The weather was quite warm, the snow along the side of the road receding.
Elaine opened the cabin door and ushered them into the living room. She’d set out coffee and juice on the coffee table, along with muffins warm from the oven. John slid open one of the doors along the back of the A-frame to let in the mild air.
“Well,” he said, sitting next to Elaine on the love seat. “I need you folks to help me make a decision.” He took Elaine’s hand. “I know I have some legal things to take care of,” he said, “but more important, should I go to Virginia to see Sarah or should I not?”
Everyone looked at Laura. Having thought about this much of the night, she had her own answer. She set her coffee cup down on the table. “Two things could happen,” she said. “Sarah might not recognize you. That’s very likely. She still loves you—she has your picture displayed in her apartment. But she loves the man in that picture. I’m not sure she’d connect you to him. So, then there would be little point to the visit.”
“And the second thing?” John asked.
“If she does recognize you, you would have to tell her you’re…with another woman.” She felt her lower lip start to tremble. “I don’t want her to have that sort of pain and confusion.”
Elaine nodded. “That would be terrible,” she said.
Dylan put his arm around Laura, and Emma looked worriedly at her mother at the sound of that catch in her voice.
Laura studied John’s face for his reaction, but he said nothing. His gaze was fastened on her throat.
“Where did you get that pendant?” he asked.
Laura touched the necklace. “It belonged to my grandmother,” she said.
Frowning, he suddenly stood up. “It’s warm enough for the canoe,” he said. “Let’s take a little ride, Laura. Elaine, will you entertain Dylan and Emma for a bit?”
Elaine looked surprised by the abrupt change of plans but quickly turned to Dylan. “Maybe you and Emma would like to go for a walk with me?” she asked.
“Sounds good,” Dylan agreed.
John was already out the back door. Offering Dylan a confused shrug, Laura followed her host into the yard.
With the strength of a much younger man, John lifted the canoe off the sawhorses and carried it to the water’s edge.
“You go ahead and sit in the bow,” he said as he steadied the craft.
She did as she was told. John handed her an oar, then climbed into the stern.
They paddled silently and at a leisurely pace for a while, Laura wondering if John was less rational than she’d originally thought. What was the purpose of this unscheduled outing?
“Let’s stop for a while,” John said finally. “Turn around and face me, Laura, please.”
She obeyed him again, lifting her feet over the seat to turn around but feeling a bit anxious now. They were a good distance from shore.
John again had his gaze fixed on her pendant. Then he raised his eyes to Laura’s face.
“When Sarah and I got married,” he said, “I had a pin made for her. I believe that pendant you have on was made from her pin.”
Laura touched the necklace again. “That’s impossible. I told you it had been my grandmother’s.”
“Have you ever seen another like it?”
“No. That’s one reason why I treasure it. It’s so unusual.”
“If you look closely at it, you’ll see that it is actually a combination of an S for Sarah and a J for Joe.”
Laura could easily picture the pendant. It had always reminded her of a woman in an old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat. Resting her oar across the sides of the canoe, she unfastened the necklace and placed it on her knee. There was the woman in the hat, as usual. “I don’t see it,” she said.
John carefully made his way toward her. “See?” he traced the design with his fingertip. “Here’s the S. Here’s the J.”
“My God,” Laura said. “How can this be?”
“Turn it over. Can you see where it had once been a pin?”
Indeed, there were tiny raised bumps of gold on either side of the pendant where the clasp of a pin might have been fixed. Those minuscule protrusions had always been there, but she’d never thought anything of them.
John returned to his seat. “Tell me again how you got it,” he said.
“It belonged to my father’s mother,” Laura said. “I never knew her, but I was named after her. My father gave the necklace to me when I was about eight, shortly after my own mother died. He told me I should always wear it. The pendant was really too big for me then, but I loved it. I’ve worn it nearly every day of my life since he gave it to me.”
“Somehow,” John said, “your father got it from Sarah.”
Laura thought hard, feeling like she’d gone around in a circle, once again trying to determine her father’s connection to Sarah.
“Look at me, Laura,” John said.
She raised her face to his.
“The moment I opened the door yesterday and saw you standing there, you reminded me of my daughter who lives in Alaska. The resemblance is very strong. Elaine even mentioned it.”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“I believe you’re Janie.”
Laura laughed. “John, I’m sorry, but that’s totally ridiculous. I know who my mother and father were.”
“How old are you?” he asked, then caught himself and smiled. “Forgive the rudeness,” he said.
“It’s true I’m about Janie’s age,” Laura said, “but I was born in July of ‘58. She was born in April.” Her hands shook as she fastened the pendant around her neck again. She recalled with a sudden lurch of her heart that there were no baby pictures of her in her family albums. We lost them when our basement flooded, her father had told her.
“I’d like you to go back to Virginia and learn the truth,” John said. “Show Sarah the pendant. Then call me to tell me what you’ve discovered.”
42
THEIR FLIGHT ARRIVED LATE IN WASHINGTON AFTER A FEW LONG delays, and Laura was distressed. It was already five. It would be at least an hour before they got to the lake house, where Dylan promised to watch Emma for her, and another half hour for her to drive to the retirement home.
She had spoken little to Dylan on the plane, consumed with her own thoughts, and he seemed to understand. He held her hand and let her doze against his shoulder without pushing her to tell him what was going through her mind. She wouldn’t have been able to describe her thoughts in a coherent fashion, anyway.
The sky was darkening by the time Laura arrived at the retirement home, and Sarah looked surprised to find her at her door.
“Hi, Sarah,” Laura said. “I know it’s late. But I really need to see you.”
“Isn’t it too dark for a walk?” Sarah asked, looking behind her to check the window.
“Yes, it is. We’ll have to just sit and talk, all right?” She could hear the television blaring. “Am I interrupting a TV program?”
“No,” Sarah said. “That’s all right. You come in and find a seat.”
She watched Sarah sit down on the sofa and fumble with the buttons of the remote control until she found the correct one to turn off the TV.
“Sarah.” Laura sat next to her. “I need you to tell me about Janie. About what happened to her.”
“No.” Sarah shook her head.
“Yes,” Laura said firmly. “I know it’s hard to talk about. I know that. But it’s very important that you tell me.” For an instant, she thought she saw something of herself in Sarah’s face. She looked down at her own fingers, then at Sarah’s where they ran nervously over the buttons of the remote. She and Sarah both had slender hands and white-tipped nails. “Sarah, please tell me.”
Sarah’s lips turned down at the corners. “It’s sad,” she said.
“I know it is,” Laura said, more gently. “But I need to know what happened to her.”
Sarah stared at the blank television screen, then suddenly sighed and sat up tall
er on the sofa. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”
Sarah, 1960
It was late March, and the month was going out like a lion. There was a nip in the air and the wind blew around Sarah’s legs as she walked home from the hospital where she’d been working for the past few months. She was looking forward to getting inside her apartment and heating up the stew she’d made the night before for dinner. Janie was nearly two now, and she loved picking the vegetables out of the stew and popping them into her mouth.
Turning the corner onto her block, Sarah saw a woman walk from the entrance of her apartment building to a car parked in the street. It looked like Mrs. Berenworth, the sitter she’d hired to take care of Janie, but that was impossible. Yet, wasn’t that the kerchief she wore? And wasn’t that her car?
She started to run. “Mrs. Berenworth!” she called. “Wait!”
The woman had the driver’s side door open and was about to get in, but she looked up at the sound of Sarah’s voice.
“Hello, Mrs. Tolley.” She smiled, tucking a strand of her gray, windblown hair into her kerchief.
Sarah slowed, out of breath. “Why are you out here?” she asked. “Where’s Janie?”
“Oh, there’s a surprise for you inside,” Mrs. Berenworth teased.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
“No, please tell me.” Sarah wanted to wring her neck. “You’re upsetting me.”
“All right, all right,” Mrs. Berenworth conceded. “No need to trouble yourself. Your brother’s inside with her.”
“My brother?”
“Yes. He showed up to visit you as a surprise. He told me I could leave and he’d watch Janie until you got home.” Mrs. Berenworth looked a tad worried herself now. “That’s not a problem, I hope?”
“I don’t have a brother!” Sarah shouted over her shoulder as she ran toward the building. She took the steps to the third floor two at a time and breathlessly flung her apartment door open.
Gilbert sat on Sarah’s sofa, Janie on his lap, and Janie did not look the least bit disturbed at finding herself there.
“There’s your mommy,” Gilbert said.
Sarah ran toward him and grabbed Janie from his arms. “How dare you!” she snapped. “Get out of my home.” Tears burned her eyes. He’d found her again.
“I’m so sorry to have frightened you,” he said, standing up. “But I thought it was very important for you to see how easily you and Janie can be located. And therefore, how critical it still is for you to remain silent about what you know.”
“I have been silent!” she said. “What more do you want from me?”
Janie began crying at the sound of anger in her mother’s voice, and Sarah lowered her into the playpen at the side of the room.
“Hush, dear,” she said. “Everything’s all right.”
“Please sit down and let me talk with you a bit,” Gilbert said.
“I want you to leave.” She tried to speak calmly now, not wanting to upset Janie any more than she already was.
“I’m here to help you, Sarah,” he said. “I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. Peter—Dr. Palmiento—is growing increasingly…paranoid. He doesn’t trust anyone anymore, and he keeps bringing up you and Colleen Price as people who turned against him.”
“How do you expect me to trust you?” she asked. “To believe anything that comes out of your mouth? You’re Palmiento’s right-hand man.”
“I was.” Gilbert nodded. “And I think that he still assumes I am. But I’ve grown very concerned about his tactics, and I’m walking a fine line these days. Doing a real balancing act. I still believe in the importance of the research he’s doing at the hospital, but I’m worried that his paranoia is getting out of hand, and so now I feel a need to warn people. To warn you, for example. Peter’s even bought a gun. I’m telling you, he’s thrown himself off the deep end, headfirst.”
She simply didn’t know if she should believe him or not. Yet, what if he was telling her the truth? What if she was in danger from a crazed doctor with a gun?
She felt helpless. She’d left no forwarding address with this last move. She had three locks on both doors of her apartment. Her phone number was unlisted. She spoke to no one at work about her past.
Unwinding the scarf from her neck, she sat down. “I’ve already moved twice,” she said. “I don’t know what more I can do.”
“I think you should move again,” Gilbert said. “Far away this time. Change your name. Go into hiding.” He seemed completely serious.
“That’s too much,” she said. “For all I know, you’re the crazy one. Why should I uproot myself and my daughter again? Then you’ll show up on that doorstep and tell me to do something else.”
“Whether you believe it’s me or Peter doesn’t really matter at this point.” Gilbert looked down at his hands, and it was a moment before he spoke again. “I didn’t want to tell you this,” he said, “but I don’t know how else to impress upon you that this is serious business.” His dark eyes were somber. “Your friend Colleen’s son is dead.”
Sarah’s heart gave a great thud against her ribs. “Sammy?” She remembered pictures Colleen had shown her of her darling little boy. “Sammy’s dead?”
“He was in an accident.”
“What happened?”
“He was playing in the tree house in his backyard and it collapsed,” Gilbert said. “He broke his neck.”
Colleen had told her about that tree house. Her father-in-law had built it, and surely he’d made it sturdy enough to withstand any mischief a five-year-old boy might dish out. Suddenly, she understood what Gilbert was trying to tell her.
“Are you saying Palmiento had something to do with it?” she asked, horrified.
“No, I didn’t say that,” Gilbert said. “But I am saying that it’s an interesting coincidence that he threatened her through her child, and now that child is dead.”
She had to call Colleen. She stood up, and Gilbert instantly got to his feet and came toward her. Letting out a small scream, Sarah stepped away from him.
He held his hands in the air. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I—”
Sarah raced across the room to the door and pulled it open. “Go,” she said. “Just get out. Get out of my life.”
“All right.” He spoke quietly. “Please think about what I said, though. For your daughter’s sake.”
Slamming the door after him, she quickly secured all three locks. Moving from room to room, she pulled all the shades. That wouldn’t be enough, though. They knew where she was. They would always know.
She went into her kitchen, still wearing her coat, and called Colleen. Maybe Gilbert had made the whole thing up. She prayed that was the case as she listened to the ringing of Colleen’s phone.
“Hello?” Colleen barely sounded like herself, her voice was so flat and distant.
“Colleen,” Sarah said. “Are you all right?”
“You heard?”
“Heard…” Sarah shut her eyes and sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “You mean, about Sammy?”
There was sudden sobbing on Colleen’s end of the line.
“Colleen, what happened?” Sarah asked.
“He was playing in the tree house, and it just…fell.”
“Oh, God, Colleen. I’m so sorry.”
“Palmiento’s behind it.”
“How do you know that?” She desperately wanted Colleen’s reasoning to be fallacious.
“Oh, I know it,” Colleen said. “He’d threatened to do something to me or Sammy often enough.”
“Have the police questioned him?”
“They have. Once. Palmiento claims he doesn’t know a thing about it, and the cops believe him. After all, he’s God, you know.” There was bitterness in her voice. “They said one of the boards on the house wasn’t nailed right, or something. My poor father-in-law’s beside himself with guilt. I told him I’m sure someone ta
mpered with those boards, but he thinks I’m just trying to spare him.”
“Can you try the police again?” Sarah suggested weakly. She couldn’t seem to breathe. In the next room, Janie howled for dinner.
“I’ve even talked to the FBI,” Colleen said. “They look at me like I’m the crazy one. Soon they’re going to lock me up and cut out my brain like they did to Joe.”
Sarah winced. Janie’s howling grew more insistent.
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Colleen said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Sarah said. “Gilbert was just here. He told me about Sammy, although he wouldn’t say there was a definite link between his death and Dr. Palmiento. But he warned me to leave. To move again. I just don’t know if I have the strength, Colleen.”
Colleen was quiet for a long time. “It’s pointless,” she said. “Moving is pointless. They have some way of finding us. It’s like a giant conspiracy and we’re completely powerless against it. They are going to get Janie, Sarah. I would strap her to me. I’d quit my job and just strap her to my body and never let her out of my sight. It’s the only way. I should have done that with Sammy. Kept him with me every second of the day and night.”
They are going to get Janie. The words echoed in Sarah’s ears.
“I can hear Janie crying,” Colleen said, her voice flat. “You’re lucky to still have her, Sarah. You’d better go to her.”
Sarah fed her daughter, unable to eat anything herself. She bathed Janie and put her to bed. She pushed an upholstered chair against the front door and the kitchen table against the fire escape door. She took her sharpest knife from the kitchen drawer and held it in her hand as she sat up all night long next to Janie’s crib, afraid to close her eyes. The wind blew branches and twigs against the windows, and she jumped at every sound.
Janie slept like an angel in the crib, her long, golden brown eyelashes resting against her cheeks. She was a beautiful child, and she was in terrible danger simply by being Sarah’s daughter.
Had Sammy suffered? A broken neck, Gilbert had said. He would have died quickly, then. Would it be any consolation, though, if they killed Janie quickly? She moaned with the thought. She could not allow Janie to suffer that sort of fate. But Colleen spoke the truth: no matter where Sarah moved, they could find her.