Bring it to me, and you and your mother will have a lot less to worry about.”
His fingers slipped away from my arm, and he disappeared into the shadows of the neighboring building. I leaned my head against the frosty glass door, trying to gain the courage to move. Once the adrenaline absorbed into my body, I sucked in a gasp of air and slid to the ground.
He didn’t come. I was in danger, and Jared didn’t come. I was surprised when the correlation hit me, and I wondered if I had just realized it or if I had known all along. The last time Mr. Dawson approached me, Jared was a no-show as well, but I reasoned that Ryan had been there. Ryan had controlled the situation enough so that Jared wasn’t needed. But this time I was alone. This time I needed him.
Someone pushed the door open against me. “Are you all right?” A short, dark haired boy with glasses came into view, poking his head through the semi-open door.
“Did you want to come in?” the boy asked, confused at his discovery.
I pushed myself off the ground. “No, thank you,” I said, quickly turning toward Andrews.
I didn’t look back to see his inevitable bewildered expression; I was too intent on my mission. I would return to my mother’s house and turn it upside down if I had to. I ran down the hall to the open elevator and tapped the button of my floor several times, leaning back against the rail. As the doors finally closed, my mother squeezed by them, causing them to jolt open once more.
“I trust you’ve slept,” she said.
“Is that why you’re here?” I asked, surprised.
“Do I need a reason?” She was very nearly offended, but dismissed my question to address more important things. “Nina, honestly. You look frightful. How much sleep did you get?”
“Enough,” I stepped out of the elevator and pulled her with me.
“What are you doing?” she asked, reluctant to be dragged along.
“I want to go home. Can I go home with you?”
“Of course.” I was sure she was curious what had possessed me to make such an atypical request; I had treated our home like ground zero of a quarantined leper colony since the funeral.
I tugged at her coat to quicken her pace and she abruptly stopped. “What is going on, Nina?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, pulling at her arm again.
“This!” she said, motioning to my hand on her arm. “This is what I mean. What is so urgent?”
I exhaled in a frustrated puff. “Beth is at the hospital and I don’t want to be alone. I’m sorry if I’m being overly enthusiastic.”
“Enthusiastic? Nina, you haven’t tugged on my coat like that since you were five. Is there another reason you want to go home?”
I stared at her blankly. I didn’t want to lie to her again.
“All right,” she sighed. “Robert is waiting in the car.”
En route, Cynthia fiddled with her carefully placed French bun and asked generic questions about school. She was suspicious of my behavior, but as was the norm with my mother, she insisted on overlooking the obvious to obtain a false sense of security. She didn’t speak for the rest of the trip home to keep from spoiling the illusion with trivial things like the truth.
Robert slowed when he entered our long drive. My mother smiled at him when he opened her door, and I followed behind her to the house.
Once inside, I peeled off my scarf, hat, coat, and finally my gloves. I rubbed the residual chill still clinging to my arms, methodically going over my plan in my mind.
“Nina, don’t hover in doorways. It’s rude.”
“I’m going upstairs,” I said in passing.
I rushed to my father’s office, hoping my eyes would open to something I had missed before. I walked along the outer edges of the room and ran my hand along the surface of the wall, feeling the uneven texture with my fingertips. I tried not to concentrate on any one thing; I wanted to leave my mind open to any clues that I might have overlooked before.
My fingertips grazed the spines of my father’s books. I pulled a few of them out and looked behind them, knocking on the wall they stood against. I crawled under his desk and felt for anything abnormal.
When I found nothing, I returned to the walls, the cabinets, and then the bookcase. I went over them all again, trying to see them a different way, to touch them differently, to appraise them for anything that seemed out of place. As my patience waned, so did my objectivity. I began plowing through the cabinets as I had before, slamming them shut and muttering under my breath.
I sat on the floor against the front of Jack’s desk and stared across the room with my elbows on my knees. The answers were here; I was missing something.
I lifted my chin in interest when my father’s favorite painting caught my eye. I scrambled to my feet and reached under the edges of the large frame. Determined, I reached closer to its center, knelt down and peered under it, and even pulled it a bit from the wall. I didn’t see anything remarkable, so I reached up blindly, hoping to find something that didn’t belong. There was nothing.
I stomped in anger. “DADDY!”
I looked around the room with my hands defiantly on my hips, blowing my bangs from my face. There were four other paintings in the room. I rushed each one, mimicking the sweep I’d just done with the larger painting. I ripped the fourth one off the wall and searched the backside of the frame. Looking at the now-empty wall, I felt another scream of aggravation coming on.
How could there be nothing in his office? No safes, no secret doorways, no….
Keys. There were keys in Jack’s desk. The first time I’d searched his office I assumed they were his car keys. But the car he drove himself — his Jag — was totaled. Scrap metal. What were the keys to?
In my haste to get to the desk, my hip smashed into the corner with a loud crack. I stifled a cry and doubled over, using the desk to steady myself. I attempted to rub the sting away with one hand, and pulled open the drawer containing the keys with the other. I held the keys in my palm, trying to remember if I’d seen a lock that the keys might fit. I slowly turned my head toward the wall of cabinets. The center tower of files was locked.
Surely, he wouldn’t be this obvious, I thought.
I hobbled to the cabinets and tugged on the drawer. It was still locked.
The first key only went in half way. I tried three more keys; the fourth easily slid in, but wouldn’t turn. Two keys later, I found myself cursing my father, Mr. Dawson, even the metal in my hands. I gripped the last key between my thumb and finger and closed my eyes.
The key slid in, and I rotated my wrist. It began to turn, and then caught. None of the keys were to the locked file cabinet.
“Damn it!” I said, throwing the keys to the floor. I kicked the cabinet, walked away, and then returned to land another kick, this time denting the bottom.
Limping across the floor, I picked up the keys and tossed them into the desk drawer. I was done.
I walked down the hall with my hand still pressed against my throbbing hip and stopped at the top of the stairs. Cynthia’s voice was weary as she spoke on the phone. Idling for a moment before taking the first stair, I heard her speak my name.
“Nina’s fine. She’s upstairs, resting. What do you expect me to do? Forbid her to…? Honestly, you worry too much! She just didn’t want to be alone tonight. I heard some commotion upstairs; I assumed she knocked something over. It mustn’t have been as bad as…,” she sighed, “yes. I’ll check on her. Goodnight.”
Cynthia turned to look up at me. I sheepishly waved, cursing under my breath for getting caught eavesdropping.
“Are you all right, Dear?” she called.
“I’m fine. Ran into a desk; bumped my side. Who was that?”
She shrugged. “Was it really necessary to yell out such profanities while I’m on the phone? My friends were under the impression that I had raised a lady.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was being so loud.”
Cynthia nodded dismissively. “I’ve got a beautiful ham in the oven. You’ll be staying for dinner, won’t you?”
“Er…yes. I was going to stop by the hospital, but it can wait.”
Cynthia made her way up the stairs. I followed into her study where she set some unopened envelopes on
