by Nora Roberts
She reminded herself she was here to teach as well as dig. Enlightenment was as essential as discovery. “We’ll see about it tomorrow.”
“Awesome.”
He jogged off to get his trowel.
“You know, you can get a rash having your butt kissed that much,” Jake commented.
“Shut up. He’s just eager. You’re going to want to have one of your beauty-pageant contestants start another triangulation. Sonya, probably. Dory could work with her.”
“I’ve already set them up.” He gestured to where the two women were working with measuring tapes and a plumb line. “Starting next week, we’re only going to have Sonya on weekends. She starts classes full-time.”
“What about Dory?”
“She’s arranging a sabbatical. She doesn’t want to leave the dig. Chuck and Frannie are staying on. Matt, too. For the time being anyway. You couldn’t drag Bill away with a team of mules. We’re going to lose a couple of the itinerants, the undergrads. Leo’s working on replacements.”
“If we’re going to be shorthanded, let’s keep those hands busy while we’ve got them.”
They separated, Jake to work on what they’d termed “the hut area,” and Callie back to the cemetery.
She could work there with the pulse of Digger’s rock music, the chatter of the planning team, the trill of birds in the trees at her back. She could work in her own bubble of silence where those sounds simply pressed against the edges of her concentration.
She had the moist ground under her fingers, and the music of it sliding from her trowel into her spoil bucket. She had the sun on her back and the occasional brush of breeze to cool it.
She used trowel and brush and probe, painstakingly excavating the distant past, and her mind carefully turned over the known elements of her own.
William Blakely, Suzanne Cullen’s obstetrician, retired twelve years after delivering her of a healthy baby girl. Seven pounds, one ounce. He died of prostate cancer fourteen years later, survived by his wife, who had been both his office manager and his nurse, and their three children.
Blakely’s receptionist during the period in question had also retired, but had moved out of the area.
She intended to visit the widow, find more on the receptionist as soon as possible.
She’d track down the delivery-room nurse who’d assisted Suzanne through both of her labors. And the roommate she’d had during her hospital stay.
The pediatrician Suzanne had used continued to practice. She’d be going to see him as well.
It was a kind of triangulation, she thought. Each one of those names was a kind of point on the feature of her past. She would mark them, measure them, plot them. And somehow, she’d form the grid that began to give her the picture of what lay beneath it all.
Meticulously, she brushed the soil from the jawbone of a skull. “Who were you?” she wondered aloud.
She started to reach for her camera, glanced over when it wasn’t there.
“I’ve got it.” Dory crouched down, framed in the skull. “I’ve been elected to pick up lunch.” She rose, moved to another position to take another series of pictures from a different angle. “My name is Dory, and I’ll be your server today. What’ll you have?”
“I could go for one of those meatball subs, extra sauce and cheese. Bag of chips—see if they’ve got sour cream and onion.”
“How do you eat like that and stay slim? I even look at a bag of potato chips, I gain five pounds.” Dory lowered the camera. “I hate women like you. I’m having yogurt—for a change.”
She put the camera down to take the notebook out of her back pocket and scribble down Callie’s order.
“You need money?”
“No, the kitty’s still flush. Speaking of which, we’re trying to get a poker game together for tonight. Interested?”
“Yeah, but I’ve got to work.”
“Everybody needs some downtime. You haven’t taken a night off since I started on the dig. And when you’re not on-site, you’re traveling. In and out of Atlanta yesterday, a day in the lab last week—”
“How’d you know I went to Atlanta?”
Dory flinched at the snap in Callie’s voice. “Rosie mentioned it. She said you and Jake had to fly to Atlanta on business. Sorry. I didn’t mean to step in anything.”
“You didn’t step in anything. Look, I’ll ante up if I get the chance, but I’ve got some legwork on an alternate project that’s taking time.”
“Sure. We can always come up with an extra chair.” Dory got to her feet, brushed off her knees, then nodded toward the skull. “I bet he didn’t have many meatball subs for lunch.”
“Not likely.”
“Something to be said for progress,” Dory said, then walked to her car.
Callie waited until she was gone, then boosted out of the hole. She gestured to Rosie, wandered over to the cooler.
“What’s up?” Rosie asked her.
“Did you mention to anyone that I was in Atlanta yesterday?”
Rosie pulled a jug of Gatorade with her name on it out of the cooler. “Probably.” She took a long drink. “Yeah, your not-so-secret admirer was pretty bummed when you weren’t here. I told him you had some business south and would be back in a day or two. I might’ve told someone else. Was it a secret mission or something?”
“No.” She rolled her shoulder. “Just jumpy, I guess.” She frowned over to where Bill worked. “Has he asked you anything else about me?”
“Yeah, he asks. What you like to do in your free time. If you’ve got a boyfriend.”
“A boyfriend? Give me a break.”
“He shoots sulky and territorial glares at Jake when he’s absolutely sure Jake’s not looking. And gooey ones at you.”
“He’s twelve.”
“Twenty-four and counting. Come on, Callie.” Rosie gave her a friendly elbow in the ribs. “It’s sweet. Be nice to him.”
“I’m nice to him.”
But it made her think about perceptions, about team dynamics and gossip. So she decided to go after the next pieces of her puzzle without Jake.
Lorna Blakely had steel-gray hair, wore bifocals and housed four cats. She kept the screen door locked and peered suspiciously through it while the cats complained and circled around her.
“I don’t know any Dunbrooks.”
“No, ma’am. You don’t know me.” The Hagerstown neighborhood seemed quiet, settled and peaceful. Callie wondered why the woman would be so paranoid and why she’d believe a locked screen would stop anyone from breaking in. “I’d like to speak with you about one of your husband’s patients. Suzanne Cullen.”
“My husband’s dead.”
“Yes, ma’am. He was Suzanne Cullen’s doctor. He delivered both her babies. Do you remember her?”
“Of course I remember her. I’m not senile. She lives down the south of the county and got famous for her baking. She was a nice young woman, had pretty babies. One got kidnapped. Terrible thing.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”
“You the police? That must’ve been thirty years ago. Talked to the police back then.”
“No, I’m not the police.” How much, Callie wondered, could she trust her instincts, her judgment? They both told her that this tiny, suspicious woman with her bevy of cats wasn’t the type to black-market the babies her husband had spent his life bringing into the world. “Mrs. Blakely, I’m the baby who was kidnapped. I’m Suzanne Cullen’s daughter.”
“Why the devil didn’t you say so in the first place?” Lorna flipped off the lock, pushed open the screen. “How’s your mama? Didn’t hear they’d found you. Don’t listen to the news much. Haven’t since Wil’m passed.”
“I just recently found out about the connection. If I could ask you some questions it might help me figure out what really happened.”
“Don’t this beat all.” Lorna shook her head and scattered a couple of silver hairpins. “Just like something from tha
t America’s Most Wanted or some such thing. Guess you better sit down.”
She led the way into a small living room coordinated to within an inch of its life with matching maple tables, two identical china lamps, a sofa and chair out of the same pink and blue floral print.
Lorna took the chair, propped her feet on a matching ottoman. When Callie sat on the sofa, cats leaped into her lap. “Don’t mind them. They don’t get much company. Suzanne’s little girl, after all this time. Isn’t that something? You got the look of her, now that I think about it. Good breeder,” she added. “Breezed through both of those pregnancies. Strong, healthy girl, just about broke your heart to see how she went sickly after she lost that baby.”
“You worked with your husband.”
“Sure I did. Worked with him for twenty-two years.”
“Would you remember, when he was treating Suzanne through that pregnancy, if there was anyone who asked questions about her, seemed overly interested in her?”
“The police asked questions back when it happened. Wasn’t a thing we could tell them. Wil’m, he was heartsick over it. That man loved his babies.”
“What about the other people who worked in your husband’s office back then?”
“Had a receptionist, another nurse. Hallie, she was with us ten years. No eleven. Eleven years.”
“Hallie was the other nurse. What about Karen Younger, the receptionist?”
“Moved here from the city. D.C. Worked for us six years or so, then her husband he got transferred down to Texas somewhere. Got a Christmas card from her every year. Always said she missed Dr. Wil’m. She was a good girl. Billy delivered her second baby, a boy. Worked for us another two years before they moved away.”
“Do you know where in Texas?”
“ ’Course I do. Didn’t I say I wasn’t senile? Houston. Got two grandchildren now.”
“I wonder if I could have her address, and Hallie’s? To contact them in case they remember anything.”
“Don’t know what they’d remember now they didn’t remember then. Some stranger snatched you up. That’s what happened. That’s how people can be.”
“There were people at the hospital, too. People who knew your husband, who knew Suzanne had a baby. Orderlies, nurses, other doctors. One of the delivery-room nurses was with Suzanne for both deliveries. Would you remember her name?”
Lorna puffed out her cheeks. “Might’ve been Mary Stern, or Nancy Ellis. Can’t say for sure, but Wil’m asked for one of them most often.”
“Are they still in the area?”
“As far as I know. Lose track of people when you’re a widow. You want to talk to every blessed one who worked up the hospital back then, you check with Betsy Poffenberger. She worked there more than forty years. Nothing she doesn’t know about anybody or anything goes on there. Always had her nose in somebody’s business.”
“Where would I find her?”
Betsy lived twenty minutes away, in a development Callie learned had been built by Ronald Dolan.
“Lorna Blakely sent you?” Betsy was a robust woman with hair as black as pitch that had been lacquered into a poofed ball. She sat on her front porch with a pair of binoculars close at hand. “Old biddy. Never did care for me. Thought I had a thing for her Wil’m. I wasn’t married back then, and in Lorna’s mind any unmarried woman was on the prowl.”
“She thought you might be able to tell me who was in the delivery room with Suzanne Cullen when her daughter was born. Maybe who her roommate was during her stay. The names of the nurses and staff working the maternity wing. That sort of thing.”
“Long time ago.” She eyed Callie. “I’ve seen you on TV.”
“I’m with the archaeology project at Antietam Creek.”
“That’s it. That’s it. You don’t expect me to tell you anything without you telling me why.”
“You know Suzanne Cullen’s daughter was taken. It has to do with that.”
“You an archaeologist or a detective?”
“Sometimes they’re the same thing. I’d really appreciate any help you can give me, Mrs. Poffenberger.”
“Felt sorry as could be for Ms. Cullen when that happened. Everybody did. Things like that don’t happen around here.”
“This time it did. Do you remember anything, anyone?”
“We talked about nothing else for weeks. Alice Lingstrom was head nurse on the maternity floor. She’s a particular friend of mine. She and Kate Regan and me, we talked about it plenty, over breaks and at lunch. Kate worked in Administration. We went to school together. Can’t say I recall what was what right off, but I could find out. I still got ways,” she said with a wink. “Guess I could do that. Jay Cullen, he taught my sister’s boy in school. Mike, he’s no brain trust, if you know what I mean, but my sister said Mr. Cullen worked special with him to help him out. So I guess I could see what’s what.”
“Thank you.” Callie took out a piece of paper, wrote down her cell phone. “You can reach me at this number. I’d appreciate any information at all.”
Betsy pursed her lips at the number, then peered up at Callie’s face when she rose. “You kin to the Cullens?”
“Apparently.”
The poker game was under way when Callie got back. She could hear the rattle of chips from the kitchen. She turned toward the steps with the hope of getting up them and into her room unnoticed.
But Jake appeared to have radar where she was concerned. She was halfway up when he took her arm, turned her around and marched back down.
“Hey. Hands off.”
“We’re going for a walk.” He kept his grip on her arm and propelled her through the door. “So nobody can interfere when I slap you around.”
“You keep dragging me and you’re going to be flat on your back checking out the evening sky.”
“Why did you sneak off?”
“I didn’t sneak off; I drove off. In my freshly painted vehicle.”
“Where did you go?”
“I don’t report to you.”
“Where did you go, and why did you have your phone turned off so I couldn’t call and yell at you?”
When they reached the creek, she pulled her arm free. “I had some legwork I wanted to do, and I wanted to do it alone. I’m not having the team talking about us because we’re always together. You know how gossip can breed on a dig.”
“Fuck gossip. Did it occur to you that I’d worry? Did it ever cross your mind that I’d worry when I didn’t know where you’d gone and couldn’t contact you?”
“No. It occurred to me you’d be mad.”
“I am mad.”
“I don’t mind that, but I didn’t mean to worry you.” And she saw, very clearly, that she had. “I’m sorry.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“You apologized without being pounded into submission first.” He lifted his hands palms up, looked toward the sky. “It’s a day of miracles.”
“And now I’m going to tell you what to do with the apology.”
“Uh-uh.” He took her face in his hands, pressed his lips to hers. “Let me enjoy it.”
When she didn’t kick him, shove him, he drew her closer. He deepened the kiss, let his fingers slide back into her hair.
His lips were warm, and gentle. His hands more persuasive than possessive. This, she thought as she let herself float into the kiss, wasn’t the way he demonstrated temper. Not in her experience. The fact was, she couldn’t remember him ever kissing her in quite this way.
With patience, and with care. As if, she thought, she mattered a very great deal.
“What’s going on with you?” she murmured against his mouth.
“That’s my question.” He eased back, let out a long breath. “We’d better talk or I’m going to forget why I’m mad at you. Where did you go?”
She nearly refused to tell him, then realized that was simply a knee-jerk reaction. You demand, she thought, I refuse. And we end up nowhere.
“Why don’t we sit down?” She lowered to the bank of the creek, and told him.
Seventeen
Callie sat cross-legged on the ground, filling out a find sheet. Her notes and records were secured in a clipboard and fluttered in the light breeze.
There were voices everywhere. The weekend team expanded with amateur diggers and curious students. Leo was talking about organizing a knap-in the following month to draw in more help and more interest before the end of the season.
She imagined fall in this part of the world would be a perfect time for camping out and holding outdoor instruction. Some who signed up were bound to be more trouble than they were worth, but she didn’t mind the idea as long as it got the project attention and more hands.
She heard the occasional car pull up at the fence line, and those voices carried as well. One of the students would give the standard lecture and answer the questions of the tourists or townspeople who stopped by.
When a shadow fell over her, she continued to write. “You can take those pails over to the spoil pile. But don’t forget to bring them back.”
“I’d be glad to, if I knew what a spoil pile was and where to find it.”
Callie turned her head, shading her eyes with the flat of her hand. It was a jolt to see Suzanne in sunglasses and ball cap. It was almost like looking at an older version of herself. “Sorry. I thought you were one of the grunts.”
“I heard you on the radio this morning.”
“Yeah, Jake, Leo and I take shifts with the media.”
“You made it all sound so fascinating. I thought it was time I came by and had a look for myself. I hope it’s all right.”
“Sure.” Callie set the clipboard down, got to her feet. “So . . .” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets to keep her hands still. “What do you think?”
“Actually”—Suzanne looked around—“it’s tidier than I imagined somehow. And more crowded.”