A Long Time Gone by Karen White Page B

weeds that seemed to have sprouted since I’d seen it the day before.
    The ground was still soft from the heavy rain but not as flooded, the standing puddles shallow. Long running trenches had been carved around the cypress tree as the CSI team had searched for more evidence. Or more bones. Although the remains had been removed, Tripp had told me to expect more people today, just to make sure nothing remained. I paused, looking around me at the destruction, both man-made and not, and it unsettled me. Maybe it reminded me too much of my own life, with everything out of place and not appearing as it should. I half turned to go back inside but stopped when I heard voices.
    I stepped past the broken gate and moved toward the cotton shed. The chant of a thousand cicadas came to me in waves, the soundoscillating like a song on the radio in Bootsie’s old car, the red line of the tuner stuck between stations. My gaze moved toward the base of the felled tree and stopped. The blue tarp that had covered the hole had been pushed aside and a long stretch of the yellow caution tape appeared to have been ripped in half. With matching bare feet gripping the edge of a large root that bisected an edge of the hole, my mother and Chloe stood, holding hands. My stepdaughter’s black hair, usually unbrushed and flying around her head in uncontrolled curls, had been smoothed back into a ponytail held back by a bright red bandanna similar to the one I’d seen my mother wearing.
    I regarded them in silence for a few moments, trying to catch my breath, feeling
betrayed
somehow. As if I’d been circumvented and the two of them had found their way to each other before I could intervene.
    â€œChloe!” I shouted, realizing my error as both of them began to sway on their precarious perch.
    I watched with relief as their momentum slowed and they were once again still. I pressed my fingers to my temple, wishing the pain would stop. “What are you doing? Do you have no clue what yellow crime-scene tape is all about?”
    â€œSome guy named Tommy made us breakfast and told me that they found a skeleton here,” Chloe said, her black-rimmed eyes—smeared from sleep—and black T-shirt giving her pale skin an ashen cast.
    â€œI know,” I said cautiously, cursing Tommy under my breath. He and my mother had been asleep when we’d arrived home the previous night, and I’d hoped to waylay him this morning to prepare him for Chloe.
    â€œI had no idea,” my mother said, shaking her head. “We should ask Bootsie if she knows about it.”
    I imagined I could feel my brain throbbing inside my skull. “Bootsie is de . . .” I stopped, recalling what Tommy had said:
She’s in her own little world right now, a world that’s gonna get smaller and smaller, and I’m not going to recognize her anymore.
    â€œBootsie isn’t here,” I said, harsher than I’d meant to. Trying to change the subject to something less volatile, I said, “You both need to come back to the other side of the tape. The sheriff is coming here this morning and I don’t want him to find you where you’re not supposed to be.”
    Like a docile child, my mother left her perch on the root and moved to stand next to me. With a heavy sigh, Chloe followed at a much slower pace. When they were securely on my side of the tape, I reached down and grabbed both ends before tying them together in a knot, hoping the sheriff wouldn’t notice.
    Carol Lynne grabbed Chloe’s hand and began leading her toward the garden. “You need to meet Bootsie. I’m sure she’ll have some clothes with a little more color that would be appropriate for a young girl. Maybe we can go downtown after lunch to Hamlin’s to find some new makeup for you that’s more flattering.”
    I wanted to tell her that Hamlin’s probably didn’t sell anything that Chloe would want to wear, and