by Jean Stone
“Of course I’m still here. What happened?”
He hung his head. “I think,” he said quietly, “my worst nightmare is about to come true.”
She massaged his shoulders.
He didn’t want to talk about it further, he said. Maybe in the morning, after he’d slept.
They did not fall asleep right away. Not until Kris had given him a full body massage; not until she had aroused him from his pain and he’d reached a shuddering climax within her.
Now he slept, but she could not.
Watching the dawn ooze into the room, Kris continued to wrestle with her mind, struggling to hit on an answer that would clear Edmund for good. Something to prove that Abigail had not been murdered by him, or by anyone. Something to prove that vanishing—not dying—had been her wish.
Her wish.
Suddenly a thought sprang into Kris’s sleepless mind.
By the time I am fifty, Abigail’s wish had read, I will be somewhere else. I will be someone else.
Kris bolted upright in bed.
The bottle.
The bottle that held the birthday wishes.
Abigail’s wish, in her own handwriting, was the proof that Kris needed, proof that Abigail had intended to disappear. Between that and Kris’s explanation of Abigail’s plan …
Maybe she would only show it to Edmund.
She would risk betraying her friend’s confidence for Edmund’s sake. If Abigail was already dead, it would not matter. If she was still alive, Edmund at least would see how desperately she’d wanted to leave.
Then he could decide about telling—or not telling—the police.
She jumped out of bed, ran from the room, and headed down the hall toward Abigail’s room. She had to find the bottle. And she had to find it before she changed her mind.
She couldn’t find it. Ripping through the wardrobe room off Abigail’s bedroom Kris purged every storage chest, every shoebox, every sweater bin, upending the stacks of items that she and Louisa had sorted for the secondhand shop. Then she moved to the bureaus, pulled open drawers, and rifled through the remaining contents like a two-bit burglar with a midnight deadline.
The bottle wasn’t there.
But in the armoire she found the photo album. The one Maddie had made for Abigail, identical to the one she had made for Kris. The album of their youth, of the birthday celebrations of another place, another time. The album that only a few short months ago had been painful for Kris to explore, relive the memories, and unearth the past.
Now all that had changed.
Shaking her head, she moved the album aside. Then she was jolted by another thought: the pictures.
Maybe Maddie’s photographs held a clue, an answer to where Abigail had hidden the bottle of birthday wishes. And maybe—just maybe—the once-secret hiding place for the old milk bottle now held the empty champagne bottle.
Kris dropped to the floor and turned back the album’s cover, revealing the first photo of when they were ten.
She scanned the picture; there was no time, this time, for nostalgia.
Nor was there a milk bottle within the ragged, black-and-white frame.
She flipped the page.
Several photos of Arbor Brook followed: the manicured grounds, the awkward, preadolescent girls. Quickly she searched for another birthday picture.
Why hadn’t Maddie—with her quirky habit of snapping shots of every damn thing she saw, every damn thing they did—why hadn’t Maddie taken one lousy photo of the damn bottle that held their damn wishes?
And then it was there. Next to their thirteenth birthday cake stood Louisa, smiling. On the table in front of her, beside the cake, was the bottle.
Kris held her breath.
It was a milk bottle. A glass milk bottle. Inside she could see the papers. She could not remember her wish that year, could not remember anyone’s wish. And she could not remember for the life of her where Abigail had hidden the damn bottle.
Her eyes drifted over the photo. Louisa, the cake, the bottle. Suddenly Kris’s heart began to race.
Louisa.
Louisa might know where Abigail had hidden the bottle.
Louisa had always known everything.
Thirty minutes later, showered, dressed, and barely made up, Kris grabbed her overnight bag and burst back into Edmund’s bedroom.
He was awake. “I wondered where you went,” he said. “The bed’s awfully empty without you.”
“I’ve got to go somewhere,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll be back tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”
He pulled himself up in the bed and snapped on the light. “What the hell are you doing, Kris?”
“I’m going to find the proof you need to get the cops off your back. I can’t explain now. I’ll tell you everything later.” Without hesitating she leaned down and kissed him, full on the lips. For one split second she wanted to crawl beneath the covers with him, wanted to press herself against his warmth and feel him deep inside her again.
But not now.
She stood up. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Trust me.”
On her way out the door, Kris stopped to make a phone call. But as the other end began to ring, she quickly hung up. Tapped, she remembered. The line might be tapped. She dug into her bag, pulled out her cell phone and redialed the number. Sophie answered the phone.
“Mrs. Kavner, this is Kris Kensington. Is Maddie awake yet?”
“Who is it?”
Kris shifted her feet impatiently. “Kris Kensington. Is Maddie there?”
“What time is it?”
“About six.”
“In the morning?”
She breathed quickly. “Yes. I’m sorry I woke you. Please tell Maddie I’ve gone to Phoenix. That I think I have the solution to our problem.”
At first Maddie didn’t know what the shout was about. At first she didn’t realize that it was morning, or remember that Parker was snoring softly beside her. Struggling to open her eyes, all she heard was a loud shout.
“Madeline! What is going on?”
It was not as much a question as a declaration, words shot in anger from the doorway of her room.
Maddie rubbed her eyes and focused on her mother. With a flannel robe wrapped around her small body and her ordinarily neat hair askew, Sophie wore a look of disdain that Maddie had never seen before.
She pulled the covers up to her neck. “Mother, what time is it?”
Sophie planted her hands on her hips. “I believe it is time to get that man from your bed, before your children wake up.”
Maddie looked over at Parker. His eyes still closed, he laughed.
Maddie swallowed. “That man,” she whispered, “is my husband.”
“Ex-husband,” Sophie stressed. “As I recall, he is someone else’s husband now.” She remained resolutely in the doorway, a mama chick scolding her young, waiting for them to do as they were told.
Which, of course, was impossible, because underneath the sheets Parker was naked. He had been naked all night. And so had Maddie. Their nakedness had come together in familiar easiness, and she had given him the one thing he loved so much. He had not, like Cody, taken the time to “please her” first; but that was Parker’s way. Besides, it didn’t matter, for he was in her bed now, and Maddie was going to be sure he’d never leave again.
“Sophie,” Parker said, “I think you’re overreacting. Your daughter is almost fifty years old.”
Fifty years old. His words sliced through Maddie. She was indeed almost fifty years old; not twenty-nine like Sharlene. Nor twenty-eight like Cody. She tried to smile. “Parker will get up, Mother. As soon as you leave.”
Sophie shook her head in exasperation. “You worry me, Madeline. I don’t know what’s happening to you.” She turned to leave.
A mixture of shame, embarrassment, and annoyance blended together in Maddie’s waking-up mind. “Mother?” she called. “Why did you come in here so early?”
With a sigh of frustration Sop
hie said, “Your friend Kris Kensington called. She wanted to let you know she’s gone to Phoenix.” She left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Maddie lay back and tried to decide how she was going to convince her mother that it was all right that she and Parker had slept together, that it was what she wanted, that it made her happy. Then her thoughts turned to Kris. Why the hell was she going to Phoenix? Beneath the sheets, Parker took Maddie’s hand and drew it to his morning-hard penis.
“I can’t possibly leave your bed in this situation,” he whispered.
Maddie knew what he wanted. She lowered her head and moistened her lips and decided to worry about Sophie and Kris later, once her husband was properly satisfied.
By the time the plane touched down, Kris was exhausted. The surge of adrenaline that had propelled her to hunt for the bottle, throw her things together, jump into Edmund’s Mercedes, and speed to JFK had dissipated somewhere over the Rockies. She knew she could have phoned Louisa, but she’d felt compelled to see the woman in person, to talk with her face-to-face, to jog her memory if necessary—anything to get the damn bottle. Besides, Kris couldn’t have called Louisa at three in the morning, and there was no way she could have withstood hanging around the estate until it was a civilized hour to phone Pacific Coast Time or Mountain Time or whatever the hell time it was in Arizona in January.
Impulsive, Devon called it whenever her energy kicked in and she couldn’t be patient. Spontaneous, Kris preferred to call it.
The pilot announced it was 11:08 A.M. Mountain Time as they taxied toward the gate.
Louisa’s sister lived in the Arcadia district on the outskirts of town—with “a marvelous view of Camelback Mountain,” Louisa had told Kris when she’d phoned from the airport to say she was in town doing research and would very much like to drop by.
She steered the rental car through the streets of beige-stucco, red-tiled-roof ranch homes and turned off 44th Street. At the mailbox marked “21704,” Kris pulled into the driveway.
Open arms greeted her. As Louisa guided her out to the screened porch, Kris noted that the woman looked as rested and peaceful as if she’d been in the desert for months, rather than only a few days.
“My sister is out shopping,” she told Kris as they sat on the floral-covered patio furniture. Louisa picked up a remote control, muted the volume of a television game show, and poured lemonade from a tall pitcher. “She’ll be disappointed if you’ve left by the time she gets back. Did I ever tell you she’s read every one of your books?”
Kris was a little taken aback. An elderly woman addicted to Lexi Marks was a concept she’d never considered. She cleared her throat and remembered her mission.
“How is Edmund?” Louisa asked. “I had a call from Harriet Lindley. She’s concerned about him.”
“Edmund is fine.” She didn’t want to tell the woman about the police harassment. There was no need, and there would be no need, as soon as Kris had her hands on the bottle of birthday wishes. “It’s difficult for him,” she went on, following her prepared speech. “It’s difficult for everyone.”
Louisa turned her gaze to the brown-and-rust landscape of the mountain, then up to the clear blue of the sky. The woman who had been like a mother to Abigail—indeed, the woman to whom Abigail was like her only child—did not have the right to cry, did not have the right to mourn. She was, after all, not Abigail’s mother. “Disenfranchised griever” was the term Kris had heard somewhere, not a blood relative, not entitled to grieve.
“I miss her, too,” Kris said quietly. “It’s odd, you know. We hadn’t seen each other in all those years, and then … well, it was as if we’d never been apart. I guess that can happen with childhood friends.”
“Or with sisters,” Louisa said, her spirit seeming to brighten again. “Ruth and I have been having a wonderful time …”
“That would have pleased Abigail.” Kris needed to turn the conversation back to Abigail, back to their childhood. “Abigail never had a sister,” Kris said. “Neither did I. I guess that’s why we were such good friends. Maddie, too.” She did not mention Betty Ann. “Which brings me to why I wanted to stop by, other than to see you. There’s something that’s been bothering me, and you might know the answer.”
Louisa’s eyes drifted back toward the television, as though she’d rather be watching the program than listening to Kris ramble on.
Leaning forward to get her attention, Kris asked, “Louisa, do you remember when Abigail and I were girls and we had those group birthday parties?”
The woman nodded and turned her eyes back to Kris. “I always baked you girls a special cake. With all your names on it.” Her eyes gleamed at the memory.
“Remember the year we smeared the frosting all over everything?” She was glad she’d looked back at the pictures.
Rolling her eyes, Louisa laughed. “You girls! You were always up to something.”
Kris laughed along with her. “And remember the way we always wrote down our birthday wishes? ‘By the time I am … whatever …’ and then put the wishes in a bottle?”
The woman frowned. Her eyes drifted back to the television, where carnival-like lights were flashing and a man was jumping up and down. “Birthday wishes?” she asked.
Kris felt her hopes plummet. Surely Louisa would remember. She had to remember …
Then a smile crossed the woman’s face. “Oh, I remember! The milk bottle! You put them in a milk bottle …”
“Until the next year,” Kris interrupted. “When we took them out to see if they’d come true …”
Turning to Kris, Louisa nodded. “I remember now. Yes, I remember.”
Kris sucked in her breath. “Do you remember the bottle, Louisa? Do you remember where Abigail kept it between birthdays?”
Louisa’s eyes shifted back to the television. Kris followed her gaze. The opening graphics for the KNXV Channel 15 Noon News splashed on the screen; Louisa had missed the grand finale of the game show.
“No,” she said. “I don’t know what she did with it. I never paid attention.”
Kris’s heart sank. She opened her mouth to try and jog Louisa’s memory, just as the woman said “Oh, my” and aimed the remote at the screen. “Isn’t that Edmund on the news?”
Over two thousand miles away, in the twenty-eighth-floor offices of Hardy Enterprises, Larry and Sondra were tuned into CNN, watching the same footage of Edmund walking up the steps of an official-looking building, flanked on either side by men in gray suits. Larry had been alerted by a friend at the all-news station, and he’d called Sondra in to witness the event.
“In a bizarre twist to a recent explosive story, the husband of Abigail Hardy is apparently undergoing extensive questioning by police. It has been a month since the woman media icon was declared missing-and-presumed-dead after a suicide note was found in her abandoned car on the Tappan Zee Bridge north of New York City.”
The image of Edmund’s face froze. The camera returned to the anchor desk.
“Edmund Desauliers, Miss Hardy’s husband of twenty years, also an international art dealer, admitted yesterday to a two-year affair with Helen Larson, the now-estranged wife of Herbert Larson, CEO of the media software giant of the same name. We’ll keep you posted on further developments as they occur.”
Larry smiled and clicked off the television. “Well, isn’t that interesting.”
“Interesting?” Sondra shrieked, pushing her weight up from the chair. “That’s my father!”
“Of course it is, Sondra,” Larry said. “And he’s going to help catapult you to success. Exposure is always good for business. Especially scandalous exposure. Didn’t your stepmother ever teach you that, darling? Oh,” he chirped as he began pacing the room, “royalties will go through the roof. We’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams.” He turned quickly and faced Sondra. “Let’s do a book! The inside look at Abigail’s private life!”
Sondra stomped toward him. “You idiot!” she screamed. “That was my father. He
didn’t kill Abigail!”
“It doesn’t matter if he did or not. Now that she’s dead, as long as her name is still in the headlines, the deals will come pouring in.”
Sondra smacked him across the face. “You’re sick! I never should have listened to you in the first place.” Then she pivoted and fled from the office.
As she left, Larry touched his stinging cheek and grinned. “I didn’t know you cared,” he said smugly, savoring his victory.
It was all falling into place. Of course he couldn’t do it without Sondra. But she would be back. There was no way she’d pass up the fame and the fortune that lay ahead. She was, after all, Abigail’s stepdaughter.
With visions of an explosive, tell-all bestseller, talk shows, and tabloids dancing in his head, Larry returned to his chair and congratulated himself on the brilliant move of tipping off the media to Edmund’s affair.
Devon couldn’t get through to the estate. “You’ve reached Windsor-on-Hudson,” the machine said. “Please leave a message after the beep and we’ll get back to you.”
“This is Devon Reynolds,” he said into the receiver. “I’m looking for Kris Kensington. Kris, if you’re there, please call me right away.”
He hung up the phone and stared at the floor. He couldn’t believe she hadn’t called him. Then again, he’d told her he hadn’t wanted to know what was going on with this business about Abigail Hardy. He’d told her he wasn’t going to interefere. But that was before this had happened. That was before the police had publicly pointed a finger at Edmund Desauliers as a murderer.
Devon sighed and wished he had a cigarette to light, wished he hadn’t quit smoking back when he and Claire had married and he’d made a promise to himself to change his life, to be an upstanding citizen, to be respectable. Back when he’d realized that Kris Kensington could never be his.
He stood up and shoved his hands into the pockets of his respectable gray flannel pants and tried to fight the gnawing suspicion that Kris was in trouble. And that she was not going to ask for his help.
Across Puget Sound, it was raining in Seattle. Abigail sat on the too-soft bed in the damp, drafty room of the rambling bed and breakfast and stared at the television. She turned to the nightstand beside her, lit a cigarette, and reached for the half-full bottle of wine. As she did, she looked at the bottle that stood next to it. The bottle of Cristal champagne that was empty, except for the three tiny slips of paper that lay quietly at the bottom.