Serena was staring at her. Her eyes were vacant, but every once in a while Tammie saw some sign of recognition. Almost as if Serena were trying to break free.
“Are you hungry, Serena?” she asked, not knowing what else to say.
“B-Babies. They steal b-b-abies.” Her voice was soft and weak.
Tammie lifted from the chair and put her face in front of Serena’s. “You are in there, my sister. I know you are. I know you’re trying to tell me something. I pray you’ll be able to tell me everything soon.”
But Serena’s eyes went blank again, and Tammie felt the weight of defeat on her shoulders.
The door opened, and Susan came in with another tray of scrambled eggs. Even though Tammie had specifically said she didn’t want buttered toast, Susan had gone to the trouble of making it.
“Thank you. I’ll take it from here,” Tammie said.
Susan left the room with a frosty glare.
“I’m going to take care of you, Serena. I promise you that. But you need to keep up your strength. You need to drink something.”
She lifted the cup of orange juice to Serena’s lips, but then she paused and pulled the cup away. Serena had changed since she’d come to the mansion. On the day Tammie arrived, Serena had been much more lucid. What had changed to make her this way?
What if it wasn’t really mental illness that was keeping Serena bedridden? She certainly looked fine in the photo Dylan had given her. What if Aurore and Susan really didn’t want Serena to talk to her and Dylan?
Tammie shook her head at her own thoughts. What possible reason would they have for doing that to Serena? Despite everyone in the house being a little off, it did appear that they had genuine concern for her well-being.
“Oh, Tammie, girl,” she muttered to herself. “You’re starting to get a little too paranoid.”
Serena shook her head slowly and blinked her eyes, as if she was forcing herself to do it. The movements were slight, but Tammie caught them and looked directly at her sister.
“If you can understand me, Serena, do that again.”
Serena blinked and shook her head.
Smiling, Tammie looked at the food on Serena’s tray, then at hers. Would they poison her, as well?
“I’ve got to be out of my mind,” Tammie whispered, with what sounded to her like a slightly hysterical laugh. “Do you want to eat this, Serena?”
Serena shook her head weakly.
“Then don’t,” she said, dropping the fork on the plate and pushing the eggs away. “I’ll come back with food for you. I’ll make it myself.”
If the food was laced with drugs, what would they put it in? The eggs? Probably not. The heat would probably weaken the effect of any drugs. The juice? Possibly. She wasn’t going to take any chances on any of it.
She looked at the food Susan had brought in for her. The staff knew that Dylan was keeping a close watch over her while she was here. If anything happened to her, they had to know they wouldn’t get away with it. But who was looking out for Serena?
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she said, looking into her sister’s vacant eyes.
“Serena? Do you hear me?” It was as if Serena were looking right through her, not seeing her at all. Then her eyes shifted and her mouth moved, but Tammie couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.
“Babies?” Tammie asked. “They’re stealing babies? Whose babies?”
But then Serena was gone again, lost to whatever had a hold on her.
“You are in there. I know you are. And I’m going to help you, so you can finally tell me what you’ve been trying to say since I arrived.”
Taking the drink and the plate of eggs to the private bathroom, she poured half of the eggs down the toilet and two thirds of the glass of juice. There was no use letting anyone think Serena had drunk the whole glass, if she didn’t normally do so. Better to let them think she’d consumed some of it.
When she got back to the room, Serena’s eyes were brighter and she was sitting rigid against the pillow, as if it were taking every ounce of energy she had.
“What is it, Serena?” Tammie touched her sister’s cheek, felt the sweat that was bubbling on her skin.
“They’re…stealing…babies…. They’ll…take you away…too.”
“She’s worse,” Tammie said, climbing into Dylan’s Jeep. They’d gotten a late start, because Dylan had slept so late. He was kicking himself for not setting the alarm on his cell phone so that he could have gotten here earlier.
Tammie’s face was drawn and marred with worry. He let the engine idle.
“How much worse can she get?” he asked.
“Aurore mentioned giving Serena sedatives. I think it’s the drugs that are making her like this. I think they’re giving her too much.”
He was silent for a moment, thinking about the possibility. He could tell she was waiting for a response.
When he offered none, she said, “Okay, I know. You think I’m being paranoid. Yeah, I’ve already gone there myself. I’m way past you’re-on-to-something to the point where I’m beginning to think I might just join Serena in that other world she’s in.”
“It’s a pretty strong accusation. But given Serena’s mental state so far, I wouldn’t put it past Aurore or Susan to overmedicate her to keep her quiet.”
Tammie nodded and stared at the trees by the old barn at the back of the mansion. He was anxious to get to the library to use the computer, but he wasn’t going to rush Tammie.
“Serena repeated what she’d said the other night.”
“About stealing babies?”
“Yes. But then she said, ‘They’ll take you away, too.’”
He rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t had time to shave this morning, and his face was starting to itch. “Cryptic.”
“Unsettling.”
“I wonder who ‘they’ are?”
Tammie sighed. “I don’t know. But Aurore…she finally admitted I’m Eleanor Davco’s daughter.”
Dylan turned to her. No wonder Tammie was having a hard morning. “Wow” was all he could think to say.
“Yeah, I know.” She chuckled nervously. “I mean, it’s not like the evidence wasn’t overwhelming enough for me to know it on my own. But hearing her actually admit it took me a little by surprise.”
He cleared his throat. “About last night…”
He hadn’t intended to blurt it out, but he’d wondered all morning if she’d thought at all about the kiss they’d shared. It wasn’t as if Tammie didn’t have a million other things on her mind. Kissing him had to be dead last on her list of things to worry about.
He’d tried not to think about it on the drive over. But he’d finally decided it would be better to just get it out, so that there was nothing in the way of them getting down to business once they got to the library.
And yet…the more time he spent with Tammie, the more he realized there was a hole in his life that needed filling. And that kiss had done a pretty good job of starting that.
“You must be exhausted,” she said. “You left the mansion very late.” She was talking about fatigue, but the softness of her expression told Dylan she knew he hadn’t been talking about his lack of sleep.
Okay. He got the point. Either she didn’t want to relive it or she’d decided there were more important issues at hand. Whichever it was, the moment was gone.
Dylan pressed the clutch and then the gas pedal. “We should start at the library first.”
“The library?”
“I need to use the computer, and it’s probably a good idea to check some old newspaper clippings. There should be information there you can use to find out about the Davco family. Possibly even the fire. If it was big news, the way people seem to remember, the local paper should have something on it.”
“That library is rather small.”
“True. But even if the library hasn’t been brought into the twenty-first century, they must have town history written down somewhere. Maybe even old
newspapers on microfilm, which would make things easier to search. Anyway, it’s a good place to start.”
“I appreciate you helping me like this,” Tammie said. “I mean, you’re spending all this time helping me find out information about my parents, when you should be looking for Cash.”
“Oh, but I am. Something tells me the whole thing is related and wrapped around Serena Davco—somehow. If I find the answer to one, maybe the dead-end I’ve been sitting at will turn into an open road to answers.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Speaking of Cash, Aurore also admitted that Serena knew him.”
He took his eyes off the road for a second. “What did you do? Put truth serum in her coffee?”
“Very funny. I don’t know why she was so open, except that maybe she figures we’re going to find out anyway, so why keep up the pretense?”
“Did you show her the picture?”
“No, but I mentioned it. She said they met while Serena was in college, a few years back.”
He thought about it a moment. “The timing sounds about right.”
“Did Cash go to college then?”
Dylan shook his head and shifted gears. “No, but he often worked on drug raids at colleges.”
“I think Serena was talking about me, Dylan. I think Serena knows who took me when I was a baby, and she might have told Cash. That’s why they didn’t want you here and they’ve been so protective about people getting close to Serena.”
“They’re afraid someone is going to find out the truth.”
Dylan drove for a while longer, silently looking at the road and nothing else. Tammie stared out the window as they passed a large farm. The farmer was on a tractor out in the fields, a large cloud of dust trailing behind him as he moved.
As she looked at the fields, Tammie thought of how different her life could have been. She would have grown up here. It was beautiful, but no more so than the small Oregon town that had been her home.
“Are you okay?” she asked, when she suddenly realized how tense Dylan had become.
He sighed, shook his head. “I haven’t been okay about this in a long while.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching across and placing her hand over his on the stick shift. She let it linger there. Dylan didn’t seem in any hurry for her to move it. “This must be very hard on you.”
“I was away too long,” he said. “There’s a whole lot about my brother that I didn’t know, and that’s upsetting. I feel like I failed him somehow.”
“It takes two to create distance. He could have come to you with his problems.”
“In his own way, he did. But for some reason, he didn’t confide in me about everything. I can see even in that picture that he cared for Serena. She’s not just some girl he met on a job.”
He finally pulled his hand away, rubbing his hand over the shadow on his jaw. To her surprise, the separation jarred her. She’d meant to give him comfort, but she was startled to realize how much she’d liked the connection.
“I don’t know. I guess I always thought if there was a special woman in his life, he would have told me, you know?”
He paused, downshifted and took the left turn onto Main Street. Tammie held on to her seat as he made the turn. Then he hit the gas and accelerated again.
“Let’s just get to the library. I need to check some things out.”
The old stone-faced building was in the middle of town, across the street from the white church on the hill. Both buildings looked almost lost amid the throng of cars, vans and trucks parked on every available inch of grass. People stood at the entrance to the church parking lot, waving orange flags to get motorists’ attention and convince them to pay money to park on the church grounds. A quick glance up Main Street and there were more people with orange flags herding cars deep into the fields.
It was difficult to get around, now that the auction was in full swing. Unlike yesterday, when they’d been able to drive into town and park, they had to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic before finding room in one of the makeshift parking lots.
They backtracked to the library, walking past people with empty carts that they’d obviously hoped to fill with a deal or two at the antique auctions.
Dylan held the library door open. As she walked inside, Tammie took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the light. The air inside was stuffy, as if the air-conditioning hadn’t yet been turned on and the windows weren’t providing sufficient air circulation.
Tammie breathed in deeply and followed Dylan up to a small table where a woman was sitting and checking in a pile of books. While he was talking to the woman, she took a moment to look around the room. The library was small in comparison to any library she’d ever seen, although it seemed to make the most of every inch of space. Stacks of books were everywhere, and the shelves had little room for two people to pass through. She imagined there probably wasn’t a lot of money to keep the library going and doubted it would hold any information of real value to them.
In the far corner, by a set of open windows, sat a table with three computers. Beyond that, toward the back of the building, was a doorway to another room.
“They have an Internet connection here. I’m going to check my e-mail first. We lucked out. All the local newspapers are on microfiche, all the way back to the fifties.”
She tilted an eyebrow. “Lucky? That’ll take forever to look through.”
“What did you expect?” he said, keeping his voice low. “Twenty-first-century technology? I’d say we’re lucky to have this much. It’s a lot better than sifting through dusty, old crumbling newspapers in a vault.”
“You have a point.”
The woman behind the table stamped the last book and added it to the pile. Then she got up and walked over to them.
“This is Mrs. Martinez,” Dylan said, introducing Tammie to the woman. “Mrs. Martinez, this is Tammie Gardner. She came all the way out here from Oregon.”
Mrs. Martinez’s gaze lingered on Tammie’s face for a brief moment. “Amazing. Lois Caulfield said the resemblance was striking, but I said it couldn’t be that close a resemblance.”
“Mrs. Caulfield?” Dylan said.
“She’s a schoolteacher in town, but she works a tent down at the auctions as a second job. She was Serena Davco’s teacher early on, and tutored her some at home when she was under the weather. She saw that load of furniture tumble from the truck and nearly hit you. At first she thought it was Serena, until someone told her your name.”
“She knew Serena well, then?”
Mrs. Martinez started toward the back room. “We all know Serena. She was such a sweet girl growing up. I’ll just get that microfiche from the vault and set you up.”
Dylan made a comical face when Mrs. Martinez turned her back. “They really do have a vault,” he said quietly.
Mrs. Martinez apparently heard. “Oh, yes. This used to be the town hall years ago, but the town grew too big. They used to have town meetings right there in the church across the street.”
“How interesting,” Tammie said.
Dylan stopped at the table with the computers. “I’ll meet you out back,” he said, sitting down at the computer closest to the room Mrs. Martinez had disappeared into.
“Now you’re looking for information about the fire, the young man said?”
“Yes, and any newspaper articles from the weeks after that.”
“I remember the fire, but I was quite young at the time. I don’t recall the month.” Mrs. Martinez handed Tammie a box. “Here are the boxes for that year. I’m afraid you’ll have to look through them to find the dates you’re looking for. We try to keep them in order, but people don’t always put them back in the right place.”
Tammie took the disks and after a moment’s hesitation, asked, “Someone mentioned something about a scandal with the church around the time of the fire. Do you remember that?”
Mrs. Martinez thought a minute. “Scandal? Not that I recall. My family moved to Eastmeadow aro
und that time, but I can’t say I remember ever hearing about a scandal with Pastor Robbins. He’s the only pastor I’ve known.” She took Tammie’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “If you need me, I’ll be right out front. This should get you started, though.”
Tammie settled in the back room, at the microfiche machine. The disks were labeled with the year, but not the month.
“I have a feeling it’s going to be a long afternoon,” she muttered.
From where she was sitting, she could see Dylan settled into a chair at the computer closest to the doorway. He was quite a handsome man, strong and resolute. That kind of strength wasn’t just in muscle, but in character. That much was already evident to her, even after the short time she’d known him.
As she absentmindedly looked at the dates on the black and white films whizzing past on the screen, she thought of what it had felt like last night, when Dylan kissed her. There had been many times she imagined herself with a man, sharing her life, her faith. For months after her parents’ deaths, she hadn’t thought of dating at all. She no longer pictured the life ahead of her the way little girls dreamed. It was if she’d been stuck in a quagmire for far too long. The thought of walking down the aisle without her father’s arm hooked around hers…well, it all seemed so painful.
Something about Dylan brought those thoughts of family and the future back to her mind. But she quickly pushed them aside as she glanced at the dates on the fiche.
“February,” she muttered to herself. She’d been born in June and Mr. Beaumont had told her he’d been working at the auction grounds the night of the fire and remembered the glow. It made sense to check the month of June for any news about the auction and then go from there.
She changed the film and began searching again. Every so often, Tammie would glance over at Dylan. He was sitting in a chair that seemed almost too small for his frame. He was reading details on the monitor intently, and every so often, he typed fast, his face drawn into an adorable frown.
Adorable?
“Oh, puh-leeze, Tammie…” she whispered to herself, rolling her eyes.
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