Together Alone (37 page)

She hadn’t given them any. She had been sweet and lucid and perfectly agreeable. Except when they raised the matter of moving. Then she had put her foot down.

She wasn’t moving. She didn’t care
what
manner of housing they suggested. She wasn’t leaving this house.

She opened her eyes, then closed them again when the world continued to spin. It was pure exhaustion. She wasn’t young. Tension took its toll.

So did frustration, and she felt plenty of that. People didn’t hear her. They didn’t see her. She had tried and tried, but they didn’t get her message.

And now there was snow. Well, not very much, it was nearly gone, but the next snowfall would be greater, and the air was brittle. Worse, the grass in the backyard was dead, the ground beneath it hard and ungiving. Months were lost now. She didn’t know if she could hang on for the thaw.

Discouraged, she opened her eyes. She wanted tea, perhaps, with a biscuit and jam. That would make her feel better, give her a bit of strength. Painstakingly she drew herself up, and holding tightly, went down one stair at a time. At the bottom, exhausted, she let herself sit again. She put her head to the post again, closed her eyes again.

Slumped there like a pathetic pile of bones, she felt closer to the end than ever before. Never mind all that she still had to do, her strength was dwindling fast. She might well die before…

What, then, was her choice? If death was the inevitable outcome, what did any of it matter? If she defied Frank, she would die. If she kept her silence, she would die.

She was going to the grave for sure. The question was what awaited her there. If it was Frank—angry and betrayed—she knew what sort of hell she would meet. But if Frank was in hell himself—and she was headed for heaven—but no, she wasn’t headed for heaven.

Silence.

Just a little longer.

C
ELESTE WAS ON TOP OF THE WORLD. SHE HAD
had the best weekend ever with Carter, the best weekend ever with Dawn. Now they were both gone, Carter off to Cambridge, then on to Paris for a week’s work, Dawn back at school. Carter had sent flowers, delivered an hour after he’d left. Dawn hadn’t sent anything. But that was all right. Her pleasantness over the weekend had been a gift in and of itself.

On impulse, because his happy face seemed the perfect companion to her mood, and because even though she was sold on Carter, Carter wasn’t there, she called the widower. “Hi, Michael. It’s Celeste. I was wondering how your Thanksgiving went.
Do
you celebrate Thanksgiving?”

He chuckled in the comfortable way she remembered his being, like a fuzzy old slipper. “Yes. I’m the only Britisher in my clan. The children are entirely Americanized. We had a lovely Thanksgiving, thank you. And you?”

“Me, too. My daughter and I actually got along. I’m too hard on her, I think. But we had such a nice time.”

“What did you do?”

“We had dinner with friends, not many of us related, but still like a big happy family. That’s how I imagine yours must have been.”

“Yes and no. My daughter’s husband just lost his job, so that put something of a damper on things.”

“Oh dear.”

“I would be happy to give him work, but his field is very different. He does medical research. Unfortunately the company he was with is folding. It seems there have been irregularities in some of the studies done there, and though my son-in-law wasn’t involved in any of those, the company lost one too many contracts. It puts rather a cloud over his immediate future.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well,” he said, up again, “he’ll find something. It may entail a move, which none of us wants, but if that happens, we will cope. Haven’t much choice, have we? But I am happy about you and your daughter. Dawn, is it?”

Such a nice man, to remember. “That’s right.”

“Is she liking school?”

“Very much.”

“Then she feels good about herself. That makes all the difference.”

The words stayed in Celeste’s thoughts long after she hung up the phone. She knew what feeling good about oneself meant. Thanks to a nose job by her surgeon and a snow job by Carter, she felt better about her own self than she had in years. It did make a difference in one’s outlook on life.

Carter called from Cambridge Monday night. Celeste had just returned from dinner with Emily and Kay, abbreviated, what with John hurt, and was tickled to hear his voice. They didn’t talk long. He was leaving for Paris the next day and had hours of work to do before that. His apologies and sweet words of missing her more than made up for a lengthy talk.

She lay in bed thinking about him that night and the next. He had said that he wouldn’t be calling her, what with the time change and the attention he owed his client, still, whenever the phone rang, her eyes flew toward it and her pulse sped.

That was what happened late Wednesday afternoon. She had just returned from driving the church van and was feeling satisfied thinking of that, when the peal of the phone set her little heart to racing. By the time she dropped her purse on the table and reached for it, she had calculated that it would be approaching midnight in Paris. Carter would have finished his work and be lying in bed, thinking of her.

But it wasn’t Carter. It was Dawn’s roommate, Allison. “Is Dawn there?” she asked, sounding hesitant.

Celeste’s disappointment at not hearing Carter’s voice was offset by amusement at the thought that Dawn might have stopped by. She had religiously avoided drop-in visits, part of the precondition of her attending college in town. It was interesting to think that a pleasant holiday had softened her up on that score—unless, of course, she wanted something.

“I don’t see her, Allison. Was she planning on coming over?”

“I thought she was there.”

There was no sign that Dawn had been by. The kitchen was exactly as Celeste had left it. “Hold on.” She covered the phone. “Dawn?
Dawn?
” She heard nothing. To Allison, she said, “Sorry.”

“Is everything all right?”

“With Dawn? You’d know that better than me. I haven’t talked with her since she went back.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line. Celeste felt a twinge of something eerie. It took form when, nervously, Allison said, “She hasn’t been back, Mrs. Prince. Not here, at least.”

“What do you mean?’

“I haven’t seen her since before the holiday.”

“Since last
week?
But she went back Sunday night. I dropped her there myself.” But Celeste had a thought. Dawn hadn’t been wild about rooming with Allison. She claimed Allison was too neat, too studious, too prim. “Might she be staying in another room?”

“No. No one’s seen her. I’ve been asking. Besides, her stuff is all here. If she moved out, she’d have taken something, wouldn’t she have?”

Celeste would have thought so. “This is strange,” she said aloud. “What about a guy?” Dawn hadn’t mentioned anyone over the weekend, but it would have been typical of her to keep a secret like that from Celeste. It certainly would have explained her good mood. “Is there someone special she was seeing there, someone she may be staying with?”

“No. I asked guys, too. No one’s seen her since before Thanksgiving.”

Very strange, Celeste decided. Maybe even alarming.

Allison said, “I thought for sure she was at home sick or something, but when she didn’t come yesterday or today, and didn’t call, I figured I’d call there.”

Celeste curbed her alarm. Dawn was known for her antics. “Have you spoken with anyone—a dorm head or anything?”

“No. I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”

Celeste barked out a laugh. “Oh, she does that on her own, thank you. Listen, Allison, I’ll make some calls. Do me a favor, and keep asking around. If you hear anything, call me back?”

Remembering fall break, when Dawn hadn’t shown up, Celeste quickly called Jill, but Jill hadn’t seen her. Nor, a second call revealed, had Marilee.

Still, Celeste wasn’t panicking the way she had done then. Dawn pulled stunts all the time. This one, no doubt, was in compensation for having behaved over the holiday.

Telling herself that, Celeste downplayed the concern of the dean of students, even the campus police. Jackson was another matter. The instant his voice came on the phone, she felt the full weight of responsibility for Dawn.

“You have
no
idea where she is?” he asked.

“I thought she might be with you.” It was possible. Dawn did see him every few months. “We had a great time over Thanksgiving. I thought maybe if she felt guilty about it, she might have wanted to give you equal time.”

“Dawn doesn’t feel guilty about much,” Jackson said with what Celeste found to be surprising perception for a man obsessed with the innards of computers. He ruined it by asking, “If you dropped her back at school, where did she go?”

“If I knew
that,
I wouldn’t be calling!”

“No one’s seen her there?”

“No.”

“Has there been any recent trouble on campus?”

“You mean, like a serial rapist? Come on, Jackson. We’re talking Dawn here. She’s up to something.”

“She hasn’t ever done anything like this before.”

“Yes, she has.” Celeste told him about fall break.

“Well, you’ve already called Jill, and you’ve already called Marilee, and those are her two best friends, and since neither of them has heard from her, I repeat—she hasn’t ever done anything like this before.”

Around her thumbnail, Celeste said, “I suppose.” She was annoyed as hell with Dawn, and, against her better judgment, just that little bit worried.

“Shouldn’t you call the police?” Jackson asked.

“Not yet. She’s over eighteen. There’s no sign of foul play. I can’t call them in until I’ve done some looking myself.”

“Like where?”

“More friends, I guess.”

“Call me back later, Celeste?”

“Sure.”

Celeste spent the next hour calling others of Dawn’s friends besides Marilee and Jill. It took some doing, since many were away at school, and even then the effort proved futile. Celeste herself had apparently been the last one to see Dawn.

She ran out of calls to make at nine o’clock. Not knowing whether to sit back and wait until morning, or panic then and there, she drove to Emily’s.

Emily felt a churning at the pit of her stomach when she heard Celeste’s tale. She immediately thought of Jill, of the years and years she had fought down panic at the prospect of something happening to her. And she thought of Daniel. She was thinking about him more and more.

Daniel touched every part of her life—Doug, Jill, the house, the town, her friends, even potentially Brian, and now Dawn. Dawn was different, of course. She was eighteen—and, granted, striking enough to attract attention, but she was tough.

Still, tough people got hurt sometimes, too.

Anxiously, Emily led Celeste across the driveway and up the far side stairs to the apartment over the garage. Brian was watching the Celtics, and looked as wonderfully disheveled to Emily as anyone could look, given her own distraction.

He sensed that distraction instantly, drew them in, and made them sit down. Emily found solace in watching him as he listened to Celeste. He would know what to do. She was glad he was there.

“Do I panic now?” Celeste asked when she finished telling Brian everything she had told Emily moments before.

Emily saw through her dry little quips. It didn’t matter how many times Celeste insisted that Dawn was playing games, or how many times she insisted that Dawn was an adult and on her own, Celeste was worried.

Brian sensed that and spoke calmly—though Emily suspected some of the soothing was directed at her. He knew why she had dragged Celeste over to see him, rather than waiting for morning. She tried to tell him she was all right, but her insides wouldn’t help her out. They insisted on quivering, just faintly, enough to betray themselves to Brian, whose leg touched hers.

“Don’t panic yet,” he told Celeste. “There’s still more to consider.” They were grouped at his coffee table, Emily and Brian on one side, Celeste across. He had jotted names on a yellow legal pad as Celeste had tossed them out. Beneath those was a list of possible motives for Dawn’s running off. At his elbow, Emily could easily read that list. It assumed Dawn’s willing flight.

The alarmist in her wanted to argue, but the realist couldn’t. There was no sign of mayhem. And Dawn had a history of getting into trouble.

He put the tip of his pen to the list and looked at Celeste. “You’ve called friends from school and friends from home. None of them claim to have seen her. Do you think any are lying?”

“I don’t know why they would.”

“To protect Dawn.”

“From me? My disapproval is nothing new. She’s used to it.”

“What if she’s done something unforgivable this time?” Emily asked. She couldn’t begin to count the number of times Celeste had sworn she would kill Dawn if she ever did such and such.

Celeste’s memory faltered. “Like what?”

Brian picked up. “Like commit a crime—or, forget that for now, like flunking out. Do you think she is?”

Celeste guffawed. “Not quite.”

“Dawn is brilliant,” Emily explained. “She understands things with the first run-through. She remembers everything. She
speed
reads and remembers everything. She studies very little for very good grades.”

“If she studied that little bit more,” Celeste injected tartly, “she’d be at the top of her class. She has her father’s brains.”

“Okay.” He put a line through
FLUNKING OUT.
“Is she pregnant?”

“God, no.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, unless her stealing my tampons when she got home last week was for show.”

He crossed off
KNOCKED UP.
“How’s she set for money?”

“Fine.”

“She wouldn’t be trying to scrounge up more—selling something illegal, prostituting herself?”

Emily saw Celeste pale. But the question was necessary. It had come up in the earliest stages of the Demery case, before the ransom note had arrived. While Susan hadn’t wanted for money, some coeds did. Hooking offered fast cash.

“Dawn’s father is paying for college,” Celeste said. “He gives her a generous expense account.”

“Maybe she’s gone through it.”

“The bank statements come to the house. I read them. She has a healthy balance, at least she did as of last week.”

Emily watched him put a line through
SEX.

“Has she ever done drugs?”

“No.”

He put a line through
HABIT.
“Does she drink?”

“Not much,” Celeste said. To her credit, she slid a look toward Emily, then sighed. “Well, maybe much, but only at parties. I’ve never known her to have anything during the day or alone. Aside from the wine she had with Carter and me last week, I don’t think she had another thing to drink, and she wasn’t suffering withdrawal.”

“Has she ever had a run-in with the law? Disturbing the peace? Disorderly conduct? Drunk driving?”

“No.”

“So if I boot up my computer at the station, I won’t find her name?”

“No.”

“Nothing formal. What about informal? Was she ever picked up by anyone in the department, given a good talking to, and sent home?”

“No.”

He crossed off
RECORD
and moved on to
BOYS.
“What about the guy she was with when she didn’t show up for fall break?”

“As of last week, a total loser. That’s a quote.”

“Have you called him?”

“I called Jill, who called the friend whose brother he is, and he hasn’t seen her in five weeks.”

“What about other guys? Someone else’s brother?”

“She didn’t mention anything to either Jill or Marilee when they were home, and they’re her best friends.”

Emily watched his pen move to cross off
BOYS,
but it stuttered and came to a rest somewhere beyond the word, and, guilty as she felt, Emily agreed. Dawn had boys high up on her own list. Brian was right to put boys on hold now.