Ivy secrets, p.35
Ivy Secrets, page 35
Marina closed her eyes and crumpled the note.
She went into the bathroom, then quietly crept up the stairs, into Jenny’s room—the room that had once been hers, the room where Jenny was born.
She pulled back the covers of the small bed and tucked herself in without changing her clothes. Thoughts of Viktor, Tess, Willie Benson, and Edward James whirled in her mind. Thoughts of Jenny. Her Jenny. She nestled her face in the pillow. It had a light, fresh fragrance. She wondered if this was Jenny’s scent, her pure, sweet, innocent scent. She tried to envision what Jenny looked like now at fourteen-nearly-fifteen, girl-nearly-woman. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, recalling the nights she had once slept here, the long days and the long nights of waiting for Jenny to be born.
And then she remembered the night she’d awakened in labor. As she glanced around the room, Marina could almost see them now: Nicholas, Dell, Tess, Charlie. She could almost feel her pain.
She reached beneath the sheets and lay a hand on her stomach: now flat, unconvulsing. Just as she realized that tears were running from her eyes, Marina could see Dell hand the small bundle to Charlie, and hear her say, “It’s a girl.”
Chapter 21
Charlie was swimming in the ocean. The water was warm and soothing. She floated face up and closed her eyes to the glaring sun: its rays sunk into her skin. It was peaceful here, so peaceful. She knew she should be thinking; she knew she should be worrying about something important. But she couldn’t remember what it was.
The sound of an approaching boat startled her. She squinted in the sunlight. A man was leaning over the edge, banging on its side. “Fish! Fish!” he shouted and gestured her toward the boat.
She knew that “fish” meant “shark.”
Charlie quickly swam toward the sound. Her heart hammered with the rhythm of the man pounding on the boat. It was so difficult to see in the bright light. Finally, she reached it. The man extended his hand to her to hoist her up. But as Charlie raised her arm, shoulder pain shot through her. Her arm collapsed into the water. She looked up at him. He had no face … no face at all. And though he had stopped banging on the side, she could still hear the sound.
Slowly, Charlie opened her eyes. She was lying on the lumpy sofa in Tess’s living room. Jenny, was her first thought. Then she heard banging, the noise from her dream. She shook her head to try and awaken; pain jabbed her shoulder.
“Tess! Tess!” came a voice from the kitchen. “Wake up, goddammit.”
Charlie pulled herself from the sofa, threw a robe over her silk pajamas, and ran her hands through her tangled hair. She walked into the kitchen, and through the window, she saw Joe Lyons. He stood in the early morning light, a brown bag in his hand.
“Open the goddamn door,” he demanded.
Charlie turned the lock and glanced at the clock. Five forty-five. Jenny, she thought as she yanked open the door. He must know something about Jenny.
“What happened?” Charlie said in a voice too loud for morning. “Did you find her?”
Joe Lyons shook his head and stepped inside. His eyes were puffed, his skin was sallow, as though he’d had little sleep. Charlie tied the belt of her robe and offered him a seat.
“Where’s Tess?” he asked, as he sat down and set the bag beside him.
“Asleep. What’s in the bag?”
Joe put his hand on top of it as Marina appeared in the doorway. “What’s going on?” she asked. Charlie noticed Marina was still dressed in the clothes she’d worn last night. She wondered if Marina had slept at all.
“This is Chief Lyons,” Charlie said. “Dell’s nephew.”
“I know who he is.”
“Someone should wake up Tess,” Joe said. “All of you should see this together.”
“Tess took a sleeping pill last night,” Charlie said.
Joe frowned. “I want her to see this.”
Charlie reached across the table and grabbed his wrist. “If anything in that bag has to do with Jenny, I want to see it. Now. She’s my daughter, remember?”
Joe looked from Charlie to Marina, then back to Charlie. He withdrew a pair of tweezers from his pocket. Then he opened the paper bag and took out a plastic bag. In it was a square package wrapped in brown paper.
He opened the plastic bag, carefully removed the package, and set it on the table. Using the tweezers, he slowly peeled back the brown paper. “This was on the doorstep of the police station when I arrived this morning.” Inside the paper was a silver cardboard gift box. With the tweezers, Joe lifted its lid. He slid the box toward Charlie and Marina. “Don’t touch anything,” he ordered.
Charlie peered inside. Even when she saw the contents, even when she instantly knew what it was, she could not speak. She could not breathe.
“Jesus Christ,” Marina said. “Is that the Fabergé?”
“You should have said, ‘Was that the Faberge?’ ” Joe commented.
Charlie slumped onto a chair. She lowered her head and put her face in her hands. She couldn’t cry; there was too much numbness inside her to cry. Even through the shattered fragments, Charlie knew it was the egg. The pearls were still intact: spun gold lace lay splintered around them. The rest was pink enamel dust. Enamel dust, semiprecious stones, and the tiny gold mare—the “surprise” inside. Jenny had not chosen the egg with the rubies and diamonds; she had not chosen the one with sapphires and emeralds. She had chosen the plain one, the less heralded one. Maybe, Charlie thought, she’d felt that was all she was worth. And now, that worth was reduced to ashes.
“I told her not to bring it,” Charlie said quietly. “I told her to leave it home.”
Joe carefully closed the lid. He returned the box and outer wrapping to the bag, then removed a clear plastic bag. Inside was a small sheet of white paper. “There’s something else,” he said. He turned the plastic bag over. Letters—cut from magazines, pasted together into a colorful string of jabberwocky—formed words on a white sheet of paper. It looked like a bad joke from a made-for-TV private-eye movie.
Charlie held her breath and read the message.
$3 mil for Jenny
Cash
Unmarked $100 bills
Will call
She closed her eyes. “My God,” was all she could say.
“Ransom,” Marina said slowly. “So, Jenny has been kidnapped.”
Joe nodded.
“Well, now we know,” Marina continued. “Where do we go from here?”
Charlie recoiled. Kidnapped. Jenny had been kidnapped. And it was all her fault.
“Technically, I shouldn’t have showed this to you first. But because of Tess … and Dell …”
“We appreciate this, Chief Lyons,” Marina said.
Charlie wondered how she could sound so calm, how she could be in such control, when all Charlie wanted to do was die.
“The FBI is on their way,” Joe continued. “I think you’d better wake up Tess now.”
“At least this takes suspicion off her,” Marina said.
Joe shook his head. “Not really.”
Marina flipped back her hair. “Come on, Joe, if nothing else, Tess would never smash that egg. Right, Charlie?”
Charlie nodded slowly, still trying to digest what was happening.
“Unless she wanted to throw us off the track,” Joe said. “Three million dollars in unmarked cash is a lot more than the egg was worth, and a lot easier to put to good use.”
“It’s ludicrous,” Charlie heard herself say. “We can never come up with three million in cash.”
Joe stared at the brown bag as though it held the answer. “Ludicrous. That’s a good word. You know, maybe Tess didn’t do it. Maybe it was Willie Benson after all. Three million is the kind of money that someone of limited mental capacity would assume could be raised easily.”
Charlie shuddered at the mention of Willie’s name. She touched the now-faded scar on her forehead and tried to push the image of his wild eyes from her mind.
“Well, it can’t be Tess,” Charlie stuttered. “You said someone delivered the package to the police station. Tess has been here, asleep, all night.”
Joe shifted uncomfortably on the wooden chair. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
He tented his fingers together. “Did you sleep? Both of you?”
“I did for a while, I think,” Marina said.
“Yes,” Charlie said. “Yes, I slept.”
“Then we can’t be a hundred-percent sure that Tess didn’t leave the house.”
Charlie looked at the bag and thought about what lay inside. Could Tess rally have done this? And if so, what did she do with Jenny?
Jenny.
Has she, too, been … shattered?
She looked at Joe Lyons with hate in her heart. Tess may be odd, Tess may be eccentric, but there was no way Tess Richards would harm Jenny. Of that, Charlie was certain. She was also certain that Joe Lyons—Dell’s nephew or not—for some reason didn’t like Tess. An instant flashback to college days sprang to Charlie’s mind. No matter how hard she’d tried, Tess could never seem to get a boy to like her. “She’s too fat,” boys had said. “She’s too weird.” Well, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair then and it wasn’t fair now. Joe Lyons was just another of those arrogant males looking for their vision of the perfect woman. Tess may not be that. But it didn’t mean she was a kidnapper. It didn’t mean she would do anything to harm Jenny. Tess loved Jenny too much.
Jenny.
Charlie stood quickly, her thoughts racing again, her shoulder aching. “I’ve got to make a phone call,” she said and stumbled from the kitchen out to the phone in the hallway.
Charlie trembled as she picked up the receiver. Then a hand quickly reached in front of her and pressed down the button of the phone.
“Who are you trying to call?” Joe asked.
Charlie jumped. She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m going to call my husband.”
“Anything that goes on in this house is now my business.” He released his finger from the button.
“In case you’ve forgotten, I need to raise three million dollars,” Charlie snapped. Her mind had come back into focus. If the kidnapper wanted three million, they would get the money. Somehow. It would get Jenny back as quickly as possible, and it would get Joe Lyons off Tess’s back.
“I didn’t realize you were still married,” Joe said.
“Of course I’m still married. What an absurd comment.”
“It’s a little surprising, then, that your husband didn’t accompany you.”
“My husband was on his way to Singapore. On urgent business.”
“More urgent than a missing daughter?”
Charlie stared at the phone. She tried to come up with words that were plausible. It had made some kind of sense to her when Peter hadn’t come with her. The way Joe said it, it sounded cold, hard-hearted, uncaring. She snapped around to Joe. “My husband runs a multinational corporation. When Tess called we thought Jenny had simply run off to stay with a friend. I said I could take care of it.”
“I thought you said Jenny had no friends here.”
Charlie felt the muscles in her entire body tighten. She resisted the urge to smack him in the face with the phone. “We weren’t sure. She’s been here all summer.”
Joe nodded, but Charlie sensed that he didn’t believe her.
“What kind of business is your husband in?”
Her patience was wearing thin. “Textiles. Now if you’ll excuse me …” She began to punch in the numbers to Peter’s private line.
“And how is business these days?”
“Fine.”
“Really? Even in this tough economy?”
Charlie felt heat rise in her face. “And just what are you implying?”
“It seems to me your friend, Marina, must be pretty well off. I doubt she’d let your daughter—”
Charlie shook her finger at him. “Look, Chief Lyons, why don’t you do your job and stop looking at innocent people? Now, while I call my husband, I suggest you get busy and find my daughter.”
She continued dialing. Behind her, she heard Joe leave the hallway.
The connection went through, but all Charlie heard was, “This is Peter Hobart. Sorry I can’t take your call, but please leave a message—”
“Call me, dammit!” Charlie screamed into the phone. “Jenny’s been kidnapped.” She slammed the receiver in the cradle and tried to calm her thumping heart.
Tess lay on her back on the bed, her arm pressed over her eyes. It seemed days, not minutes, ago that she had heard Joe banging on the back door. In the surreal gray light of dawn, she had lain there, listening to the conversation, listening to the shock, listening to the anger.
She knew if she didn’t act quickly, she could spend the rest of her life in jail.
Jail. Would it be any different from the way she’d spent most of her life?
She wondered if they’d let her blow glass in jail. She could probably raise a lot of money for prisoner programs.
It would be safe in jail. It would be warm in the winter and there would be people. Lots of people to talk to in case she felt lonely. Not like now, not like here, where there was only Dell to talk to, Dell to hold. Then she remembered it had been years since Dell—or anyone—had held her.
She wondered if the inmates would ever feel like a family.
She rolled onto her side and thought of something else. In jail there would be no bills to worry about, no commissions to pray for, no orders to fill. She would be given clothes to wear and three meals a day.
Meals. Food. Tears came to her eyes as she thought about Grover. If she went to jail, who would feed Grover? Who would take care of him?
Chapter 22
If Charlie couldn’t raise the money, Marina knew she would have to.
She had wandered out to Tess’s studio, wanting some time alone, needing to think this through. Charlie had looked differently this morning—her sleepless skin was etched with tiny lines that seemed to have appeared overnight at the edges of her eyes, the corners of her mouth. The worry was clearly beginning to show on the woman who had harbored Marina’s secret, raised Marina’s child, and who still remained loyal, not telling the police Jenny’s true identity, not even hinting that Marina was anything more than a friend.
Moving her gaze across the room to the samples of glass ornaments that lined the shelves, Marina thought about loyalty. She thought about how loyal Tess, too, had been, so long ago. As much as Marina protested, as much as she hadn’t trusted Dell, Tess had insisted that Dell was the one person who could make things work out. In all these years, Tess had never betrayed that loyalty to Marina, had never told about Jenny, even though she certainly could have used the information as blackmail—blackmail against Marina for money Tess so clearly needed. But Tess had never betrayed her. And, with an uncomfortable feeling, Marina realized that, most likely, neither had Dell.
In all these years, none of them had betrayed her. How is it, she wondered, that the bonds of friends can remain throughout the years? Years of differences, years of avoidances, years of disinterest. She smiled then, as she realized that the bonds between them were greater than those with Alexis, who would never think to put her twin’s wishes or feelings first, and who, most certainly, would do anything to cover her own ass, even if it meant Marina’s downfall—especially if it meant Marina’s downfall.
But not Charlie. Not Tess. Not even Dell. And surprisingly, Dell had not told her nephew. Perhaps Tess had seen to that. Poor Tess. Whose loyalty was now rewarding her with accusations.
As she sat in the small studio now, Marina realized she was feeling sorry for Tess Richards, this nearly middle-aged woman who, whether through lack of love or because of loss alone, had never been able to make her mark on the world, who seemingly no longer had the strength to try. Now, Tess was being falsely accused of a horrid deed, one that Marina was certain she did not commit. More than ever, Marina was convinced Viktor was behind this. Viktor, or Edward James.
Marina stood and walked to the shelves. She studied the glass ornaments, wondering which ones Jenny had crafted, wondering where a child of hers had developed a flair for creativity. She lightly touched an ornament. “Edward,” she whispered. “It must have come from Edward.”
Once again, Marina felt an unsettled stirring inside her, to think there might be a connection between Jenny’s disappearance and Edward James. For as wonderful as he had made her feel for one night of love, Marina hadn’t known Edward at all. She had no idea what kind of person he really was. For all she knew, he could be as coldhearted as Viktor Coe. And far more dangerous than pathetic little Willie Benson.
She wrapped her arms around herself and paced the floor.
Yes, Marina thought, if Charlie couldn’t raise the ransom, Marina would. Either way, the king had to be told. No matter who paid the money, the incident would no doubt be made public, and Jenny’s real mother would be revealed to the world.
Her father did not deserve to learn about his granddaughter in the media. Marina would have to risk his wrath, witness his pain, and suffer the humiliation of her shame; but she would finally face up to her past and tell her father the truth.
First, however, there was somewhere she had to go.
She had no idea if he still lived there. She had no idea if he still taught at Smith. But Marina knew she had to try; she couldn’t ask anyone, she had to find out for herself. She had to find out for sure.
She crossed Elm Street and headed down Paradise Lane. To her right was the Quad, quiet now in the middle of summer; to her left were the faculty houses. In the white saltbox house with the dark green shutters, crisp, ruffled curtains hung at the windows.
Marina stopped, took a deep breath, then moved ahead before she could change her mind. She walked up the brick walk to the stoop, rang the bell, and waited, staring at the green door, staring off into the neatly trimmed shrubbery that bordered the front of the house.
