Meant To Be

by Неизвестно

  My efforts at calming myself were futile. This might technically be an inn, but it no longer seemed like one. I had cooked in the kitchen, run the dishwasher, used the phone. The whole building seemed mine now, and I could think of no reason for anyone else to be in it, particularly not at this hour of the morning.

  Another sound of moving hinges reached me, but I could not discern its source. With a surge of adrenaline I crossed the room and swept a heavy candlestick off the marble mantle that crowned my dormant fireplace. Then I crept silently toward my door.

  Could someone be here to steal something? Or was I overreacting? There was one way to tell. Anyone who was here without malice would not be afraid to show themselves.

  I leaned my head against the edge of the closed door. "Hello?" I called, loud enough, I thought, for anyone in the common room to hear. "Who’s there, please?"

  I waited, but there was no response. No voice, no more opening doors, no more footsteps. Only silence.

  I took a deep breath. Any number of people could have every right to be at this inn—a caretaker, a relative. It was I who was the visitor here, and it would be foolish of me to panic. Still, coming in the back doors at this hour was odd, and not answering me was even odder. Could the person be hard of hearing?

  Had there been a phone in my room, I might have called the police just to be on the safe side. But the only phone at the inn was in the common room.

  I breathed out, moved away from the door, and got back into bed. But after several minutes of laying stiff as a board, I realized that waiting was pointless. I couldn’t sleep. I might as well find out who was sharing the inn with me; once I knew, I could relax. Or—in the unlikely event that the person was uninvited—hightail it to my car.

  Clenching both the candlestick and my car keys tight to my side, I returned to the doorway, listened carefully, then opened the door just wide enough to look out. "Hello?" I called again. "Who’s there?"

  Still, I heard no response. But I could see a dim light, shining down the hall from the common room. Burglars, I told myself confidently as I stepped out, do not use keys, and they don’t turn on the lights. I moved steadily, one step at a time, calling out periodically as I went. "Hello?"

  I reached the doorway to the common room and approached it warily. "I know someone’s here," I called louder. I passed through it and stepped out into the open space, but still saw no one. What I did see was the light—coming through a door I had formerly paid little attention to, assuming it was a closet. That door was now standing open, and a rustling noise drifted up from below.

  I moved to look through the doorway, my breath held. A wooden staircase headed steeply downward to a dank cellar, illuminated by a single lightbulb. For a second I saw nothing else. Then Fletcher’s large frame moved into my window of view, his expression startled.

  My breath let out with a gush.

  "It’s just me," he explained hastily. "I didn’t mean to wake you." His face filled with remorse. "I didn’t mean to scare you, either. Sorry."

  I set down the candlestick and keys outside the doorframe, out of sight. "It’s all right," I insisted, clearing my throat. "I guess you couldn’t hear me down here. What are you doing?"

  Some part of me heard my mother’s voice, patiently indoctrinating me in the ways of polite ladies. You’re the man’s guest, dear. You’ve no business interrogating him about his business. I forced myself to squelch it. My mother had been a saint among women, but the new Meara had her own protocol.

  Not waiting for an answer, I grabbed the rickety hand rail and descended the steps myself. It occurred to me as I watched the path of his eyes that the oversized tee shirt I was wearing was on the short side. But I was not going to worry about that now.

  I paused on the bottom step, hesitant to move my bare feet onto the cold concrete floor. Looking around, I realized I didn’t want the rest of me there, either. The inn’s foundation had been crafted of native sandstone, but it was hardly a prime example of the process. In several places the walls seemed to buckle, the mortar between the stones being laced with cracks and sprinkled with mildew. The low beams of the ceiling above bent in the middle like swayback horses, and the irregularly sloping floor bore ample evidence of previous floods.

  "Nice place," I teased, trying to lighten my own mood. "What do you keep down here? Fish?"

  Fletcher looked over his shoulder, where a plethora of boxes and household junk was arranged on platforms several inches off the floor. "We’ve been moving things out of the house for a while now, a little at a time," he explained. "But there’s not much good storage space here. You think this is bad, you should see the attic."

  "I’ll pass," I said quickly, thinking of the upstairs bedroom again. "I repeat, what are you doing here now, in the middle of the night? Walling someone in?"

  He grinned a little, but his amusement was fleeting. He watched me thoughtfully for a moment, then tapped the book he had been holding in his hand. "I came for this," he explained.

  I gazed at the oversized, hardcover book, which appeared to be some sort of ledger. "And that couldn’t wait till morning?"

  He shook his head slowly. "I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to know."

  My heart rate increased. "Know what?"

  He raised a hand to his beard and rubbed his chin. "Can we go back upstairs?"

  It was a stalling tactic, but since my toes were freezing, I decided to permit it. I climbed back up the staircase into the common room and dropped onto one of the couches, folding my legs beneath me for warmth. Fletcher shut the door to the cellar and sat down next to me, dutifully averting his eyes from the thin fabric that clung to my torso.

  "This was my mother’s record-keeping book for the fosters," he explained, turning the book over in his hands. "It has all the children’s names, their ages, when they came, and when they went."

  My eyes widened. I stared at the ledger, unable to move.

  "I wanted to see if there was a listing for an Amanda Kozen," he continued. "I figured that if you were here, it must have been in the mid-to-late seventies."

  I nodded mutely, still staring. My pulse pounded in my ears.

  His voice softened. "I’ve looked all through it, Meara. There was no Amanda Kozen. There’s no Amanda anybody."

  My eyes shot up to meet his. That couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. I knew I had been here. "What about Mandy?" I suggested, my voice a croak.

  He shook his head. "I didn’t see anything even close." He extended the book in my direction. "But you’re welcome to look through it yourself."

  I stared at the dusty ledger once more, then held out a wobbly hand. As soon as my fingers closed over it, Fletcher released his hold and rose. "I’m sorry for worrying you," he said quietly. He walked across to the French doors. "I’ll head on home now."

  I rose and whirled toward him. "Why did you come?" I demanded. I had asked the question before, but his answer made little sense. "You were so anxious to know if I was a foster child here that you couldn’t sleep? What difference would it make to you?"

  He blinked back at me, the alarm in his eyes as frank as that of a wild animal staring into headlights. He collected his thoughts before speaking. "When you asked me if I was remembering something, I was. I was remembering something my parents told me, about another little girl that was here. But she wasn’t you."

  I walked closer to him, digesting the statement. "What did they tell you?"

  He shook his head. "It doesn’t matter. You can’t be her, because if you were, you would have been in the ledger. My mother was very meticulous about that."

  I studied him with concentration. He didn’t seem to be lying to me. Not exactly. It seemed more like he was trying to make a case. A case he wanted to believe himself—but didn’t.

  I took a deep breath and prepared my words. "If you climbed all the way down that mountainside in the middle of the night just to double-check whether I was this girl, they must have told you something very important about her. What was i
t?"

  His eyes brewed with turmoil. "It’s confidential information, Meara," he said evenly. "I really can’t get into it."

  "You don’t have to give me any names," I pressed. "Just give me the gist."

  He pulled his eyes from mine and opened the French doors. "I can’t talk about this right now," he said stiffly. "I’ll see you tomorrow."

  "Fletcher!" I protested, but my call went unanswered. He closed the doors behind him and stomped off into the night.

  ***

  For the second time in three days, I received a bemused nod from the civil servant whose job it was to open the doors of the Somerset County Courthouse. He probably assumed I was still badgering someone about a marriage license.

  He couldn’t be further off.

  I meandered in the corridors for some time before locating the district clerk's office and making my request. For the next twenty minutes I sat up straight on a painfully hard bench, feeling like a shell of myself. I had barely slept at all after Fletcher’s exit, but I had nevertheless arisen at dawn, typed up the birth certificate request, and mailed it on my way to town. I was determined to proceed with my plan.

  Fletcher had told the truth about his mother’s ledger—there was no Amanda Kozen listed. During the most probable time period, however, there were two other entries for little girls. One, who had been two at the time, had stayed with the Blacks only a few weeks. But the other girl, listed as Lisa Dobson, had lived with the family for almost a year, starting at the age of three. The comment line by her name said simply "single mother—addict." Why a three-year-old entering foster care might require an alias, I didn’t know. But I did know that I had been at the Blacks. And no one was going to convince me otherwise.

  "Ma’am?"

  My chin jerked up as the clerk appeared leaning over the counter. "We don’t have anything on a Jacob Kozen," he announced. "Only on Sheila Kozen. You want a copy?"

  I nodded.

  The request for a criminal record on Jacob Kozen had been an impulse. I did not care to analyze why the lack of one was a disappointment.

  I waited another five minutes before the clerk returned and handed me a package. It was a thin white envelope with no markings. I thanked him and took it.

  I stood still for a moment, staring. I had expected a plain slip of paper, something I would have to look at immediately. Now I had a choice.

  I took in a ragged breath. I didn’t know what to expect from Sheila’s record. I wasn’t even sure what I was hoping for. But as my knees wobbled beneath me I realized that whatever it was, I wasn’t quite ready for it.

  I tucked the envelope beneath my arm and started walking. I had the document; that was the important thing. There was no reason I couldn’t treat myself to lunch before opening it, or do some sightseeing, or take a nap. Or all of the above.

  Maybe, after all that, the fear in my chest wouldn’t feel quite so stifling.

  Chapter 18

  By the time I returned to the inn, it was late afternoon. I had had an uninspired fast-food lunch, followed by a leisurely walk along my favorite nature trail in nearby Ohiopyle State Park. I had spent close to an hour doing nothing but sitting on a bench, watching the Youghiogheny River churn over giant boulders to form myriad whitecaps and waterfalls. The serenity of the spot had allowed my brain to assume a peaceable blankness, and for a while, I had felt better. But as I was also becoming increasingly drowsy, I had decided to head back while I could still safely drive.

  The envelope remained on the Hyundai’s passenger seat, unopened.

  As I pulled into the inn’s parking lot, thinking about nothing other than my impending nap, Fletcher appeared suddenly in my side view mirror, causing me to start. He seemed to have come from nowhere, and was proceeding straight for my car. As soon as I parked and popped opened the door, he took hold of the handle and swung it open fully, surveying me with a worried expression.

  "Are you all right?" he demanded more than asked. "Did you see him?"

  I shook my head to help clear some of my confusion, but it didn’t help. "Of course I’m all right," I responded, having to push him back a bit to get out. "What are you talking about? See who?"

  Clearly relieved, he retreated a few steps. "I thought you might have gone to see Jake Kozen again."

  A cold day in hell, I thought, but my words were more polite. "No, I didn’t. Why would you think that?"

  When he didn’t answer, I frowned and turned away toward the inn. Lack of sleep made me cranky, there was no doubt about that. But the aggravation I was feeling toward him this morning had a deeper source.

  He had walked out on a discussion last night—a tendency I was all too familiar with, and all too sensitive to. I knew it was unfair of me to punish him for the sins of other men, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. Kevin’s inability to discuss anything of significance—such as when he thought he might be ready to get married, have children, get a real job, or even take out the garbage—had resulted in the waste of five years of my life, and a good deal of my self-respect. Kevin could never bring himself to tell me anything he thought I didn’t want to hear, ostensibly because he was trying to be considerate. The real problem, of course, was that he was a coward.

  And so, as far as I was concerned at the moment, was Fletcher.

  He was hiding things from me that he had no right to hide, and he had refused to admit that even when asked point blank. His secrecy had irritated me from the beginning, but after yesterday, it had truly hurt. Because I had finally begun to trust him.

  I took only a step or two before he caught my arm. "Wait, Meara. Please?" His deep voice was gentle, and I knew that whether I was mad at him or not, that sound, combined with one look at his face, would bring back emotions I was better off not feeling. I stopped walking, but my eyes stayed on the ground.

  "I owe you an apology," he said.

  I looked up.

  "I shouldn’t have walked out on you last night," he continued. "You have legitimate questions, and you deserve answers to them."

  I turned to face him, surprised. All memories of Kevin, who had never once admitted he was wrong about anything, vanished.

  "I didn’t want to tell you what I was thinking of because I wasn’t sure it had anything to do with you," he explained. "You were upset enough as it was—I didn’t want to lay more on you only to have it be a false alarm. But I never intended to keep you in the dark forever." He paused, then breathed out heavily. "I’ve found out some things, Meara. We need to talk."

  My voice seemed gone, so I merely nodded.

  He led me across the lot and into a grove of pines, then gestured for me to find a seat amidst a group of boulders arranged in a circular pattern. The makeshift "conference room" was clearly man-made; in one place, two flat rocks joined at an angle, almost like a recliner. I sat down there, and he smiled at me. "My favorite spot, too," he remarked. Then his voice sobered.

  "When I found your car gone this morning I was afraid you were going to confront Jake Kozen—to ask him whether you were in foster care here, or to ream him out for abandoning you. I’m glad you didn’t."

  My brow creased. "I have no intention of ever seeing him again, so don’t worry."

  He studied me, and his gaze seemed approving. But it was obvious he had more to get off his chest. "I hope you don’t mind my interfering in your affairs," he began, not sounding at all apologetic. "But I did. I have a friend who’s a state trooper, based in Somerset, and when you said that Kozen had been a cop, I figured it wouldn’t hurt if I gave Ben a call. You seemed so afraid coming out of the diner yesterday—I thought maybe Ben could find out something about the guy, make sure he was okay. He called me back this morning."

  I stared. I had told Fletcher that I hated Jake, yes. But I had never confessed the cold, cryptic fear that had overtaken me at our meeting—I had not fully acknowledged it even to myself. Evidently, I had also not been able to hide it.

  "What did he say?" I blurted, not minding Fletcher’s interf
erence in the least. Rather, knowing that he had gone out of his way to protect me gave me an almost overwhelming urge to throw my arms around his neck. But looking at him now, sitting, as he always did, intentionally beyond my reach, I was able to resist the impulse. His continued efforts to keep a physical distance between us were not my imagination, and it was time I accepted the fact that he wasn’t interested. Quite probably, there was someone else. Someone he was being admirably faithful to.

  "Ben didn’t recognize Kozen by name," he answered. "But he asked around. Turns out he didn’t have to dig too deep. Kozen’s been on nearly every small-town force in the area at one time or another, and he’s developed a reputation."

  His last words cut through the depressed haze in my mind. I refocused. "A reputation for what?"

  "In short, for being a jerk. He’s known as a hothead. The reason he’s moved around so much is because he kept burning his bridges. Lots of reprimands—insubordination, policy violation, moral indiscretion. Numerous complaints against him for unnecessary use of force, though none were ever substantiated. He was never found guilty of anything serious enough to land him in real trouble, but he was asked to resign from a few departments."

  My heart pounded.

  He exhaled. "I’m not trying to upset you, or tell you what to do. But you said you wanted the truth, and I think you have the right to know what kind of person Jake is before you make any more decisions based on what he told you."

  I nodded mutely.

  "I’m afraid there’s more," he continued. "One of the officers Ben talked to was a woman who worked with Jake in the early nineties. She said that he was—and I’m quoting this second hand—a ‘stinking, sexist lecher,’ and that she had complained about him repeatedly to her superiors but was never taken seriously. In fact, she ultimately switched departments because she couldn’t work with him."

  My eyes moved to the ground. None of what Fletcher was saying surprised me. But learning that Jake was every bit the slimeball I perceived him to be still hit my gut like a fist.