by Savage, Tom
It was all going to be absolutely perfect.
Holly replaced the receiver on the phone in the living room and waited several minutes, undecided. She had just told Mrs. Newman that she would not be back to work at Explorers Travel Agency, that “unforeseen circumstances” were keeping her in New York indefinitely. Mrs. Newman had been very nice about it, assuring her that her job was always there if she wanted it again. Then she’d put Holly’s fellow agent and roommate, Rhonda, on the line, and Holly had said good-bye to her, adding that she’d send her half of the rent every month. She hadn’t told either woman about the Randalls.
Her hand still rested on the receiver, but she didn’t pick it up. The next call would be to Mary Smith, and she wasn’t sure what she was going to tell her adoptive mother. It was odd, really. She’d been in New York for fewer than seventy-two hours, and she had yet to arrive at the house she would have to reside in for at least one year. But she was already beginning to think of Indio and the Smiths as her former life.
She looked at her watch: one o’clock. Missy had left a few minutes ago, right after lunch. Kevin Jessel would be here in one hour to take her to Randall.
It was ten o’clock in California. Mrs. Newman and Rhonda had just opened for the day when Holly called them. Mary Smith would just now be opening Smith/Pierce Interiors, her shop in downtown Indio. Bracing herself, Holly picked up the receiver and dialed, trying to form coherent phrases in her mind.
Mary answered on the first ring. “Smith/Pierce Interiors. May I help you?”
It was the clear, cheerful voice of the woman Holly had always thought of as her mother. The familiar, soothing voice she’d heard every day of her life. Good morning, dear. Good night, darling. I love you, Holly …
“Hello, Smith/Pierce Interiors,” the voice, now tentative, questioning, repeated into the silence.
Holly opened her mouth to reply, but no sound would come. In a sudden, overwhelming instant, she realized that she was unable to speak.
“Hello? Hello?”
Tears arrived in her eyes, burning them, blurring her vision as she pressed the receiver to her ear, drinking in the sound of the voice on the other end of the line.
“Hello …?”
Before she was aware of what she was doing, Holly slammed down the receiver. She sat there in the living room on Central Park South, twenty-seven hundred miles from Mary Smith. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand as she wept, waiting for her vision to clear, filled with an acute sense of sadness, of loss. She had not expected to feel homesick for Indio, yet here it unaccountably was.
She imagined Mary shaking her head in mild annoyance as she hung up, assuming that someone had dialed the wrong number. Then she would return her attention to her work. Later today, in some quiet moment, she would think about Holly, her daughter who was on vacation in New York, and wonder whether or not she would be home in time for Thanksgiving.
Holly drew in a deep breath and stood up from the couch. She would go into the kitchen and ask Mrs. Wells to have someone come up for the luggage. She would go to Connecticut, meet these people, see how she felt about it all. And sometime in the next few days, when she was settled in at Randall House, she would decide on the best way to tell her nice, loving, respectable, middle-class parents that their daughter was the daughter of a murderer, and that she was now one of the richest women in America.
The meeting took place at a roadside diner outside a town several miles north of Randall. The time, three o’clock, had been carefully chosen, an hour when the place would be fairly empty. He was wearing faded jeans, an old sweater, a black pea coat from his college days, and a blue stocking cap. He even wore dark sunglasses, which he did not remove during the interview. A casual observer would assume he was a truck driver or a local fisherman. John Randall didn’t want to be recognized, and he didn’t like taking chances.
He laughed at that thought as he parked the Honda Accord, the Randall staff car he’d chosen over his own Mercedes, next to a red Infiniti in the diner’s lot and went inside. If I didn’t take chances, he mused, I wouldn’t be here. But here he was.
And there the man was. John had never seen him before, did not even know his name, but he decided immediately that the man in the leather jacket must be the one. For one thing, he was the only person sitting alone in the room. There were two big, burly men at the counter, probably from the eighteen-wheeler outside, flirting with one of the two pink-uniformed waitresses. Four teenage girls, just out of class for the day, whispered and giggled together at a table in the center of the room. None of these people so much as glanced over at John as he made his way to the booth in the farthest corner where the man was waiting. As he arrived there, the man looked up from his coffee.
“You John?” A hoarse, gravelly voice, the accent straight from the meanest streets of Brooklyn.
John nodded silently and slid onto the banquette across from him.
“Ed,” the man said. He made no move to shake hands.
John nodded again, studying him as discreetly as possible while the waitress took his order for coffee. A medium-sized man with curly brown hair and dark, heavy-lidded eyes. A solid build under an angular face, the slightly crooked nose its only remarkable feature. Well, that and the dark eyes: they looked directly at you, frank, appraising. There was no warmth in them. The nose had been broken, probably more than once, and the oversized knuckles on his thick fingers had been put to frequent use. A plain gold wedding band and an expensive-looking watch were his only accessories. He was somewhere around forty, as nearly as John could guess. An ordinary-looking man who was anything but ordinary: strong, cold, capable, and obviously dangerous.
In his travels, John had become friendly with a lot of interesting people, not all of them on the right side of the law. One such acquaintance was J. T. Benson, a dedicated gambler he’d first met several years ago at a table in Vegas. J.T. was an importer/exporter, the extent of whose inventory had never been made very clear. He and his wife were amusing, adventurous types, and John had liked them immediately. He’d taken them on gambling junkets to Nassau and Jamaica and Puerto Rico on the Emily, the Randall yacht, and he’d been their house-guest on several occasions, in several houses. They’d even flown to Paris for his wedding two years ago.
Recently, when it was confirmed that Holly Smith had been located and was definitely going to arrive at Randall House, John had called J.T. Without going into any details, he’d told his friend that he was looking for a certain type of person for a certain type of job. He’d figured J.T. might know someone who knew someone, and he’d figured correctly. J.T. had asked no questions, but he’d arranged today’s meeting.
The waitress placed coffee before him and refilled the other man’s cup. As soon as she was gone, Ed leaned forward.
“So,” he said, “what can I do for you?”
Money, John thought as he looked into the cold eyes of the man before him. This is going to cost a lot of money. Then again, if all goes well, money will not be a problem. I don’t know this man, and J.T. has probably never met him, either. He’s a friend of a friend of a friend. He can’t be traced to me, whatever happens. He’s perfect.
John looked at his watch—three-ten. He had to get back to Randall House and change clothes, to be ready to greet Holly on the doorstep at four o’clock. With a quick glance around the diner, he also leaned forward. The two men’s faces were now mere inches apart.
“I have a problem, Ed,” John said, “and you may be able to help me with it.”
The man, whose name was probably not Ed, didn’t even blink. This was obviously what he did for a living.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Keeping his voice low, barely more than a whisper, John began to talk.
Holly didn’t help herself to wine from the little bar this time. She sat very still on the plush backseat, her gloved hands folded primly in her lap, and braced herself for whatever she would find at her journey’s end.
At
least she was now suitably dressed for the occasion. She was wearing a blue, green, and gray diamond-patterned sweater, a gray midi-length wool skirt, and boots. The beautiful white wool coat was over all this. She was grateful for the new wardrobe, for the confidence it instilled in her. Most of the luggage had gone into the car’s big trunk, and the rest was on the front seat beside Kevin Jessel. She would need every bit of what she’d bought, and more.
One year. She would have to spend one year at Randall House. Mr. Henderson—Gil—had told her as much on the phone in one of their conversations in the last three months, but it hadn’t really registered, become real to her, until he had repeated it in his office the other day. A whole year in this strange new place with—with …
With whom? she wondered. With Uncle John, apparently the black sheep of the Randall family, who could hardly be blamed for resenting her. And with Catherine Randall, his wife, the unknown quantity; the mystery woman Missy MacGraw had seen only a couple of times and Gil Henderson had met only once. What would she be like?
There would be others there, too, at Randall House. Friends and allies, like Missy and this handsome man driving the car, Kevin Jessel.
Kevin Jessel. He would be there for a while, at least, or so he’d said when she’d asked him. His parents were the housekeeper and the chauffeur, and Holly was certain that they would be nice, too, just as nice as their son seemed to be. Mrs. Wells had told her about the butler, Mr. Wheatley, and a cook and two gardeners and several maids. She would make a project of learning everyone’s names.
Hell, she thought, I’ll have to get used to all these people being around all the time. Waiting on me, cleaning and cooking for me, tending to and anticipating my every need. That’s what I’ll have to get used to.
She was determined to do just that.
Kevin steered the car off of the turnpike and onto a smaller road that wound through a snowy, wooded landscape. We’re nearing our destination, Holly reasoned. The car had crossed the border into Connecticut ten minutes ago, and she knew that Randall was close to it.
Even as she thought this, she saw the little carved wood sign looming up on the right side of the car: WELCOME TO RANDALL, CONNECTICUT. The sign glided by, and now there were buildings on both sides of the road.
She stared out through the windows, delighted. It was as if the car had gone through a rift in the time-space continuum and been deposited in a turn-of-the-century New England village. First there were houses with picket fences and immaculate little yards and pretty, latticework-edged porches. Then came the shops and stores of Main Street. A little redbrick public library beside a big white clapboard building with three blue and white police sedans parked in a neat row before it. Two pretty little churches across the street from each other, one Catholic and one Methodist. A tiny movie theater with an old-fashioned, plastic-letter marquee. Rows of lovely storefront display windows: stationer, drugstore, barbershop, beauty parlor, antique shop, dress shop. An ice cream parlor beside—could it be?—Stahl’s Grain and Feed. A diner and an Italian restaurant. There was even a town square surrounding a charming little park with a bandstand. A columned, gleaming white Town Hall and courthouse with an American flag flying before it. Down the side streets on the right she glimpsed clusters of small boats in the gray water of a little bay that she imagined would be blue and sparkling in the summer.
“This is beautiful!” Holly cried.
Kevin glanced over his shoulder and grinned. The glass partition between them slowly lowered.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he promised.
And he was right. They passed through the picture-postcard village and went on through snowy forest for another half mile. Suddenly, through the trees ahead, she saw more water and cloudy gray sky in the distance. Huge wrought iron gates rose up on their left, flanked by high stone walls. The limousine slowed and turned in through the open gates. There was a big metal plaque set into the wall to the right of the gates, announcing that this was RANDALL HOUSE.
Kevin pointed to the little, two-story stone building with leaded glass windows just inside the gates. “My house.”
She smiled. “Very pretty.”
As she looked out at Kevin’s home she noticed something, a slight movement at one of the small upper windows. A white lace curtain was pushed aside, and a face nearly as pale as the lace peered down at them. Holly had a brief impression of two big dark eyes in the face, a woman’s face, watching the car as it went by. Then the pale face disappeared, and the curtain fell back in place.
There were two long buildings on her immediate left beside the drive. As they passed the second building, she looked in through an open door and saw a beautiful white horse. A burly, bearded man was brushing the animal, watched by a blond teenage boy and a German shepherd. Everyone turned to stare at the limousine as it passed, including the horse and the dog. The burly man grinned and waved. Holly waved back.
“Stable and garage,” Kevin said.
Then the drive ascended slightly and curved through a grove of trees toward the Sound. The trees ended abruptly, giving way to wide lawns on either hand. And there it was.
Randall House.
It was on her left across a vast expanse of lawn, framed by trees and the hazy blue hills in the distance. A massive, graceful three-story mansion with ivy-covered white walls, tall columns, chimneys, and at the top, like a crown, a wrought iron-railed widow’s walk. Two identical wings sprawled out at its sides from the slightly higher, forward-thrusting center section. It stood on the promontory facing the water, which was now on her right, its rows of windows reflecting the winter sky. The car glided around the wide curve of the hill, and they were directly approaching the building.
As they drew nearer, Holly could see the people standing by the steps in front of the columns that flanked the big front door. A handsome blond man and a lovely dark-haired woman stood together just in front of the door, waving as the car approached them. At the base of the steps stood another dark-haired woman, this one clad all in black. An elderly African-American man in a formal black suit stood at attention next to her, and beside him was a heavyset Hispanic woman in a cook’s white dress and apron. Three women and two men stood in a row beyond the cook, the women in black dresses with white aprons and the men in work clothes. Ten people in all, watching as the car came around the drive toward them.
“Looks like everybody’s here,” Kevin said as he slowed to a stop. “Except Da, of course. He’s still not up and about. He sends his regrets.”
When Holly looked back on the scene later, she remembered that the snow had begun to fall again just as Kevin ran around the car and opened the door for her. She remembered reaching up and pulling the fleece-lined hood of her coat over her head, aware of the fact that her gloved hands were trembling uncontrollably, though not from the cold. And she remembered the warm smile on Kevin Jessel’s ruggedly handsome face as he reached in to help her out of the car. It was that smile that got her through the following moments.
The beautiful dark-haired woman remained by the front door, but the tall, handsome blond man bounded down the steps to the drive. He was grinning, and his eyes—the same pale, clear blue as her own—twinkled as he held out his hands.
“You could only be Holly,” he said as he clasped her gloved hands in his own. “I’m your uncle, John. Welcome to Randall House.” He leaned forward and brushed her cheek lightly with his lips.
“How—how do you do?” Holly whispered, trying with all her might to smile. But the smile never arrived: she stared blankly at him, and around at the others. She struggled with her sudden, overwhelming nervousness as the man took her gently by the arm and led her to the end of the row of servants.
Then came the introductions. As Uncle John presented each person, he or she stepped forward from the line. The cook and the maids curtsied, and the two workmen bobbed their heads and grinned. Mrs. Ramirez, Martha, Frieda, Grace, Zeke, Dave. The butler, Mr. Wheatley, actually shook her hand and bade her we
lcome in a thick, mellifluous West Indian accent. Last came the imposingly serious, dark-haired woman in the long, rather old-fashioned black dress. As Holly arrived before her, Kevin stepped forward.
“Ms. Randall, Mrs. Jessel,” he said, grinning. “Mother, this is Holly.”
Kevin’s mother glanced over at him, and Holly could see from her expression that she did not approve of his using their employer’s Christian name. Then the woman turned her attention back to her new mistress, and Holly was pleasantly surprised when she actually smiled.
“Welcome to Randall House,” Mrs. Jessel said. “I hope you will be very happy here.”
At last Holly was able to summon a smile to her own lips. “Thank you, Mrs. Jessel, I’m sure I will. Your son has done a wonderful job filling in for his father. Please tell Mr. Jessel I hope he’s feeling better soon.”
The woman’s dark eyes widened in astonishment. Then she melted. She smiled again, and reached out to take Holly’s offered hand. “Thank you, Ms. Randall. I will.”
Holly knew without looking that Kevin was grinning his approval at her, just as she knew that she had passed some sort of test and made a friend of his mother. The woman was positively beaming. Holly relaxed a little as she smiled around at everyone.
Then Uncle John took Holly’s arm again and led her up the steps to the woman who stood smiling in the doorway.
“Catherine, may I present Holly Randall?” he said.
Holly smiled at the woman, forming a polite greeting in her mind, but whatever she was about to say went forever unspoken. With a little moan of joy, the woman stepped forward and took Holly into her arms.
“Oh, my darling!” she whispered into Holly’s ear. “Welcome! I’m so glad to meet you, at last.” She kissed Holly’s cheek, as her husband had done, and when she pulled back, Holly was surprised to see that there were tears in her eyes.
“Hello, Aunt Catherine” was all Holly could think to say.
“You must call me Cathy,” the woman said, “and I shall call you Holly. Now, let us show you your new home.” She reached out to take Holly’s hand.