The Vanishing

by Wendy Webb

  “This is your way out,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Nobody saw me come here. Nobody else in the world knows that we know each other. Nobody will come looking for you at the estate. Nobody in the village will have any idea who you are. Havenwood is a world away from Chicago. This is your chance, Julia, to leave your nightmare behind.”

  “I’m not sure…,” I began, but let the words drop off as the possibility of a new life danced in my head.

  “You can choose to stay at the estate indefinitely, or, when some time has passed and things cool down, say, a year from now, you can start somewhere else with a new identity,” Adrian said. “I can make that happen for you.”

  My mind was swimming. This man was a stranger to me. How could I possibly consider what he was offering? And yet… The bank was going to take my house in a matter of weeks, and then where would I go? To a homeless shelter? To jail?

  “Come with me, right now,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “Pack an overnight bag and decide what else, if anything, you’d like to take from this house. When we’re gone, my people will pack up the rest of your things and follow behind us.”

  Could this really be happening? Was this my way out?

  I let myself dream for a moment, but then reality crept in. I shook my head. “No,” I said slowly. “This is crazy. I don’t even know you. I can’t possibly…”

  He stood and picked up his overcoat. “Please, Julia, take the night to consider my invitation. I’ll be back at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If you decide to take me up on my offer, I’ll be delighted to take you to Havenwood with me and make all of this”—he gestured to the dining room table, which was full of bills, foreclosure notices, and other legal documents I hadn’t had the courage to open—“go away.”

  And then he was gone, leaving my house even more disturbingly empty than it had been before he had arrived.

  FOUR

  I picked up the phone and dialed an old friend, Kathy O’Neill. She hadn’t spoken to me in months. She and her husband had lost everything because of Jeremy—every last cent of their retirement account was gone. But we had known each other for aeons and I thought that perhaps she…

  But all I got was her voice mail. I tried another of my friends, then another. I should have known better. Nobody answered the phone, as if they knew it was me calling despite my having changed my number. I was foolish to think that somehow, magically, something had changed and I could return to some semblance of the life I had had before. I realized that, with or without Adrian’s offer, my life was completely different from what it had been before the scandal. My only choice was what type of “different” it would be.

  I wandered through my house that night, eyeing the bills and other legal documents on my dining room table, struck once again by the complete and utter disbelief that Jeremy could have done this to all of our friends and so many more, and to me. I mulled over the two options that lay ahead. Do I stay and face the aftermath of everything Jeremy had done? Or do I vanish?

  I marched down to Jeremy’s prized wine cellar and opened one of the bottles, poured myself a large glass, and lifted it skyward. “Here’s to vanishing,” I whispered into the damp air.

  I downed the wine in my glass and wondered how quickly ten A.M. could possibly come.

  I was all packed and ready to go, but the gnarling in the pit of my stomach had me wondering if Adrian Sinclair was really going to show up to take me away, or if he had been a figment of my wild imagination.

  I looked around the room, considering what else I wanted to take with me, but found there was very little. Most of my photographs from the past several years were on my computer, which the police had confiscated after the scandal broke. But what about the furniture? The silver? The crystal? The jewelry Jeremy had bought for me? I didn’t care about it in the least. Better to make a clean break from the past. Let the police have a garage sale with all of my things and give the proceeds to Jeremy’s victims. I didn’t want anything that might have been paid for from somebody else’s retirement account. The very thought of it made my stomach turn.

  As I sat waiting for Mr. Sinclair, my gaze settled on a framed photo of Jeremy and me, all smiles, on a vacation we had taken to Aspen the previous year. What a lie it was. If only the laughing, happy Julia in that photo could have seen what her life would crumble into in just a few months’ time. Maybe she could have done something to stop it.

  There was a knock at the door. I flew to it and let Adrian into the house, seeing him for what he was—a godsend. This was happening. I was really going to escape from the nightmare I had been living. The weight of the world slipped from my shoulders and crashed to the ground.

  “I won’t be a moment,” I said to him, racing toward my waiting suitcase.

  “That’s all?” he said, eyeing my carry-on bag. “Remember, you won’t be coming back here. My people are standing by to move anything else you’d like to take with you.”

  I pointed up the stairs. “I’ve got a couple of trunks with clothes in them,” I explained. “They’re in my bedroom. I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying at the estate, so I packed clothes for all seasons. But as far as anything else”—I looked around the living room and flailed an arm—“let the bank take it all.”

  Adrian and I locked eyes, and I took a deep breath. “I guess this is it,” I said.

  He smiled. “I’m very glad you’re coming with me, Julia. You won’t regret this. It’s the start of a whole new life for you.”

  I grabbed my cell phone from the table where it had been sitting, but before I could slip it into my purse, Adrian reached out and encircled my hand with his.

  “You’re going to have to leave this behind, I’m afraid,” he said.

  “But—”

  “Rule number one of vanishing: don’t take anything that can be traced. If you made one call, or even turned the phone on, the police would be at our doorstep within minutes. You should leave your credit cards here as well.”

  I hadn’t thought of any of that, but what he was saying made sense. I fished my wallet out of my purse and plucked the cards from their slots, dropping them on the table one by one. They were useless to me anyway—the police had frozen all of our accounts. Then came my insurance cards, loyalty cards I had picked up over the years for various places that I shopped, my Social Security card, even my library card. I placed my checkbook on the table as well, and dropped my driver’s license on top of the pile.

  “Good-bye, Julia Bishop,” I said, looking at the various pieces of plastic that identified me.

  When we were sitting in the back of Adrian’s black sedan, several miles away from my house, I turned to him.

  “You literally saved my life,” I said, my eyes brimming with tears. “Why? Why would you do such a thing for a complete stranger?”

  He reached over and brushed away one of the tears, which had escaped despite my best efforts to contain it. The gesture was so tender and gentle, kinder than anyone had been to me in what seemed to be forever.

  “As I told you, dear Julia, your plight touched me,” he said, his voice soft and low. “You needed saving; I needed a companion for my mother. It was as simple as that.”

  The memories become vague and watery after that. I remember snippets of the rest of the day—getting out of the car at a small airport, boarding a private plane and settling deep into a seat that seemed to be made of the most opulent, velvety leather.

  “Sleep, Julia, dear,” I remember Adrian saying, before everything went black.

  FIVE

  Adrian and I walked together through the house after breakfast that first morning at Havenwood. Mrs. Sinclair had taken her leave of us, retreating to her rooms for some quiet meditation and reflection, as apparently was her morning routine, and Adrian had offered to show me around the estate.

  “I’m leaving today,” Adrian said, leading me into the drawing room, which was filled with heavy, ornate furniture but was somehow welcoming all the same. “Feel fre
e to explore, go wherever you like. This is your home now, please remember that.”

  “Thank you,” I said, a flicker of unease taking root in my stomach as I thought about wandering through room after room in this house on my own after Mr. Sinclair had gone. I wondered what secrets this ancient place contained and whether I’d want to stumble across them alone.

  “My mother has her schedule, revolving around meals,” he went on, disrupting my train of thought. “Breakfast is at seven thirty, followed by a morning of quiet time. She meditates or reads. Some days she’ll paint, or just sit in the gardens. Lunch is at noon. After that she’ll be raring to go. She likes to walk, outside when weather permits, or inside, like we’re doing now, on inclement days. Usually she’ll want to go to the stables to see the horses, which she loves. And you should know that the dogs will be in and out of the house, at their whim.”

  I nodded.

  “She enjoys ‘tea,’ which actually means a cocktail or two—she thinks I don’t know about that—at four thirty or so,” Adrian continued, chuckling slightly. “She usually takes dinner in her room, but it depends on the day. Sometimes she likes everyone to dress for dinner in the formal dining room. I’d like you to plan to be with her at breakfast—you’ll get a read of her mood and state of mind then—and from lunch until after teatime.”

  “Got it,” I said, trying to keep everything straight in my head. “Breakfast, quiet time, lunch, afternoon activities, a cocktail or two.”

  “That’s it. You’ll settle into the routine quickly enough and find that you have plenty of free time. If you choose to do so, you may venture into the village. It caters mainly to summer tourists, but even at this time of year there are some lovely shops still open, along with good restaurants and a bookstore you’ll enjoy.”

  “It sounds charming,” I said.

  “We never talked about compensation—” Adrian began, but I cut him off.

  “Just being here is compensation enough! I didn’t expect to be paid on top of it.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t hear of it. You’re doing me a great service. I am depositing a sum into an anonymous account, which we will transfer into your name when the time comes—and when you decide what your new name will be.”

  I exhaled. “I don’t know what to say. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem to quite cover it.”

  “No thanks needed.” He smiled. “It’s I who should be thanking you.

  “Oh, one more thing,” he continued, turning to me and looking into my eyes. “The estate is the epitome of civilized living, but remember, we aren’t in the English countryside here. We’re on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is exactly as its name implies. Millions of acres of unspoiled, untouched wilderness. When you leave the estate, you might meet the residents of said wilderness—black bears, moose, wolves, lynx, and even the occasional mountain lion.”

  The look on my face must have amused him. “Don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle, “you’ll be quite safe. But like everyone who lives in this area, you need to respect where you are and know the rules of the road, so to speak.”

  “I’m from the city, Mr. Sinclair,” I said. “I’m really not what you’d call an outdoorsy kind of person. What, exactly, are the rules of the road here?”

  He patted my hand. “Anytime you venture out alone, tell someone where you’re going and when you’ll likely be back. If you’d feel safer, carry pepper spray—there are cans of it in the stables—and a walking stick. Or better yet, take the dogs. Are you comfortable around dogs?”

  I wasn’t quite sure about that. “I guess so.”

  “Good,” he said, apparently not hearing my trepidation. “We have three giant Alaskan malamutes that are extraordinarily well trained. My mother’s pride and joy. There is nothing in this forest—not a bear, not a wolf, not a mountain lion, and especially not a person—that will come near you when you’re surrounded by those dogs.”

  I smiled at him. “I wish I’d had them with me in Chicago these past months.”

  “They’re especially aggressive toward members of the media,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  An ancient clock, somewhere in another room, chimed the hour.

  “Look at the time,” Adrian said, glancing at his watch. “I must dash.”

  “So soon?” Before the words even had escaped my lips, I could feel the heat rising to my face. Of course he was leaving. That was the whole point of me being here.

  “I’ll be back soon enough. And by the time I return, I’m sure that you and my mother will have become fast friends, and you’ll be even more at ease around the estate than I am.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  He sunk a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card, which he handed to me. “My private number,” he said. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need me.”

  He began to walk back the way we had come, but he stopped and turned around.

  “There’s a library in the east wing,” he said. “It’s one of the largest private collections of books in the country. I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating, so I’ve had the staff open it up for you.” He pointed down the hallway. “Go through those double doors and you’ll find it at the end of the corridor.”

  And then he walked on, his footsteps echoing on the floor long after he had faded from view.

  SIX

  I made my way down the dim corridor. There didn’t seem to be a light switch anywhere as far as I could discern, but sunshine from the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the hallway was doing its best to illuminate the full span of it, which to my estimation was more than a city block in length. I looked around and marveled, once again, at the sheer enormity of this house. As I drew closer to that window, the area became brighter and brighter, and I was grateful to leave the gloom behind.

  The hall was flanked by several archways, through which I could see splendid sitting rooms and salons, all with thick Oriental rugs on the floors and enormous paintings on the walls. Before I knew it, I was moving from one to another as though I was in an art gallery, which, I supposed, I was. I didn’t see any works by the great masters—no Picassos, Monets, or van Goghs—but I wouldn’t have been surprised to find them in such a grand home. Instead, there were portraits of, I assumed, the people who had lived at Havenwood over the years and the events that had taken place in the house and on the grounds: a hunting party on horseback with Havenwood looming in the background, a group of musicians entertaining a crowd in the very room where the painting hung, a formal party with men in black tie and women in glittering gowns, children playing in the snow with enormous dogs that looked like wolves. I realized that whoever had built this house used artwork to chronicle life here.

  As I walked, the gnarling I felt earlier in the pit of my stomach began to grow into a strange sense of déjà vu. I know this, I thought, stopping in front of a massive, dark wood armoire with stained-glass inlays of rich greens and blues on its doors and intricate carvings of boars’ heads and wolves on its sides. It looked like something that might have been plucked from a Grimms fairy tale set in the deepest, darkest Black Forest. I’ve seen this before. But that was impossible. I had no idea Havenwood even existed two days prior. I had certainly never been here. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. It wasn’t just the armoire, but the house itself seemed all at once foreign and familiar, as though I had read about it…Ah, yes. At this, a smile crept to my lips. Of course I had read about it. Mrs. Sinclair often set her tales in enormous old homes just like this one. Perhaps exactly like this one. That was why certain things seemed so familiar. She had probably put certain aspects of Havenwood into her stories. Satisfied with this explanation, I walked on, the déjà vu drifting along behind me as I went.

  The library doors stood open at the end of the corridor, and a flickering light from inside the room was casting shadows on the opposite wall. Although the effect was warm and welcoming, a strange feeling of dread spread through my veins as I approached t
he room’s entrance. This was more than simple déjà vu. I stopped a few feet away and simply could not go on. Goose bumps arose on my arms, and a chill whispered up my spine. This is silly, I told myself, longing to see all of those books awaiting me in the library. But something, deep down in the depths of my being, would not let me take even one step closer.

  And that was when I heard it, soft and low, almost as soft as a whisper.

  “Sing a song of sixpence / A pocket full of rye.” It was a small voice, the voice of a child.

  I whirled around in a circle. “Who’s there?” I called out, my voice cracking and thin. “Mrs. Sinclair? Marion?”

  “Four and twenty blackbirds…”

  I froze, my heart pounding. The voice seemed to be coming from far away and long ago, as though it were buoyed on the wind from another time, or trapped somehow within these very walls.

  “Baked in a pie…”

  And then laughter, the tinkling, musical laughter of a young girl.

  This isn’t a child, I thought. A living child, anyway. I had no idea what was singing at the other end of the hallway, but I wasn’t about to stick around to find out. I backed away, slowly at first, and then turned and hurried down the hallway, hoping to catch Mr. Sinclair before he left. But of course he had gone long ago. I knew that Mrs. Sinclair and Marion, along with other household staff, must be around somewhere, but I had no idea where. All at once, I wished to be back on the streets of Chicago. Even angry reporters would’ve been welcome company just then.

  I took several deep breaths, trying to quiet my racing heart, and realized I had made my way back to the formal living room. I ran a hand through my hair and gazed up at the portrait above the fireplace of the man in the kilt. His face seemed so familiar somehow. I could see the laugh lines around his eyes, the kindness. I could almost hear his voice whispering in my ear, the drone of bagpipes floating in the air around me. All at once I knew this was the man who built Havenwood.