Stonebrook Cottage (12 page)

Seven

K
ara rented a car in Boston and put Lillian up front, Henry in the back, but neither said much on the trip to Connecticut. They were west of Hartford now, off the interstate, driving along a shaded, scenic road. Lillian had just finished reading the first of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books for what she claimed was the seventh time and now was staring out her window, preoccupied.

"What's on your mind?" Kara asked her.

"Will Henry and I have to go to reform school?"

Henry, who Kara would have guessed wasn't paying attention, shot as far forward as he could in his seat belt. "We didn't run away, Lil. We did what Mom asked us to do. Reform school's for delinquents."

And prison, Kara thought, was for people who stole planes and guns and misled Texas Rangers, then gave them the slip with the missing kids of a governor. And that was only a slight exaggeration. She wondered how much of a head start she had on Sam and her brother.

Probably not much if Susanna talked. She must have found out about the plane and the gun by now.

"I wouldn't be worrying about reform school right now," Kara said. "Let's just get to the cottage."

It was early evening, comfortably warm and slightly humid in Connecticut. The farther from Texas Kara got, the crazier her actions of last night and this morning seemed to her. She'd let Henry and Lillian's fear and desperation affect her judgment, feed her own anxiety. She was calmer now. She would follow the instructions in the letter and get them to Stonebrook Cottage and their mother. If she pissed off a couple of Texas Rangers in the process, so be it.

The kids were calmer, too, their spirits improved now that she'd demonstrated she was unquestionably on their side and had stopped trying to poke holes in their story and pepper them with questions. What was the point? Their mother could deal with what they'd done and why, figure out if something serious was wrong or they simply needed help coping with Big Mike's death.

The city and suburbs of the state capital had given way to rolling farmlands, then to the wooded hills and small towns of the northwest corner of the state. The air cooled. They passed houses with green lawns and gardens at their peak, hollyhocks and corn standing tall, hammocks strung under shade trees, black-eyed Susans looking as if they were smiling in the small fields. Kara had taken this route countless times out to Stockwell country for the weekend.

Henry and Lillian had sniped at each other on the flight north, their tension and fatigue getting the better of them. Apparently Lillian was cautious about snakes and big horses and Henry wasn't, and Henry had been excused from the fire circle for making rude noises. Kara had been relieved that at least they were talking about something other than the man who'd spied on them at the dude ranch and followed them to Austin. Occasionally, as they drove to the airport in San Antonio, Henry glanced out the back window, worried the man was after them.

Kara's only fresh concern was what was on her voice mail. Or, more specifically, what wasn't. She'd had one message from Sam late last night: "Where the hell are you? Call me." She hadn't called him. She'd switched off her cell phone and expected other messages when she checked her voice mail in Boston—from Sam, from Jack, from Susanna, all telling her to get her ass back to Texas. But there was nothing.

It could mean they'd buttoned this thing down and weren't taking any chances with her now that she'd blown the opportunity to act sensibly. It could also mean they planned to let her swing on her own, although that was unlikely. The two Texas Rangers in her life weren't passive types. Neither was her sister-in-law.

Between landing in Boston and renting a car, Kara had left a trail that experienced law enforcement officers could easily follow. On the other hand, these latest actions suggested she had nothing to hide.

Last night and this morning were another matter altogether.

She regretted appropriating Jack's .45. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision on her part—she'd come to San Antonio for his plane—but a crawling sense of panic seized her on her way to the bathroom. What if the letter from Allyson wasn't bogus? What if she and her children
were
in grave danger? When Kara found herself in the study, unlocking the gun cabinet, she went ahead and armed herself, tucking the Colt into the waistband of her pants. Jack would have noticed it when she returned to the kitchen. Susanna didn't. But at least, Kara thought, she'd dismantled the thing, packed it in her suitcase and stuck the clip in her tote bag, reducing the opportunity for mishaps and further stupidity.

If her brother could forgive the plane, she knew he'd have her head on a platter for the gun.

The one potentially smart move she made before leaving Texas was enlist Eva Dunning's help in assessing the credibility of Allyson's letter. Eva was a certified handwriting analyst, one of her many avocations. While she'd packed, Kara had grabbed an old postcard from Allyson and cut off her signature, then ran the letter through her copier and snipped a relatively innocuous section from the copy. She gave the postcard and the sample from the questionable letter to Eva and asked if she could tell if they were written by the same person.

"I can try." Eva had frowned at the snippet from the letter. "It would help if I had more to go on."

Kara didn't dare give her more. Words like "grave danger" would put Eva on even higher alert. The woman was clearly worried, if not outright suspicious, at having Kara show up in the middle of the night. "That's all I can give you," Kara had told her.

If Eva heard any anxiety in Kara's voice, she hadn't responded to it. "I assume you want to keep this between us?"

"Please. But I don't want you to lie—"

"Of course not. After I've taken a look and made my assessment, I'll tear these up and flush them down the toilet. Anything else?"

Kara had promised to call her later for the results, but decided to wait until they arrived at the cottage. If the letter was a forgery and Allyson had no idea where her children were and no intention of meeting them at the cottage, Kara preferred to know it, but not while she still had to get there. She was tired and feeling a little nutty, her on-and-off queasiness a continuing source of anxiety and frustration. Maybe it wasn't nerves or seafood tacos, or her night with Sam Temple—maybe it was a slight bug.

When they reached the familiar streets of Bluefield, instead of becoming more relaxed, Henry and Lillian shrank down in their seats and seemed hardly to breathe as they drove past the small town common, ringed with Federal and Greek Revival houses in muted colors, shaded by huge old sugar maples. The late-eighteenth-century, white-steepled Congregational church was still the tallest building in the village. The old town hall had been converted into a summer theater, and an upscale deli and wine shop and an independent bookstore with an outdoor café had sprung up next to the longtime hardware store and pharmacy.

At the far end of the common, they passed the post office, the fire station, the police station and a rundown diner with plastic flowers in its window boxes—Mike Parisi's favorite hangout when he was in town. O'Reilly's Pub was just past the common, on the corner of a long street of village houses bleeding into a country highway that led out to Stockwell Farm. Kara noticed gated driveways to some of the newer homes, hidden behind screens of trees and high walls.

They came to the Jericho place with its rambling gray clapboard house and sagging red barn. Several stray chickens warbled in the side yard. Charlie Jeri-cho's ancient tractor was parked out front, and Kara caught glimpses of climbing red roses and a crude scarecrow in Bea Jericho's wild-looking herb and vegetable garden. She thought she heard sheep and the crowing of a rooster and wondered if Pete still nursed his grudge against her for the plea bargain that had landed him in county jail for six months.

"Not far now," she said unnecessarily.

Henry and Lillian remained quiet, both peering low out their windows. Just the tops of their blond heads would be visible from outside. There was no one else on the road, no more houses, the woods and fields on both sides of the road belonging to either the Jerichos or the Stockwells.

Kara turned onto a narrow, dead-end dirt road on the Jericho-Stockwell border. A brook tumbled through the woods alongside the Jericho side of the road, across from undulating hay fields that Madeleine Stockwell leased to local farmers. Beyond the fields were woods laced with old stone walls and carriage roads that eventually opened out into Stockwell Farm with its manicured grounds, stone stable, converted barn and beautiful, black-shuttered historic house. But none of that could be seen from here. This was just, for all appearances, a quiet country road.

Stonebrook Cottage, a stone farmhouse with dark red shutters, stood in a clearing at the end of the dirt road. It always made Kara think of Little Red Riding Hood. There were two small bedrooms upstairs under slanted ceilings and downstairs, a living room, eat-in kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Simple white curtains hung in all the windows. The landscaping was low maintenance, just a mowed yard, rhododendrons, shrubs and a perennial bed. A gnarled, ancient butternut tree loomed over the small cottage, and even in the dirt driveway, Kara was in its shade.

There were no other houses on the road, none in view through the woods or across the fields. She had enjoyed the isolation during her weekend visits. Now she wondered what she'd do if the man in the black sedan showed up—or a couple of Texas Rangers.

Henry and Lillian jumped out of the car and raced to the front door, Lillian locating the key in an unused mail basket. Kara smiled at their sudden high spirits. What a change since last night. She got out of the car, welcoming the cooler air, hoping it would revive her. She'd taken on a huge responsibility when she didn't immediately call Hatch or Allyson after finding her godchildren in her living room.

"Aunt Kara," Henry said from the porch, "aren't you coming?"

"I need to make a call. I'll be right in."

They burst inside, and she could hear them running around, laughing. Kara leaned against her rented car, not sharing their unbridled energy, and dialed Eva's number in Austin. If anyone else answered, she'd hang up.

She sighed with relief when she heard Eva's voice. "Oh, Kara—I'm so glad you called. I've been worried. Is everything all right?"

"Fine, thanks. Are you in a safe place to talk?"

"Yes, or I wouldn't have used your name. Jack says he's trying to keep the Austin police from going after you on kidnapping charges. He's exaggerating, of course, but the last sighting of the Stockwell kids was near your house—"

"Did you tell him you saw me last night?"

"I had no choice."

"Of course not. Don't worry about it."

"I told him you'd stopped by and borrowed my car. Apparently your friend has assured the authorities she's not worried if the kids are in your care, but you know Jack. Kara—"

"Everything'll be fine, Eva. The police don't want a couple of rich kids from Connecticut lost on their turf, that's all. I'm sorry I put you in such an awkward position—"

"Oh, I don't care about that. I just want to know you're okay."

"Thanks. Listen, go ahead and tell Jack we talked, and I said the kids are in good hands—and tell him he and the police don't need to know anything more than that." Kara was suddenly aware of a contradictory mix of apprehension and obstinacy working their way into her system. She had misgivings about the course she was on, but damned if she wanted anyone second-guessing her. "What about Sam Temple?"

"I saw him briefly this morning. Kara—" Eva sighed. "Never mind. There's much to tell but not a lot of time. You're calling about the handwriting samples, aren't you?"

"Have you come to any conclusions?"

"As I think you suspected, they weren't written by the same person. The smaller sample looks like an attempt to copy the postcard sample. The connectors are a dead giveaway. People tend to put all their effort into copying the letters, but forget the connectors. Under a magnifying glass, you can easily see, too, that the pen pressure is different—well, you don't need to know all that. The samples weren't written by the same person. I think even a real expert would tell you that."

At least, Kara thought, she'd had the foresight to cut Allyson's signature off the bottom of the postcard, but given what she'd written and the Hartford postmark, it could be traced back to the governor of Connecticut in about two seconds. Not that it mattered at this point. Henry and Lillian had lied.

"What did you do with the samples?" Kara asked.

"I did what I said I'd do."

She'd flushed them down the toilet. Kara slumped against the car, wishing she'd called the kids' bluff last night. But she'd been so caught up in their fear, which had felt real to her—and she was their godmother.

They'd confided in her thinking she was their lawyer.

What else could she have done?

A million things.

"Eva—I can't thank you enough. Tell my brother the Stockwell kids are no longer in Texas and they can all just relax."