The Second Silence (44 page)

Doris straightened. ‘Well, for heaven’s sake, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’

‘It could be life or death. Please, Mrs Quinn,’ Bronwyn pleaded.

A picture of Noelle’s half sister formed in Doris’s mind: a honey-skinned girl, all legs and hair. Charlie’s girl, through and through. No, of course she wouldn’t be making this up. Doris brought a trembling hand to her throat.

‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘I’ll go get her
…
’

Doris, her heart beating much too fast, placed the receiver on the table and turned to grasp hold of the banister. She was halfway down the stairs when all at once they seemed to slide out from under her like a steep, pebbled incline giving way.

She cried out, more in surprise than in fear, skidding the last half dozen steps on her backside before landing with a horrid thump on the floor below. There was a dull crunch, like a bone snapping. A searing pain flashed through her. She mewed weakly, unable to manage more than that. Waves of grayness lapped over her, and there was a high ringing in her ears, like when a TV station signed off for the night. Then she, too, slipped into oblivion.

The moment she stepped through the back door, Noelle sensed something amiss. The house was quiet,
too
quiet. Even the air seemed to swirl about her like dust motes in the wake of a sudden exit. ‘Nana?’ she called out, lowering her grocery sack full of fresh-picked zucchini onto the kitchen counter.

No answer, just the radio playing softly.

You’re being paranoid,
she told herself. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour at most since she’d gone next door. What could have happened in so short a time? Even so, she wished that she hadn’t given in when Mrs Inklepaugh plied her with coffee and cake, then insisted on loading her up with more squash than they could possibly eat in a month.

Noelle wondered idly if her grandmother still had that recipe for zucchini bread. She could make an extra loaf for Hank. He’d appreciate it, she thought. On the other hand, she wouldn’t want him to be reminded of all those cakes and casseroles left on his doorstep by lonely ladies with marriage on their mi—

A sudden noise caused Noelle to freeze. ‘Nana?’ she called again. Suppose it wasn’t her grandmother? Suppose it was Robert lying in wait?

There it was again. It sounded like a moan. Noelle, heart in throat, dashed out into the hall. She was rounding the corner into the front entry when she spied her grandmother, crumpled at the foot of the stairs like a carelessly discarded coat.

Noelle collapsed onto knees gone suddenly boneless. Nana was unconscious, her face a waxy grayish white, but her eyelids were fluttering. She wasn’t dead. A wave of relief swept through Noelle.

‘Nana, don’t move. I’m going to call Hank.’ The calmness with which she spoke surprised her; she was trembling so badly she didn’t know how she was going to stand, much less climb the stairs to the phone.

But somehow she summoned the strength, only to find the phone on the landing mysteriously off the hook. Nana must have tried to reach her at the Inklepaughs’, then forgotten to hang up; she was getting so forgetful these days. Noelle thumbed the switch hook and quickly punched in Hank’s number.

His nurse receptionist, Diane Blaylock, blessedly wasted no time in putting him on. When Noelle told him why she was calling—once more surprised by the steadiness of her voice, which was in direct contrast with the hammering of her heart—he was quick to take charge.

‘Don’t try to move her,’ he cautioned. ‘She may have broken something. Just stay put until I get there.’

Hank arrived minutes later accompanied by several firemen. Noelle had left the front door open, and when he dashed in, still in his white coat with his tie askew, she nearly wept with relief. He knelt at once to take her grandmother’s pulse and gently probe for anything that might be broken.

‘You’re going to be all right, Doris,’ he murmured soothingly. ‘You’ve taken a bad tumble, that’s all.’ Hank gestured at the strapping firemen standing by with a gurney.

Nana groaned, struggling toward consciousness. ‘No … hospital,’ she muttered thickly. ‘Got to find my grand— Noelle? Noelle, honey, where are you?’

‘I’m right here, Nana,’ Noelle called from a few feet away.

‘Emergency…’ Nana’s eyes rolled in fear, eyelids fluttering.

Hank patted her hand reassuringly. ‘Yes, we’re taking you to the emergency room, Doris, but don’t worry. I’ll make sure they don’t keep you any longer than absolutely necessary.’

‘No … please … have to tell Noelle
…
’

He produced a syringe. ‘I’m giving you a little something for the pain. Just relax. In a minute you won’t feel a thing.’

Noelle watched her grandmother’s eyes drift shut. An immense gratitude welled up in her. It was as if all her adult life she’d been looking through the wrong end of a telescope and was now seeing the man she should have been married to all along. A man in wrinkled chinos and a plaid shirt missing a button who wasn’t the least bit suave or fashionable but who was worth ten of any movie star you’d care to name. When he glanced up to fix her with his warm tea brown gaze, she thought with a pang of regret,
I’d have you in a minute, Hank Reynolds
…
if my world would just hold still long enough for you to hop on.

The irony was that today was her anniversary. She hadn’t remembered until just this morning when it had occurred to her, in the midst of brushing her teeth, that nine years ago she’d been blissfully preparing for a wedding without the slightest notion of what she was getting into.

Hank insisted on driving her to the hospital in Schenectady. ‘Think of it as a favor to me,’ he said, gently but firmly pulling the car keys from her hand.

‘What about your other patients?’ she asked.

‘Diane can hold the fort down until I get back.’

Noelle was climbing into her Volvo when she heard the phone begin to ring inside the house. It had been ringing off and on for the past ten or fifteen minutes, but she hadn’t bothered to answer it. And she wasn’t going to now. Whoever it was would just have to call back. Putting it out of her mind, she closed her eyes and said a little prayer that her grandmother would be all right.

Before long Hank and she were racing north on the interstate as fast as the speed limit would allow. They arrived at the hospital just as Nana was being wheeled out of Radiology, still groggy and muttering something incoherent about Bronwyn, of all people. Noelle was relieved to note, though, that the color was back in her cheeks and even more relieved when the resident on call informed her that her grandmother was suffering from nothing worse than a slight concussion and a cracked rib.

Hank stayed until she was comfortably installed in a semiprivate room before reluctantly taking his leave. Monday evenings he made his rounds at the Sunshine Nursing Home, he explained, and if he didn’t go now, he’d be late.

Noelle insisted he take her car. She’d catch a ride back with her mother, she said. But he wouldn’t hear of it. When his cab arrived, Hank gave her a quick, hard squeeze, murmuring, ‘Call me when you get home, okay? No matter how late it is.’

‘You got it.’ She kissed him on the mouth. Here, where no one knew them from Adam, there was nothing to prevent her from doing so.

It was well after dark by the time her mother and aunt arrived at the hospital. Trish had spent the better part of the day at a book fair up in Saratoga Springs, and Mary had been out and about all afternoon, tracking down various friends of Buck Van Doren—to no avail apparently. Of course it was the one time her cell phone battery had chosen to die.

They walked in to find Nana fast asleep, with Noelle nodding off in a chair at her side. Yawning, she rose to greet them.

‘She’s fine. Just a little bruised and shook up. The doctor said she could go home tomorrow.’ Noelle kept her voice low so as not to wake her grandmother.

‘Go home and get some rest, honey,’ Mary told her. ‘We’ll stay a while in case she wakes up.’

Noelle glanced at her watch, surprised to see that it was close to ten. ‘I should wait. Nana was really worked up about something. She kept muttering that I had to call Bronwyn -that it was important.’

‘You know how confused she gets. I’m sure it was nothing.’ Aunt Trish took her arm and steered her toward the door. ‘If she wakes up, we’ll explain that you had to leave. Your mother’s right—you should get some rest, or
you’ll
be the one in need of medical attention.’

Noelle thought of Hank and wondered if that would be so terrible.

Mary accompanied her out into the corridor. The strain of the last few weeks was beginning to show on her as well. She looked drawn, her eyes faintly bloodshot. She brought a hand up to stroke Noelle’s hair lightly. ‘Drive carefully, okay?’

She sounded just like Nana.
One day I’ll be telling Emma the same thing.
Noelle felt a pang at the thought.

It was a quarter to eleven by the time she pulled into her grandmother’s driveway. An accident on the interstate had left several lanes blocked, adding a good half hour to her trip. She was climbing the steps to the house, so wiped out all she could think of was getting out of her sweaty clothes and into bed, when a dark figure loomed from the shadows at the farthest end of the porch. Noelle let out a strangled cry.

‘Relax. It’s only me.’ Bronwyn stepped into the feeble glow of the porch light.

Noelle dropped into the wicker chair by the door, a hand pressed to her wildly bucking heart. ‘You scared me half to death!’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to spook you.’ Wearing a faintly sheepish look, Bronwyn sank into the chair beside hers. ‘I tried calling, but you weren’t home. I’ve been trying for
hours.
’

‘My grandmother fell and hurt herself. I was at the hospital.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Her sister looked as stricken as if she’d caused it. ‘Is she—I mean, she’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’

‘Luckily, it’s just a cracked rib. She’s coming home tomorrow.’ Noelle suddenly remembered the phone that had been ringing when she left, and Nana’s incoherent muttering at the hospital. ‘What’s so important it couldn’t wait until morning?’

‘Remember Dante, the guy I told you about? The one I’m seeing?’ Bronwyn leaned forward in her urgency.

‘The guy you’re sneaking around with behind Dad’s back, you mean,’ Noelle corrected.

‘Don’t be snotty,’ Bronwyn growled. ‘This is
serious.’

‘You’re not going to give me that cloak-and-dagger rap again, I hope.’ Noelle felt a chill edge up her spine nonetheless. It was easy to joke, but since finding out about Corinne and Buck it hadn’t been so easy to dismiss her own growing fears. She could well imagine the teenage Robert attacking his girlfriend in a fit of jealous rage
…
just as she could imagine him coming after
her.

‘Dante knows things,’ Bronwyn persisted.

‘What things?’

Bronwyn leaned close, her dark eyes pooled with shadow. ‘Whoever broke Dad’s windows and trashed that church is planning something even worse for tonight.’

‘Why are you telling
me
all this? Why not go straight to Dad?’

Her sister’s shoulders sagged. ‘If I did that, I’d have to tell him
everything.
Once the cat is out of the bag about Dante, I’ll be grounded for the rest of my life.’

‘If what you’re saying is true, don’t you think it’s worth the risk?’

‘That’s just the thing. I have no way of knowing if it
is
true.’

‘Well, what am
I
supposed to do about it?’ There were times Noelle honestly couldn’t believe the things that came out of her sister’s mouth.

‘We can’t go to the police,’ Bronwyn said.

‘That’s for sure.’ Noelle rolled her eyes.

‘I suppose the
safe
thing would be to bury our heads in the sand and hope nothing comes of it.’ Bronwyn began to chew on her thumbnail, an old childhood habit. The crafty expression she wore was equally familiar. ‘On the other hand, what if we could catch the guy in the act?’

‘You mean Robert? He wouldn’t be stupid enough to get his hands dirty,’ Noelle scoffed.

‘One of his goons then.’

‘You’ve seen too many movies.’ Noelle reached over to give her hair a playful yank. ‘Anyway, let’s say we manage to catch this goon in the act of—whatever. What proof would we have? It’d be our word against his.’

‘I thought of that, too.’ Bronwyn bent down to retrieve something from her backpack. Dad’s video camera, Noelle saw. ‘We get the guy on tape, then show it to the state police in Albany. With this kind of evidence, they’d get a confession out of him in no time.’

‘Oh, great. Now we’re Cagney and Lacey.’

‘Who?’

‘Never mind. Where is all this supposedly taking place, anyway? Do you even know
that?’

‘The Methodist church out on Grandview.’

Noelle sat upright, suddenly interested. Robert’s parents belonged to United Methodist. It was where she and Robert had gotten married. It was also where Buck was buried, in the Van Doren family plot.

Coincidence? Maybe, but if that was the case it was one coincidence too many. A good reporter, she knew, would see this as cause for investigation, if nothing more. Still, she hesitated. Something just didn’t feel right.

‘Did it ever occur to you that
we
might get caught?’ she asked. ‘If this guy, whoever he is, works for Robert we could be putting ourselves into a dangerous situation.’

‘You want Emma back, don’t you?’

Anger rose in Noelle, quick and hot. ‘I won’t even dignify that with an answer.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, but don’t you see? This could be your one opportunity to pin something on that creep. Think how you’ll feel if you don’t take advantage of it.’

Bronwyn’s words hit home. How
would
she feel?

Hugging herself, she stared out at the lighted windows up and down the street, standing out in the darkness like beacons of sanity. What would the neighbors think if they were to eavesdrop on this conversation? Nice, ordinary people who might cluck in sympathy at the faces of missing kids on milk cartons but otherwise give little thought to one of their own being taken from them. People who went to work and came home and ate supper in front of the TV, who joked about dryers that ate socks without the capacity to imagine how they’d feel if a whole chunk of their life were suddenly to vanish.