Close to You (22 page)

All that time spent working to get closer to Linda. Slowly bringing her to the point where she could be comfortable and confide her hopes and fears.

Fear. That was the problem. When Linda had sensed she was being followed, she had called the police, confiding
that she had done so to a person she had thought she could trust. A person not content with the existing contact between them. A person who knew her schedule and hid in wait for opportunities to see her more.

Of course, when the police were escorting Linda, nothing happened. The stalker lay low until Linda cried that the cops were off the case.

The wait to be with her again had been excruciating, that October five years ago. The pressure had mounted until it was unbearable. At Linda's door, that last night, her mouth had quivered and her eyes bulged in frightened recognition.

It didn't have to have ended the way it did. If only she had been able to accept the love she was offered, she wouldn't have been dragged, struggling, through the woods. If only she had listened and been open to the life they could have had together. Instead she had begun to scream. There had been no choice but to silence her. The sound of the snapping of her neck was still haunting.

Linda's body had had to be stowed in the car trunk until provisions were ready to get rid of it . . . taking it to a place that would be deserted on an early-November night.

It wasn't supposed to end that way.

It could be different with Eliza. It could be wonderful between them.

Eliza wouldn't make the same mistake Linda Anderson had.

If she did, she'd suffer the same fate.

Please, God, don't let it be that way.

Eliza turned the pages of the blue leather–bound scrapbook, reading the letters that had been neatly mounted on each thick page. In spite of his grief Samuel Morton had taken the time to organize all the letters that Eliza had penned his daughter, and had written sensitively about what he remembered of Sarah's response to receiving each one.

What that man must be going through!

“Paige,” Eliza called through the intercom, “will you see if you can get Samuel Morton on the phone for me, please?”

As she waited for the buzzer to ring, Eliza stroked the cover of the scrapbook, looking at the picture of the smiling young girl with braces on her teeth, wearing a yellow soccer uniform.

“Mr. Morton is on line three, Eliza.”

She took a deep breath and pressed the button on the telephone console.

“Mr. Morton? This is Eliza Blake. I wanted to apologize for not being here when you came in earlier this week. And I want to thank you so much for this wonderful remembrance of Sarah. That was so thoughtful of you.”

“I'm so glad if you like it. It was a therapeutic thing for
me to work on and, please, don't worry about having to cancel our meeting, Ms. Blake. I know how busy you must be.”

She liked the sound of his deep voice.

“How are you doing, Mr. Morton?”

“Please, call me Samuel.”

“Fine, if you'll call me Eliza.”

“Done,” he agreed. She could sense a slight smile on the other end of the telephone line. “Actually, I'm doing a bit better now that I'm here in New York. I needed to get away from home for a while.”

“I can certainly understand that. Do you know people here?”

“Yes, actually, I do. I used to live up here, so I'm looking up some old friends.”

“That's good. Sometimes it helps to just go through the motions of getting out with people and socializing a little bit, even though you really don't feel like it. If you sit in by yourself and think too much, it doesn't get you anywhere.”

“That's certainly the truth,” Samuel agreed. “But you know, even the best of friends are busy and have lives of their own. Plus they only have so much patience for a man who may break out in tears at any moment.”

Eliza remembered well the dinners with friends after John died and the embarrassing knowledge that they—no matter how loving and well-meaning—were somehow uncomfortable being with her. She wished there was something she could do to help this man.

“I don't suppose you'd like to go out to dinner with me, Eliza. It would be a great pleasure.”

She thought for a moment about making a lame excuse, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She rubbed the leather scrapbook. What would it hurt to take a couple of hours and spend it with a man who could sorely use a little company?

“Sure, that would be lovely. I have to ask that we keep it an early evening, though.”

“Wonderful.” She heard the enthusiasm in his voice. “You just name the time and place.”

“How about tomorrow night, right after the broadcast? I could meet you somewhere at seven-thirtyish?”

“Fine. And the place?”

“Why don't I leave that to you, Samuel? Just call my assistant tomorrow and let Paige know.”

Eliza hung up the receiver and thought about Mack. She hadn't been out to dinner alone with a man since Mack had left for London. While she didn't think dinner with Samuel qualified as a date, Eliza wished Mack knew that she would be dining with someone else.

Florence Anderson was only all too happy to talk to Keith Chapel when he called. No one wanted to hear her talk about Linda anymore. The police no longer paid attention to her. Nor were they doing anything, as far as Florence could see, to find out what had happened to her daughter. She could tell they thought she was a nuisance by the tone in their voice when she called the station house. She hated that they were resigned about the case.

She was angry. If it had been any one of
their
daughters, they wouldn't be giving up. Those cops stuck together like white on rice. If one of their own had disappeared, you could bet your sweet life, they would have found out what had happened by now. She vented her frustrations to the KEY News producer, unaware that he was thinking how good all her rage would be on television.

“The police started out all right,” Florence admitted. “In the days right after Linda disappeared, they searched all over the place, with dogs and helicopters and boats. They kept saying that they hoped they wouldn't find anything. They hoped she was alive.”

The woman paused. “Well, they didn't find anything. Now, all these years have gone by and I know in my heart
Linda is dead. I would be satisfied just to know what happened to her. I would just like to find whatever is left of my daughter and bury her in peace. You can't imagine what it's like, not knowing. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“You're right. I can't imagine,” Keith answered quietly. “Mrs. Anderson, would you be willing to be interviewed if we came out to you with a camera crew?”

“Mister, I'd stand naked on Broadway if it would help find out what happened to my Linda.”

“You must have connections. What did you have to do to get a dinner reservation here on such short notice?”

Samuel smiled but did not answer Eliza's question as they sat in the neutral-toned dining room at Jean Georges, the four-star restaurant in the luminous Trump Hotel. The austerity of the dining room, while comfortable, was lowkey, putting the focus on food. Tables were reserved weeks in advance. The waiters bent over the tables, carving and pouring, intent only their guests' pleasure.

The last touch was put on each dish after it arrived at the table. Eliza ordered the young garlic soup which arrived as a delicate bowl of purple chive blossoms. When the waiter ladled the soup over the blooms, the intoxicating aroma of garlic wafted into the air. Samuel's asparagus arrived looking tender but naked. But as the waiter dressed the spears with creamed morels, the stalks were transformed.

“I'm sure you've eaten here many times before,” Samuel said.

“Actually, no, I haven't. I've been meaning to, but just haven't gotten around to it.”

Samuel nodded. “I know how it is. A fabulous place can
be in your own backyard and you never get around to going there.”

“Something like that. I try not to go out to dinner too often, you know, with a young child at home. I like to get home to her after work.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Eliza could have bitten off her tongue at the thoughtlessness of her remark. Here she was, prattling on about her daughter, when Samuel had just lost his.

He was gracious in his response. “Of course. Your time with your daughter must be very precious to you. I apologize for keeping you from her tonight.”

“Please, this is my pleasure,” Eliza insisted. “Janie is quite happy tonight. She just got a new Disney DVD and at this moment she is most likely happily munching away on popcorn, content that Mrs. Garcia will let her stay up a little later tonight.”

“Mrs. Garcia is your nanny?”

“Nanny-slash-housekeeper. She's wonderful.”

“Good help is hard to find. I remember when Sarah was little, after her mother died, I went through a slew of caretakers. I soon realized that one was stealing from us. Another actually had her boyfriend come over and sleep in my bed while I was away on business.”

“How did you find that out? Did Sarah tell you?”

Samuel's face reddened. “I'm embarrassed to tell you. You'll surely think less of me.”

Eliza waited and, finally, Samuel continued.

“I had a funny feeling about this young woman. Call it instinct or intuition. But I was leaving Sarah with her all day long and a few times I had gotten home earlier than I was expected and found the boyfriend there. One afternoon, I even thought I smelled marijuana.”

Eliza groaned.

Samuel continued his explanation. “So on a weekend when this young woman was away, I searched her room.” He looked sharply at Eliza to gauge her reaction. He found no judgment on her face.

“You found drugs?” she asked.

“No, but I found her diary, and I read through it. She described the whole thing. How they had slept in my bed, how weird it had felt, the fun they'd had in my shower. All while my Sarah was sleeping in the room next door.” Samuel sat back in his chair. “You must think me truly awful.”

Eliza stopped to consider. Ordinarily she would recoil from such an admission, but she could appreciate the force that would drive a parent to resort to desperate measures to ensure a child's safety.

“I can certainly understand why you did what you did. I might have done the same thing,” she admitted candidly.

They talked about Samuel's work in contract law while they anticipated the waiter's arrival with their identical entrees. Pure white halibut surrounded on one side with a bright red comfit of tomatoes, on the other side, delicate green ribbons of zucchini. Lifting a sauce boat, the waiter completed the creation with an aromatic, sherrylike Château-Chalon sauce.

“Mmmm, this is fabulous,” Eliza said after taking the first bite.

Samuel nodded in agreement. “We have wonderful fish in Sarasota, and wonderful restaurants, too. Have you ever been there?”

“Never. But I've heard great things about the city. I'd be afraid, though, that I wouldn't want to go to work if I lived near the water. I love the beach.”

“Me too. There is something about the water that is so soothing. I had Sarah's ashes sprinkled in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Suddenly Eliza didn't taste the perfect food in her mouth. Her face must have registered her distress as Samuel began to apologize profusely.

“Please, forgive me, Eliza. That just popped out. It's hardly dinner conversation.”

Poor guy. It was all so fresh.

On the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, a paparazzo stood poised, hoping for a celebrity to appear. After dinner, as Samuel escorted Eliza out to the car waiting for her on Central Park West, the photographer got what he wanted.

The next morning, the
Daily News
carried a picture of two surprised faces with a caption that read, N
EW
L
OVE FOR
E
LIZA
B
LAKE.

Saturday morning brought an embarrassment of riches as Drake brought in the morning newspapers to his master as he had been trained to do. First Jerry scanned the pages of the
Record,
catching his breath as he saw the large colored picture of Eliza Blake that dominated the front page of the “Local” section. He read the article quickly, his heart racing as he realized that Eliza's house was now only a few miles from his own in Upper Saddle River. Eliza and her young daughter were now his neighbors!

He read the article over and over again before taking a pair of scissors from the drawer and cutting precisely along the black edging that outlined the story. Then he carefully folded the printed paper and slipped it into the drawer of the bedside table.

The
New York Times,
the paper that was supposed to bring the world to the reader's door, bored Jerry after what he had read in the
Record
He turned the pages matter-of-factly, noting that it looked like the Yankees were on their way to the World Series again this year. Jerry used to love playing baseball.