Blackberry Winter: A Novel (13 page)

I heard footsteps behind me, and I closed the little door quickly, dropping my purse. I picked it up swiftly.

“What do you think you’re doing, miss?” the man said suspiciously.

“I was just—”

He frowned. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”

“Please,” I said, “if you see a little boy—”

“If I see
you
again, I’m going to report you to the police.”

The girl appeared in the room again and looked at me with sympathetic eyes before her father pushed me out into the hallway and closed the door with a loud thud.

Outside on the street, I surveyed my purse, grateful that my pocketbook, meager as it was, remained inside. Eva’s little drawing, however, hadn’t met such a fortunate fate.
It must have fallen out.

I walked numbly out to the sidewalk. Children bundled in warm coats played hopscotch on the street as mothers looked on. “Daniel!” I called out in vain. Seagulls flew overhead, swooping and squawking in a mocking manner. The world, and every creature in it, seemed cruel and uncaring.

“Vera, is that you?” a familiar voice called out from the sidewalk up ahead.

“Gwen?”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “I’ve been so worried about you. I just saw Caroline. She told me what happened. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s gone,” I said. The words sounded foreign as they crossed my lips, as if someone else had uttered them.

“What do you mean,
gone
?”

“When I came home from work, he wasn’t there,” I said, feeling the tears sting my eyes. “The police won’t do anything because they think he ran away, but Gwen, he would have never run away.”

She put her arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “Look at you,” she said. “You’re a skeleton. Have you eaten?”

I shook my head.

She patted my arm. “There’s no sense crying out here in the cold. And you look like you haven’t eaten in days. Let me buy you a hot meal.”

My stomach growled. I hated that I had to stop to deal with hunger during a time like this, but I knew I’d be useless to Daniel passed out from weakness, so I obliged. “All right,” I said meekly.

Gwen and I walked to Lindgren’s, a little café in the Market where we used to dine, in happier times. “Two ham-and-gravy sandwiches,” she said to the waitress behind the counter.

When our food arrived, I ate absently, without tasting the flavors in my mouth. Experiencing pleasure felt wrong, somehow. Instead I took comfort in the numbness.

“Are you coming back to work?” Gwen asked cautiously.

I sighed. “I guess I’ll have to. That is, if I have a job waiting for me. I must have missed a half dozen shifts since…”

“Estella will understand.”

I shook my head. “Do you really think so?”

“I’ll talk to her for you,” she said, doling out an assortment of change from her pocketbook and setting it atop the bill. “Come down to the hotel with me. I’ll do the explaining.”

The radiator crackled and hissed in its usual fashion inside the servants’ quarters of the hotel. Linen rested in huge piles, waiting to be pressed. Estella sat at her old desk, just as she always did. And yet, everything seemed different. The axis of the world had shifted since Daniel’s disappearance, changing everything forever.

“Well, there you are,” Estella greeted me sarcastically.

Gwen jumped to my defense. “You won’t believe what she’s gone through, Estella,” she said. “Her son has been abducted. She’s been out searching for him day and night.”

Estella’s eyes narrowed, and I detected a flash of pity on her face. “Well,” she said, eyeing a piece of paper in front of her distractedly, “that
is
very sad.”

“So you’ll let her come back to work?” Gwen continued.

Estella sighed, folding the paper and tucking it into an envelope. “I wish I could,” she said. “But I’ve already hired another girl.”

“You what?” Gwen raged. “How could you? Look, this poor woman needs a job more than ever. She’s here to work even despite her missing son. Surely you have a place for her.”

Estella shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t. She didn’t show up
for work, so I was forced to hire a replacement. No hard feelings.” She straightened the spectacles on her nose. “This discussion has ended. Gwen, the sixth-floor suite needs cleaning. Look smart about it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gwen grunted.

Together we walked out to the hallway. My head felt heavy. “Gwen, you did your best. I’ll be all right.”

“I’ll give you all my tip money,” she said, “until you can get back on your feet again.”

“You most certainly will not,” I said. “But that’s very kind of you anyway.”

She followed me out to the lobby. “How will you get by, then?”

“I’ll find a way,” I replied. “I always have. Now, you’d better get up to the sixth floor before Estella finds you.”

Gwen nodded. “All right. Take care of yourself, Vera.”

“I will.”

She disappeared into the corridor that led to the servants’ elevator, and I stood for a moment, stunned, unsure of where to go or what to do. I walked a few paces and then sat down in an overstuffed chair in the lobby, teal with white satin stripes. It felt good to rest in a seat designated for wealthy patrons of the hotel. My feet ached, and a large blister had formed near the hole in my shoe. I closed my eyes.

“Excuse me.” A voice interrupted my reverie. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

I opened my eyes to find the front desk manager, an aging woman named Martha, standing before me. “You know as well as anyone that the lobby is only a place for guests of the Olympic.”

I nodded, rising to my feet. “I’m sorry,” I said, limping toward the door.

“She’s a guest,” a deep, male voice said from behind me.

I turned around to see Lon Edwards, the man I’d met in the penthouse suite last week. Today he was fully clothed.

“She’s
my
guest,” he said to Martha with authority.

Martha lowered her eyes in submission, ignoring the look of confusion on my face. “Why, yes, Mr. Edwards,” she said with a saccharine smile. “Of course.”

After Martha scurried back to the front desk, Lon smiled at me. “It’s Vera, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was awfully nice of you to do that for me, but I really didn’t need any help, Mr. Edwards.”

“Just the same,” he said, “I’d like to take you to dinner.”

I shook my head adamantly. “I can’t.”

“Oh, come now, Miss Ray, it’s only dinner,” he said playfully. “Surely I can find a way to talk you into it?” He snapped his fingers and a man about half his age and height approached.

“Yes, sir?” he said.

“Andrew, this is Miss Ray. Take her to the salon, and to Frederick and Nelson. See to it that she gets anything she wants.”

The man nodded. “Miss, when you’re ready, the car’s just outside.”

“No,” I said suddenly. “No. I can’t. I mean, it’s kind of you to take an interest in me, Lon—I mean, Mr. Edwards—but you don’t understand. It’s my son. My son has vanished. He’s been taken. I can’t have dinner with you because I have to find
him
.” Sympathy appeared in Lon’s eyes, and when I saw it, I felt hungry for it.
Starved.
My knees weakened.

“You poor thing,” he said. “Have you gone to the police?”

“Yes,” I replied. “But they aren’t doing anything. They think he ran away.”

“I’ll make some phone calls. I know the chief of police.”

My heart lightened. “You do?”

His face looked authoritative and sure. “Certainly,” he said. “We went to school together. You just leave it to me.” He paused and winked. “Maybe we can discuss the details over dinner?”

I took a deep breath. For a moment, I felt new hope. Lon knew what to do. He was a powerful man. He could help bring Daniel back to me.

“Are you ready now, Miss Ray?” Lon’s assistant said.

Where else am I going to go, without a job, without a home, without my son? Why shouldn’t I step inside Lon Edwards’s town car, especially if he might help me find Daniel?

“Yes,” I said quietly, with a defeated sigh. “I’m ready.”

C
LAIRE

E
than didn’t come home the night of the gala, didn’t even call. And as I cracked an egg into the frying pan the next morning, watching the white firm up around the edges and being careful to keep the yolk intact, I hated that I missed him. I longed to slide the egg—over easy, his favorite—onto a piece of whole wheat toast, sprinkle it with sea salt and a ridiculous amount of cracked pepper, just the way he liked it, and bring it to him. I missed the old ebb and flow of our mornings. Most of all, I longed to see him smile again, a smile unclouded by the past or uncertainty about the future.

I eyed the egg sizzling in the pan.
He’s probably at his parents’ house, that’s all.
Ethan sometimes stayed there when we fought, or when he was working late and needed a distraction-free environment. After we lost the baby, he’d spent a great deal of time at their home, a few miles outside the city. I tilted the pan at an angle over the plate, but breakfast slid into a defeated heap on the tile floor.
Splat.
I stared at the mess of runny yolk as the memory of last night came into focus like a slap to the face.

Cassandra.
I felt a bitter taste on my tongue before dismissing
the thought.
No, he wouldn’t.
But the clock ticked on the wall above. Eleven a.m. And I had no idea where my husband was.

My heart beat faster when the phone rang. There he was. Calling to apologize, no doubt. “Ethan?” I felt hopeful to hear his voice, and yet my tone sounded angry and jaded.

But the person on the other end of the line wasn’t my husband. Familiar, male, yet not Ethan. “Claire, it’s Dominic.”

“Dominic?”

“From the café,” he said a little shyly. I could hear the bustle of the morning crowd at Café Lavanto in the background: an espresso steamer hissing; the buzz of conversation; a cash register drawer opening and closing in the distance. “I’m so sorry to bother you, to, uh, call you at home. Your number was in the phone book, and…” He sounded flustered. “Listen, I don’t want you to think I’m a stalker or anything. It’s just that I found something, for your article. You’re going to want to see this.”

“Really?” I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window and grimaced. Last night’s eye makeup appeared in alarming, tear-smeared streaks down my cheeks.

“I’ve got to run,” Dominic continued. “It’s crazy here today, and one of our baristas called in sick. But do you think you can drop by the café this morning?”

“Yes,” I said, glancing outside at the remnants of the week’s snowstorm. With the snow finally melting a bit, the sidewalks were studded with mud and dirt and had taken on a gray, sludgy color. Dirty snow. “I can be there in a half hour.”

I walked into Café Lavanto with new eyes that morning, knowing that Vera and Daniel had lived here—well, upstairs, anyway. I
glanced around the café, where college students sat propped in front of laptops and happy couples gazed at each other sleepily over cups of frothy foam.
Were Vera and Daniel happy here?

Dominic waved to me from behind the counter, his white shirt stained at the pocket with a dusting of coffee grounds. “You came,” he said, grinning. He motioned to a barista to take over at the espresso machine before he walked toward me.

“Thanks for calling,” I said.

“How did the gala go?”

I shrugged. “Not well.”

“Sorry,” he said, untying his apron and hanging it on a hook on the wall. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head, letting my eyes wander the pastry case in front of me. “What I really want is to stuff my face with one of those raspberry scones.”

Dominic smiled conspiratorially. “Then let’s get you one.” He reached for the tongs on the counter and walked back around the bar to extract an enormous scone from the case. “Eat up,” he said, handing me the plate.

I took a bite, letting the crumbs fall from my mouth, unashamed. It felt good to eat, to sink my teeth into the thick, buttery scone. “So, what is this thing you found?”

Dominic nodded. “Come with me.”

We walked into the back room, and he indicated a file cabinet against the wall. “I was going through some paperwork last night, and I found this.” He produced an envelope, yellowed and wrinkled, with a torn edge.