Still Waters (31 page)

“I’m so sorry,” Stella said. Jenna was sure Stella wanted to ask more questions, but she wasn’t the type to pry when the situation was serious.

“Thank you.” Overcome with gratitude that she had such a friend, Jenna enfolded Stella in an abrupt embrace, holding on to her as she never had before. When she released her, Jenna could see the surprised look on Stella’s face and the tears in her eyes at the unprecedented display of affection.

Stella turned away to check something on the stove. Her movements were brisk to cover her emotion. “And Adam?” she asked over her shoulder.

A smile stretched over Jenna’s face, belying the tears she felt on her cheeks. “The only good thing to come out of this,” she said. She just had to remember that, to hold onto it when things became difficult.

After that emotional scene, the evening had passed pleasantly. Christopher seemed

unconcerned with Frank’s absence and Adam’s presence.
Too young to worry about it,
Jenna had thought affectionately.
Lucky little guy.

Rose had noticed, of course. Her sensitive, intelligent eyes watched Adam and Jenna together. She didn’t say anything, but Jenna sensed she approved of the arrangement.

Adam had offered to sleep on the couch that night, but Jenna assured him she and Christopher would be all right on their own. “You have to be at work early tomorrow,” she’d reminded him. “Stay at your place; you’ll get a better start to your day.”

He’d admitted the truth of her statement, but had seemed reluctant to leave.

“Pretty soon you’ll spend every night with us,” Jenna had said with a smile. “Go home and sleep in the middle of the bed while you can.”

That had done it. He’d departed, but not before he checked all the doors and windows. “Call me if you need me,” he’d said. He had kissed her just once, deeply, and then he was gone.

Jenna hadn’t wanted to admit it, but she needed the time alone. Although she had felt much improved from yesterday and this morning, her body was still vibrating like a live wire. She’d needed to sit on her sofa in the darkened living room, knowing her son was sleeping peacefully upstairs, hearing the gentle snoring of Fritz as he snoozed on the braided rug at her feet. She needed some time to grieve.

Oh, she’d felt plenty of grief over the past forty-eight hours, and regret, self-recrimination, hopelessness. But that was for Bill and Kitty. Now was for Frank.

As sad as she was over what had happened with Bill and Kitty, in some ways she was sadder still about Frank. He had been good to her, and good
for
her in a lot of ways. She hadn’t told Adam everything about Frank’s outburst on Saturday, hadn’t revealed that he had pushed her, grabbed her, struck himself in the head. If she had, Adam would probably not have left her side for the next six months.

The shrilling of the kettle brought Jenna back to the present. She pushed herself away from the window and poured hot water into the teacup waiting on the table.

Poor Frank. Everything he’d loved about her had been a lie. He had also been trying to hold his world together, and Jenna had smashed it to bits. She’d constantly told herself that he was a good man, and he was. But he was also troubled, damaged, maybe even broken. If nothing else, he deserved her pity and her silence.

Jenna swirled the tea in her mug and checked the clock on the wall. Almost time to leave to pick up Christopher, which was good. The house was too quiet without him. Maybe she would take him to McDonald’s for lunch. That was a rare treat, but she felt the need to indulge him, spoil him, lather him with love. She was sure Adam would come for dinner tonight, and maybe with him here she could find the strength to go out and buy a turkey, make them a real Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. It would be good for the three of them to spend a quiet day together.

As Adam had said yesterday, no matter what else happened, they still had each other.

A car rolled into the driveway, its tires crunching through the thin November frost. Jenna smiled. Speaking of Adam, that had to be him, dropping in to check on her. Fritz’s ears perked up, and he trotted across the kitchen to nose at her hand. He had heard the car, and he could tell it was almost time for Christopher to come home. He was as eager as she for their little family to be back together. She petted him absently as she swallowed the last sip of her tea. Then she stood up.

Outside on the deck, the air was cold and thin, the sky gray. She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her sweater tight against the chill. When had the temperature started to drop? It felt more like January than November. Her breath made little puffs on the air. She heard a car door open, then close again. She looked expectantly at the back gate. But it wasn’t Adam, rosy-cheeked and smiling, who came around the corner of the house. It was Kitty. And when Jenna saw her, she began to feel afraid.

Kitty’s coat was misbuttoned, one side hanging down by her ankles, the other hiked up around her knees. Her hat was seated crookedly on her head, and her hair was a mess. She stumbled through the gate and up the porch stairs. Her face was as gray as the sky.

“Is Frank here?” Kitty asked sharply before Jenna could say a word.

“No,” Jenna answered. She stood back as Kitty stumbled past her, into the house. She followed and shut the door behind them. “Is everything all right? I was just about to leave to pick up Christopher.”

“He’s with Frank,” Kitty said. She put a trembling hand to her forehead.

Panic began to gather in the pit of Jenna’s stomach, but she willed it away. One thing at a time, she told herself. Kitty looked terrible: upset, even confused. Maybe she didn’t know what she was talking about. “Why don’t you have a seat,” Jenna murmured, although Kitty had already sunk into a chair. “I’ll make you some tea, and you can tell me what’s going on.”

She was halfway to the stove when the phone rang. The harsh jingling made her jump.

Kitty looked up. Her eyes were wide and dancing with frantic chaos. As Jenna lifted the receiver, she saw that her own hand was trembling, although she couldn’t have said exactly why.

Before she could speak, she heard Frank’s voice at the other end of the line, low and urgent. “Jenna,” was all he said.

She closed her eyes. “Frank, what’s going on?”

“I have Christopher.”

At the sound of those words, her panic solidified, coming together abruptly like water droplets, forming clouds of horror in the pit of her stomach. “You
have
him? What are you trying to tell me — that you’ve
kidnapped
my son?”

Kitty moaned. The sound resonated harshly through Jenna’s bones. She gritted her teeth.

“Is that Kitty?” Frank asked. “Is she there with you?”

“Yes, she’s here, and she looks upset. What the hell did you say to her? What have you done? Frank,
where is my son?”

“The truth has to come out,” Frank said. “Kitty knows the place.”

Then he hung up.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
T
WO

J
ENNA DROVE
K
ITTY’S CAR.
I
T WAS
faster than her old Ford and more reliable. Kitty sat limply in the passenger seat, arms wrapped around herself to keep warm. Her face was pale, her eyes dark and lost-looking.

Jenna kept a firm grip on the steering wheel, determined not to think about the look she had seen in Frank’s eyes the last time she had seen him, or the cold, resolute sound of his voice on the phone. Her fingers trembled, but her lips were pressed tightly together.

It was only after they had been on the road for a while that Jenna dared to speak. “What happened?” she asked harshly.

Kitty’s answer tumbled out immediately. She must have been waiting for the question. “Bill was down the street visiting his friend Jasper. I was in the kitchen cooking. The phone rang, and I answered.” She swallowed.

“It was Frank?”

“Yes. He said that he had picked Christopher up early from school. I didn’t understand what was going on. I thought maybe Frank didn’t know about…about Christopher. What you told us, I mean. I said something like, ‘Take him home and make sure his mother tells you the truth about him.’

“But he seemed not to hear me. He just said, ‘The truth must come out. When it does, Christopher will come home.’” Kitty’s voice began to tremble. Jenna released her grip on the steering wheel long enough to take Kitty’s hand and squeeze it.

Kitty took a breath and continued. “He sounded so queer. Not like himself at all. I thought maybe he’d been drinking, but then I realized that it was something else. Something worse.”

“What?”

“I think he’s gone a little mad.”

The gentle tone in Kitty’s voice chilled Jenna to the bone. Frank used to call her a savage, bloodless and cruel. She’d thought it a joke, his way of teasing her and poking fun at her upbringing. But now she looked back on the comments in a new light. Was he testing her, wanting to know how far she could go? Was he trying to teach her a lesson? Why on earth was he doing this?

The truth must come out,
he’d said, then hung up before she had a chance to tell him. She wanted to scream at him:
It has come out, you idiot! I told them! They hate me, but I told them everything!

But she hadn’t told them everything, had she? Jenna blinked. Oh.

She shook her head to clear it. She couldn’t let herself think about that now. “Did you tell Bill what happened? Did you call the police?”

“No, I didn’t,” Kitty said miserably. “Frank told me not to talk to anyone, and I was too scared to disobey him. I just put on my coat, picked up the car keys, and walked out the door.”

Jenna shook her head, disgusted with herself. “I didn’t call the police, either. No one knows what’s happening. No one but us.” How could she have been so stupid? Frank wasn’t a professional criminal. If the police had shown up instead of her and Kitty, he most likely would have given up without a fight.

Or, she thought, he might have hurt Christopher. It was too terrifying to contemplate. She just didn’t know.

She shifted gears, feeling a cold, comforting weight in her coat pocket. It was her grandfather’s World War One revolver, the same one Lucien had always carried as his service weapon. Jenna had kept the
Pistole Revolveur
locked in a box at the top of the closet. When Frank had hung up the phone, she’d gone straight to the closet and pulled down the box. The revolver was still there, cleaned after the last use and ready to go. She had loaded it and slipped it into her coat on the way out the door. The truth was, Jenna didn’t think she would be able to use it, especially not on someone she had loved the way she had once loved Frank. But like Scarlett O’Hara, she could shoot straight if she didn’t have to shoot too far, and this was not the time to wonder what she might do if the situation called for it. She just had to pray that she would not have to find out.

Cracks in the ice,
Adam had said. He didn’t know how right he had been.

Christopher. She felt her need for him squeezing her, drawing out her breath. Her arms felt empty, her heart shriveled with pain at the thought of him in trouble. The world was big and wide and cold, and she needed to find her little boy and bring him home safely.

And that was when she realized that yes, of course she could shoot Frank if she had to. She would tear and claw and bleed to get her son back. Her gloved hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. Just let him see how far she could go if he threatened to hurt her little boy. He might be very surprised.

Then again, he might not.

“We need help,” Jenna said sharply.

She didn’t realize she’d spoken the thought out loud until Kitty turned her head and said, “What? No, Frank said not to call anyone. If he sees the police — ”

“We’re not going to call the police.” Jenna’s eyes found what she’d been searching for. She braked and pulled abruptly to the right, into the parking lot of a gas station, where a sign with the black symbol for telephone was creaking in the wind. “I’ll be right back.”

Without waiting for Kitty’s protest, she got out of the car and entered the phone booth, pulling the door shut behind her. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to collect herself and remember the number she wanted to call. Then she pulled a dime from her coat pocket and deposited it in the slot. When the dial tone buzzed in her ear, she dialed Adam’s work number.

Midge answered the phone. “Davenport,” was all she said.

“Midge, it’s Jenna.”

There was a slight pause, during which Jenna pictured Midge sitting at her desk, lips pursed, trying to decide what to say. Then, “Jenna, hello. Adam’s not here right now, can I take a message?”

Jenna’s heart sank. “Is there any way to reach him?”

“He’s out at the job site, and the remote office has been having trouble with the phones. I can try, but it may not work.”