Nighttime Is My Time

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, could 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 off-target- 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?'