by Sylvie Kurtz
“Something that’ll tell me who Willy is.”
“Oh, that’s easy. Willy’s my friend.”
* * *
Juliana drew out slices of turkey and leaves of lettuce from the fridge. She had to keep busy or she would crack. Plate. Bread. Her daughter was safe. She was home. That should end her worries. Signal the return to a normal life. But it didn’t. Turning around, for a moment she couldn’t seem to remember where she kept the knives.
She wanted to make things right. For Briana. For Lucas. She wanted to explain. But the words just jumbled inside her head. They all sounded lame. They would to him, too. Heading for the cutlery drawer, she tried to calm her racing mind, split between her debt to Lucas and her new worries for Briana.
As much as she hated the thought of having her daughter interrogated, Lucas was right. Having Briana here in her own home where she felt safe and secure rather than in some impersonal, strange environment was better. Either way, the task grated against her basic instincts. She schooled her features, swallowing her fear and worry, and sawed the sandwich in half. For Briana’s sake, she would make this a painless activity.
“Are you hungry?” Juliana asked Briana, watching apprehensively out of the corner of her eye as Lucas set up a portable tape recorder. The kidnapping seemed to have had no effect on Briana. She wasn’t sad, apprehensive, or frightened. She was acting, well, normal. She’d called Willy a friend. Willy had caused her no harm, and for that she was thankful.
“Willy gave me a snack before we left.” Briana drew out a heavy envelope from the stack of mail and traced the wax rose seal on the flap with a fingertip. “Pretty. Who’s it from?”
Juliana glanced at the letter, didn’t see a return address above the calligraphied lettering. “I don’t know.”
The heavy paper gave it the look of a wedding invitation, but she didn’t know anyone planning nuptials. She made no move to open the envelope, bustling instead from cupboard to fridge, then pouring milk into a glass.
When Briana saw the National Geographic, her mouth rounded into an O. She snatched it from the bottom of the stack, and tore open the wrapper, dropping it to the floor. Lifting the cover to eye level, she giggled as she sat at one of the chairs and bent to examine the magazine more closely. “Look, Mommy Mine—prairie dogs. Aren’t they funny?”
“Yes, sweetheart, they’re quite funny. It almost looks like they’re praying, doesn’t it?” Not as hard as she was at the moment. Please, please, please, let this go smoothly. The ordeal hadnt harmed Briana. The necessary aftermath to find her captor shouldn’t hurt her either. “Here, have some lunch.”
She set the plate and glass in front of Briana, but Briana ignored them, continuing instead her perusal of her magazine. Juliana sank into the chair next to her daughter and questioned Lucas silently. What now? What happens next?
His gaze was intense, the dark brown of his eyes deep and unreadable. But the muscles of his face relaxed, and she suddenly remembered him looking at her over a stack of research books in the university library room with much the same ardor, felt herself weakening, wanting. She shook her head. No, not wanting, just remembering. Too much lay between them to love that way again.
Her muscles trembled once more. From fear? No, from uncertainty. She wanted this over and done with. She wanted everything to go back to normal.
But it couldn’t.
Not ever.
He pressed the record button. She reminded herself he had pursued her with determination, but also with gentleness. This was his daughter. He would be gentle with her, too.
“Mommy?”
“What, sweetheart?”
Her daughter’s blue gray eyes were filled with worry. “Are you mad at me?”
“No, darling.” She squeezed Briana into a deep hug, kissed her forehead, felt the butterfly heartbeat against her chest. Thankful, ever so thankful, she had her little girl back in her arms where she belonged. “I was scared, really scared, because I didn’t know where you were.”
“I was with Willy. He said it was a game. He said you would like it.” Out of her mother’s embrace, Briana kicked the table’s leg in an anxious rhythm with one foot, but her gaze didn’t stray from the colorful pages.
Here was the perfect opening. Dare she take it? Juliana looked up at Lucas. He nodded. If she started the questions, Briana might feel safe and loved.
“Who’s Willy?” Juliana asked, nudging her chair closer, fingering the strand of hair which had escaped from Briana’s ponytail. It was soft and slightly wavy whereas hers was ruler straight. Lucas’s hair. She swallowed thickly. “I’ve never heard you mention him before.”
“He’s a storyteller.” Briana turned a page.
“Where did you meet him?”
Briana paused, looking intently at a South American little girl about her age. That intensity was Lucas’s, too. How long had Juliana tried to deny the fact? “At story time.”
“At the library?”
“Uh-huh.” She turned the magazine around. “Look, Mom, this girl’s got a tattoo on her face. Can I get one, too?”
Juliana smiled. So this month it would be tattoos. Last month Briana had ceaselessly demanded to go explore caves filled with bats. The month before, ice fishing. This need to explore, to search, to experience, was it a legacy from her father also? She glanced at Lucas. A sinking feeling made her put a hand to her stomach. Briana would leave one day to investigate the world with her wide-eyed curiosity. Why had the thought never occurred to her before? She swayed in her seat. “Maybe we can try face painting.”
Briana turned the page which showed Yanomami warriors in full war paint. “Like this?”
“Sure.” Paint washed away. “Briana?”
She looked up at her mother. Nervousness danced a jig in Juliana’s stomach. What was the best way to approach this situation? Lucas needed information about Willy. Right now, time wasn’t their friend. If Lucas couldn’t get his answers, then other agents would give it a try, and she wanted to avoid that. She selfishly wanted to keep her daughter home, among her own things, surrounded by the people she loved.
“Briana, Lucas would like to ask you a few questions about your game with Willy.” Briana’s gaze strayed across the table to scrutinize Lucas’s face. She was letting no detail escape her. What conclusions was she coming to?
“Do you got a badge?”
“Have,” Juliana corrected automatically.
“Do you have a badge?”
“Yes, ma’am.” A slight smile curling his lips, Lucas slipped his hand into his shirt pocket and held the black leather folder containing his credentials so Briana could examine it. She looked at the picture, then at him and nodded.
“Willy’s my friend,” she said, her gaze unflinching in front of Lucas’s stern look of authority. “He said I shouldn’t talk to any of the men with badges. He said they wouldn’t understand the game.”
“You’re right,” Lucas said, leaning forward to make better eye contact with the little girl. Was she old enough to see her own features in the man sitting across from her? “We don’t understand it, and we’d really like to. It’s important.”
“Why?”
“Because he made your mother very sad. She didn’t know it was a game. She didn’t know where you were. She was very worried about you.”
Briana turned another page. “It was a game.”
“Yes, it was a game. But your mom, she didn’t know.”
Distress etched in Briana’s frown. Juliana tensed. She couldn’t go through with this. Briana had been through enough turmoil already. They both had. “That’s enough!”
Lucas stared a Juliana for a long while, his gaze reminding her that, at this moment, he wasn’t Briana’s father; he was Special Agent Vassilovich, and Briana was his witness. He would get the information he needed with or without Juliana’s blessing.
“Here or Boston, Juliana. With you or alone. Take your pick.”
“You wouldn’t separate us.”
&n
bsp; “If I have to—for her sake. You’re being too emotional.”
His threat hung between them heavy and certain. He had a job to do. He would take over without any qualms. Calm down. Stay in control.
“I don’t want her to have to leave home and talk to more strangers.” She leaned back into her chair, but couldn’t relax.
“He said Mommy would like the surprise,” Briana said, her little voice tremulous.
“It’s all right, Briana,” Juliana said, caressing the length of her daughter’s ponytail. She attempted a smile “You’re doing fine. Mommy’s the one having trouble, okay?”
Briana nodded uncertainly and returned her attention to the magazine.
Lucas pushed the blue, red and white box he’d found in her backpack across the table top, stopping it mid-way between them. “I hear you’re an excellent Skip-Bo player. Can you teach me how to play?”
She shrugged, turned another page from her magazine. Lucas slipped the cards from their casing and made a big show of shuffling. Despite her attempt at indifference, Briana’s gaze kept straying to Lucas’s rapidly moving hands. Big hands, gentle hands, loving hands. Juliana shook her head, erasing the memories before they could fully form.
“How many?” Lucas asked, tapping the cards into a neat pile.
“One. We have to see who deals. Put the cards on the table.” Briana slipped the magazine onto her lap. She drew a card and placed it face up on the table with a pleased expression on her face. “Eight.”
“Eleven.”
“You deal.”
Lucas picked up the stack. “How many cards?”
“Thirty.”
“Wow! I didn’t know five-year-olds could count that high.”
She nodded seriously. “I can count to one hundred.”
“You must be very smart.”
“Yes.”
A weak smile touched Juliana’s lips. Her daughter had yet to learn humility. Lucas attempted to fan his thirty cards in his hands.
“No, don’t look at the cards!” Briana stopped him with a grab of both hands.
The physical contact startled Lucas for a moment, and a cross between fascination and responsibility pinched his brow.
“You’ve got to place them this way. Those are the cards you want to get rid of. Just turn up the first one.” Briana nodded her approval as he followed her instructions. “Okay, now I get five cards from the leftovers. I got a one so I can start. Like this. You go one, two, three, all the way up to twelve. That’s what you have to do. But I don’t got a two—”
“Have,” Juliana said.
“Have a two, so I g— have to discard. This is where you put your discards. You can only have four piles. Okay, now it’s your turn. Pick up five cards.”
“I have a card that says Skip-Bo. What does that count as?”
“Any number you like. You can use it as a one to start another pile, but I’d save mine till later.”
Lucas nodded, appreciating, it seemed, the bit of strategic information. “Okay. I have a two.”
“And your stock pile has a three, so you can put it on the two and turn over the next card.”
“Got it. Next?”
“You need a one or a four.”
“Nope.”
“Then discard.”
They played several more rounds. Lucas asked innocuous questions about friends, school, toys. The effort seemed strained at first. His quick glances at Briana were both curious and studious. This was more than a cop trying to establish trust in a witness. It was a father’s uncertain plunge into unknown territory, too. She recognized the dual pull and the conflict it caused. He wanted to get this right, and the thought nudged a tendril of guilt out of her heart. If… then, but no, too much time had passed for that.
And when Briana slowly relaxed, when her giggles echoed in the kitchen, when her smile turned brightly towards Lucas, Juliana saw a genuine relationship blooming.
“So what kinds of stories does Willy tell at the library?” Lucas asked as he discarded.
Gone was the stern expression. He’d relaxed, found a connection to his daughter through the cards, and played it out. So alike, they were. Briana needed to know him, and he her.
“All kinds. I like the adventure stories best.”
“Me, too. I used to love the Hardy Boys when I was a kid. They were always getting into some exciting situation.”
His voice sounded as gleeful as a child’s, rippling down Juliana’s spine in delicious shivers as it had the first time she’d heard him speak. Only a whisper into her ear, but it had carried so much promise on its waves, she’d blushed all the way up to her roots and beat such a hasty retreat out of the room, she’d dropped her sketchbook—which had given him the perfect opportunity to approach her on her next visit to the library.
“Willy does great voices,” Briana said earnestly.
“Does he have lots of books at his house?” Lucas asked, playing his turn.
She studied her cards and shrugged.
“Is it far from the library?”
She shrugged again.
“Do you know where you were?” he rephrased his question when it became clear Briana didn’t know what he expected of her. He was good with her, patient. He would make a great father. Her heart hitched. She played nervously with the hem of her sweater.
“At Miss Cindy’s house.”
“Miss Cindy?”
“Cindy Marchand.” Juliana’s heart beat at double time. “The children’s librarian at the Aubery Free Library.” Miss Cindy was in league with Briana’s kidnapper? How could that be? She seemed like such a gentle, quiet woman. Was nothing safe? Could she trust no one?
“Is Miss Cindy’s home close to the library?”
“It’s near the goose pond.”
Juliana gasped. “Three blocks away.”
Briana had been only three blocks away the whole time! The tolling of bells had come from the Aubery Town Hall.
“She was mad at Willy,” Briana said.
“Miss Cindy was mad?” Lucas asked, making it sound as if the answer really didn’t matter, but Juliana sensed it did.
Briana nodded, played three of her five cards and discarded.
“How come?”
“Because she didn’t know about the game. She said she didn’t like it.”
Yet, she had done nothing to report the kidnapping, nothing to help Briana, or relieve Juliana’s own anxieties. The slow flame of anger sparked inside her. She curled her fists into her lap, rubbed her knuckles against the coarse material of her jeans.
“What did you do while you were at Willy’s?”
“We watched movies.”
Lucas tapped the video case on the table. “The Princess and the Frog?”
“Yeah, that’s my favorite.”
“What part do you like best?” Lucas played his turn.
“The beginning.”
“How come?”
“Tiana she likes to cook, just like me.”
Lucas’s face animated with exaggerated surprise. “Hey, me, too! Spaghetti is my favorite.”
“Yeah, me, too!”
In that moment, Briana’s face looked so much like Lucas’s, Juliana’s breath faltered. Father and daughter should have been this way from the start. She should have tried harder to find him after Briana was born. Her brother would have helped her, but she’d been too proud to admit she’d made mistakes, too hurt to ask for help.
Briana leaned forward over her fan of cards and whispered conspiratorially. “Willy told me five bedtime stories.”
Five bedtime stories. She must have been in heaven! Briana devoured books, and the librarians knew her well, kept back special books they thought she would enjoy under the counter for her. Knew her well enough to help a stranger kidnap her from her safe home. Anger sparked once more. Then flamed higher. She tried to squelch it, tried to remain calm, but the heat of it radiated outward, her breathing got shallower. She couldn’t let go of the betrayal, of how easy it had b
een to steal away her daughter.
“Five. Wow! He must be really good at telling stories,” Lucas continued.
Briana nodded. “Yeah, really good.”
“What else did you and Willy do?”
“We played Skip-Bo.” She wrinkled her nose. “Willy’s not very good at cards. I won every single time. We cooked for Bijou. That’s his dog. She’s little. I can hold her in my lap just like a cat. She’s old. I think she’s going to die. Just like Whiskers.”
“Whiskers?”
“My old cat. He died.”
They played a few more rounds in silence.
“What does Willy look like?” Lucas asked, pretending fierce concentration on his play.
Briana’s gaze narrowed. Her head tilted as she pondered the question with a finger on her lip. “He kind of looks like Mr. T.”
Lucas slanted Juliana a questioning look.
“Albert Tilton,” Juliana clarified. The Phantom’s resemblance to Albert had been another way to gain a child’s trust. Another way to scramble the lines between stranger and friend. She shackled her explosive need to lash out at someone. A knot lodged in her chest. “Briana calls Albert and Ella Mr. and Mrs. T. because she couldn’t pronounce Tilton when she was younger.”
Lucas placed a twelve on the stack. Briana swept the finished pile away and placed it to the side.
“What kind of game did Willy want to play with your Mom?” Lucas asked, drawing more cards.
“She likes to play hide-and-seek with me, so Willy said we’d make a really big game and when I yelled ‘surprise!,’ Mommy would be happy.”
A game! To the Phantom this had been nothing more than a game. To Briana this had been nothing more than hide-and-seek. To Lucas this had been nothing more than an opportunity to catch a thief.
Juliana’s control over her anger snapped. Heat spread through her like a wildfire, speeding her breath, racing her thoughts, clouding her judgment. How could they all think of this as a game, when to her it had been the worst two days of her life? If she’d lost Briana….
“I was happy, honey,” Juliana said. She reached for her daughter and hugged her tightly. Her throat ached from the bitterness of her resentment against her naiveté. Fooling them both had been so easy. “I really was. But I don’t think I want to play a big game of hide-and-seek ever again, okay?”
