by Susan Shreve
“If you think I had anything to do with this,” Teddy said. “I did not. But I read mysteries and I know a lot about crime and I know that often it’s someone in the family who is to blame.”
“I’m just collecting factual information about your sister’s circumstances, you understand.”
“I do,” Teddy said. “When Whee and I left to go downstairs for the rehearsal dinner, Jess watched us — watched me and Whee walk to the elevators. And waiting for the elevator with us was a small man in a green shirt.” She took a deep breath, her heart sounding in her ears. “But when the elevator came, he didn’t get on. Instead, he headed toward Jess and Baby Ruby. Jess thought he was a little creepy, so she backed into the room and shut the door or thinks she shut the door. And then she put Ruby down on a towel on the floor on her back like you told her to do, Danny, and then she went into the bathroom and shut the door.”
“Why in the world did she shut the door?” Danny asked. “She was supposed to be BABYsitting.”
“Teddy?” Delilah was wringing her hands.
“What did Jess tell you she was doing in the bathroom?”
Teddy didn’t reply.
She was not going to say that Jess had been putting on Whee’s makeup or that she had tried on Whee’s precious wedding dress or that she had possibly, even probably, forgotten to shut the door completely when she went back in the room.
What she wanted to say was:
JESS HAS BEEN WAITING ALL YEAR TO COME TO WHEE’S WEDDING AND SHE HAD A NEW DRESS AND AT THE LAST MINUTE DANNY MADE HER BABYSIT BECAUSE HE WAS TOO MUCH OF A LOSER TO GET A BABYSITTER ON HIS OWN.
But she didn’t say anything. She sat quietly at the end of the bed and tried to block out the sounds of her family’s voices.
By nature, and since she could remember, Teddy had worried. She worried that she would never get out of the Home for Girls with Problems or that she would be released and go back to shoplifting, that her parents didn’t really love her because she had caused them so much trouble. She worried that she was the real reason for their divorce, that she’d never have an ordinary life, that she’d end up in a hospital with panic attacks and the doctors would give her the wrong medicine and the medicine would kill her. That kind of worry.
Which is how she saw her world.
Full of sadness that would never get better and problems that would never be solved.
Not like cheery Jess O’Fines, who believed if there was a problem, she could be the one to fix it.
As far as Teddy knew, the only thing that she had ever been able to do very well was to shoplift. And that, as Delilah told her, didn’t count as an accomplishment.
Detective Van Slyde raised his hand and asked for quiet.
“We have a lockdown on the hotel as of now. Kidnapping or suspected kidnapping is taken very seriously. We will be interviewing members of the staff, guests at the hotel, and all of you. We need every bit of information we can get.”
“Where will you be?” Delilah asked.
“I’ll be here,” Detective Van Slyde said. “I am not leaving this hotel tonight.”
Delilah sat down next to Teddy, very close, too close, speaking to her in a whisper.
“I know you have some clue about what happened and you just aren’t speaking.”
Teddy shook her head.
“At least you know what Jess was doing instead of watching the baby. You know that, right?”
“Talk, Teddy. Say something,” Beet said. “You’re making it worse.”
“I have nothing to say,” Teddy said.
She heard the whoop in her chest where she had stuck her cell phone under the straps of her bra.
Detective Van Slyde leaned forward and touched Teddy’s arm.
“Did you see the man your sister mentioned?”
“Twice, but the first time, I don’t remember what he looked like, only what Jess told me,” Teddy said. “He was standing by the elevators when I got on the elevator with Whee to go to the dinner and then, according to Jess, he headed in the direction of our room where Jess was standing with the baby.”
“That was the first time?”
“Yes. And the second time was after Baby Ruby disappeared. Just a little while ago, he bolted. Jess was following him from the elevator into the lower level parking lot and he ran fast and then tore around the parking lot in his car. I was with her.”
“Can you describe him?” Van Slyde asked.
“He’s wearing a green shirt the color of pistachio ice cream,” Teddy said. “And he’s small. Very small.”
“Hair color? Trousers? Shoes?”
“His hair is dark and straight. I didn’t notice the shoes and pants.”
“And do you know where your sister is?”
Teddy hesitated.
“I left her downstairs in the lobby,” Teddy said. “She was going to look for Ruby on her own but that was a while ago.”
“Risky,” Detective Van Slyde said. “How long ago?”
“Ten minutes, fifteen, maybe.”
“Before the lockdown.” He noted it in his book.
While Detective Van Slyde wrote in his notebook, Teddy turned away and, hiding the phone, checked her message.
Headed out of the hotel. ON FOOT. I’ll stay in touch.
Jess walked back through the revolving doors into the lobby. The parties were breaking up, lines by the elevators, partygoers on their way back to their rooms. The music had stopped playing, and the lights were dim. Her plan was to go up to the linen closet on the sixth floor, look around, ask the housekeeping staff, if any of them were still awake, if they know this lady, Rosemary, small with tiny feet, a rosemary smell, and loopy braids. Maybe if Jess was casual enough not to alarm them by seeming too interested, one of the staff would give her some information. After all, if Rosemary was in the linen closet, someone else besides Jess should have seen her. And if she was in a room where domestic staff came in and out, they must know something about her.
At least that is how Jess was thinking when she walked across the lobby on her way to the bank of elevators and saw someone who took her breath away.
A woman with loopy braids framing her face. She had on a flowered skirt, full, which hung to her ankles, and a white billowy blouse — not what Rosemary had been wearing when Jess saw her in the linen closet, but it was Rosemary. She was wearing flip-flops, too large for her tiny feet, which slapped the marble floor as she walked across the lobby in front of the registration desk. She passed the concierge’s desk and a group of young stragglers from the dance, heading toward the revolving doors at the front of the hotel where taxis lined up.
Jess had a sudden intake of breath, a cramp in her stomach. Breathless, she followed the woman as she moved through the lobby on tiny feet so swift that Jess had trouble keeping up without running. Through the door she went, past the doorman, and when Jess came out of the hotel, Rosemary was gone.
The woman must have slipped in front of the doorman, traveling like a crab, scuttling in her flip-flops. Just as Jess passed him — holding the door open for a family in front of her — Rosemary disappeared.
Jess stopped and looked around. The family was getting in a cab. A young man was standing with a girl, maybe his girlfriend, his hand on the small of her back, her chin upturned. He was kissing her, which arrested Jess’s attention for the shortest time but long enough that when she looked beyond the couple, past the taxi cabs parked along the curb waiting for passengers, she saw no one who met the description of Rosemary.
Jess leaned against a pillar. She took her phone out of her pocket and texted Teddy.
Headed out of the hotel. ON FOOT. I’ll stay in touch.
Jess wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she walked along the line of cabs and beyond, down the hill, toward the water, cars parked along the curb, mostly empty. Somewhere in the darkness, Rosemary had evaporated.
A young man, very young, maybe under driving age, was sitting in the front seat of an open jeep, the engine
running, music playing on the radio. Jess walked past the jeep, glancing at the man without turning her head, past the next car with its blinkers on, the front seat reclined, the driver shining in the streetlight, his eyes closed. Another car, but it was empty, and then a small car with a man or maybe a woman wearing a baseball cap seated in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, the engine on. Someone, a shadow of someone, was in the back, maybe a child, her head just skimming the top of the seat.
Jess wasn’t even thinking as she walked past, her arms swinging. Her jeans too tight, caught between her legs and uncomfortable. She stopped to tug on them, and as she did, an arm shot out from the open window of the driver’s side of the car and grabbed her.
It happened quickly. Her arm pulled against the car, an open door, the sound of grunting. She was dragged across the lap of the man who had hold of her, the steering wheel burrowing into her back. Then something was tied around her eyes so she couldn’t see, her hands tied behind her back, and though she was struggling, kicking hard enough to stop a man, she couldn’t stop this man.
And then she was on the floor of the front seat of the car, the car moving, music playing very loud, but not as loud in her ears as the beating of her heart.
When Whee arrived, smiling for the first time in days, Beet had locked herself in the bathroom.
Danny was lying facedown across the bed, and in room 618, the rest of the O’Fines family paced. They had been told by Detective Van Slyde to Stay put and he would be in touch. Police all over the city were on the lookout, he told them.
In the locked-down hotel, police were interviewing the guests and staff.
“Stay put is not going to be possible for me,” Delilah said. “If we don’t hear from the police in half an hour, I’m going downstairs.”
Teddy lay on her back, her feet on the bed, and looked at the ceiling. She was breathing through her mouth. The therapist at the Home had taught her deep breathing to avoid a full-on panic attack — drag the air through the mouth, down, down into the stomach, she advised.
She ought to be able to help with a stolen baby, she was thinking. After all, she was an expert at stealing. A professional. She knew what it felt like to need to take something. But could you need to take a baby? Was it that specific? Could anything else be satisfying to steal? Like jewelry or a dress or a puppy? Even a puppy?
Or maybe they wanted to sell the baby. They needed money. How much would a baby sell for and who would buy one? She was asking herself these questions, the same kinds of question she and Jess used to ask solving crimes when they were playing SLEUTH, when Whee walked in the room.
Whee was giggling, actually giggling, the way she used to do before she decided to marry Victor Treat.
“You tell Whee, Teddy,” Delilah said in a stage whisper. “I can’t.”
“Please,” Aldie added. “Whee is going to collapse if we have to call off the wedding.”
Teddy, the kleptomaniac, the incarcerated troubled O’Fines daughter, was becoming the adult in room 618, the one holding it all together.
But Whee recognized trouble before Teddy had a chance to speak.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“Ruby’s gone,” Danny said.
“Gone?”
“Gone. Stolen.”
“Kidnapped,” Aldie said. “While we were at the rehearsal dinner, someone came in the room and took her.”
“Someone?”
“Jess was in the bathroom with the door shut,” Delilah said.
Whee sank down on the end of the bed, moving Danny’s feet out of the way.
“Where is Jess now?”
“Gone,” Delilah said.
“Jess is gone?”
“We don’t know where Jess is. She is simply not here,” Delilah said. “And she doesn’t answer her phone.”
“She’s looking for Ruby,” Teddy said, sitting down next to Whee,
“What was she doing in the bathroom with the door shut?” Whee asked.
“That’s my question.” Danny had scooted to the end of the bed and was sitting next to Whee. “She was supposed to be babysitting, so what was she doing in the bathroom long enough for Baby Ruby to disappear?”
Whee got up from the bed and turned the knob on the bathroom door.
“Locked,” she said.
“Beet is in there,” Danny said.
“No wonder, poor thing.” Whee knocked. “Beet? Can I come in?”
Moments passed and the door clicked and opened, and Beet walked out, crossed the room to the long window overlooking the ocean, and banged on it with her fists.
The bathroom was dark. Whee turned on the light and walked in. Teddy could see her unzipping the protective bag in which her wedding dress was hanging.
“Teddy?” she called.
Teddy slipped in the door, closing it behind her.
“The police think she’ll be found, don’t they?”
“They hope so,” Teddy said. “Jess wasn’t in the bathroom very long. When she came out and saw that Ruby was gone and she texted me and we both …” She didn’t finish.
Maybe half an hour had passed, maybe more before the police were notified by the staff at the hotel, and by then news had gotten out from the cleaning staff on the sixth floor that a baby had disappeared. Even guests at the hotel had overheard the conversation about Ruby and passed it on to others.
Whee took the dress out of the bag, holding it away from her body, looking at it, examining the bodice, bringing it under the light over the sink.
When she looked up, her eyes were full of tears.
“It’s too much emotion for me. Baby Ruby and then Jess. And just minutes ago, I was getting married and now I’m not getting married.”
“Lipstick?” Teddy asked, looking at the dress.
Whee nodded.
“The dress doesn’t matter. Only Ruby matters — but Jess should never have been left in charge.”
“Jess is perfectly capable of being in charge,” Teddy said quietly. “Of anything. She just shouldn’t have been made to babysit.”
Her phone rang its cheerful jangly song and she picked it up.
“This is Detective Van Slyde,” he said. “I’m checking to see if you have seen your sister?”
“I haven’t,” Teddy said, a sinking feeling in her blood.
“Have you heard from her?”
“I haven’t heard anything. I called but there was no answer.” She caught her breath. “Why?”
“Just information that we need,” he said. “If you can reach her, let me know right away.”
“I’ll text her,” Teddy said.
Teddy hung up and texted Jess.
What’s up. You okay?
She waited. Nothing. Minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. Nothing.
She would not tell her parents. There was already too much bad news.
Jess lay with her cheek resting against the rough carpet on the floor of the car. She should be frightened and she was — the blood was rushing through her veins, her heart was racing. But she was also strangely calm. She didn’t struggle against the ties on her wrists or legs. She felt her body sink into the carpet.
But her ears were acutely tuned. She listened for every rustle, every turn of the automobile, every breath that she could hear above the radio.
The car smelled of something she knew, beer maybe, the tangy, slightly moldy smell of her father’s beer, and something else.
They were making a lot of turns, first right, then left, then right again, a short drive, and right a third time. Then suddenly the radio was turned off and the car was eerily silent.
No sound at all but the hush of breath.
It was as if she were trapped in a cave and something she could not see was about to happen.
And then the accumulating smell of rosemary. The smell gathered, moving over the backseat to the front and sinking to the floor, where Jess was lying facedown, her head turned just slightly, but sufficient for the smell to permeate the air aro
und her.
Even then, it didn’t occur to Jess to be afraid, to think that something was going to happen to her. Her only thought was Baby Ruby and a clear hunch that she was about to find out where she was.
“You were late to pick me up at the hotel.” It was a woman’s voice from the backseat. “What are we doing now?”
“We’re going to the flats,” the man said.
“I don’t want to go to the flats, baby,” she said.
“We have to.”
“I want to go to the cemetery first.”
“No, Angel. It’s dark, dark and the middle of the night. We are not going to the cemetery.”
There was soft crying from the backseat.
“I’m not ready to leave Los Angeles without going to the cemetery first.”
She had an accent. The man did not. Her English was clear, easy for Jess to understand, the i pronounced like a long e, each syllable articulated. Maybe French or Italian or Spanish, Jess thought. Probably Spanish if she was the same woman Jess had seen in the linen closet.
“We’ll go to the flats, pick up what we need, and get out at dawn, before the sun comes up.”
“To where? You said we will go to Canada.”
“We’ll take the first plane out to wherever it’s going.”
“And then to Canada.”
“We need a passport.”
“I have a passport.”
“I don’t, Angel. We’ll find a way. We’d be better to fly to somewhere in America. Like Omaha or Toledo or Indianapolis, someplace unexpected and not too far, and then get a car and find a small town.”
“I want to go to Canada.”
“I know you want to go to Canada.”
“And first, before the flats, I have to go to the cemetery.”
“If you insist,” the man said, resigned.
“What about the girl?” she piped up again.
“The girl was a surprise. She walked by the car, that’s all. She walked by and I thought —” He stopped short.