Stolen in the Night (23 page)

“P
hoebe?” she whispered, squeezing the battered medallion as if it were an amulet and
she could summon her long-lost sister by breathing her name over it. “Phoebe…”

For one moment, she felt suspended in time. Felt as if, somehow, because she was holding
this long-missing talisman, she might turn around and everything would be different.
Her blonde-haired sister, still thirteen, in sweatpants and braces, would be hovering
behind her, close enough to touch. Smiling at her…Phoebe’s face, so long lost, now
nearly forgotten, was suddenly vivid in Tess’s mind’s eye. Tess tried to hold on to
it, to keep it with her somehow, but the edges began to blur and the image faded.
Tess’s heart sank and she felt as if a magic spell had been broken.

She looked down at the twine laced through her fingers. She had to free the medallion
from the knot Erny had made to fasten it to his fishing line. There was no sensation
in her fingers. They were white and numb. Somehow she managed to rapidly sort through
the childish system of knots until she worked the end free and the twine fell away,
coiled like a slinky, and she was able to pull the medallion loose. She pressed it,
for a moment, to her lips. Phoebe. Your necklace. You were wearing it that last day….

The unpleasant tang of metal against her tongue jolted her back to the reality of
the present. Her thoughts of Phoebe were replaced by thoughts of her son, who had
recovered Phoebe’s necklace. Found it, obviously, in the place where he found the
tomato stake and the twine. Found it in the place where Phoebe’s killer had hidden
her, so long ago. At the Whitman farm. Where Nelson Abbott, his son, Lazarus, and
his nephew had all worked.

Tess stood up on unsteady legs and ran toward the corner of the house where Ken and
her mother had recently disappeared. She looked down the path, but there was no sign
of them. “Mother!” she cried out. Tess felt almost dizzy with longing to show this
relic of Phoebe’s life and death to Dawn. Oh my God. Mom. Wait until you see what
I have found. What Erny found…

But her shouts dispersed in the air. Dawn and Ken were nowhere in sight nor within
shouting distance, apparently. Tess tried to gather her thoughts. Maybe she could
call Dawn on her cell phone. But as soon as she thought of it, she knew it was futile.
Dawn was from another generation. She never took her cell phone along on a walk. Dawn
said that Ken had his, but Tess didn’t know his number.

Clutching the medallion in her palm, her heart racing, Tess took a deep breath. Maybe
I can run after them, she thought. But then she shook her head. It would be possible
to find them, of course, but it would take time. And there was no time to lose. She
felt certain that wherever Phoebe’s killer had hidden her, that was where he had hidden
Erny also. The Whitman farm. Chan Morris’s place. It made perfect sense, now that
she thought about it. She had never visited the Whitman farm, but she had passed by
it. She assumed it had outbuildings, a barn. Hiding places for a stolen child. Hiding
places that Lazarus Abbott would have known about from working there. Hiding places
that his cousin, Rusty, who worked there in the summer, would have known about, as
well.

It couldn’t be hard to find, she thought. Her mind was racing in six directions, but
she forced herself to concentrate. The Whitman farm. It was off a back road in Stone
Hill. She remembered seeing the sign for it when she had driven Erny on other trips,
to admire the changing leaves, the mountains. Her eyes narrowed. Harrison Road? she
thought. That wasn’t right. Tess squeezed her eyes shut, tried to visualize it. Harriman
Road, she thought. That’s it. Harriman Road. Now she had to get there.

She went back into the inn. She needed her coat, her cell phone, her car keys. She
tried to move deliberately, without haste. Officer Virgilio studied her movements
and Officer Swain greeted her pleasantly, but to Tess they suddenly resembled occupying
soldiers from a foreign army. She forced herself to move slowly and appear calm and
circumspect.

She pulled on her jacket, wrapped a wool scarf around her neck, and picked up her
bag. “I have to go out for a few minutes,” she said.

“Did you get a call or something?” Officer Virgilio asked suspiciously. “Don’t go
being a hero, Miss DeGraff. If somebody contacted you with information, you’d better
tell us right away.”

“Nobody contacted me,” said Tess truthfully.

“I need to be able to reach you if there is a ransom call,” said Officer Virgilio.
“I may need your authorization where your son is concerned. In fact, maybe you’d better
stay put,” said the officer. “Just in case.”

Tess hesitated, torn. “I have my cell phone with me,” she murmured.

“And I’ll be here,” said Julie, closing the door to Dawn’s quarters and coming down
the hall, looking like a walking quilt in her colorful patchwork shirt. She glanced
at Tess briefly.

Tess gazed at her sister-in-law’s honest, bespectacled face, her no-nonsense haircut,
her pudgy form pulled up to its most erect carriage. Julie did not ask where Tess
was going or why. Their recent angry words forgotten, Julie was simply loyal. Ready
and willing to do whatever Tess needed her to do. The same comforting, reliable presence
she had always been. “Erny’s aunt can speak for me while I’m gone,” said Tess. “I
trust her with my son’s life.” She turned to Julie. “You know my cell phone number,
right?”

Julie’s little dumpling of a face took on the sternness of a warrior’s. “By heart,”
she said.

Tess got out of the car and looked up at the large old Colonial house ringed by evergreens,
with its pitched roof and rows of shuttered windows. The mountains loomed behind it
like a theatrical backdrop. She had tried to call Chan Morris at the paper while she
drove to the Whitman farm, but his secretary said he was in a meeting and couldn’t
be interrupted. As Tess climbed the front steps to the house, she noted that there
was no wheelchair ramp up to the porch. How does Chan’s wife get out of here when
he’s not home? Tess wondered as she waited for someone to answer her knock.

Maybe they have servants, Tess thought. A housekeeper or something. Obviously a woman
as fragile and handicapped as Sally could not take care of a house this size. Tess
rang again. All right, she thought, if nobody answers, I’m going to start searching
the grounds and, if they complain about finding me on their property, I’ll just explain
it to them. She started to turn away from the door when she heard a voice from inside,
faint but distinct, calling out softly, “Come in.”

Tess realized, when she heard that voice, that she had almost hoped no one would answer
so that she could begin her search without explanation, but now that the voice had
summoned her, she had to go in and state her purpose. She turned the knob on the front
door and found that it opened readily. She stepped into the musty-smelling, dimly
lit foyer. The foyer faced a long hallway and staircase with a curving walnut bannister.
“Hello,” Tess called out. “Mrs. Morris?”

“Who is it?” a voice said weakly.

“It’s Tess DeGraff. Can I talk to you for a moment? Where are you?”

“Here. Off the hall…” The voice seemed to fade away.

Tess walked along the central hallway, looking into the rooms on either side. She
passed a wheelchair, which was folded up and leaning against the staircase. The sound
of her footsteps echoed on the wooden floors. The decor was surprisingly austere for
such a large house. Despite its elegant wide moldings and high ceilings, the house’s
furnishings were a monument to New England reserve and the house had an air of having
seen better days. Tess looked into a living room that had gray-striped wallpaper and
a grouping of chairs, a sofa, and a matching love seat with threadbare upholstery.
On the wall above the mantel was an imposing oil painting of Chan’s grandmother. Tess
recognized the severe features and the snapping black eyes from the photos at the
newspaper office. On another wall, above the love seat, was a much less impressive
portrait of a pretty, young woman in a white gown. Chan’s mother? Tess wondered. She
took a step closer to look at the portrait and jumped when she heard a voice say,
“Here.”

Tess turned and saw that there was a cane propped against one of the wide-backed wing
chairs. Sally Morris’s tiny frame was huddled in the wing chair, her clogs lying by
one of the chair’s claw-feet. “Sorry, I didn’t see you,” said Tess. “I was just looking
at…” She gestured to the painting.

“Chan’s mother,” said Sally with a sigh. Then she turned her head and stared blankly
into a tiny fire in the hearth that Tess had not noticed from the door of the room

Tess nodded. “She was very pretty,” she said.

Sally nodded and pushed her hair back off her face. Tess saw that there was a healing
gash along her hairline on the right side of her face. Tess had not noticed it earlier,
at Charmaine’s, although when she looked at Sally���now swathed in baggy pants, socks,
and a bulky sweater—she couldn’t help remembering all the bruises she had seen on
her wasted body when she’d been lying on the massage table. Sally looked up at her.
Her eyes were shadowy in the gloomy room.

“I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing,” said Sally. “I realized as soon as I hung
up that it was a mistake. I tried to call you back but I got no answer.”

Tess looked at her blankly.

“Aren’t you the woman from SHARE?”

“Share?” said Tess.

Sally’s eyes widened in alarm and she drew back against the chair back. “Who are you?
What are you doing here?”

“I’m Tess DeGraff. Don’t you remember? We met at the airport.”

Sally looked at once puzzled and then disappointed. “Oh. What do you want?”

“I’m, um…I’m looking for something. Uh…” Tess realized that she had not prepared an
adequate explanation. “My son…was here the other day and I think he left something.”

“His fishing pole,” Sally said in a dull voice. “Your brother already came for it.”

Tess pressed her lips together. “He left a jacket, too. My brother was supposed to
be taking care of him, but, you know men…”

Sally looked back into the tiny, dwindling fire in the hearth and did not reply.

“Anyway, would you mind terribly if I looked around for it? He was down by your pond
and in the fields.”

“I don’t care,” said Sally, her voice a dull monotone.

“Thank you,” said Tess, starting to back out of the room. “I really appreciate it.”

Sally lifted her hand a few inches and waved it, as if to wave her away. Suddenly
Tess heard the front door slam. It must be Chan, she thought. He would immediately
realize that this had something to do with Erny’s disappearance, and while she could
use his help, she had to be careful what she said because she was not ready for it
to be all over the news. But before she could think of how she might explain things
to Chan, a large woman with thick brunette hair and high color, wearing a voluminous
gray tweed coat, appeared in the door.

“There you are, Mrs. Morris,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Gwen. I’m here from SHARE.”

Sally looked at Gwen in alarm. “No. I don’t need you. You have to leave.”

Gwen ignored the panic in the woman’s voice. She turned to Tess and extended a hand.
“Are you a friend of Sally’s?”

Tess shook her hand but also shook her head. “No. No. I just came to ask Mrs. Morris
if I could look for something…on her property.”

Gwen’s smile faded. She went over to the chair where Sally was sitting and pulled
up a chair beside her. She looked pointedly at Tess. “Could you excuse us?” she asked.
“I need to talk to Mrs. Morris privately.”

Sally began to cry and put a limp hand on the forearm of Gwen’s tweed coat. “Really…”
she said. “I am grateful to you for coming, but I shouldn’t have bothered you. I was
just feeling…a little weak. If I can just get some rest, I know I’ll feel better.”

“You were right to call,” Gwen insisted.

Tess backed quietly out of the room and then hurried toward the front door. She realized
that this must be another medical crisis for Sally. Maybe SHARE was an organization
for people with muscular diseases.

Tess walked out on the porch. A maroon van with the SHARE logo on its side was parked
directly at the foot of the front steps. Otherwise, the vast farm seemed deserted.

Where? she thought. Where, on this property, had Rusty Bosworth hidden her son? She
got into her car and began to drive slowly. She passed a barn and horse pasture. Several
horses grazed in the shadow of the white-capped mountains. The barn? she thought.
She got out of the car and walked toward it.

Unlike the house, the faded red structure looked as if it had not been painted in
years. There was an air of neglect about the place. She went inside and looked around,
but apart from a barn cat who stared at her indignantly, the barn was filled with
dingy tackle, hay, and little else. Besides, the barn doors were opened on both sides.
No one would try to hide someone and leave the doors open, she thought.

On one side of the barn was a closed door and the sign on the door read “Office.”
Tess tried the doorknob and jiggled it. It did not open. “Erny,” she cried, twisting
the doorknob. She leaned all her weight against it and the door, not locked but swollen
shut with moisture, opened. Tess stumbled into the room. The walls were papered with
feeding schedules written in a careful hand, a calendar of pin-up girls on tractors,
and other farm machinery and lists of chores and equipment maintenance. The desk was
piled high with receipts and reminders. This has nothing to do with Erny, she thought.
She was about to turn away when it occurred to her to open the desk drawer and see
if there were keys inside there. She did not want to have to break down every locked
door of every outbuilding on the property. She tugged at the drawer and it opened.
But there were no keys inside. Dammit, Tess thought. Just as she was about to close
it again, something pink and lacy caught her eye. Tess reached into the drawer. Tucked
away in a corner, under a couple of equipment operating manuals, was a pink envelope.
Tess pulled it out and looked at it. The envelope was torn open and the lacy edge
of a valentine was visible. Tess pulled out the card, which was worn and creased from
having been handled many times. In that same neat hand that had made the feeding charts,
someone had written “Valentine’s Day, 1961.” Inside the card, beneath the lovelorn
message, it read: “To N. Always and forever, M.”