True Blend (7 page)

“Shh. No, Amy. We have to wait here. Everyone has to be able to reach you. The police. The kidnappers. They might call with instructions.” Her mother adds a splash more Scotch to their glasses and puts Amy’s beside the sink where she scrubs the cutlery. “We have to think positive. We have to believe she’ll be back … That’s why I dressed up.” Ellen sips her drink. “Don’t you remember? Gracie loves this jacket.”

Amy looks at the paisley print swirling over the cream fabric.

“I dressed up for her,” Ellen says, then reaches into the cabinet, lifts out clean plates and stacks them near the sink. From another cabinet, she sets a dozen coffee mugs beside the plates. “You wash, I’ll dry.”

Lowering her hands into the soapy dishwater, Amy sponges off a fork, rinses it and places it in the dish drainer. Her mother opens the cutlery drawer, picks up each piece Amy washes, carefully dries and neatly restacks them.

The sound of dropping cutlery strikes Amy as very lonely. Someone is putting away the silverware. A day is done. It is night. She silently slips the plates into the dishwater. The only sounds in the kitchen are her hands dipping into the water, the gentle stream of the tap rinsing the dishes, and the chink of forks and spoons. She has never known such long moments when words won’t work and there is only sound.

An officer in the house intercepts all phone calls, fielding the media, taking messages from friends, keeping the line open as best he can. So when the phone rings, Amy turns off the faucet to hear the drone of his deep voice in the living room. Listening, she picks up a plate and silently drags the dishrag over it, her hand moving slowly until it finally stops.

“What’s the matter?” Ellen asks.

Amy turns toward the living room. She has listened keenly to Officer Pine’s unyielding voice all day and knows it well. It sounds different this time; its tone has changed. She drops the plate into the sink and runs through the kitchen to the living room.

The officer has disconnected the call and is nodding at Celia when Amy and her mother rush into the room. Celia stands and loops her arm around Amy’s waist.

“Mrs. Trewist,” Officer Pine says. “They’ve found your daughter and I’m happy to report that she appears to be fine and unharmed.”

“Oh thank God,” Ellen cries as she collapses in a hug with Amy.

“She’s coming home,” Celia says from behind tears. “Grace is okay.”

“Where?” Amy asks. Her mother and Celia each hold one of her hands. “How did they find her?”

“Apparently Grace was dropped off in a grocery store parking lot and left with a passerby. He immediately called the police and she is in their custody as we speak.”

“Yes!” Celia exclaims, punching the air. “Yes! Yes! She made it!”

“Please,” Amy asks. “I have to see her. Can I go to her?”

“They’re bringing her here, Mrs. Trewist.”

Amy sinks into the couch with the realization of his words. Grace is safe and on her way home, home, home. Home to simmering chicken soup and her grandmother’s favorite swirled jacket and a warm kitchen filled with hearts and love and laughter. Celia sits beside her as Ellen rushes to the front window. “An ambulance has also been dispatched here. She’ll need to be examined at the hospital right away, once she’s with you.”

Amy nods. “And when will she be here?” She feels as though she has just emerged from beneath the sea, a sodden drowning victim given one last reprieve as she gasps in relief. The sound of sirens approaches.

“Well, I’d imagine that’s her right now.”

*  *  *

Grace sits in the back seat of a police van with George. The cardboard box is between them; a female officer sits across from them. “You’re going to see your mommy now,” she tells Grace softly.

Once George took Grace from Litner’s parking lot, he wanted to stay with her until she was back in her mother’s arms, so the officials allowed him to accompany her home. Grace doesn’t recognize him from the morning. He reaches over now and checks the child’s shoe. It is still double-tied snug. So that’s what the day comes down to. Pink saddle shoes and dark weapons. One versus the other, for hours on end. The day shows in the child’s weary face, in her misshapen blonde ponytails and lopsided hair ribbons. Elliott thought a kitten would keep her occupied while the day passed. Every now and again, the black and white kitten cries a soft mew from the box.

“She’s okay?” George asks the officer, nodding at Grace.

“Seems to be. They’ll be bringing her to the hospital to be sure.”

Grace pops her thumb out of her mouth and looks at the carton. “Kitty there?” she asks.

“You can show the kitty to your mommy,” George says. “Pretty soon, okay?” He tries to smile as Grace stares at him. The van slowly drives down a long side street, then pulls into a driveway crowded with official vehicles. “Look,” George says, bending low to watch. “There’s your house.”

One steep peak crowns the farmhouse’s white façade, an open porch hugs the front and a deep green trim outlines the structure. Lamplight spills from the windows in a warm yellow glow and a twig and forsythia wreath hangs on the wooden front door. A towering old maple tree reaches for the sky just beyond the house, and the lawn looks thick and jewel green. The blue flashing light casts distorted shadows on the plain detective sedans dotting the front driveway and the police cruisers lining the street.

When they pull into the long driveway, George doesn’t recognize Amy Trewist waiting on the open front porch. He has to look again to be sure the woman standing there in fitted jeans and a white oxford blouse is, in fact, her. But he’d recognize those brown eyes anywhere after locking on to them that morning. It occurs to him that Amy might recognize him, but then it’s apparent she is no longer in that morning moment. She runs down the steps, bending forward, straining to see her daughter. George and the police officers step out of the van, and he leans inside to lift Grace out to the driveway. Before he can turn back with the kitten in the carton, Grace is gone. As quickly as she had been ripped from her mother’s grasp today, her mother has taken her back. She spins around, her arms wrapped tightly around her girl. A crowd of people swarms them, cheering and hugging little Grace. The entire time, Amy never lets her out of her embrace, her fingertips floating over the child’s face, unable to stop touching her.

Through the blue strobe police lights, George watches from the sidelines. They are intermittently illuminated, over and over again, this mother and daughter who never deserved the day. He hands the kitten carton to one of the detectives.

“Come on, Carbone. They need you back at the station,” the officer driving the van says.

George doesn’t want Amy Trewist recognizing his voice, his eyes, while her memories are fresh. Grace is safe. They will have police protection for the time being, as well as plenty of family sticking close. One of those men must surely be her husband.

“All right, you leaving now?” George asks.

“Yeah, I’m ready to go. They’re going to get the kid a drink of water and swing her by the hospital. Precautionary stuff, you know?” The officer starts the ignition and switches off the flashing light. “Nice to see a happy ending.”

Several dark sedans sit at the curb. Maybe this will never have an ending. Hours pass before he finishes answering questions back at police headquarters. He repeats every detail of Grace’s return in the parking lot, saying it was dark; he can’t be sure how many men were in the car; no, he didn’t get the license plate. Once he realized what was happening, he says, he rushed into the store with the girl, afraid for their lives. The reporters take pictures outside Addison’s police department.

Reid was right. In the camera flashes that break the darkness, no one sees through his story, no one reads his thoughts, no one points an accusing finger. Instead, they make George Carbone a hero.

*  *  *

Night falls on the country road. An owl swoops from the big maple tree. Misty dew covers the distant cornfields. And it’s all good, it’s a peace that Amy wants surrounding her child. She tucks in the blankets around Grace. Earlier, when she had let detectives gently question her, Grace wouldn’t talk, burying her face in Amy’s shoulder instead. But to Amy, all that matters is this: The doctors issued a clean bill of health and she got to bring her home to cuddle with stuffed animals and to tuck under a soft blanket, wearing her spring jammies. Because home is love. At home, her daughter tastes love in a cup of warm chicken soup. She hears love in the tinkling notes of her wind-up music box and in her mother’s words. She sees love in her colorful room and in the eyes of Amy and her parents, of Celia and her husband Ben. Especially, though, Grace feels a new love for the stray kitten curled against her in a tight ball. It is tiny, just a scrap of fur taken from its mother much too soon. Like Grace. Can it be anything more than a constant reminder of the worst day of their lives?

But Grace stroked the kitten gently and quietly spoke to it. Wherever she went, the kitten followed close behind, scampering along to keep up. They set down a saucer of warm milk and Grace waited on the floor, rubbing at her tired eyes as it lapped enough milk to fill its belly. Afterward, the two of them fell asleep together. What defines evil’s existence is its contrast with good. Grace found the good in an evil day in a little kitten. The cat was like a guardian angel keeping her daughter’s mind distracted from the danger around her. Now she’s an angel in their home. They’ll call her that. Angel.

Outside their home, police protection remains indefinitely. A cruiser sits at the curb.

“Mom,” Amy whispers when Ellen walks into the room. “Did you make up the guest room for you and Dad?”

“I did. He’s still at the Station, talking to the detectives.”

“Well he is a constable, Mom. You know how that goes. The cop is always on in him.”

“Especially when his beautiful granddaughter is involved. How is she?”

“Sound asleep. Would you sit here for a little bit?”

“Of course.” Ellen bends over and leaves a kiss on Grace’s face.

“I just need to do something,” Amy says as she folds her daughter’s clothes and sets them with her saddle shoes high on a closet shelf. She noticed earlier how the laces were tied in a double bow to keep the shoe snugly in place. The gunman had looked out for her.

Still, she feels hatred, directed at the man she came into contact with, the man who
could
have changed the day. Their hands and eyes had locked. And no amount of good, of caring for her daughter or encouraging words, can erase that he did not try to stop the crime.

But another man returned her daughter, a good Samaritan brought into this nightmare unwillingly. Someone who did the right thing from the very start. He scooped her daughter into his strong arms, grabbed the kitten and ran. What a difference between the two.

She slips a cardigan over her shoulders and walks outside to find Officer Pine sitting in his cruiser. He gets out of the car as she nears.

“Is everything okay, Mrs. Trewist?”

Amy nods, her arms wrapped around herself in the night’s dampness. “I just want to ask you something. The man who phoned the police. The one from the grocery store parking lot. Do you know his name?”

“Oh sure. He’s a great guy. George. George Carbone.”

“Would you know how I can reach this George? I’d like to talk to him in the next few days and thank him.”

“He owns the meat market down on the west side. It’s in Sycamore Square.”

Amy pictures the local plaza. A working windmill turns in a small pond in the center of the circle of shops. She recalls a jeweler, several clothing boutiques, and a clock and lamp shop. Sycamore trees line the long driveway leading to the plaza of cream-colored buildings. But she can’t call to mind a fresh meat market.

“A butcher shop?” she asks.

“Well. If you want to call it that. George runs a nice place. The Main Course. Take a ride there some time. He’d be happy to see that you and your girl are doing fine.”

Six

GEORGE WAKES TO THE SOUND of heavy rain the next morning. Lying in bed, he holds out his arms, turning them and studying the sinuous tendons. If only he’d followed his dream and become a professional baseball player all those years ago. He would be fresh out of spring training right now, traveling on the road with the team while Nate went criminal. Chasing infield ground balls while Nate sidestepped felonies. Seeing the cheering crowd as he rounded the bases instead of seeing pouring rain, thinking the water sluices over an armored truck, over a parking lot’s pavement, washing away any lingering evidence.

No. Instead of fly balls exacting his eye-hand coordination, working with lethal blades does. His fresh meat and seafood market accommodates caterers, restaurants and a discerning public. And Nate’s laid tiles in many of those customers’ homes and businesses. They raised blue-collar trades to a new height. Nate is divorced, George never married, and neither one has kids. Which is exactly why George doesn’t understand his brother’s actions. Nate doesn’t need the money. So they can return their share of it anonymously and restore the family honor. He’ll tell Nate that. It’s about family, after all, that’s what Nate’s been saying. Taking care of family. But in the meantime, he has to get ready for work, shower, make a pot of fresh coffee and read the front page of the paper.

His picture is plastered on it. And outside his window, two television vans are parked at the curb. So when the doorbell rings later, he fully expects a pack of reporters, microphones in hand, cameras flashing. But it’s Nate who walks in carrying a toolbox and heavy carton of stone tile, his hooded sweatshirt covering his head from the rain.

“What’s going on now?” George asks.

“Those tiles came in that you wanted. Thought I’d start on your wall here.” Nate sets the box down and flips off his hood before pouring himself a cup of coffee. He wears his work clothes: blue jeans, a tight T-shirt revealing broad shoulders, and work boots. A loose denim shirt hangs past the leather tool belt on his hips.

“What’s in the box, for real? I can’t keep that cash here.”