made his living doing a bunch of odd jobs around town. Painting houses, cleaning out gutters, crap like that. But I knew there had to be something else going on. His cellphone rang all hours of the night. And his wallet stayed so
fat
all the time! I always suspected it wasn’t legal, whatever he was into. I guess that’s why I never nagged him about it, ’cause I didn’t
want
to know the truth.

“One night not long after I moved in with him, Eddie stepped out to buy a pack of cigarettes. While he was gone I heard a knock at the door. There was this strung-out-looking skank standing on our front porch. She pulled a wad of cash out of her bra, asked me to tell Eddie how sorry she was for being late with it, promised it’d never happen again.

“Of course, I confronted him about it when he got home. Turned into this huge fight. But Eddie finally came clean about everything...

“He was a drug dealer. And a pimp. Smalltime stuff, mostly. Weed, pills, crystal meth. Sherrie was one of his whores, worked the truck stops off I-26 outside of town. That’s where he moved most of his crank, too—long-haul drivers call it ‘high speed chicken feed,’ use it to stay awake on the road.

“Even after I found out all that shit, I didn’t break it off with him. I rationalized my staying with Eddie by telling myself that he was good to me. Far as I knew, he didn’t screw around. Sure, he sold drugs, thought he was some kinda redneck mack-daddy with those sluts he had working for him, but he treated me right. It was like, once I got mixed up with him, I turned into that stupid teenager I used to be all over again.

“Earlier this summer, even though a little voice inside my head kept telling me it was a bad idea, I decided Sophie should come live with us. Of course, Aunt Patty was against it. We had a big falling-out the day I loaded up Sophie’s stuff in Eddie’s truck. She said I had never been responsible before, so what made me think I could start now. She begged Sophie not to go. Even threatened to take me to court, but nothing ever came of that.

“I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I guess I hoped...I might be able to
change
Eddie. If I could get him to make an honest living, maybe we could be a happy family. I know it was stupid. But Sophie seemed to like Eddie a lot, and although a guy like Eddie could never be the ‘father figure’ type, he thought she was okay too. A few weeks before...what happened...he took her out for her birthday, got her a tattoo. Shoulda been illegal considering she’s a minor, but Eddie knew people. He always
knew people
. It was this tiny thing, a yin-yang symbol on her ankle, but we fought about that for days. Of course, any time I tried to talk to him about the other stuff, about the dealing and the pimping, he accused me of nagging. He asked me why couldn’t I be happy, when he took care of me and Sophie and we didn’t have to worry about a thing. He’d ball up his fists like he wanted to hit me. He never did lay a hand on me. But when we argued...Eddie always looked like he was so full of anger it was bubbling up inside of him just waiting to blow. Sometimes he reminded me of this frightened little boy, constantly looking over his shoulder like a monster was gonna come gobble him up.

“I guess whatever he was afraid of, whatever filled Eddie with that rage...it finally caught up with him.

“After Sophie moved in with us, I decided to go back to work. I didn’t want to rely on Eddie’s dirty money anymore. I got a job waiting tables at a bar just over the county line. It wasn’t the classiest job ever, didn’t bring in half the dough Eddie was carrying home night after night, but ya know what? At least I could look my daughter in the face and give her an honest answer when she asked me what
I
did for a living. In the meantime, I kept praying that I’d be a good influence on Eddie. That he would want to do the right thing, for Sophie and me. But he never got the chance...

“It happened three weeks ago. Another girl had called in sick and I was the only one working the floor that night. I didn’t get home till two in the morning.

“I knew something was wrong as soon as I pulled into the driveway. Eddie’s pickup was there, but it had jumped the curb. It was parked half in our yard, half in the road. Its driver-side door was hanging open. The front door of our house was wide open, too.

“The first thing I noticed when I stepped inside the house was the smell of blood. It was so strong I could
taste
it.

“I found Eddie in the hallway. Somebody had...blown his head off. With a shotgun. He was lying on his stomach and his...brains...were splashed all over the carpet.

“I ran to Sophie’s room, screaming her name. But she was gone. There weren’t any signs of a struggle. Her bedroom looked just like it always did, except some of her clothes were missing. Her closet door was open. Her dresser drawers had been pulled out. Like she’d packed her stuff in a hurry.

“We were getting along so well, finally building a life together. I never should’ve insisted that she come live with us. Aunt Patty was right. She was happy up there. Safe. Now I don’t know whether my daughter is alive or dead. And it’s all my fault.

“Oh, God, it’s all
my fault
...”

†

When she was done Melissa sank even further into her seat, and from the back of her throat came a moan of despair. Her hands splayed out before her on the tabletop, as if she feared she might fall off of this world if she didn’t hold on to something.

“I’ll be damned,” said Nick. “I’m a
grandfather
?”

“It’s true.”

“I can’t believe your mother never told me.”

“
No one
knew. We had the arrangement with Aunt Patty. By the time I got pregnant, you were barely calling more than once or twice a year. Mom thought it wouldn’t matter one way or the other if you did know.”

Nick had never felt so low.

“I didn’t say that to hurt you,” she assured him.

“No. If the shoe fits, right?”

In her distressed features Nick could see the little girl his daughter had once been. A child he had barely known, but whom he recognized, however vaguely.

He shifted in his seat, decided there would be time for apologies later. “What are the police saying about this? There must have been some kind of search party?”

Melissa picked up her battered pack of cigarettes, but then realized she had already smoked her last one. She cursed under her breath, let the empty pack drop back onto the tabletop.

“They made a big show of it at first,” she said. “A bunch of guys from the Rescue Squad dragged the river. That was the hardest thing I ever had to watch. Sheriff Mackey keeps telling me he hasn’t given up, but then in the same breath he says most missing teenagers are missing because they
want
to be. Thing is, to the cops Eddie was just a piece-of-shit drug dealer. They’re not in any hurry to arrest whoever killed him.”

“Wait,” said Nick. “You don’t mean—”

“They think Eddie...touched her. That maybe he’d been doing it for a while, and she finally had enough.”

Nick swallowed a sick taste in his mouth. “Melissa, forgive me. Could they be on to something?”

“No way. Eddie wasn’t a good guy, I know that. But he never would’ve laid a hand on Sophie.”

Nick nodded, though he refused to rule anything out for now. “She’s a suspect, then?”

“Not officially. But they keep calling her a ‘person of interest.’ Whatever that means. They even questioned Aunt Patty at one point. They thought
she
might be hiding Sophie away. Of course, we’re not on speaking terms anymore. Aunt Patty blames me for everything.”

“What do
you
think happened that night?” Nick asked her.

“I think Sophie witnessed Eddie’s murder. And whoever killed him kidnapped her ’cause she’d seen too much.”

“What about his truck? You said it was sitting up on the curb when you got home, with the door open. Sounds to me like he might have been running from somebody.”

“That’s what I thought. Still do. But according to Sheriff Mackey, the autopsy showed Eddie’s blood-alcohol level was over twice the legal limit. Their theory is, he came home shitfaced, went after Sophie but she was waiting for him.”

Nick took a minute or two to let everything she had told him sink in.

“Any way you look at it, it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense,” he said. “She takes the time to go through her closet, pack a change of clothes, after she’s just witnessed your boyfriend’s murder? I don’t buy it. She would have been scared to death. She would have gotten out of that house as soon as possible. Hid in the woods till the killer took off, I don’t know. But she wouldn’t just hang around. Which means one of two things: either the cops are right, and she killed Eddie—you do need to prepare yourself for that possibility, Melissa—or his murderer allowed her to take some of her things along for a reason.”

“Oh, God.”

“Whoever killed Eddie, he didn’t want any witnesses, he wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her too. But if we’re onto something here, this person made her pack a change of clothes. That means your daughter is
alive
. And he planned to keep her that way.”

“But what did he want with her? What is he doing to my baby
right now
?” Melissa sobbed.

Nick shook his head, didn’t know how to answer that. He opted not to mention another possibility: that his granddaughter might have been in cahoots with the culprit even if she didn’t pull the trigger.

“She took her medicine with her too,” Melissa said. “Every time I think about that I want to break down again.”

“Medicine?”

“Lamictal. Sophie’s epileptic. It keeps her from having seizures.”

Nick’s heart ached worse than ever for this young lady—both of them—who shared his blood yet remained a mystery to him.

“She refused to go anywhere without her pills. Back when we were still talking, Aunt Patty told me Sophie had a seizure at school one time. Ever since, she’s been mortified at the thought of it happening again in public. She said a bunch of stuck-up cheerleader types recorded the whole thing on their iPhones so they could all laugh at it later.”

“How often does she have to take this—”