Isabelle ticked events off on her fingers as she rattled on and on and wound down just as the buzzer sounded down below.
“Now I am excited. I’ll go down to get the food. Lunch is on me.”
When Maggie returned, Isabelle had the old plank table set for two, using her good dishes and cloth napkins. This was a special lunch. As an added touch, she fired up two blueberry candles in honor of the dim day.
“This sure is a lot of food,” Isabelle said.
“Enough left over for dinner if it gets to that,” Maggie said, tucking into a meatball sub that was so thick and oozing sauce she had to hold napkins under it to catch all the drippings. “This is soooo good.”
Isabelle laughed. Everyone knew about Maggie’s whacked-out metabolism. If it was edible and could go in her mouth, it was soooo good. Even if it was fried octopus in a lemon-lime sauce.
“Do you think the other sisters will view everything I told you the same way you and I are viewing it?” Isabelle asked, her voice anxious and jittery.
“Damn straight they will. I can hardly wait to get started.”
“What’s your best recollection about what the Post might have on file in regard to the Institute and the Circle? I know Eleanor Lymen keeps a pretty low profile. At least she did back when I worked for her.”
Maggie pondered the question. “Not a single thing that stands out as memorable. I didn’t work that story. I think it might have been Ted and Espinosa, but I’m not sure. My article must have been pure fluff. Filler, that kind of thing. No fanfare. If there was, I think I would remember it. It was a school opening for special gifted children and a Realtor’s dream of high-end housing. Like I said, nothing memorable there. I’ll check the archives when I get home. I don’t have my laptop with me. And Ted is out of town with the boys, so he’s out of the loop for now.”
“You can use Abner’s computer. It’s right over there in the office. He won’t mind,” Isabelle said. “It’s his backup. He prefers to work over there,” she said, motioning to a cordoned-off area that at first glance looked like something out of a space movie, with all the computers, printers, and miles of cable everywhere. “It’s also off-limits to me and everyone else. I don’t mind because I don’t understand half of what he does when he’s over there. I just know he’s pulled our fat out of the fire too many times to count.”
“No problem,” Maggie said, sitting down and flexing her fingers before she turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up.
“Izz, do you suspect foul play with Mrs. Lymen?”
“No, I don’t, Maggie. I think she left of her own accord, knowing that Ben was safe, at least for now, because she hasn’t turned over her daughter’s fortune. As for Ben’s trust, she doles that out, or her lawyers do. As long as the money continues to flow monthly, Ben is safe. I think that’s how she’s looking at it. She would never leave on her own if she thought the boy was in any danger.”
Maggie looked skeptical. “Almost seven months is a long time to be gone, Izz. Did she go to ground, or is she on the hunt for something?”
Isabelle sighed. “Both I think. Look, do whatever it is you need to do. I’m going down to the garage and look in the footlockers where I store all my blueprints. I know that I stapled Eleanor’s lawyer’s card to her set of prints. I do that with all my projects once they’re finished.”
“Do you really think her lawyers will tell you anything? Attorney-client privilege.” Maggie didn’t bother to wait for a response before she babbled on.
“Okay. I have Ted’s password, so I can access all his files. If he’s the one who did the write-ups, we’ll know shortly.”
Isabelle was halfway to the door before Maggie realized her pal probably hadn’t heard anything she had said. She shrugged. What will be will be, she thought as she started to pound the keys on Abner’s computer.
Two hours later, Maggie looked up and rubbed her eyes to stare at Isabelle, who was holding out a cup of coffee. Maggie reached for it and gulped it down in two long gulps. “There’s nothing here, Izz. Well, there’s stuff here, of course, but nothing the rest of the world doesn’t know. It’s fluff. Nothing jumped out at me, which means there’s nothing there of any importance. A new school for gifted kids. Yeah, so what? Parents with normal kids don’t give a hoot about schools like that for two reasons: Their own kids aren’t geniuses, and they don’t have the money to send them there to be tested, so why would they care?
“Another high-end oasis for the rich. No one cares because they can’t afford to live there, so why torture themselves. Just a story to cover that did NOT grow legs.
“Eleanor Porter Lymen. So she’s rich. She endowed the Institute. Big deal. Rich people do that all the time. It’s nothing more than a one-day news story. For the most part, no one even knows who she is. Railroad money. Again, big deal. This is a bust, Izz. What, if anything, did you come up with?”
“The name of the law firm. It’s possible Eleanor has more than one firm representing her, but I don’t think so. For the most part, she’s basically a simple person. She likes things to run smoothly, with no problems. Why complicate life with more than one law firm to handle her legal issues? One set of lawyers would do it for her. Did you come up with anything on the daughter, Diana?”
“You mean like debutante stuff? No. Again, a low profile. A birth notice and a death notice. A birth announcement when Benjamin Andrew Lymen was born. That’s it. Nothing about Diana’s being a gifted child, nothing about any relationship with the Institute or the reason her mother built it. Like I said, a low profile all around. Nothing about any of them, the properties, the Institute, them personally was worthy of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. It kind of makes you wonder why.”
“Why indeed?” Isabelle mumbled under her breath. “What about the court case, when Eleanor took Connor Ryan to court for custody of Ben? It’s possible the court records are sealed. I’m not saying they are, but they could be. If they are, then Eleanor Lymen or her attorneys have some juice to make that happen. And did you find a marriage record for Diana and Connor Ryan? Remember, Ben said that Connor adopted him. It must be true, because Ben said his name was Ben Ryan. Not Ben Lymen. Obviously, Diana didn’t use the biological daddy’s name when she filled out Ben’s birth certificate.”
“Most of that digging is beyond my pay grade, Izz. We need someone like Abner to dig deep if some of this stuff is buried for reasons we might never know. We need someone who knows how to hack into the court records and leave no footprints behind. I don’t know anyone, do you?”
“Just Abner’s friend Phil. But I don’t even know how to get in touch with him. I suppose I could call Abner, but you know the rules—when the boys are on a mission, we do not interfere, and vice versa. We might have to wait till they get back. I don’t think this is as dire as I’ve made it out to be, Maggie.”
“But you don’t know that for sure, Izz. He’s just a little kid.”
“A very smart little kid. I gave him my business card, and wrote my cell phone number on the back. I think he’ll find a way to get in touch with me if he has to in an emergency, even though he does not have a cell phone. He knows where I work. He could ride his bike there. BTW, he’s probably the only kid in the world who doesn’t have a cell phone. Or a watch.”
“Lots of kids don’t have cell phones,” Maggie said. “Or watches.”
“I know that. I’m talking about genius kids like Ben.”
Maggie finished her coffee. “So what do we do? Just wait for Tuesday? Does Ben ride his bike on the weekends? The two of us could show up at the Institute on Monday and be waiting for him.”
“I don’t know what he does on the weekends; we didn’t get that far in our show-and-tell conversation. And I’m not sure we could get into the Institute on Monday. The powers that be might call the police. Ben might get scared. I suppose we could waylay him on the way. But Tuesday is a long way off, Maggie.”
Maggie nibbled on a thumbnail, which was already bitten to th
e quick. “I know. Make some more coffee, Izz. I’m going to try another tack with the court records. You check out the law firm. Find out which members are the litigators, find out everything you can on the firm. I’m sure they have an extensive website.”
“Okay. I’m worried, Maggie.”
“I know. Something is wrong here. I can feel it. I really can, Izz.”
Isabelle shivered at Maggie’s ominous words as she made her way to the kitchen to make fresh coffee.
Where are you, Eleanor? Your grandson needs you. I need you.
Chapter 3
At first glance, one would think it was a monk’s spartan bedroom. Certainly not the bedroom of an eight-year-old boy. There wasn’t a cartoon poster to be seen. In fact, there were no pictures at all on the gray walls. There was a maple twin bed, but it didn’t have a kid’s coverlet with cars or airplanes on it. It was dark blue. There were blinds on the windows but no curtains. The windows were casement windows and didn’t open. An oversize desk was pushed against the wall. It held a desktop computer and a printer. There was also a telephone and a modem because the house had no wi-fi or cable connecting to the Internet. The chair was made of wood, a captain’s chair with three cushions and a thick telephone book underneath so the boy could reach the keyboard.
A chair, a recliner, actually, that had seen better days and was also dark blue, sat in a corner, with a reading lamp and small table next to it. Bookshelves lined two walls and were full to overflowing, and all had been read by the room’s occupant. A coat tree held a rain slicker, a windbreaker, and a puffy winter jacket, along with a long gray scarf and matching woolen hat.
The closet held a few clothes, not many. A suit, a jacket, three pairs of trousers, and four shirts on hangers. Printer paper, binders, folders, pencils, pens, paper clips, and the like filled the shelves in little boxes. Everything was military, neat. Shoes and sneakers, along with a pair of rubber boots that were a size too small, were neatly lined up on the floor.
A maple dresser that matched the twin bed held the boy’s daily clothes, jeans, shorts, tee shirts, and two sweaters. There was a light jacket, which he never wore, that, along with his socks and underwear, completed the contents.
There was no skateboard, no roller skates, no hockey stick, baseball bat or glove. No mementoes of any kind could be found in the sterile, institutional-looking room. It was the sort of room one might expect to find in a state-run orphanage of the kind Isabelle and Abner had occasionally lived in when they were children, perhaps one located in a county that prided itself on the accommodations it provided its orphans.
This was the room in which Benjamin Andrew Lymen Ryan lived.
Benjamin Andrew Lymen Ryan had had another room in another house that he had once lived in. BTCT. Before the court trial. That room was a real boy’s room. It had everything a young boy could possibly want. Colorful cartoon murals on the walls. Every toy, train, truck, car known to kids the world over, all battery-operated, filled two overflowing toy chests. There was a skateboard, skates, baseballs, bats, gloves. Snapshots and framed photos of the boy’s mother were everywhere. And, of course, Freddie. So he wouldn’t forget. It had all been played with and used. And for two years it had.
The bed in the shape of a racing car had a coverlet with racing cars stitched all over it. It was colorful and inviting. Like the oversize chair that just begged to be curled up in. He’d curl into it almost every day before he’d had to leave that house on some judge’s orders.
The room also held books, duplicates of the ones in the sterile institutional room the boy now lived in. But Freddie, his beloved panda bear, was nowhere to be found in that sterile room. For some reason, he had not been allowed to take it with him. Later, when he’d asked, Connor told him that it was because his grandmother had forbidden him to take it. He couldn’t argue with that, so he hadn’t. He knew that his grandmother never did anything without a good reason. It was just something he’d have to figure out on his own.
Ben Ryan was sitting at his computer, searching for everything he could find on his new best friend, Isabelle Flanders Tookus. He liked her a lot, and he thought she liked him, too. It was nice to have a friend, even if that friend was a grown-up. He’d done a search on her before, not on the computer, though. It was on a Wednesday after one of their meetings, when he’d followed her to see where she went after she left the park. For some reason, that particular day it had been important for him to know where she worked. He thought of it as a precaution so that, in an emergency, he could make his way there if he needed help. He’d never defined what kind of emergency would require him to need her help or exactly what kind of help he could expect. Why he thought he needed to take that sort of precaution was not at all clear to him. What he did know for sure was that he could get there on his bike in twelve minutes. In a real emergency, twelve minutes could mean life or death.
Ben turned on his computer and started a search. There was a great deal of information about his new best friend, but there was no home address. He wondered now why he hadn’t come right out and asked Izzy where she lived. Maybe because she hadn’t asked him exactly where he lived, nor asked for an address or a telephone number.
Ben clicked and clicked. Every site he visited promised a home phone number plus address for $29.95. Well, he didn’t have $29.95. All he had was the five dollars the dog lady had given him. And even if he had $29.95, he didn’t have a credit card. And then a bolt of lightning suddenly hit him. His grandmother Ellie had credit cards, lots of them. She had so many she had to have two wallets to keep them all together. And he knew exactly where she kept the overflow. But had she taken them with her when she left to go wherever she went, or did she leave them behind? There was only one way to know for sure. Despite the risk, he’d have to make a sneak trip to the Circle.
Today was Saturday, and it was starting off with a bang. Natalie, Connor’s wife, was already yelling her head off, and it was only ten o’clock in the morning. He thought about putting earplugs in his ears but decided this particular fight might work to his advantage.
Ben sat up straighter in his chair when he heard his name mentioned by Connor.
“Well, you can’t go shopping because you maxed out all our credit cards. Ben’s allotment hasn’t come in yet. All indications are it isn’t going to come in, either. We’re going to have to go back to court, and the lawyers want more money, and I absolutely do not have any money to give them. Are you listening to me, Natalie?”
“Take it out of Ben’s trust fund. You have the right to do that! You told me you could do that,” Natalie screeched at the top of her lungs. Ben winced and shook his head to clear it.
“That was then, and this is now. Now his lawyers look at his account every single day. If I took even a dollar out, they’d be here in a nanosecond. Go window-shopping!”
“Window-shopping! Is that what you said, window-shopping? This marriage isn’t working for me anymore. I’m sick of eating fried-egg sandwiches and fast food. I’m not used to this. Nordstrom is having a shoe sale.”
“Then leave. See if you can find someone else to pay your bills. This is the situation we’re in, and until it’s resolved, there is nothing I can do.”
A devil perched itself on Ben’s shoulder. He bolted from the room and ran down the stairs. He skidded to a stop and looked at his stepfather, then at Natalie. “I need a hundred dollars.”
“What?” they both bellowed in unison.
“I need a hundred dollars. I don’t want it. I need it. Mr. Brady said you are supposed to give me a hundred dollars every month. You are now four years in arrears. Mr. Brady said I do not have to account to you what I use it for. I’ll take it now. If you don’t give it to me, I will tell them at the Institute, when I go on Monday, that you’re stealing my money so Natalie can go shopping.” How do you like them apples, huh?
Natalie was like a wild woman as she whirled around and reached for Ben, but Connor stiff-armed her before she could reach him. She struggled with
her husband, calling Ben a freakish little snot.
“Well, this freakish little snot pays for all those clothes you wear and those stupid shoes you can’t even walk in,” Ben shouted, loud enough to drown out whatever vile invective Natalie was spewing.
“That will be enough of that, young man! And, Natalie, you pipe down, too.” Connor turned to Ben, and said, “You never asked for money before. Had you asked, I would have given it to you. I’m aware of the court order.”
“I shouldn’t have to ask, Connor. I know what a court order is, and I read it. You are supposed to give me a hundred dollars on the first day of the month. You are seriously in arrears. On Monday, I will bring it to the administrator’s attention. So get it ready. I’d like it in cash, too.”
Natalie jerked free of Connor’s arm. “Are you going to let this little snot talk to me like that? Well, are you?” she shrilled when Connor remained silent. Ben, mindful of Natalie’s talon-like nails, scooted behind Connor as he dug crumpled bills out of his pants pocket. He handed over five twenty-dollar bills to Ben, who snatched them up so quickly he thought his hands would burn.
Ben ran from the room, yelling over his shoulder that he was going to the park. He knew the two squabbling adults would be at it for at least another hour if things ran true to form. Now he had a hundred and five dollars. What to do with it? He jammed the bills into his pocket and took off on his bike like he was shot from a rocket. His destination, his grandmother’s house.
Ben pedaled as fast as his skinny legs would allow. After getting through the gate, he rode around the Circle twice to make sure no one was watching. But really, when he thought about it, who would be watching? No one. That’s who. Finally, on his third go-round, he slowed and pedaled to the back of the house. He leaned his bike up against the tree with the pulley, released the chain, and fished the key out of the birdhouse. He craned his neck every which way to make sure no one could see into the backyard. Satisfied, he let himself into the house and locked the door behind him.
Safe and Sound Page 4