You Can Run... (17 page)

“Him!” she screamed. “He found me! He must’ve found Mommy, too!”

Lenore drew back in shock, and Diana kneeled, pulling Willow close to her. “Of course he found you, honey. I told you there’s no reason to be afraid. He’s your daddy. Your
daddy
found you.”

Willow shook violently then threw back her head and began a weird, almost unhuman keening that ripped through the house, rising and falling, going on ceaselessly. Christabel shot up the stairs, her fur on end in pure cat panic. Finally Willow caught her breath and shrieked, “He’s not my daddy! He’s the
Bad
Man and
he
killed Mommy, just like she told me he would!”

Diana held the child as tightly as she could. Willow buried her face against Diana’s chest, and for a moment everyone in the foyer stood frozen, aghast. Willow’s cries even drew a white-faced Nan from the kitchen to stand gazing at the child with a weirdly lifeless surprise. Finally Lenore lifted her voice above the child’s crying and said, “Corny, it’s Aunt Lenore and your daddy!”

Willow let out another blood-curdling shriek. Diana looked at Jeffrey, whose shock seemed to have vanished remarkably fast as his silvery eyes malevolently fastened on Simon, then on Diana. “I want to know which one of you turned my daughter against me. Who told her this despicable lie about me—”

“Jeff, you’re shouting.” Blake’s voice was low pitched yet commanding. “You’re frightening her even more. Besides, no one here told her anything about . . . what she said. Look at their faces. Can’t you see they’re as stunned as you are?”

Jeffrey stared at his sobbing, terrified daughter. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, the unnerving, flashing silvery look had vanished. “Cornelia, did your mother tell you awful things about me?”

Willow let out a wail, and Lenore shook her head at her brother. “Don’t question her, Jeff. Let’s just take Corny back to the hotel.” She looked at Diana. “We’re staying at Pullman Plaza. I remembered to bring the family album I’ve kept since Cornelia was born. We’ll show her pictures and make her remember the three of us and how we loved her.”

Willow screamed again.

“You cannot possibly be thinking of taking this child with you tonight!” Simon declared. “Look at her. She’s nearly hysterical!”

“Right now,” Lenore said with a shaky smile, “but maybe we’ll get her some ice cream and then we can go back to our rooms and play games and look at the photograph album and—”

“Cornelia!” Jeffrey stuck out his hand for her to grasp. “Stop acting like a baby and come along with us!”

“Not tonight,” Blake said firmly. Lenore glanced at him in irritation, and Jeffrey shot him a look of fury. “I’m sorry for taking over here, Jeff, but I can’t help it. You’ve had an awful day and an even worse night. I’m not the Rock of Gibraltar, but I believe I’m thinking a bit clearer than you are right now. Cornelia feels happy and safe with these people. They obviously love her. Let the situation cool down for a while—at least for tonight. Please, Jeff, for all of our sakes. Let’s think this through and decide over the next few days what’s best for the child. She’s the person who is most important right now—not any of us.”

“I am her father,” Jeffrey stated. “She belongs with me.”

“Yes, but not right
now
.” Blake’s face tightened. “You’ve seen that she’s healthy—”

“Healthy!” Jeffrey exclaimed. “She’s—”

“Crying uncontrollably because she doesn’t want to come with
us
. We’re strangers to her,” Blake said earnestly. “She’s understandably frightened, so let’s leave her where she feels safe. That’s what a loving father would do, Jeff.”

Diana expected a furious reply from Jeffrey. When,
after a few tense seconds he merely mumbled an unhappy “All right,” Diana whisked Willow into her arms and ran upstairs. She shut the door to the child’s room and placed her on the bed, where a still-frightened Christabel lay close to her nearly unconscious lover, Romeo.

Grabbing a handful of tissues, Diana began wiping Willow’s tear-drenched face. “You’re staying right here tonight, honey,” she said, her heart pounding.

“But they said—”

“You were crying too much to hear Mr. Cavanaugh say you can stay here tonight.”

“But he might change his mind,” Willow wailed.

Diana looked her straight in the eyes. “Willow Conley,
no
one is taking you away tonight. You’ll sleep in this bed, the cats will stay in here with you, we’ll open the bathroom doors so we can see each other and wave and talk back and forth from our beds, and we’ll be cozy and safe with Uncle Simon and Clarice.”

“But they said I had to go to a hotel,” Willow insisted tearfully. “That woman and the Bad Man.” Just saying “the Bad Man” set Willow off again. “I don’t wanna go to a hotel and . . . and look at . . . or be . . .”

“Willow, you are not going anywhere.” Diana decided to take another tack, one less serious. “Christabel and Romeo absolutely will
not
allow anyone to take you away!”

Willow, sniffling, turned to look at the cats. Christabel immediately crawled onto Willow’s lap and began purring, and Romeo, God bless him, managed to open and close one golden eye as if he was giving Willow a wink of reassurance. She smiled through her tears. “No, maybe they
won’t
let me go.”

“Of course they won’t. People underestimate these cats, but I can tell you, they make quite a team when they’re protective of someone, and they’re certainly protective of their favorite—their
only
—little girl.
I
certainly wouldn’t want to meet them in a dark alley if I were a big, bad person after Willow Conley.” Diana shivered. “They’d tear that person to shreds and eat him for dinner!”

Willow burst into giggles at the image of little Christabel and three-legged Romeo making mince meat of a grown man, not to mention then dining upon him. They both ate only the most expensive cat food and drank French bottled water.

Children could be so resilient,
Diana thought as Willow continued to giggle and lovingly stroke the cats. But even a strong child like Willow could only take so much. One more trauma might put her over the edge. Diana quickly turned on the Disney movie again and pretended to have forgotten all the trouble downstairs, as she laughed uproariously at mildly funny parts and imitated the voices of the animated characters. After fifteen minutes, Simon came into the room and announced that they had left.

“They won’t come back and get me, will they?” Willow asked nervously.

“You will be spending the night in the distinguished company of Diana, Clarice, and me,” Simon said, being careful not to reassure Willow that she would never have to leave. “And, of course, Romeo and Christabel. Nan fled out the back door without even saying good night.”

“No charm.” Willow smiled, looking desperately relieved. “I’m glad it’s just us here now.”

“Me, too.” Simon smiled broadly. “You know, Clarice had an excellent idea. She told me that sometimes when she babysits for you at night, you two have hot chocolate. Does a hot chocolate party with the four of us sound good to you, Willow?”

“It sounds wonnerful!”

Fifteen minutes later the four of them sat in the kitchen with their steaming drinks. Willow, with a chocolate mustache above her mouth, announced that this was the best hot chocolate party she’d ever attended. Simon pretended to think before proclaiming it the best party of its kind that he’d ever attended, too. “It’s not just the hot chocolate,” he said. “It’s the charming company. I’m in the presence of three breathtakingly beautiful women. That’s my idea of heaven.”

“Wanna know my idea of heaven?” Willow piped up. They all nodded. “Mommy, Diana, Clarice, Uncle Simon, Romeo, and Christabel way up high with me havin’ a picnic on a cloud.”

She immediately turned her attention to catching a miniature marshmallow on her tongue. Tears had risen in Clarice’s eyes, and Simon’s throat worked furiously. Diana closed her eyes, feeling bleak and empty and hopeless.

Later, Diana bathed Willow, putting vanilla-scented candles around the tub and using lots of bubble bath. The festive bath delighted Willow, especially when Christabel came into the bathroom and sat on the vanity to watch her. Afterward, Diana showed Willow her new pink pajamas. The little girl insisted on donning them herself, and after a spin in front of the floor-length mirror, pronounced them be-
u
-ti-ful.

Diana settled Willow in bed. Romeo slept so deeply that he didn’t even open his eyes when Diana moved him from Willow’s bed and gently placed him in his own elegant cat bed. Occasionally he lifted his tail and smacked it down as if smashing an insect, and at other times he let out a soft, sleep-muted quack. Christabel, with her youthful energy and enthusiasm, always refused to settle in her kitty bed until they turned off all the lights and Diana was in her own bed, so she curled near Willow as Diana told the child a rambling bedtime story of her own creation.

Willow’s eyelids gradually closed, and her breathing became even and slow. When Diana was certain the child was sound asleep, she kissed Willow lightly on the forehead then went downstairs, Christabel wide-awake and following on her heels. She found Clarice and Simon sitting in the kitchen over steaming mugs topped with marshmallows. “Good heavens,
more
hot chocolate?” She laughed. “We each had two mugs with Willow.”

“Clarice and I are going on a hot cocoa binge,” Simon announced enthusiastically. “A real bender. I can’t guarantee what shape we’ll be in tomorrow morning, but I
think we deserve to cut loose after the mind-shattering evening we had with the Cavanaugh crew.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Diana put out two tiny cat treats for Christabel, who threw her a look of rebuke. Softening, Diana added three more into the bowl. Then she fixed another mug of hot chocolate for herself.
I’ll pay for this,
she thought. Even in her late twenties, eating chocolate still caused her skin to sprout at least two pimples, but that’s when concealer came in handy.

“Willow is sleeping peacefully,” she said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “An hour ago I wouldn’t have believed it, but I think sheer exhaustion overwhelmed her fear.”

“Her fear of the Bad Man.” Anxiety showed in Clarice’s violet eyes. “That’s what she called her father.”

“She doesn’t think Jeffrey
is
her father. She thinks her father is dead and Jeffrey is the Bad Man.”

“The dear child took two years off my life with her shrieking,” Clarice said. “Why do you think she called Mr. Cavanaugh the Bad Man?”

“Penny must have taught Willow the name,” Simon said.

“Willow said she kind of remembers a man in New York—that must have been Jeffrey—but she didn’t seem frightened of him,” Diana said.

Simon nodded. “I think the key words are
kind of.
Willow was only three when Penny ran away with her. She couldn’t count on the child clearly remembering Jeffrey, so Penny probably showed Willow photos of him to keep his face fresh in her mind. Then she told Willow he was bad and dangerous and that if he found them, he might try to kill them.”

“Why would Penny do that?” Clarice asked doubtfully.

A furrow formed between Simon’s arched silver eyebrows. “She’d want to make certain that if Jeffrey ever tracked down Willow, she wouldn’t go with him. She’d run like hell and hide.”

“Yes, that makes sense.” Clarice frowned. “I simply can’t believe Penny deserted her husband and took their child. Maybe they weren’t getting along, in which case she could have divorced him, but to take his
child
? To leave him wondering where Willow was, how she was, for this long? Then to teach her daughter to fear her own father? I simply cannot imagine Penny being so cruel.”

“Unless she wasn’t being cruel at all.” Diana stared beyond Clarice and Simon, seeing only the powerful love in Penny’s eyes every time she looked at Willow. “We know Penny didn’t steal Jeffrey’s money. So why else would she literally run from the man, give up the luxurious lifestyle she had as Penny Cavanaugh, bury her and Willow’s identities?”

“Fear,” Simon said softly. “Penny was
terrified
of Jeffrey Cavanaugh.”

The bomb. Diana almost blurted out that a bomb had caused the explosion at Penny’s house, but she’d promised Tyler Raines she wouldn’t tell Simon. She felt guilty for lying by omission, but looking at Clarice and Simon, she realized how desperately each needed a somewhat calm night’s sleep. They looked exhausted, and the evening had been unsettling enough without her announcing that someone—maybe Jeffrey Cavanaugh—had planted a bomb in Penny’s house.

The silence spun out, and Diana finally asked, “Simon, did you call the hospital this evening to check on Penny’s condition?”

“Yes, I did, but Jeffrey Cavanaugh had already been there and established that he is her husband. The hospital will give out information about a patient’s condition only to family, so you and I are no longer privy to updates about Penny. Before you came home from the mall,
though, Lenore told us the doctors said her condition hasn’t changed.”

“She’s going to die,” Diana said miserably. “We all know it.”

“We do not
know
it,” Simon flared. “Today I read extensively about burn cases. These days even people burned as massively as Penny often live. What used to cause certain death was infection. Now we have powerful broad-spectrum antibiotics. There is always hope, Diana.”

“You sound just like Grandmother.”

“No, I don’t. I’m not talking about getting odd feelings and messages from beyond the grave as she did. I believe in science, and science has made tremendous advances in the medical field. You are simply giving up on Penny without knowing all that can be done for her, and I will
not
have it!”

Clarice lowered her gaze and fumbled nervously with her napkin, obviously afraid Diana and Simon were going to burst into a fight.

This is only her second day with us,
Diana thought in sympathy.
She still doesn’t understand Simon and me.

Diana smiled. “Clarice, don’t look so uneasy. Simon and I have at least one argument a day. It keeps us from getting bored with each other.”