“I have a right to be here,” she said, straightening with purse in hand.
“Yes, dear, but I’ve already handled this. There isn’t going to be any article to trouble yourself over. He only wants to know about the children, to verify their well-being.”
This didn’t sway her from claiming a spot at the table.
“That’s all I’m after,” Ellis affirmed, but still she eyed him, unconvinced.
“Then why all the sneaky behavior? Why not just come out and ask?”
Alfred sat back down, a flush mottling his skin.
The question briefly stumped Ellis. Then he recalled the guilt and secrecy that had plagued his involvement from the start. The lies at its core were like the jaws of a trap, still biting down, the slow bleed going on, draining the good in his life, and the lives of others, until he pried that trap free.
With the truth.
“There’s more to the story, is why.” Surely to his detriment, he professed, “The picture wasn’t real…that is, the picture was real, but the sign wasn’t theirs. I put it there myself.” Not a day would go by when he wouldn’t regret that choice. “The point being, Geraldine had no intention of selling her kids.”
Sylvia stiffened. The tendons in her neck went tight as wires. “You’re wrong. Because she did just that. Isn’t that right, Alfred?”
Ellis charged on. “She was sick back then. The diagnosis was wrong, but she didn’t know yet. She thought she was incurable. Mr. Millstone, you saw her yourself. By the time you were there, she couldn’t have looked well.”
Alfred’s mouth parted. He struggled to answer, and his gaze retreated to his hat.
Sylvia burst out, “This is preposterous! That woman made her choice.” Visibly trembling, she curled her fingers as if readying to claw, to swipe in defense of what was hers. But then she glanced at the purse in her clutches and seemed to steady from a thought. “We’ve already been more than understanding. When that mother conveniently wanted her son back, we agreed without a hassle.” While saying this, Sylvia produced a folded paper from her handbag and slid it toward Ellis. “See for yourself.”
The letter.
Guarded with suspicion, he flattened the note, bare of an envelope.
My dearest Ruby, it began.
The script was unrefined, peppered with misspellings, but legible enough to decipher.
Ellis’s mind flashed on an image of Geraldine penning the letter. The message matched Ruby’s summary, of choosing one child over the other, of apologizing for not saying goodbye in person. It was heartrending. Cruel.
And he knew without a doubt…
“Geraldine didn’t write this,” he said. “And she doesn’t have her son.”
Alfred’s eyes flickered toward Sylvia, an indiscernible look.
All along, Ellis had refused to imagine the worst. Now it was unavoidable. Still, before the couple could argue or walk out, he needed to play it smart.
“Mr. and Mrs. Millstone, I know you understand the grief of losing a child. The horrendous tragedy of it, the unfairness. Victoria was obviously a special little girl. Not being a parent myself, I can’t fathom the pain you went through from the accident. What I do know is that you have an opportunity here, a chance to reunite a mother with her children. Please,” he said, “help me do that. Tell me what happened to Calvin.”
In the midst of his appeal, Sylvia’s demeanor had gone slack. There was a glossiness in her eyes, a distance to her stare.
“Mrs. Millstone?”
Alfred abruptly came to his feet. “Darling, it’s best we go.” He put a hand on her shoulder. As her awareness returned, her attention landed on Ellis.
“Come now,” Alfred said. “Sylvia?”
She shook her head.
“Darling, really. I think it’s best—”
“No,” she said flatly.
Alfred lingered in place. Ellis could see him weighing the alternative of dragging her out, creating a scene that would summon the guard. Grudgingly he lowered back into his chair.
What was he afraid she’d say?
Ellis bit down, anxious for Sylvia to speak.
“I first need you to swear, Mr. Reed, that there’ll be no more questions, no more poking around. And that you’ll stay away from all of us for good, so we can go about our lives just as before.”
Before. As in, before Ellis’s funds were blocked and he was tossed in a cell? Or before the children were stripped from their real mother?
He replied in all honesty, “Afraid I can’t guarantee that.” Sylvia’s fingers curled again before he elaborated. “Not with a court date that’ll require me to explain why I was at the school. The judge will want to hear about my ties to your family. I bet there’ll be a slew of questions, too, that I won’t know how to answer.” In sum, it was better if she filled him in on the details now.
Sylvia mulled this over and quickly arrived at a decision. “I’ll see to it that the charges are dropped,” she said.
“And if I don’t want them to be?” The challenge had just left Ellis’s mouth when he recalled the brutality of her husband’s shady connections. He braced himself but didn’t back down. “I figure it’s one way to get some answers of my own.”
A hint of panic crossed her face, a mental scramble in a test of wills. “If you feel that’s absolutely necessary, then…then I’d suggest you prepare to face another charge.”
“Oh? What for?”
She lifted her chin and her features hardened. “An inappropriate relationship,” she stated. “With our daughter.”
Alfred’s eyes widened, yet he remained silent. He was simply a passenger on a runaway coach, set to plow through Ellis’s life.
Hands balling into fists, Ellis seethed at what Sylvia was suggesting. Every disgusting bit of it. Being in a jailhouse was the only thing keeping his voice level. “No judge’ll buy that. Not without a shred of proof.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she conceded. “But what of your boss? Or your friends and readers? It’s remarkable, really, what people take to be truth simply because they saw it in the paper. Isn’t that so?”
His admission of the photo had, within minutes, backfired in the harshest of ways.
How many writers from competing papers would jump on that story? Maybe even from the Tribune? He could see the highlights now: reporter stages a picture of two poor kids, trails them across state lines, fakes an assignment to get closer to the girl, gets arrested after being ordered to stay away.
It had sources. It had scandal. And all of it was true. Even without a false accusation of indecency, his reputation and credibility would be shot.
As would any chance of Geraldine seeing her children.
Ellis fought an onslaught of nausea while steering back to his mission. He asked, slow and firm, “What…happened…to Calvin?”
Alfred, too, was looking at Sylvia, awaiting an answer.
“I see you need time to think things over,” she said to Ellis. “I trust you’ll let us know when you decide.”
A surge of anger sprang Ellis to his feet, and Alfred scrambled to rise with a defensive arm across his wife. A silent standoff.
“Everything okay in here?” the guard asked, suddenly in the room. His question was clearly meant for the Millstones.
Ellis had no other option. With effort, he eased himself back. Not only for his own sake, but for Ruby and Calvin. This wasn’t the way to uncover the truth, or to help either kid.
“We’re fine,” Alfred answered for them all. He dropped his hand to gather his hat. “It’s time to go, Sylvia.”
Without further protest, she rose from the table, her face eerily unreadable. The couple exited the room, leaving Ellis to stare at two empty chairs. His pulse throbbed at his temples.
“Party’s over. Back to your cell.” The guard’s command did
n’t register at first. When it did, Ellis mindlessly stepped forward until a single thought grabbed hold.
“I need to get outta here.”
“Won’t be tonight.”
Ellis looked at him. “Why?”
“Bail clerk’s gone. Have to wait till morning.”
Was that the Millstones’ plan, a flexing of muscle? A whole night behind bars just might encourage cooperation.
“At least let me have a second call.” A half plea, half demand. “Please.”
The guard waffled through a long blink.
It was just as possible that the cops were teaching Ellis a lesson for smacking their fellow pal in blue. If so, he hated to imagine what other ways they might take revenge if he stayed here much longer.
The guard huffed. “Make it fast.”
Ellis nodded with vigor, and his mind swam. There had to be someone around with enough money or pull, or both, to spring him loose. A new level of desperation produced two possibilities: the first was the Irish mobster who’d traded tips that once saved Ellis’s career, and the second…was Ellis’s father. Soliciting help from either one would come at a price.
Sadly, it wasn’t an easy choice.
Chapter 32
Two blocks from the boardinghouse, Lily’s heart pounded like a tribal drum, a portentous beat in her ears. She was well accustomed to walking the city streets on her own, even at night. But anytime she became too comfortable, a report on the wire about a mugging, or worse, would revive her diligence. As a mother, she couldn’t afford to ignore a feeling that something wasn’t right. And that intuition now sent a chill over her skin.
She hurried around the last corner. Footsteps in the dimness further quickened in her wake. On the verge of breaking into a run, she dared a second look back, and someone called out. “Wait! If ya please!”
The voice, being female, was largely disarming, but it still took a second or two for Lily’s feet to slow.
“Miss Palmer…” The lilt of the woman’s tone was young and familiar. Hat pulled low, she approached slightly short of breath. “It’s only me…Claire.”
“Claire?” The girl’s face was pale with freckles. Out of context, and without the sight of her red hair, the Millstones’ housekeeper hadn’t immediately connected with Lily’s memory.
“I didn’t mean to startle ya, ma’am. I was waitin’ outside the newspaper building in hopes of seeing ya come out. From across the street, I couldn’t be sure ’twas you.”
Lily smiled with relief and patted her chest. “It’s quite all right.”
“I woulda phoned instead, but when I tried this mornin’, the gentleman said you were far too busy to take calls.”
The chief.
And the woman he had spoken with was Claire. Not Sylvia, as Lily had presumed.
“So you traveled all this way?”
“It was a day I’d planned to go visit with me sister. But she agreed. This had to be done, she said.”
Voices cut through the evening air, and Claire’s head snapped toward them. A jovial-looking couple were nattering on while crossing the street.
Returning to Lily, Claire clutched her coat collar under her neck. “Is there a place we can speak, the two of us?” Her wariness over meeting in the open pointed to an unfortunate conclusion: Lily’s sense of foreboding was warranted after all.
“Come with me.”
• • •
In the house, supper had already been served to the tenants, the dining table cleared. Lily had scarcely touched her veal at lunch, ordered by Clayton on her behalf—his proposal had stifled her decisiveness over even the menu—but food remained the least of her concerns.
Particularly now, observing Claire.
Taking a seat in the den, the girl worried a loose seam on her skirt, her hands aged beyond her years, her coat still fastened. She resembled Geraldine just then, softened by lamplight, perched on the same chair.
“Could I get you some tea?” Lily asked.
“No, thank you, ma’am. I really shan’t stay long.”
Lily nodded. She closed the door, dulling the sounds of boarders in the parlor. Their high-pitched giggles dwarfed the symphonic notes crackling from a gramophone.
Across from Claire, Lily lowered onto the settee. Ellis’s spot. How she wished he were here now.
Claire fiddled more intensely with her seam. “On the bus, I thought of how to say it all. Now it’s slipped away, it has.”
Lily pushed up a smile. “Just begin wherever you’d like.” She attempted to bar any notions of what might be coming, along with regrets of not thinking to approach Claire first. Of course, finding the opportunity would have been a challenge unto itself.
“It’s the boy.”
“Calvin…”
“When the missus hired me on, around year’s end, they’d only just moved to the house. ’Twasn’t but a month, and she’d had her fill. All the lad’s crying and carrying-on. His sister tried to explain he was just missin’ their mam and their old home. But this only agitated the missus more. I did my best to calm the poor boy, to keep him from actin’ out. And Mr. Millstone would thank me for helping his wife. ‘She’s still so fragile,’ he’d say…” Claire’s story trailed off as her features gathered in a pleading look. “I didn’t want to be part of it, Miss Palmer, but I needed the extra money.”
“Part of it?” Lily breathed, but the housekeeper continued.
“She was in need of surgery, my sister was. And if I said no to the missus, I feared she’d sack me straightaway.”
“Claire,” Lily interjected, “what did Mrs. Millstone pay you to do?”
Hesitant to a maddening degree, Claire dropped her gaze to the floor. Her voice lowered to a near whisper. “The missus told Calvin of plans for the day. Said I’d be takin’ him to a special winter zoo, with his sister off to school. Even packed a wee suitcase for the boy. To be ready if we made a night of it, she told him. As we rode the bus together, he started askin’ after the animals. ’Twas the most I’d ever seen the child smile.” Claire’s lips lifted at the memory, though just as soon fell with the quivering of her chin. Tears filled her eyes. “The lad trusted me, and I betrayed him. The staff at the children’s home, they had to pry his hands from my arms.”
The vision caused a squeezing of Lily’s heart. Indeed, there were far grimmer scenarios. But for Lily, there was little relief to be found in a child’s pain of feeling wholly unwanted, cast out not just once, but twice. “Is Calvin there now? At the orphanage?”
“Couldn’t say, ma’am. I went back first chance I had, to see if he was all right. But the director there, he warned me to steer clear, he did. Said the boy needed a more pleasing disposition if a fine set of parents were ever willin’ to give him a home, and I’d only ruin his chances. If I coulda taken him in myself, I would have. I’d take in the poor lass, too, if I had the means.”
The reference to Ruby was almost as alarming.
Lily leaned forward in her chair. “I need you to be candid with me, Claire. Is his sister safe in that house?”
Claire’s shoulders hunched and her chin pulled in, a mouse backed into a corner. She was unaccustomed surely to stating her opinion. Not one bearing such importance.
“Please,” Lily said. “If you care for those children as much as you say, you have to tell me what you know.”
A wave of giggles drifted in from the parlor. The contrast of emotions a single room apart—perhaps even greater in a house one state away—was woefully striking.
Claire slowly raised her eyes, though only halfway. “All was peaceful for a spell, without Calvin there. Yet after time, the missus only worsened.”
“Worsened…how?”
“More and more, ’tis as if her daughter never died. Any reminder often upsets her…if the lass insists she doesn’t like marmalade or ribbons in her hair or
playing the piano. And if she damages anything that belonged to their other daughter—a dress, even a book—it can mean standing in a corner for hours, or writing pages and pages of the same sentence, apologizin’.”
Ellis had mentioned something once. About Ruby being kept from the playground for staining her clothing…
But Lily had greater concerns now as she reflected upon another handwritten page. She had her suspicions but yearned to know for certain. “I understand that Ruby received a letter from her mother, right after Calvin was taken away. Sylvia wrote it herself. Didn’t she?” The question being largely rhetorical, Lily hadn’t expected the spilling of Claire’s tears, the straining of her voice.
“The words were from the missus…but the writin’ was mine.” Droplets clung to Claire’s chin as she finally met Lily’s gaze. “Oh, Miss Palmer, I’m so very sorry. I didn’t want to do any of it.”
Lily’s compassion shifted to this poor, young girl, strapped with a load of guilt from impossible choices. Deserving of forgiveness. Lily reached out and squeezed Claire’s hand. “This is my doing much more than yours. I assure you, I’ll do all I can to make it right.”
Though with a tinge of confusion, Claire gained an air of hope. She wiped her tears with her coat sleeve. “Are ya goin’ to fetch the boy, then? You must think of him first.”
Before Lily could form an answer, Claire added, “I know plenty who’ve grown up in children’s homes much the same. They can be fine enough for the good ’n’ quiet type. But for those who don’t settle easily…the tales aren’t ones I’d care to repeat.”
In other words, Lily needed to investigate in a hurry. After the passage of at least two months, Calvin could be in dire need of rescue from a place that could leave scars of every sort.
Assuming he was still there.
Chapter 33
One look at his father’s scowl, and Ellis saw the mistake in his choice. Accepting help from an Irish mobster would have had fewer repercussions than what now lay in store.
The fact that it was past ten at night—a blatant violation of his father’s early-to-bed, early-to-rise regimen—was cause for a foul mood. His need to shell out fifty whole smackers was the greater issue.
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