by Janet Dailey
“Sounds nice. So you go out there alone now?”
She looked at him sharply, brushing a stray lock of brown hair away from her face. “How did you know that?”
“Ah—just a guess,” he replied, knowing he’d said something tactless. Erin seemed suddenly distant and he wished to God he could take the question back.
“It’s a good one.” She pressed her lips together before she said anything more. “My parents died three years ago, within months of each other.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, but he could see that she was holding back a fair amount of emotion. “I came along late in life for them. They were so much older—well, I wasn’t that close to either of them. I miss them sometimes. But in answer to your question, it was a while before I went back to Chincoteague and yes, I was alone when I did. Just easier that way.”
Bannon nodded, noting the waitress returning with their entrees. The plates set in front of them gave off the tantalizing aroma of excellent food, and he was grateful for the distraction.
Erin picked up her knife and fork, and he followed her lead. She tucked into her chicken and ate several bites before taking a breather. “This is really good,” she said, leaning back. “Keep eating. I’ll tell you the rest of my life story. Might as well get it over with, right?”
Bannon’s mouth was full and he didn’t know what to say to that odd question. So he nodded. If she wanted to talk, he was happy to listen.
“I grew up on the other side of the Blue Ridge,” she began, naming a town he’d never heard of, “and I was homeschooled. My mom was a teacher, but she didn’t work outside of raising me. She had emotional problems, I guess you’d say. I had an older brother who died before I came along.”
Bannon was paying attention. Came along. She’d said it twice. Not born. He wondered if she’d been adopted. Erin’s casual tone wasn’t telling him a lot. He finished his steak and fries, and set down his cutlery.
“Anyway,” she continued, “it was always just us three, me and Mom and Dad, way outside of town on our own forty acres. No grandparents or anything. No cousins.”
“What did your dad do?” Bannon asked.
Erin’s expression softened. “He was an inventor, actually. We lived off the income from a few patents he held. I used to like to hang around in his workshop because it was so neat—you know, a place for everything and everything in its place. It seemed safe.”
He could fill in the blanks. Troubled mother, remote dad. And one sensitive little girl who didn’t get much from either of her parents.
“You know something?” he asked lightly. “You never did tell me your last name.”
She seemed taken aback. “I didn’t? Well, it’s no big secret. It’s Randall. Ordinary as can be.”
“You’re anything but ordinary, Erin,” he said in a low voice. He looked up at the waitress, who’d returned with dessert menus even before the table was cleared. Several other customers had come in, and a couple of large groups. They must need the table. He decided to skip the sweet stuff and ordered coffee, but Erin ordered Raspberry Glory, whatever that was.
“Thanks for the compliment.” She negated it with a wave of her hand. “Even though I hate compliments. Now tell me about yourself.”
Bannon kept it short. “I have two brothers. Hell-raisers.”
“And you’re the angel.”
“Um, no.” He grinned at her. “I’m the oldest. I showed Deke and Linc how to raise hell, put it that way.”
Erin laughed and the sound warmed him all over. “Your parents?”
“My dad was a cop, like me. An outdoorsman. He liked to take us up to the family cabin and teach us woodsy lore and whatnot. He passed away a few years ago. Mom is still going strong. She hovers over us all.”
“Mrs. Meriweather mentioned that. And she said you’d been on departmental leave for a while. After that shooting.”
“Yeah,” Bannon said wryly. “I knew you knew everything about me as soon as you said those two reunited online.” He liked her even more for stopping where she had and not asking a whole bunch more questions. That quietness of hers was something like kindness.
He pulled the coffee cup that the waitress set down toward him with the saucer and waited for Erin to be served.
She was smiling at his reply. “Only a little. So what do your brothers do?”
“Law enforcement. But not police work.”
Her dessert arrived and she seemed willing to let it go at that. “And you guys are close.”
“Yeah. Very.”
“You’re lucky.” The wistfulness in her voice struck him. Overall he got an impression of loneliness, even isolation, in her upbringing. But not why. Hell. There was time enough for that conversation, and if it didn’t happen today, he was fine with that.
Bannon watched her spoon up the homemade berry sherbet with the same thoughtful care with which she seemed to do just about everything. The sight was erotic and oddly pure at the same time. He stuck with black coffee, stirring it to give himself something to do besides gawk at her, even though there wasn’t any sugar or cream in it.
They took both their cars to drive out to the Montgomery mansion. He followed her, taking note of the license plate under her hatchback just in case he might need it in the future. Getting her last name had taken long enough, he thought.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that Erin was a very private person. He’d do well not to ask her too many questions at this point.
She raised the arm that she’d crooked in the open window on her side, pointing ahead. Bannon snapped out of his abstracted mood and looked. There was the Montgomery mansion, looking even more grand than it had on the historical society’s website. Two full stories and a half story atop those. Columns. A double-height veranda. Nice details like carved swags of classical garlands under the eaves. Outside the tall, spiked iron fence that surrounded the house were towering old oaks, with a few smaller and much plainer structures well behind those. Probably had been the washhouse and sheds once upon a time. A neatly made, small shack undoubtedly covered a well.
They parked under a porte cochere to one side that was wide enough to shelter a couple of four-horse carriages side by side. Erin rubbed her arms when she got out. “It’s chilly here.”
Bannon looked around. They were in the shade of the huge house, that was one reason why. It had been built on a rising swell of land that caught the spring breeze from the valley below.
She bent into her car and retrieved a sweater from the backseat, throwing it over her shoulders. Then she picked up a canvas bag with paint splatters on it and started hunting through the contents. “Mrs. Meriweather wrote down the keypad combination for me. Give me a sec to find the piece of paper. It’s okay to go on up the stairs. I’ll be right there.”
Bannon nodded. “Okay.”
The view from the lower veranda was spectacular, a sweeping vista of the valley. The house was well out in the country, away from the sprawl around Wainsville.
“I’ll play tour guide,” she told him, coming up the stairs with her long dress lifted a bit by one hand, pretty as a picture. He felt like he ought to bow and take her arm. Gallant? Him? The truth was, she had that effect on him, filling him with an old-fashioned desire to court her.
“You’re on,” he grinned.
“The house was built in 1810. It’s never passed out of the Montgomery family.”
“Quite a place. Ever been inside?”
“Nope.” Erin looked at the piece of paper in her hand and went to the door, entering numbers into a keypad lock with one finger.
A small light on it flashed and she turned the doorknob. The huge carved door swung inward almost soundlessly. Well-oiled and well-maintained, Bannon thought. Just like the scion of the family himself.
“Walk on in. Pretend you’re a Montgomery.”
“I’ll have to think about that.” But he went in ahead of her and she followed him inside.
The furnishings were
as grand as the exterior. They looked like antiques, good ones, even to his untrained eye. Meaning there had to be security, above and beyond the keypad lock. Instinctively, his gaze swept the light fixtures and moldings, looking for discreetly placed devices and finding nothing. A prickling on the back of his neck told him they were there, though.
Every surface gleamed, free of dust. The Montgomerys might have left the house just yesterday and not twenty-some years ago.
“It’s so perfect,” she said. The house seemed to swallow Erin’s soft words. It wasn’t empty, but it echoed.
“The society keeps it up, don’t they?”
She nodded. “I think a couple of volunteers come out every week. And Mrs. Meriweather said something about a caretaker.”
Bannon raised an eyebrow. “No sign of him.”
“I don’t remember whether he lives somewhere on the property or not. When I was painting the place last year, I didn’t see anybody around.”
“Hmm. This stuff looks valuable.” Hands in his pockets, Bannon surveyed the large rooms that opened off the foyer. Parlor, music room, library—each was an example of the gracious old South, but it wasn’t a house he could ever imagine living in.
“It is.” Her answer was perfunctory. In silence, they moved from room to room. Bannon walked near her. He couldn’t help noticing that Erin seemed to hesitate before entering each room.
“Dining room, second parlor, study,” he said under his breath before she opened doors that had probably been closed to save on heat.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“Ah—” He had pretty much memorized the police diagrams of the house. “Just guessing. Am I right?”
Erin opened each door and peeped inside. “Yes.”
Her gaze moved over everything, as if she was memorizing it herself.
He studied an oil painting of a pair of Thoroughbreds from the Montgomery stable. “Not as good as yours.”
She came over. “Different style. Not what I do, really.”
“Right.”
He followed her as they came to a small room that opened off a corridor. “I looked through the windows of this one from outside,” she said softly. “It’s not like the others. A woman decorated this just the way she wanted it, don’t you think?”
“Maybe so.”
She played tour guide again, pointing things out. “That delicate pattern on the wallpaper and the sewing table with the piecrust edging—very nice.”
He picked up on the funny note of longing in her voice and then looked where she was pointing, realizing just how good her eye for detail was. If she had a house, she would probably have things like this.
“I wonder—” Erin stopped and looked at a small oval painting of a little girl. It was half in shadow, but she didn’t seem inclined to turn on the light. “I didn’t see this from outside. Is it her? Ann Montgomery?”
Bannon moved forward. “Yes. I think so. There was a photo something like it in the files.”
She studied the painting, then backed away. “It’s strange to see her. It’s like she’s still here. Waiting.”
Bannon wanted to say that he knew exactly how she felt. But he didn’t.
“Should we go upstairs? Mrs. Meriweather said the bedrooms are just the way they were when the family still lived here. Not on the official tour, of course. Stairs are a liability.”
He looked at her curiously. The same wistfulness he’d seen in her at the restaurant shone in her eyes. “Are you sure you want to?”
“If you’re investigating, you should.”
“I could do that on my own. Go upstairs, I mean.”
Erin gave the slightest shake of her head. “I’ll go with you.”
“But—”
She held up a hand before he could form a question. “Don’t ask why. I just want to.”
In silence, they went back the way they’d come and stopped at an inner staircase that led to the second floor, not the grand one of the front hall. She went ahead of Bannon, unclipping the velvet rope that kept visitors on the first floor of the mansion and handing the brass end back to him. He clipped the rope again where it fastened when he’d gone up a couple of steps. Just in case someone came in, like the caretaker. Or someone else. He still couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, though he had yet to spot a surveillance device. A little noise, a few seconds of warning—he wanted both.
She was already on the landing, looking through another massive door. Bannon joined her. He peered over her shoulder. A baronial bed decked out with fringed scarlet hangings took up the center of the room. Had to have been Hugh’s. The room was entirely masculine, with heavy side furniture and dark wood. Bannon guessed that the wife had been summoned to it. He hoped it hadn’t been too often, for her sake.
“Now this is some serious furniture,” Erin said, looking around and adding with a smile, “but those hangings would be great for a kid playing hide-and-seek, don’t you think?” She closed the door without making a move to go in. Like the great front door below, it shut almost without a sound.
The bedroom adjoining was more feminine. He took in the lace runner on the dresser, and the ornate silver-backed brush and comb set in front of the mirror. Its patina told him that it was the real deal. There had to be security, very good security. Anyone could slip that into a pocket and walk off with it. Then he reminded himself that tourists weren’t allowed up here.
Even so.
Erin continued down the hall, stopping at a door with a painted cut-out of a bright-eyed bunny attached to it. Below it was Ann’s name.
Bannon exchanged a long look with Erin, who didn’t say anything as she slowly turned the knob. He was right behind her when she walked in.
The room was decorated in pastels. Even the antique crazy quilt on top of the dresser was made out of pink and yellow scraps from long ago. It was piled high with stuffed toys that didn’t look like props on a set. They looked like a real little girl had played with them a lot.
Bannon realized that he was looking for the bear—the pink bear in the photo of Ann. It wasn’t there. Maybe the kidnapper had let her take her favorite toy. To keep her quiet. The idea sickened him.
“What’s the matter?” Erin asked.
“Huh? Oh—just thinking. There was a toy bear in one of the photos of Ann. Pink. Flowered tummy. It’s not here.”
She turned around to study the heap of toys. “I had a bear like that,” she said.
He thought. “It would have been about the same time period. They probably sold about a million of them.”
“No, my mother said she made it. I always thought my bear was the only one.” She seemed lost in the memory for a moment—it must have been a poignant one, considering that her mother had passed away only a few years ago.
Bannon wasn’t too surprised. “Could have been from one of those printed kits. My mom used to make toys from those.”
“For you and your brothers?”
“No. Her nieces. We would have yanked out the stuffing and made ninja headbands out of the cloth.”
Erin smiled. “I loved my pink bear. Guess it’s a girl thing.”
“Do you still have it? Might be interesting to compare it to the one in the old photo, see if I could find a manufacturer or something like that,” Bannon said. “You never know what’s going to be useful when you reopen a case.”
“Oh. It’s probably somewhere in one of the boxes from our old house. I haven’t thought about that bear in years.”
“Well, if you happen to find it, call me—”
“I’ll look.” Her lips lifted in a smile. “If I bring Pinky in, go easy on her, okay?”
“You bet.”
He was on the point of asking if he could come over and help her look. Not yet. It wasn’t the right time to put any kind of move on her. The vibe in the Montgomery house was making him nervous, but she seemed oddly at home. Then again, she’d been there before, if only on the outside. He hadn’t. And she wasn’t looking high
and low for surveillance equipment the way he was doing—why would she? They left the little girl’s room, and Erin closed the door as gently as if there were a child asleep in it.
A row of family portraits in gilt frames stared at them when they rounded the corner of the hall, heading for a different wing. Generations upon generations of Montgomery men. He guessed the wives had their own wall somewhere else.
Erin paused at each one, studying the subjects closely. Bannon only glanced at them. The bland expressions told him nothing—maybe Erin was studying the technique. He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked through his mental map of the place.
Being here gave him a better understanding of the bedroom layout. But how the hell had the abductor gotten Ann out without anyone knowing? The hall floors creaked and so did the stairs. Inside job? A servant? It had to have been someone who knew the house, one way or another. He was lost in thought, until he noticed Erin was standing in front of a portrait of the last male in the Montgomery line.
“That’s old Hugh,” he said. “Did he ever stop by when you were painting?”
“No. Mrs. Meriweather told me he never comes here.” She focused all her attention on the painting. “He seems so authoritative in this. Maybe that’s not the right word. But whoever painted him saw through that pose. There’s something sad in his eyes. Maybe the portrait was done after the kidnapping.”
Bannon nodded. “You could ask Mrs. Meriweather about that.” He wasn’t going to talk about meeting Montgomery or what he and Doris had turned up in the files about Ann. Who knew what it all meant? He didn’t. Suddenly he just wanted to get the hell out of there.
Erin turned and looked him full in the face. The expression in her eyes was distant, almost dreamy. It puzzled him.
“I’ve seen everything I want to see,” she said lightly. “Let’s go, okay?”
“Fine with me.”
“I had a nice time today, so—” She hesitated, but not for long. “Maybe you could come visit my place. It’s out in the sticks—you’d have to follow me.”