Hide Yourself Away

by Mary Jane Clark

  “At Shepherd’s Point?” A look of recognition lit up the younger intern’s face.

  Grace nodded. “You know the place?”

  “Yes, I know the family, too. In fact, Charlotte’s daughter, Madeleine, and I have hung out together in Newport. She’s a good kid, but always just a little strange, as though she’s about to fade away, if you know what I mean. I guess losing her mother really freaked her out for good.”

  Switching gears, Joss raised her hand in a farewell salute. “Well, good luck with that, and I’ll see you up there.”

  Grace turned back to the phone and punched in the familiar numbers. Walter Wiley answered on the third ring. “Dad, it’s me. Everything going all right?”

  “Fine, honey. Fine. Lucy’s upstairs in her room, groaning about doing her summer reading.”

  “I’ll get on her when I get home, Dad. Don’t you get into it with her.”

  It was nice to have someone else doing the nagging, but she didn’t want her father to aggravate himself. So far, his retirement from a career with the telephone company had been marked with a treatable prostate cancer diagnosis as well as the need to have a pacemaker implanted a few months ago. Although he claimed he felt “fit as a fiddle,” Grace suspected her father didn’t have the energy he’d once had. She’d already lost her mother. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing Dad as well.

  “I’m going to be a little late getting home, Dad. Is that all right?”

  “Sure, honey. Going out with some of the people there after work, I hope.”

  Grace smiled to herself. Walter was forever encouraging her to socialize more.

  “No, Dad. Actually, I have an assignment to work on. I’m not sure how long it will take me, though. Probably an hour or two.”

  “No problem, honey. I already picked up a pizza. So we’re all set here.”

  Grace was about to hang up when she remembered. “Hey, Dad, did the check from Frank come today?” The child support payment was over a week late. Again.

  There was silence on the end of the line.

  “Dad?”

  “No, Grace. Nothing came from Frank. But there is a letter from some Boston law firm here.”

  Grace tensed, an instantaneous reflex after all those legal letters that had come while she was going through her divorce. In the beginning, each one had upset her. Finally, they angered her. Should she wait until she got home? she wondered. No, face it, she decided.

  “Open it, will you, Dad?”

  “Hold on, honey.”

  She listened as Walter put the receiver down on the kitchen counter and imagined him walking out to the hallway and retrieving the envelope from the pile of mail on the small desk there. The seconds ticked by. It was taking too long. Eventually, she heard her father pick up the phone again.

  “Grace?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not good, honey.” His voice sounded constricted.

  “What? What does it say?”

  “Frank is going for full custody of Lucy. He wants her to live with him and that new wife of his in Massachusetts.”

  Grace tried to digest what her father was saying, neither of them aware of the young girl crouched at the top of the steps, eavesdropping on her grandfather’s conversation.

  CHAPTER

  5

  As Jocelyn pushed through the heavy revolving door, the blast of muggy air swept across her face, a sharp contrast to the almost icy air-conditioning of the Broadcast Center. From the hot sidewalk, she spotted her parents’ driver sitting in the dark green Mercedes sedan parked at the curb across Fifty-seventh Street. Jocelyn jaywalked across the busy thoroughfare and got into the car, not waiting for the chauffeur to open the door for her.

  “Okay, Carl. Let’s go.”

  Settling back into the leather seat, Jocelyn noticed the wicker hamper on the floor. Good. Rosa had packed food for the trip. Joss leaned down and flipped open the lid. Chicken salad with raisins and walnuts, a container of fresh melon and grapes, some of her favorite oatmeal cookies, and bottles of Aquafina. Perfect. As long as their kidneys held out, they wouldn’t have to stop.

  But as the sedan made the turn north, onto the West Side Highway, Joss groaned. The late-afternoon traffic was already slow, the cars inching their way out of Manhattan for the weekend. The three-and-a-half-hour trip to Rhode Island was going to take longer than usual.

  In the ride down in the elevator, she had come up with a plan. She would talk to Tommy in person when she got up there tonight, knowing that it was a pretty good bet she could find him with the guys at the bar at Salas’. Whenever she was bored or just wanted to be sure that she could have him again if she really wanted him, Joss would stop by the place to flirt and string her old boyfriend along. Tommy was so predictable, eager as a puppy to please her, desperate to have her back, never accepting that theirs had been merely a summertime fling for Joss. Tommy was tall, great-looking, and the best marksman in his police training class, but living in Newport on a full-time basis, married to a cop, was not what Jocelyn Vickers had planned for herself. The very thought of it made her shudder.

  Still, the rookie police officer could help get Joss where she did want to go. If Tommy could get her some inside information about the skeletal remains found at the old Wagstaff estate, Joss could ingratiate herself with the powers at KEY News and earn that staff position.

  There was no time to waste. If she could convince Tommy to get the information now, he could have it all ready for her tonight when she met him. Searching in her Kate Spade bag for her cell phone, Joss punched in the 401 area code.

  CHAPTER

  6

  When Grace finally got home, her father was asleep on the living room sofa. She grabbed a slice of cold pizza from the box on the kitchen table and wandered into the den, finding Lucy watching TV. Her daughter was obsessed with Law & Order. And since you could find it running all the time on either the networks or cable, Lucy was stationed in front of the television far too much.

  “Why are you wasting your time with this, Luce?” Graced kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “I don’t like you watching this stuff. It’s too disturbing.”

  “It’s good, Mom. I want to see who did it.” Her daughter didn’t take her big brown eyes from the television set.

  “But you probably already know who did it. It’s a rerun.”

  “I know, but it’s still good.”

  Grace sat down on the love seat, chewing the pizza and staring, unseeingly, at the screen. She had to call Frank, and she dreaded it.

  “You all set for tomorrow, honey?”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “All packed?”

  “Not yet. I’ll do it after this is over.”

  Grace wasn’t up for nagging her daughter. Not before she had to leave her for a week. Not before Lucy was going to be with Frank and that pretty, fun new stepmother who seemed to have nothing to do but get her nails done, shop, and give in to Lucy’s every whim.

  “All right, Luce,” said Grace, getting to her feet. “I’m going upstairs to get organized.”

  Closing her bedroom door behind her, Grace went to the phone on the nightstand. She swallowed as she heard her former husband’s voice answer on the first ring.

  “Hi, Frank. It’s Grace.”

  “Oh yes, hello. How are you?” He always sounded so formal, so devoid of emotion.

  “How do you think I am, Frank?” She didn’t wait for his response. “I got the letter from your lawyer today.”

  “I see. And?”

  “And why are you doing this, Frank?” Grace’s voice rose. “Please, I’m begging you, don’t go ahead with this. Lucy doesn’t need any more upset in her life.”

  “It’s Lucy I’m thinking about, Grace.” His tone was maddeningly calm. “It will be better for Lucy if she lives up here with us.”

  “How? How is it better, Frank? Tell me,” Grace demanded. “Lucy’s adjusted to her school here in Waldwick now. She’s finally made some friends.
It’s not fair to uproot her again. She’s been through enough already.”

  “Lucy is going into adolescence, Grace. That’s a tough time. Adolescents need strong roots to hold on to and good parental role models. Parents have to be there for their kids. They have to be involved. They have to pay attention.”

  Grace gripped the telephone receiver, her knuckles whitening. She knew what would be coming next.

  “Jan and I can give Lucy a more nurturing, stable environment than you can.”

  “How dare you!”

  “It’s true and you know it.”

  “I know nothing of the sort, Frank. Lucy has a very stable, loving home right here. And while we’re talking about ‘stable environments’ and ‘parental role models,’ what kind of example do you think you gave Lucy? You, with all your so-called dinner meetings and business trips—fronts, and transparent ones, Frank, for your extramarital escapades. What kind of role model have you been?”

  “If we had had a better marriage, Grace, I wouldn’t have had to look elsewhere.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right. Poor you.”

  Frank ignored her sarcastic taunt.

  “Look, Grace. I have no interest in getting into a rehash of our old problems. The fact of the matter is, Jan and I are very happy together, supremely happy. That will give Lucy a positive view of what a marriage can be. We have a beautiful new home here in an upscale suburb with excellent schools. Jan has given up her job and will be at home; she can be there for Lucy. As it is, Lucy is living in your father’s house. You’ve decided to go back to school, and that’s admirable. But it’s taking up a lot of your time, and when you finish, I assume you’ll be working full time, leaving your father to pick up the slack with Lucy’s care. He’s no kid, Grace. Even putting aside Lucy’s welfare for a minute, how fair do you think that is to him?”

  Grace had asked herself the same question. But she was certain that Dad enjoyed having them there, that he had a renewed sense of purpose since Lucy had brought youthful life into the house that had been so lonely since his wife’s death.

  “Dad loves Lucy, and I thank God for him, Frank. He’s wonderful with her. I know for certain that he has never resented having her here. Having Lucy around keeps him energized. He adores her.”

  “Maybe he does, Grace. But his health isn’t the greatest, and I’m her father.”

  “And I’m her mother, Frank. She’s staying here with me,” she declared firmly, holding herself back from hurling the phone across the room.

  “All right, Grace. I can see we’re not going to get anywhere here. Let’s see what the judge says. I’ll be waiting at the train station for Lucy tomorrow.”

  And to think that selfish bastard hadn’t even wanted her to have the baby.

  Grace fumed as she folded the laundry, still warm from the dryer, separating the garments into two piles. Of all the mean timing: Frank’s intention of getting custody coming just before Lucy was going off to spend two weeks up there. She wouldn’t put it past her former husband to have timed it so that Grace could be left alone to stew while he and his new wife worked on selling the advantages of coming to live with them to Lucy.

  How quickly things could change. Just yesterday Grace had been glad that Lucy’s trip was coinciding with her own assignment in Newport. Lucy had been excited at the prospect of taking the train to Rhode Island with her mother, then continuing all by herself up the tracks to Boston, where Frank would meet her. Now, Grace felt sick to her stomach at the thought of her child being separated from her and going to “them.”

  “Lucy,” she called up the stairs from the basement. “Will you go and get our suitcases out of the garage, please?”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Lucy must sense something’s up, thought Grace. Usually, it would take two or three requests to get her to perform a task.

  “Should I bring them down there, Mom?”

  “No. Put them in our bedrooms.”

  Grace stacked the two laundry baskets and carried them up the cement stairs. As she entered the kitchen, she was suddenly aware that the striped wallpaper had seen better days, many better days. The path through the dining room and living room revealed that a paint job was in order, and the carpeting could really use replacing. Funny how you could walk by things, day after day, and never really see them.

  She wondered what the place Lucy was going to would be like. Grace would bet Frank’s new house had gleaming steel appliances and polished granite countertops in its sparkling kitchen. There would be yards and yards of ceramic-tiled and fresh wooden floors. There were probably skylights and a Jacuzzi. All the houses being built these days had skylights and Jacuzzis. She thought of the peppermint pink tub that Lucy took her baths and showers in. Like most everything else in her father’s house, it was original to the 1960s construction. Scrubbed clean, but far from new and not yet old enough to be considered vintage and cool.

  How could she ever compete with the surroundings that Frank could offer? Would it be better for Lucy to live in a house like that?

  Stop it. Stop it right now.

  This couldn’t be about who had the nicer house. If that were the case, Grace would almost surely lose. She most likely would never, ever be able to offer Lucy the kind of surroundings that Frank could. Television news eventually offered a comfortable living, but except for the high-priced on-air talent, journalists didn’t make the kind of money investment bankers did.

  A judge would see that it wasn’t about the style of the house and creature comforts it afforded, wouldn’t he? A judge would know it was about stability and care and love. Those were the things a child needed.

  But was Grace going to have to compete with Frank’s new wife? If Jan was willing to be a stay-at-home mother, if she was going to be there every day when Lucy came home from school, would the judge think that was a better situation for Lucy? He couldn’t possibly think that being with a stepmother was preferable to being with the real mother, could he?

  Grace knew that, once, it had been almost a foregone conclusion that children stayed with their mothers. But times had changed, and fathers were demanding their rights. It wasn’t unheard of now for the father to get custody, as long as it was in the best interest of the child.

  Surely, it was in Lucy’s best interest to stay right where she was, safe with her mother. It was in Lucy’s best interest. Wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER

  7

  Before his shift was over, the rookie police officer Thomas James made a trip to the detectives’ bullpen. In case he was caught, he had his excuse prepared. He merely wanted to familiarize himself with the details of the Charlotte Wagstaff Sloane case. After all, he had been only twelve years old when the lady disappeared. If anything, his feigned conscientiousness would win him brownie points with the detectives working the newly reopened case.

  It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. Tommy had heard the detectives mention that there was a diary, a journal the woman had kept before she vanished. And here it was, or at least photocopies of the pages written in a long, flowing, feminine hand.

  Tommy read the notation on the cover page of the stack of papers: “Original returned to Agatha Wagstaff, sister.”

  He took the pile and nonchalantly made his way to the copying machine. As he fed the sheets into the tray, his heart beat faster. In part because he knew he was doing something wrong, very wrong. In part because he knew he would be seeing Joss in just an hour. He had missed her so, and she’d said she’d been thinking about him nonstop. He was thrilled that she might be his again.

  Ever since he met her, the summer before she started college, he had been smitten with Joss. He knew it was a long shot. A girl like that, from a family like hers, wasn’t going to be attracted to a basic guy like him. A guy from a working-class background who had to work his way through the University of Rhode Island, a guy whose highest aspiration was to become a detective on his hometown police force. Though he was six years older than she was, a
sizable gap at their stage of the game, Joss was much more sophisticated than the local girls her age. She had seen and been exposed to things and places that the year-round Newport girls didn’t even know existed.

  Miraculously, though, as far as Tommy was concerned, Jocelyn Vickers had been at his side all that magical summer. Lying on the beach, dancing on the wharves, holding hands on long strolls in the moonlight on the Cliff Walk. The memory of the evenings spent making out on the bench at the top of the Forty Steps as the waves crashed below them was still so vivid. Even now, he had dreams about it.

  But the summer came to an end and Joss went off to college down south. For a while, she returned his lovesick letters and spent time with him on the telephone, but at Thanksgiving she told him it was better that they be only friends. She had immersed herself in her new life at Vanderbilt. Strange how that Vanderbilt family had not only made its mark in his hometown but played a role in taking away the girl he adored.

  These past summers, Tommy had nevertheless waited for Joss to come back up north, hoping their paths would cross. And they did meet up, from time to time, at the bars and clubs that hopped during the vacation season. He suspected Joss was playing him when she flirted and pouted if he told her he had been dating other girls. He’d try to play it cool, but he’d quickly melt, confessing that no matter who he went out with, he always wished he was with her instead. He consoled himself with the fact that Joss never came out and told him there was absolutely no chance.

  Tommy fed the last sheet into the copier and lifted the still warm pages from the side of the machine.

  This would show Joss how much he loved her. He was risking his career for her.

  CHAPTER

  8

  It didn’t matter that the official results weren’t back yet. The bones in the tunnel were Charlotte’s. There was no question about it.