Charming Lily

by Fern Michaels

  Matt went through his spiel, his eyes on hers, watching for her reaction. “I’m very sorry to be telling you this, but they left me to die out there. And then they stole my money. I need to find them. Can you help us?”

  The old woman clucked her tongue in sympathy. “They always were a wild bunch. Their pa thought they was just being boys. He made good every time they did something wrong. I knowed a long time ago they was stealin’ from their pa. I heard them talkin’ up there in their rooms. I wanted to tell him, but he was too sick to be bothering him. Don’t think he would of cared much anyway. I knowed they was mean but didn’t think they would do something like you jest said. I’m sorry, but I don’t know nothin’ that will help you. You say that’s your car out there in the garage?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it’s my car. It has my New York license plates on it. Sadie said she saw it yesterday when she came to talk to you. Think about it, Miss Figgins. Was there a place they liked to go to all the time? A favorite kind of place. Maybe a vacation place. Did they hunt or fish? Was there a cabin?”

  “They liked to gamble on the boats. They went to Las Vegas pretty often. Most times, though, they just went Under-the-Hill to the Isle of Capri. Nothin’ else comes to mind. They didn’t much talk around me. Secretive they were.”

  “Can we look in their rooms?”

  “Don’t see why not. Jest go up the steps. Their rooms are the first three rooms on the right. Their pa’s room was the first room on the left. I cleaned the rooms when they left. You won’t be finding much. The trash is still on the back porch. The trash man threw his back out weeks ago and hasn’t been here to collect it. You can go through it if you want to.”

  “You go ahead. I’ll stay here and talk to Miss Figgins,” Lily said.

  “I’m going to take the car and run to Walmart and have them make a copy of the picture before I return it to the Democrat,” Sadie said. “I won’t be long.”

  “Would you be likin’ a cup of coffee, Miss Lily?”

  “Yes I would, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. I just made it fresh a little while ago. I drink lots of coffee.”

  “Do you think the men will come back, Miss Figgins?”

  “No. If they did the things you said they did, they won’t come back. There ain’t no one here now to stand up for them. Mr. Calumet made people listen. Even the po-lice listened to Mr. Calumet. Them boys are cowards I’m sorry to say.”

  Lily leaned across the table to accept the cup of coffee the housekeeper handed her. The Wish Keeper around her neck shook loose of the buttons on her sweater. It swung into full view.

  “Now, young woman, where’d you be gettin’ that Wish Keeper?” the housekeeper asked as she peered at the pendant around Lily’s neck.

  “My friend gave it to me. How is it you know what it is?” Lily asked quietly.

  “Lord sakes, child. All us old folk know what a Wish Keeper is. When I was a young girl I worked for Miz Petrie over on Maple Street. My friend Ellen worked for Miz Parsons, and that’s how I come to know about the Wish Keeper. Ellen and me, we would talk and compare what Miz Petrie and Miz Parsons whispered about all the secrets. I only come here to Mr. Calumet’s house maybe twenty-five years ago. When the second Miss Mary Margaret crossed over and her daughter took charge of the house and left it to sit empty was the same time Miz Petrie passed over. I came here then to Mr. Calumet. Been here ever since. Mr. Calumet’s mama had a Wish Keeper, too. It’s upstairs in his dresser drawer. There’s no woman folk in the family to pass it on to.”

  “What does it mean? What are you supposed to do with it?”

  “Sakes alive, child, you just wear it around your neck and good things happen. When a soul tells you a secret or a wish, you put it inside. It’s not a big job at all. Them that wears it can see things. Some say it’s magic. Some say it’s voodoo and devil’s work, but don’t you be believin’ that. It’s only to whisper about. It’s not for loud talking’. How is it you be wearin’ it and don’t know what it is for?”

  “I believe I bought the house where Mary Margaret lived. My friend found the necklace in the closet and gave it to me. Mary Margaret was her grandmother. At least I think she was. Maybe it was her great-grandmother. I’ve been wearing it ever since she gave it to me. Things . . . things seem to happen. I see things.”

  “Then it’s workin’. Some persons could wear it and it would jest be a necklace. Other people with the heart for it will make it work. Are you afraid of it? Be glad you ain’t one of them sin eaters. Being picked to be a Wish Keeper is a happy thing. No one wants to be a sin eater. No one at all.”

  “Sometimes I’m nervous over it. Don’t worry, I won’t ever become a sin eater. Do the wishes and secrets always come true?”

  “Most times. When Miss Mary Margaret was dying, she made a wish to cross over fast because of the pain. Lickety-split she was gone.” The old housekeeper’s dark eyes glazed over as she recalled the incident.

  “How do you know that, Mrs. Figgins? I thought the wishes were secret.”

  “The family looked inside after she crossed over. You have to be special to wear a Wish Keeper.”

  “I’m not special, Mrs. Figgins. I’m just ordinary. I don’t belong to the Parsons family. I’m not sure I want this.”

  “It’s too late now. If you saw something, it’s too late. It took hold. That’s the way it works. You can’t be givin’ it back now. Once it works for you, you be beholden to it. You mind me now. Did you make a wish?” she asked slyly as she puffed on the corncob pipe.

  Lily felt a chill race up her spine. “How is it you know so much about this if it’s all supposed to be secret? I don’t want to know about the future.”

  “It’s too late.” Lily felt her skin prickle.

  “Well, we didn’t find anything,” Matt said from the doorway. “The only other thing we can do is look through the trash. Did you say it was on the back porch, Mrs. Figgins?” The housekeeper nodded.

  Lily locked her gaze with that of the housekeeper. “I don’t want to be a Wish Keeper.” Her announcement made, she followed Matt and Dennis out to the back porch. The first thing she was going to do when she got home was to remove the necklace and get rid of it. On second thought, she reached up, yanked it free, and tossed it into the bushes. If it kept raining the way it was, the necklace would sink into the soft ground and be lost forever. Her shoulders lighter, she walked out to the garage and opened the doors. Her heart took on an extra beat at the sight of Matt’s Jaguar. Satisfied Sadie hadn’t made a mistake, she closed the doors and joined Matt and Dennis on the back porch where they were waiting for Sadie to return.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Nothing. Several weeks of newspapers. Guess these guys liked to keep up on what’s going on in town. That’s about it. Damn, it’s miserable out here.”

  Lily looked around the garden trying to find the spot where she’d tossed the Wish Keeper. She felt her insides start to tighten up when she thought about the housekeeper’s ominous warning. Well, it was too late now. Rain poured down on the bushes. She watched as a bedraggled wet rabbit scurried under a spreading yew and disappeared.

  They stood shivering on the back porch for another thirty minutes until Sadie swerved the Rover into the driveway. Dennis’s cell phone rang the moment she stopped the truck. He shrugged and reached into his pocket.

  Lily took a moment to wonder what would happen if all the cell phones in the world went on the blink at the same time. The world would probably collapse. She grimaced. She hated everything that was high-tech as much as Sadie did. I would have made a good pioneer, she thought. Just simple basics. Still, she wouldn’t want to give up all her push buttons in the kitchen and the big-screen TV or the VCR. Or the directional finder in the Rover. Or the GPS. Suck it up, Lily, it’s called progress.

  They scurried to the Rover, whose wipers were swishing furiously to combat the heavy downpour.

  “I have news! Big news!” Sadie said
the minute they were all buckled into their seat belts. “In a million years, maybe two million years, you are never going to believe this. It just came to me. Just like that! I knew even before I asked. I’m telling you, this is unbelievable. There I was, returning this picture, and it came to me. Gee, I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

  “What? Tell us,” they demanded in unison.

  “The first thing Lily and I did when we moved to Wyoming was to call the Miami Herald and buy a subscription. We got it daily but usually a day late. I got to thinking, maybe these guys would do the same thing. Obviously they were born and raised here. If it was or is their intention never to return, wouldn’t they be curious as to what’s going on here in their hometown? They do own a house and their store and the inventory in it. They might also want to know if Matt survived and went to the authorities. Matt said they were amateurs and not too bright.”

  “And?” Lily said, excitement ringing in her voice.

  Sadie took a deep breath. “And they did! A whole year’s subscription! I even have an address! You owe me two hundred bucks, Matt. That’s what it cost me to get the address!”

  “You’ve done the impossible, Sadie. You did what Dennis and I couldn’t do with all our computers. Where are those bastards?” The excitement ringing in Matt’s voice was contagious.

  Sadie reached down into the console for a slip of paper and handed it to Matt. “In the Cayman Islands.”

  Matt leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Now we have to make a plan.”

  “Betsy Collins called the office,” Dennis said. “That was my secretary. She wants me to call her, says it’s important. Maybe she got a lead on Marcus. Looks like this is our lucky day, guys,” Dennis chortled. “Everything happens in threes. The snowstorm in the West, finding those three cruds, and a phone call from Betsy Collins. Let’s head home and decide what we’re going to do.”

  “Yes, let’s go home so I can check the Weather Channel,” Sadie said.

  “The only place you’re going is the Cayman Islands with us, Sadie Lincoln,” Dennis said forcefully. “I’m not going anywhere without you. I’d never survive. So there,” he said gruffly.

  Matt smirked.

  Lily grinned from ear to ear.

  Sadie put her hand over her heart, and whispered, “Oh, be still my heart.”

  Besty Collins reacted to Eric Savarone’s visit with a vengeance. She ripped off the frilly satin robe, kicked off her feathered mules, and got down to the serious business of latching on to sixty million dollars. In her underwear and bare feet she trotted from room to room, trying to figure out where to start and what to look for. She had one wild, crazy moment when she thought about getting herself hypnotized to see if she could remember some vague remark, something she’d forgotten that would give her a clue to her husband’s whereabouts.

  She needed to be systematic. She needed to go through everything, every scrap of paper, every note, every bill. She would need to go through all the boxes of photographs they’d taken on every single vacation. Maybe something as innocent as a smile, a landmark, would give her a clue to her husband’s whereabouts. She sat back on her heels, her thoughts in turmoil. Marcus was never one to do anything on the spur of the moment. He planned everything in advance, right down to the tiniest detail. He even planned his wardrobe for the entire week on Sunday night, right down to the casual clothes he would wear on the weekend. When he acted impulsively, he made mistakes. At least that had always been his pattern. She crossed her fingers that it would still hold.

  She knew she was a nervous wreck, knew she was frightened out of her wits with the thought of the IRS coming after her. The swarthy Savarone and the unknown man from BQWARE weren’t exactly warm fuzzies either. Her best bet was finding Marcus and sucking up big-time for him to take her back. She could concoct some kind of story he would believe. She’d say she turned over a new leaf and had tracked him down because people were after him. That would show some wifely concern. If she had to prostitute herself five times a day, so be it.

  The girls! What was she going to do with the girls if she had to go traipsing across the ocean? The nanny could take care of them, of course, but she’d have to keep on paying her, plus the tuition. She could see the money Dennis Wagner had given her dwindling before her very eyes. Marcus always said, you do what you gotta do. It was settled.

  It was shortly after noon when Betsy picked up a picture of Marcus standing in front of a bank in Zurich, a wide smile on his face, his arm extended toward the bank. She remembered the picture well. Marcus had said that was the bank where the richest of the rich kept their money and no one was the wiser. Her silly response at the time had been, let’s go in and open an account in the girls’ names. We’ll put a hundred dollars in each account. Marcus had laughed his head off saying they would boot them out for even attempting to open accounts with such paltry sums of money, but she’d insisted, and to Marcus’s surprise, the account representative had actually smiled and treated them like every other customer. They’d laughed for days over that. Well, she wasn’t laughing now. Somewhere, someplace, there was a record of those two numbered accounts. All she had to do was find it. Marcus would never think she would remember such a silly thing. Well, she did remember. She closed her eyes trying to remember what the numbers were. She drew a blank until she turned the picture over and there they were—the numbers—faded but legible.

  “Paris, here I come!”

  The next hour passed in a whirlwind. Within minutes she booked a first-class seat on Swissair to Zurich. Her next call was to the girls’ school. She announced herself as the wife of the CEO of Digitech and said because of a family emergency, she needed to leave the country. She instructed the nanny to see to the girls’ complicated schedules. That worry off her shoulders, she mixed herself a drink and placed a call to Digitech and asked to be put through to Dennis Wagner. She sighed impatiently when she was told she would have to wait for Dennis to call her back since he was out of town.

  She waited, sipping her vodka tonic, her thoughts on the Paris runways.

  Betsy was on her third vodka tonic when the phone rang. She picked it up on the first ring, her voice cheerful. “Dennis. Thank you for returning my call. What would it be worth to Digitech to find out where Marcus is? No, Dennis, I want to know now. Either it is or it isn’t something you want to know. I don’t mind you knowing I’m scrambling here. You did get through to me about the IRS. On top of that Mr. Savarone paid me a visit at seven-thirty this morning. I’d say he’s a bit upset, as is the man from BQWARE. Understandably so. So, Dennis, what’s the answer?” She snorted with laughter. “A paltry hundred thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket. Fine, I’ll take it. Wire it into my account now. If you hold on a second, I’ll give you the number. I’ll be in touch first thing tomorrow morning. I think I know where my husband is. No, I’m almost certain. It’s amazing what fear will do to a person. It hones everything. You’re damn right, I want my pound of flesh. Why else do you think I’m willing to tell you where he is? Of course I can’t guarantee he’ll still be there. No one can do that. I can, however, tell you where he went as soon as I get my verification. No, this is not a pig in the poke. Look, Dennis, if you don’t want to know, that’s okay, too. I came to you first since you were so nice to me the other day. I’ll give you one hour to wire the money. After that, the offer goes off the table. Good-bye, Dennis.”

  She moved at the speed of light. She dressed, packed an overnight bag, securing her jewelry in the bottom of the bag, and was ready to go. All she had to do was wait for the wire transfer and say good-bye to the girls. She would need to go to the bank one last time to convert her money into travelers’ checks. Once she reached Zurich she could get lost. Zurich, one of her most favorite places in the whole world. She knew it as well as she knew Manhattan.

  The minutes ticked by. Exactly on the hour she called the bank. Her sigh of relief was so loud it shocked her. She was out the door in five minutes and back in the
apartment thirty minutes later.

  Betsy fixed herself another drink. Maybe, just maybe, she could . . . She didn’t stop to think. Her adrenaline flowing, she picked up the phone, rummaging for Eric Savarone’s business card in the mess on her desk. She punched out the numbers, identified herself. His voice was just as gruff on the phone as it was in person. “I think I might have a very good lead to my husband’s whereabouts. You were right, I wasn’t being realistic. This is what I want. Two hundred and fifty thousand in cash from each of you. No checks, Mr. Savarone. Bring it by my apartment no later than five o‘clock. I have an early dinner engagement. If you were stupid enough to wire thirty million dollars into my husband’s account, then you’re smart enough to give me what I want. I am your only chance, Mr. Savarone. Take it or leave it. I’m sure Digitech will want to know where he is. That’s not going to look very good when they start naming names and can back up those names, now is it? Five o’clock, not one second later. I told you, I’ll know by ten tomorrow morning. I’m just waiting for a definite confirmation. I won’t argue the point because you’re right. I do want my pound of flesh.”

  Two remaining things to do. Try to figure out if the authorities could track her. Of course they could. Her mind raced. For now the girls could spend weekends at her parents’ home. Once she got to where she was going she would call her parents, apprise them of the situation, wire them some money, and they’d be happy campers. They’d never give out any information if there was the promise of money coming in on a regular basis. The moment she felt safe and secure she could have the children join her.

  How best to get the money into Zurich? Since she’d never carried much with her on any trip, she didn’t know what the rules were about taking money into a strange country. Marcus would have known, but they’d lived off credit cards while traveling. He had money belts, but where were they? Paper money wouldn’t set off the alarms at the security stations. She could stuff her bra, her panties, and wear a money belt. Smugglers did it all the time in the movies.