Bay Hideaway

by Beth Loughner

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “When I went into your office at home, you were gone. I don’t know. Maybe you received a call from your campaign manager and had to leave—that happened a lot.” Pressing her fingers over one temple, she lightly shook her head. “But you had been in the middle of paying the bills and left the checks lying on the desk. It was then I realized how much the writing looked like yours. When I compared the letter to your writing and it matched, things started to add up.”

  “That’s when you started planning a way to escape?”

  “What else could I do?” she pleaded. “By then, I’d realized that you had somehow found out about my past and wanted me out of the picture. But you wanted me to be the one to leave, not you. I thought it was all about your aspirations to become a U.S. senator.”

  “I wish you would have come to me.”

  “How could I?”

  “You should have had a little faith in me.”

  “My faith in everything was gone by that time.” Her eyes grew somber. “You would have wanted an explanation of the letters. Then what? Would you still have loved me after learning about my past? Would your family have let you love me?”

  It took a moment for Nathan to sort out exactly what his reaction might have been. “I don’t know what I would have done,” he finally answered. “But I know that I wouldn’t have abandoned you.”

  She acknowledged his answer, but her eyes told him she didn’t quite believe that scenario would have played out as he said.

  He tried again. “My coming here should tell you one thing.”

  She lifted one brow. “What is that?”

  “It should convince you that I’m not the author of these letters.” He thrust a hand out in front of him. “Think about it. If I had written these letters and you disappeared from the scene so nice and tidy, there would be no reason for me to come searching for you. Am I right?”

  “Maybe.” She seemed to think it over. “That is a logical conclusion.”

  “And you weren’t easy to find.”

  This perked up her attention. “I was very meticulous in securing my new identity.”

  “I know!”

  “Yet you found me.”

  “True!”

  “How?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She sat back in the chair. “That’s all right. If you have the story, I have the time.”

  seven

  Judi settled back in the chair across from Nathan. Finally, the worst of the interrogation was over. She’d spilled her guts and lived to talk about it—for now. What Nathan thought of her past was anyone’s guess. His expression never changed from one of concentration and study. But he was good in that way. There were times when clients would give the most horrendous accounts of their dealings and Nathan held the same you’re-in-capable-hands air people found comforting.

  She found it disconcerting!

  Did Nathan loathe her more than ever before? Was he repulsed and disgusted, wishing he had listened to his family? Maybe he was already envisioning the inevitable I-told-you-so party his mother would throw. If so, then she, as his wife, had done him a terrible disservice. Could Nathan be telling the truth? As he had mentioned before, if he had been the author of the threats there would be no feasible reason for him to come to Bay Island.

  If it wasn’t Nathan, then who did write the letters? Two possibilities sprang to mind: his campaign manager and his mother. Both disliked her! Yet neither would have access to her cleared juvenile records. She glanced at Nathan, his head still bent over the papers, organizing them for the second time into some type of order. Again, she sensed he was having trouble seeing clearly and wondered if he had been struck with the dreaded forty-and-over farsightedness that turned ordinary people into trombone players. What the man needed was a pair of glasses.

  Nathan looked up, seemingly unperturbed by her stare.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he told her, fitting the papers neatly into a folder. “I’ll fill you in on how I came to find you, if you’ll do two things.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Just two?”

  He stood and stretched his back; she heard it crack, cringing at the sound. He only smiled at her reaction. “Sorry! You never did like the snap, crackle, pop unless it was in your cereal, did you? But sometimes a guy just has to loosen the spine.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve been at this thing for several hours, which brings me to my first request. Would you be kind enough to scavenge through your refrigerator and make me a sandwich of some sort?”

  “That’s an easy one,” she lightly answered back, still intently watching him. He was tired, she could tell, reminding her of those long days he used to put in while campaigning. “What’s your second request?”

  “I’ll tell you all about my journey to locate a lost wife if you’ll fill me in on a few details of your plan-of-escape that also seem to be missing.”

  “Sounds like a bargain.” She moved toward the refrigerator. “Although it’s just a matter of curiosity on my part, I am interested to know what bases I failed to cover.”

  He followed her to the kitchen counter where his glass of water was sitting, the ice now melted, and lifted it to take a drink. A droplet of condensation fell haphazardly on his tie. He brushed it away and looked back at her. “It should be more than just a matter of curiosity.”

  The warning tone in his voice told her he was hinting at something serious. “If you were able to locate me, then the person who wrote those notes could find me, too. Is that it?” She pulled a bag of deli ham from the fridge and two plates from the cupboard. “Not a comforting thought.”

  “True,” he agreed solemnly, a measure of concern etching his face. “But it’s something we should consider.”

  He did have a point. She had been so upset at his unexpected appearance, she hadn’t considered that angle before. Closing the freezer door, she automatically dropped a handful of ice cubes into his water glass. “Does anyone else know why you’re here?”

  “Just my assistant, Thomas,” he answered, his eyes following her as she opened the bread bag. “You don’t need to worry about him. He’s extremely good at what he does and is even better at keeping things under wraps. Then there’s the fact that he came on staff after you were gone and didn’t even know you.”

  “Then I’m sure he’s safe.” She took four slices of bread out and twirled the yellow bread bag shut until it formed an airtight wrap and grabbed the twist tie. She held the plastic-covered wire tie toward him. “Still losing twisty ties and eating stale bread?”

  “Of course,” he answered with a reluctant but slow, mischievous smile.

  She laughed. How an intelligent, grown man could misplace every twist tie he’d ever had the misfortune to handle was a mystery. How many times the vacuum cleaner had eaten those twist ties couldn’t be counted.

  Judi put the finishing touches on the sandwiches and handed him a plate. “Heavy on the cheese and light on the mayo.”

  He murmured his thanks as he accepted the plate and grabbed his drink. Sliding her own plate off the counter and into her hand, she trailed him into the living room. Again they sat in their same places, opposite each other, only the coffee table serving as a buffer between them.

  Sitting in the chair, Judi rested her plate on the makeshift lap of her legs, both feet slipped securely beneath. “Your story has to start at the very beginning,” she informed him, watching him take a bite of the sandwich, “starting with the reason for your search. I’m certain there was nothing left behind to cause doubt or raise any suspicions that my death was anything but an accidental drowning. Everything went off without a hitch.”

  He waited to finish chewing and chased it down with a swallow of water. “Everyone was convinced; the police, your family, my family—even me.”

  “Then something must have happened to change your mind,” she guessed, trying to read his face. “What was it? What did I leave behind?”

  “It’s not wh
at you left behind,” he answered, his long mouth twisting ruefully. “It’s what you didn’t leave behind.”

  Judi racked her brain. She hadn’t taken anything! Her purse, keys, clothes, jewelry, makeup—they were all left behind. Not even a toothbrush was taken. “That’s impossible,” she finally concluded.

  “You probably thought I wouldn’t notice,” he consoled. “Of course, I was having a difficult time dealing with your death and admit I was grabbing at straws, but you were acting very distant and peculiar before the so-called accident. So, when I noticed the ruby brooch missing, I began to have my first suspicions about the drowning.”

  Puzzled, Judi shook her head. “You’re not talking about my grandmother’s ruby pin?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “The ruby brooch is gone?”

  “By the surprise in your voice am I to presume you didn’t take it with you?” It was his turn to look mystified.

  The brooch was missing! Judi wanted to jump from the chair and had to snatch the sandwich plate before it went flying to the edge of the cushion. “I didn’t take the brooch with me. It can’t be gone!”

  “I assure you the pin wasn’t in your jewelry box.” He seemed troubled by her outburst, a wary line creasing his forehead.

  “Nathan, I’m telling you; the brooch was left in the jewelry box. I never took it with me.” She dropped the plate on the coffee table rather hard but didn’t care and slumped back in the chair. “How can it be missing?”

  He shrugged. “When the ruby wasn’t there, I assumed you had taken it with you. I knew how important it was to you, being your grandmother’s heirloom.”

  “But I didn’t take it with me,” she protested, her hands clutching angrily at the arm of the chair. There were only two worldly possessions she owned that meant anything—the heirloom pin and her vintage 1972 yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Both had to be left behind, but if she had known the ruby pin would be taken, she would have risked bringing it with her. She thought it would be safe with Nathan. At the very least, the brooch should have been given to her father. “This is terrible news!”

  Nathan seemed at a loss. “Could you have placed it somewhere other than the jewelry box? Maybe you put it somewhere for safekeeping and forgot.”

  “It was in the box!” She wasn’t crazy. The pin was left where it had always been. It was more than just the loss of an expensive gem. It was all that was left of her grandmother and a mother she barely knew. To be motherless was difficult enough, but the less than respectable reason for her mother’s departure had marked her with embarrassment and then anger throughout her childhood. She’s run off with another man, her father explained to her one hot summer day so many years ago. She never asked again why she had no mother. It was easier to make believe her mother left unwillingly than to cope with the reality that her mother didn’t care enough to take her only daughter with her.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Nathan finally said, breaking the silence. He cocked his head sympathetically. “Maybe God let it happen so I would come looking for you.”

  Judi pulled a face at him. “God didn’t come down and take it.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting God physically came into the room and took it,” he softly returned. “I only know the ruby pin was not in your jewelry box when I went through your things. It seems an odd thing to go missing. I’m only suggesting that God may have orchestrated its disappearance—how I don’t know—to cause me to begin a search.”

  Nathan was right! If the pin was missing, it was missing. There was nothing she could do about it now. How ironic! She had left the ruby behind to make a clean, total break from her former life and to prevent any suspicion. Yet the ruby had started a search ending in her discovery.

  “Listen,” Nathan said soothingly. “We’ll add the missing ruby to our list of things to resolve. We’ll find it!”

  She lightly waved her hand in resignation. “You’re right! It’s not that important in light of my current situation.” What good did it do to hold on to a pipe dream that didn’t exist? The jewelry brought her no closer to the mother who abandoned her at the age of four. It did nothing to keep her father from drinking away his sorrows. No power was held in the red sparkle other than what she chose to believe. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. “Tell me what happened after you found the ruby missing.”

  Nathan seemed to hesitate as if waiting to see if she really wanted to move on.

  “It’s all right,” she assured, taking the plate up again in her lap to prove it. “I’m ready to hear the rest of the story.”

  “If you’re sure, but I have to warn you that my methods of tracking might put you to shame—I’m almost as clever as you,” he remarked with an impish smile.

  “Really?”

  “Really! I did a thorough search of everything and came up with nothing. But then I took a long shot and it paid off.” He wagged a finger at her. “I knew one day your addiction to that awful Angelic Hash fudge would be your downfall.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she sputtered in disbelief. “There is no way you could have traced me from that.”

  He only gave her a knowing glance and took another bite of the ham sandwich.

  “You’re telling me that you were able to get a list of customers buying this particular fudge and with that list you found me?” He was bluffing. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who ordered that exact fudge flavor.

  He held up a waiting finger as he finished his bite. “The job was daunting. Did you know that there are over seven hundred people who regularly mail order the Angelic Hash? Five hundred eighteen of them are women, and 362 of those women have been customers for more than three years. That left me with 156 women who were customers for less than three years to check on.”

  “You are kidding, right?”

  “Quite serious.” He smiled, evidently amused by her befuddlement. “If you were alive, I knew you would somehow obtain this fudge. You wouldn’t risk buying it in person from the shop, though. No, you would mail order it. So that’s where I started.”

  “Even at that,” she protested, “I used the name Amanda Rydell, not Judith.”

  “I know. The birth certificate you acquired was for Amanda Judith Rydell.” He leaned back. “It was the process of elimination that narrowed it down.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Tell me.”

  “Back to the 156 women,” he directed. “Of those, 61 were over the age of 55 and 10 were under 25. That left 85.”

  “You obtained their ages?” Fascinated now, she watched him intently.

  “That’s where my assistant, Thomas, comes in.” He gave her a knowing look. “He first was able to secure the list with a little persuasion, and he did a basic, systematic check on every female customer who ordered that particular fudge, including their ages. Then he did an in-depth search of the remaining eighty-five and eliminated several more by profession, race, and marital status over the past two years. He arrived at nine names and you were one of them. Once he perused the driver’s license photos of the nine, you seemed like a good bet. Then he came to Bay Island.”

  “Your assistant was here?”

  “He even came into the church office one day to ask directions,” Nathan went on. “You gave him directions to Levitte’s Landing.”

  “I remember him,” she exclaimed, thinking back just a week ago. “Clean-cut, tall fellow with black hair.”

  “That was Thomas.”

  Judi mockingly tapped at her forehead. “I should have been suspicious. He would have passed Levitte’s Landing on his way to the church from the ferry dock. He shouldn’t have needed directions.” She gave a mental shake of her head. “You’d be surprised, though, at how many tourists get lost on an island no more than three miles long.”

  “Thomas followed you around for two days.” He raised his eyebrows her way. “Did you know that?”

  Slowly she shook her head. “No idea!”

  �
�He even took pictures of you outside the pastry shop.”

  “This is sounding more and more like an espionage flick.”

  Nathan smiled. “I’m quite impressed with Thomas’s abilities in this area. He might be more clever than either of us.” Then he sobered. “But you can imagine my shock when he showed me the pictures. I almost couldn’t believe it was you, but I knew it was. What I didn’t know was why.”

  “Which now you know.”

  “Yes! It’s still mind-boggling.”

  “I know!”

  He nodded meaningfully, and then as if switching gears, placed his plate on the table and slapped his hands lightly together. “Now it’s your turn. I’ve explained the breakthrough that brought me here. I have a few questions for you.”

  “All right.”

  “I figure you traveled to Allegheny County two times using your legal knowledge and a computer-forged court document to gain access to birth and death certificates. I’m guessing this happened in February of that last year when you were supposed to be visiting an old college roommate.” He sat up straighter. “You searched for several days until you found a birth and death certificate that matched; an infant with the name of Amanda Judith Rydell. How am I doing so far?”

  “Keep going.”

  “You obtained an official copy of this birth certificate and began to build your new identity—a false apartment address, driver’s license, and even a credit card that you had the postal service forward from an apartment you never lived in to a post office box. What I haven’t figured out is how you were able to gain a Social Security number.” He gave her a fixed look. “It’s not every day a thirty-two-year-old woman comes in for a number.”