Hear No Evil (2 page)

She smiled and fastened her seat belt. She glanced at her watch with seeming nonchalance. It was one thirty-two. Nassau-Air Flight 217 should be taxiing down the runway now, speeding for takeoff.

Her mouth was bone dry, dry as the mouth of a skeleton. Mentally she counted to sixty while beside her the priest seemed to be silently saying his rosary. She thought,
Pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death
. She did not know how she knew these words. She was not Catholic.

She took a deep breath and stared at the inflight phone on the back of the seat before her. She opened her purse and withdrew the credit card Drace had provided. She put the card into the slot next to the phone, which released the receiver.

“You’re making a call?” the priest said, as if she were about to perform a miracle.

“I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to my brother,” she said. “He’ll be surprised when I phone from here.”

“Will wonders never cease?” the priest marveled and watched with interest as she punched in the number she had memorized. For a split second, she wondered if she wanted the plan to work.

Yes
, she thought.
Let it work. Let it work
. She listened and waited.

The leather duffel bag should be aboard the Nassau-Air
flight now, and the small plane should be airborne, just barely. Within the duffel bag was a brand-new cellular phone, a blasting cap wired to its ringer terminals.

When the cellular phone rang, the voltage to the terminals would set off the cap and detonate an explosive charge powerful enough to blow Flight 217 to bits, turning it into a giant peony of flame.

If everything went as planned, she would hear only silence from the phone. No ring, only silence.

There was no ring at the other end of the phone.

The priest watched her with interest. In her mind, she heard a ghostly echo, as if from a detonation far away. She wondered if she would hear this echo for the rest of her life.

Her hand steady, she put the phone back in place.

“Nobody home?” the priest asked.

“Nobody home,” she said and smiled. She leaned back in her seat.

Now I’ve murdered
, she thought numbly.

She imagined calling Drace from a pay phone in Dallas, although such a thing was forbidden to her.
How many did I kill?
she would ask him if she could.

She imagined him saying,
Everybody. All of them
. But it was, she told herself, only a small plane. A very small plane, after all.

She felt oddly detached. Her head buzzed.
I am damned
, she thought.
La, la, la
.

She opened the copy of
Vogue
.

Eden Storey was a tall, slender woman of thirty-three who had an unusual, but highly marketable, talent.

She had a skilled, versatile voice that could make her sound like a crone, a seductress, an ingenue, or a child.
Although neither her name nor face were famous, most of the public had heard her voice—on radio, television, children’s recordings, even in films.

She worked steadily and loved her small town house on the edge of Brentwood. Her life was simple, uncluttered, and it satisfied her.

Today bright California sunshine fell through the glass patio doors of her living room, but Eden didn’t notice. She was lost in imaginary snow.

She sat curled up barefoot on her couch. Loose pages of the script and sheet music of
The Snow Queen
lay scattered around her. Frowning in concentration, she pored over the lyrics of “Song of the Northern Lights.”

The animation artists would endow the heroine, Gretta, with a face and body; they would draw her fantastical adventures. But it was Eden who would give her a voice.

Gathering up the scattered pages, she rose from the couch. The sunlight glittered on her short brown hair, which was streaked with gold. Her face was too thin for true beauty, but it was an arresting face, full of character. Her eyebrows had an arch that gave her a natural air of skeptical amusement.

She wore faded jeans and a simple shirt of white cotton. Her only jewelry was a pair of diamond ear studs that she had bought for herself.

She tried a few scales, glad that no one was home in the town house next door; she could sing as much and as loudly as she liked. In a voice that she made innocent yet yearning, she began Gretta’s theme song:

The telephone’s discordant ring struck through the melody like a knife, stabbing once, then twice.

She tucked the script under her arm and picked up the receiver. She was certain the caller was her friend Sandy Fogleman, phoning to tell how her audition had gone. Sandy had promised to call at noon, and it was six minutes past.

“Hi,” Eden said cheerfully. “How’d it go?”

To her surprise a man replied, a man with a distinctly Southwestern accent.

He said, “Miss Storey, you probably don’t remember me. This is Owen Charteris from Endor, Arkansas.”

Owen Charteris
. She stiffened. The name jogged unpleasant memories. Years ago, in what now seemed like another universe, he’d been a figure of dazzling privilege to her, a handsome golden boy from a very “good” family—unlike hers. Why in God’s name would he call her?

Charteris said, “I’m calling about your grandmother.”

Eden’s thoughts skidded into a wild spin.
My grandmother? What’s he got to do with my grandmother?

“I’m sorry,” Charteris said. “She’s had an accident. A fall. She’s in the hospital. Here in Endor.”

Shock flooded her in an icy wave. “An accident? How—bad?”

Once again Charteris said he was sorry, but no emotion seemed to touch his cool drawl. “She has a broken leg and some cuts. She fell down her front stairs, it was a kind of fainting spell. Brought on by your sister. Nobody knows exactly where your sister is—”

He paused. Numbed, Eden stared at the sunshine merrily spilling its gold across the white carpet.

Why was he talking about Mimi? Of course, nobody
knew exactly where Mimi was. Nobody had known for years.

Eden communicated little with her grandmother and not at all with Mimi. Yet the thought of Jessie’s accident shocked and bewildered her. Jessie had always seemed immortal to Eden, as indestructible and permanently set in place as the Great Wall of China.

“We need to find your sister,” said Owen Charteris. “It’s imperative.”

My God
, Eden thought,
Jessie’s hurt so bad she’s dying, and they want to get in touch with Mimi. Oh, God. Oh, God
.

“I—I don’t know what to say,” Eden stammered. “The last I heard she was in Michigan. But she and my grandmother—”

She couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t want to tell Owen Charteris about Mimi’s everlasting broken promises and how they had split the family.

“Miss Storey?” he said. “Are you all right?”

Eden closed her eyes, rubbed her hand across the lids. Tension throbbed in her temples, and her body was tight with conflict.

“Is Jessie dying?” she asked. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“No. Not at all. Her condition is good.”

Eden caught her breath and held it, her emotions too complex to sort.

Charteris rode on over her silence, and vaguely she realized she disliked his voice. It was too calm. “Your grandmother wants you to please come home,” he said. “Those are her own words. She said she needs you.”

Eden’s defenses, already unsteady, faltered and fell like the stones of a breached wall.

Jessie was frustrating, often impossible, and so proud
she was contemptuous of help. For Jessie to say “Please come home” was as unlikely as the sun rising out of the west.

“She actually said that?” Eden asked. “That she needed me? She
said
that?”

“I went to the hospital with her. We’re neighbors, Jessie and I. You might say I’m her landlord.”

Eden pressed her fingertips against the drumming pulse in her temple. Charteris was Jessie’s landlord? Since when? Jessie had never told her this.

“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” Eden said, dashing away her tears with the back of her hand. “I’ll have to rent a car, mine’s in the shop. But if I start this afternoon, I can drive it in—”

“Don’t take the time to drive. Fly. The quicker you’re here, the better.”

Damn!
Eden thought in sorrow and guilt. She hated flying. But Jessie wanted her and Jessie needed her, and it was the least that Eden could do.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll get the first flight out. I’ll rent a car there. I need to tell my director, my agent—rehearsals start in two weeks …”

She pressed her lips together, forcing herself to be silent. She’d been babbling, thinking aloud.

“I’ll pick you up when you get here,” the Charteris man said firmly, as if he were used to taking charge of things. “Call me when you know your flight. Have you got a pencil? Take my number.”

Dutifully she obeyed, too dazed to resist. She felt as stunned as if someone had struck her on the head with a brick.

“The sooner you’re here the better,” Charteris told her. “There’s the child to think of.”

A dark cloud of apprehension rose in Eden’s mind.
“Child?” she said, knowing she sounded stupid. “What child?”

For an instant he didn’t reply, as if her question surprised him. “Your sister’s daughter,” he said. “Her six-year-old. Peyton.”

Child?
Eden thought in disbelief.
Child?

“A child? Why does Jessie have her?”

“Mimi’s child,” he said coolly. “She sent her to Jessie. Today. We don’t know why.”

Oh, Jesus, Mimi, what have you gone and done this time?

“Sent her? I don’t understand.”

“We don’t, either. Maybe I’ll know more by the time you get here.”

“This child—where is she?”

“I’ve got her,” Charteris said. “My sister’s helping me, but she can’t stay past tomorrow morning. The sooner you get here, the better for the kid. She’s shaken by all this. She doesn’t understand, either.”

“Of course,” Eden said mechanically. But she felt as if a second brick had struck her. She’d known nothing about a child—nothing. Had Jessie known? If she had, for God’s sake, why hadn’t she told Eden?

She didn’t realize she’d let the script of
The Snow Queen
slip from her fingers. The pages lay in a drift of white about her as if she stood barefoot in an icy drift of snow.

“Call me as soon as you know your flight number,” the man ordered.

“Certainly,” Eden said. She hung up, too stunned to say good-bye or thank you.

“A child,” she muttered to herself in disbelief. “Mimi has a child.”

•  •  •

Owen Charteris hung up the hospital pay phone.

With a sigh, he sagged against the wall and tiredly rubbed his knuckles across his jaw. He was a tall, lean man of forty with prematurely gray hair and ice-blue eyes.

Nightmares of Laurie had wakened him shortly after midnight last night; he hadn’t gone back to sleep. He’d stayed up, drinking black coffee and gazing into the rainy darkness.

Now he glanced at his watch and set his jaw. He leaned back his head and stared at the sterile white ceiling of the hallway. Under his breath, he cursed.

Three years ago to the day, almost to the very hour, his wife had died in this hospital. Three years ago, shortly after two in the afternoon, Laurie Anne Charteris had been pronounced dead.

Now by some obscene coincidence, he was here again, where she had slipped away from him forever. Christ, he was tired of death.

At least tough old Jessie Buddress was going to make it. It would take more than a broken leg and mere bruises and contusions to stop the life force that was Jessie.

Her prodigal granddaughter Mimi was another matter; wherever the hell Mimi was, she was probably in trouble.

The woman who’d brought the child, Peyton, to Jessie’s house had been tight-lipped to the point of rudeness. She’d handed Jessie an envelope in which there was a one-sentence note from Mimi: “Please take care of my baby.”

There was also a copy of Peyton Storey’s birth certificate. Her birthplace was Holland, Michigan. Her father was listed as “Unknown,” and the kid herself was stubbornly not talking. She seemed afraid.

Where in hell had Mimi been for the last seven years? And what in hell had she been up to? He’d asked the police to work on it, but they had no zeal for it; it was not a high-priority case.

In the meantime, he was stuck with Mimi’s bastard kid. Back at Jessie’s place, his sister was holding the fort, taking care of her. Thank God Shannon had been in town, thank God she could stay for at least one night, and thank God she, not he, was dealing with the kid.

Owen couldn’t help himself; he avoided children, and from the start he hadn’t been able to take to this one. With her ageless eyes and unsmiling expression, she reminded him of some hobgoblin child out of a Stephen King novel.

The first time he had seen her was late this morning. He’d been walking the dog past Jessie’s house, when, frantic, Jessie had called him in, and there, inside, was the source of her dismay—the kid.

The kid had a thick mop of black hair and oversized hoop earrings of fake gold. She’d given him a long, somber, dark-eyed stare. Without taking her thumb from her mouth, she announced, “Your dog is dying.”

Owen had felt his lip curl in distaste. He didn’t answer her, but he’d looked down at the old dog. It had been Laurie’s when they married, only a pup then.

During Laurie’s final illness, she worried obsessively about the dog. Owen had promised her he’d always take care of it. But the dog was sixteen years old now and dying of old age: instinctively the kid had known.

The child’s innocently cruel words echoed in his ears: “Your dog is dying.”

Yeah, kid. Right. Go to hell
. If the child hadn’t been connected to Jessie, he never would have volunteered to watch over her. As much as he despised the hospital, he
found himself strangely reluctant to go back to Jessie’s house, his sister, and the child.

He shoved himself away from the wall and strode down the hall to Jessie’s room. The old woman thought that the stranger who’d dropped Peyton off had Missouri plates on her car; she had been rattled, but she was observant as hell.