by Sharon Potts
Of course, all this hinged on the assumption that the babysitter and woman at the carnival were the same person, and that she was the kidnapper, which was yet to be proven.
“Alice,” her father had called her, but who was she?
She sent Smolleck an e-mail with a brief explanation and attached the two photos:
Woman at my father’s apartment two weeks ago appears to be same as woman at carnival watching Ethan. Note similarities in lips, chin, and mole over lip. My father said she was a babysitter from an agency that Star contacted. She watched Ethan two evenings in a row and Ethan seemed to like her.
If they got lucky, the FBI would be able to identify her. Maybe even confirm that the babysitter and the woman at the carnival were the same. But would that lead them to Ethan?
A moment later, she got a reply from Smolleck.
Thanks. Will check into it.
She was surprised he hadn’t called or come upstairs. She went to the window. One of the black sedans was gone. Smolleck had probably left the house after their confrontation in her mother’s office. She wondered whether he had returned to Jonathan’s condo or was out looking for her mother.
She returned to her computer and stared at the screen.
If the babysitter had come from LA and was waiting for Ethan at the carnival, where would she have taken him?
Aubrey discounted a hotel, because with all the publicity about Ethan, someone might notice a woman and little boy checking in on Sunday. So where would a kidnapper bring a child and not expect to be noticed? Probably not a condo, because of nosy neighbors. Maybe they had rented a private house for the purpose, but Aubrey had a different idea.
It was a long shot, but she googled “How to find who owns property in Florida.” There were several links to Miami Beach property records. She chose one that charged a small fee, figuring she would get access to more complete information. Because of Star’s possible connection to the babysitter, she decided to start there. She entered Star Matin’s name. There were no matches. She entered her father’s name, and was relieved when only the house in Coconut Grove came up. Full ownership had been transferred to her mother eight years ago. Next, she tried the address of the time-share her father and Star were staying at. She was hoping to see Star’s name, but the property had been acquired two years before by Time-Share Dreams for $1.2 million.
That sounded like a legitimate business, but she googled “Time-Share Dreams” to see what other properties the company owned. She found nothing, nor any online marketing presence, which she would have expected for a company selling time-share properties. She returned to the county-records website and went deeper into the ownership behind Time-Share Dreams, finally finding a document identifying J. W. Hendrix as the president, and an address in Atlanta.
J. W. as in Jonathan Woodward, or was that a coincidence?
She left the county website and googled “J. W. Hendrix, Atlanta.” There were a couple of near hits, including Janis Hendrix. She pulled up images of “Janis Hendrix.” The photos were all of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, two famous performers from Woodstock, who had died young. She went through the other images. If one of them was Janis Hendrix, she had no way of knowing. She searched every link for Janis Hendrix, but found nothing helpful, so she couldn’t confirm that J. W. Hendrix was Janis Hendrix.
Her research into the time-share was another dead end, but it was very likely a flawed assumption anyway. If Ethan had been in the apartment with her father and Star, Aubrey would never have been invited to come over.
She had wasted almost an hour and was no closer to finding Ethan. Her eyes settled on her still-life paintings. A solitary apple. A vase. A bronze horse in the center of an empty table.
Maybe the problem was that she was looking at each aspect of Ethan’s kidnapping in isolation. She needed to put all the pieces together. So far, she had photos of a woman who had babysat Ethan in LA and who also had appeared at the carnival. Then there was Smolleck and her parents’ interest in Stormdrain, so she assembled the names of people involved with the organization: Steve Robinson, Jeffrey Schwartz, Albert Jacobs, Linda Wilsen, and Gertrude Morgenstern.
Linda Wilsen and Gertrude Morgenstern had been friends of her mother’s. Someone claiming to be Jeffrey Schwartz had gone to the FBI twenty years ago, insisting that the brownstone explosion hadn’t been an accident and that he knew who had blown it up. That had been right around the time her parents’ marriage began to fall apart. Was there a connection?
There was still the big hole in her information. She didn’t know what her parents’ involvement had been in Stormdrain or with the explosion.
She opened her desk drawer and took out her mother’s small box. She studied each photo again, but kept going back to the one with Linda and Gertrude, the two women who had been in the explosion.
Linda had been injured. No one knew what had become of her.
She set the photo down on the desk and pulled up the photos of the babysitter on her computer, but except for eye color, there wasn’t even a remote resemblance to Linda. And of course, her age was all wrong. Linda would now be in her early sixties, and the babysitter was probably twenty years younger than that.
Aubrey looked at the pretty blonde, blue-eyed woman. Even in the photo, she could tell that Linda had been delicate and graceful.
A lot like Star.
Jesus. Could Star be Linda Wilsen?
Linda could have had extensive reconstructive surgery and no longer be recognizable as the Barnard College student in the photo. She could have changed her identity and returned to seek revenge for her friend’s death and her own disfigurement. But why wait so long? Unless she had been planning and waiting for every detail to be perfect.
Aubrey felt a flurry in the pit of her stomach as pieces started fitting together. Star had been responsible for Kevin and her mother’s reconciliation, which would have set up the opportunity for Ethan to visit Mama. Star had hired the babysitter, perhaps to establish a rapport between the babysitter and Ethan so he would leave the carnival with her willingly. And for the last eight years, Star had turned Aubrey’s father against her mother and had been manipulating him.
She needed to call her father now.
She touched his number on her phone and listened to it ring. Three, four, five rings, then it went to voice mail. She grabbed her handbag and car keys and ran down the stairs. Her phone rang as she stepped outside.
Smolleck. She answered. “Hello?”
“Aubrey.” Smolleck’s voice was raw.
Something must have happened with Mama. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“You were just calling your father.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“I have his phone.”
“Oh,” she said, confused. “Where is he? Is he there?”
“He’s been in a car accident. Actually, he was hit by a car.”
Her legs went weak. “He couldn’t be. I spoke to him a little while ago. He was in the apartment. It’s a mistake.”
“Aubrey?”
She sat down on the grass in the front yard and stared at the deep ruts that had been made by the reporters’ vans. She knew it wasn’t a mistake. “Is he . . .”
“Your father’s in a coma. The ambulance brought him to Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach.”
A coma. Her father was in a coma. He’d been hit by a car. Had Star tried to kill him when he asked her about the babysitter? Was this Aubrey’s fault?
“Who,” she said. “Who was driving the car?”
“It was hit-and-run,” Smolleck said. He coughed to clear his throat. “But there was an eyewitness who saw the driver.”
Hit-and-run.
Not Star.
“Have you apprehended him?”
“It was a woman,” he said. “She was wearing sunglasses, but she had shoulder-length dark hair and a white blouse.”
Her heart was pounding too hard. It hammered in her ears.
“Aubr
ey. You need to tell me where your mother is.”
CHAPTER 37
The nurse on the ICU floor told her that her father was in surgery and would be for several more hours. They didn’t know the extent of his injuries, or the prognosis. His wife was very upset and had to leave, the nurse said, and it took Aubrey a minute to realize the nurse meant Star, not Aubrey’s mother.
Her mother may have been the one who tried to kill him.
Aubrey went to a small, empty, windowless waiting room, where a hanging TV was tuned to a man in a suit with a droning voice. She sat down on one of the chairs and stared at the man, trying to process what he was saying. Something about the economy and financial markets. She listened harder, making no sense of his words, but it was better than thinking about whether her father might die, whether her mother had been driving the car that had run him down, and where little Ethan was.
She blanked out her thoughts and watched a commercial that came on. An ad for a vacation getaway. Two people riding horses on a deserted beach. It reminded her of the time her own family had stayed on Sea Island in Georgia and went horseback riding one very hot day. Her dad rode a large white horse and had tied a scarf around his head to keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes. She remembered how her mother had looked at him. Her hero. Why would she try to kill her white knight on a snowy stallion?
The witness had to be wrong about the driver of the car.
Aubrey sensed someone standing the hallway. She took in the young man’s wrinkled white shirt, unshaved face, and mussed brown hair before registering it was her brother. “Kev,” she said. “You’re here.”
He staggered into the room and dropped into the chair next to hers. “Maybe Dad needs me.” He was slurring his words. “Can’t do anything for Ethan.” He reached into his pockets and took out two miniature bottles, one scotch, one vodka. “This cleaned out the minibar. Want one?”
She was about to refuse, then changed her mind. “Thanks.” She took the vodka from his outstretched hand.
He unscrewed the top of the scotch and took a swig. “They were happy to see me go,” he said. “Prudence and Ernest.” He said their names in a hyperarticulated, proper voice. “Don’t think drinking is appropriate behavior.” He took another swig. “Maybe they’ll fire me.”
She reached over and rubbed his shoulder. She wanted to say everything was going to be okay, but she didn’t believe that. She doubted anything would ever be okay again.
“Who told you about Dad?” she asked.
“Detective Gonzalez. She’s nice. She called a taxi to bring me here. Said she’d call if there was any news.” His shoulder began to quiver beneath her hand. He was crying.
“Shhh, Kev,” she said softly. “They’ll find him.”
He wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve, drank back the rest of the scotch, and then put the empty bottle down on an end table covered with magazines. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s the devil, isn’t she?”
Aubrey shivered.
“Why did I let her back in my life?”
Kevin was talking about Mama. Smolleck or someone must have told him that the driver of the car looked like her.
“I wanted her to love me,” he said. “To be her little prince again. What an idiot!”
Their mother probably had no idea how much her aloofness had hurt both her kids.
“She does love you, Kev. She was dealing with her own issues and didn’t know how to show it.”
He gave his head an angry shake. “I should have known better. Dad did.”
“But Dad was the one who said you should forgive her,” Aubrey said.
“I mean years ago, when he left her. You don’t believe it was just because he met someone new, do you?”
Aubrey had always assumed Star was the reason, but maybe their father had suspicions Mama might be capable of something terrible.
My mother did not try to kill my father. She did not kill Jonathan.
Kevin eyed the unopened bottle of vodka in her hand. “You drinking that?”
She hesitated, then handed it to him. He was probably better off numb.
He took a sip of vodka. “You’re a good sister,” he said. “I’m sorry I almost let you drown.”
“It’s okay, Kev.”
“Do you think she’ll try to kill us, too?” he asked.
A chill flew down her spine. “What do you mean?”
“I heard the investigators say she probably killed Jonathan. And the woman who was driving the car that hit Dad looked like her. Maybe she’s trying to get rid of all of us.”
“No, Kev. Don’t think like that.”
My mother did not try to kill my father. She did not kill her fiancé.
“I’m sorry, Aubrey,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t drown you.”
Her brother was very drunk. His thoughts were getting mixed up. “You mean you’re sorry you almost let me drown.”
He shook his head like a stubborn child. “No. I’m sorry I didn’t drown you, and me with you.” He took another swig of vodka. “It would have been better than living through this.”
She opened her mouth to tell him he was wrong. That this was all a terrible mistake. Their family would be together again, laughing and celebrating Ethan’s next birthday. Happy and safe. Like she’d promised him earlier today.
But this time, the words got stuck in her heart.
CHAPTER 38
The droning voice on the TV or the alcohol had caught up to her brother. He was curled up on the chair, asleep, but gripping the empty vodka bottle like it was a lifesaving tonic. Aubrey left him in the waiting room and went for a walk down the linoleum-covered corridor, past the nurses’ station and patient rooms and beeping machines.
She didn’t like what was happening to her mind—the dark, negative feelings. She understood Kevin’s need to succumb to them. It was almost too much to accept—Ethan, Jonathan, their father. There had to be some other explanation.
Her mother wasn’t a murderer.
She turned back at the end of the corridor and saw Special Agent Smolleck coming in her direction. She hurried toward him, hope that he had something positive to tell her overpowering her fear of more bad news.
Then she saw the tense expression on his face.
“I understand your dad’s in surgery,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go somewhere to talk.”
They were silent as they took the elevator down. She followed him outside to a small inner courtyard with several spindly trees. A few people she took to be visitors and some hospital staff were sitting on benches or talking in small groups.
Smolleck gestured toward a food cart. “Want something?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
They sat on one of the benches. His tie was crooked, and his shirt less crisp than earlier.
“We haven’t located your mother. I’d really appreciate your help.”
She didn’t answer.
“I thought we had the same goal,” he said. “To get Ethan back safely.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
An orderly pushed an old woman in a wheelchair to the sunny corner of the courtyard. The old woman lifted her wrinkled face toward the sun and closed her eyes.
“Have you come up with anything on the babysitter at the carnival?” Aubrey asked.
He shook his head. “We spoke with Star. She told us she’d called a few agencies, but didn’t remember which one had sent the babysitter. We’re checking with each of them.”
“But most agencies have photos of their babysitters, don’t they? Wouldn’t you be able to get a match with facial-recognition software?”
“We’re working on that.”
“What about an invoice from the agency? Didn’t Star or my father get billed for her services?”
“We haven’t found anything on their credit-card statements.”
“So what does that mean? Is Sta
r lying?”
“It’s possible.”
Of course Star was lying. Aubrey just needed to persuade Smolleck.
“You say we have the same goal,” she said. “But you’re holding back from me.”
“There are a number of aspects of this investigation that—”
She had no patience for his posturing. “Why don’t my parents come up when I do a search on Stormdrain or the explosion in 1970? We both know they had some involvement with the organization.”
He frowned.
“What did they have to do with the explosion?”
“I already told you I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Did they make a deal with the FBI? Is that why you can’t tell me?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
His stubbornness was infuriating. “Without saying it, you’re telling me my parents were involved in some way. Which means a survivor of the explosion might be seeking revenge against them.”
“I appreciate you trying to solve this, but help us do our job,” he said. “Help us find your mother.”
“Twenty years ago, a man claiming to be Jeffrey Schwartz approached the FBI and said he knew who set off the brownstone explosion. It made the headlines, and I think it spooked my parents. I believe they thought the real Jeffrey Schwartz was out to get them. Tell me why.”
“I can’t.”
“Did my parents blow up the brownstone?”
He looked miserable. He gave his head a little shake. “It wasn’t that.”
“Then what was it? Why were they afraid of Schwartz?”
He pressed his lips together tightly. He was done sharing.
But she wasn’t done asking questions. “Where is Schwartz now?”
“We don’t know, Aubrey. Look, enough of this. Tell me where your mother is.”
“What about the man who claimed to be Schwartz? Have you found him? Have you asked him why he went to the FBI? Who gave him the idea to say he was Schwartz?”
“He’s a psychotic.”
“Have you found him?”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, we found him and spoke to him.”
“And?”
