by Jan Coffey
He watched the mock-wrestling match between mother and daughter as Kelly washed the child’s face. Jade’s laughter rang out in the apartment. Kelly’s smile poured out from her heart. He already knew she would do anything—she would go to the end of the world—to keep her child away from harm. The horrifying thing was that there were others who had to know that, too.
The intercom on the wall buzzed. Kelly, busy working Jade into a clean shirt, was slow to answer it. On the third insistent buzz, she got to it.
“Finally!” The old woman’s voice crackled with relief.
“Good morning, Janice,” Kelly called, winning the battle and holding the stained shirt in the air as a sign of her victory. Jade continued to jump up, pretending she wanted it back.
“Why did you turn off the room monitor? I was worried about you. Didn’t know what was going on.”
Kelly looked at the switch on the box, glanced at Ian, and then back at the box again. “Do you need me downstairs?” she asked finally.
“Yes. I need you down here right away. Rita is beside herself with the extra work caused by the extra guests. She has so much more on her plate today. Well, you know the routine.”
Ian looked at the clock. It was just past seven.
“I’m on my way down,” Kelly told her, switching off the intercom and not answering the next short buzz. She looked up at Ian. “I promise the breakfast downstairs will be a lot more impressive than what we offered you here.”
“I liked this one just fine,” he said, looking from Jade’s face back to Kelly’s before taking his cup to the sink.
She took out a stretchy band and pulled her hair up in a ponytail. She spent a little more time with Jade’s hair, braiding it loosely down her back. Ian used the wet paper towels that were left on the counter and wiped the rest of Jade’s handiwork.
“You don’t have to do that,” Kelly said with a smile and turned to her daughter. “Get your books, love, and some games.”
Jade went to a shelf overflowing with her things and started going through them. She took her time and looked at every book she pulled off the shelf before choosing. Kelly was trying to prod her along, when there was another buzz from downstairs.
“Why don’t you go down?” Ian suggested, nodding toward the intercom. “Better than getting another earful. I can walk down with her, if you feel comfortable with that.”
“You don’t mind?”
“It’d be my pleasure.”
Chapter 10
Puzzled, Kelly stood in the door of the porch dining room. Everything appeared to be under control. She could see the balding head of Shawn Hobart at a table by the window, and Marisa and Dave Meadows were seated a couple of tables away. Freshly made coffee and the pot of hot water steamed away on the warmers, and the other tables were ready for guests.
Rita breezed in from the kitchen, carrying a tray of plates. Kelly opened the serving stand for her and then busied herself folding napkins for lunch. Still, as Kelly looked around, she couldn’t see what else needed to be done.
“Do you need a hand with breakfast?” Kelly asked Rita.
“Does it look like I need help?” the young woman snapped. “There’s nothing left to do.”
“In that case, you know where to find me if you need a hand with anything,” Kelly said pleasantly. She wasn’t going to start her day in a bad mood.
Janice was walking back to the reception desk from the kitchen, a cup of tea in one hand and her cane in the other. Unlike Rita and her sour attitude, the older woman smiled upon seeing Kelly.
“It’s an absolutely glorious day outside. We should ask Dan to open all the windows downstairs. I believe it might even get warm enough today that we could serve lunch on the deck.”
“That sounds great.” Kelly opened the door and turned on the light in her office. “I just saw Rita. She was offended when I offered to help after everything was already on track.”
“Isn’t that curious,” Janice replied, looking out at the porch dining area.
“Very. Are you sure she was the one looking for me?” Coming downstairs, an alarm went off in her head that was supported by Rita’s response. If Kelly’s suspicions were right, then she definitely wanted to set things straight. Just because Ian Campbell was staying on the third floor, it didn’t mean Janice needed to play the part of a chaperon.
“You know her…the moody thing that she is. She didn’t have a foot in the door and was already complaining.” Janice put her tea down, rested her cane against the wall, and took her time sitting. “I knew you’d be up early, anyway. By the way, where’s Jade?”
Kelly was saved from answering as the inn’s phone rang.
“I’ll get it.” She grabbed the phone off her desk and gave her standard innkeeper’s greeting.
“Is this the Tranquility Inn in Independence, New Hampshire?” The voice on the other end had a few threads of temper, even hysteria, woven into it. “If it is, then you’d better not hang up.”
“Yes, I just said it is,” Kelly replied, trying to remain pleasant. “And I’m not going to hang up. What can I do for you?”
At the reception desk, Janice was greeting the Stern family on their way in to breakfast. The younger son, Ryan, was standing in the shadow of his older brother. His awestruck stare was the same one Kelly had seen last night. She waved at him, trying to ignore the chill that washed down her spine.
“I called twice last night, but I got nowhere. The woman who answered was not helpful at all.” The voice was that of a younger woman, and it was clearly shaking with emotion. “Now listen to me. I’ve spoken to the bus company. I’ve called my cousin in New York. The only thing I haven’t done yet is to call the police. But that is the next call I’m going to make.”
“Let’s back up. Are you trying to get hold of someone at this inn?” Kelly grabbed a pen and pad of paper, and pushed the door of the office partially closed, not wanting to disturb the other guests with whatever it was going on here.
“Didn’t I just say I was?”
“How about if we start from the beginning? I wasn’t the one who spoke to you last night, but I’d like to help you if I can.”
“Who are you?” the voice asked in a distrustful tone.
“I’m Kelly Stone. I’m the owner and innkeeper here.”
There was a slight pause. The woman on the phone repeated Kelly’s name to someone else in the room with the caller. A muffled conversation followed for a moment before she came back on the line.
“My aunt was coming to Independence to see you,” the woman said finally.
“Excuse me?” Kelly asked, becoming more confused by the minute. “Someone was coming to see me?”
“Yes. My aunt. Lauren Wells. She’s been trying to contact you for over a month now. But you were never available to take her calls. You never returned any of them.”
Kelly sat down in the nearest chair. “You said Lauren Wells?”
“We don’t know the exact connection, but she said she knew you.” The woman continued to talk, but Kelly’s mind had already rocketed back in time.
Lauren had seemed like some guardian angel who’d been sent to the Mission. She was like the grandmothers you dreamed about…the ones that none of the kids had. She’d come to take her daughter and grandson back, and that made her special, too, because nobody had family that came to take them away.
The adults in the Butler Mission had been plenty upset about Lauren staying there. She was not one of them, and the Father and his ministers couldn’t seem to get through to her. It was as if she were deaf to their words.
And Kelly recalled Lauren’s daughter Debbie, too. She remembered her as a pretty young woman who had privileges most of the other women didn’t have. Father allowed her to follow him wherever he went, like one of the ministers.
Not long after they’d come out from the city, Debbie moved her little son to the children’s center next to the chapel, just as Kelly had been separated from her own mother years earlier. That
was while they were still in Albuquerque. All the children were separated from their mothers once they moved out to the desert. Father had said so.
Lauren spent almost all her time at the children’s center. Because she had no car, Father’s ministers never seemed to worry about her. She never said straight out to Father that she didn’t believe in him, but Kelly knew. Lauren became the connection with the outside world that she wanted. She was the fairy godmother she’d read about in the forbidden book one of the other kids kept hidden away. In the end, she was the saving angel for a lucky few.
No, Kelly had never forgotten Lauren Wells.
“Are you still there?” the woman asked from the other end.
“Yes. Yes, I’m here. You were saying Lauren was coming to Tranquility Inn?”
“She’d even made a reservation there for Friday and Saturday night, last night and tonight. She was leaving Sunday and taking the bus back to New York City, where another of her nieces was supposed to pick her up.”
“And how was she getting here?”
“By bus,” the woman said, her voice breaking with worry. “I’ve already called the bus company. They said, as far as they know, she got off at the Independence stop. They can’t tell me anything else. The person on the phone last night who works for you just brushed me off.”
“I’m sorry about however you were treated.”
“Please just tell me that she’s already there, and I’m getting wound up about nothing.”
Kelly would have liked nothing better than to do just that. “I’m afraid she isn’t here. But there could be a number of logical explanations for it. We were overbooked for the weekend. Lauren’s reservation must have been misplaced. I promise you I’ll check with all of our people right after I get off the phone. It might be that she showed up and we didn’t have a room, so we arranged for her to stay at another local inn. We do that occas—”
“My aunt is seventy-seven years old. Her vision is not too good. She’s very particular about calling one of us whenever she’s traveling alone. She was not going anywhere else.”
Kelly looked at the clock on the wall. It wasn’t even seven-thirty. “I don’t have any answers for you right now, but please let me check with my people. In the meantime, maybe she’ll call. Once I talk to my staff, I’ll be able to give you a more definite answer.”
“Will you call me back this morning?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I promise I’ll call you back as quickly as I can. Give me your name and number.” Kelly wrote the information down. “By the way, do you know why Lauren was so eager to get hold of me?”
There was a very long pause at the other end before the niece finally spoke. “I really can’t say.”
The woman was holding back. Something was going on. The niece’s hesitation, the calls that Kelly never heard about, Lauren’s unexpected trip to New Hampshire, and why another reservation was lost battered at Kelly’s brain. She ended the phone call and her gaze shifted to the corner of her desk, where she’d collected the bits and pieces of the burned letter from the trashcan last night.
They were gone. The desk had been wiped clean. She looked down. The trashcan was empty, too.
~~~~
The only things Jade decided to bring downstairs were three one-hundred-piece puzzles, four oversized picture books, and a Candyland game. When Ian told Jade that he’d often heard about the game but never played it, she assured him that she’d be able to teach it to him.
The load was light but bulky, and Ian was relieved when the little girl allowed him to carry everything. Still, their trek downstairs was slow. They had to stop every few steps for Jade to point out the little hole in the stairs that bugs lived in, and the spot on the ceiling where they’d found a bat sleeping last fall, and which step was her favorite for jumping down from, and for an ongoing discussion about which chair in the house was the most comfortable for cuddling and reading.
She even insisted on taking Ian to the specific chair on the second floor in the small alcove at the top of the main stairs.
“And have you tried all the other chairs?”
“Of course,” she answered. “Why?”
“I think that one,” he said, pointing to a Shaker style, ladder back chair, “or this one,” he added, rocking a child-sized chair, “are more comfortable than that.”
“No way!” she said, determined. “Last winter, my mom and I tried every one of them. This was the one we liked best.” She climbed up and leaned back, demonstrating how comfortable the upholstered chair was.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, it is.” She raised her little chin stubbornly and then dropped it, looking suddenly thoughtful. “By the way, do you have things to do…or jobs and places to go…or friends to see today?”
He laughed. “Your mom said that, didn’t she?”
She gave a quick nod before getting up on her knees on the chair. She turned around in it and looked out the window at the lake. Ian followed the direction of her gaze. The fog was back.
“I was planning to stick around here today,” he said. “You know, have a big breakfast, maybe sit on the deck with a good book. Just chill.”
“Can I chill with you?” she asked in a pleading tone, looking at him over her shoulder.
The vulnerability in the look—as if the whole world depended on the answer he gave her—surprised him.
“Of course, you can,” he said, gently tugging on her ponytail.
Her immediate smile was about the best reward he could imagine. She climbed down from the chair. “We have to tell mommy right away, so she won’t ask Cassy to come over.”
“What’s the problem with you and Cassy?”
“Nothing.”
“Where did she take you yesterday?”
“For a walk.” The voice turned small again. Jade’s hesitation was instantly back.
He looked at her for a second. “Did you see anyone when you were on your walk?”
She nodded slowly. The laces of one of Jade’s sneakers had come undone, and Ian crouched down and began to tie it.
“Who?” he asked.
“I’m not supposed to tell.”
Ian’s hackles went up, but he stayed calm. He didn’t want to scare her in any way. “You can tell me.”
She looked down the hallway first before whispering her answer. “Her friends.”
“Really,” Ian said in the same hushed tone. “How many of them were there?”
“Lots.”
“Did they talk to you?”
She nodded.
“Did they hurt you…or touch you…in any way…that made you feel funny?” Ian asked, hoping Kelly had explained this to Jade before.
The child shook her head, but her expression remained extremely somber.
“You didn’t like them?”
A quick shake of the head. “I don’t want to go back there with her,” she whispered, on the edge of tears. “I don’t like that camp.”
“You were at the camp on the other side of the lake?”
Jade nodded. “I don’t like him, either.”
“Who?”
“Isn’t this a beautiful scene?” The woman’s voice was deep and interested. She was standing in the doorway of the room across from the alcove.
Ian fought back his annoyance at the interruption. Holding on to Jade’s hand, he stood up. The child immediately hid her face against his leg.
“What an adorable little girl. The father-daughter bond is the most precious. How old is she?”
He was surprised that she’d seen anything but the reflection of herself in the mirror on the wall. This was the same woman who had looked down at everyone last night at dinner as if they were peasants.
“She’s almost four, and she’s not my daughter, but the child of a friend.”
The model came to a stop before them. Sneakers, stretchy short shorts, and a sports bra that she was wearing as a top. A lot of make-up for going running, he thought. She looked as if
she’d just stepped out of one of the ads that he’d seen of her in a dozen different magazines.
“I’m Ash,” she said, looking up from Jade and turning her smoky gaze on Ian.
“Really? Ash who?”
“Just Ash.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
The model was tall. They were almost eye-to-eye. He was tempted to ask what her real name was. He could understand the point of using a fake name on the screen or on the cover of a magazine, but in real life it seemed so bogus. He decided to be polite, though, and gave her a brief handshake.
“I’m Ian Campbell. This little one is Jade. She’s the daughter of the innkeeper, Kelly Stone.”
Another wave of shyness had taken possession of Jade, and she refused to acknowledge the woman. This was fine with Ian.
“Are you on your way downstairs?” she asked. She was obviously not about to take a step without them.
Ian considered telling her to shove off. He’d hoped to get another couple of minutes in private with Jade to find out more about the trip to the camp. The little girl’s tug on his arm, pulling him toward the steps, told him she was ready to go down now.
“I guess we are.”
“Mind if I join you for breakfast?”
He looked down at her exercise outfit. “You wouldn’t want to run on a full stomach.”
She waved a hand toward the guestroom door she’d left moments earlier and lowered her voice. “I wasn’t really planning to go for a run. But Ken is constantly telling me I’m getting too fat. So I have to put these things on and get out at the crack of dawn to make him think I’m exercising. Now, you tell me, do you see an ounce of fat on this body?”
Ian passed on her offer of a perusal.
“This Ken is your boyfriend?” he asked, turning his attention instead to Jade. The child was still tense and uncomfortable. He wondered if his earlier questions or the arrival of Ash were the cause of it. He picked up the books and puzzles and the game.
