Finding the kids in that van at McDonald’s was a miracle, too, a van with an empty seat going clear to Coeur d’Alene, driven by a bunch of kids who bought her story and drove the extra miles just to take care of her. It had to be the hand of God—but she lied to make it happen.
She slouched, weak with shame.
So what if she’d trusted the miracle and told the truth? “Hi, I just escaped from the mental ward at the hospital and I wonder if you could give me a ride home? It’s out of town—way out of town.” Maybe they would have said yes anyway because they were angels God had sent. Maybe they would have had a complete change of clothes for her, too, just her size, including a decent pair of shoes, and maybe they would have taken her to North Lakeland Road and it would have looked just the way it was supposed to look and not … like this.
She looked up at the real estate office. This was the landmark that caught her eye, that made her tell her friends-for-the-moment they could let her off here. The two-story farmhouse had new siding, new windows, a new roof, perfect planting beds, and a paved parking lot where the front yard used to be, but she knew this house. Her best friend, Joanie Gittel, used to live here. They met when they started first grade and waited together at the bus stop right across the road. Howard Road.
Mandy looked across the four-lane street. There was a city bus stop where her school bus stop used to be, and a sign on the corner: Howard Way. The name of the cross street was North Lakeland Avenue. She could have guessed that from the name of the realty that had moved into Joanie’s house: Lakeland Realty.
Her mind came to a standstill. All she could do was look, and look again, but nothing clicked. There was no figuring it out, and right now God wasn’t helping her.
She went to the curb, looked both ways just as Mommy and Daddy always taught her, and hurried across with the first opening in the traffic. The bus stop was a small shelter with a concrete bench, a trash can, and a posted bus schedule. She sat on the bench and looked back across the street.
She remembered. Mrs. Gittel would watch from that front door until the bus came, and wave as it carried Mandy and Joanie and thirty other kids away for the day. There used to be an old garage right next to the house where Mr. Gittel kept his ’57 Ford, and there used to be a big apple tree in the front yard—Gravensteins. Daddy built the bus stop that used to be here and even put a cedar shake roof on it. She remembered it being about the same size, but she was remembering it through a child’s eyes, so it was probably smaller. There was no sidewalk then, only the gravel shoulder, the ditch, the white paddock fence, and the hayfield.
She stopped, troubled at herself. She was remembering. She was thinking words such as “then” and “used to be.”
She got to her feet, reining in her thoughts, putting on the mental brakes. This wasn’t the real now, this was some kind of delusion, and it would break, it would dissolve away and this whole nightmare would be over. She just had to find her old mailbox, her old driveway …
No! She stomped her foot. Not her old driveway, her driveway! Not her old mailbox, her mailbox! And the bus stop that Daddy built was sun-bleached and leaning a bit, but four, five … however many days it was ago … it was here, and there was no four-lane street and the Gittels’ house was still their house and it was gray, not forest green.
She hurried up the sidewalk along the two-lane avenue that North Lakeland Road had become, holding her hand to the side of her face to block her eyes from seeing concrete, asphalt, parked cars, businesses. No, they weren’t really there. She was on her way home, and there was a hayfield—she could imagine it so clearly—and a white paddock fence and hay cut short and a ditch where little frogs floated with just their eyes and noses out of the water, and a field with Daddy’s horses and a paddock with llamas watching her come home with those big brown eyes.
She tried to run but could only shuffle-run in the slippers. Cars passed on her left and they were so close, so noisy. She smelled their rubber and exhaust and the oily stench of the pavement, not the old smells—no, the smells!—that used to—no, that still did!—bring her joy as she walked this road, not this street: cut hay, wildflowers, apple blossoms.
She shuffle-ran until she was gasping, but the concrete sidewalk never ended and she never found the mailbox. She dared to lower her hand and look, hoping, trying to have faith, but there was no driveway, there were no pastures or fences, no big house on the hill. She looked back, down that long white ribbon of concrete, and saw the Gittels’ house appearing as small as it always appeared from the Whitacre mailbox. She looked up the hill, across acres of blacktop, over curbed islands of lawn and young planted firs, past rows of automobiles and gaggles of moms, kids, and grocery carts, and saw an Albertson’s grocery store, a Hancock Fabrics, a Starbucks, a Rite Aid, and a thrift store.
And they wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she tried not to believe in them.
And this was the dream, their new adventure?
Dane shut the ponderous, hand-carved front door then leaned his back against it, suddenly bereft of any reason to move. Under his feet was the slate tiled foyer, and just ahead, the sunken living room with red oak floor, cathedral ceiling, and large pane windows with gorgeous views of mountains, forests, fields, a Dutch-style barn, and a pond big enough to be called a lake. The former owner had done well and grown ambitious in his latter years; the house came to forty-nine hundred square feet altogether. The kitchen was sized for entertaining, with an elongated center island and surrounding counters and cabinets; a dual access staircase led up to an open office overlooking the great room and a master suite boasting cathedral windows, a stylish double-vanity bathroom, infrared sauna, whirlpool tub, walk-in shower, and walk-in closet. There were two other bedrooms and a full, unfinished basement, a blank slate he and Mandy could have utilized any way they wanted.
Yes, a big, beautiful home for big, beautiful dreams: a theatrical management company; research and development of new effects and illusions; a Christian kids’ magic camp; some books, some memoirs, some articles, and why not some horses or anything else they had yet to imagine, for this would be a new season in their life, a promised land far from Egypt, a fresh garden for new ideas grown their way.
At least that was the idea.
There was no chair, no furniture at all to sit on, so Dane sank to the tiles with his back against the door, taking up maybe three of the forty-nine hundred square feet. He could hear the air moving against the walls. The sound of his own breathing traveled along the wood floors, high ceilings, and huge windows and came whispering back to him like Noah’s dove after her first mission: there’s nothing in here. The dreams never made it through the front door.
Why did I even—
The answer came quicker than it took to think the question: because it was going to be he and Mandy. She was going to be carrying plans and sketches down those stairs to show him; they were going to try some new French recipes in that kitchen; she was going to be napping under that window, dancing with him on the red oak floor, combing through that closet for her other glove, walking out in the morning light to feed her doves in that barn; they were going to make love in the starlight coming through those windows.
But now his eyes fell on the silver urn in his hands and he knew. Of course he knew.
She was the dream. The house was just a frame around the picture.
No wonder the house felt so empty.
Just like him.
They were real—Albertson’s, Rite Aid, Hancock Fabrics, Starbucks, all of them—real. She touched the concrete, the stonework, the windows; she pulled open the doors and looked inside. She could feel, hear, smell them. She could see her pitiful reflection in their windows. She was here, they were here.
Which meant, as near as she could explain it, that she was lost, really lost, hyperlost, even to herself. She could see the reflection of a walking body in the glass, but what was it, and when, and where, and who was in there? Certainly no one she knew.
Mandy Whita
cre lived here from 1951 to 1970.
The girl in the blue scrubs and the coat that didn’t fit, with her slippers coming apart, didn’t. She couldn’t have.
Mandy Whitacre had a father, nineteen years of a wonderful life, a home.
The crazy-looking girl in the glass didn’t.
No father. No Daddy waiting for her, no Daddy standing there with her.
Whose daddy? Whose father was he in that other place, that other time, if not hers? Whose memory had she stolen? Had he ever existed at all?
There was one thing she knew. She didn’t want to know it, but she did. Everything in her mind had gone adrift like a drowning swimmer, kicking, struggling, not touching bottom anywhere, but this one thing had never budged from the time she stepped out of that minivan, and now, bigger than ever, here it was: He was gone. No lemonade today; there was no Daddy.
The girl in the glass was starting to shake and stare back at her with crazed animal eyes. Oh, they are going to lock me up for sure! She’d better hide.
Her mind did not record how she got behind all those big buildings, back on the blank side of the thrift store where there were no windows or signs, just steel loading doors and steel people doors and heaps of flattened cardboard boxes and packing materials strewn around big metal Dumpsters. Her first awareness, the first thing she knew she could know, was that she was huddled against one of the Dumpsters holding pieces of crumpled cardboard up against her face as if that would muffle the sounds she could not contain. She wailed, she quivered, she cried, begging God without words, pouring out anguish without thought. She didn’t breathe, she gasped in anger, pain, fear, and despair, shaking but not caring, not knowing, not knowing, not knowing …
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!”
She didn’t hear a car pull up. She didn’t hear a car door open and close. She hardly felt the touch on her leg. When she did, she grappled for more cardboard trying to bury herself, wriggling and wailing something like no no no. She heaped the panels on top of herself, curling up, trying to hide under them.
It was a lady’s voice; it sounded so faint on the other side of the cardboard. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you!”
A hand patted her foot. She dared to peek from under the cardboard and saw a lady with an angelic face. The lady was on her knees, eyes full of concern, reaching to touch her.
Mandy—if that was her name—shied away, but the angel lady touched her cheek. “Shhh … it’s just me. Can I sit down?”
Mandy didn’t answer. She just stared, her eyes streaked and burning, her breath still broken into sobs.
The angel lady sat down next to her, right on top of the torn-up cardboard and packing material, and drew close, arm extended to embrace Mandy’s shoulders. Mandy wasn’t sure, not at all, but the arm got around her. Mandy wasn’t sure, not at all, but the angel lady wrapped her other hand gently around her cheek.
Before she knew it, before she could think about it, she’d buried her face in the angel lady’s shoulder, she’d clutched for her very life to the angel lady’s arm, and she was still crying but now it was different. Someone was holding her, someone could hear her crying, and now she was crying about that, too.
The angel lady never stirred, and her embrace never faltered. She just stayed right there, holding Mandy, whispering comfort, patting her arm, until Mandy, exhausted, cuddled against her like a child, head against her shoulder, sad, reddened eyes looking at nothing in particular.
“I’m sorry,” Mandy said at last, her voice a low, quaking whimper.
The angel lady gave her a handkerchief. “Don’t be sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to be a bother.”
“You’re not a bother. You’re somebody in trouble.”
“Whoa, yeah.”
“My name’s Mia. I work right here at the thrift store. What’s your name?”
Her name? Should she lie again? The truth could lead to another truth and another and then she’d be back in the hospital. Then again, she was back here sitting on the cardboard next to a Dumpster because the truth had abandoned her. If she didn’t know what the truth was, how could she lie?
“Eloise,” she said. That would be true enough for now.
Mia touched Mandy’s toes, now protruding through the end of a road-weary hospital slipper. “Eloise, would you like a pair of shoes?”
chapter
* * *
10
Mr. Stone and Mr. Mortimer had gone rural, renting a small farmhouse in northern Idaho for enough money to send the owners to Europe and, if need be, Mexico and, if need be, Hawaii. They’d left the black Lexus in Vegas and were driving a green Dodge four-wheel-drive SUV; they’d doffed the black suits and were decked out in jeans and flannel shirts. Mr. Stone had found himself a John Deere billed cap, while Mr. Mortimer was reliving a childhood dream under a cowboy brim.
The house sat on a green hillside, huddled among old-growth firs and facing the pastured valley below. The front window provided a pleasing view of the valley, the fields, a winding creek, and particularly the high-end ranch house across the valley on the opposite hill, the one purchased two weeks ago by their man of interest, Mr. Dane Collins.
They’d rearranged the living room, turning the couch to face the front window while allowing floor space for a spotting scope and two long-lensed cameras—one a video, one a still. They had snacks and a thermos of coffee stationed on the coffee table and a computer open on a TV tray. Today’s plans included getting online with a portable satellite linkup—not difficult—and then scouting out better vantage points for observing and eavesdropping on that ranch house—difficult. They would probably carry out that part of the mission that night.
Mortimer was taking his shift at the window when he was alerted. “Hold on, who’s this?”
He went to the spotting scope; Stone went to the video camera.
A white Toyota Rav4 had pulled up the paved driveway and parked under the carport. A small, roundish lady in blue sweatshirt and jeans got out, lifted what appeared to be bags of groceries from the rear compartment, and headed for the side door of the house, the one that led to the kitchen.
“No …” said Mortimer. “Not yet.”
Stone glanced over the photos taped to the wall. Some they took at the memorial service, mostly photos of photos; others were easily available promo shots of Dane and Mandy; some, like the few they had of Shirley Morgan, were the sneaky, surveillance kind: telephoto, shallow focus, shot through trees, from behind cars, often partially blocked by objects or people’s backs. “Shirley Morgan,” said Stone. “Grounds manager. She came with the place.”
Dane was on his cell phone, pacing in the kitchen of his big, empty house when Shirley came in with the groceries. He waved hi, she proceeded to put the milk, bread, oat flakes, and paper towels away while he drifted into the breakfast nook. “Seattle. Is that what you said? Seattle?” He made a frustrated face at Shirley, who made a sympathetic face back. “Listen, I can look at a map, but I don’t think Seattle’s on the way to Idaho. I mean, I drove all the way up here from Vegas and I never passed through Seattle.”
He’d bought some cedar patio furniture in a fall close-out at Ace Hardware in Hayden: four chairs, two deck recliners, and an oval table with a hole in the center to support an umbrella. The recliners were in the den; the table and chairs were in the breakfast nook. The store couldn’t find the umbrella. He got a good deal.
He sat in one of the chairs. “Well, I thought your truck was going to take the same route.” He listened, he sighed. “Okay, tomorrow. I can sleep on the floor one more night. Mmm, it’s all right. ’Bye.” He switched off his cell phone and clipped it back on his belt. “The load’s in Seattle.”
Shirley laughed derisively. “Wasn’t it supposed to be here Monday?”
“Well, they had somebody else’s load they had to drop off in Seattle first. Funny how they left out that little detail.”
“I won’t need the air mattress for a while.”
“I th
ank you, my back thanks you.”
“I got you the soap and shampoo. What about laundry soap?”
“There was still a box in the laundry room and …” Dane looked down at the clothes he was wearing. “I don’t have a lot of laundry.”
Shirley placed some envelopes and catalogs on the granite counter. “All your friends are finding you.”
“You can toss those women’s catalogs.”
“Okay.” Ka-foom! Into the wastebasket in the pantry. “I’m moving all the hanging baskets into the greenhouse today, and then, if it’s okay with you, I’ll shut down the irrigation pump and blow out the sprinkler lines.”
“Blow out the … what?”
“The yard sprinklers. I use compressed air to blow the water out of all the pipes and heads so they won’t freeze.”
“Oh. Right.”
“And I should take the tractor in to get all the fluids changed next week. You’ll want to get that done before we have to plow snow.”
Oh. He hadn’t thought of that. “When does it start snowing?”
“Depends. Middle of November usually, give or take.”
Dane nodded. It was now the second week of October. The mornings were getting crisp, and the leaves were turning. Pretty soon he’d be experiencing that aspect of living in Idaho.
“I don’t have any warm clothes.”
“No boots either.”
“No.”
“Ah. That’s something you need to do, just take a trip into town and do some shopping.”
08 Illusion Page 7