Stolen Grace

by Arianne Richmonde

  I love you more than you could ever imagine.

  You are my Queen.

  Tommy

  P.S I’ve just remembered something important. Ruth, aka Ana, kept saying we should look in Central America for Grace, namely Nicaragua. I’m trying to rack my brains about the conversation that night but the gist of it was that she (disguised in the conversation as “the woman who took Grace”) was fed up with playing mommy and couldn’t handle it. And that maybe Grace was fine and eating an ice cream somewhere . . . seemed an odd thing to say at the time. If I remember any more clues I’ll text/e-mail. Will be buying a new phone ASAP.

  All my love xxx

  Darling,

  I’m sitting in an Internet café. My mobile’s been stolen. It was stolen by that woman Ana who I had dinner with last night. Why? Why did she steal my mobile? She seemed well dressed, affluent, didn’t look like she needed money. I mean, she was paying for a room at the Copacabana! What a fucking weirdo. I have no idea what her agenda was – she said she wanted to help me find Grace and then she got all personal on me and ended up not doing anything at all except making off with my phone. Fucking fruitcake! I’ve tried phoning you but you don’t pick up at home. I’ll try your mobile now . . . where ARE you??

  Txxx

  Sylvia darling,

  Met a woman called Ana who says she can help me with translation and we can go to the police. Off to have a bite to eat. You’re not picking up . . . where are you??? Will call again later.

  Luv you. Tx

  Sent from my iPhone

  A wave of relief passed through Sylvia. Tommy had been telling the truth all along. He’d told her about the dinner with Ruth and he really did believe she was called Ana, and was just trying to help. Sylvia could have easily made the same mistake. After all, Ruth had dyed her hair auburn red and had a neat, pretty nose—so different from the photofit image Tommy had of her. It wasn’t his fault. He was on the lookout for Ruth plus Grace—how could he have possibly known Ruth would be wandering around on her own, posing as a local from Rio with a fake, very convincing (no doubt) Brazilian accent?

  Sylvia closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. She’d read so many self-help books over the years, thought them all fascinating, and then popped them back on the bookshelf and forgot most of the wisdom. Easier said than done to be sweet, spiritual, and continually forgiving. Random tidbits now resurfaced in her mind.

  She enveloped herself in a ball of virtual pink light, and let it radiate around her body. She brought Tommy and Grace into her aura and imagined them all together, hugging and smiling. Melinda was there, Jacqueline, and her aunt. Even Mrs. Wicks from next door, and LeRoy, all smiling at them in their triangle of happiness and light. “Please make it well again, please bring me Grace and Tommy, bring my family back to me—they’re all I have,” she pleaded to whatever Higher Power was listening.

  She knew she was meant to send a healing pink ray of light to Ruth, too, but she just couldn’t bring herself to go that far. Sylvia was no saint.

  Because secretly, she wanted Ruth dead.

  CHAPTER 40

  Tommy

  Tommy tried to imagine himself in Ruth’s shoes. Like a game of chess, he needed to envisage the gamut of possibilities open to his opponent and pre-empt her next move. What would she do now? What does she want? Where would she go? He made a mental list:

  a.) She has an inflated ego which could be her downfall.

  b.) Wants her novel to be published at all costs.

  c.) Needs to head to a country where there’s no extradition treaty with Brazil or America.

  He mulled over his last supposition. It was true, she’d be hard-pressed to get on a plane—the airports would be on red alert. Yet he also suspected that she felt invincible, uncatchable. Her ego was as tough as oilskin. Maybe she’d been breaking the law her whole life and it was second nature, and she was unable to tell the truth. Unable to not steal, to not lie.

  He remembered Sylvia telling him that Ruth had traveled extensively, backpacked through Asia. Thailand housed some pretty unsavory characters, Vietnam too. Hadn’t Gary Glitter been arrested on charges of pedophilia? Even there, they were clamping down on criminals. Cambodia? Laos? Burma? Ah yes, Burma, now called Myanmar. That would be a clever place to hide. Even though Aung San Suu Kyi had taken public office, after years of Burma being a police state and of not giving a damn of what other countries thought, they wouldn’t waste their time ingratiating themselves with the FBI or any other foreign law enforcement body. They wouldn’t have the resources or the time—they had other issues to attend to. Tommy could just see Ruth journeying up the Irrawaddy River, fancying herself as George Orwell, or hiding out in a jungle somewhere, maybe lording it over some pretty Asian boy. Bribing policeman, buying herself merit, the way corrupt officials did, to reach Nirvana faster. Tommy remembered reading about that, how Burmese Buddhists bought caged doves and set them free (even though they’d end up flying straight back to the cage they knew)—the officials totting up their spiritual bank account. He could just envisage Ruth doing that. Perhaps setting herself up in a tree house, simple and rustic, like the cabin Tommy imagined on the beach in Nicaragua. Remote but pleasant. A nice peaceful life for a writer—he almost envied her.

  That guy Lucho, the surfer she mentioned in the note Agent Russo had told him about—Tommy bet he was a sort of toy-boy for her—someone for Ruth to dispose of when she got bored.

  Tommy felt ashamed, just loathed to admit it, but there was an attractiveness about Ruth—vulnerability mixed with a sort of integral strength. No way did she look her age, either. The type of woman he would have easily jumped into bed with before he got married. Ugh, it made him queasy just thinking about that dinner with her. The proximity. She was right there! Why hadn’t he seen the signs? She was telling him her whole story and he was too dense to pick up on it.

  He needed to know more about her. He got out the new iPhone he purchased that morning and sent a message to Sylvia:

  Darling,

  Tell me everything about the book Ruth was writing. Plot, characters etc. Was she working on anything else? Favorite places she’s visited?

  xxxT

  Sylvia replied not long after. The bleep made his heart race. They were communicating, at least, though it was clear that she was still enraged with him. Or disappointed. “Disappointed” was somehow even worse.

  Tommy,

  Ruth is aiming for an epic saga type of novel. She was managing 6,000 words a day. That’s a lot. So I can’t imagine it being particularly literary. I only read the first few chapters. She wants to write a doorstop book which is not fashionable right now – it’ll be hard to find a publisher. Normally, they want around 90,000 words for first time novelists. She’s aiming for 2 – 3 times that. Her title was The Jewel. It was a sort of thriller cum love story about a man who finds his grandfather’s diaries and it flashes back to his love story set against the 1957 revolution in French Cameroon (I think it was around then) when several women fought for freedom. The female protagonist, Ruth decided, should be played by Thandie Newton (don’t you love the arrogance – she’s already cast the movie).

  And then there was the modern day romance between an Indiana Jones character and a young Catherine Deneuve type. I wish now I’d paid more attention. She was also planning a non-fiction book based on her experience with the IVF miracle that was about to happen – she said she had publishers interested. Then there was yet another project which she seemed to have abandoned, a chick-lit novel called Sex Addict Anon - its title speaks for itself! (Get the double-entendre, get her brilliance? Anon, as in “bye, see you around” (like in Shakespeare plays) and anon (as in “anonymous”).

  She said that she was going to give herself six months to find an agent and if she didn’t have any luck she’d self-publish. She told me she had a list of agents she was going to target once finished . . . how I wish I’d gotten that list when I had the chance. Who could have known?

  What w
ere you thinking, Tommy? To approach every New York and London literary agent and ask them to rummage in their slush piles for her manuscript? Funny, the same thing crossed my mind. I did mention that to Agent Russo but I don’t know if she’s following that lead. What else? She’s bulimic, has an eating disorder. Was engaged 4 times. As you know, speaks 3 languages, each one like it was her mother tongue.

  Good luck.

  Keep in touch,

  Sylvia

  No kisses, no love, just, Keep in touch, Sylvia. He wondered if he would ever be able to win her trust again. He wanted her back. All of her. Losing his wife was not an option for him.

  Sylvia had not been an easy woman to catch. He wooed her for months in an old-fashioned manner: dinners galore, trips to the movies, cards, books of poems. At first, he thought her arrogant, standoffish; her peerless demeanor made him feel as if he didn’t stand a chance. She’d had, as far as he knew, only one boyfriend. Later, he found out that she had a fragile heart, and her haughtiness was her way of protecting herself. Tommy didn’t consider himself ambitious but he was focused when something was important. The scholarship for university, and later, Sylvia. The moment he met her, he made up his mind that she would be his wife. He became obsessed—winning her became his mission.

  He asked himself how much of his quest at that time was about love, and how much was about achieving a goal. Like a hunter catching his prey. He had been determined to win his prize. He became obsessed with claiming her, fucking her, making her his. And he finally won. When they married, he felt like his mission was accomplished, forgetting that a marriage was work—a garden that needed to be watered and nurtured. He could sense her drifting away now, like snowflakes in a cool breeze. The idea of losing her completely made him feel as if he had a hole in his solar plexus.

  During their marriage he’d never stopped to wonder how much he loved her because she was always there. But her aloofness was now punishing. It wasn’t his ego that craved her, but his soul. Perhaps it was all too late. What he’d been playing at, sending all those childish, ridiculous messages to that young Marie, the “Bel Ange” –he now had no idea. It seemed like a mystery what had been going on in his head. He felt pathetic, ashamed. He had a beautiful family and he’d really bungled things.

  Going off to LA was a bad plan anyway, chasing a half-baked idea, selling his dreams short. If only he hadn’t gone, none of this would have happened. And now, with Grace kidnapped and all this Ruth horror, mixed with his stupidity, everything had become even more poisoned. If they got Grace back, he had a chance to mend things with his wife. If not, why would Sylvia even bother with him? Then, he would have lost everything in the world that mattered to him.

  Ruth. Rocío. Ana. He felt so humiliated. Dishonored. Disgraced. After reading Sylvia’s e-mail, he needed to add another point to her list:

  d.) Possible sex addict—will want a man with her as soon as she can get one.

  The stakes were higher than ever. He had to find Ruth. How he was going to trap the monster, he still wasn’t sure.

  But once he did? He knew exactly what he’d do with her.

  CHAPTER 41

  Grace

  Hardly had Grace woken up, when she smelled fumes and heard voices outside María’s little shack. The two little girls had curled up together on the bed the night before, alone, and fallen into a thick sleep. Grace had no idea what time it was but it was already light—the night had been eaten up, as if a great gobbling monster had come and munched up the dark. This place looked better in the dark. She heard rain outside. The curtain was blowing softly in the breeze, a smelly breeze that let in stinky whiffs of rotten cabbages and burning plastic. She knew that burning plastic smell because once, in Wyoming, a farmer had been burning paper potato bags lined with plastic, throwing them in with wood on a big bonfire, and her mom told her that even a little bit of burning plastic was dangerous to breathe. But it was everywhere here.

  She opened her eyes wide and looked about the makeshift home. María was still asleep. Her mother was not there, nor her brother. Grace wondered how old María was. She’d asked her but María wasn’t sure. “About seven,” she guessed. But Grace thought she was younger because she wasn’t as tall as the seven-year-olds back home. She had a wide face with almost black eyes, and was darker than she was. And very pretty. María didn’t even know when her birthday was! Grace couldn’t imagine how that was possible.

  She squeezed her teddy close and gave him a morning kiss. Today, she was determined to find the school. So what if she didn’t have a uniform? She needed to talk to a teacher. Maybe the teacher would know where The Boom was. Lucho might be worried about her. Not Hell O.D though. She was probably happy. And what about her dad? Where was he? Ruth said she was working on it. But now, not even Ruth knew where she was. Where would they have breakfast? The tourist girls had invited them to dinner but Grace was hungry now, and dinner was a long time to wait.

  Outside, a motor was stopping and starting and she could hear boys shouting and laughing. She peeped outside the curtain and saw they had a piece of oily old machinery like a bit of the inside of a car. They pulled what looked like a string, stood back and waited for the engine to come alive. Whenever it did, they cheered and squealed. The rain was making puddles in the dirt. She looked down at her filthy, bloody feet.

  María woke with a start. “What’s that clatter?” she asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

  “The boys.”

  “Why are boys always so noisy?”

  “I want to go to school today,” Grace said in a strong voice.

  “Forget school, we don’t have time.”

  “I want to go to school!” Grace shouted. Before she knew it, her face was red, her eyes gushing determined tears. “I want my Mommy. I want to go to school,” she wailed stamping her bare feet.

  “You said your mom was dead.”

  “She’s alive!” Grace bellowed. “She’s in Heaven and she’s alive!”

  “We can find the priest, then,” María suggested. “He runs the school. He can talk to you about your mom.”

  “In the cardboard church?” Grace asked hopefully.

  “Yes. He comes most days. He’s Italian. People give him money and he has a school and sometimes you can get hot meals there.”

  “Why don’t you go to school, then?”

  María shrugged her shoulders. “I have to work, to give money to my mom.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” María answered. “Sometimes she forgets to come home.”

  Grace opened the curtain. The rain had stopped. She put one foot out of the shack and felt mud oozing and squidging between her toes.

  “Where are you going?” María asked.

  “To find the priest.”

  “Wait for me, silly! I’ll show you where.”

  THE CARDBOARD CHURCH was much bigger than Grace had imagined. In her mind’s eye, she’d pictured a doll’s house church, with the priest outside it, wearing a white and gold flowing robe like the Pope. She’d seen the Pope on TV. He wore a golden cross like hers, but his was a hundred times bigger and more important.

  The cardboard church wasn’t like a doll’s house at all. It was way larger than a garden shed, and it was made of white and brown cardboard, like a patchwork. It was pretty, she decided. Some bits had red writing on it with names of things—of bananas or shops—but mostly the cardboard was pale brown, made in layers like fish scales, but square. Around the church, there was patchy grass, and instead of doors to the church, there were white curtains. Not like María’s curtains—these ones were clean as if they’d just been hung up to dry. She could even smell them; they smelled of soap and sunshine. In the garden part, there was a big, black, tractor tire surrounding a deep hole. Inside, it looked like a well for water, with a metal bucket attached to a chain. There was a rusty bicycle leaning against folds of turquoise plastic tarp, clipped up against one of the walls. Half of the church had a wavy tin roof, while the other h
alf was cardboard like the walls, with plastic on top to protect it from the rain.

  The girls tiptoed up to the entrance.

  “Shush,” María said, “there’s someone inside.”

  Grace remembered Ruth reminding her, over and over, that she was Catholic now. That she must be a good girl and that, one day, when she was twelve, she could have her First Communion and wear a dress like a princess. Grace twiddled the cross around her neck and mumbled . . . “six, seven, eight” . . . how many years until she turned twelve? “Nine, ten−”

  “You’re rich,” María said, eyeing up her cross. “You have gold. You could sell that.”

  “But that would be Blast Famous.” The Blast Famous part came out in English. Grace didn’t know how to translate that word into Spanish.

  “You’re funny,” her friend said with a giggle. “You say silly things sometimes.”

  A booming voice from inside rattled the cardboard walls. Grace wondered if the building would topple over. “Hello? Who’s out there?” A big fat woman opened a curtain and stood with her legs like tree trunks, planted firmly on the scrubby lawn.

  The girls looked up. Grace noticed she was extra tall. She saw folds of fat making mountains and valleys, trapped behind a tight, white bra underneath the lady’s tight, white blouse. She had pale, foreign skin and although she spoke Spanish, she had a strange accent like karate chops.

  “We came to see the priest,” María ventured.