Connor digested his wife’s words. If Eleanor Lymen was back in town, that had to mean she knew where Ben was. It also meant she was probably the one who snatched him and had him someplace no one would find him. She was also probably the one behind his disappearance to begin with. Damn, this was all going south so fast, he felt like he was on a greased slope with nothing to break his fall. Go now, his brain shrieked. Go now! Right now! Don’t wait. Now! Despite what his inner coward was telling him, his feet remained rooted to the floor.
Where would he go? How far would he get? He had no money to speak of. And the world wasn’t exactly crying out for glassblowers or for him to craft a one-of-a-kind piece of pottery. Like it or not, he was stuck. And inner voice or no, he knew it all too well.
Natalie returned, dressed in designer jeans and a camp shirt. Connor eyed her suspiciously. “What’s with the getup? I thought you’d be dressed to the nines since you said this would be a photo op, along with the interview.”
“I’m canceling the interview. Nothing about this is feeling right. First, the deal with the house out of the blue, then the interview out of the blue, then out of the blue I just happen to see those three old biddies on the road driving to God knows where. I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to figure out this is all about Ben and the fact that we didn’t report him missing. Don’t you smell a rat, Connor?”
“All I smell is that shitty perfume you’re always wearing. I never smelled a rat, much less saw one, so I have no clue how they smell. Right now, I am all for packing up and leaving. You can do whatever the hell you want.”
Natalie looked at her husband with a jaundiced eye as she tapped out Maggie Spritzer’s cell phone number. The moment she heard the reporter’s voice, she said, “I’m sorry to call you on such short notice, but I have to cancel our interview. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” She immediately broke the connection and looked at Connor. “Okay, this is where we fall back and regroup.”
“You need to get real, Natalie. Ben is gone. And with him, all our leverage. We have nothing. By now, wherever he is, he’s talking up a storm and telling anyone who will listen what his life has been like with this loving family. We need to leave, and we need to leave now, before the cops come knocking. I’m going, with or without you.”
Connor’s cell phone took that moment to chirp. He looked down at the name of the caller: Lymen Institute. He clicked on, and said, “Connor Ryan.”
“Good morning, Mr. Ryan, this is Dr. Evan Phillips, the Institute’s administrator. I’m calling to give you a heads-up. Dr. Emily Banks is on her way to your home with Ben’s assignments. She also needs to pick up his finished work and to talk with him. She should be ringing your doorbell momentarily. I hope Ben is progressing well. We miss him here at the Institute.”
“Yes, well, that might pose a bit of a problem, Dr. Phillips. Ben appears to have chicken pox and is really under the weather. Right now he’s sleeping, and I do not want to wake him. I can accept his new work assignment, but I can’t give you anything in return because I truthfully don’t know if Ben has done any work or not. He’s been quite sick, as you know.”
The silence on the other end of the phone bothered Connor. Maybe Natalie was right. It was all closing in on them. He waited, fully expecting Dr. Phillips to agree to simply dropping off new work for Ben. He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard Dr. Phillips say, “In that case, I’ll send our in-house physician and nurse to take a look at Ben and report back to us. We are responsible for Ben and his well-being and have been since the day his grandmother entrusted the boy to our care.”
Natalie turned as white as the wall she was leaning against. She grabbed the phone out of Connor’s hand and said, “This is Natalie Ryan, Dr. Phillips. That will not be necessary. We have our own doctor looking after Ben, and he is on the mend. He doesn’t need any more poking and prodding by your people or anyone else. We’re his parents, not you or the Institute, and I do not care what your paperwork says. If you want to bring this to a test, I will call the news channels and let the world see what you people up there on the hill are all about. Do I make myself clear, Dr. Phillips? Oh, and one last thing: If I have anything to say about it, Ben will not be returning to your precious Institute once he completes his studies in December. Without Ben, what do you think Mrs. Lymen’s endowment will mean to you? Now, I have a sick child to see to. Call your messenger and tell her to leave Ben’s work by the front door.”
Natalie stared at the phone in her hand before she handed it back to her husband. “Now do you believe me?”
Connor sat down at the kitchen table and dropped his head into his hands. “What do you want to do, Natalie?”
Natalie busied herself at the stove as she brewed a pot of tea. The truth was she didn’t know what to do. Connor was right. He was finally accepting the fact that it was all closing in on them. She closed her eyes, then let out a yelp of pain when the bubbling water bounced out and splashed on her hand. An omen? The wonderful rich and rewarding life she’d been promised, which had never materialized, and all her hopes for it were now going down the tubes. And it was all because of that smart-assed little snot, whom she hated with a passion. He had outsmarted her. Connor was oblivious, and she secretly thought he had a soft spot for the little snot, whereas she hated the kid’s guts. All that money wasted on an eight-year-old! It was totally obscene. She needed a plan.
Natalie poured two cups of tea and liberally spooned thick yellow honey into both cups. She plopped one down in front of Connor, who was staring off into the distance. She snapped her fingers in front of his face, and he didn’t even blink. “Snap out of it, Connor. We need to talk and . . . we need to do something. Like now would be good, Connor. Look at me, you idiot, or I’m going to dump this tea right in your lap. Now, I’m not going to tell you again, look at me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
To make her point, Natalie grabbed her husband by the shoulders and shook him until he fell off the chair he was sitting on. She gave him a kick for good measure. “Now are you ready to talk to me?”
Holding his side with both hands, Connor struggled to his feet and gingerly lowered himself back onto the chair. “There’s nothing to say, Natalie,” he said wearily. “We need to pack up and leave as soon as possible. Otherwise, I see a whole bunch of police coming to cart us off to jail. Is that what you want?”
“No, it is not what I want. We’re missing something here. There has to be something we can latch onto. It can’t end like this. It just can’t. He’s still your son, you legally adopted him. We are his parents. We have rights. Ben was not mistreated. All his needs were met by us. That’s our bottom line. What can they do to us? He ran away in the middle of the night. Kids run away all the time.”
“And when they do run away, the parents contact the cops, and we did not do that. Why not, we’ll be asked. And what do we tell them? Because we were afraid that if you found him, he would tell you that my wife intended to kill him? Not calling the cops was our mistake, Natalie.”
Connor actually enjoyed the look of fear he was seeing on his wife’s face. “You want to know something, Natalie?” Not bothering to wait for her response, he rambled on. “I think the reason Ben ran away was that he heard us talking and heard you say you wanted to do away with him. If I remember, he said, I stress the word said, that he was asleep in the laundry room waiting for his clothes to dry. I don’t think he was asleep at all. I think he was in there cowering in fear, and I think he heard us. He heard you announcing that he needed to be eliminated. And like anyone on the verge of getting a college degree, he understood exactly what you were saying. After all, you don’t need to be a genius to figure out what you were talking about. He waited till it got dark and ran. Same night. That tells me he heard us, and he was afraid. He’s smart, you have to give him that. Wherever he is right now, you can rest assured he is either telling them what transpired or he has already told them. That’s why, in my opinion, which being as stupid as y
ou are, you never listen to, that offer came in on the house, the interview you canceled was scheduled, and, on top of all that, you spotted Eleanor Lymen, who is suddenly back in town. There is no such thing as coincidence, at least to my way of thinking.
“You can talk now, Natalie. Let’s see you figure this one out. While you’re doing that, I’m going to pack my gear, and I’m leaving. You can do whatever you want.”
Natalie gulped at her tea, which was no longer hot. “Then why haven’t they done something already?” she shrilled to her husband’s retreating back.
“I can’t talk to you because you’re too stupid. What do you think has been going on? I’m not waiting for you, so if you’re coming, move your butt.”
Natalie sniffed. Like she was really going to do anything her husband suggested. He was the reason she was in the predicament she was in right now. He wasn’t going anywhere, not if she had anything to say about it.
There had to be a way out of this. There just had to be. What she had to do was find it and act on it.
With nothing else to do, Natalie brewed yet another pot of tea. She looked at the jar of honey and was dismayed to see that it was empty. That had to mean she would have to use the sugar substitute that Connor preferred, which always left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Make do, Natalie, make do,” she said to herself as she nursed her blistered hand.
What was that old Yogi Berra saying? Ah, yes—“it ain’t over till it’s over.” And she had miles to go before anything was over.
Chapter 14
Sitting on the shoulder of the road, Maggie Spritzer watched cars and trucks whiz by on the highway. She switched her gaze to the cell phone in her hand. She could not believe it. Natalie Ryan had just canceled their interview! Unbelievable! First she’d dissed Myra and now her. She looked around to make sure she was far enough off the highway to be safe before she sent out a text to the sisters apprising them of this latest development. She ended the text with, I think the Ryans are going to make a run for it. What do you want me to do?
The incoming response came in less than a minute from Kathryn. How far away are you? Stake out the house. Park where Yoko and I parked. We’re on our way.
Maggie’s return text read, App ten klicks. Will do.
“I can do that,” Maggie muttered under her breath as she waited for a break in traffic before she pulled onto the highway. Her thoughts were all over the map as she pondered what her next move should be. If the Ryans left while she was surveilling them, should she follow them? Should she brazenly go up to the door and say she really needed the interview, maybe increase the Nordstrom gift certificate? Her gut told her that nothing would work. The rats were about to abandon ship. Better to just stay undercover and wait for the others to arrive. With strength in numbers came power.
From all she’d been told, and granted, most of that knowledge came from Ben Ryan, an eight-year-old, Natalie Ryan was not someone to mess with. Since he was old beyond his years, Maggie had to give credence to his assessment of the woman. And he’d lived with her for four years, so he had to know just about everything there was to know about his stepmother’s behavior.
Something had to have spooked Natalie Ryan. But what? Maggie gave herself a mental slap to the side of her head. Ben’s disappearance was the first part of the answer. Ben, the golden goose, the meal ticket, the path to riches. The second part was Myra’s telling her that Ben would have to be there in order to transfer ownership of the house to the fantasy sheik. Put the two together, and you ended up with a rat big enough for anyone with Natalie’s background to smell.
Maggie slowed for a traffic light. She was less than two blocks from the Ryan house. She could see the Institute on her left, high on the hill at the top of the Circle.
In the bright autumn sunshine, the building looked like a beautiful academic campus. The only thing missing was students loaded down with backpacks as they chatted up their friends, strolling about. Ah, to be that young again. And to know what she knew now back then. She shook her head to clear her thoughts as she maneuvered her car into the same spot that Kathryn and Yoko had parked in. Was it just yesterday? It seemed like an eternity now.
Maggie turned off the engine, unbuckled her seat belt, rolled down the window, and settled down to wait. With the window down, she noticed what looked like a book bag hanging off the Ryans’ front doorknob. She frowned. Was it Ben’s? What would a book bag be doing hanging on the door? Ben had had his bag with him when Isabelle brought him to the farm. Because she was an investigative reporter, hence used to solving mysteries, Maggie surmised that someone from the Institute had delivered books, assignments, or workbooks to the house because they believed the boy to be ill. When no one opened the door, they had just left it hanging from the doorknob. It was the only thing that made sense. She felt satisfied with that explanation.
Maggie itched to get out of the car and march up to the door to demand to know why the Ryans had canceled the interview. If she did that, against orders, she would at least be able to take a peek inside the backpack. But even if she did that, what good would it do? Ben wasn’t there, so the problem was moot. Better to stay right where she was and wait for reinforcements. She absolutely hated stakeouts. Hated them with a passion. There was so much she could be doing instead of wasting time sitting on her duff waiting for something that would or would not happen. Hours and hours of wasted time. Team player that she was, she sighed and kept her eyes on the Ryans’ front door.
Then a horrible thought suddenly struck her. If the sisters were on the way, who was going to stay with Ben? She quickly fired off a text, one eye on the Ryans’ house and the other one on her phone. The response came a minute later from Nikki: Isabelle stayed behind with Ben because Eleanor Lymen and her friends are on the way to the farm.
That’s a good thing, Maggie thought. She felt sad that she wouldn’t be there to see the grand reunion of grandmother and grandson. How wonderful that was going to be for Ben. Isabelle would tell them all about it, but it wouldn’t be the same as witnessing it herself. She smiled to herself when she thought of the brilliant, precocious little boy and how fortunate it was for him that he’d found Isabelle. Sometimes things actually worked out the way they were supposed to. Sometimes.
Maggie had to fight not to doze off. Things were just too quiet. Only two cars had passed her on the street since she’d arrived. No one was mowing their lawns or raking their leaves. Where was everyone? It was almost like ghosts lived on this street and only came out after dark.
Ten minutes later, after she’d chewed her nails to the point where her fingers hurt, Maggie heard the unmistakable sound of Yoko’s delivery van. It pulled up behind her, but no one got out. Instead, Maggie’s phone chirped with an incoming message that was one word, Report. To which Maggie responded. Nada. No activity.
Maggie heard the door of the van slide open. She looked in the rearview mirror to see Myra and Annie advancing toward her car. “We’re going to brazen it out and go up to the house. We’ll go around back, where Connor has his shop, and see what we can do. We brought the bogus contract with us,” Annie said, waving a bright green folder in the air. “Give us at least ten minutes, then follow us. Hopefully, by that time we’ll be in the house and in control of the situation. Then it’s game on.”
“Good luck,” Maggie said as she looked down at her watch. This was going to be the slowest ten minutes of her life. She could feel her adrenaline spike. She took deep breaths and waited as she watched Myra and Annie make their way to the Ryan house, and, instead of going to the front door, turn right and walk around to the back of the house. The minute Myra and Annie were out of sight, Maggie’s hand flew to the door handle. She eased it open so she could bolt the moment the ten minutes were up. She knew the other sisters were doing the same thing she was.
The minutes crawled by. She wished she knew what was going on. Had the Ryans opened the door to Myra and Annie, or were they still there banging on the door?
A
nnie gave one hard, ferocious knock to the door, and shouted, “Mr. and Mrs. Ryan, it’s Martha and Alice here with the contract on your house. Our attorney faxed us a notification that it is okay for you to sign for your son, Ben. We just have to have your signature notarized, and we’ll have a deal. Alice and I are both notaries. Hello! Are you in there? We don’t have much time. Two other people on the street called and are interested in the offer, but before we canceled you out, we wanted to make sure that’s what you really want. Hello,” she shouted again.
Inside the kitchen but out of sight of the paned windows on the back door, Natalie looked at her husband, and said, “Maybe I was wrong. What do you think, Connor?”
“I don’t think anything,” he said in an angry whisper. “This is your show entirely, so do whatever the hell you want. I’m still leaving.”
Natalie felt her eyes narrow as she lasered in on her husband. “Does that mean I get to keep the whole five million dollars? Say it, I want to hear the words come out of your mouth.”
Connor just laughed. “Yeah, Natalie, you can keep the whole five million. That’s if you ever get it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means whatever you want it to mean.” Connor laughed out loud as he walked over to the kitchen door and opened it.
“Ladies,” he said by way of greeting, still chuckling.
“Oh, my,” Myra said. “We thought you might not be home. We were just about to leave. I’m so glad we were persistent. This is such a wonderful deal for you both. And for us, too. Business has been slow lately, no one wants McMansions these days. You should consider yourselves lucky on this deal. I have the paperwork right here. All you have to do is sign where the X is. And on the line where Ben’s signature should go, you sign his name, initial it above your signature, and we have a deal. My partner will notarize everything, give you a copy, and in three weeks you’ll have your money. Does that work for you?” she said cheerfully as she held out a pen to Natalie, who was looking at it like it was a snake about to strike. Connor stood behind her, his face expressionless.
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