“He is in Paris.” She dialed the office number again, let it ring eight times, hung up.
“You’d think they’d have an answering machine,” Kay mused. “Ahh, there’s Emily. With coffee, bless her.”
Celeste was more concerned with Kay’s suggestion than with coffee. “Why would you think they’d have an answering machine? It’s not a prerequisite for success.”
“I would think they wouldn’t want to miss any calls.”
“Clothes shops don’t have answering machines. Neither do restaurants, supermarkets, or schools—speaking of which, don’t you have to be running along?” If Kay was going to be negative, the sooner she left, the better.
“I’m not teaching today, not with Dawn missing.” She opened the door for Emily. “You are a lifesaver.”
“How is she?” Emily asked softly.
“I’m fine,” Celeste said, “or I would be, if everyone around here weren’t so suspicious. I’m worried about Dawn. You all are worried about Carter.”
Emily handed her a cup of coffee. “Have you reached him?”
“I’m waiting for his office to open. This is going to be so embarrassing. What am I supposed to say,” she sugared her voice, “‘Hi, sweetie, just wanted to make sure you are where you said you’d be.’” She pulled the top off the coffee, spilled some in the process, and swore. Her scowl encompassed both of her friends. “It’s sour grapes. That’s all. You guys didn’t want me putting an ad in the personals. If Carter turns out to be great, you’ll be proved wrong.”
That said, she stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.
Emily uncapped her coffee. She sipped it for a minute, then said, “The good news is that he doesn’t have a criminal record.”
Celeste bristled. “You checked?”
“The bad news is that he doesn’t have a house or a phone in Cambridge.”
“Emily, I’ve been to his house. I’ve used his phone.”
“Are you sure they’re his?”
“Whose else would they be?”
“A friend’s, maybe?”
“To what end?”
“To impress you.”
Celeste felt betrayed, not by Carter but by Emily, Kay, Brian, John, and every other ugly skeptic in the world. “And his career is a hoax, too? His designs are a hoax? Sorry, but I’ve seen samples of those designs. I’ve been inside them. No, his career is real. I’ve met his friends. I’ve met his clients. I’ve met his partner.”
Emily focused on her coffee.
Celeste found that to be as much an expression of doubt as the spoken word might be. “So now you’re thinking that the word ‘partner’ can be used loosely, that maybe the man he introduced me to is his golf partner, or his poker partner, or his partner in crime. How can you be so negative? What’s the line about a person being innocent until proven guilty?” She turned to the phone, dialed Carter’s office, picked at her thumbnail while the ringing went on and on.
She slammed the phone back onto its hook in time to see a tall shape materialize at the kitchen door. The shape knocked. It turned the knob and let itself in.
Celeste wondered what else could go wrong. “You didn’t have to come,” she said. “Kay, Emily, you remember Jackson.”
She studied him while they said the kinds of brief hellos that Jackson could handle. She hadn’t seen him in several years, since Dawn had started driving to meet him herself. He looked well—tired and overworked, perhaps, but that was nothing new for workaholic old Jack.
His gaze fell on her and stayed.
She folded her arms on her chest and refused to look away. If he had come to berate her for Dawn’s misbehavior, she would walk out of the room. Ditto, if he was joining the campaign against Carter.
He surprised her by simply asking, “Has she called?”
Celeste shook her head. “She’ll show up. I know she will. You really didn’t have to drive all the way down.”
“You were worried enough to call me.”
“I only called because I thought you might know where she was. I didn’t mean for you to drop everything and rush over.”
“Didn’t you think I’d worry, too?”
“Actually,” Celeste said, remembering all the lonely years when she had been overwhelmed by single parenthood, “no. There’s no history of that.”
“Maybe because you never shared much about her. If there were problems, I never knew. I only heard about the good stuff, the stuff that said what a great mother you were.”
“Uh, we’ll be in the other room,” Kay murmured and, dragging Emily along, was gone.
“I was a great mother,” Celeste told Jackson, “or a good one, at least. I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes, but I tried, and it was hard. I didn’t have anyone to consult. I didn’t have anyone to share the blame when things went wrong.”
Jackson was backed to the counter. His hands curved around the edge flanking his hips, and while his long, lanky frame wasn’t exactly slouched, it wasn’t straight either. Nor was he arguing with what Celeste said.
So she went on, venting the resentment that she didn’t have room for inside, what with concern over Dawn and nervousness—yes, there was that despite her protests—over Carter. “I was alone with Dawn from the time she was one. I had every single responsibility for her right smack dab on my shoulders, and she wasn’t an easy child, even back then. She was as headstrong and contentious as she is now.”
“Like her mother,” Jackson said with a strange smile.
“I never challenged my parents the way she did me.”
“Maybe not, but you were a wild child when we met.” Still, that strange smile. It spoke of memories, fond ones, and softened Celeste, making her feel, oddly, more exposed. For all their years apart, Jack had seen shades of her that others hadn’t
“Okay,” she admitted. “I let loose for a time. But I never rubbed my parents’ noses in it. And Dawn knows nothing about those days, so she couldn’t have been following my example, and even then she bucked me at every turn. She tested every limit I ever set.”
“She did well in school.”
“Well, she had the brains. She’s your daughter. But she wouldn’t have done well, if I hadn’t been on her back to study. So say I’m a nag of a mother, but someone had to do it, and you weren’t around. You had the easy part. It didn’t take any effort to send that check each month, because you earned it doing what you were good at, but I wasn’t good at being a mother. I didn’t have the natural aptitude for it that some mothers have. I wasn’t good at playing little games and decorating cookies and shopping for clothes. I didn’t have the patience. But I stuck with it, because once she was born, she was mine, and there was no one else to take care of her. So if I made mistakes, tough. I tried. That’s more than some in this room can claim.”
She turned her back on him and dialed Carter’s office. It was five minutes before nine. Surely someone would be there. But the phone rang and rang.
“Who are you calling?” Jackson asked.
“I’m trying to reach the fellow I’ve been seeing. He may have an idea of where Dawn might be.”
Jackson crossed his ankles. “Who is he?”
“His name’s Carter. He’s an architect.”
“Is it serious?”
“We see each other a lot, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Does Dawn like him?”
“Of course, she does. Why wouldn’t she like him?”
“You haven’t had any serious relationships before. Maybe she’s jealous of your time.”
“I doubt that. When she went to college, she left specific instructions. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. Does that sound like a girl who covets my time?”
He shrugged, and in the next beat looked at the door. Brian was there.
“Well, why not,” Celeste exclaimed, crossing the room to let him in. “Join the crowd. Kay and Emily are in the other room, cowering from domestic violence. This is Jackson, Dawn’s father.”
She re
sumed her place by the phone while the men shook hands. Brian came to her side. In a voice that offered as much privacy as it could in a room as small as her kitchen, he said, “I’m having trouble finding anything on the man.”
“Surprise, surprise. He’s clean.”
“No. I mean, I can’t find any record of a Carter Demming existing. Not as a federal taxpayer. Not as a credit card holder. Not as an architect.”
Celeste swallowed hard. “You must be spelling his name wrong.”
“I tried different spellings.”
She held up a hand. “Just wait. I’ll locate him.” It was after nine. She pressed in the office number and waited, praying silently, fighting panic. She breathed a mammoth sigh of relief, actually did it aloud, when a man’s voice answered.
“Hello.”
“Hi,” she said with a smile. “This is Celeste Prince. I’m Carter’s friend. Is this Mark?” He was the partner she had been introduced to that very first day in Cambridge.
“No. Jared.”
“Ah.” Her smile held. “Jared. I’m trying to reach Carter. Do you have his number?”
There was the sound of rustling papers, then a graceless, “Hold on,” and a clunk when the phone hit the desk.
“He’s looking for the number,” she told Brian on a triumphant note. She imagined Brian had been doubting that Carter’s firm existed, yet here she was, talking with one of his colleagues.
Jared returned with little fanfare and reeled off a number.
Celeste wrote it on a pad by the phone. There were seven digits, just like in the States. “Is there an area code? Country code? International something?”
“International? This is in Cambridge.”
“No, no. I need to reach him in Paris.”
“Paris? He’s not in Paris. Who did you say this was?”
Celeste swallowed down an awful fear. She was acutely aware of Brian at her elbow, of Jackson across the room. “It’s important that I reach him. Will he be calling in later?”
“I doubt it. We talked with him last week. He doesn’t call more than once a month.”
She chewed on her lower lip. “I see. Well, if he does call, would you ask him to call Celeste? It’s urgent.” She hung up the phone before Jared could ask for her last name or phone number, either of which would humiliate her.
“Well?” Brian asked.
She continued to face the phone. “He’s not there.” She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know who to call. Something wasn’t right. Carter was supposed to be there a lot, and if he wasn’t there, where was he, and if he wasn’t there, who was he, and why had he lied, and what was he doing with Dawn? She felt sick to her stomach.
Brian came close and spoke softly. “He’s not in Paris?”
She shook her head.
“Where’s this number?”
“Cambridge.” She met his eyes, pleading. “He told me he was going to Paris. Maybe this guy—this Jared—just didn’t know. He said he hasn’t talked with Carter since last week.” But Carter had told her on Monday that he was calling from the office. So if he hadn’t been there, where had he called from. And where was Dawn?
“Want me to try this number?” Brian asked.
She nodded and moved aside. She wrapped one arm around her waist, propped an elbow on it, and chewed her thumbnail.
After a minute, Brian hung up the phone. “No answer.”
She felt a wave of relief, but it was shortlived. Little things were nudging her, little details she didn’t know, details that hadn’t mattered because Carter had made her feel so good. “This doesn’t make sense,” she said to Brian. “You met him. Okay, you weren’t wild about him, but did he strike you as a phony?”
“No, but that’s the skill of a con man.”
“Why would he do it? Not that I believe he did, mind you. Mix-ups happen. Just because I can’t reach him doesn’t mean anything. But for the sake of the argument, if he isn’t what he said he was, why would he have said it? I don’t have money. It’s not like he could bilk me out of much.”
“How often does he stay here?”
“Several days a week. More over the holiday.”
“Who bought groceries?”
She hesitated for just a minute. “Me.”
“Did you ever eat out?”
“Here? No. He said he loved having me all to himself.” She had loved hearing that. Now the words were dirtied.
Brian touched her arm in a way that was meant to be reassuring. “It could have been a game, nothing more.”
She wasn’t feeling reassured. “For sex.”
“Possibly.”
She wrapped a second arm around her middle. “I don’t want to think this, really I don’t. He was so much better than the others.” She thought of Michael, the widower with the smiley face, who was so sweet and even-keeled and unromantic. Carter was made to order.
“What about Dawn?” Jackson asked.
Her head swung around. She had forgotten he was there. Her hackles went up. “Dawn is fine. Carter wouldn’t hurt her.” She had to believe that. The alternatives were unthinkable. “Say what else you want about him, but he isn’t cruel. I’m not stupid, or unobservant. In all the time I spent with him, I never once saw him lift a hand in anger or raise his voice. I never saw him grit his teeth. I never saw his muscles clench, or his knuckles go white, or the little vein throb at his temple the way yours does when something ticks you off.” She pointed. “There it is.”
“I’m worried about Dawn.”
“Carter is kind and considerate. He was wonderful with Dawn. She had the best time with him. He wouldn’t hurt her. Just the opposite. He bent over backwards to include her in things. He gave her nearly as much attention as he gave me. He adored her.”
A thought intruded, taking those words that had been offered in praise and casting them, too, in a different light. Her gaze flew to Brian’s. Her head moved from side to side in denial. “He wouldn’t touch her,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t. She’s my daughter, for God’s sake.”
“I think,” he said, “that we have to find her before we jump to any other conclusions. Do you have the address of the place in Cambridge that you thought was his?”
Celeste gave it to him.
“The car he was driving on Thanksgiving Day—his, too?”
“I thought so.”
“White BMW. License plate?”
“I have no idea.”
Brian picked up the phone. “Let me get this out on the wire.”
“She’s over eighteen,” Jackson said. “What can you charge him with?”
“Nothing at all, assuming she’s with him willingly.”
“We don’t know she is with him,” Celeste felt called upon to insist. She didn’t want Dawn to be with Carter. Not that way. But now that the bug had been put in her ear, more than mere words were taking on a new light. Looking back over the holiday weekend, she saw things differently. She saw Dawn flirting and Carter encouraging it. She saw casual touches that possibly weren’t so casual. She saw hugs. She saw a playfulness between them that might have been either innocent or naughty. “I trusted him,” she said to no one in particular. “I trusted her.”
At the same time that Brian spoke into the phone, he held up a hand that told her not to assume the worst, but, once planted, she couldn’t shake the idea that her lover might have become her daughter’s lover. It made her feel old, blinded by desperation, and very foolish.
It was Jackson who took her hand, led her to the kitchen table, and gently pushed her into a seat.
• • •
It didn’t take long to find them. They were thirty miles south, in an even smaller town than Grannick, in a motel that rarely saw BMWs, much less looked at the same one for three straight days. The local police, who had eyed the car with longing for as many days, called Grannick the instant the APB came over the line.
The descriptions fit. No question about that, either. The manager of the motel confirmed Dawn’s stats.
His wife confirmed Carter’s.
Jackson drove Celeste, following Brian and Emily in the Jeep. Once they had parked beside the BMW, Celeste jumped right out. Clutching her parka closed, she went to the designated door and knocked.
It was an agonizingly long minute before Carter opened it. She barely had time to note that he was wearing nothing but old jeans and a shocked expression, when Brian pushed past her, badge aloft, hauled him outside and pinned him to the wall.
Celeste stepped into the room. Dawn was kneeling on the bed, clutching the blankets to her chest. She looked tousled but intact.
“Mom!”
Celeste was furious, hurt, and sickened, all at the same time. She opened her mouth to yell at Dawn, but her eyes filled with tears instead. So she closed her mouth, pressed her fingers to it, and stood there, unable to say a word.
“We were worried,” Jackson said, coming up behind Celeste.
“Daddy!” This cried in horror.
It struck Celeste that Jackson’s presence carried a weighty message to Dawn, and while that infuriated Celeste, given that she had been the one who had sweated and trembled and fought her way through Dawn’s upbringing, she was grateful enough to have him finally bear some of the weight, to overlook the injustice of Dawn’s response.
“No one knew where you were,” he said. “You could have left a message with someone. They’ve been looking all over campus for you. They’ve been looking all over the state. Why didn’t you let anyone know where you were?”
Dawn was glancing nervously from him, to Celeste, to the door, looking as though she badly wanted Carter to do the talking. But Brian was keeping Carter outside. Celeste blessed him for that. She had plenty to say to her daughter, but not a word to waste on Carter.
Funny, Carter hadn’t looked half as attractive just now. He hadn’t looked sexy in the least.
“Why didn’t you?” Jackson repeated.
“I didn’t know where I was going.”
“You’ve been here for three days. Why didn’t you call?”
“I was busy.”
“It didn’t occur to you to call.”
“I didn’t have to,” she said with a defiant tip of her chin. “I’m eighteen. I’m a consenting adult.”
“Didn’t you think your mother would worry?”
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