Stolen In The Night Part 2

Tess and Erny rolled their suitcases down the jetway and came out into the arrival gate at the Unionville airport. Tess looked around for her sister-in-law, Julie, who was supposed to be meeting them. She didn't see Julie anywhere. What she saw instead were cl.u.s.ters of reporters with microphones and newscameramen stationed around the small waiting area of the airport. Tess had a bad feeling that they were here because of the news conference tomorrow. She knew that the case was a big deal on the Internet and on the network and cable news shows. She lowered her gaze, hoping that they had not somehow gotten wind of her arrival this afternoon and were lying in wait for her.

Gesturing for Erny to join her, she pulled her bag toward a bank of seats in an empty arrival gate, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed Julie's cell. After a few rings, Julie answered, although the reception was poor and Julie sounded exasperated.

"I'm stuck out here, trying to get into the parking lot," Julie complained. "There's about a million news vans gumming up the works because the governor is arriving. You know-for tomorrow. Sit tight. I'll be there to pick you up as soon as I can park."

"We can come out and meet you," Tess suggested, but it was too late. Julie had already ended the call.

Tess tucked her phone away. Good, she thought. The reporters were waiting for the governor. It was just anxiety that had made her think they would be looking for her. How would they recognize her anyway? she thought. After twenty years, she bore no resemblance to the child who had testified against Lazarus Abbott. "Okay, Erny," she said, "Aunt Julie is on her way. I'm going to duck into the ladies' room. You need to go to the men's room?"

Erny shook his head.

"I'm going to leave my bag, then. You wait right here for me, okay?"

"Can I get something to drink?" he asked.

Tess reached in her satchel, extracted a bill, and handed it to him. "Okay. There's a newsstand right over there. Get what you want. But keep an eye on the luggage. I'll be right out."

Tess watched him tear off for the newsstand and then she pushed open the door to the restroom and went in. After a quick stop in the toilet, she came out and checked her makeup in the mirror. She looked washed-out and tired under the unflattering lights. She swiped a lipstick across her lips and was about to turn to go when she heard a feeble cry from the stall at the end of the row. Tess hesitated and then she heard the cry again.

"Are you all right?" Tess asked, feeling awkward.

"I need some help."

Tess walked down to the handicapped stall and pushed on the door. It was not locked and it gave way. Tess saw a small-boned, delicate woman with a gamine haircut sprawled on the floor of the oversize stall.

"Oh my G.o.d. Are you okay?" she asked, crouching down and reaching under the woman's arms. The woman was wearing a cashmere tunic that was soft to the touch and her arms were thin and felt rubbery in Tess's grasp.

"If you could just help me up," said the woman.

"Sure," said Tess. "Sure." She pulled the woman to her feet.

The woman seemed more downcast than embarra.s.sed. "I'm sorry to bother you like this. I have a...condition. Sometimes I...lose my balance. Could you just help me outside? These floors are slippery. My husband's outside. He's waiting for me."

"No problem," said Tess. She put an arm around the woman's birdlike waist and they shuffled along together. Tess could see bruises on the woman's thin forearms as her sleeves rode up. "You sure you're okay?"

"Fine," said the woman grimly. "Quite a commotion here today, isn't it?" She clearly wanted to change the subject.

"No kidding," said Tess.

"The governor's arriving. My husband and I are meeting him. He's staying with us," the woman said proudly.

"Really?" said Tess.

The woman nodded. "He and my husband went to college together. My husband publishes a newspaper." They had made their way out of the restroom and a strikingly handsome man with soft black hair that flopped across his forehead rushed up to them.

"Sally," he cried. "What happened?" The man was dressed casually and had wide, intense, gray eyes, the pupils ringed in black.

"I'm fine. I had a little episode, but this lady helped me," said Sally.

"Oh, thank you so much," he said, slipping his arm around his wife in place of Tess's arm. "I'm very grateful to you."

"Don't mention it," said Tess.

"Mom," Erny cried, rus.h.i.+ng across the concourse with a bottle of Gatorade and a comic book.

Tess could tell that the publisher was about to introduce himself and his wife and ask her about Erny. The last thing Tess wanted was to mention her own name. A newspaperman who was meeting the governor was sure to recognize it right away and be full of questions, and that was something Tess definitely preferred to avoid. "Come on," she said to Erny. "We'd better scoot." She gave the man and his wife a friendly smile and started to nudge Erny to gather up his bag.

All of a sudden Tess heard someone calling her name. She looked up and immediately caught sight of her sister-in-law Julie, a heavyset woman with gla.s.ses, her blonde hair cut short in a no-nonsense style. Over her nurse's uniform Julie wore a bulky sweater of variegated colors that she had most likely knitted herself, Tess thought. Knitting and church were Julie's primary interests now that her daughter was grown and out of the house. Julie's round face broke into a sweet smile and she waved enthusiastically.

Tess waved back. Though only in her late thirties, her sister-in-law looked much older. She had been a teenager when Jake first met her during their family's ill-fated camping trip to Stone Hill. Back then, Julie was a teenage beauty with long, wavy blonde hair and a curvaceous figure. She and Jake had fallen in love with adolescent intensity, quickly and completely. During the days after Phoebe's disappearance, and then later, during the trial, Julie had stayed glued to Jake's side. Tess could still remember spying on the teenage lovers, sitting nearly on top of each other in the corner of the living room at the Stone Hill Inn where the DeGraffs were given rooms for a pittance throughout the whole ordeal. A year later, when Jake was finished with high school, he moved up to Stone Hill to be with Julie, and they married shortly thereafter. Their one child, Kelli, was now in the army and Jake had a house-painting business in Stone Hill.

Julie opened her arms wide and embraced Tess and then Erny. "Look at you!" she exclaimed as she gazed admiringly at Erny. "You are really getting big."

Erny shrugged, but smiled. His aunt was always kind to him.

"Do you have any other luggage?" she asked.

"No. We're good to go," said Tess.

"Well, okay," said Julie. "I'm parked out here." Then she noticed the publisher, who was insisting that his wife sit down and rest. "Chan!" she exclaimed.

The man seemed mystified by the sight of Julie calling his name. He frowned slightly, combing his unruly hair back off his forehead with his fingers. Then suddenly recognition dawned in his pale, gray eyes. "Julie. Hi. I haven't seen you in..."

"A long time," Julie said. She looked pointedly at the pet.i.te woman on his arm.

"Oh, this is my wife, Sally."

"How do you do?" said Julie warmly, smiling at the delicate woman. "I've heard about you. It's nice to finally meet you. My husband's the one who painted your house this summer."

The woman's smile transformed her pained-looking features. "Oh yes. Of course. How is Jake?"

"Fine. We're both fine," said Julie, nodding enthusiastically. "What are you folks doing here?"

"We're here to pick up the governor," said Chan. "He's coming straight from a party meeting in St. Louis. We knew each other in college so I invited him to stay with us tonight."

"Oh," said Julie. "Chan, Sally, I want you both to meet my sister-in-law, Tess DeGraff. She and her son came so they could be here for the announcement tomorrow, too. Tess, this is Channing Morris. He's the owner of the Stone Hill Record where the press conference will take place. And this is his wife."

Tess cringed inwardly, but she smiled at them. "We've met," said Tess.

"Well, not officially," said Chan. "I didn't realize you were...involved in this whole thing. It must be a terrible ordeal for your family. If it's any consolation to you, most of us think Edith Abbott is kind of a crackpot. Don't quote me," he said, smiling.

"Thanks," said Tess. "Frankly, I'll be glad when it's over."

"I'm sure you will be. Hey, if you're going to be around a little while," he said eagerly, "I'd love to sit down with you and talk about all this for the paper."

Tess forced herself to smile politely. Despite his disarming smile, Chan Morris was a journalist with a newspaper to sell and hers was a meaty story. Even Wade Maitland, her dear friend and the executive producer of her crew, had tried hard to convince her that they should accompany her to New Hamps.h.i.+re and shoot footage for a possible doc.u.mentary about the controversial death penalty case. Tess had refused in no uncertain terms. To her, it was not a story, but her family's never-ending nightmare. "Well, maybe, after it's over," said Tess. "Today we're all a little on edge."

"Of course you are," said Chan. He glanced at his watch. "The governor's flight should be arriving any minute. My wife has been so keyed-up about this visit," he said, looking indulgently at the pretty woman on his arm. "She's been fussing over the house and the food for days."

Sally colored slightly. "Well, he's an important guest," she said.

"I'm sure it'll be lovely. You have such a beautiful home," said Julie.

Sally looked confused. "Have you visited us?"

"No, no. Not for years. But everybody knows the Whitman farm..." said Julie.

"Julie, speaking of that," said Chan, the friendly tone of his voice turning decidedly brisker, "can you ask Jake when he's going to finish painting the trim on the third-floor windows? The house looks...unfinished. Frankly it's a little embarra.s.sing with the governor coming. I've left him half a dozen messages, but..."

Julie's face turned pink. "He still hasn't finished the trim? I'm sorry, Chan. I don't know what he was thinking."

"Once I paid him, he seemed to disappear," said Chan.

"I'll tell him," Julie promised. "I feel terrible about this."

"Not your fault," said Chan, although he clearly wasn't saying the same about Jake. "Well, we'd better be getting to the gate. Nice to meet you, Tess. I'm sure everything will turn out...as we expect it to tomorrow."

"Thanks. Nice to meet you both," said Tess as the couple smiled and turned away.

Julie was shaking her head. "What am I going to do with him?" she said.

"Who?" Tess asked.

"Your brother. He never finishes his jobs. He painted their house this summer. It's the end of October and he still hasn't done all the trim. I don't know what to do. If I say anything to him, he goes ballistic and tells me to mind my own business."

"Jake," Tess shook her head.

"I tell you, Tess, he has the worst reputation around this town."

Tess knew that Julie was probably right, but she didn't want to become embroiled in a discussion of her brother's marriage and his shortcomings. She groped for a change of subject. "They seem like nice people," she said, nodding toward the newspaper publisher and his wife, who were slowly crossing over to the arrival gates.

"Chan? Oh yeah. Gosh, I've known Chan since he moved here in junior high." Julie shook her head and a.s.sumed the sort of grave expression she wore when she was about to convey tragic gossip. "He lost both his parents in one year. He had to come and live with his grandmother."

Tess glanced at Erny, hoping he wasn't listening, hoping Julie's mention of the publisher's sad childhood wouldn't remind him of his own similar fate. But Erny, like most children, was not terribly interested in the grown-ups' conversation.

"He was quite the talk of the town when he arrived, I'll tell you. He turned every head. Every girl at school had a crush on him. I even dated him for a while," Julie announced proudly.

"Really?" said Tess. She could easily imagine how Chan Morris's handsome face and large gray eyes had set teenage hearts aflutter.

Julie nodded. "My father had high hopes, I can tell you that. He was picturing me as Mrs. Channing Morris, living large in that big house on the Whitman farm." Julie sighed. "But no such luck," Julie said.

It annoyed Tess to hear Julie obviously rueing the fact that she had ended up with Jake for a husband instead. Her brother had his faults, but he had worked hard and been a good father to Kelli, as far as Tess could tell. And judging from the fact that Channing Morris had failed to even recognize Julie at first, it was plain that the publisher felt no similar regrets. "His wife is really lovely," Tess said.

"Oh yeah. She seems sweet. But it's sad. She's got a muscle-wasting disease. Did you see how she was leaning on Chan? When she's by herself she has to use a cane or a wheelchair. Everyone knows about her at the hospital. Apparently there's not much they can do for her."

"That is sad," said Tess.

"It's a tragedy. For both of them. I mean, to look at them you would think they had the world on a string." Julie shook her head "It's true," Tess murmured. "You never know."

Tess put an arm around Erny's narrow shoulders and together they followed Julie, who was extracting her car keys from her purse as she chattered on about the publisher and his wife. Tess's thoughts returned to her own family's sorrows and to the grim mission of her visit here. Oblivious to the fact that she had lost her audience, Julie was still gossiping as she led the way to the automatic doors and out into the airport parking lot.

The Stone Hill Inn was a traditional New England white clapboard-sided house with dark green shutters. The front door was flanked by a pair of benches facing one another, shaped like church pews and painted the same green as the shutters. Behind the benches were a pair of white trellises. In summer they were covered with climbing pink roses, but now there were only brown vines crisscrossing the white wooden grids. The inn sat at the end of a quiet road, surrounded by brown fields with gray stone fences. A few trees, still wearing the last blaze of autumn, ringed the edge of the fields. Dawn opened the door as they came up the walk and rushed out to greet them, s.h.i.+vering in her thin cardigan, her yellow Lab, Leo, beside her.

"Mom, hi," said Tess, embracing her. "It's so good to see you."

"Oh, you look wonderful," said Dawn, releasing Tess and holding her at arm's length. "And you..." she said, turning to Erny.

Erny had fallen to his knees and thrown his arms around Leo's ruff. He grimaced with glee as Leo licked his face.

"Hey, I want one of those," said Dawn.

Erny scrambled to his feet and put his arms around her and Dawn held him tightly for a moment. Tess watched her mother embrace her son with a full heart. Dawn had moved from Boston to Stone Hill after the death of Rob DeGraff, from a heart attack at the age of forty-seven. Tess always suspected that the stress and the shock of Phoebe's murder had destroyed her father's health. On a visit to Jake and Julie's during a holiday, Dawn noticed an ad for an innkeeper at the Stone Hill Inn. When she questioned Jake about the Phalens, he explained to his mother that the Phalens' daughter, Lisa, had killed herself at the age of fourteen. After that, Annette began to drink and she and her husband, Kenneth, separated. They sold the inn and moved away. The new owner wanted it strictly as an investment.

To her own surprise, Dawn found herself applying for and getting the job as the innkeeper. She and Sean moved up from Boston and into the inn. Sean finished high school in Stone Hill, and then immediately left for Australia with a couple of his buddies. Dawn referred to her youngest child's decampment for Australia as Sean's "walkabout."

Tess had always admired her mother's incredible strength. Dawn had held them all together after Phoebe's murder and had stayed strong even when she lost Rob. But strength was not the same thing as happiness, or peace of mind. There was an emptiness in Dawn's eyes. She moved through her life with the same efficiency and purpose as ever, but her face was haggard and the buoyancy of her spirit seemed to have flown away on the day that Phoebe's lifeless body was found, and it had never returned. Now Dawn's hair was starting to gray and her face seemed more drawn than usual.

"Come on in. Julie, can you stay for a cup of tea? I made those thumbprint cookies you like," said Dawn.

Julie shook her head with real regret. "Oh, I do like them. But I'd better get over to the hospital. I'm filling in for a friend and my s.h.i.+ft starts in twenty minutes. Tell my husband, when he gets back from work..." She hesitated and then seemed to think better of it. "Never mind. I'll tell him when I see him."

"Thank you so much for picking up Tess and Erny," said Dawn. "I hate that drive to the airport." Most people p.r.o.nounced Erny's name as if he were one of the Sesame Street puppets, but Tess noted that her mother, with her usual sensitivity, p.r.o.nounced her son's name as Air-knee, just as Tess did, and even tried to roll the R. Tess had once explained to Dawn that she wanted to p.r.o.nounce it as Erny's grandmother, Inez, had, and Dawn had instantly understood.

"Just as well you didn't go," said Julie. "It was a madhouse out there, between the reporters and the governor's arrival..."

"Are you coming to the press conference tomorrow?" Tess asked.

"I'm working again. I'm sorry," said Julie. "But I'll see you afterwards."

"Do you know if Jake is coming?" Tess asked.

Julie rolled her eyes. "Oh, believe me, he wouldn't miss it. I'm going to run. I'll talk to you later."

"Come inside, you two," Dawn insisted, ushering them up the path behind the bounding Leo and through the front doorway of the inn. Inside, there was a wide vestibule that led to the main hallway. On the right of the hallway was a paneled library with a door for privacy, which usually stood open, a pair of wing chairs, and a leather sofa. On the left was a large sitting room with a fireplace. The interior of the inn was painted in subdued but lovely shades of slate blue and acanthus green, which complemented the hooked wool rugs, the comfortably upholstered furniture in Colonial-era floral patterns, and the many antique wooden tables that glowed with a waxed sheen. "I had to put you two in the same room," Dawn apologized, fis.h.i.+ng a large key out of the pocket of her skirt. "With all the journalists in town for the governor's announcement, we are full."

"Oh no, Mom," said Tess. "Don't tell me there are reporters staying here. We won't have a minute's peace."

"No, no," said Dawn. "I think I managed to weed out anybody from a news organization. But there are still a lot of leaf peepers in town, and everything else is full."

"Okay, well, that's fine, Mom. We don't mind bunking together."

Dawn held up the key. "It's down the hall on the first floor. Erny, you want to take the bags to your room?"

Erny eagerly reached for the key.

"And open the kitchen door for Leo, would you?"

"Sure," said Erny. He started down the hall, Leo in tow.