I'll Be Seeing You (7 page)

Dr. Manning had called an unexpected lunchtime staff meeting. Unconsciously, Marge riffled her fingers through short blond hair. Dr. Manning had told them that PCD Channel 3 was going to do a television special on the clinic and tie it in with the impending birth of Jonathan Anderson's identical twin. He asked that all cooperation be given to Meghan Collins, respecting of course the pri
vacy of the clients. Only those clients who agreed in writing would be interviewed.

Marge hoped that she'd get to appear in the special. Her boys would get such a kick out of it.

To the right of her desk were the offices for senior staff. The door leading to those offices opened and one of the new secretaries came out, her step brisk. She paused at Marge's desk long enough to whisper, “Something's up. Dr. Petrovic just came out of Manning's office. She's very upset, and when I went in, he looked as though he was about to have a heart attack.”

“What do you think is going on?” Marge asked.

“I don't know, but she's cleaning out her desk. I wonder if she quit—or was fired?”

“I can't imagine her choosing to leave this place,” Marge said in disbelief. “That lab is her whole life.”

On Monday evening, when Meghan picked up her car, Bernie had said, “See you tomorrow, Meghan.”

She had told him that she wouldn't be around the office for a while, that she would be on special assignment in Connecticut. Saying that to Bernie had been easy, but as she drove home, she wrestled with the problem of how to explain to her mother that she'd been switched from the news team after just getting the job.

She'd simply have to say that the station wanted the feature to be completed quickly because of the impending birth of the Anderson baby. Mom's upset enough without having to worry that I might have been an intended murder victim, Meghan thought, and she'd be a wreck if she knew about the slip of paper with Dad's writing.

She exited Interstate 84 onto Route 7. Some trees still had leaves, although the vivid colors of mid-October had faded. Fall had always been her favorite season, she reflected. But not this year.

A part of her brain, the legal part, the portion that separated emotion from evidence, insisted that she begin to consider all the reasons why that paper with her name
and phone number could have been in the dead woman's pocket. It's not disloyal to examine all the possibilities, she reminded herself fiercely. A good defense lawyer must always see the case through the prosecutor's eyes as well.

Her mother had gone through all the papers that were in the wall safe at home. But she knew her mother had not examined the contents of the desk in her father's study. It was time to do that.

She hoped she had taken care of everything at the newsroom. Before she left, Meg made a list of her ongoing assignments for Bill Evans, her counterpart from the Chicago affiliate, who would sub for her on the news team while the murder investigation was going on.

Her appointment with Dr. Manning was set for tomorrow at eleven o'clock. She'd asked him if she could go through an initial information and counseling session as though she were a new client. During a sleepless night, something else had occurred to her. It would be a nice touch to get some tape on Jonathan Anderson helping his mother prepare for the baby. She wondered if the Andersons had any home videos of Jonathan as a newborn.

When she reached home, the house was empty. That had to mean her mother was at the inn. Good, Meghan thought. It's the best place for her. She lugged in the fax machine they'd lent her at the office. She'd hook it up to the second line in her father's study. At least I won't be awakened by crazy, middle-of-the-night messages, she thought as she closed and locked the door and began switching on lights against the rapidly approaching darkness.

Meghan sighed unconsciously as she walked around the house. She'd always loved this place. The rooms weren't large. Her mother's favorite complaint was that old farmhouses always looked bigger on the outside than they actually were. “This place is an optical illusion,” she would lament. But in Meghan's eyes there was great
charm in the intimacy of the rooms. She liked the feel of the slightly uneven floor with its wide boards, the look of the fireplaces and the French doors and the built-in corner cupboards of the dining room. In her eyes they were the perfect setting for the antique maple furniture with its lovely warm patina, the deep comfortable upholstery, the colorful hand-hooked rugs.

Dad was away so much, she thought as she opened the door of his study, a room that she and her mother had avoided since the night of the bridge accident. But you always knew he was coming back, and he was so much fun.

She snapped on the desk lamp and sat in the swivel chair. This room was the smallest on the first floor. The fireplace was flanked by bookshelves. Her father's favorite chair, maroon leather with a matching ottoman, had a standing lamp on one side and a piecrust table on the other.

The table as well as the mantel held clusters of family pictures: her mother and father's wedding portrait; Meghan as a baby; the three of them as she grew up; old Pat, bursting with pride in front of the Drumdoe Inn. The record of a happy family, Meghan thought, looking from one to another of a group of framed snapshots.

She picked up the picture of her father's mother, Aurelia. Taken in the early thirties when she was twenty-four, it showed clearly that she had been a beautiful woman. Thick wavy hair, large expressive eyes, oval face, slender neck, sable skins over her suit. Her expression was the dreamy posed look that photographers of that day preferred. “I had the prettiest mother in Pennsylvania,” her father would say, then add, “and now I have the prettiest daughter in Connecticut. You look like her.” His mother had died when he was a baby.

Meghan did not remember ever having seen a picture of Richard Collins. “We never got along,” her father had told her tersely. “The less I saw of him, the better.”

The phone rang. It was Virginia Murphy, her mother's
right-hand at the inn. “Catherine wanted me to see if you were home and if you wanted to come over for dinner.”

“How is she, Virginia?” Meghan asked.

“She's always good when she's here, and we have a lot of reservations tonight. Mr. Carter is coming at seven. He wants your mother to join him.”

Hmm, Meghan thought. She'd always suspected that Phillip Carter was developing a warm spot in his heart for Catherine Collins. “Will you tell Mom that I have an interview in Kent tomorrow and need to do a lot of research for it? I'll fix something here.”

When she hung up, she resolutely got out her briefcase and pulled from it all the newspaper and magazine human interest stories on in vitro fertilization a researcher at the station had assembled for her. She frowned when she found several cases where a clinic was sued because tests showed the woman's husband was not the biological father of the child. “That is a pretty serious mistake to make,” she said aloud, and decided that it was an angle that should be touched on in one segment of the feature.

At eight o'clock she made a sandwich and a pot of tea and carried them back to the study. She ate while she tried to absorb the technical material Mac had given her. It was, she decided, a crash course in assisted reproductive procedures.

The click of the lock a little after ten meant that her mother was home. She called, “Hi, I'm in here.”

Catherine Collins hurried into the room. “Meggie, you're all right?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Just now when I was coming up the driveway I got the queerest feeling about you, that something was wrong—almost like a premonition.”

Meghan forced a chuckle, got up swiftly and hugged her mother. “There
was
something wrong,” she said. “I've been trying to absorb the mysteries of DNA, and believe me, it's tough, I now know why Sister Elizabeth told me I had no head for science.”

She was relieved to see the tension ease from her mother's face.

Helene Petrovic swallowed nervously as she packed the last of her suitcases at midnight. She left out only her toiletries and the clothes she would wear in the morning. She was frantic to be finished with it all. She had become so jumpy lately. The strain had become too much, she decided. It was time to put an end to it.

She lifted the suitcase from the bed and placed it next to the others. From the foyer, the faint click of a turning lock reached her ears. She jammed her hand against her mouth to muffle a scream. He wasn't supposed to come tonight. She turned around to face him.

“Helene?” His voice was polite. “Weren't you planning to say goodbye?”

“I . . . I was going to write you.”

“That won't be necessary now.”

With his right hand, he reached into his pocket. She saw the glint of metal. Then he picked up one of the bed pillows and held it in front of him. Helene did not have time to try to escape. Searing pain exploded through her head. The future that she had planned so carefully disappeared with her into the blackness.

At four A.M. the ringing of the phone tore Meghan from sleep. She fumbled for the receiver.

A barely discernible, hoarse voice whispered, “Meg.”

“Who is this?” She heard a click and knew her mother was picking up the extension.

“It's Daddy, Meg. I'm in trouble. I did something terrible.”

A strangled moan made Meg fling down the receiver and rush into her mother's room. Catherine Collins was slumped on the pillow, her face ashen, her eyes closed.
Meg grasped her arms. “Mom, it's some sick, crazy fool,” she said urgently. “Mom!”

Her mother was unconscious.

A
t seven-thirty Tuesday morning, Mac watched his lively son leap onto the school bus. Then he got in his car for the drive to Westport. There was a nippy bite in the air, and his glasses were fogging over. He took them off, gave them a quick rub and automatically wished that he were one of the happy contact lens wearers whose smiling faces reproached him from poster-sized ads whenever he went to have his glasses adjusted or replaced.

As he drove around the bend in the road he was astonished to see Meg's white Mustang about to turn into her driveway. He tapped the horn and she braked.

He pulled up beside her. In unison they lowered their windows. His cheerful, “What are you up to?” died on his lips as he got a good look at Meghan. Her face was strained and pale, her hair disheveled, a striped pajama top visible between the lapels of her raincoat. “Meg, what's wrong?” he demanded.

“My mother's in the hospital,” she said tonelessly.

A car was coming up behind her. “Go ahead,” he said. “I'll follow you.”

In the driveway, he hurried to open the car door for Meg. She seemed dazed. How bad is Catherine? he thought, worried. On the porch, he took Meg's house key from her hand. “Here, let me do that.”

In the foyer, he put his hands on her shoulders. “Tell me.”

“They thought at first she'd had a heart attack. Fortunately they were wrong, but there is a chance that she's building up to one. She's on medication to head it off. She'll be in the hospital for at least a week. They asked—get this—had she been under any stress?” An uncertain laugh became a stifled sob. She swallowed and pulled back. “I'm okay, Mac. The tests showed no heart damage as of now. She's exhausted, heartsick, worried. Rest and some sedatives are what she needs.”

“I agree. Wouldn't hurt you either. Come on. You could use a cup of coffee.”

She followed him into the kitchen. “I'll make it.”

“Sit down. Don't you want to take your coat off?”

“I'm still cold.” She attempted a smile. “How can you go out on a day like this without a coat?”

Mac glanced down at his gray tweed jacket. “My top-coat has a loose button. I can't find my sewing kit.”

When the coffee was ready, he poured them each a cup and sat opposite her at the table. “I suppose with Catherine in the hospital you'll come here to sleep for a while.”

“I was going to anyhow.” Quietly she told him all that had been happening: about the victim who resembled her, the note that had been found in the victim's pocket, the middle-of-the-night fax. “And so,” she explained, “the station wants me off the firing line for the time being, and my boss gave me the Manning Clinic assignment. And then early this morning the phone rang and . . .” She told him about the call and her mother's collapse.

Mac hoped the shock he was feeling did not show in his face. Granted, Kyle had been with them Sunday night at dinner. She might not have wanted to say anything in front of him. Even so, Meg had not even hinted that less than three days earlier she had seen a murdered woman who might have died in her place. Likewise, she had not chosen to confide in Mac about the decision of the insurers.

From the time she was ten years old and he was a
college sophomore working summers at the inn, he'd been the willing confidante of her secrets, everything from how much she missed her father when he was away, to how much she hated practicing the piano.