Arden sighed. “I think I recognized a few of the bunch. Some faces don’t change.”
Laura was directed to park in a makeshift lot, alongside two police cars, an ambulance, and a few noncommercial vehicles.
“Ready?” Laura asked, turning to Arden, whose expression was set and grim.
Arden nodded.
When they got out of the car, another police officer directed them to a cordoned-off section at the back of the house, a good way from the paved area that had once been the site of the pool. Work had already begun. A large digger of some sort, helmed by a man in a hard hat, was loudly scraping and lifting away layers of concrete and soil. Arden wished she had brought a pair of earplugs. It hadn’t occurred to her that this—process—would be so noisy.
Almost more disturbing to Arden than the terrible noise was the presence of the house in which she had spent the first eighteen years of her life. It had seen so little happiness since the Aldridge family had moved in. She almost felt sorry for it. One day, hopefully, laughter would ring through its many rooms and real love would reanimate the pile of stone, brick, and wood. One day, hopefully, the house would be a home.
Arden sighed and instinctively shrank into her rain jacket. “I haven’t been back here in over thirty-five years. A lifetime ago.”
“It must feel very strange,” Laura said quietly.
“It does. In some ways, I hardly recognize the house. It feels foreign. Alien.”
“Probably a good thing.”
The weather was growing worse. The skies were a dull gray, and a harsh chill in the late-summer air hinted at the long winter to come. A drizzle began, adding to the gloom into which those gathered were already sunk.
Arden pulled her rain jacket more tightly around her and shivered. Maybe, she thought, she shouldn’t have come here after all. It wasn’t too late to go back to the car and wait for news. She wished that Laura hadn’t decided to be present; Arden prayed that if Rob’s remains were found here today, Laura would not catch even the tiniest glimpse of shredded cloth or—or of anything else. But Laura was standing tall, her expression unwavering. If her daughter could stand the strain of this moment, Arden thought, then she, too, would be strong.
“Frannie is here,” Laura whispered. “To our right.”
Arden briefly glanced in the direction Laura had indicated. Yes, that was Frannie. She was heavier now, and her hair, what Arden could see of it under her rain hat, was, as Laura had mentioned, entirely gray. Her face was, also as Laura had told her, greatly lined. Maybe the lines had been etched there by grief.
Though Frannie would have recognized Laura and therefore known that the woman standing with her was Arden—Victoria—she didn’t seem interested in making any contact. Arden understood. There was time for reconciliation later. Once . . . Once they knew for sure.
Arden looked back at the small team at work on this somber project. She wondered if the man operating the big digging machine, or the ones charged with descending into the ever-widening and deepening pit, had ever worked on such a job before. Were they frightened of what they might unearth? Would they feel disgust or repulsion if Rob’s badly deteriorated body was indeed discovered? The thought saddened her.
Suddenly, something, a feeling, made Arden look around at the house. She wished she hadn’t. Quickly she turned back to the scene of work before her. She had seen an old man standing behind a curtained window in what Arden remembered had been a pantry. The old man was watching. He was Herbert Aldridge. How much he could see from his vantage point Arden didn’t know. Had he recognized his daughter? Why did he feel the need to witness this moment? What was going through his head as he waited for the body of the man his wife had killed to be recovered, for the body of the man he had had so ignobly buried to be found? Was he distraught, grief-stricken, overcome with guilt? Defiant? Exhausted? Maybe all of those things.
After what might have been an hour or a moment, Laura grabbed her mother’s hand. “They found something,” she whispered.
“It’s a bicycle,” Arden said in a choked voice, as a dirt-encrusted metal object was lifted from the earth. The bicycle looked so pathetic, like a creature that had once been as alive as its owner. If Rob’s bike—and who else’s bike could it be?—had been found, then it was a sure bet that . . .
Arden glanced quickly toward Frannie Armitage. The woman was as still as a statue; a man Arden assumed was her husband tightened his arm protectively around her shoulders.
The men continued to work, while the silence of the people gathered to witness the moment deepened. Then, one of the men in the pit of churned earth and stone called to a man who stood on the edge of the raw cavity. Arden assumed he was the foreman.
“I can’t make out what he said,” Laura whispered. “Did you hear?”
Arden shook her head. She watched as the foreman gestured to a man in a dark suit to join him, and suddenly she knew. “They found him,” she murmured. “They found Rob.”
Laura let out a small cry and put her hand over her mouth.
After speaking quietly to the foreman, the man in the dark suit approached Frannie and her husband with an air of respect and formality. Immediately Frannie’s knees began to buckle and both her husband and the official helped her away from the scene.
“Remember that old expression?” Arden said, her voice oddly calm in spite of her agitation. “ ‘Truth is the daughter of time.’”
“Yes. And thanks to the passing of time, the truth is finally out.”
“Arden?”
Arden turned. “Ted,” she breathed. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
Ted Coldwell had aged well. He had been a handsome young man; now he was a handsome and distinguished-looking man of about sixty. He was dressed for the weather and the occasion in a classic tan trench coat over a suit and tie. His sturdy dress shoes were of the kind no professional businessman in New England was without.
He took the hand Arden offered him in both of his and smiled. In his warm brown eyes, Arden saw the native kindness she remembered so well.
“I know we spoke briefly on the phone just the other day,” Ted said, “but I still feel surprised—very pleasantly surprised—to see you in the flesh. I’m just sorry our reunion is taking place at such an emotionally difficult moment.”
Arden hastily wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Ted, that I ever thought you had something to do with Rob’s disappearance. I must have been temporarily mad.”
“No, just grief-stricken. And no apology is necessary. Please accept my deepest condolences on the death of your—”
“He was my fiancé,” Arden said proudly.
“I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for us,” Laura added.
Ted shook his head. “I hardly did anything. It was Laura who spearheaded the search for the truth. Honestly, I wish I could have done more, and a long time ago.”
“Like you said, no apology is necessary,” Arden replied with a wobbly smile.
When Ted had moved off, promising to be in touch soon, Laura, who until that moment had remained remarkably in control of her emotions, finally broke down in sobs.
Arden put her arms around her child, Rob’s child, and whispered. “It’s all right. It’s finally going to be all right.”
Chapter 82
Laura’s breathing was slowly returning to a normal rhythm. It was both what she had wanted and what she had dreaded. The recovery of her father. Well, of his earthly remains. His spirit, Laura was sure, lived on in the people who still loved him.
But for a brief moment when she and her mother had first arrived at the Aldridge estate, seeing that group of nosy locals eager for a thrill, Laura had doubted yet again the wisdom of her quest for the truth about her father’s disappearance. What pain had she wrought by opening old wounds and poking at old sorrows? What tangible good would any of this do Rob’s family, his parents and siblings, the woman who had agreed to be his wife, his child?
Now that her fa
ther’s body had been recovered, Laura knew for sure that she had done the right thing in pursuing the truth. Every person deserved a respectful send-off, a kind and careful farewell to the vessel that had provided a home for his or her soul here on earth. Now, finally, nearly forty years after he had been so unceremoniously put in the ground, Robert Smith would get the burial he deserved.
“I’m okay now,” Laura said, assuring her mother with a watery smile. “Let’s check in at the bed-and-breakfast.”
Before her mother could reply, some strange impulse made Laura turn toward the house. She wished she hadn’t. An old man was standing half-concealed behind a curtain in a room on the ground floor. Her heart began to beat madly and she felt blood rush to her cheeks.
Herbert Aldridge.
“He’s been there the whole time,” Arden said. “I saw him earlier. Watching.”
“Come on,” Laura said firmly. “We’re leaving this place. Now.” And I, she vowed, am never coming back here again.
Chapter 83
Not two hours after the women, emotionally exhausted, had gotten to the Lilac Inn, Herbert Aldridge’s attorney was on the phone. Mr. Aldridge, he told Arden, requested a meeting with his daughter.
“He would like it if you could come to the house,” Bill O’Connell went on, “but if that’s not possible, he’s willing to meet you here, at my office.”
Arden, who had been on the point of telling Mr. O’Connell that she would prefer to meet her father at the lawyer’s office, surprised herself by saying that she would meet Herbert at his home. A time was arranged for the next day.
Laura was not happy. “He doesn’t deserve any courtesy from you,” she stated firmly. “And do you really think he’s going to apologize? People like Herbert Aldridge never apologize. They never admit they’ve done anything wrong.”
There was more in the same vein, all of it understandable, but Arden’s mind was made up. She had to confront her father face-to-face, in spite of her fears and misgivings. And there were many. But she reminded herself—forcefully—that she was well beyond the grasp of her father. He could do nothing to her now that would hurt her more than what he had done to her when she was a teenager.
Arden Bell was in charge of her life in a way young Victoria Aldridge had never been.
* * *
Arden arrived at the house on Old Orchard Hill promptly at eleven o’clock. There had been no curious crowd to hinder her progress up the long drive, and by parking outside the house, she was able to avoid even a glimpse of that awful gaping hole out back.
Mr. O’Connell opened the door to her. He was a short, rather chubby man, with a boyish, unlined face that contrasted wildly with his shock of white hair. His suit fit him beautifully. He shook her hand and said he would wait for Arden in the living room.
When he had gone off, Arden took a deep breath and glanced around the front hall. It looked exactly the same as she remembered it with one glaring exception. The portraits of Joseph were gone. On the wall were faint outlines of where they had once hung, but those imagined faces were no longer looking down at her. Maybe now, Arden thought, her brother could finally rest in peace.
She straightened her shoulders—her parents had been sticklers about good posture—and knocked on the door to the study.
“Come in.”
She hadn’t heard that voice in decades, the voice she would never forget. Arden knew that she could turn around and leave, tell Bill O’Connell she had decided not to meet with her father at any time or in any place. But she wouldn’t run away. Not again.
Arden opened the door to the study and stepped inside.
And there stood her father.
Up close, he looked even more deteriorated than he had seemed through the window of the pantry the day before. His once vivid blue eyes were dull; his formerly thick mane of hair was pitifully thin; his famed broad shoulders were fallen forward. Try as he might to rule and command every aspect of his world, Herbert Aldridge had not managed to ward off the ravages of time. He had proved human after all.
Unlike its master, Herbert’s study had not changed in any major way since the last time Arden had been within its four walls. It was still a decidedly old-fashioned masculine space, like something you would find in a gentlemen’s club in London, with built-in bookshelves lining three of the walls; an oversized, tufted brown leather couch; a center rug in dark colors; a globe on a brass stand. Even the old black rotary phone was still in place on the desk, the phone with which Arden had attempted to make that one call to Rob’s home so many years ago.
Father and daughter did not shake hands or even attempt to.
“Would you like to take a seat?” Herbert gestured to the guest chair in front of his desk.
Arden sat. Herbert remained standing at the side of the desk.
“The portraits. They’re gone.”
Her father nodded. “Yes. I had them taken down yesterday. With your mother no longer here, I was glad to see them go.”
“You had them destroyed?” Somehow Arden already knew the answer to her question.
A look of pain passed over her father’s face before he said simply, “Yes.”
For the first time in her life Arden realized that those imaginary paintings, those fantasies of what might have been, had caused her father real torment. Perhaps he had not only tolerated them as one of his wife’s pathetic attempts to pretend that life had not been cruel to her firstborn; perhaps he had also been tormented by them.
But now was not the time to start feeling sorry for Herbert Aldridge.
“Why did you want to see me?”
Her father didn’t immediately answer her question. Arden was not surprised. Herbert Aldridge had always done things in his own good time.
“I knew that the woman asking questions around town was your daughter,” he said at last. “I could see the resemblance immediately. To you. And to Rob Smith. And I guessed that if your child was in Port George, then there was a good chance she had found you, or, at least, that she had discovered the identity of her birth mother. I realized there must have been a leak in the adoption process. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘no plan is foolproof forever.’”
Arden took her time in responding. She wasn’t sure she believed that he had known Laura’s identity immediately. Her mother, yes. Her father? “So,” she said finally, “you guessed that I might be alive.”
“I’ve always known you were alive.”
Again, so long used to mistrusting this man, Arden wasn’t sure she believed him. “How? Were you having me watched all these years?”
Herbert allowed the tiniest evidence of a smile, gone as quickly as it had appeared. “No. I just knew. And when your daughter turned up, I thought, ‘Now maybe I will see her again.’ My daughter.” Herbert cleared his throat. “Your mother hadn’t been well for a long time. She’d grown increasingly confused and disoriented. I wrongly assumed that she was too ill to be aware of what was happening in Port George, to know that someone had returned looking for the truth. As for myself, I felt oddly resigned about what might be revealed in the end. ‘Let them find me,’ I thought. ‘Florence has been punished all along. I’m the one who now deserves punishment for all I’ve done.’ So, I let your daughter pursue her quest and put no obstacles in her way.”
“Did you know that Mother sent two threatening notes to Laura? She was trying to get her to stop asking questions. She was trying to protect Laura from the truth.”
Herbert blanched. “I had no idea.” His voice was momentarily shaky. “I swear.”
“Mrs. Brown, her assistant or companion or whatever she was, helped Mother by writing the notes in her own hand and then by mailing them. She also followed Laura, keeping Mother informed of who Laura spoke to and of where she went.”
“Clarice Brown has quit,” Herbert said quickly. “The very evening of the day she drove your mother to Eliot’s Corner. She was in fact a paid companion; she had nursing experience. Her résumé and references were solid. I couldn�
��t have known she would aid your mother in such a misguided enterprise.”
A misguided enterprise? Nothing, Arden thought, like the misguided enterprise her father had undertaken in August 1984. “I know you confessed to convincing people in charge to put a premature halt to the search for Rob.”
“Yes. I did.”
“It was wrong.”
Herbert Aldridge didn’t answer that charge.
“I never changed my will,” he said abruptly. “You are and always were the sole heir to my estate. To ours, your mother’s and mine.”
Finally, Arden thought. We get to the reason for this command performance. “Why?” She laughed in disbelief. “Why are you leaving everything to me after all that happened? I ran away from you. I’m sure that sent a pretty clear message that I was done with being an Aldridge.”
Herbert walked around his desk and gripped the back of the big chair as if for support. “Because you’re my rightful heir,” he said forcefully. “My child.” He paused and a look of despair darted across his face, gone as quickly as it had come. “I think you should know that your mother left your room exactly as it was at the time of your—departure. She insisted nothing be changed. She kept the room clean herself. It’s all there, your clothes, furniture, books. Just as you left them.”
Arden felt tears prick at her eyes, but she commanded them to stay away. She would not cry in front of her father, even with this moving evidence that her mother had cared, had perhaps always hoped, deep down, beyond the reach of her dubious denial mechanisms, that her daughter would return.
“I see,” Arden said after a moment.
“In addition to what will come to you after my death—the house, the land, everything—I want you to have this.”
Her father opened the top drawer of his desk and withdrew what was clearly a check. He placed it on the far edge of the desk, facing Arden. “This is to help you and Laura now, before . . . before I die and probate is settled.”
Arden leaned forward to pick up the check. Twenty-five thousand dollars.
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