Forbidden

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Footsteps sounded on the stair.

  Jade’s heart leaped. Annabel? The steps were light as a girl’s. But wouldn’t she have heard Mr. Jayquith confronting Annabel? Could it be Mrs. Donavan? Theodora?

  Jade scooped up the outfit still lying on the carpet, closed the lid of the necklace box, and stepped inside the tall cape closet, closing the door.

  The doors were shuttered to air the clothes. The exceptions were two solid doors she was unable to open. Fur coats, no doubt. Jade peeked through the shutter slat.

  It was the chauffeur.

  He opened drawers, searching through them. He put several changes of Annabel’s underwear into a brown paper grocery bag, a pair of jeans, a gray-hooded sweatshirt, and a couple of plain T-shirts.

  Annabel’s running away! thought Jade. She sent the chauffeur to get her dullest clothing. I’ve come on the very weekend that Mr. Jayquith is losing his daughter.

  Why not replace her?

  “Wait,” said Annabel.

  Alex waited at the end of Emmie’s driveway, letting the engine idle.

  “Hand me the car phone,” she commanded.

  “What are you doing?” said Emmie.

  “I need Daddy’s assurance that he’s going to be a reasonable adult about this.”

  Dream on, thought Alex.

  “Hi, Daddy,” said Annabel. “I think we need to talk.”

  Alex could hear every word of the response. Mr. Jayquith was not cool. He was shouting. “I think you need to be home, young woman!”

  Poor strategy, Jayquith, thought Alex. If she were a business competitor, you’d offer deals. Billionaire or not, this is the time to offer your daughter a deal.

  “Daddy, I have to tell you what Daniel has in mind.”

  “He has in mind what every man has in mind when he sees a beautiful girl,” yelled Mr. Jayquith.

  “He does not,” said Annabel.

  Alex bet he did.

  “Where are you?” demanded Mr. Jayquith.

  “I’m coming home,” said Annabel, “but only if you agree you’re not going to do anything like lock the gates on me again. Really, Daddy, you are not running a prisoner-of-war camp.”

  “My daughter stays home when she is told to stay home!” shouted Mr. Jayquith. “We had a family gathering of the utmost importance. Your priorities are completely confused.”

  “Forget that, Daddy. Listen to me! Daniel is going on Theodora’s show tomorrow night and he’s—”

  “I do the talking,” said her billionaire father. Alex could almost hear his teeth grind. “I could not care less what a Ransom has to say on Theodora’s show or off it.”

  “Well, you should!” yelled Annabel right back.

  From the backseat, Emmie stretched a long, thin freckled arm between Alex and Annabel. She switched off the Jeep’s engine. Alex understood perfectly. The noise of the motor made it hard to hear Mr. Jayquith’s end of the conversation. He and Emmie suddenly exchanged silent laughter, for the first time actually on the wavelength Emmie had thought they shared.

  “Daniel is going to accuse you of murder,” said Annabel fiercely. “On national television. The murder of his father, Senator Ransom. He says he and his mother have proof.”

  Alex hung onto the wheel, trying to figure out what to do about that.

  “I repeat,” said Hollings Jayquith, “I could not care less what those Ransoms say. In person, on television, or underwater. They put me through a wringer ten years ago, along with every other possible scapegoat for the senator’s death, and I refuse to go through it again. I want you home, young woman!”

  Annabel hung up the car phone. “I could murder him myself!” she said to Emmie.

  But Emmie was no longer laughing. She was horrified. “Daniel Ransom thinks your father had his father murdered?”

  Alex was so full of things to say that they canceled each other out and he was mute.

  “And you went out with him anyway? Annabel! The guy wants to destroy your father, and you too, obviously, and you go to Tanglewood and have ‘the best afternoon of your life’? Are you nuts?”

  She’s in love, thought Alex. Anybody in love is nuts. I personally am never falling in love.

  “Alex, get out of the Jeep,” said Annabel. He obeyed silently. Emmie obeyed, too, but not silently. Annabel shifted over into the driver’s seat and flicked the engine back on. “Emmie, I have to have the Jeep.”

  “Wreck it if you want. I hate the Jeep. I just think you’re being very very very dumb and very very disloyal. How can you even think of going to Daniel right now? So what if your father’s being a jerk? He’s upset. Anybody accused of murder and suddenly acquiring a niece would be upset.”

  Annabel’s reply was a shower of pebbles hurled by spinning tires.

  “Annabel, how is this going to look?” Emmie shrieked. “Just what do you think you are going to do? Appear on Theodora’s show with Daniel? Hold his hand while he accuses your father of murder?”

  There’s time, thought Alex. I don’t have to do anything rash. I’ll get Daniel’s private number from Emmie.

  The bottom of the sun touched the horizon, like a glass of blood spilling onto the end of a perfect day.

  Thirteen

  SHE WAS DANGEROUS. SHE had no judgment. She was driving like a maniac. Eighty-five on a country road.

  Slow down! Calm down! Annabel told herself. Her hair covered her eyes and she drove on without removing it, fingers so tightly clenching the wheel she could not free them. Then the wind yanked her hair away, flinging it behind her head like a black scarf.

  Just what do you think you are going to do? Emmie had cried. Appear on Theodora’s show with Daniel? Hold his hand while he accuses your father of murder?

  She was driving toward The Camp, so that must indeed be what she thought she was going to do. Annabel drove faster, as if the tires could throw her anger back against her father at the same time they took her toward Daniel.

  The road in Connecticut was empty dull blacktop through close woods and occasional fields. In Massachusetts it would be lined with hundreds of antique shops, their spindly little chairs and cracked wooden chests out by the street for advertising. Cars would crawl by, debating which antique shop would have more goodies. Annabel’s father did not shop. He commissioned. In the city, a European decorator had filled the rooms with silk, rococo details, and shimmering delicacy. Here in the country, a design so low-key, there was hardly anything there.

  Would Mama and I have gone shopping? she thought. When we came to the country, would we have our favorite little haunts? Oh, Mama! what would you do about Daniel and Daddy? Whose side would you take?

  There was a stop sign ahead of her but she had no desire to stop. She bounced on the hard seat. The engine roared in her ears and throbbed beneath her body. Annabel wanted to drive on and on, faster and faster, as if some distant horizon held her answers, if she could just get there quick enough.

  A small boy was pushing a lawnmower across the approaching intersection. She could see the rust on the red body that covered the blades and the gray exhaust from the oil-deprived engine.

  I can see it, she thought, because I’m on top of it.

  The boy was about ten. He was fair-skinned and black-haired, like Annabel.

  I’m going to hit him, she thought clearly.

  She slammed on the brakes.

  The tires grabbed and screamed. The Jeep left the road, missing the little boy, ripping through tall grass on the verge, bouncing right over a ditch, like a car in a stunt, and coming through beyond the stop sign. She looked back. The kid, still in the middle of the road, was staring at her. A woman was racing out of the nearest house, screaming and waving.

  Nobody was hurt. She didn’t want her license plate written down. She knew she’d been a terrible driver, she wouldn’t do it again, they didn’t need to call the police. Annabel rushed on, taking the first turn off the main road, slowing to thirty, taking another turn, and then stopping at last, knees turned to jell
y and heart racing.

  She had done no thinking when she took the wheel of that Jeep. No driving, either. She had just pressed the accelerator to the floor and let come what may.

  There had been girls at Wythefield whose entire lives were conducted like that; girls shipped to boarding school because their parents had no idea what else to do. Girls who did drugs, got drunk, slept around, enjoyed vandalism, practiced shoplifting.

  I’m one of them. I didn’t even consider stopping. I didn’t feel like it. I nearly killed a little boy.

  When she could pry her fingers off the steering wheel, she opened her purse and took out a ponytail elastic covered in black and sprinkled with rhinestones. With the hair out of her eyes, she could see. Seeing helped her think.

  What am I doing?

  Just because I want Daniel, doesn’t mean I can have him.

  Just because I’m furious at Daddy doesn’t mean I can desert him.

  I want Daniel. He gave me The Camp’s unlisted number. I could call him. Tell him what’s happened.

  What has happened?

  I don’t want his voice. I want his arms and his embrace and his lips.

  Annabel was painfully thirsty. Her throat hurt. Had she screamed, just before she avoided the little boy? Damaged her throat?

  I have to talk to somebody, she thought. But I have to show some kind of loyalty. I cannot, I cannot, I must not, take this to Daniel.

  Annabel started the engine.

  She would talk to her mother.

  Their lives were harnessed by tight schedules.

  Theodora had to be in New York shortly. She had Sunday briefings for the coming week; she must prepare for interviews other than Daniel’s. She had a breakfast meeting Monday; immediately afterward, her fashion consultant would be bringing choices for the week’s television shows; Monday lunch was with a publicity-shy best-selling writer she was coaxing onto the show.

  Hollings Jayquith was headed for Miami. He had had his people change his appointments from Monday morning to afternoon, but that was the best he could do.

  They were completely stymied by Annabel’s refusal to come home. They were not in control and this did not happen to them. Jade thought they were like elementary school children who got in the cafeteria line only to find there was no lunch that day.

  Annabel’s eighteen, thought Jade. She’s a grown woman. Forget her! She probably has two hundred credit cards, she isn’t going to go hungry.

  “I have to go,” said Theodora. “Holl, telephone me the instant Annabel gets in touch. Jade, you’ll stay here with Mrs. Donavan.”

  Mrs. Donavan, the woman who had sold Jade to the O’Keeffes, had turned out to be fat. Jade despised fat people. She could never look at them, let alone talk to them. Fat nauseated her.

  She never wanted to talk to Mrs. Donavan anyway. Jade did not want to know more about the O’Keeffes. She did not want to know how they were chosen, nor how Mrs. Donavan knew them, nor what Mrs. Donavan had seen in them. Jade never wanted to hear about that life again. She wanted it to die, to be buried along with the dead O’Keeffes.

  Besides, Theodora would not be back to the country during the week. Neither would Mr. Jayquith. They would forget about her if she stayed here with fat Mrs. Donavan. Jade had to keep up the velocity of her presence.

  “Is there room in the helicopter for me?” said Jade.

  Theodora stood still, looking somehow thinner and less bold. She did not answer. This time, at last, she was unable to hide her expressions. Despair and fury took turns on her face. Take this unexpected nightmare on the helicopter with her? Face everyone in the studio—and, momentarily, everyone in the media world—with her illegitimate offspring? Her secret?

  She’s afraid of me, thought Jade. If I touch her, I bet her skin will crawl. She’ll get goose bumps from her own daughter’s fingers.

  Jade touched Theodora. With her nails. No flesh.

  Theodora did not try to hide her shudder.

  So much for putting revenge on the shelf, thought Jade. Revenge is too satisfying. This is wonderful. I could do this to her forever.

  “Perfect solution,” said Hollings Jayquith heartily. “Let me call Tommy to take you to the heliport.”

  “I’m not packed,” said Theodora. “Neither is Jade.”

  “Jade doesn’t have anything to pack. Jade, go to Annabel’s room and take what you need. I’ll have suitcases sent up.”

  Jade thought she would probably need a lot of jewelry.

  The cemetery was old. In preparation for the Fourth of July, flags had been placed beside the stones of veterans. The brownstone Civil War monument, with its carved eagles and sad lists, already wore its black wreath. Honeysuckle covered the fence around the cemetery, its rich creamy perfume filling the hot summer air.

  Annabel left the Jeep in the narrow gravel drive that wound through the cemetery and walked among the headstones to her mother’s grave. It was by itself under an apple tree. The tree was out of bloom, and tiny green beginnings of apple decorated the old gnarled branches. “Mama,” she said.

  She found herself weeping uncontrollably. Oh, Mama, you wouldn’t believe how bad it is! I can’t believe it, either.

  I’ve just found out so much. I’ve found out that Daddy doesn’t want me to grow up and have my own life: He wants me to grow up and have his life. I find a perfect man and the only thing Daddy can say is he’s pathetic.

  I miss you. I want a mother. I want you back, but I couldn’t be nice to Jade for five minutes even though all she wants is a mother, too. I didn’t stay to see her meet her mother. I had better things to do. I had to see Daniel.

  You’d love Daniel, Mama. He’s so handsome and smart and funny. He’s perfect.

  Except of course for the minor detail that he thinks Daddy killed his father. Would you have married a man who could kill?

  A dragonfly, green and sharp, flew past. Tiny brown birds sang from deep within the apple tree. Where briars leaned into the cemetery, a little brown rabbit crept onto the grass.

  The peace she always found here came again.

  You’re right, Mama.

  I have to go home, work things out with my father. Family is first. Daddy’s right. I don’t know what will happen with Daniel. But I have to assume that all things work out for the best.

  They don’t, of course.

  It wasn’t best when you died.

  But I’ll tell myself they do.

  Annabel rested her hand on the top of the gravestone. The sun had heated the stone, and the warmth was comforting. Good-bye, Mama.

  She walked slowly toward the gravel drive.

  A man sat in the driver’s seat of her Jeep.

  Blocking the exit to the cemetery was a smoky-windowed deep blue Mercedes.

  Another man stepped silently from behind the Civil War monument. A rubber Halloween mask covered his face. The curved nose and red-tipped warts of a witch stared at her.

  She tried to run. Her heart ran; her mind ran. Her feet stayed still.

  She tried to scream. Her tongue and lungs did not.

  No one spoke.

  The birds continued to trill. The sun continued to shine.

  The Mercedes left the gate, crawling toward Annabel. Strong hands encircled her wrists. Strong hands reached out of the dark Mercedes’ interior and she was tucked inside the car as neatly as a child in bed. Inside, the hands pulled a Halloween mask over Annabel’s face, too. The sweaty slickness of rubber stuck to her face. The sick taste of it lay against her lips. There were no eye holes.

  The car purred contentedly as it drove away.

  Daniel sat on the steps of the immense log porch, staring down the length of the smooth lake.

  The sun cast a glittering, setting reflection. It was incredibly beautiful.

  I could be sitting here with Annabel, he thought. We could sit while the moon rises. See the stars, hear the wood thrush and the crickets.

  He did not know what to make of these thoughts. Usually at night the only
emotion he felt was exasperation because he couldn’t see as well in the dark. He was filled with wanderlust, a great yearning need to move, to travel, to be gone, to forget.

  He had gotten his pilot’s license last year, and loved flying. They had a private landing field, but it was not lit for night. Where would he go, anyway?

  Where did he want to go, except with Annabel?

  He tried to laugh at himself. He had certainly laughed at Michael, when Michael fell so totally and irrevocably in love with Venice.

  Daniel thought with a father like J Thiell—a father too famous even to put a period after his initial; a father who owned two entire cities built for gambling—Michael could not have a soft, romantic side. He’d been wrong.

  Months ago, when Michael and Venice were setting the wedding date, she had been wearing a brown leather dress, low cut and revealing. The waistband was eight inches of metal triangles, cinching her waist like medieval torture. Daniel had stared at her, thinking—my best friend wants to live with a woman who calls that clothing?

  But Michael had never even seen the clothing.

  Now Daniel knew how that felt. He summoned Annabel’s face to mind—forget her clothes. He was swamped by the total of her: shape and beauty, eyes and laughter, scent and softness.

  So this was love.

  It certainly was bad timing.

  What about the interview? How was he going to sound forceful and vengeful on Theodora’s show when he was sappy and lovesick?

  Where did they get that word—lovesick?

  He was love-healthy. He wanted to work out and lift weights and row boats. The energy of love was amazing.

  The phone rang.

  He bumped up two steps, reached over to the table, and picked up the porch phone.

  “Daniel?’ said a voice he did not recognize.

  Not the voice he wanted. “Yes?” He already wanted to hang up and go back to thinking about Annabel.

  “You will not make your speech about uncovering the assassin of your father, Daniel. Your friend Annabel is in our hands. You go on television, Daniel, Annabel goes in the grave. She won’t go easily, Daniel. It will hurt, Daniel. She’ll be scared, Daniel. And in a lot of pain. You think about that, Daniel. Call the network. Cancel your appearance. Forget the whole thing. Or forget Annabel.”