SAVAGE BEAUTY

by Peggy Webb

  Emotions are not real, Stephen. They’re the product of an over-active imagination and over-rated sentimentality. They’re the devil lurking in your mind looking for a chance to destroy you. Never give feelings a chance to take over your mind and your will. An Allistair is always in control.

  At all times, Stephen was in control. Even now. Especially now.

  So was Lily. Except where her troublesome daughter was concerned. She turned to him now, her face a mask of motherly concern.

  “Annabelle has a valid point. What if there’s been an accident?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll have Graden take a crew to search the estate and inquire around. Meantime, why don’t you and Annabelle drive their jogging route off the property and see what you can find out? I’d take you, but I was almost out the door when you came.”

  It never hurt to remind her that these unexpected visits to his office were not appropriate. Allistair Roses thrived on routine and order, and so did he.

  “Where to this time, Stephen?”

  “Business meeting out of town. I’ll be back in plenty of time for dinner and our nighttime ritual. If anything else comes up while I’m gone, call me, darling.”

  How satisfying it was to put a smile on Lily’s face. And with such ease.

  Still, as he escorted her out the door with her volatile daughter trailing along behind, he had a vision of her with the doctor at the engagement party. A remnant of last night’s ridiculous uncertainty crept up on him. Lily had been awfully cozy with her old friend, Jack Harper.

  What if she’d been talking to him about moving up the wedding? He knew they were close, and she hadn’t seemed too pleased with the idea. What if she changed her mind altogether?

  He reached for her hand, and she gave him a reassuring squeeze. There. He had nothing to worry about. She was his. She loved ritual and order as much as he did. And she had a deep longing for family. His family, his son.

  He would give her everything she wanted, and more. So much more.

  Chapter Three

  It was dark and cold. So cold.

  She shivered and drew the covers closer. Instead of the plush pink blanket she expected, this one was made of heavy wool that scratched her face and smelled of mold.

  Where was she?

  She jerked upward so fast the room spun, and she toppled sideways. Her head banged against a cast iron headboard, and she blinked away the pain.

  Don’t panic. Breathe.

  She lay still until her vision cleared. Then she eased herself upright.

  She was on an iron bedstead whose headboard was bolted to the bare concrete wall of a mid-sized room. There was no furniture except her bed, a large overstuffed chair, and a plain wooden table. Metal duct work ran around the wall, probably some kind of inadequate heating system. A light fixture recessed into the high ceiling above the table cast a feeble yellow glow over a pile of books stacked there.

  Beside the books was a plastic tray that held a glass of milk, an apple, an orange, cheese, and thick slices of bread on a lightweight aluminum plate, the kind used for camping. A piece of white notepaper lay beside the tray.

  To the right of the table, a door stood open revealing a functional bathroom-- toilet, wall-hung sink and small shower. Two towels hung on the rod along with a bath cloth.

  The floor--also concrete--was bare, and there were no windows. She had no idea whether it was morning or night.

  Nor could she remember anything after going to bed, not how she got here or who had brought her. And certainly she didn’t know why.

  “Hello?” Her voice echoed against the walls.

  No answer.

  “Is anybody here?”

  There was nothing but dead silence that had its own eerie sound. The kind you hear in cemeteries and late-night prowls when everybody else is asleep.

  She had to get out. Had to find somebody. Anybody. The walls were closing in, and she could feel her panic growing.

  But where was the door?

  She blinked against the ache that had settled behind her eyes then searched until she spotted the door. Painted the same depressing gray as the walls, it blended in.

  She swung her feet over the side of the bed and started her run toward freedom. Suddenly, she came to a stop.

  The chill started in her bare feet and coursed through her until she felt frozen, a block of ice stranded in a strange and forbidding place. But it wasn’t the cold that terrified her. It was the leg-iron fastened to her left ankle…and the door just beyond the reach of her chain.

  Chapter Four

  We will find her. We have to find her.

  The refrain played through Lily’s mind in a never-ending loop as she and her daughter left Stephen’s office complex and hurried through the grove.

  Back at the manor, Lily sent her daughter upstairs for their jackets while she headed to the kitchen. Graden Young had left the crew still cleaning the ballroom, but he wasn’t out searching for Cee Cee. He was in the kitchen sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and his cell phone.

  A shiver ran through her. Not surprising considering Cee Cee’s strange absence and her own unexplained lethargy this morning.

  “I thought Stephen sent you out to search for Cee Cee.”

  “I’m organizing that now.”

  “Annabelle and I are going out to look for her, too. Will you inform the housekeeping staff that if she comes back while I’m gone, they should tell her to wait here and call you? Then you call and let me know.”

  There was no need to give him her number. As manager of the household, he had contact information for every person staying under the Allistair roof. A fact that now gave her an uneasy feeling.

  Did he also keep tabs on their comings and goings? It wouldn’t surprise her, considering the massive amount of locked-down information that could never fall into the hands of rivals.

  “I will,” he told her, but there was no emotional reaction from him.

  Lily didn’t even know why she’d expected one. Annabelle was right. He did remind her of Lurch. “Oh, and the plumbers will be here at eleven. Have the housekeeper show them to Stephen’s bathroom, please.”

  His nod was all the confirmation she needed. Whatever else she thought about Graden, he did his job. And she’d already consulted with the plumber about the relocation of the shower and the addition of a second sink in what would be Stephen’s and her master bath. She’d used this plumber many times and was certain he’d do a great job whether she was onsite or not.

  Still, as she grabbed a couple of bananas from a fruit bowl and two bottles of water then went back to the foyer to wait for her daughter, she felt like a woman split in half. Finally, Annabelle came down the stairs with their jackets slung over her arm.

  “I got breakfast to go.” Lily had hoped to elicit a smile from her daughter, but it didn’t work. Annabelle just mumbled thanks then grabbed a banana and climbed into Lily’s red Jeep.

  It was mild outside, not surprising considering their Deep South coastal location. The sun made the winter day even warmer. Lily considered that a blessing. If Cee Cee were hurt somewhere along her jogging route, at least she wasn’t cold. As long as they found her before dark. When the sun went down, the breeze coming off the Mississippi Sound would drop the temperature.

  She slid behind the wheel. “Still no word from Cee Cee?”

  “No. What if somebody took her?”

  They passed through the heavily guarded security gates, and Lily felt an easing of her own tension. “Stephen has tight security all around this estate, Annabelle. Chances of anyone getting in here and kidnapping Cee Cee are next to zero.”

  Even as Lily reassured her daughter, she thought of Graden’s size, his coldness and the uneasy way he made her feel.

  “There are creepy people all over this place, Mom. They wouldn’t have to come through security.”

  “Annabelle, Stephen and his grandfather saw Cee Cee jogging. Instead of creating worst-case scenarios, let’s concentrate on
finding her. Which way do you normally go after you leave the estate?”

  With Annabelle directing, they drove for more than hour, searching every possible route the girls used on their morning runs. But there were no signs of Cee Cee, no texts, no calls. Each street that turned up empty, each minute that passed without a clue, increased Lily’s worry.

  And Annabelle was crying again, crumpled into her seat a puddle of misery on her side of the car.

  “Why don’t we head to Government Street Grocery for lunch?” It was Annabelle’s favorite place to eat in Ocean Springs. Lively and funky casual, with chili Lily would walk a mile for in winter and the best muffulettas outside New Orleans.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well, I am. And I need to stop by the office and pick up a few things. Maybe you can choose the colors for your bedroom.” Though Annabelle nodded, she looked as if she’d been asked to take out the garbage. She had absolutely no interest in turning a bedroom at Allistair Manor into her own.

  At this point, neither did Lily. She tried to tamp down her growing fear.

  How could a fifteen-year-old child suddenly vanish when the sky was impossibly blue, and seagulls glided above the water that sparkled in the distance as if a thousand suns were caught inside the waves?

  With the holidays and her wedding looming, not to mention the renovations already in full swing, Lily felt as if she’d been pushed out of an airplane without a parachute.

  Jack.

  His name came to her unbidden, a safe haven in every storm, a constant source of support and understanding. Wisdom, too. Though he was only a couple of years older, he’d grown up in a stable, loving and affluent family, one who never had to worry about paying the rent or having enough money for groceries as Lily’s mom did. It was the sort of family stability Lily wanted for her daughter, a reliable, comforting hearth flame that nurtured all the qualities she treasured in her life-long friend.

  “Why don’t we call Jack to see if he can have lunch with us?”

  “Really?” Annabelle came out of her corner, wiped her eyes and smiled for the first time that day.

  If only she’d smile like that at the mention of Stephen’s name.

  Lily pulled off the street into the shade of a magnolia tree and grabbed her phone.

  Jack was booked solid all afternoon, surprising considering his Harper Medical Clinic was less than four months old. But Lily was waiting. He’d have moved the moon for her.

  When he saw her sitting at a corner table in Government Street Grocery cupping her coffee mug, Annabelle opposite her with a tall mug of hot chocolate, his day got infinitely better.

  “Hey, you.” He slid into the chair beside her, and Lily flashed the smile that made him think of the carefree days of their childhood. He didn’t ask how her day was. It was written in the worry that clouded her eyes. As always, he felt himself falling into her deep blue gaze. Jack pulled himself back and winked at Annabelle. “Annie! How’s my girl?”

  “Awful.” Words tumbled from her as if he’d flipped a switch, starting with her best friend’s disappearance. They grew into an ocean of teenage anxiety, pouring across the table in an endless wave that would have swamped someone who didn’t know her. And love her.

  He’d adored this child since she came red-faced and squalling into an incomprehensible world where her own biological father, Griff Perkins, didn’t have the moral courage to stick around for her childhood, or even to acknowledge her after he’d made another life for himself in Texas, complete with a successful construction business and a new family.

  As Annabelle poured out her heart to him, including the fact that she hated her soon-to-be father, Lily reached for his hand and held on. It was probably an unconscious gesture. Habit. She’d always reached for him when she was troubled, as if the touch of his hand could anchor her.

  Why hadn’t he noticed that before he let her slip away? Why had he become so absorbed in med school and building a practice that he’d forgotten how the sight of Lily was like breathing, how the sound of her voice was as important to him as the beat of his own heart?

  Too late now. She belonged to another man. The ring on her finger said so. The lavish engagement party and the media coverage afterward was all the proof he needed. That he’d gone to witness it all was still a mystery to him. He hadn’t slept a wink when he got home from Allistair Manor last night.

  Annabelle finally ran out of steam about the time the waitress came to fill his coffee mug and take their orders, and Lily pulled her hand away. A bit self-conscious. She’d never been self-conscious around him. What was going on? Something more, it seemed, than worry about her daughter and the missing teen he knew she loved like her own.

  Lily shifted so he could see her face, and her disconsolate look broke his heart. “We didn’t mean to dump everything on you, Jack.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  “I know, but it seems I’m always the one asking.”

  “That’s okay, Lily.” He started to add, It will always be okay, but her diamond, blinding under the bright lights of the restaurant, stopped him. “I want to help with Cee Cee. She’s a terrific young lady. Is there anything else Annie hasn’t told me?”

  He grabbed his mug and held on while Lily filled in the blanks on their futile search for Cee Cee. Across the table, Annabelle pulled out her phone to do a quick search.

  “Still nothing,” she said. She sounded so lost he reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

  “If you don’t hear from her by evening, I’ll go with you and your mom to the police.” Her smile was tentative but brave.

  The waitress came with their orders, and they all dug in. He could feel anxiety coming off Lily like heat, and a wave of regret washed over him.

  “Annie, let’s talk about that problem with your new dad.”

  “He’s not my dad.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s talk about Stephen.” That earned Jack another smile. “I think it would help if the two of you could hang out together so he could get to know you. You’re a cool kid. He just needs to see the real you.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Lily had ordered the chili, but she was mostly just pushing it around with her spoon.

  Annabelle made a face. “All he does is work.”

  “Stephen does work a lot.” Lily turned to him, apologetic, and Jack felt a pinch of anger that she needed to make excuses for a man she was going to marry. That was followed by a deep sadness that the most natural thing in the world for him, loving Lily’s child, should be a chore for the man who was going to be her father.

  “But he has a superb library and a boat and a tennis court.” Lily smiled at her daughter. “You love all those things, Annabelle. Jack’s idea is really wonderful. The two of you can have a good time together, if you’ll just give it a try.”

  Annabelle sat with her arms crossed, obviously not buying the idea, while Lily went on and on about the many ways Stephen could show her a great time.

  Jack’s heart sank. Why hadn’t the man already tried to win Annie over? Didn’t he know Lily would never be happy unless her daughter was? Was the man so involved with his work he couldn’t see past it to their needs?

  Guilt punched him in the gut. He’d been so involved with medicine, he’d let them down, too. He’d been watching after Lily since he was five years old. Her mom, Nancy Lofton, had been a seamstress and alterations lady for Harper’s Department Store. He’d loved nothing better than going to work with his dad, then spending the day playing hide and seek with Lily among the racks of dresses and gowns, coats and trousers in Nancy’s sewing room. The friendship he and Lily formed as children had become an unshakable bond that nothing could break. Including, he hoped, her marriage to Stephen Allistair.

  “Annie, you’ve always loved puttering in the garden with Mom.” He remembered her as a child, tagging along behind his mother as she worked the flowerbeds, always asking questions. “Maybe you’d enjoy helping Stephen in the greenhouses.” />
  “Maybe.” Annie’s phone pinged. “It’s Cee Cee!”

  As she read her friend’s text her face fell. Without a word she passed the phone across the table.

  I’m spending a few days with my real mom. I knew you’d get upset if I told you, so I just skipped out. Don’t worry. I’m fine! See you when I get back!

  Lily frowned. “This is out of character for Cee Cee. She’s usually more responsible than this.”

  “She didn’t write it.”

  “Why do you say that, Annie?” Jack asked. Though she had a typical teenager’s penchant for drama, she was also a sharp kid.

  She ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “Cee Cee never spells out the words in her texts, and she uses emojis, like, a ton of them. She calls her birthmother the troll. And she would never in a jillion years go off to spend time with her, especially without telling me.”

  Jack mulled that over a bit then turned to Lily. “What do you think?”

  “Cee Cee doesn’t talk to me about her biological mother, but as far as I know the woman has made no attempt to see her since she gave her up to social services. In fact, I thought she was somewhere up north. This is odd.”

  “What’s the mother’s name?”

  “Frankie Cartwright.” Lily was stiff, as if she were holding herself together with a dunking in starch. Jack hadn’t seen her that way since Griff Perkins walked out and left her to raise their baby alone.

  He reached for her hand, consequences be hanged. “I have a friend who might be able to locate her. I’ll ask him if you want me to.”

  “Stephen has some men trying to find Cee Cee.” Across the table Annabelle snorted, and Lily worried her bottom lip. “There’s so much happening. But, please, go ahead and look for Frankie.”

  “Great.” Jack glanced at the clock on the wall. It was his enemy. How did you balance patients in need with the needs of a dear friend? It would take a wiser man than he to figure that out. He pushed back his chair and leaned in to hug Lily. She smelled like flowers and soft ocean breezes. Jack pulled back and winked at Annie. “I’ll be in touch. Both of you…call me if you need me. Anytime.”