1980
Grizz didn’t have to think long about a plan to handle Kit’s mother, Delia, and her newfound sobriety and search for her daughter. It was obvious she was feeling guilty about a lot of things from the past and wanted to make things right with the child she had neglected her entire life.
Less than a week later, he answered a page from Guido.
“Gee, boss. You sure work fast,” Guido said to him when he called.
“What are you talking about?”
“Her parents. I don’t know how you pulled it off, but it was brilliant. No one would ever suspect.”
“Pulled what off? What are you talking about?”
“That wasn’t you? Now that I think about it, it would have to be a perfect plan, and I can’t think of how you could actually get someone to do it.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Guido?” Grizz roared.
“Her parents. Your wife’s parents. They’re dead. Killed in a head-on over the weekend. I wouldn’t have even known about it, but some neighbors knocked on the door and said they heard and wanted to know if I knew of any next of kin to contact.”
Grizz was momentarily speechless. The person who’d been watching Delia hadn’t reported this. He hadn’t seen her in a couple of days and had told Grizz he thought they might’ve gone out of town or something.
Grizz was still hashing out a plan to get rid of them, but hadn’t pulled the trigger on it yet. He was still working on the details with his contact. Now, it looked like he wouldn’t have to do anything. The forces of nature had intervened and handled a problem for him. Hot damn.
Then he thought of something.
“Guido, I need you to do something, and I need you to do it immediately.”
Guido listened as Grizz told him what to do.
The next day, Guido was waiting for Grizz in the office of The Red Crab. Grizz went in and shut the door behind him.
Grizz looked around the office. “Where’s the stuff? In your car?” he asked as he took his seat behind the desk.
“No, it’s right here.” Guido held up a leather bound book in his right hand.
Grizz hadn’t been certain how he was going to get rid of Delia and Vince. He knew he wouldn’t have had them killed. He could never do that to Kit. Even if she never found out, he didn’t think he could look her in the eye. But he’d been planning to find a way to persuade them not to look for her. The car accident changed everything. And he realized he didn’t want anything that belonged to Kit to come to the notice of any authorities who would be in that house. He didn’t want a reminder that Delia had had a runaway daughter five years earlier. Bottom line, he didn’t want anyone to start searching for her again. He wasn’t certain that would happen, but he had to make sure it didn’t.
“How long were you in there?”
“Almost three hours,” Guido said seriously. “I checked everything and everywhere. The attic, the walls, the mattresses.” He paused. “I also made sure nobody would notice the search. You know I know how to handle this kind of thing without causing attention, right?”
“Yeah,” was all Grizz said.
“This is all that was there.” He handed the book over the desk to Grizz.
It was a Bible. Grizz opened it and saw the inscription on the first page. The name Guinevere Love Lemon was neatly printed in what was obviously a child’s handwriting. Kit’s handwriting.
“You went through the entire fucking house and this is all you found of hers?”
“That’s it. There wasn’t a framed picture, a stuffed animal, an old report card, or a drawing. Nothing. My ex-wife used to keep all her kid’s drawings on the refrigerator. They were all over our house. It’s like Kit never existed. Her old bedroom was set up like an office or something. Didn’t even have a bed in it. Guess when she left, they really cleared her stuff out. You remember when I got her guitar at that garage sale, a lot of her stuff was out there with it. That was, what? Five years ago? Guess Delia just got rid of everything.” Guido shrugged. “Well, except for a few things. There are a couple of mementos in the back of the book.”
He nodded at the Bible that was now sitting on Grizz’s desk.
Grizz leafed through the pages and pulled out what was stuck between them. He stared at the picture and stiffened. It was a picture of Kit when she was young. He looked on the back. It wasn’t dated, but he knew it was during that time when she wasn’t being fed properly. He could tell by the hollowness in her cheeks. Her big brown eyes stared back at him. She had dark circles beneath them.
This was the only picture Delia had kept of her daughter?
Grizz then looked at the other item tucked in with the picture. It was several pieces of paper, some notebook paper, some copy paper, folded in half and held together with a thin paper clip. He unfolded them and read the handwritten note first. It was three pages long and written in neat script on notebook paper. He skimmed the first couple of paragraphs, then set the papers aside. Next he turned his attention to the four pieces of paper attached to it with a paper clip. Something on one of the pages caught his attention. He squinted in concentration, his brows furrowed.
“The note explains it,” Guido said. “You have to read the whole thing, though.” Guido grimaced. Shit. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to tell Grizz he’d read it.
Grizz reread the handwritten note. Finally, he murmured, “This is beautiful. This is fucking beautiful.”
The letter and documents sure explained some things. It also tied in with what Steven Marcus had told him all those years ago. Marcus, the scumbag who’d been abusing his kid. The boy Kit used to babysit. Marcus had come clean about what he had on Delia, but he didn’t mention this. Maybe he’d never looked into it because it wasn’t as big as Delia’s real secret. Or he’d never found it because the note explained Delia had just received some of this recently.
Grizz folded the pieces of paper back up and tucked them, along with the picture, back into the Bible. Handing it back to Guido, he said, “Hold on to this for me. Keep it in a safe place.”
Then he leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Delia,” he said out loud. “You clever, fucking piece of shit.” Then he laughed harder.