by Meg O'Brien
He shrugged and smiled. “Like I said, things are slow in Phoenix in the summer.”
It was tempting. Jimmy had stood by her this entire day and had trusted her in the same way Ben once did.
Once being the operative word.
But she, like Angelita, didn’t want to bring any more trouble down on him than she already had.
“Thanks,” she said. “But this is something I have to do alone.”
He raised a brow but didn’t argue with her. Instead, he took out a card and wrote a number on the back of it. “This is my private cell number. Call me if I can help.”
She hesitated but took it. “Okay.”
“That’s not a very resounding okay. Promise you’ll call?”
She smiled. “Okay. I’m sure, though, that this will all be over by the time I get home. Alicia will have been found, she’ll tell the authorities what they want to know, and life will go back to normal.”
But even to her own ears that sounded false. When had life ever been “normal”? A feeling of impending disaster swept over her, and Abby’s hand shook as she put the card away in her purse.
20
H. P. Gerard sat at a tempered glass desk the size of a pool table, staring out at the view. His three-story penthouse on Central Park West was worth more than a billion dollars today, but he’d bought it when it was “cheap” at only fifty-nine mil. He liked living like this, liked the perks and the way maître d’s and waiters fell all over him when he walked into a hot new restaurant, issuing him past all the Brad Pitts, Robert Redfords and Julia Robertses who were left standing in line.
It hadn’t always been like this. During law school and for years afterward, Gerry Gerard had lived in rundown houses, gone without food and worn beat-up jeans and Ts that made him look more like a college freshman than a lawyer.
Then, ten years ago, a change came over him. He began to look around at the people who were actually getting things done in the world, and one thing came to him loud and clear—they weren’t schmucks like him. They were people who lived in penthouses and flew in private jets. They were, for the most part, the “rich white men” people talked about, the ones who ruled the world, who got things done—and not by marching with and defending the homeless, the illegal, the poor. The actual running of the world was done in boardrooms and country clubs, not out there with the people he’d been trying—with little cooperation from the government—to help.
Gerry had made the switch almost overnight, after seeing a bill that was close to his heart get shot down. He’d worked damned hard on that bill. If it had gone through, it would have eased the laws about illegal immigrants, letting them work legally at jobs they would pay taxes on, which—in his opinion and that of many others—could only benefit the country. Instead, illegals worked for employers who paid them peanuts under the table and didn’t give them any benefits. They had no health insurance and no sick pay, and no way to take care of their families the way the average middle-class American family was able to—at least, was able to in good times.
The best thing about the bill he’d helped to shape, in his opinion, was that it dealt with the argument that illegal immigrants, most of whom came over the border from Mexico, would take jobs from the average middle-class American family. The truth was, the average middle-class worker either abhorred or hadn’t the skills for most of the jobs Mexican immigrants were more than willing to do.
Thank God my parents taught me how to work, he thought. As a kid, Gerry had learned to do jobs most kids wouldn’t take these days. There was the usual paper route or stocking shelves in a neighborhood grocery store, and in summers he mowed lawns and cooked burgers in fast-food restaurants. Because he had proved himself to be both a good employee and a smart one, his father had hired him to work at his law office in Gerry’s junior and senior years of high school. He’d learned how to handle and get along with clients, and to come up with ideas for making the business run more smoothly and effectively. His mind had been sharpened and tested. And when he went off to college after his senior year, he was already ten steps ahead of many of the freshman kids, who’d only come to party and live off their parents’ savings.
The best thing his father had taught him was to expect to be treated as well as any other employee of similar status. As long as he worked hard, showed up on time and didn’t ask for special favors, his father had paid him the same as any other assistant in his office. Thus, at the end of each summer in the law office, Gerry had a nice chunk of change, which—except for a few personal expenditures—he gave back to his parents to put toward his tuition. The fairness his father had treated him with had taught him that it was only fair to give back, a lesson that had stuck with him all his life.
It was while sitting at a hotel bar one night, brooding about the failed bill for immigrant workers and missing Alicia and Jancy, that Gerry met Charles Grantham Jr. They had begun a friendship before Gerry even knew that Chuck was a mover and shaker, one of the few men that even the Donald Trumps of the world answered to.
Chuck, who was ten years older than Gerry, was a banker, from a long line of bankers who had escaped Black Thursday, the stock market crash of 1929. Having money at a time when very few did had proved to be an enormous asset, enabling the Grantham family to wield a lot of power. That power had carried over into politics, and it was said that Chuck’s father and grandfather had placed more presidents in office than anyone knew or would ever know.
It was through Chuck Grantham that Gerry wound up in politics himself. Not that he’d ever even consider running for office; he was too smart now to think that being president made a man anything but a puppet to the Granthams and others of their ilk.
The word ilk gave him a guilty twinge. It sounded contemptuous. And even though Chuck Grantham and his family had let him into their inner sanctum, and his entire business had been built on their goodwill for him, he did have contempt in his heart for the kind of power they wielded. Even as he used it to his own benefit, he hated it—and despised himself for playing their game.
Gerry, at the Granthams’ behest, had worked his way into the back rooms, the boardrooms and the private estates, where the decisions were made, the candidates chosen, and—polls and even votes to the contrary—the winner of the next presidential race would be decided. It hadn’t taken Gerry long to learn that, with the right combination of money and staff, a president could be made. There was no luck to any of it, just strings being pulled behind the scenes, strings most American voters never saw and few even believed existed.
One day, Gerry knew, he would have to separate himself from their world, before he lost all respect for himself. But not now. Now, he needed all the help he could get.
The phone on his desk rang. Gerry blinked, staring at it as if it were a snake. He had purposely given his assistant the day off, and checking the caller ID, he saw it was the call he’d been waiting for.
He punched the speaker button. “Did you find her?” he said, his voice cold and hard.
For a moment he listened to the caller, frowning. Then he cut the man off. “I told you, no excuses, dammit! You know what to do.”
He slammed the receiver down and sat there, thinking. The woman had to be stopped. She was ruining every chance he’d been given, every sacrifice he’d made to get where he was.
No matter the hurt, she had to go.
21
Abby made her way through the dark rose garden and let herself into the Prayer House. Tiptoeing down the hall, she tried to make it to her apartment without waking anyone. But at the far end of the hall stood a tall, dark figure.
Abby gasped, feeling her pulse flutter in her throat. As she neared the figure, however, she could see that the arms were crossed and the figure’s left foot was tapping impatiently.
“God, Helen! You scared me to death! I was trying not to wake anyone!”
“Don’t say ‘God’ like that.”
“Sorry.”
“You thought I wouldn’t hear you
parking your car?”
“Helen, it’s way past midnight. You should be in bed.”
“And how could I be, young lady? I haven’t slept a wink since you’ve been gone. Where have you been? Why didn’t you call?”
Abby felt as if she were a teenager, sneaking in late to find her mother waiting up.
“I told you I was going to Vegas,” Abby said defensively. “And I called you from Phoenix.”
“That was yesterday. Where have you been?”
Abby sighed and let herself into her apartment. “For heaven’s sake, ease up. There hasn’t been a lot of time for phone calls.” A small smile curved her lips as she thought of the leap between the two buildings, and the disguise as “Cousin Harry.” Well, that adventure in Phoenix had gotten her out of her rut, at least.
The smile disappeared as she realized she’d thought of her life as a “rut.” She tossed her overnight bag onto the bed. “How is Jancy? Has she been okay?”
“That depends on what you mean by okay,” Helen said disagreeably.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, she disappeared yesterday and gave us all a fright.”
“Disappeared!” Abby’s eyes widened. “How long ago? Did she come back?”
Helen rolled her eyes. “Humph.”
“She came back, Helen, right?”
“I suppose you might say that. Ben’s police friend, Arnie, saw her in town and brought her back—complaining and sulking all the way, he said. She’s up there in bed now, but she hasn’t been talking to any of us since.”
Abby sat on the edge of the bed, and motioned Helen to take the chair next to it.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You tell me,” the nun answered, sitting heavily.
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop trying to be mysterious and just tell me what’s been going on!”
“I told you, don’t say—”
“Helen!”
“Well, it’s her that’s being mysterious,” Helen snapped. “Maybe now that you’re home at last, young lady, you can drag something out of the girl.”
Abby groaned. Why, why, why had Alicia left her with this responsibility? When would there ever be time to just go away somewhere and relax?
“I’m sorry Jancy was trouble for you,” Abby said contritely. “I’ll talk to her in the morning. How about the others?”
“Well, Narissa’s been spending time with Jancy, even though she’s not talking. Narissa just sails through everything, takes whatever comes like a freighter in a small breeze. Benicia’s worried, though. She says the girl isn’t eating.”
Abby nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Were there any more visits from the law, either local or federal?”
Helen sniffed. “If you’re asking whether Chief Ben Schaeffer has been here to see you, no. And none of his cohorts, either.”
Abby thought it best not to mention that Ben and the others had all been in Phoenix, either tracking her down or setting her up.
“Anything else?” she asked, yawning.
“No, and I can take a hint.” Helen stood. As her knees took on her weight, she groaned.
“You need to get to that doctor for your arthritis,” Abby said.
Helen mumbled something incoherent as she walked out and shut the door, but Abby got the usual message: Butt out.
She stretched out on the bed fully clothed and stared at the ceiling. What now? And where the hell did Jancy go yesterday? Had she snuck out to make a phone call to her mother? Was that the source of her silence ever since? And what could Allie have said to her—
Abby sat straight up, her tiredness gone.
Did Jancy actually see her mother? Had Alicia been here, on the property? Or in town? Was that why Jancy had disappeared, to meet her somewhere?
Her tiredness gone, Abby took a flashlight from her desk and walked quietly through the dim hall to the main stairs and the second floor, then toward the solarium and Jancy’s room. Opening the door slightly, she listened for the even breathing of a sleeping person.
Nothing.
Sweeping her flashlight over the bed, she saw a slight shape under the sheets. Crossing over, she reached out a hand and touched the form lightly.
“Jancy? Jancy, it’s me, Abby.”
The form didn’t move, and Abby, somehow knowing all along that it wouldn’t, swept back the sheets.
Pillows. No Jancy, just pillows.
22
Though she was tired enough to drop in her tracks, Abby went from Jancy’s room into the office in her apartment. Crossing over to a drawer, she opened a small red leather address book and found Gerry Gerard’s private phone number, at his penthouse in New York. No one except family and close friends had this number, and Abby hadn’t even remembered having it herself until earlier today. It had finally come back to her that Allie had given her the number a couple of years ago in case of “an emergency.”
Funny. That was exactly what she’d told Willow when giving her the Phoenix phone number. What kind of emergency had Allie expected, even way back then?
She punched in the number on the desk phone and listened as the one in New York rang several times. Glancing at the small gold-framed clock Ben had given her last year for her thirty-eighth birthday, she saw that it was after 2:00 a.m.—5:00 a.m. in New York. If Gerry was home, he’d still be sleeping now, wouldn’t he? Maybe he had this private phone turned off.
But a moment later she heard his voice, sounding rushed, impatient and very much awake. “What?”
“Gerry?” she said, somewhat taken aback. “It’s Abby. Abby Northrup.”
“Oh. Abby. Sorry, I was in the shower. What’s up?” His tone was brusque and not very friendly.
“I’m calling about Alicia,” she said. “And Jancy.”
“What about them?” Gerry snapped.
“I, uh…wondered if you’ve heard from them.”
“No, I have not. Why?”
“You haven’t had any calls from anyone about them?”
“No, of course not. Look, Abby, this is a bad time. I can’t talk right now.”
“Gerry, wait! Alicia’s in trouble with the law. The FBI and the CIA are after her, and no one can find her.”
There was a small silence. “Abby…how long has it been since you’ve seen or talked with Alicia?”
There was something not quite right about his reaction, and she was suddenly on guard. “I don’t know, Gerry. A few years?”
“Then you probably don’t know how dramatic she can be these days. Alicia has a way of stirring up trouble and then making far too much of it.”
“Gerry, she’s wanted for murder,” Abby said mildly. “I doubt the people who are looking for her are making too much of it.”
“See, that’s what I mean. In all likelihood she was in the area of a murder but doesn’t know a thing about it. She’ll straighten it out, Abby, you’ll see. Now, if you don’t mind—”
“Dammit, I do mind! What about Jancy? You didn’t even ask, Gerry.”
“What about her?”
“Jancy has disappeared, too.”
A small silence. Then, “Jancy is even more of a drama queen than her mother,” he said impatiently. “I’m sure she’ll turn up sooner or later.”
With that, he hung up, leaving Abby to sit there staring at a dead phone.
Abby went to her little kitchen and made herself a single cup of coffee in the pod coffeemaker she kept in there. Then, grabbing one of the homemade cinnamon doughnuts from the plate Binny had left for her, she went back to her desk.
Would Arnie be at the station in Carmel, she wondered, since Ben was off in Phoenix or wherever? She never knew where Ben might be these days, since he’d joined forces with his new blond friend.
She picked up her cell phone and punched in the number for the police station business line. Tess, one of the female dispatchers, answered and told her Arnie was off.
“Probably asleep. Can I take a message? You can leave your number, and I’m sure h
e’ll call you in the morning.”
“No, thanks. I’m in Seattle, so I’ll just call him when I get back.”
Tess was a nice person, but Abby wasn’t about to trust anyone except Arnie with the news that she was home. Even though the APB on her had been canceled, she wanted some room to navigate before having to answer questions from a bunch of cops, agents, whomever.
Besides, Arnie used to be Ben’s partner, and she knew his home number by heart. Like Gerry’s, though, it rang on and on.
“Whoever you are,” Arnie said finally in a grouchy, half-awake voice, “go away.”
“Wait! Don’t hang up, Arnie. It’s me, Abby.”
“Ab?” She could hear him lighting a cigarette and taking a puff. “Where are you?” he asked.
She ignored the question. “Sorry to wake you, but Jancy’s gone again. I need to know where you found her yesterday.”
“Walking along Highway 1,” he answered. “I was on my way down to Rocky Point to meet somebody for lunch, and there she was on the side of the road. I called the Prayer House, but Sister Helen said you were out of town. You back home now?”
“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that, Arnie. Don’t you and Ben collaborate on my whereabouts?”
“Well, I did hear you were in a hospital in Phoenix. You okay? You home?”
“I’m fine, but I’m not home. I’m in a motel in Barstow.”
“Barstow? You must be on your way home, then? I mean, geez, no offense to Barstowians, but nobody goes there except to pass through or die.”
“Nevertheless, that’s where I am,” she said. “Arnie, I just talked to Sister Helen a while ago, and like I said, Jancy’s gone again. We need some sort of clue as to where she might be. Was she heading south yesterday? Like, toward L.A.?”
“Nah. Actually, north—toward town.”
“Really?”
“I thought that was funny, too. A kid runs away, she should be leaving town, not running toward it.”
“Was she actually running?”
“Like the devil himself was on her heels. I was in one of the cruisers, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think she’d have gotten in the car with me if she wasn’t afraid of something. She kept looking back, and I tried to get it out of her where she’d been, but she wouldn’t tell me a thing. And like I said, Sister Helen told me to bring her out to the Prayer House, so I did.”