Untold Story (32 page)

She picked up her car keys from the kitchen counter. She checked her cell to see if Carson had sent a text. Then she pulled open the knife drawer. Ten knives all in a row. She ran her finger along from one blade to the next. She counted them up the line and then she counted them down. As she turned, she used her hip to bang the drawer closed.

The jewelry store was inlaid with polished wood and bloused silk, like the inside of a casket. The air was stiff with the ticking of clocks. While Lydia waited for the valuer to come out from his office, she perused the lines of silver and gold necklaces, all laid to rest on yards of pale purple silk.

“A beautiful day, a beautiful woman. What more can a man ask for?”

“Hello,” said Lydia. “I’ve got a beautiful bracelet for you.”

“I’m Gunther. I don’t want your bracelet. I want to take you out for dinner.”

Lydia laughed and slipped the bracelet off her wrist. Gunther appeared to be wearing his pajama top. His hand shook with some kind of palsy as he took the piece from her. The liver spots that spread across his face ran up over his bald head. There was a skittish gleam in his eyes.

“What?” said Gunther expansively. “You don’t like my outfit? Hannah,” he said to the woman behind the watch counter, “she don’t like my outfit. Tell her she should see how I scrub up.”

“Don’t mind him,” said Hannah. “He’s only fooling. Gunther, quit fooling around.”

Gunther pulled an eyeglass from his pocket. He winked at Lydia. “Feminist,” he said. “Can’t get no sense outta her.”

He laid the bracelet on a piece of green felt, turned a lamp to shine on it, and leaned over with the eyeglass.

“You sure you want to sell?”

Lydia nodded. “Yes, please. I’d like you to buy it, if you can.”

“Sure you wouldn’t rather run away with me?” He plucked at his pajama top. “Don’t let this pull the wool over your eyes. Rich ones are the eccentric ones. Regular Howard Hughes you’re lookin’ at, right here.” He wheezed an old man’s laugh.

“Gunther,” said Hannah. “Cut it out.”

“All right, all right,” he grumbled. He turned the bracelet over and examined how the garnets had been set. “Know what’s wrong with the world these days? Everyone’s so darn serious.”

It was, as Gunther had said, a beautiful day. Lydia put the car windows down and Rufus stood on the passenger seat with his front paws up and his coat glossed back in the wind. The check was in her purse, and the sun on her face was fine. If she kept her mind on what was good in her life, if she put one foot in front of the other instead of whirling around so much she didn’t know which direction she was heading, there’d be peace at the end of this solitary winding road that she had taken. She had to try to stop thinking about Carson. The car made an ominous noise, a rattling in the engine. She listened intently but it had gone, as suddenly as it had come, and perhaps it had only been another figment of her imagination.

“Hey, Hank,” said Lydia. “Esther around somewhere?”

“Hello there, Lydia,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m great,” said Lydia. “How are you?” She should know better than to try to rush the preliminaries with Hank. There were certain rituals, certain dignities, to be scrupulously observed.

“I’m doing great too,” said Hank. “Thank you for asking.” He wore his shorts down to his knees, socks with his sandals, and Lydia had never seen his shirt untucked no matter how hot the weather.

“I can’t seem to find Esther.” She didn’t want to hurry him, but she was excited about handing over the check, nearly nine thousand dollars, made out directly to Kensington Canine Sanctuary.

“Oh, Esther went out for lunch,” said Hank. “Say, I hear it’s your birthday, Lydia. I didn’t get you a present, only heard about it today. But happy birthday, anyway. And may this day bring you whatever your heart desires.” He bowed at the waist.

“Thank you, Hank. That’s lovely. Do you know where she went?” Esther never went out for lunch. She brought chicken rice salad in a plastic box every day.

“Afraid I don’t,” he said. “Heard you were taking the day off.”

“I’ve got a . . . surprise for Esther,” she said. “Something I’d like to give her. What time did she leave?”

Hank consulted his watch. “About an hour ago, should be back soon. Went with the English fella she was showing around this morning.”

“What did he look like?”

“Oh,” said Hank, raising a hand in slow motion, “about this high, gray hair . . . Hey, Lydia, you off now?” He called after her, “Good news, he’s interested in making a big donation.”

This was real. This was happening. Sniffing around Amber and then her workplace. Grabowski was going to let the world know that he had found her. She had to be out of this town forever within the next hour. Her hand was shaking so much she could hardly get the key in the ignition. When she finally managed it, the engine turned over once and died. Damn it. Goddamn it. She thumped her hand on the horn. She tried again and then again. “For fuck’s sake,” she shouted. “This is not happening.”

Hank was at the window. “Car trouble, Lydia?”

“Hank,” she said, trying to steady herself, “you have to give me a ride home. Please.”

“I never heard you swear before, Lydia,” he said, rocking back and forth on his sandaled feet.

“I’m sorry,” she said, scrambling out of the car. “I just really need to get home now.”

Hank drove his Volvo like a hearse. It was all she could do not to scream. “Could we go a little faster, please, Hank?”

He notched it up by three miles an hour. “Someone’s in a hurry,” he said.

Her first instincts had been right. Why hadn’t she listened to them? It would still have been too late to stop him, whatever he’d got he’d use it anyway. But all this time she could have been running, and she was still here, telling herself she was crazy. Telling herself there was nothing to fear.

“That English fella,” said Hank, “had a border collie when he was a boy. Got run over by a truck. Its name was Zorba, same name as my first dog. Now, what are the chances of that?”

“Not high,” said Lydia.

He dropped her off in the driveway and Lydia thanked him and ran for the door. She ran back toward the car, shouting and waving. “Hank! Hank! Stop!”

“Need some help with something?” he said, poking his head out of the window.

“Can you give this to Esther for me?” She pulled the check out of her purse.

He whistled as he looked at it. “Ain’t that so kind of you. Giving out presents on your birthday.” She sprinted off and she heard him hollering behind her, “You take it easy now, Lydia.”

Chapter Twenty-six

All night long as he staked out the house, Grabowski tried to imagine what it was that she could be thinking. After he’d watched her taillights disappear down Albert Street, he’d run back to the bed-and-breakfast knowing he had to act fast. His initial decision had been to get the first available flight back to London. By the time his foot hit the front steps he’d realized that would be a mistake. He knew what he had to do. He grabbed his computer and his camera bag.

Now he couldn’t make sense of her inaction. He was shivering behind a thick stand of viburnum at the perimeter of the yard, wishing he’d thought to pick up his jacket. He couldn’t work it out. Either he was missing something or else she was barking mad. She’d tried to kill him, or at least tried to scare him off. That meant she knew he was on to her and since she didn’t have the bottle to run him over, she would have to take her passport and leave. If he pursued her to the airport and through security he’d be able to get a shot of her waiting at the gate. Even if she spotted him, it would make the story more sensational. It didn’t matter that as soon as she landed she’d be on another plane to somewhere else. There’d be a paper trail behind her that the authorities would follow.

The boyfriend had arrived and then left. She’d summoned him to say good-bye for the last time. After that, the light had come on in her bedroom and she was surely packing a case. He was paranoid that somehow she’d slipped out without him hearing or seeing a thing. He crept back and forth, keeping watch on the house front and back, then repositioned himself at the side. The car stayed where it was on the drive. It was nearly morning now and she still hadn’t gone anywhere. Maybe she wanted to get caught, after all. In that case, why try to crush him beneath her wheels?

He snapped a twig off the viburnum and broke it into pieces. It didn’t make any difference what her motivations were. He was a photographer, not a psychiatrist. But to be truly excellent at this job, you did have to know your subject. There were times when he’d felt like he knew her better than he knew his wife. He could predict her mood swings more accurately and knew more about the structure of her day, her shopping habits. To be fair, he’d devoted more time and thought to her than he ever had to Cathy.

What the hell was going on? Why wasn’t Lydia leaving? An insect crawled over the back of his hand. He brushed it off and there was another crawling underneath his sleeve. He tried to shake it off, undoing his cuff to let it fall out. It was still there. He rolled up his sleeve and slapped his hand along his arm, but he could still feel it crawling, tickling, nesting among the hairs. He rubbed and scratched.

He checked his watch. Even if she was going to get a morning flight it would still have made more sense for her to drive off in the night and go to a more distant airport. He’d had enough of this waiting around, he wanted the final chase, the final photos, the adrenaline pumping. He wanted to be on the flight home. Within the next forty-eight hours he’d be meeting with
The Sunday Times
. He’d be meeting with Rupert Murdoch.

Just before seven o’clock she appeared at her bedroom window, and shortly afterward the back door opened. He sprang to attention. This was it. Time to roll. She came out in her bathing suit. God, she looked great, but what on earth was she doing? He reeled off some pictures.

For close to an hour she swam lengths and he didn’t know what to do. Somehow he had the feeling that she was jerking him around, as if she had developed some elaborate plan, and he was only a pawn in her game. The stakes were so high it was making him paranoid.

After the swim she went back inside and out of view, presumably upstairs. When she finally appeared in the kitchen, which he was watching through his long lens, she had got dressed and she pottered around, apparently making breakfast. Surely after that she was going to leave.

She didn’t eat a single mouthful, just sat at the counter with her head in her hands. It was nearly ten o’clock. What was she doing? If she was going to carry on as normal and pretend nothing was happening, she should have been at work about an hour ago. He pulled out his cell phone, rang the dogs’ home, and asked to speak to her. Lydia, he was told, would not be coming in today.

Finally, she lifted her head. Now she was going to move. But she didn’t. She sat there staring into space, her lips parted slightly, her eyes red, her entire demeanor catatonic. He gave it a while longer but then he decided he had to revise his plans in light of the strange way she was acting. If she was going to try to sit this out then fair enough, but he had to get moving. He’d go and get his “interview” with the old woman at the dog sanctuary. Then he’d check back at the house. If she’d gone, good luck to her, he’d have plenty already, and as he crept along behind the bushes toward the road he felt a little dizzy from lack of sleep and from knowing that at long last he was counting down the final hours.

Lydia flew upstairs as soon as Hank dropped her off. Her mind was racing so fast she could barely make out a single thought. Her arms and legs seemed to know what to do, as though they were receiving clear instructions from elsewhere. She was pulling out clothes from her closet. She was pulling out a suitcase. She was in the bathroom, picking up her toothbrush and random items from the shelf and running back to the bedroom and throwing it all in the case.

Now she was kneeling at the window and opening the wooden seat and digging around for she didn’t know what. Whatever else that she needed was in the box in her closet. She sat on the floor and checked through the items. Her passport, and the other passport that she had never used, the papers for the savings account in that name which had so far lain fallow, thank you, Lawrence, for thinking of everything. The photographs of her boys that she’d cut out and collected over the years, she would take them of course. All her letters. The gun she would leave here, she couldn’t take it on an airplane. It couldn’t protect her anyway. Where was she going? It didn’t matter. She’d take the first flight available, and then there’d be time to work it out. Her driver’s license was already in her purse. Oh God, she was stupid. She sat on her heels and closed her eyes. She was back at the bed-and-breakfast, walking into the sitting room and seeing him for the first time. Now she was opposite him, sitting in the Queen Anne chair, making polite conversation. They were standing together on the stoop and he was telling her about the highland terrier that he’d loved, and she was touching his arm. Hadn’t he told Hank it was a border collie? Oh God, she was stupid, wasting time. She didn’t have the car. She should have called a taxi first, and the minutes were slipping away.

As she began to dial the number she heard a noise, the shattering of glass downstairs.

Esther, the old woman, hadn’t been as talkative as he’d hoped. Lydia was a good worker, that’s about all that he’d got, a few comments about her dog-handling skills. The fact that most days she ate Esther’s chicken rice salad for lunch. As he drove back to the house he turned it over. Every word about her spoken by her employer would still be printed, each worth its weight in gold. Esther hadn’t exactly been cagey but she had steered the conversation ever inward to the workings and finances of the shelter, to how his proposed substantial donation would be used so carefully. She’d posed for a photograph.