Carolina Mist

by Mariah Stewart

  “The doors all have dead bolts. You’d need the key even to get out,” she reminded him.

  “Let me take another look and see if we missed anything.”

  Alex went, one more time, from room to room, but there were no signs that a break-in had occurred.

  “I’m stumped. I give up.” Alex shrugged his shoulders as he met up with Abby in the front hallway.

  “I think we should call Colin.”

  “Good thinking. Even though nothing seems to be missing except for the dog…”

  “I haven’t really looked to see if anything is missing,” Abby said as she headed for the dining room, the site of the only real valuables in the house, “but I will now.”

  “Wait till Colin gets here,” Alex told her, “in case there are fingerprints.”

  “Well, of course there are fingerprints,” Abby said. “Yours. Mine. Sunny’s. Drew’s. Belle’s.”

  Colin agreed that fingerprints were always a good place to start when there has been a theft—and a heartbroken Belle insisted that her dog had in fact been shanghaied. While Colin lifted prints from the dining room, Abby and Sunny searched the second floor.

  A mystified Abby came back into the kitchen and told Alex, “I just cannot figure this out. How can a dog just disappear into thin air?”

  “It really is bizarre, isn’t it?” He shook his head.

  “Abby?” Colin stuck his blond head in through the kitchen door. “Can we get all your prints so that we can do some comparison?”

  “Sure, Colin.” Abby tried to smile. “We’re all here— except Naomi and Drew.”

  “Where is Drew?” Colin stepped into the room.

  “He said he had a sales meeting early in the morning, so he left right after the fair.”

  “This is so strange, Abby. There is no sign of breaking and entering, no sign that anyone has even been here who shouldn’t be. Except for the fact that the dog is missing.” Colin scratched his head. “And you are positive that you locked the house? And that the dog did not scoot out of the house when you all left?”

  “Absolutely. We all left by the front door. If the dog had come out, she would have stayed right by Belle. She would not have taken off.”

  “Don’t know quite how to write this one up, folks.” Colin leaned his elbow on the stairwell’s carved banister. “We have an apparent theft with no signs of breaking into a locked house, and nothing is missing except that little dog.”

  “That little dog, my traveler’s checks, and my amethyst ring,” Sunny announced from the doorway.

  “What?” Abby exploded.

  “My ring—the one Aunt Leila left me, the one we got out of the safe deposit box—and my traveler’s checks are gone. I almost didn’t even look in my suitcase,” Sunny grumbled. “But there’s something odd in my room…”

  “Show me.” Colin motioned for Sunny to lead the way.

  “…almost as if something heavy had been set upon it,” Sunny was saying as she pointed to the quilt that covered her bed and the flat, rectangular depression that appeared on one side toward the footboard. “And then I noticed that the suitcase was open. I had zipped it up this morning.”

  “So it would appear that the person or persons placed the closed suitcase on the bed, making that indentation in the feather mattress,” Colin concluded, “then proceeded to go through the contents until they found your checks and your ring. I’ll need a good description of the ring, and I’ll also need you to go through your things one more time to make sure that there’s nothing else missing.”

  “Sunny, I feel so bad. I cannot apologize enough for what has happened.” Abby leaned back against the radiator.

  “Abby, don’t be silly. It’s certainly not your fault.” Sunny’s nose began to twitch. “Oh, dear, I’m going to… ahhchoo! Excuse me, but… ahhchoo!”

  “Sunny, are you all right?” Abby asked, handing her cousin a box of tissues after the fifth major sneeze.

  “I’m afraid that someone’s wearing aftershave or perfume that’s bothering me. Certain fragrances very often make me… ahhchoo!… sneeze, and I could smell just the trace of something when I came up the steps… ahhchoo!”

  “Colin, are you wearing aftershave?” Abby asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m not wearing perfume, nor is Sunny. Alex doesn’t wear aftershave at all.”

  “Can you identify the scent, Sunny?” Colin asked. “Some sort of flowers, heavy-scented.”

  “I didn’t know that you had such a sensitivity,” Abby said. “How have you managed in this house with all the lavender Aunt Leila left around?”

  “For some reason, natural herbal scents don’t bother me, but heavily concentrated florals in perfumes do.” She shrugged.

  “Well, maybe whoever was in here was wearing a flowery perfume.” Colin nodded. “Can you sketch the ring for me?”

  “Sure. It was a very simple gold setting, but it was an immense stone.” Sunny shook her head. “Damn! I hadn’t even really gotten to wear it but once or twice. Damn!”

  “Well, we’ll see what we can do about getting it back for you.” Colin patted her on the back. “Now, come downstairs and draw us a picture of the ring, and we’ll get the reports made out.”

  “Colin.” Abby spoke up. “A woman bumped into me today at the fair. She wore a very pronounced perfume.”

  “I guess it’s too much to hope that you know who she was,” Colin said.

  “I didn’t see her face,” Abby replied. “But Drew knows her. I saw him talking to her right before lunch. There was something familiar about her, but I just can’t place her.”

  “Oh?” Colin’s eyebrows rose. “Well, then, let’s get Drew on the phone and find out who his friend is.”

  “He’s on his way to a sales conference.”

  “Did he say where the conference is?” Colin asked.

  “I think he said Williamsburg.”

  “I have a friend in the Williamsburg P.D. I’ll give him a call, and we’ll track Drew down. Now, Sunny, let’s see about that sketch.”

  “Abby, if there was any way I could get out of this trial tomorrow morning, I’d do it,” Alex said as he reached his hand through his car window to bring her face close for one more kiss good-bye. “I do not like leaving with all this going on.”

  “It’s okay.” She kissed his nose. “We’ll be fine. And Colin is right across the street.”

  “Well, I want you to call the office and leave word if anything happens.” He put the car in gear. “And I’ll give you a call tomorrow night.”

  She stepped back from the side of the car as he began to drift slowly backward.

  “Do you think Gran will be all right?” he asked.

  “I think she’ll be better if we find Meri P.”

  “Maybe some signs around town?”

  “First thing in the morning. And I’ll call the SPCA, the local vets…”

  “Good idea. That little dog means a lot to my grandmother.”

  “I know. We’ll do our best. Oh, and Alex?”

  He stopped the car.

  “Good luck tomorrow. With your case.”

  “Thanks, Ab.” He reached out a hand and clasped the back of her neck gently, drawing her to him for one last deep kiss to hold them both until Friday night.

  Abby closed up the house and started her nightly ritual of turning off the lights. Sunny and Lilly had already turned in, but Belle had insisted on waiting just a little longer to see if Meri would come home. Abby helped her up the steps around eleven and placated the woman slightly by describing all the means she would try the next day to find the dog.

  “She’s been dognapped.” Belle wiped the tears from her face. “I just know she has. Whoever broke into the house just fell in love with that dog and had to take her. Oh, Abigail, pray that this… this person will take good care of her. Though, of course, one who breaks into houses to rob them can’t be counted on to give a dog like Meri the manner of care she is accustomed to.”

>   “We will find her,” Abby told Belle firmly as she turned on the old woman’s bedroom light for her. “You’ll see. We’ll pull out all the stops.”

  “I do so hope you are right, dear. Meri is like a very dear and special friend to me. I have loved that little dog since the day Naomi brought her to me.” Belle removed her sweater and folded it neatly before placing it on a small yellow-and-green print slipper chair near the door. “And it is so very wonderful to find someone new to love, Abby. At any age, at any stage of your life, it’s always unexpected, you know. But it’s always glorious to have a special someone who loves you, who brightens up when you enter the room… even if that special someone is only a dog. What I learned from that little dog is that life can still hold surprises, Abigail, even at my age. And that if I’m still young enough to feel that sort of joy in the company of so small a creature, then perhaps I’m not so very old after all.” Belle turned sorrowful eyes on Abby. “I do miss her already, Abigail. And I am worried about her.”

  “I know you are, Belle. We’ll do our best. I promise.” Belle nodded and dabbed her eyes as Abby kissed her softly on the cheek and left the room. She had planned on trying to probe—subtly, of course—Abby’s growing relationship with Alex but had no heart for a discussion on something so important as their future. Belle sighed as she closed her bedroom door. It could wait till tomorrow or the next day. Or the next.

  * * * * *

  “How’s Gran?” Alex asked for the third day in a row when he called on Wednesday evening.

  “Not well at all, I’m afraid,” Abby told him. “I’m thinking about giving her doctor a call, Alex. She is listless, distracted, hardly eating…”

  “She is mourning the loss of someone she loved,” he said softly.

  “It’s more than that, Alex. Belle insists she hears the dog crying.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked warily.

  “I mean, she’ll call me into the morning room and say, ‘Abigail, can’t you hear her? I hear Meri whimpering.’ Then she gets up and proceeds for the eight-hundredth time to look behind the furniture.” Abby sighed deeply. “I’m really worried, Alex.”

  “Go ahead and call the doctor first thing in the morning. This doesn’t sound good.” Alex sounded worried. “If she is starting to hallucinate…”

  “Alex, she is so adamant that I’ve even thought once or twice that I heard the dog. But, of course, it was the wind. We had a storm yesterday and another one today.”

  “Well, if you could call her doctor, I’d appreciate it. I’d call myself, but I’ll be in court again tomorrow.”

  “How is that going?” Abby tugged the phone line into the morning room, stretching the cord as far as it would go so that she could curl up on the love seat.

  “It’s actually going quite well,” he said hesitantly. “I expect we will win the case.”

  “ ‘But’?” she asked. “I hear a definite ‘but’ there.”

  “We’ll win because our client has more money to defend the case than the plaintiff has to pursue us. He can’t afford the caliber of experts that we have. He can’t afford a panel of high-priced lawyers. He can’t afford all that it would take to prove that our client’s product was responsible for his son’s death.”

  “That’s a very sad commentary on our legal system.”

  “I see it every day of my life.” He seemed to shrug through the phone.

  “But I guess winning is everything, right?”

  “It’s the only thing, as Vince Lombardi once said. Sometimes I think maybe I’m…” He stopped in mid-thought.

  “You’re what?”

  “Nothing. This is where the money is, defending the big corporations.” He laughed, but to Abby, it had sounded forced. “Not exactly what I thought I’d be doing when I first entered law school. I always thought I’d be the defender of the little guy.”

  “I remember,” she said softly. “You were going to hang out your shingle right up there on Main Street and take care of Primrose’s legal business in the morning and fish in the afternoon.”

  “Actually, it was the other way around.” He laughed again, but this time it was natural. “Fish in the morning and practice law in the afternoon.” There was an overlong silence, then he said, “Unfortunately, there’s no money in that kind of lifestyle.”

  “Small-town lawyers do get paid, don’t they?”

  “Not like they do in this firm. I’ll bet I make in one day what old… what was Leila’s attorney’s name?”

  “Tillman.”

  “What old Tillman makes in a week. Maybe two weeks.”

  “Well, I guess that’s the bottom line.”

  “Absolutely. I worked hard to get where I am in this firm,” he said, although Abby was uncertain if he was telling her or convincing himself. “I have a great future here. I’ll be offered a partnership soon, I expect. Maybe my own branch office.”

  “Where would that be?”

  “Who knows? The point is, I worked hard through law school, and I’ve worked my butt off since I got out—sixteen-hour workdays are not unusual for me—but I’m lucky to have the type of opportunity that a firm like this can offer. And I mean to take advantage of everything they send my way.”

  “Well, I do know what that’s like,” she admitted. “I know what it’s like to work harder than anyone else, to want to be the best at what you do. I’ve always done the same thing. I always had that drive.” Even as she spoke the words, her lack of fervor lent a quiet protest to the sentiment.

  Of course, she had always felt that way. Of course, she would again. She still had resumes out there. Her corporate life was not over. Alex wasn’t the only one who’d be going places. She’d be back on track soon enough.

  And when she got back on track, she would leave Primrose behind. It would mean leaving Alex behind as well. Though he obviously had his own plans, too. His own agenda included making partner and eventually heading up one of the branch offices. Unless the fates would decree at some future time that they would end up in the same city at the same time, they would part company when Abby got a job or Alex made partner. Until then, he was hers, and she was his.

  She had survived losing him once before and would survive it again, she assured herself, but this time she would have memories to last a lifetime. Memories enough to live on. He would be back on Friday night, and there would be more memories to make to warm her through some future time when the only love in her life would be found in the images of these very days and nights in Primrose.

  37

  “Abby, I hate to leave you to deal with all this,” Sunny said as she tucked Lilly’s Minnie Mouse suitcase into the trunk of her Mercedes.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been wonderful. I don’t know what I would have done without you and Lilly these past few days. Sunny, I can’t tell you how terrible I feel about your ring.”

  “Abby, don’t.” Sunny hugged her. “We’ve gone over that enough times. It wasn’t your fault, and I don’t want you feeling guilty about it. Besides, it would appear that Belle’s loss is actually greater than mine. I sure hope the doctor is right.”

  Susannah slid behind the wheel of her car, and Abby closed the door. They had all said their good-byes in the morning room, and the business of getting in the car and actually going was almost anticlimactic.

  “Come back again,” Abby told them as Sunny turned the key in the ignition.

  “We will, won’t we, sugar?”

  Lilly nodded enthusiastically.

  “Good luck next week,” Abby called as the car began its descent back down the drive. “Let me know how it goes.”

  Abby watched the little sports car as it rounded the curve toward the end of Cove Road and disappeared someplace past the old Lawrence house. She kicked a stone with the toe of her sneaker and sighed. She would miss Sunny and Lilly. They had almost seemed to belong here, as they, too, had been woven into the tapestry of all she loved best—all she would miss most—of Primrose. She hoped that J
ustin would keep his word and be pleasant when they appeared in court the following week to formalize Lilly’s adoption.

  The front door needs something, she noted as she walked back toward the house. Something to make the house appear less foreboding. She frowned as she crossed the porch and entered the hall. Of course, the inhospitable appearance hadn’t deterred their burglar one bit. Damn whoever it was, she silently cursed. Damn them for taking Meri and creating such heartbreak for a dear old woman.

  “Let her grieve,” the doctor had told Abby when she called him on Monday morning and explained what had occurred. “She has lost something that was vitally important to her. Just let her mourn her loss, Miz McKenna. Of course, if she still appears despondent in another week or so, give me a call back.”

  On the phone the previous night, Alex had suggested buying Belle a puppy, but Abby felt it was perhaps too soon.

  Belle wasn’t ready to concede that her beloved pet was gone for good. The doctor was right. Belle needed time to mourn the loss of her friend.

  “Abigail! Come quickly!” Belle called from the morning room.

  “Belle, what is it?” Abby raced into the room to find Belle standing near the fireplace wall.

  “I hear Meri,” Belle told her with frantic eyes.

  “Oh, Belle.” Abby sighed sadly. “Oh, Bell, Meri isn’t here.”

  Belle pointed a finger slightly crooked with arthritis in Abby’s direction. “I tell you, I hear her.”

  “Belle, if you hear her, then why can’t we see her?” Abby asked gently. “Belle, the doctor said you think you hear her because you want so badly to have her back.”

  “Dr. Ellrick is a fool. I know what I know, Abigail,” Belle said sternly, “and I know that I hear my dog.”

  “How about I make us some tea, and we sit down and we discuss…” Abby stopped mid-speech.

  There was a sound.

  “You hear her, too, don’t you?” Belle said triumphantly.

  “I… I hear something. I do. But where is it coming from?” Abby turned her head this way and that, trying to discern the direction from which the faint whimpering sound was coming.