Sacred Trust

by Meg O'Brien

  Knock on the door. When it opens, if it’s a woman, ask for Jeffrey. She’ll deny he’s there, no doubt. Force my way in somehow.

  Tell her his other girlfriend, Karen, is looking for him.

  A flimsy plan, I admit. How do I force my way into someone’s house without getting arrested—or shot?

  Finally I ask the driver to take me to the door and wait, paying him a sizable “deposit” in advance to quell his protests. I tell him it’s okay to keep the meter running—just wait.

  Stepping out, the first thing I notice is the quiet. In Carmel, there’s always some sort of construction going on lately. In this place, a person could think. It’s a silent, beautiful retreat.

  Lifting a large wrought-iron knocker, I rap four times, loudly. Listening, I hear nothing on the other side of the door. I rap again.

  When no one answers the third time, I follow a shell-lined path around the house to the left, thinking Jeffrey and his lady love might be outside. Rounding the corner of the house to the back, a breathtaking sight greets me: a well-manicured green lawn rolling down to a cliff, and beyond that a postcard perfect sea, so blue it’s hard to tell where it ends and the sky begins. Overhead, the hang gliders swoop in the soft, warm air.

  In the center of the lawn is a swimming pool in a natural shape, with chaise lounges surrounding it. There are three gaily striped cabanas off to the side, and music plays softly on a stereo somewhere.

  So there is someone home. Now, where the hell are they?

  At that moment I hear laughter coming from one of the cabanas, then a man’s low voice, followed by a woman’s.

  Ah-ha, Jeffrey. Gotcha.

  Tiptoeing through the grass to the cabana in question, I cannot wait to throw the canvas door back and expose my delinquent husband, otherwise known as Karen’s footloose lover.

  It is therefore a shock—one that rocks me back on my heels—when I lift the canvas and rip it back to see, in a warm and very nude embrace, Justin’s adoptive parents, Mary and Paul Ryan. A Polaroid camera is on the floor beside them, and photos of Mary in half a swimsuit are scattered around.

  I go back to the cab, settle up with the driver and tell him he can leave. Then I join the Ryans inside the house. Mary and her husband have dressed in shorts and lightweight shirts. She sits across from me in the immense white living room, her hands folded in her lap, while her husband stands behind her, clearly ill at ease. He, in fact, seems even more distraught at being caught half-naked in a seaside cabana than she.

  I have chosen to ignore what I saw and focus instead on Justin. I’ve told the Ryans who I am and that I know their son has been kidnapped. They, in turn, have told me a story that scares me to death. There is little hope now, I think, of Justin still being alive. I don’t think the Ryans have come to that understanding yet.

  “This is the first time we’ve even been out by the pool since we got here,” Mary explains in the tone of someone justifying a sin. “The first couple of weeks here we did nothing but cry and worry about Justin. For the past six weeks we’ve walked and cried, walked and cried. Like zombies, half the time. I couldn’t even tell you what time of the day it was. Then, Paul said we had to put out an effort to live a normal life. It could be months—” She bites her lips.

  Paul Ryan paces like a caged animal. “It’s been so damned long. Our lives have been on hold, and it’s not like we can really do anything—”

  He breaks off. “I mean, we just couldn’t take it anymore. Mary was getting—” He pauses again and looks at her, his eyes tearing. “My wife is not doing well.”

  “It’s true,” she says, staring at her hands. “I’ve been getting bitter and withdrawn, I know that. You have no idea what it’s been like.”

  I cannot hold back the note of accusation in my voice. “I still don’t understand what you’re doing all the way down here in this—this virtual spa. Why haven’t you been at home where Justin could have found you if he came back? No normal parent—”

  I shut my mouth on that one. What do I know about normal parents, and what they would do if their son was gone?

  “We did wait there!” Mary says defiantly. “We waited a month, and then…then we agreed to come here.”

  “Because?”

  “Because we were told it would be safer for Justin if we were out of the way. Where reporters couldn’t get to us if the story came out.”

  If the story came out. That has a familiar ring.

  And it’s coming together now. Why Jeffrey had this address in his jacket, and why he came here in August and didn’t tell me where he was. That was the month the Ryans left Pacific Grove.

  “My husband brought you down here, didn’t he? This is his house?”

  Mary Ryan looks bewildered. “Well, yes, of course. I thought you knew that. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  I sigh. “No, Mary, it’s not. I’m looking for Jeffrey. I thought he was keeping a girlfriend here.”

  “Oh, no, not at all! I’m sorry. We haven’t seen him, have we, Paul?”

  Her husband shakes his head. “We haven’t seen Jeffrey since he brought us here two months ago. He’s telephoned, of course, keeping us up to date on the search for Justin.”

  “Oh? And what precisely does Jeffrey say about that?”

  “Well, that the investigators are still hard at work on it, that they’ve come up with leads but most have fizzled out. Even the negotiations…they, uh, seem to have fallen through.”

  Paul Ryan sounds less confident about Jeffrey’s handling of things than he should be, given the fact that he and Mary have followed my husband’s advice to desert their home and leave him to search for their son.

  As for the so-called negotiations, I’m beginning to wonder if there ever were any. But why would Mauro and Hillars lie about that?

  Because the government lies. All the time. About anything and everything. Lying to civilians comes naturally to agencies like the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service.

  The only thing one really needs to question is—why?

  “We’re so worried,” Mary says tremulously. “Jeffrey keeps telling us he’s sure Justin’s all right and we must believe. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to say anything about your husband, but it’s getting more and more difficult—”

  She breaks off and sits straighter, while her voice takes on a note of anger. “We would so much rather be at home. I keep thinking that any moment Justin could walk in and not find us there.” Her eyes fill with tears, and she turns to her husband. “He wouldn’t even know where we were, Paul.”

  It’s my turn to pace. I stand and walk to the gigantic two-story windows that span the living room from wall to wall. My heels clatter on the marble floor, and the room is so large I’m tired just walking across it. Looking out over the lawn to the sea, I can only wonder at what I’ve discovered here and what to do.

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I say, turning back to them. “Justin disappeared in July. You contacted Marti right away in New York and told her about it, thinking he might have run off to her. That’s because he had just found out she was his birth mother. Is that right?”

  Mary nods. “I was out one night, and when I came home, Paul told me what had happened. Justin said he suspected all along he was adopted, and he wanted to know who his biological mother was. Paul had to tell him, finally—though that’s the last thing we ever wanted to do. We planned to wait until he was out of school, keep him just to ourselves a little bit longer, you know, but—” She turns to her husband again.

  “Justin was angry,” he says, not looking at his wife. “He stormed off to his room and I thought he’d gone to bed. But then in the morning…”

  He covers his face, and Mary looks at her husband and bursts into tears.

  “In the morning, when Justin was gone, you say you called Marti,” I continue after a minute, “to ask if she’d seen him. She hadn’t, so she flew to Pacific Grove to help you look for him. Both of you thought at first that he might have just g
one to a friend’s house, but when you still couldn’t find him, Marti contacted…who?”

  Agents Mauro and Hillars said she went to the first family for help. But do the Ryans know that?

  “She told us not to say anything.” Mary twists her hands and looks uncertainly at Paul.

  “You mean about the president?” I say.

  Her face clears. “Oh, you know, then. Yes, Marti said the president and Mrs. Chase were old friends, and she felt she could ask them for help. She said the FBI might work harder on the case if they were under direct orders from the president—”

  Paul Ryan interrupts. He is kneading his fists against his legs and looks as if he might break down completely at any moment. “You have to understand,” he says, his voice thick with tears, “this all happened within forty-eight hours. Justin was so angry with us for not telling him sooner that he was adopted, we…we honestly believed he had run away. We didn’t think he’d go far. In fact, we fully expected him to show up by the end of the first day. He’s always been so good about things, more mature than most kids, and—”

  He pales, and his voice begins to shake. “We didn’t want to embarrass him by going to the police and having it all over the news.”

  “We spent a whole day on the phones,” Mary says, wiping away tears. “Marti, Paul and me. And Marti even went out and talked to parents of Justin’s friends, in person. No one had seen him. And then—” She chokes back a small cry. “Then, the note came.”

  “A note? When?”

  “Not right away. Justin had been gone over three weeks. It said—”

  She covers her face and sobs into her hands.

  Paul seems to shrink into himself. “It said,” he continues for his wife, “that if we called the police or the FBI, Justin would be murdered—and his head sent back to us. In a bag.”

  “Oh my God.” I feel sick and chilled to the bone.

  “But even before that,” he says, “Marti called President Chase for help. We weren’t sure it was the right thing to do, but Marti insisted. The truth is, she was crazed. We all were.”

  “Then we had a visit from your husband,” Mary says. “He told us the president sent him to help us. He said the FBI was working on the case quietly, and we shouldn’t talk to anyone. He said he’d be a liaison for us.”

  “A liaison? Mary, are you telling me you haven’t talked to the FBI yourselves in all this time? Only my husband?”

  Mary looks uneasy. “Well, with the kidnapper threatening what he did…” She turns to Paul, as if for confirmation that they did the right thing.

  Again, he doesn’t meet her eyes. “Jeffrey said it was best if we remained apart from the actual search, and that everything be kept absolutely quiet.”

  “Are you saying we shouldn’t have trusted your husband?” Mary says, her voice rising. “Jeffrey Northrup is well known in the community. He’s respected, a close friend of the president.”

  I would like to tell them precisely what I think about their having trusted Jeffrey, but I don’t want to frighten them any more than they already are.

  “Was Marti all right with Jeffrey’s being involved?” I ask. “What did she say about it?”

  “To be honest,” Mary answers, “she didn’t like it at first. She wanted to go to the FBI herself, but Jeffrey said the president felt it would only put Justin more at risk.”

  Jeffrey said, Jeffrey said. The fear I felt before hangs heavier now.

  “What about when you came down here?” I ask. “Was Marti all right with that?”

  Mary looks at her husband. “We—we didn’t really tell her. Jeffrey said—”

  I cut in. “He said the less people who knew where you were, the better. Right?”

  “That’s…that’s right.”

  I am so overwhelmed with anger, I can’t help lashing out. “So you and your husband left town in the middle of the night, leaving your home and your missing son behind, and you didn’t even tell Marti, his mother?”

  “I’m his mother!” Mary flashes. “And how dare you come here accusing us? You don’t know what it was like! You have no idea!”

  “I know you two are sitting here in the lap of luxury while Justin’s going through God knows what! His head could be sitting in a bag on your doorstep and you’d never even know it!”

  I’m losing it, and the look on the Ryans’ faces tells me I’d better get a grip or I’ll lose them too.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just that I’m worried about Justin, too. Marti and I were good friends, and I promised her I’d look after Justin’s welfare if anything ever happened to her.”

  Mary looks bewildered. “You don’t mean something’s happened to Marti?”

  For a moment I simply stare at her, wondering. “You mean you don’t know? You didn’t see it on the news?”

  “What news?” Paul Ryan says. “We don’t have a television here. Or a radio, just that CD player you saw by the pool. What are you saying? Something’s happened to Marti?”

  I sigh. “You’d better sit down. And have you got anything to drink?”

  It’s clear Jeffrey has deliberately isolated the Ryans by bringing them down here. I have no idea why, but one thing I do know is that knowledge is power. The Ryans need to know at least as much as I do. After that, they can decide for themselves how to exercise whatever power it affords them.

  Paul fortifies each of us with a glass of wine, and I sit across from them. “This is all confidential,” I say. “May I have your word you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you?”

  Mary nods, but Paul looks unsure. “I’d like to hear what you say first.”

  I agree to it, as I think I can get him to go my way once he knows. “Jeffrey has disappeared,” I say, “and there’s a warrant out for his arrest. The Secret Service is looking for him, as well as the Carmel police. They think he might know something about Justin’s disappearance…and Marti’s death.”

  “Marti is dead?” Mary’s hands fly to her face. “Oh my God! What happened? When did this happen?”

  It is difficult telling them about the way Marti died. I make my way through it, leaving out as many details as possible.

  When they’ve expressed their shock and sorrow, Mary says, “How is Helen taking this?”

  I hesitate. “You mean Sister Helen? Helen Asback?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mary says. “She’s come to see Justin often over the years. You didn’t know?”

  “No. Marti never told me that. How did this come about?”

  “Well, we met Helen originally through Marti, after we adopted Justin. She had just moved to Carmel, and we became better acquainted over the years.”

  One surprise after another. “Sister Helen lives in Carmel?”

  Mary nods. “It’s a long story. Poor thing, she’s had a terrible time. But she lives out at The Prayer House now.”

  I shake my head, confused. “What prayer house?”

  “It’s in the Carmel Valley, an hour or more past Carmel Valley Village. She’s been there for years—”

  Her husband interrupts, saying tensely, “I would like to get back to why the Secret Service think your husband is involved in Justin’s disappearance.”

  “I don’t know for certain,” I tell him. “I came down here loaded with questions for Jeffrey, but since he’s not here, I can’t ask him any of them. I will tell you this—I think it’s time you and Mary went home. Whatever Jeffrey’s reasons were for bringing you here, they can’t have been good.”

  I set down my wine after a couple of sips and lean forward, staring at my hands a few moments while I choose my words. “There’s more,” I say. “Mary…Paul…I don’t know how to tell you this. But according to the Secret Service, the FBI doesn’t know a thing about Justin’s disappearance. And the Secret Service, themselves, never showed up till last week. I’m very sorry, but it doesn’t look to me as if Jeffrey ever reported Justin’s kidnapping to anyone at all. I don’t think anyone’s been looking for your s
on.”

  For a long moment, Mary seems speechless. Paul’s reaction is something else. He covers his face again, while Mary comes to life suddenly and flies to her feet in a rage. “I told you we never should have trusted him! All this time we’ve been down here it never felt right, never once!”

  “Don’t blame yourselves,” I say quickly. “I’ve lived with my husband fifteen years. It took me a while to know he couldn’t be trusted.”

  “But I should have known!” Mary says, still furious. “Just because a man has a good reputation with locals, even local and national politicians, that doesn’t—it doesn’t—” She gasps, catching her breath.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t mean a thing,” I finish for her.

  Paul stares at me, his eyes red-rimmed and bleary. “You live with this man?”

  “Not anymore.” It’s a decision I’ve only now made.

  Paul rubs his eyes and shakes his head. Mary touches his shoulder, becoming the strong one now.

  “You’re telling us there’s been no search?” she says. “None at all?”

  “I can’t say for sure, Mary. But let me ask you this. Paul said there was a note, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the note, the kidnapper threatened you? He said that if you told anyone about the kidnapping, Justin would die?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But did you ever get a ransom note? A demand to pay something or do something for his return?”

  She looks at Paul, her chin trembling now. “No. No, we never did.”

  “And you didn’t think that was odd?”

  “Of course I did. But your husband said—”

  She pauses, looking at me with dawning horror. “It doesn’t matter what your husband said, does it? Because none of it was true. It was all a lie.”

  She crumples over, burying her face in her hands. “My God, Paul! Where is our son?”

  9

  Statistics say that if a kidnapped child is to be murdered, he is murdered, usually, within an hour of his disappearance. Children who live beyond that point are believed to be dead within three hours. Once three months have passed, it can be assumed—in most cases, not all—that the child is gone and will not return. The police and FBI are looking for a body now.