Page 8 of Little Girl Vanished
“Is Daddy okay?” I asked, but her lack of hysteria practically assured me that my father wasn’t lying on their bedroom floor in the middle of a heart attack. Still, I felt the need to check. He’d had some chest pain recently, but the doctors had determined it to be stress-induced.
To be clear, I was the stress.
When I’d permanently moved to Little Rock fourteen years ago, I’d sworn never to return except for short visits, but fate just loved giving me a big F-you.
She grabbed more dishes and glassware from around the small room and started loading them in the dishwasher. “You’re father’s fine. He’s currently walking on his treadmill, something you could probably stand to do.” She gave me a pointed look and glanced down at my midsection.
I’d gained ten pounds stress eating and drinking, but being accused of murder and losing everything would do that to a woman. Still, I was far from obese. I’d been obsessive about staying in shape for my job.
“I’ll go for a run later.”
She stopped with a plate mid-air, bent over the open dishwasher. “It might not be safe.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why not?”
My mother started opening cabinets and closing them with a bang.
A fresh wave of pain shot through my head. “Are you looking for something?” I asked.
“Coffee. Surely you haven’t gone to a strictly alcoholic diet.”
“Bottom cabinet to the right.” I headed to the bathroom on the other side of the room. She wasn’t ready to talk, so I could at least brush my teeth and get the rancid taste out of my mouth.
“Why would you store coffee in a bottom cabinet?” she asked. “Animals could get into it.”
I grabbed my toothbrush and smeared paste across the bristles. “I don’t have any pets, so if an animal gets into it, losing my coffee will be the least of my worries.” I popped the brush into my mouth and turned it on. The small vibration aggravated my throbbing head.
Why had I thought finishing off that bottle of whiskey after I got home was a good idea last night?
She pulled the package out and opened it, scrunching her nose again. “They’re beans.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said around my toothbrush, heading over to her, mostly because drinking a cup of caffeine wasn’t the worst idea in the world. “My Breville grinds the beans.”
“Harper Leigh,” she said, staring at me as though I’d emerged from the bathroom holding a bloody knife. “We do not brush our teeth outside of the bathroom. Have you become completely uncivilized?”
“Good to know the barometer of civilization is where one brushes their teeth.” I gave her the side eye as I turned on my espresso machine. The engine hummed to life.
“Your fancy pants coffeemaker,” she said in disgust. “There’s nothing wrong with a KitchenAid coffee pot.”
“It’s saved me a fortune from Starbucks,” I said around the toothbrush, then leaned over the small kitchen sink and spat toothpaste into the drain. Not that Jackson Creek had a Starbucks. I was pretty sure the closest Starbucks was over fifty miles away.
“Harper Leigh! I raised you better than that! Is that what they taught you in the police academy? To spit like the boys?”
“They’re not boys, Mom. They’re men.”
“That’s right,” she declared, her fingers clutching the hem of her jacket and twisting. “Men. You should never have tried to become one of them. Look what happened!”
My mother had been truly scandalized when I’d announced I’d been hired by the Little Rock Police Department and that I would be attending the police academy instead of attending the University of Arkansas School of Law so I could join my father in his practice. The thought of me wearing a patrol uniform gave her the vapors. Then, after my fall from grace, she was certain she’d become the center of even more gossip in this stupid town.
But the last part was an educated guess since until last night, I’d pretty much stayed in this apartment or their kitchen since I’d come back. Oh, and the liquor store in Wolford, the town to the north of us, but no one gossiped there. They were too busy buying their own booze to be judgmental of anyone else. Liquor stores in southern Arkansas were a great equalizer, especially this close to a dry county.
I turned off the toothbrush, rinsed it under the water at the bathroom sink, and set it upright on the counter. I hadn’t done a good job of brushing my teeth, but at least the rancid taste in my mouth was gone.
She was still holding the bag of coffee beans, so I took them from her and dumped some into the hopper. “I’ll make you a latte.”
“Half and half in my Folgers is just fine,” she said in a snippy tone.
This was the version of my mother I was most familiar with. She’d used that snippy tone almost every time she’d spoken to me since I’d moved into this apartment. Then again, she’d used it with me long before that. Ever since I’d come home that afternoon twenty-one years ago…and my sister hadn’t.