Rescue Me

daddy set up a trust fund for an unnamed beneficiary born in New Mexico, June tenth of 1985?”
    She scrunched up her nose and brow. “Is that what that says?”
    “I think so. Did you hear this read in the lawyer’s office that day?”
    “No, but you can’t go by me. I fell apart like a flour-sack dress that day.” She straightened. “June tenth of 1985,” she pondered, and clicked her teeth with her tongue. “I wonder if this has to do with Marisol? She left in such a hurry.”
    Sadie lowered the Coke to the table. “Who?”
    “Ask Mr. Koonz,” Clara Anne suggested, then bit her lips together.
    “I will. Who’s Marisol?”
    “It’s not my place to say.”
    “You already did. Who’s Marisol?”
    “The nanny your daddy hired right after your mama died.”
    “I had a nanny?”
    “For a few months and then she left. She was here one day and gone the next.” Clara Anne folded her arms beneath her breasts. “She came back about a year later with a baby. We never believed that baby was your daddy’s.”
    “What?” Sadie stood before she realized she’d jumped to her feet. “What baby?”
    “A girl. At least the blanket was pink. If I remember right.”
    “I have a sister?” This was crazy. “And I’m just now hearing about it?”
    “If you had a sister your daddy would have told you.”
    She scrubbed her face with her hands. Maybe. Maybe not.
    “And don’t you think everyone in town would have talked about it?” Clara Anne shook her head and dropped her arms. “They’d still be dinin’ out on it at the Wild Coyote Diner.”
    Now that was true enough. If Clive Hollowell had an illegitimate child, it would be the topic of the century at every dinner table in town. She would have certainly heard something by now.
    “Then again, me and Carolynn were the only two here when Marisol showed up that day. And we never spoke about it.”

Chapter Eighteen
    T he Road Kill bar hadn’t changed much in ten years. Country music poured from the same Wurlitzer jukebox. Old road signs and stuffed critters still decorated the walls, and fashion-minded patrons could purchase rattler skin belts and tanned armadillo handbags from a display case behind the mahogany bar. The owner of the Road Kill was a taxidermist on the side. And it was said that Velma Patterson, bless her heart, had hired him to stuff her poor yappy dog, Hector, the unfortunate victim of some maniac hit and run driver.
    Sadie sat at a table near the back corner beneath a stuffed coyote, its head lifted and howling at the ceiling. Across from her, dim bar lights reflected off Deeann’s red pouf as the two of them threw back a couple of margaritas. Deeann had called earlier and talked Sadie into meeting her at the bar. Not that she’d had to twist Sadie’s arm. Sadie hadn’t had anything else going on and a lot on her mind. She’d met with Mr. Koonz that morning and discovered that her daddy had been supporting “the unnamed beneficiary” for the past twenty-eight years. There was no acknowledgment of any paternity. Or even any name on the Wells Fargo bank account in Las Cruces. At least that’s what her father’s lawyer told her, but Sadie didn’t believe him.
    “I always try and get out on the weekends that the ex has the boys,” Deeann said as she sipped her blended drink.
    Sadie preferred hers served over rocks. Less chance of brain freeze. For her outing at the Road Kill, she’d worn a simple white sundress, a blue cardigan, and her boots. The more she wore the boots, the more she remembered why she’d liked them so much. They were so worn in; they fit her feet like the caress of a glove.
    “The house is too quiet without the boys.”
    Sadie knew a thing or two about quiet houses. Once the Parton twins left for the night, the house was too quiet. So quiet she could hear her daddy’s horses in the corral. So quiet she listened for a phone that never rang, a beep from a text message that was never sent, and the sound of a truck that never rolled up to her front door.
    “We haven’t really had a chance to chat since before your daddy died.” Deeann took a sip. “How are you doin’?”
    “Busy.” Which was how she liked it. Busy so she didn’t have time to sit around and think about losing her daddy. And Vince. Although she supposed Vince had never really been hers to lose.
    “I drove past the Gas and Go the other day, and noticed the new signs. When is Vince opening again?”
    Sadie had seen the new signage and