And Then There Was One

by Patricia Gussin

  And Then There Was One

  ALSO BY PATRICIA GUSSIN

  FICTION

  Shadow of Death

  Twisted Justice

  The Test

  NONFICTION

  What’s Next … For You?

  (With Robert Gussin)

  And Then There Was One

  A Novel

  Patricia Gussin

  Copyright © 2010 by Patricia Gussin

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-933515-81-6

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing,

  Longboat Key, Florida

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  To my wonderful grandchildren

  Melissa

  Mike

  Megan

  Kris

  Courtney

  Connor

  Will

  Sal

  Zack

  Austen

  Sonny

  Luke

  Nate

  Joe

  Nick

  Rachel

  Oliver

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, Oceanview Team, for all you do: Susan Greger, Susan Hayes, Maryglenn McCombs, Mary Adele Bogden, John Cheesman, George Foster, Kylie Fritz, Joanne Savage, Sandy Greger, Joe Hall, and Cheryl Melnick.

  A special thanks to my editor, Caroline Upcher.

  And, the ultimate thanks to my husband, Bob, always my first reader and my twenty-four-hour inspiration.

  And Then There Was One

  CHAPTER 1

  Detroit Pays Tribute to Monica Monroe in Concert at Fox Theatre.

  — Detroit News, Sunday, June 14, 2009

  “Scott, listen to me. We can’t find Sammie and Alex!”

  “Can’t find what?” Scott Monroe shouted over the roar of Yankee fans as Derek Jeter approached the plate. The Yankees were pummeling the Mets, battering Santana. “Lucy, I’m in the dugout. I’ll have to call you back.”

  “No. Don’t hang up!”

  Cell phone jammed against his ear, Scott left the game and headed to the players’ lockers. “Hold on,” he yelled, letting the door slam behind him, feeling his heart start to hammer, all the little hairs rising on his neck. His mother-in-law, level-headed and always composed, calling him during a game? Something had to be wrong. “Okay, it’s quieter in here.”

  “Scott, it’s about the girls —”

  “What about them?” He squeezed the phone even tighter to his ear.

  “Danielle took them to the movies today. At the mall in Auburn Hills. Sammie and Alex never came out. Danielle called me. I’m at the mall now and there’s no sign of them.”

  Scott crouched against the concrete wall and forced a deep breath. Didn’t come out? “Okay, Lucy, slow down. You said Alex and Sammie. Where’s Jackie? Aren’t they together?”

  “No, they split up. Two different movies. Jackie went to Star Wars with Danielle. And Sammie and Alex went to Night at the Museum right next door. Both movies ended about the same time, but Sammie and Alex never came out.”

  How could two kids not come out of a theater?

  “Just a minute, Lucy, I’m still having trouble hearing you.” Scott moved deeper inside the hall. Lucy was telling him that two of his daughters were missing. Certainly they’d show up soon. They were nine years old, the age that girls like to hang around malls.

  “Before I got here, Danielle asked everyone around,” Lucy continued, breathless, “but nobody saw Sammie and Alex leave. Scott, we don’t know where they are. I called mall security.”

  Scott felt his body go limp and he slumped lower against the wall. Where could they have gone? The New York City air was chilly for mid-June, but Scott felt the prickle of ice filling his veins.

  “There’re calling in the police,” Lucy said. “Scott, can you come to Detroit? Now.”

  “Katie?” Scott hardly dared ask. His wife was a street-smart doctor, but when it came to their girls she had a sixth sense of paranoia — an obsession with their safety. Strange that Katie had let them go to the movies with their cousin, Danielle, even though Danielle was a responsible nineteen year old.

  “Where’s Katie?”

  Lucy’s voice faltered. “She and Sharon went into Detroit, that charity affair, guests of the bishop.”

  Scott remembered. Katie’s sister was the chairperson of the posh luncheon event.

  “Their phones are still turned off, but they’ll be at my place soon. You know how Katie is about those girls.”

  Scott did know. Katie had grown up in Detroit, her early years in the inner city. Even though Lucy had moved her four daughters to the troubled city’s outer borders and had sent them to a private girls’ academy, Katie, the youngest, had never been able to shake the terror of those early years.

  “The police?” Scott heard the echo of his voice in the empty hallway. Trying to think of logical solutions, he slammed into a wall of terror. “Did you check for a lost and found for kids?” he managed. “What about other exits? Don’t they have emergency exits?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said. “But nothing.”

  Struggling for a sense of perspective, Scott squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus on the diverse personalities of his identical triplet daughters. “If they are in the mall and lost, Sammie would never admit it. She’d hold out to the end before asking for help.” Scott paused, “Lucy, you did say that Jackie is okay?”

  “Yes, she and Danielle are in my sight. Jackie’s scared, that’s all. And of course, Danielle is devastated.”

  “I’m on my way.” Scott opened his eyes and stood. “I’ll charter a plane. I’m on my way.”

  “Let’s just hope they’re wandering the mall,” Lucy said, but Scott had already disconnected.

  Lucy Jones jerked to attention when the heavyset man in a rumpled brown suit barged into the cramped mall security office. She still gripped the phone on the desk with one hand while holding onto her granddaughter, Jackie, trembling at her side. Her other granddaughter, Danielle, stood back, her slim shoulders slumped, her head bent into tented hands.

  “Clarence Plummer,” the man announced. “Director of security. You reported a couple of missing kids?” Plummer swung his massive frame into the chair behind the desk, motioning for Lucy to take the lone client chair. She complied, pulling Jackie onto her lap, leaving Danielle standing. “Start at the beginning, ma’am. We’re about to call in the local police, but —”

  “Sir, my two granddaughters are missing. They’re only nine years old.” Lucy’s words came out in a gush as she tilted Jackie forward on her lap. “They look just like this little girl here, only one has a ponytail. They’re triplets. They were at the movie and didn’t come out. They —”

  “Slow down, ma’am.” Plummer leaned forward, rubbing his shiny bald head, the color of mahogany. “What do you mean? They didn’t come out of the show? That must mean they’re in there. Why didn’t you just go in and get them out?”

  A familiar feeling started to settle in the pit of Lucy’s stomach. How could she make him understand that she was not an ignorant black woman, unworthy of his time? When she was representing her clie
nts as a social worker, Lucy felt empowered, but here, as an aging, overweight black woman, she suffered a surge of helplessness. The fact that Clarence Plummer, too, was black gave her little comfort.

  “Sir, I’m afraid that they have been taken.” Lucy struggled to enunciate, her voice was shaking so.

  Gulping another deep breath, she prayed that she was overreacting, merely oversensationalizing the situation. Certainly the girls would show up any minute and she’d have to apologize for her hysteria. To her surprise, Plummer leaned forward, elbows on this desk, and fixed his eyes on hers. “Ma’am, please, start at the beginning.”

  “My other granddaughter, their cousin, Danielle,” Lucy nodded to the older girl, “took all three girls to the movies in the mall. Danielle and Jackie went to Star Wars and Sammie and Alex to Night in the Museum right next door. When the movie was over, Sammie and Alex never came out.”

  “We were supposed to meet on the bench by the fountain.” Danielle spoke for the first time in a voice strained and low. Her brown eyes were smudged with mascara, and when she spoke, one hand kept twisting the charm bracelet on her other arm.

  Lucy’s heart went out to her sensitive granddaughter. Danielle was spending her summer break from Vanderbilt with Lucy to help make sure her grandmother was okay after her hip replacement. Tears glistened against Danielle’s caramel-colored skin, and Lucy wished she had a packet of Kleenex to give her.

  “Could I have your names, please?” Plummer pulled out a pad and selected a pen from the cluster on his desk.

  “Jacqueline Monroe.” Lucy encircled Jackie with both arms. “Her sisters are Samantha and Alexandra. I’m Lucy Jones and this is my granddaughter, Danielle Evans.” Lucy explained how she lived in Auburn Hills, that Danielle lived in Nashville during the school year, and the Monroe triplets in Tampa. She told him that the children were in town with their mother to attend their aunt’s concert in Detroit last night. Their father, Scott Monroe, was on his way here from New York City.

  Plummer, writing it all down, paused mid stroke. “Not that Scott Monroe, the Yankee catcher? His sister, Monica Monroe, my wife’s favorite singer?”

  “Yes.” Jackie looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears. “Mister, can you find my sisters?”

  There was now no doubt that Lucy had Plummer’s full attention. Scott Monroe was still a revered figure in baseball circles even though an injury at the plate had ended his catching career eighteen years ago. “Dang. Yankees beat the Mets fifteen to zip today. He was at that game?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “He’s your dad?” Plummer scrutinized Jackie again. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning.”

  “Danielle,” Lucy said, “I want you to tell Mr. Plummer exactly what happened.

  Through tears, voice shaking, Danielle repeated the same information, telling Plummer how the foursome had split up just before going inside the theatre. Since the movies were shown side-by-side, Danielle did not think that there was any risk. They planned to meet outside the entrance to the movie theater where there was a prominent fountain surrounded by benches.

  After Star Wars let out, she and Jackie had waited for a while, and then she’d taken Jackie and they’d gone into the Night of the Museum theatre to search for Sammie and Alex. The theatre had been dark and empty, and she’d persuaded the ticket collector to turn on the lights. The space was completely empty. Then they’d gone around asking everybody, but nobody had seen the girls leave. The ticket taker volunteered that the emergency exit had not been breached. Then Danielle called her grandmother. As soon as she hung up, she and Jackie kept asking people in the vicinity of the fountain and movie entrance whether they’d seen the two girls. Nobody had.

  “I got here fifteen minutes after Danielle called,” Lucy said, “even though with my new hip I’m not supposed to drive.”

  “Jackie and I looked everywhere,” Danielle said.

  “Bathrooms?” Plummer asked.

  “We checked. Every stall. They were not there. Not in the lobby. Not by the concessions. I figured they must be somewhere out in the mall.”

  “Oh, where could they be?” Lucy interrupted.

  Plummer creased his brow and gestured for Danielle to continue.

  “So I asked Jackie. ‘Where would they have wandered off to?’ Jackie said, ‘Alex wouldn’t wander off, but maybe Sammie. Sammie’s always getting in trouble.’”

  Jackie shifted in Lucy’s arms, and Lucy pulled her closer.

  “It’s a big mall. Jackie said maybe they went to get candy. But why? There was plenty of candy at the movies. Jackie said that Alex likes animals, but there’s no pet store in the mall. Jackie suggested a sports store.”

  Plummer raised his eyebrows.

  “They’re sports fanatics,” Lucy said.

  “I know this mall like the back of my hand,” Danielle said. “I thought about the sneaker store, but Jackie said they just got brand new Nike’s. That’s when I called my grandmother. I figured that they had to be here somewhere, but if I was late getting them back, their mother would simply freak. Everybody knows how ultraprotective Aunt Katie is about her kids.”

  Jackie twisted again in Lucy’s arms, “Where are they, Grandma?”

  “Mrs. Jones, I need details.” Plummer consulted his notes. “Alexandra and Samantha?”

  “Alex and Sammie,” Lucy said, gulping back tears.

  Plummer got up and walked around his desk. He knelt at Lucy’s side and directly addressed Jackie. His voice was firm, yet kind. “I have a couple of questions for you, Jackie. Okay?”

  The child nodded.

  “Can you tell me what your sisters were wearing?”

  Jackie fingered the butterfly pattern on her blue slacks, then brushed tears from her eyes. “Yes. Sammie had on those awful pants, the ones with a lot of colors and a shirt I told her did not match. She said she didn’t care.”

  “What color shirt?” Plummer asked?

  “Yellow,” Jackie said. “And the pants had a mix of colors, reds and greens.”

  “What about your other sister? What was she wearing?”

  “A purple dress. Actually, violet. She likes dresses. And a barrette, like mine.” Jackie fingered the fake jewel clasp holding the hair back from her forehead. “And Sammie had her hair in a ponytail with a red ribbon.”

  “I explained all that to the ticket guy,” Danielle interrupted. “I told him, ‘look at Jackie. Did you see two little girls who look just like her? One with a yellow shirt and multicolored pants. The other in a purple sundress.’ And I explained that the one in the multicolors had her hair in a ponytail.”

  “Alex’s dress was light purple,” Jackie corrected.

  “‘Miss, we see so many kids going through here,’ was all he said.”

  Plummer got up. “Okay, timing is everything. I need to know exactly when you arrived and exactly when you separated.”

  Danielle said that they arrived at the mall at twelve thirty. They hung out for a few minutes then went inside the theatre to buy popcorn and pop. She and Jackie separated from Alex and Sammie at exactly the time the two movies were scheduled to start: twelve forty-five. New tears gathered as she faced Plummer. “And that’s the last time I saw them.”

  Plummer patted Danielle on the back. “We’ll find them,” he said. Then he attacked the phone, spewing orders in a voice that bellowed: “monitor all access and egress; station security agents at each of the four mall exits; stop anyone with a child fitting the description of the Monroe girls — healthy nine year olds, black hair, one in a ponytail, the other shoulder length, brown eyes, dark bronze skin; nobody leaves the mall complex without scrutiny.”

  Plummer’s next calls were to the Oakland County sheriff and the Michigan State Police. He urged the police not to wait to call in the FBI. The intensity of Plummer’s tone terrorized Lucy as the security director repeated over and over that these first few hours were critical.

  Lucy felt her heart race, and she broke into a cold sweat, pulling Ja
ckie even more tightly to her chest.

  CHAPTER 2

  General Motors and Chrysler Bankrupt: Ford Next?

  — Detroit News, Sunday, July 14, 2009

  Katie Monroe glanced again at her Piaget watch, an extravagant gift from her husband on the occasion of her forty-fifth birthday. She couldn’t suppress the flicker of a smile even though at that moment annoyance was escalating to agitation. Her mother must have taken Danielle and the girls out for something to eat after the movies. She’d given the girls popcorn and candy and soda money. And she wanted them to have an early dinner so they’d get to bed on time. Their flight to Tampa left Detroit at seven thirty the following morning and they’d have to leave her mother’s shortly after five a.m.

  “Relax, Katie,” Sharon said. “Stop trying to control every single minute. So they’re a little late. Kick off your shoes. Let’s have a cup of tea.”

  “So I’m a control freak,” Katie laughed. “You’ve been telling me that since I was five, that’s as far back as I can remember. I’ll make the tea.”

  She and her sister Sharon sat in Lucy’s cozy kitchen, drinking green tea, chatting about their kids, their nieces and nephews, getting caught up with the whirlwind of family gossip. Soon they were plotting the tactics of a surprise birthday party for Lucy. She’d be seventyseven in December.

  “My house in Tampa,” Katie said.

  “There you go again, little-sister-in-charge,” Sharon shook her head with a gotcha smile.

  “Who could object?” Katie started to sound defensive, then grinned. “I promise perfect weather. The college kids will be on break. Mom’s hip will be fine for travel by then.”

  “Just one thing,” Sharon said. “Mom’s birthday is the anniversary of Anthony’s death. She won’t leave Detroit because she goes to the cemetery. Every anniversary for Anthony, Johnny, and Dad. Remember, she always took us when we were kids?”

  Katie nodded. She hadn’t factored that in. She’d been just five when both of her brothers were killed in the Detroit riots. She didn’t remember much about them, just how sad her mother and her older sisters were; how awful it was with all the flames and smoke and guns and sirens. A few years later, Lucy had managed to move her family to a house in the outskirts of Detroit, where Katie grew up, and after her daughters were married, she’d moved to a small townhouse in Auburn Hills.