He walked back to the window and sat against the sill. No wonder Luke looked like Dayne. They were brothers. Suddenly he remembered something. Elizabeth had mentioned Dayne’s name, hadn’t she? He pressed his palms to his eyes. Yes, that’s exactly what she’d said. His name was Dayne.
And he’d thought that was one more sign that Elizabeth was hallucinating. That somehow she’d remembered Luke’s story about meeting Dayne at the law office and how the two of them had looked alike, and her imagination had honed in on the actor’s name.
Only she hadn’t been hallucinating at all.
If she knew his name, then he must’ve made it to her hospital room. Which meant . . . tears made his throat feel thick. If nothing else ever came from this meeting, until his last breath John would have peace. Because Elizabeth’s final prayer, her dying wish had been answered. Or maybe he was only misunderstanding the man. He let his hands fall to his sides. “You’re telling me Dayne Matthews is my son?”
“Yes.” He gave a quiet laugh. “I’ve checked it every which way. Dayne was raised by missionary parents who were killed in a small plane crash in the jungles of Indonesia.” He scanned the file. “He grew up in a boarding school for missionary kids, and when he was eighteen, after the death of his adoptive parents, he moved to California and enrolled in UCLA’s drama department.” The investigator shrugged. “I guess the rest is history.”
John stared at the floor and tried to steady himself. Dayne Matthews? The son he and Elizabeth had given up, the child he’d never seen, the boy they’d wondered about all of their lives . . . was Dayne Matthews? The investigator was right. He’d been to Bloomington at least twice, the day before Elizabeth died and again for the filming of his latest movie, the one due out soon. Had Dayne chosen Bloomington because he knew about the Baxters? because he had an interest in them?
Something Tim had mentioned when they first started this meeting came back. Dayne had hired a private investigator. Maybe that’s how he’d found out about his biological family, about Elizabeth’s being sick in the hospital. But that left one question. John walked back to the chair and sat down. He searched the man’s face across from him. “If he hired an investigator, why haven’t we heard from him?”
Tim leaned back, his expression blank. “That’s where things get a little hazy.” He flipped through the pages of the file. “He’s had the chance.” The investigator narrowed his eyes. “Something’s obviously holding him back. Like I said, he knew about you first. Could be his management team, his studio, something he signed in a contract. Hard to tell with people in his business.”
“Yes.” John tried not to feel the sting, but it was there anyway. Had Dayne figured out who they were and then changed his mind about meeting them? Did the Baxter family somehow not measure up to what Dayne had hoped to find in his biological family, or had something happened in his conversation with Elizabeth, something that would cause him to keep his distance? Or maybe Tim was right, and there was some reason regarding his career that he had to stay away.
Tim turned his chair and opened a file cabinet. From a folder marked Baxter, he pulled out a stack of papers stapled together. “I made copies of everything I found.” He slipped the papers into an envelope and handed it to John. “Dayne lives in Malibu, from what I can tell. But I can’t get an address. No phone number, either. Couldn’t find it.” He nodded to the envelope. “You will find an address for the studio that produced his recent film and a phone number for his agent. That might be helpful. His agent’s one of the best in the business. Powerful, influential, from what I found out.”
“Meaning what?”
Tim lifted his hands and let them fall, clasped, onto the folder on the desk. “Meaning I’m not sure he’ll help you. But if you want to contact Dayne, you’d start with his agent.”
John stared at the envelope. He’d spent a lifetime longing for the information inside this packet, but he had to wonder if he’d come this far only to reach a dead end. Clearly Dayne knew about them, yet not once had he made contact.
“I’ve done what I can do.” Tim stood. “There’s a bill for my services in the envelope. Top sheet.”
“Thank you.” John rose and shook the investigator’s hand. The shock was wearing off. He felt like a man who’d spent a lifetime climbing a mountain only to find out the top wasn’t something he could ever reach. “I’ll get payment to you later this week.”
“Very good.”
Tim made small talk for a few more minutes, how he’d worked hundreds of cases and never turned up a celebrity before and how crazy life was for people with Dayne’s visibility.
John was glad when he was finally out of the office and into the elevator. He leaned against the wall and pressed the button marked L for lobby.
There were dozens of decisions to make. Whether he’d tell Ashley what he’d learned and whether he would tell the family anything at their reunion in April, a chance for everyone to know the truth. Of course, the first decision was whether he’d do what the investigator suggested and call Dayne’s agent.
After more than three decades, he finally knew who his son was. Dayne Matthews, mega movie star. John took a long breath and steadied himself. He’d seen the young man last fall filming on location in Bloomington. It was the day he and his friend Elaine had stopped at the farmers’ market for blueberries.
No matter which trail his thoughts took, they always came around to that one sad truth: Dayne had known about the Baxters for more than a year and never once connected with any of them except Elizabeth. John clutched the envelope to his side and pictured his firstborn son, the way he’d appeared on the street that day.
No wonder he’d looked so much like Luke.
And that was something else. Certainly if Dayne wanted contact with them he could’ve started with Luke. Dayne’s private investigator would’ve given him information on the entire Baxter family, which meant he had to know that Luke worked for his very own attorney.
John walked off the elevator, through the lobby, and to his car as another thought hit him. A thought that took his breath away. Luke and Dayne would be working together this spring. Dayne’s attorney, Joe Morris, had asked Luke to be available the first part of May to travel to Los Angeles and work in tandem when Dayne’s case against the knife-wielding fan went to trial.
“Dad, can you believe it?” Luke had called the week before, excited about the news. “Me! They want me to go with Joe Morris for the Dayne Matthews case.” Luke whistled, the kind of whistle John had heard him make hundreds of times over the years after a baseball or basketball game. “They have big plans for me. I mean, I’ll just be doing the grunt work, but still.” He grabbed a quick breath. “It’s a good sign, don’t you think, Dad?”
“Absolutely.” John had smiled, happy and proud all at once. “That case will have every eye in America on it.”
Now John was overwhelmed by the enormity of it.
What’s happening here, God? My two sons, strangers, working side by side? The thought was daunting.
John got in the car, took hold of the steering wheel with both hands, and waited before starting the engine. Maybe Dayne was holding out for the perfect time, a week or two when he might be between films and award shows and interviews. Maybe he would call on his own one of these days, John would talk to him, and the whole Baxter family would know in a matter of days.
But maybe not.
The question toyed with him, jabbed at him as he headed back to the freeway. At the trial, when Luke and Dayne found themselves working together, would it be as a legal team?
Or as brothers?
By the time John reached Bloomington, he’d made up his mind to call at least one person about the news. A man in Los Angeles who held the key to the next door that separated him from the child he and Elizabeth had given away.
Dayne’s agent.
Robin Hood was set to take the Christian Kids Theater stage in twelve days, and Katy had never felt less prepared. The parent committees wer
e on target. The program was at the printer, and the props team had collected everything from the two dozen wooden swords to bows and arrows and a hand-painted target for the archery contest.
Al and Nancy Helmes were doing brilliant work with the music, and Rhonda Sanders was bringing together the dance details of everything from the Merry Maiden ballet to the highly choreographed fight scene. Even seven months pregnant, Ashley Baxter Blake was again helping out with sets, and already the forestlike backdrop was breathtaking.
No, the problem wasn’t with the people working to make the play a success.
The problem was with her.
The kids needed her fully committed, driven, and intense—the way she’d been with every show up until now. Normally at this point in the production she’d be fine-tuning the details, perfecting the blocking, and cutting precious seconds from the scene changes. Instead, the practices were running together in a blur, and all for one reason.
She was still reeling about Dayne.
Even now, ten minutes before practice, she kept tuning out the conversations around her, ones between Al and Nancy and Rhonda, and even the information CKT area coordinator Bethany Allen was sharing with the production team. They sat at a round table in a small room of the church, Bethany across from Katy, Rhonda on one side of her, Al and Nancy on the other.
Bethany was going over the ticket sales for the show. “We’re sold out for every evening performance and one of the Saturday matinees.” She checked her notes. “There are still seats available for three afternoon shows.”
“What about the school days? Sold out, right?” Rhonda looked at her own notes and then at Bethany.
Bethany poised her pencil over her clipboard. “Actually, no.” She frowned. “Half the seats for Tuesday are still open. Two schools pulled out when they heard we are a Christian theater group.”
Katy wrote the details on the page in front of her. “We’re still trying to get the school district to give us across-the-board approval, the way CKT groups in other parts of the country have done.”
“Exactly.”
The conversation lasted another few minutes before Bethany led the group in a quick prayer and then went to open the doors of the sanctuary for the kids.
Only after Al and Nancy headed toward the coffeemaker did Rhonda turn to Katy and raise her eyebrows. “Where are you today?” Her voice was low.
“I’m here.” Katy put her pen down. A frustrated sigh escaped her lips, and she searched her friend’s face. “Do you read the tabloids?”
“Katy . . .” Rhonda knew the truth. She’d known it since the day Katy returned to Bloomington. “Not until after the show’s over, remember? You need to focus. No talking about him until then.”
Katy waved her hand. “This is different.” She kept her tone even. “I’m talking about the tabs. Come on, Rhonda; do you ever read them?”
“In the checkout line at the grocery store.” She stood, glancing at the clock that hung over the double doors. “Come on, Katy. The kids are coming in.”
“We have a minute.” She rose and held her notepad to her side. “’Cause here’s what I’m thinking. If Dayne and Kelly are having a baby and if they’re back together, then how come there’s nothing in the magazines?”
“Katy, let it go.” Rhonda stopped and looked at her.
“And how come they keep showing pictures of Kelly with Hawk Daniels?”
The concern in Rhonda’s eyes bordered on worry. “It doesn’t matter. You know the truth.”
Katy looked down at her low-heeled shoes. Rhonda was right, but why’d it still have to hurt so badly a month after she’d returned from LA? Hadn’t she convinced herself a year ago that nothing could ever come of her friendship with Dayne Matthews? Of course he was going to be a father, and why not? He and Kelly Parker had lived together after all. If Dayne could have asked Kelly to move in with him, then he never could’ve been interested in some drama instructor from Bloomington, anyway.
She could hear the kids in the sanctuary, hear them singing and squealing and talking at once as they waited for her. Al and Nancy were warming up on the piano, and the excitement was something she could feel even a room away. She looked at Rhonda. “It’s so hard.”
“I know.” Rhonda came closer and gave her a hug. “We can talk about it later, okay?”
“I have to wait until Robin Hood’s finished, remember?”
“Silly.” Rhonda took a few steps toward the door. Her eyes held a special knowing sort of compassion. “Rules like that are made to be broken. I’m here whenever you need to talk.”
“Thanks.” Katy fell in beside her. “We’re painting sets tonight. Maybe we can talk then.”
“With Ashley here?” Rhonda sounded doubtful. “You don’t mind talking about this around her?”
“Not really. She already knows about Dayne and me.” Katy gave Rhonda a crooked grin. “He even gave Ashley a ride home one night after Annie practice.”
“What?” Rhonda’s voice was suddenly twice as loud. “You should’ve invited him back when I was here.”
“I know. I know.” Katy pointed toward the roar of kids in the sanctuary. “Let’s go. We can’t be late.”
“Fine.” Rhonda giggled as they ran through the doors and into the other room. “I know where I stand.”
They needed to finish two scenes today—the archery contest and the sword fight. Katy took her spot at the front of the kids and studied the faces of the fifty-three kids cast in the show. God, I need to be at my best today. Please help me stay focused.
For the first time that afternoon, Katy couldn’t feel herself standing in a parking lot at Malibu Beach with Dayne Matthews’ arms around her. Instead her mind filled with all they had to accomplish in the next few hours. She did the special CKT clap, and around the room the kids stopped talking as they clapped out the beat in return.
“Okay, you’ve all read the rehearsal schedule.”
In the middle of the room, Bailey Flanigan and her brother Connor were among the first to nod. They were the kids from the family Katy lived with, and though she was careful not to show favoritism, she loved them dearly. They were like family to her, and they were also some of the best behaved and most talented members of the cast.
Katy paced in front of the group, looking into the eyes of each boy and girl she passed. “We have to be at the top of our game today, guys.” The words were for her as much as for them. “The fight scene and the archery contest, both in one practice.”
She gave directions to the various groups and released them to their assigned places. The sword fighters would take the fellowship hall, where Rhonda would try and complete choreography for a scene that would need to look intense while still somehow safe.
“The key,” Rhonda told them before they headed into the next room, “is to treat it like a dance. That way no one will get hurt.”
Katy was in charge of the archery contest. The scene would have Kaspar challenge Robin Hood to a competition to win a golden arrow and a kiss from Maid Marian. The main characters would stand upstage on the left side, shooting their arrows across diagonally to the hand-painted target backstage on the right side.
The magic would happen this way. The actors would only pretend to shoot arrows. Instead, they’d grab hold of a thick black-painted rubber tubing attached to the bow. When they drew back, the tubing would take on the appearance of an arrow. Because the actors would look at the target as they released the bow, the audience had the very realistic sensation that an arrow had actually flown across the stage.
Meanwhile, stationed behind the oversize target was a crew member who would quickly pop an arrow out from a predetermined spot behind the target. The black circles on the target were netting, so the boy had a clear view of when Robin Hood released his supposed arrow. If the timing was right on, the eyes of everyone in the audience would be tricked to believe that an arrow had not only been released but that it had landed sharply somewhere near the center of the target.
/> From the beginning the scene had serious trouble.
Bryan Smythe, a teenager with one of the best voices in CKT, was Robin. He was first to shoot, and he pretended to be lost in the intensity of the moment as he drew back what looked like an arrow. Only as he released it, the target remained completely void of any sign of an arrow.
After eight or nine seconds of silence, the crew member stood up and scratched his head. “Which arrow goes first, the center one or the ones off center?”
“Robin Hood wins the contest.” Katy sprinted up the stage steps and hurried to the place behind the target. She took a pen from her pocket and numbered the arrows. “There.” She smiled at the crew member. “That’ll make it easier.”
She returned to her place in the aisle. “Let’s try it again.”
Bryan lined up, made a keen eye toward the target, and pulled back his rubber tubing. But before he even made a move to release it, an arrow proudly appeared near the bull’s-eye. Bryan let his bow fall to his side. He looked at Katy and shrugged.
“Wow . . .” Katy jogged up the stairs again. “Robin’s better than we thought.”
A round of chuckles came from the older kids positioned around the stage, the ones playing townspeople in the scene.
Bryan grinned at them and took a bow.
Katy moved behind the target and came face-to-face with the boy responsible for the special effect. “Okay, now listen.” She took hold of his shoulders. “Timing here is everything. You can see Bryan, right? Through the netting?”
The boy’s face was red. “Actually I can only see his knees.” He scratched his neck. “I have to sort of guess when he releases the bow.”
Katy put her hands on her hips. There had to be a solution. They couldn’t have arrows disappearing across the stage, and it wouldn’t work to have arrows appearing long before the archer released his bow. She looked at Al and Nancy Helmes, and in a flash an idea came to her.