by Sharon Potts
Had Mama lied to her?
She couldn’t imagine either of her parents knowingly killing anyone. If they had, they would have been arrested and convicted.
“Dad. I need to know. Did you or Mom have something to do with the brownstone explosion?”
He met her eyes. They were filled with a pain she’d never seen before. “No,” he said. “Of course not.”
“Casey, come out,” a child’s voice called. A little boy wearing a bow tie and dress shorts was trotting down the hallway, looking left and right. “I don’t want to play anymore.”
Aubrey took a deep breath. She wanted so much to believe her father. “But you said things went very wrong, and your friends died.”
He hesitated. “Yes, but not because of us.”
Her parents were not murderers. Her father had to be telling the truth. “Is it possible someone might blame you anyway?” she asked.
“Casey,” the boy called. “Casey, come out now!”
“That’s what’s concerning me.” He blinked at something in the distance and tensed. Star was at the other end of the hallway, coming toward them. “Let’s not talk about this in front of her.”
“But if you think you know why someone kidnapped Ethan, you must tell the FBI.”
“Not now,” he said quietly as Star came within earshot.
“Hope I’m not interrupting,” Star said. “May I join you?”
He stood and offered Star his chair. He didn’t look happy. Neither was Aubrey. The clock was ticking. If her father knew something, they needed to act on it quickly.
Star sat down with her back straight, like someone taught in cotillion. “So what have you two been talking about?”
Her father’s eyes met Aubrey’s. They said, later. “Just about how worried we both are,” he said to Star.
“Of course.” Star reached over and patted his hand.
Aubrey needed to get her father away from Star. She was about to suggest that he go with her to check on Kevin, when her phone rang. Our love is stronger than the pain.
“That’s probably your mother,” Star said. “Please answer. Don’t mind us.”
Aubrey glanced at her father. He had a troubled expression on his face. She pressed “Answer.” “Are you okay, Mama?”
“I’m fine,” her mother said. “I didn’t want you to worry. I’m going to Jonathan’s apartment.”
“Jonathan’s? Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed home?”
“Home doesn’t feel like home.”
“I understand. I’ll let you know if anything happens here.”
Aubrey heard giggles erupt into laughter as she ended the call.
The little boy had pulled back the drape, exposing the little girl. “I found you!” he shouted.
“Is she all right?” her father asked.
“Yes,” Aubrey said.
“I wish I could say the same about me,” Star said, massaging her temples. “Here I’m supposed to be holding you up, Larry, and I keep fading.”
“Can I get you something?” His voice sounded off, like a mechanical recording.
“No, thank you, dearest.” She stood up. “The best thing for me is a little shut-eye. I’ll take a taxi back to the apartment.”
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
No! Aubrey wanted to shout at her father. I need you to stay here and talk to me.
“Absolutely not.” Star pushed her wispy white bangs back from her forehead. “You need to be here in case something happens. I’ll take a little nap; then I’ll be back later.”
She gave him a pat on the chest, nodded at Aubrey, then turned and walked down the hallway.
The two children ran past her, chasing each other.
“Okay,” Aubrey said. “She’s gone. Now tell me. Why do you think someone might blame you or Mama for the brownstone explosion?”
Her father was looking after Star, a frown on his face, though she was no longer in sight.
“What?” he said, clearly distracted.
Something was going on between her father and Star, but Aubrey had no idea what it was. She needed to bring him back to what mattered. “You said someone may have kidnapped Ethan to get back at you.”
He blinked. “Did I say that?”
“Yes. Dad, what’s going on? If you have a lead about Ethan, we have to let the FBI know.”
“A lead?” He shook his head. “Forget that. I was rambling. This is all so stressful. I’m becoming paranoid about everything and everyone.” He glanced back at the door to the command past. “I’d better go. I want to make sure Star’s okay.”
He hurried away, leaving Aubrey with the same confused feeling she had at that soccer game when she’d gone running in the wrong direction, mixed up about who was on her team . . . and who wasn’t.
CHAPTER 25
Diana sat on the white sofa in Jonathan’s living room. Beyond the sliding glass doors, the sky was the same shade of blue as the suitcase she’d brought to college when she was a freshman. The suitcase she kept in her closet filled with mementos.
The past was everywhere, but she didn’t know if or how it might help her figure out who had taken Ethan so she could get him back.
She heard the clink of glassware and glanced over at Jonathan, who was hunched over the bar. They had come here straight from the luncheonette and hadn’t spoken on the short drive. She’d been thinking about Gertrude and how much Jonathan had said he loved her. Was it possible he blamed Diana for her death? Could he have kidnapped Ethan as an act of revenge? Vengeance was a powerful motive that led people to do unthinkable things, but this theory made sense only if Jonathan knew what really happened on April Fool.
“It’s just after noon,” Jonathan said, his soft voice breaking into her thoughts. “I think it’s acceptable to start drinking.” He handed her a snifter, then sat down beside her with his own.
She took a swallow of brandy. “After you and Gertrude had the fight, did you ever see each other again?”
“You still want to talk about her?” He sounded exasperated.
“Yes.”
He shook his head and released a puff of air. “Okay. We’ll talk about Gertrude.” He set his brandy down on the coffee table and picked up the crimson paperweight that encased a butterfly.
Gertrude had been a butterfly. Free and beautiful. But there had always been something hard surrounding her. Diana wondered if that was the person Jonathan had known, or whether he had seen a different side of her.
“We split up a week or so before the April Fool explosion,” he said. “I never saw her again.” He cradled the paperweight in his hands. “I keep thinking back to our last fight. It was just after the news came out that the army was bringing charges against several officers involved with the My Lai Massacre.” He carefully set the paperweight back down on the coffee table. “Gertrude was enraged that there hadn’t been a full-blown investigation. She said the government was covering up the truth, that the slaughter of innocent villagers in My Lai wasn’t an isolated incident but rather the norm. She swore she would avenge them somehow.”
Diana remembered Gertrude’s fury, too. Then, a few days before April Fool, something changed. Her roommate seemed calmer—happy, even.
Gertrude’s lighter mood would have been right around when Jonathan said he and Gertrude had had their big fight. So why would she have been happy?
A buried memory came to her. Gertrude dancing around the dorm room in a brightly colored scarf, singing, La cucaracha, la cucaracha. Then she laughed. I think I’ll brush up on my Spanish, Pollyanna. Might come in handy.
As though she was planning to go away. Was she? With whom? Jonathan, Jeffrey Schwartz, or with someone else?
A couple of days later, Gertrude was dead.
Diana drank the rest of the brandy and put her glass down too hard on the table. The sudden sound made Jonathan jump.
“How did you feel when you learned Gertrude had died in the explosion?” Diana asked.
His reddis
h-gray eyebrows came together. “I was devastated, of course. Why are you asking?”
“Were you angry?”
“Angry?” He looked genuinely perplexed. “Well, after I got over my grief, I was angry with her, of course. Angry that she’d put herself in that situation.”
“And you didn’t blame Stormdrain?”
“No more than I blamed the government or the university for their pigheaded policies.” He rubbed his cheek. “What is it, Diana? I don’t understand where you’re going with these questions.”
She wasn’t sure where she was going, either. Jonathan didn’t seem to know anything about her own connection with Stormdrain, which meant it was unlikely he had anything to do with Ethan’s kidnapping.
But there was still Jeffrey. If he knew the truth about April Fool and blamed her for Gertrude’s death, might he have been further enraged by Diana’s relationship with Jonathan, the man who had competed with Jeffrey for Gertrude’s attention forty-five years ago?
Could Jeffrey have kidnapped Ethan and presented the ultimatum, which would both punish Diana and eliminate his former adversary? Or had Gertrude had other secret lovers and confidants? The truth was, Diana didn’t know who was behind the death demand. She only knew she had to do something to get Ethan back.
“Diana?” Jonathan’s tone was gentle.
She didn’t like the way he was studying her, like she was a mental patient.
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head, then released a heavy sigh. “Please don’t get angry, but I have to say this. You must tell the FBI about the note. It’s the only reasonable thing to do.”
“No.”
“Diana, the FBI is trained to handle this kind of situation.”
“I said no.” Her voice came out louder than she’d intended. Jonathan looked like she’d slapped him. “I’m sorry, but I won’t put Ethan at risk.”
She stared out at the railing, focusing on one point to keep the room from spinning. She felt trapped. Calm down. Think. There might be no connection between Jonathan, Jeffrey, or someone else from those days, and the ultimatum. It was her own guilt that had her believing April Fool was involved. What if she were wrong, and there was a much simpler solution? A solution where no one had to die.
She turned back to her fiancé. “There are things we can try before turning this over to the FBI.”
“What things?”
When Diana had brought the idea up to Aubrey, they had considered it a long shot, but they were running out of options. If it worked, both Ethan and Jonathan would be saved. “Would you be willing to withdraw from consideration for the Supreme Court?”
He studied her over the rims of his glasses, his brow in a frown. “You want me to withdraw.”
“Yes.”
He rolled the brandy snifter between his hands.
“You said you would never put your career ahead of family,” she said. “Were you just trying to placate me?”
“Of course not, but I’m not going to act rashly.”
“Rashly?”
“We need to think this through, darling. The note said they wanted you to kill me. It said nothing about me withdrawing.”
“But maybe your stepping down would satisfy them. Maybe they made the threat about harming Ethan to frighten us. To make sure you wouldn’t accept the nomination.”
“But there’s no guarantee we’d get Ethan back if I did withdraw.”
“If there’s a chance it would work, we have to take it.”
He tossed back the rest of the brandy. “These people, whoever they are, are trying to terrorize us with their threats of violence. Giving in to them goes against everything I believe in.”
“If we don’t try to appease them, they’ll kill Ethan.”
He got up and refilled his glass at the bar. He took a long drink.
Why was he procrastinating when in a few hours the kidnappers’ deadline would run out? Or were his political aspirations too important, just as they’d been when he turned away from Gertrude?
“Will you do it, Jonathan?”
“I want to think it through.”
“Then think it through.” She got up from the sofa. She was trembling.
“Diana,” he said, coming toward her.
She held up her hand for him to stop. “I’m leaving. You’ll be able to think about it more clearly if I’m not here.”
“Don’t go,” he said. “Not like this. Not when you’re angry with me.”
He followed her through the foyer to the front door. “Please, Diana. Let me at least drive you home.”
“I’d rather walk.” She looked back at the cold white room splotched with crimson, the blue sky just beyond. “I have my own thinking to do.”
CHAPTER 26
The midday sun beat down on Diana, pounding on her head and burning through the back of her white cotton blouse as she walked south on Brickell Avenue, away from downtown and Jonathan’s building.
The street was airless, the breezes blocked by tall, wide condos, so that even the palm trees that lined the sidewalk were motionless. Diana found it difficult to catch her breath.
Jonathan wasn’t willing to save her grandson. And, yes, she understood his argument that withdrawing from the Supreme Court might not be what the kidnappers were after, but he should have been willing to give it a shot. Now their options were running out. The kidnappers wanted a response in less than twelve hours, and she had nothing for them.
If we don’t have physical proof of Jonathan Woodward’s death, Ethan will die.
She had no doubt they meant it.
The white sidewalk began to swirl in front of her. She reached for a palm tree, regretting the brandy she’d had at Jonathan’s, and waited for the dizziness to pass.
It was foolish of her to walk home in this agitated state. She pulled in a few deep breaths and noticed a bus stop a few feet away. She staggered toward it and collapsed on the bench, grateful for the shade of a nearby palm.
She was scared. Not sure what she was capable of doing. She needed Aubrey.
She touched her phone, but the screen remained blank, the battery very likely dead.
She was alone.
A bus heading in the wrong direction pulled up to the stop. The driver looked at her, waiting. She shook her head and waved him on. The bus roared away, leaving the stench of diesel exhaust in its wake.
Jonathan didn’t want to give in to threats of violence. His words had lit up a feeling of déjà vu. About how they had all believed in violence back then. They had accepted it as the only way to get what they wanted.
Someone still believed it was the answer. But to what end? What did these people who had taken her little grandson want from her? Was it Jonathan’s death?
The thought sickened her. She was a physician, for God’s sake. A healer, not a murderer.
Their battle cry echoed in her head. Someone must die! In order to go forward, you needed to destroy. In order to be noticed, you had to kill.
Maybe it was as simple as that.
Di sat with Linda in the front row of folding chairs, close to the boarded-up fireplace in the cold, damp brownstone. It was late November, but there was no heat, so everyone wore coats and jackets.
Michael had painted a giant peace symbol over the mantel, and magazine photos of war atrocities were taped to the walls. One of the other girls lit candles on the mantel and around the room, casting everyone in sputtering shadows. Sheets hung over the windows so people in the street couldn’t see inside.
Most of the girls were crying, herself included. They had seen the photos on the news, and all the magazines had carried them—Time, Life, Newsweek.
The massacre at My Lai. It had happened months ago, back in March, but the news had been quashed, until one determined investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, had finally brought it all to light. Since the story had broken a few days ago, it was all anyone could talk about.
The murder of hundreds of Vietnamese women, children, old men—ordinary people. Murdered in cold blood. By American soldiers.
They went too far this time, Lawrence had said. Now the world will finally take notice of this immoral war.
Members of Stormdrain streamed into the living room and sat down. The sweet smell of marijuana wafted in with them. Everyone spoke in low voices, but Di sensed a nervous energy in the room.
She searched the young men for Lawrence, but he wasn’t among them. She wished he would come and hug her before the meeting began. They had become a couple on Halloween—twenty-two days ago. It was Di’s first serious relationship, and she treated each day as an anniversary. Except that since the news of My Lai, Lawrence had become distracted, almost as though something inside him was taking root and growing.
Di got that about him—loved it about him. That he cared so much about these people who lived on the other side of the world. Lawrence had cried when he read that the women had been gang-raped, then mutilated. Some of the mothers had lain over their babies, hoping to protect them, but the soldiers threw their dead bodies aside, then murdered their children, too.
“Just like the Holocaust,” Di had said.
Lawrence had held her hands and replied, “We’ll stop them this time. I promise you, Di. We’ll stop them.”
“What do you think Lawrence will tell us to do?” Linda asked. Her eyes were eerily large, shadowed by mascara smeared by her tears. A few weeks before, her close-cropped blonde hair had looked chic, but now it made her resemble photos of Auschwitz survivors. Or maybe it was Di’s raw emotions in play.
We’re all victims, Di thought. Now, then, forever. Unless we stop them.
She was about to answer Linda when she noticed her friend’s lips open and eyes widen with an almost religious adoration. Di turned to see Lawrence striding toward the front of the room. His face was uncharacteristically flushed, his jaw clenched.
Everyone became quiet as he faced them from the fireplace.
“Thank you for coming, comrades,” he said in such a soft voice that she sensed everyone around her lean toward him.
