GERRY CONROE’S FIST crashed down on his desk, barely missing the keyboard he’d been tapping on with steadily increasing frustration and fury for most of the morning. “God damn it! What the hell is going on here?”
Eleanor Austin, who for nearly fifteen years had been Gerry’s secretary, administrative assistant, editor, and general factotum, had not reacted when he smashed his desk with his fist, but she was so startled by his curses that she slopped her coffee onto the story she was editing. “Take it easy, Gerry. Breaking the computer isn’t going to help.”
“It’s starting to look like nothing’s going to help,” he growled. “I hate the damn thing, and I hate the Internet even more.”
“That’s today,” Eleanor observed, the soothing tone of her voice only exacerbating his frustration. “Yesterday you said you could find anything you needed to know on the Net. ‘The greatest tool ever invented by mankind,’ I believe is what you said.”
“Well, I was wrong,” Conroe muttered, his eyes narrowing as he studied the screen in front of him, which was currently displaying the latest of what had been an unending series of messages informing him of the result of his search:
“Why the hell doesn’t it just say it can’t find what I’m looking for? Somebody should teach this thing to speak English.”
Eleanor quickly cast around in her mind for some way to divert Gerry before he launched into a diatribe against all things modern. “Why does it matter so much who Matt’s father was?” she ventured, then recognizing her error at once, anticipated his reply:
But instead of what she’d expected, her employer said, “The thing is, Matt Moore doesn’t seem to have any father at all.” He gestured toward the computer. “According to this, he doesn’t even exist!”
Eleanor couldn’t contain a smug smile. “You mean maybe the Internet isn’t quite the greatest tool ever invented by mankind after all?”
“No!” Gerry said, shoving his chair back and standing up. “I mean that something phony is going on around here, just like I’ve been telling everyone. And I’m going to find out what it is!”
Walking out of the office, he strode to the corner of Main and Chestnut, cut diagonally across the intersection — pausing only long enough to glare at the two drivers who honked at him — brushed past Agnes Fenster, who served Trip Wainwright in more or less the same capacity as Eleanor Austin functioned for him — and shoved open the door to Trip Wainwright’s office. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
The lawyer looked up from the will he was working on, his features automatically falling into a neutral expression that hid whatever he might have been thinking. “I’m not sure I follow you, Gerry.” He rose from his chair, offered his unannounced visitor his hand, and when Conroe refused to shake it, smoothly used it to gesture toward the client’s chair in front of his desk. “May I assume you don’t approve of me looking out for my client’s interests last night?”
Suddenly Conroe understood Dan Pullman’s refusal to go after Matt Moore: Wainwright must have intimidated him. “You get in the way of finding my daughter, and I swear I’ll make you so miserable you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
Wainwright sighed as he lowered himself back into his chair. He’d known this visit was going to happen — could practically have predicted Gerry Conroe’s exact words. That was both the blessing and the curse of living in a town as small as Granite Falls. But at least knowing what was going to happen this morning had allowed him time to prepare for it. “Look, Gerry,” he began, “I’m very, very sorry about Kelly. But until we know exactly what happened to her, I can’t let you or anybody else try to convict Matthew Moore of doing anything to her. For all you or anyone else knows, he had absolutely nothing to do with anything that might have happened.” Gerry Conroe’s jaw tightened, but before he could say anything, Wainwright held up a hand as if to hold off the torrent he knew was about to break. “And don’t put me in a position where I have to recommend that either Matt or Joan sue you either. I hate it when my clients wind up in court, especially when they have to sue my friends. So why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, and try to keep your temper out of it.”
Conroe said nothing for a moment, trying to gauge how much of Wainwright’s words were bluff. Though he couldn’t imagine Trip recommending that Joan actually sue him, he couldn’t be entirely certain he wouldn’t either, and the lawyer’s expression gave away nothing. Finally, he lowered himself into the chair. “I just want to know where that kid came from,” he said.
Wainwright frowned. “Matt? We all know where he came from — he’s Joan’s son. As for his father…” His voice faded, and he shrugged dismissively. “I suppose if you want to know that, you’ll have to ask Joan. She’s never told me, but on the other hand, I’ve never asked.”
“What makes you think Joan would know?” Conroe countered. As Wainwright’s face finally registered an expression — even if only of puzzlement — Conroe’s lips compressed into a grim line. “As far as I can tell, she’s not his mother.”
Wainwright blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“She’s not his mother,” Conroe repeated. “I’ve been on the Net since lunch, and I’ll bet I know more about Joan Moore Hapgood than she knows about herself. And I can tell you for a fact that her medical records don’t show that she ever gave birth to anybody. As for Matthew Moore, I’ve checked the records of every state in the East, and there’s no birth certificate for him. According to everything I’ve seen, he never officially existed at all until Joan registered him in school here after she came back from New York. Before that — nothing! No birth records, no adoption records, nothing! So what’s going on? Who is he? Where did he come from? And how come all of a sudden his stepfather is dead, and his grandmother and my daughter are both missing?”
“Even if everything you say about Matt not being Joan’s son is true — and I’m not saying it is, ” the lawyer countered, “I don’t see how it’s germane to anything else. Even if Joan adopted Matt, it doesn’t follow that — ”
“She didn’t adopt him!” Conroe cut in. “I don’t know where the hell she got him. But by God, I’m going to find out, and I suspect that when I do, a lot of what’s going on in this town is going to be a lot clearer. And if that kid’s done something to my daughter, you can bet I won’t rest until he pays for it.” He raised a finger and pointed it at the lawyer’s head. “And don’t try to get in my way. You’re protecting a murderer, Wainwright. He shot his own stepfather, damn it! And nobody’s doing anything about it! Do they have to find my little girl’s body before they lock him up?” Before the lawyer could respond, Conroe was on his feet again. “You tell your ‘client’ that if anything’s happened to Kelly, he’s going to wish that he’d never been born at all! And tell him that’s not a threat, Wainwright. It’s just a plain, simple statement of fact.”
A second later he was gone, and five seconds after that, Wainwright saw him march across the street — oblivious to the blaring of horns — and disappear into the police station. And when he was done there, there would be only one other place he would go. Picking up the phone, Wainwright dialed Joan’s number, his fingers drumming impatiently as he waited for her to pick up at the other end. But when he finally heard her voice, it was a recording on the answering machine.
* * *
JOAN SAT AT Cynthia’s vanity, her eyes fixed on the image in the mirror. But it wasn’t her face she saw — at least not the face that Dan Pullman and Tony Petrocelli had seen a few minutes ago. Instead she saw the face that had been hers years ago, when she still lived in the house on Burlington Avenue, after Cynthia left, when her mother had forbidden her even to go into her sister’s room, let alone to sit at her vanity or use her cosmetics. But Mother wasn’t home now, and Cynthia had gone away, and she was alone in the house.
“No one to tell,” she said softly. “No one to tell on me.”
“I’ll kill you if you tell,” Joan replied. “I’ll kill you, and maybe I’ll kill Mother too!” She picked up a jar of Cynthia’s foundation — a brand-new one that had never been opened — and unscrewed the lid. Using a sponge she found in the top drawer of the vanity, she carefully applied the cosmetic until every bit of her face was covered. She paused then, gazing at the blank canvas her visage had become. “I can be pretty too,” she said. “I can be as pretty as you.”
Her sister laughed, but Joan ignored it, turning her attention to the array of colors spread across the top of
