After she opened her eyes, the flashlight was turned off. He was no longer hovering over her. She heard the click of the door. He was gone.
From somewhere nearby she could catch the faint aroma of the coffee he had forgotten to give her.
54
The office of Craig Michaelson, Attorney at Law, was located on Old State Road, only two blocks past the motel where Jean and Cadet Carroll Reed Thornton had spent their few nights together. As Jean approached the motel, she slowed down and blinked back tears.
Her mental image of Reed was so strong, her memory of their time together so intense. She felt that if she slipped into room 108, he would be there, waiting for her. Reed with his blond hair and blue eyes, his strong arms that wrapped around her, making her feel a kind of happiness that in all her eighteen years of life she had never imagined possible.
“I dream of Jeannie . . .”
For a long time after Reed died, she would wake up with the music of that song drifting through her mind. We were so in love, Jean thought. He was Prince Charming to my Cinderella. He was kind and smart, and he had a maturity far beyond his twenty-two years. He loved the military life. He encouraged me as a writer. He teased me that someday when he was a general, I’d be writing his biography. When I told him I was pregnant, he was worried because he knew what his father’s reaction would be to an early marriage. But then he said, “We’ll just move up our plans, Jeannie, that’s all. Early marriages are not exactly unheard of in my family. My grandfather got married the day he graduated from West Point, and my grandmother was only nineteen.”
“But you told me your grandparents knew each other from the time they were babies,” she had pointed out. “That’s a lot different. They’ll see me as a townie who got pregnant so that I could get you to marry me.”
Reed had covered her mouth with his hand. “I won’t listen to that kind of talk,” he’d said firmly. “Once they know you, my parents will love you. But on the same subject, you’d better introduce me to your mother and father pretty soon.”
I had wanted to be a student at Bryn Mawr when I met Reed’s parents, Jean thought. By then my mother and father would have split. If his parents had met them separately, they probably would have liked them well enough. They wouldn’t necessarily have learned about their problems.
If Reed had lived.
Or even if he had to die young, if it had happened after we were married, I still could have kept Lily. Reed was an only child. His parents might have been angry about our marriage, but they surely would have been thrilled to have a grandchild.
We all lost big-time, Jean thought achingly as she put her foot down on the accelerator and sped past the motel.
Craig Michaelson’s office occupied an entire floor of a building that Jean knew had not been there when she and Reed were dating. His reception area was attractive with paneled walls and wide chairs that had been upholstered in an antique tapestry pattern. Jean decided that at least on the surface it would seem that the Michaelson firm was prosperous.
She had not been sure what to expect. On the drive to Highland Falls from Cornwall she had decided that if Michaelson had been part of Dr. Connors’ system of improperly registering births, he would be something of a charlatan and surely very much on the defensive.
After she had waited ten minutes, Craig Michaelson came out to the reception area himself and personally escorted her into his private office. He was a tall man in his early sixties, with a big frame and slightly sloping shoulders. His full head of hair, more dark gray than silver, looked as though he might have just left the barber. His dark gray suit was well cut, and his tie was a subdued gray-and-blue print. Everything about his appearance as well as the tasteful furnishings and paintings in his office suggested a reserved and conservative man.
Jean realized that she was not sure if that wasn’t the worst possible scenario. If Craig Michaelson was not involved in Lily’s adoption, then this was going to be another dead end in her search to find her.
She looked directly at the lawyer as she told him about Lily and showed him the copies of the faxes and the DNA report. She sketched out her own background, reluctantly emphasizing her academic standing, the honors and awards she had received, and the fact that because of her best-selling book her financial success was a matter of public record.
Michaelson never took his eyes off her face except when he examined the faxes. She knew he was sizing her up, trying to decide if what she was telling him was the truth or just an elaborate hoax.
“Because of Dr. Connors’ nurse, Peggy Kimball, I know that some of the adoptions the doctor arranged were illegal,” she said. “What I need to know, what I beg you to tell me, is this: Did you handle my child’s adoption yourself, or do you know who adopted her?”
“Dr. Sheridan, let me start by telling you that I never had any part in an adoption that was not handled to the strictest letter of the law. If at any time Dr. Connors was bypassing the law, he did so without my knowledge or involvement.”
“Then if you did handle my baby’s adoption, are you telling me that it was registered with my name as the mother and the name of Carroll Reed Thornton as the father?”
“I am saying that any adoption I handled was legal.”
Years of teaching students, a small percentage of whom had been adept at dissembling and half-truths, had made Jean feel capable of spotting that practice whenever she encountered it. She knew she was encountering it now.
“Mr. Michaelson, a nineteen-and-a-half-year-old girl may be in danger. If you handled the adoption, you know who adopted her. You could try to protect her now. In fact, in my opinion, you have a moral obligation to try to protect her.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Behind silver-framed glasses, Craig Michaelson’s eyes turned frosty. “Dr. Sheridan, you have demanded that I see you today. You have come in with a story for the truth of which I have only your word. You have virtually suggested that I might have broken the law in the past, and now you are demanding that I break the law in order to help you. There are legal ways to have birth records released. You should go to the district attorney’s office. I believe that they would petition the court to open those records. I can assure you that is the only way you should be going about this inquiry. As you yourself point out, it is possible that at the time you were expecting the baby someone might have seen you in Dr. Connors’ office and somehow got into your file. You also pointed out that this may be all about money. Frankly, my guess is that you’re right. Someone knows who your daughter is and suspects you will pay for the knowledge.”
He stood up.
For a moment Jean remained seated. “Mr. Michaelson, I have pretty good instincts, and my instinct is that you handled my daughter’s adoption and that you probably did it legally. My other very strong instinct is that whoever is writing to me and is close enough to Lily to steal her hairbrush is dangerous. I am going to go to court to try to get the records released. The fact remains, though, that in the interval, something might happen to my child because you are stonewalling me now. If it does, and I find out about it, I don’t think I’ll be responsible for what I’ll do to you.”
Jean could not control the tears that were spilling from her eyes. She turned and hurried from the room, not caring that the receptionist and several people in the reception area looked up at her in astonishment as she ran past them. When she reached her car, she flung open the door, got in, and buried her face in her hands.
And then she went deadly cold. As clearly as though Laura were in the car with her, she could hear her voice pleading, “Jean, help me! Please, Jean, help me!”
55
From the front window of his office, his face drawn with concern, Craig Michaelson watched Jean Sheridan as she rushed to her car. She’s on the level, he thought. This isn’t about a woman obsessed to find her child and fabricating a wild story. Should I warn Charles and Gano? If anything happened to Meredith, it would destroy them both.
He would not, coul
d not, reveal Jean Sheridan’s identity to them, but he could at least make Charles aware of the threats to his adopted daughter. It should be his decision as to what he might tell Meredith or how he might try to protect her. If the story about the hairbrush was true, maybe Meredith would remember where she was when she mislaid it or lost it. It might be one way to try to trace the sender of the faxes.
Jean Sheridan had said that if anything happened to her daughter, something I could have prevented, she wouldn’t be responsible for what she would do to me, he recalled. Charles and Gano would feel exactly the same way.
His decision made, Craig Michaelson went to his desk and picked up the phone. He did not need to look up the number. Crazy coincidence, he thought as he dialed. Jean Sheridan doesn’t live far from Charles and Gano. She’s in Alexandria. They’re in Chevy Chase.
The phone was picked up on the first ring. “General Buckley’s office,” a crisp voice said.
“This is Craig Michaelson, a close friend of General Buckley. I need to speak to him on a matter of great importance. Is he there?”
“I’m sorry, sir. The General is abroad on official business. Can someone else help you?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Will you be hearing from the General?”
“Yes, sir. The office is in touch with him regularly.”
“Then tell him it is most urgent that he call me as soon as possible.” Craig spelled his name and gave the number of his cell phone as well as his office number. He hesitated, then decided not to say that it concerned Meredith. Charles would respond to an urgent message as soon as he received it—he was confident of that.
And, anyhow, Craig Michaelson thought as he replaced the receiver, Meredith is safer at West Point than she would be almost anyplace else.
Then the unwelcome thought came to him that even being at West Point had not been enough to prevent the death of Meredith’s natural father, Cadet Carroll Reed Thornton, Jr.
56
The first person Carter Stewart saw when he walked into the Glen-Ridge House at three-thirty was Jake Perkins, who was, as usual, sprawled on a chair in the lobby. Doesn’t that kid have a home? Stewart wondered, as he walked to the phone at the end of the front desk and dialed Robby Brent’s room.
There was no answer. “Robby, I thought we were supposed to get together at three-thirty,” Stewart snapped in response to the computerized suggestion to leave a voice message. “I’ll be in the lobby for another fifteen minutes or so.”
As he hung up, he spotted the investigator Sam Deegan sitting in the office behind the front desk. Their eyes met, and Deegan got up, clearly on his way to talk to him. There was something decisive in the way Deegan moved which made Stewart aware that this would not be an idle conversation.
They stood across the desk from each other.
“Mr. Stewart,” Sam said. “I’m glad to see you. I left a message for you at your hotel and was hoping to hear back from you.”
“I’ve been working with my director on the script for my new play,” Carter Stewart said, his tone abrupt.
“I see you were on the house phone. Are you meeting someone now?”
Stewart found himself resenting Sam Deegan’s question. None of your business, he wanted to say, but something about Deegan’s attitude made the remark die on his lips. “I have an appointment with Robby Brent at three-thirty. Before you ask me why I have an appointment, which is clearly your next question, let me satisfy your curiosity. Brent has agreed to star in a new sitcom. He has seen the first few scripts and feels they are offtarget—that, in fact, they fall flat—and he asked me to take a look at them and give him my professional opinion as to whether or not they can be salvaged.”
“Mr. Stewart, you’ve been compared to literary playwrights like Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee,” Sam said sharply. “I’m just a run-of-the-mill kind of guy, but most of those situation comedies are insults to the intelligence. I’m surprised that you’d be interested in judging one of them.”
“It was not my choice.” Stewart’s tone was icy. “After dinner last night, Robby Brent asked me to look at the scripts. He offered to bring them to my hotel, but as you can understand, that would have involved my having to dislodge him from my suite after I’d glanced at the material. It was much easier to stop by here on the way back from my director’s home. And even though I do not write sitcoms, I am a very good judge of writing in any form. Do you know if Robby is expected soon?”
“I have no idea of his plans,” Sam said. “I came here to talk to him also. I didn’t get a response when I called him, and then realized that no one had seen him all day, so I had the maid go into his room. His bed had not been slept in. It appears that Mr. Brent is missing.”
Sam was not sure that he wanted to give that much information to Carter Stewart, but his instinct told him to divulge it and watch for Stewart’s reaction. It turned out to be stronger than he had anticipated.
“Missing! Oh, come now, Mr. Deegan. Don’t you think this scenario has played itself out long enough? Let me explain: There is a part in this proposed series for a sexy blonde not unlike the vanished Laura Wilcox. The other day at West Point, specifically at the lunch table, Brent was telling Laura that she might be perfect for that part. I am beginning to think that the entire three-ring circus surrounding her disappearance is nothing more than a publicity stunt. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I won’t waste any more of my time waiting around for Robby.”
I don’t like that guy, Sam thought as he watched Carter Stewart leave. Stewart was wearing a somewhat tattered dark gray sweatsuit and dirty sneakers, a hobo’s outfit that Sam figured had probably cost a fortune.
My feelings for him aside, has he put his finger on everything that’s going on? Sam wondered. In the more than three hours that he had been sitting in the office, he had been doing some hard thinking and in the process had become more and more irritated.
We know Brent made the phone call impersonating Laura, he reasoned. He bought a cell phone that appears to be the one that the call to Jean was made on. The clerk who sold it to him saw him dialing at exactly the time Jean thought Laura was talking to her. I’m beginning to think Stewart may be right, that all this is a way of getting publicity. And, in that case, why am I wasting my time here when I have a killer loose in Orange County who dragged an innocent woman into his car and stabbed her to death?
When he had arrived at the Glen-Ridge House, Eddie Zarro was waiting for him, but Sam sent him back to the office, saying there was no need for the two of them to hang out in the lobby waiting for Brent. Sam debated, then decided that now he’d get Zarro to relieve him and go home. I need a decent night’s sleep, he decided. I’m so tired I can’t think straight.
As he opened his cell phone to call the office, he realized that Amy Sachs, the desk clerk, was at his elbow. “Mr. Deegan,” she began, her voice little more than a whisper, “you’ve been here since before noon, and I know you haven’t had a single thing to eat. May I order coffee and a sandwich for you?”
“That’s very kind, but I’ll be leaving soon,” Sam told her. As he spoke, he wondered how close Amy Sachs had been when he was talking to Stewart. She didn’t appear to make any sound when she walked, and she made very little when she opened her mouth. Why do I bet her hearing is acute? Sam wondered sardonically as he watched her exchange a glance with Jake Perkins. And why do I bet that the minute I’m out of sight, she fills Jake in on the fact that Brent isn’t around and that Stewart thinks all this hoopla is a publicity stunt?
Sam went back into the office. From there he had a good view of the main entrance. A few minutes later he saw Gordon Amory come in, and he hurried to catch him before he got on the elevator.
Amory was clearly not in the mood to talk about Robby Brent. “I have not spoken to him since that vulgar display last night,” he said. “As a matter of fact, since you witnessed it, Mr. Deegan, and also heard Robby’s attack on Jack Emerson, I think you should know that I have been out since ten o’c
lock this morning with Emerson, looking at real estate. He is the exclusive agent on some genuinely fine parcels of land. He also showed me the properties he had offered Robby for consideration. I must tell you, they were fairly priced and, in my opinion, excellent long-range investments—which is to say that anything Robby Brent insinuates, says, or does should be examined for motivation beyond the obvious. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a number of phone calls to make.”
The elevator door was opening. Before Amory could step into it, Sam said, “Another moment, please, Mr. Amory.”
With a resigned smile that was almost a sneer, Amory turned back to him.
“Mr. Amory, Robby Brent did not sleep in his room last night. We believe it was he who imitated Laura Wilcox on the phone call to Jean Sheridan. Your colleague, Mr. Stewart, feels that Brent and Wilcox may be carrying on a hoax for publicity for Mr. Brent’s new television series. What do you think?”
Gordon Amory raised an eyebrow. For an instant he looked dumbstruck; then a look of amusement came over his face. “A publicity stunt! Of course, that makes sense. In fact, if you look at Page Six of the New York Post, they’re already suggesting that very thing about Laura’s disappearance. Now Robby vanishes, and you tell me that he made the phone call to Jean last night. And the whole time we’re all sitting around worrying about them.”
“Then you think it’s possible we’re all wasting our time worrying about Laura?”
“Au contraire, it has not been a waste, Mr. Deegan. The one positive thing is that Laura’s supposed disappearance has proven to me that I still have the milk of human kindness flowing in my breast. I was so concerned about her that I was planning to offer her a role in my new series. I’ll bet you’re right. The dear girl has other fish to fry and is doing it most successfully. And now I really must go.”
“I assume you’ll be checking out soon,” Sam suggested.