Ivy Secrets (48 page)

Marina laughed. “I did. But I guess it was a phase I needed to go through until I finally accepted that complete freedom is something I can never have.” She did not know how to explain to Edward about Dimitri, Raoul, and, worst of all, Henry. She did not know how to explain that in her desperation to feel “connected” to a man, in her desperation to feel love, she had mistaken first duty, then rebellion as a
way to find peace within herself. It was not until she met Jorge that a man, though not looking for love, had offered her acceptance, had made her realize she was a bright, capable woman who could build a solid, respectable life within the confines of her position—a life that would bring her great satisfaction, and a kind of freedom of its own. She did not know how to explain these things to Edward now, and, even better, she did not feel as though she needed to.

“I have made a lot of mistakes,” Marina said quietly as they passed the rose garden behind the president’s house. She turned to capture the scent of the roses in full bloom. Roses, like those in her mother’s garden—the queen’s garden—the garden that her mother no longer had the privilege to enjoy. She suddenly felt her eyes fill with tears. Tears of grief for her mother, for the inescapable prison in which her mother would forever dwell.

Edward stopped and put a hand on her arm. “We all make mistakes, Princess.”

Marina stopped and looked at his comforting hand as it rested upon her. His long fingers pressed lightly against her—those long, tender fingers that had once laced through her own, that had once explored the flesh, that had once sculpted her body with slow passion and sweet, shared desire.

She looked back into his pensive eyes. There was no high-voltage charge that shot between them, no hot, desperate need for quick, raw sex, for instant gratification without emotional intimacy. Edward was not like Dimitri, Raoul, and certainly not like Henry. What passed between their eyes now was comfort, acceptance, and peace. It was the same as it had been fifteen years ago. It was, Marina knew, the treasure of love. She wanted to ask if they had made a mistake—if he had ever felt they made a mistake the night they spent in Vermont.

As if reading her thoughts, Edward said, “What we did may have been morally wrong, but is was not a mistake.”

Marina smiled. “Have you been happy, Edward? Has your life been good?”

Edward put both hands in his pockets and they resumed walking. “Good? Yes. You could say my life has been good. Quiet. Thoughtful.”

“You never had children?”

He hesitated briefly. “No,” he responded. “Angelina didn’t want children.”

They walked quietly, lulled by the songs of nearby birds. Marina watched as Edward stared off toward the island on the pond. “She’s gone, you know.”

“Gone?”

“My wife. Angelina. She died last year.”

“Died? But the woman at the house …”

“Doris. My housekeeper. Nothing more.”

Marina suddenly realized the impact of his words: Edward was alone. His wife had died. “Oh, Edward, I am sorry.”

He shrugged. “So am I. I’ve been very lonely without her.”

Marina did not know what to say.

“What you and I had, Princess, was very, very special. What Angelina and I had was so different. She was … she was my …” His words didn’t come.

“She was your mate,” Marina said.

Edward nodded. “And my dear companion.”

Marina reached up and touched his cheek. She was not surprised that his beard was not rough, but soft, silky. She knew she would not tell him about Jenny. She would not tell him now, any more than she would have told him fifteen years ago. Jenny was her secret, and would remain her secret, for Marina was now almost certain that Edward had noting to do with Jenny’s disappearance. She only hoped that when the media got their hands on the story, Edward would not figure things out.

“I have said everything I needed to, Edward. Thank you for talking with me.”

They walked back to his house and paused in the driveway, hands not quite touching, hearts not quite joining, yet connected in spirits as two long-ago lovers who had found their way—briefly—into one another’s dream.

He kissed her cheek; she kissed his in return. They smiled sad smiles and slowly parted, no need for saying good-bye.

Marina turned and headed back toward Round Hill Road, head up, hands in her pockets, heart full of love. But when she heard Edward’s front door close in the distance, she was suddenly struck by a distressing thought: He had
never asked why she was in Northampton. It had been fifteen years since he last saw her, yet he never asked why she was there.

As her boot heels clicked softly against the well-worn sidewalk, Marina wondered if Edward hadn’t asked because he did not care … or because he had not been surprised.

As soon as Charlie saw the rental car fishtail into the driveway, she knew it was Peter. From his early Corvette days, Peter had retained a bad habit of driving fast. Speed—such an uncharacteristic trait for someone so controlled.

She ran out the kitchen door, not wanting to greet her husband inside, not wanting to talk to him in front of the FBI men or Joe Lyons. She hurried down the rotting back steps and stood in the unpaved drive, waiting for Peter to turn off the ignition, to open the door, and to finally accept the fact the Jenny was his daughter.

“Oh, God, Charlie,” were Peter’s first words as he emerged from the car and wrapped his arms around her. “Have they found her?”

The anger inside her washed away with the comfort of Peter’s arms. “No,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”

He pulled back and brushed his hair from his forehead. Charlie realized she’d never seen Peter so … unkempt. Even after making love, Peter’s hair always seemed to remain neatly intact, proper, in that old-moneyed sort of way. But today, even his gray cotton pants and cotton knit shirt seemed a little disheveled.

“Nothing has happened since the note. No one has called. The FBI are inside. They’ve put a wire tap on the phone.”

“Jesus, Charlie, what are we going to do?” he pleaded with little-boy eyes, eyes that expected Charlie to make things all better, to make the hurt go away. In that instant, Charlie realized a startling truth: Peter wanted her to be the
problem-solver, the one with the answers, the one to whom he deferred. He had, she knew now, done this for years, the same way he had been with his mother all her life. He had done this for years, and Charlie, and Elizabeth, had complied.

But now, Charlie didn’t have any answers. She was as unsure and as scared as Peter, the child who had never been given the chance to grow up. But now, for once, Charlie wanted—needed—her husband to be the strong one.

Standing in the driveway, she started to cry.

“Oh, God,” he said, and put his arms around her again.

Charlie wept.

He held her closely, smoothed her hair. His body trembled against her own.

“I’ve fucked up everything,” he whispered. “God, I’ve fucked up everything.”

She tried to shake her head. “No. No. We both have. We both have.”

“Tell me it isn’t too late.” I can’t.

“You must.”

“No. I can’t.”

He rubbed her back in quick, stuttering strokes. “We’ll find her, Charlie. If it’s the last thing we do, we’ll find her.”

He breathed deeply, his trembling eased. Then he pulled away, wiped her tears, and pushed some loose hair from her face. “We’ll find her,” he repeated.

He guided Charlie from the driveway toward the backyard. They sat in the nylon webbed chairs. Peter pulled his chair close to her, then took her hands in his. “Tell me everything.”

Between her tears, she told him about the Fabergé and about the note. Then she told him Marina had come.

“Why?” he asked.

“They called her.”

“Jesus,” was all he said, as he looked at the ground. “You don’t think she’s going to try …”

Charlie closed her eyes. It would have been normal for her to say no, to reassure Peter than there was no way Marina would try to take Jenny from them, try to reclaim her child. It would have been normal for her, on another day, in another situation, to say that everything was going to be
fine, because she would fix it. Now, she could only respond by saying, “I don’t know if she’s going to want Jenny back. I just don’t know.”

“Fuck,” Peter said quietly. “Maybe she’s behind the whole thing. She’s had such a screwy life, Charlie. Maybe she’s decided she wants Jenny back. She is next in line to the throne—”

“It doesn’t seem she’d go this far if she loves her.”

“Loves her?” Peter asked angrily. “How can she love her? She doesn’t even know her!”

A clammy chill shuddered through Charlie. And yet Peter … was Peter acknowledging his love for their daughter? Her shoulder ached again. She couldn’t think about this now, she just couldn’t.

“They think Tess could have done it,” she said.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Tess is too busy feeling sorry for herself to do anything like this.”

“Feeling sorry for herself?”

“She always has. Poor Tess. Don’t get me wrong, Tess is okay. But even when we were kids, she felt sorry for herself. Poor Tess—the one with the mother who never understood her. Then when her parents were killed it just reinforced her self-pity.” He gestured toward the house. “Look at this place,” he continued. “It’s a dump. It’s a depressing, depressed dump. It’s no wonder Tess never married. Who wants to be around someone who’s so damn depressed all the time?”

Charlie was stunned. She’d never thought of Tess as depressed—certainly, when she tried to kill herself she had been. But Charlie thought Tess had come out of that. When they graduated, Tess had had such big plans … she was going to be a great glass designer …

Charlie looked at the house, so badly in need of paint, so badly in need of life. She realized Peter was right. What was more surprising was that he’d known all along. Perhaps she’d never given him enough credit—or enough opportunity—to show that he did have sensitivity, he did have emotions.

“Don’t they have any other leads?” Peter was asking.

Charlie cleared her throat. “Well,” she said slowly, “there is one.”

“Who?”

She dropped her gaze to her feet that were squarely planted on the ground, firmly rooted to the earth. She wondered why she could not feel them; she wondered when the numbness had set in. “He’s back, Peter.”

“He? Who?”

She lifted her head and looked up at the burning summer sky. “Willie Benson.”

Peter rose quickly. His chair careened backward, clattered, then collapsed into a heap of rolled metal and frayed nylon. “Christ,” he said. “Benson? Why the hell haven’t they arrested him?”

Charlie glanced over and saw Joe Lyons standing on the back steps. “We don’t have him in custody because we can’t find him,” Joe said. He leaned over the dried wood railing and brusquely introduced himself.

Peter stared at him.

Joe took off his hat. “Would you come in the house? You’re just the man we want to see.”

As they entered the kitchen, the phone rang.

“Do you want to get it?” Connors asked Charlie. The numbness Charlie had felt in her feet now surged through her whole body. She wobbled toward the hallway. Through the doorway, she saw Greenberg stationed at a mass of electrical equipment in the living room. He nodded at Charlie. She picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

No one spoke. Over the pounding of her heart, Charlie heard a muffled sound, as if someone were breathing through a filter of cloth. She reached out and grabbed Peter’s hand. He laced his fingers through hers and steadied her heart.

“If you want to see the girl again, do as I say. There’s a large, brown canvas knapsack in the window of Thorne’s Market. Buy it. Put the money in it.” The voice was low and garbled, as though the speaker were talking underwater.

Greenberg nodded again at Charlie.

“Okay,” she quivered.

Greenberg stretched his hands apart, urging Charlie to keep the caller on the line.

“Is Jenny all right?”

“She is safe.”

He stretched his hands again.

“When do you want it?” she asked hurriedly. “And where?”

“I’ll call tomorrow. At noon.” The caller hung up.

Charlie put the receiver down and fell into Peter’s arms. He kissed her hair, rubbed her shoulders.

“Was it a man?” Peter asked.

Charlie sobbed. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Hard to tell,” Greenberg said. “Unfortunately, he wasn’t on the line long enough … By the way,” he added, “Where’s Tess?”

Charlie looked around the room. Marina, Charlie knew, had gone for a walk. Joe Lyons was there, and the two FBI men. But no Tess, and no Dell.

“Come on, honey,” Peter said. “Janice made reservations for us at the Hotel Northampton. You’re not going to stay in this house.” He looked at the FBI men, then at Joe Lyons. “I’m taking my wife to the hotel. If you need us, we’ll be there.”

“I think it would be better if she stayed here,” Joe said.

“No,” Peter said, then added, “and if you want to talk to me, it will have to wait until tomorrow. We’ll be back before noon, but right now, my wife needs some rest.”