“We need to know more about the Ryler family, and also the Yates family. Both families moved away soon after baby Connor was found. Both have sons who were in their twenties at the time baby Connor was kidnapped. Scott worked as an auto mechanic. Jeff worked for a landscaping business. Both boys had repeated trouble with the law since high school—fights, underage drinking. They liked fast cars, would steal one for a joyride. Both had burglary arrests in their background. I’m beginning to wonder if this wasn’t so much a family decision to kidnap a child as two friends acting together, maybe add a girlfriend, wanting fast cash.”
“Start with their former neighbors?”
“Yes.” She tapped the map and an orange dot. “Mrs. Willis told me both families were embarrassed by their boys and the trouble they were getting into, said the cops at the time asked her if she knew where Scott and Jeff had been the day baby Connor disappeared. Maybe the detectives were on to something.”
Paul picked up his phone and keys. The baby Conner case had been left on the back burner over the winter, while Ann helped with the coins, but the weather was nice now, a drive sounded appealing, and it was time to pick up where they had left off. Paul leaned down to ruffle Black’s fur. “Ready to go on more interviews, Black?”
The dog pushed at him to move him toward the office door. Paul laughed. “We probably won’t solve the case today, but it’s going to be an enjoyable Saturday afternoon being outdoors.”
Ann slid her hand into his as they headed downstairs and walked to the car, Black tugging to lead the way. “Remember our first weeks being married, being back here after the honeymoon?”
Paul smiled. “With some detail.”
“I was thinking some this morning about Bryce and Charlotte,” Ann said, her answering smile brief and her words turning serious. “I got the impression from Bryce they weren’t planning to travel for their honeymoon. Probably wise, given how busy their schedules have been recently, and all they’ll have to deal with early in their marriage. When the time is right, you should give him a call, go running together or something. I’d like to invite her over, if I can do so without sounding pushy about it.”
“You’re worried about them.”
Ann lifted a shoulder. “Concerned, maybe. Like you, I was surprised when Bryce asked her to marry him, even more surprised when Charlotte said yes. I don’t want to see the experience of marriage turn out to be a disappointment for either one of them.”
Paul opened the door to the car’s back seat, and Black dove in, tail wagging. “Bryce made his choice knowing what they’d be facing. I’m going to guess they end up with one of the strongest marriages among our friends, given the work they’re going to have to put into it. This wasn’t a quick decision for either of them.”
“I just wish for a calm, comfortable transition, and I’m afraid if it goes badly they won’t have people around to talk with. You and I at least know some of the terrain they’ll be dealing with.”
“We’ll have them over for dinner,” Paul suggested. “And I’m ready to get back on the track to do some running. I’ll give Bryce a call in a few days.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Charlotte straightened Bryce’s tie. “You look very nice in a suit. Very much the boss.”
Bryce set his coffee aside, amused. “A boss with no staff.” They no longer tried to have breakfast together, but they did often pass each other in the kitchen in the morning. She favored a toasted bagel with cream cheese, and he gravitated to oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. He was up earlier than she was most mornings and made a point to leave the office and come join her in the kitchen for a refill on his coffee and a few minutes of conversation when he heard her come downstairs.
“We really should hire you an assistant. The stacks of mail to read are growing.”
“I’m fine for now. Ellie is good at keeping my office organized, and I don’t want to give her any reason to stop helping me out.”
“She likes being over here.”
“She likes the excuse to hang out with you.” Bryce caught her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. “You both need that time together. I’ve never heard two women giggle as much as you two. What was it yesterday, the ball of rubber bands that set it off?”
“We’re easily amused.”
“More like a few decades of inside jokes you aren’t sharing with me. She’s looking more relaxed.”
“She thought I might marry John. She was dealing with it, but the idea scared her.”
He gently tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Had it come down to ten days before the deadline, and it wasn’t going to work with you, maybe John or I would have changed our minds. But I like to think we would have stuck with no. John loves her.”
“Let’s invite them to dinner—John and Ellie. Our first official guests. We could put something on the grill.”
“I’d like that, but a few weeks from now. John’s been tugging at her to come north and get started on the remodeling, and I don’t want to give her an excuse not to go.”
“Ellie told me she wanted to see you safely married before she thought about getting married herself.”
“Did she?” Charlotte thought about that and smiled. “I’m going to have to double dare her or something to get her to say yes.”
Bryce laughed. “You’ll find the right words when it’s time.” He ran his hand lightly down her arm. “Have you decided the theme for your ambitious sketch?”
“I’m leaning toward Florist—a lady in her shop, surrounded by the flowers she has to sell. Pretty vases, finished arrangements, common and exotic flowers. It gives variety, beauty, color, and lots of textures.”
“A good challenge. I’ll keep you supplied in a steady stream of flowers if that’s the direction you decide to go.”
“One good reason I might choose it. I’ll come find you for a late lunch if you don’t find me first.”
“I’d like that.”
Charlotte settled into her chair in his office, a glass of ice tea in her hand. “Your mom and I are going shopping about two, then meeting up with your sisters for coffee and pie.”
He slit open another letter. “You’ll have a good time.”
“Expect so. I like your mom.”
Bryce glanced over at her, thought she looked both rested and content, was pleased by both, and returned his attention to the letter. She joined him in his office for a few minutes most days, to listen to part of a ball game, to talk about her morning, to share a cup of coffee. He missed her on days she didn’t come by. She put aside the tea, picked up her sketchbook and a pen, drew for a few minutes, then put it back on the shelf.
Bryce finished the letter. “Want to go for a walk? A short one since you’re going out.”
“Maybe. I’m just restless. I feel oddly guilty I haven’t asked more than the occasional question about what you’ve been doing.”
Bryce smiled. “I haven’t done much yet, just put out a lot of inquiries for information. I have a list of places where I send a check every month. A second list of prospects—organizations we might support on an ongoing basis after I know more about them. And, finally, a folder of projects being done around the world I’m considering for contributions.”
“Simple. Elegant. I like it.”
“We need that monthly list to include about twenty-five thousand entries. It’s currently—” he checked the database—“six hundred eight-two organizations. I’m giving an initial gift equal to ten percent of what the organization had in income the prior year, then making monthly contributions to give that amount again over the next year. It’s enough to be helpful, but not so much we make any place dependent on us for funding. With every organization that gets through the due diligence and is added to that list, my job gets easier. A year from now we’ll be giving away tens of millions in monthly support. Think of it as a big snowball. It starts small but keeps building in scale.”
“Are you funding specific
projects outright?”
“If I like the project and it’s ready to go, I’ll fund whatever remains to be raised. If it’s early in the planning stage, I’ll give five hundred or a thousand, depending on the scope of it, and simply monitor the progress. I’ll give the bulk of our donation when the project is ready to launch.”
“It’s a good and wise approach.” She studied the glass she held, glanced back over at him. “Bryce, I know I asked you to keep the burden of the money off me, and you’ve been doing that. But I feel like I should be helping you more than I am.”
“Do you want to?”
She thought a moment and shook her head. “I really don’t, I just feel like I should be. I know how big a task this is, Bryce. I watch the hours you spend working on where to give and it makes me feel guilty I’m not helping you any.”
“Charlotte, why stress on it? I’m doing fine, and if I need an occasional extra hand, I’ll let you know. Enjoy your studio time, some relaxing afternoons shopping like today. This time try to buy something besides dog rawhide bones and a book for me.”
“It’s hard to find something I want. I’m a wanderer when I shop, not necessarily a buyer. Is there anything you need for me to pick up?”
He tried to come up with something, finally shook his head. “No. I’d say a package of Strawberry Twisters, but I don’t need to be eating them.”
She smiled. “See the problem?”
Her phone rang. Charlotte dug it out of her pocket. “Hi, John.” She reached for a pen. “Give me that item number again.” She wrote a note in her palm. “Sure, tell Ellie I can pick it up for her.” She got to her feet, covered the phone with her hand. “I’m going to have John drop me by your mom’s. I’ll be back about six.”
“Have a good afternoon, Charlotte.”
It was after ten p.m. when Bryce lightly tapped on the studio door and stepped into the sunroom. The patio doors were open, and he could hear the faint sounds of traffic, of music drifting in from the neighbors. Moonlit shadows kept the backyard from being a fully black oasis. He frequently found Charlotte curled up on one of the couches, simply watching the night.
She loved to live visually. She’d filled the long room with comfortable seating, tables, art books and magazines, loaded the long wall with art—some finished pieces she had collected, others her own works.
Tonight she was at her drawing board positioned halfway down the room. She’d turned on lights around it, the bulbs chosen to produce the natural spectrum of sunlight so her colors would not be distorted when the sun was down. She was surrounded by the tools of her craft—trays of pencils angled so she could see at a glance every shade of blue, green, yellow, and red across the rainbow of colors. Tonight the browns were in first position as she developed a clay-pot design she might use on the flower shop counter.
Bryce settled into the comfortable chair near her, stretched out his legs, and opened the book he had brought with him.
“I’ll be finished soon.”
“No hurry, it’s a new book. One you bought me.”
She laid in a line of color, switched to a lighter shade of brown, glanced at him. “I probably just lied. I may tinker with this for another hour or two. I’m not particularly tired. The coffee with that pie wasn’t decaf.”
“Good thing it’s a long book.”
“I was politely trying to let you know you don’t need to wait up for me, Bryce.”
“Got that. Since I choose to stay awake until you come upstairs, I might as well enjoy your company.”
“This is a be a good husband kind of thing?”
He shrugged but faintly smiled.
“It’s kind of nice.”
“Finish your pottery design, Charlotte.”
She picked out a handful of pencils across the yellow and reds and held them out. “Choose your favorite color.”
He selected a deep red. She frowned at it for a moment, then smiled and added the red around the shadow cast inside the pottery.
She bought him books. He bought her shoes. She hung sketches in his office. Shipments of her favorite drawing paper arrived with a ribbon around the box, and sketchbooks showed up in every room, easy to reach, with mugs of pencils in all shades finding their way to various tables.
They walked the neighborhood when they both needed a break, strolling east to stop at the coffee shop, west to wander through the card shop. He started mailing her cards—funny ones, thoughtful ones, blank ones that he filled with simple notes. They played pool. He taught her to play darts.
Movies began to gather on the coffee table, and evenings sharing the couch, sometimes her head resting against his shoulder, became common. Life began to fit together.
And Bryce started to fall in love with his wife.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Bryce slipped off his suit jacket as he entered his bedroom, moved to the closet to hang it up. He heard Charlotte join him and turned, smiled, as he tugged off his tie. “A nice evening. I’m glad we went.”
Charlotte slipped off the emerald earrings she had tried as a favor to him. “I enjoy spending time with Ann and Paul.”
He offered her the box for the earrings, and she carefully put them inside, thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Beautiful, but no.”
“Okay.” He set the box aside to return to their shop. He’d try something different. So far she’d chosen to keep only one piece of jewelry out of all he’d asked her to try. But he was enjoying the process. The precious gems to work with were diverse, the designers good, and his wife was a challenge. She would have a dozen pieces of jewelry she loved before he was done. The store would have no problem getting a very high price for the pieces he commissioned that she decided not to keep.
She undid the cuff links for him without him asking. When they were going out for an evening, she’d been selecting whimsical cuff links rather than the more proper ones for him to wear. These happened to be a tiny pair of running shoes.
She’d enjoyed the evening, but she’d been quiet, enough that Ann had given him a couple of concerned looks. Bryce didn’t have to ask Charlotte what was still lingering on her mind. His wife had spent the weekend reading what Gage had written. The sadness was real. Even as she tried tonight to focus on the conversation with Ann and Paul, Charlotte had struggled to stay engaged.
Bryce took a risk and held out a pillow. Some nights she would decline with a smile, but sometimes she would curl up and talk awhile. Charlotte curled up in her chair.
He tossed more pillows against the headboard.
“I think I need to talk to you about the book.”
He glanced over at her, then gave his attention to the clasp of his watch. Her words were tentative enough he knew she was already thinking of changing her mind. “You know I’ll be glad to listen if you do.” He put the watch on the dresser, his billfold, made a point of taking his time. She’d wrapped her arms around her knees. He didn’t need a clearer visual reminder of how difficult this terrain was for her. She was trying to hide.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes, tossed them one at a time into the closet. She gave a faint smile but didn’t comment. He settled against the pillows and forced himself to relax. “Gage is doing a good job?”
“Too good.”
Bryce could see the sadness, hear it. He quietly waited.
“The book is going to reveal that a cop had some of the ransom money.”
He felt the punch of the news catch him like a jab under the ribs. A cop with ransom money . . .
Charlotte’s gaze held his. “Tabitha doesn’t know.”
And in those quiet words he heard her dilemma. Charlotte had been protecting Tabitha from the truth. And because she hadn’t known, Tabitha had opened a door Charlotte had deliberately left closed for the last nineteen years. “You’ve known that news for a while.”
“It’s one of the reasons John took me to Texas as soon as I could travel.” She rested her chin on her knee. “He’s dead, the cop involve
d. He’s the guy who came through the door first, shot and killed the two men holding me. He died in a car accident on the way to a television interview the next day. Gage is going to say the cop had financial problems and took some of the ransom money after I was rescued as a crime of opportunity. It was theft, a spur-of-the-moment decision, and only a theft.”
Bryce only needed to see her face to know that wasn’t all of it. “Is Gage wrong?”
Seconds ticked by, her eyes focused on her hands as she carefully smoothed out the folds in the fabric of her dress. She abruptly got to her feet. “Good night, Bryce.”
He simply nodded and let her go.
Not all of it. Not even close.
He’d wondered if she would ever talk about what had happened, now wondered if she ever could. A cop had some of the ransom money. He closed his eyes and prayed for his wife. She was carrying a grief, a trauma so deep that God was the only one who could help her figure out what she could safely share.
Bryce searched his desk for his planner. He remembered having it that morning after his dad called, but couldn’t remember where he’d left it. He heard Charlotte in the living room. “Charlotte, do you see that brown leather-covered planner I carry around?”
“It’s in here.”
He left the office for the living room. She was sitting in her favorite chair, sketching variations of a flower arrangement. Charlotte held out the planner. “You use this a lot. What do you keep in it?”
“Notes of things to do, my schedule.”
“I see you write in the back sometimes. Your to-do list?”
He hesitated because he never talked about it.
“That’s okay, sorry I asked. I didn’t look.”
He heard his words echoing in his mind. He never talked about it . . . they mirrored hers. He sat on the arm of the couch. “I write my prayers in the back of the planner. The middle has my prayer lists. I find it easier to figure out on paper what I want to pray, then I read it to God, maybe consider it a letter to Him.
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