Just Believe

by Anne Manning

  The doctor pressed the tiny envelope into Susan's hand.

  "Take it, just in case."

  Susan accepted the sedative and dropped it in her purse. She squeezed Annabelle's hand and left.

  After the elevator doors closed on Susan, Dr. Duncan said, "You handled that very well. Ever think of being a shrink?"

  Annabelle chuckled. "No, thanks."

  Dr. Duncan smiled. "I'm going to see Erin now. I'll come find you when you can go back to sit with her."

  Annabelle sighed as the weight of it all settled on her shoulders. First, a fragile, grieving, dependent mother to take care of, and now, a demented sister.

  Who was going to take care of her?

  Chapter Two

  The next few hours crept by. Annabelle sat at Erin's side as she slept the uneasy sleep of the drugged.

  Annabelle dozed in the ugly brown plastic chair beside the unnaturally high hospital bed. She felt guilty for being tired when her family was in such turmoil.

  Why had things started going so badly for the Tinkers? When had they?

  Never had Annabelle missed her father more than now.

  "Dad would know exactly what to do," she said, realizing even as she said the words they weren't true. Vern Tinker had been no more Superman than the guy in the movies and unfortunately, no more immune to death, but to Annabelle, he'd seemed able to handle any emergency.

  "Mom?" Erin's voice, cloudy with sleep, interrupted Annabelle's self-pity.

  "Mom's gone home, honey." Annabelle leaned over Erin and brushed back her hair. "I'm here, though."

  Erin turned up a weak smile. "I knew you would be." She tried to sit up, prompting Annabelle to reach for the remote control for the bed. After raising the head of the bed to make Erin more comfortable, she sat down again.

  "How do you feel now?" It was a stupid question, but how else to get a conversation started?

  Erin shrugged. "Okay, I guess." A flush colored her fair face. "I'm sorry I went crazy like that."

  "It's okay. Don't worry-"

  "No, it's not okay. I don't know why I acted like that. It's not like me to go out of control." She raised her eyes to Annabelle's. "You know that, right?"

  "Sure, I do. You're as normal as I am."

  Erin smiled. "I had wondered if maybe whatever happened to Mom..." She didn't need to finish. Both Tinker sisters had heard their Granny Smith's words on how Susan Smith Tinker had changed in her twenty-second year. They sat in an uneasy silence.

  "Annabelle, I have to ask you a favor."

  "Sure, honey, anything."

  Erin didn't give her a second to think about her promise.

  "Find Lucas for me."

  Annabelle felt her eyes go wide. "What? You can't be serious, Erin."

  "You don't believe something happened to him, do you?"

  Annabelle paused before deciding to answer truthfully. "No."

  "Then he's right here in town somewhere. If he was just using me and left me after he got what he was after, find him and bring him here so I can spit in his face."

  Sounded like a good idea.

  "I don't know what the doctor would say."

  "I don't care. If nothing's happened to him, find him."

  It was a challenge to Annabelle's certainty. If you're so smart and I'm so gullible, Erin was saying, go prove it.

  "All right. Do you have a picture?"

  "Yes, but it's not a good one." Erin pointed to the small closet in the corner of the room. "I think my things might be in there."

  Annabelle opened the closet and got Erin's bag. She tossed it to Erin and waited while she went through it. Erin finally retrieved her wallet and popped it open. She pulled a picture from a plastic frame and held it up.

  "The light was funny. He was angry my friend snuck up on him and snapped it."

  Annabelle took the picture and glanced quickly. "What's with him? Camera shy?" Suddenly, her attention was pulled back to the image of the tall, handsome man standing by Erin in the picture. "What's this?"

  Holding the picture so Erin could see, Annabelle pointed to a spectrum of light surrounding the man. It radiated from him, shades of purple and deepest blue.

  "It looks like an aura," Annabelle said, marveling at the photographed radiance.

  "Lucas said it was a reflection off the camera lens. My friend said she'd never seen anything like it before."

  Annabelle passed her finger over the picture as she stared at the image. Erin's voice grew fainter until...

  "Annabelle! Aren't you listening?"

  Annabelle shook herself out of her fascination with her sister's boyfriend's picture and turned to Erin.

  "I'm sorry. It's just so beautiful."

  Erin smiled. "Yes, he is, but he's taken."

  A laugh escaped Annabelle's lips. "No, sweetie, not him. It."

  "It?" Erin frowned.

  "The aura. It's rare to see one so perfectly photographed, and even then it's always faked. Wonder how he did this?"

  "I told you, he didn't do anything. He didn't even want his picture taken."

  "Whatever. So, where should I start?"

  "You're the investigative reporter."

  "Honey, I write absurd pieces for a supermarket tabloid. I'm hardly a reporter."

  "Well, you were trained to be. So do it." Erin crossed her arms over her chest and gave Annabelle a pointed stare.

  Erin really knew where to stick it, didn't she?

  "Okay. But even Lois Lane needed a lead now and again. So, help me out. Where does he hang out? Friends? How about his address, phone number?" Annabelle got out her notebook and pen and waited.

  "His address is 572 College Street. His brother, Gaelen, lives in town, too." She sat up, watching Annabelle copying this information. "G-A-E-L-E-N, I think it is."

  "Unusual. What's he like?"

  "Don't know. Haven't met him. Lucas says he's really busy and not very sociable. He's a professor at the University. Celtic Lit."

  "All right, Erin. I'll find him, but you'd better be ready to accept the truth, whatever it is."

  A fleeting shadow of fear crossed Erin's eyes, and a long moment passed before she answered. "I will."

  Annabelle sat by Erin's side even after her sister drifted back to sleep, and spent the remaining hours until daybreak trying to doze in the chair or watching--for what she didn't know-out the large window. After their mother came to take Annabelle's place at Erin's bedside, Annabelle left the hospital on her mission.

  Naturally, she checked Lucas's apartment first.

  As she raised her hand to knock, the door flew open. She jumped back a step, expecting someone to come out.

  An empty moment stretched into two. Still no one appeared at the door.

  "Hello!" She peered inside the open doorway. "Anyone home?"

  Annabelle waited a moment, listening for an answer. Her eyes focused on a hallway, one she guessed led to the bedroom. About to enter the apartment, she stepped across the threshold, but froze at the sound of a crash, followed by shattering glass.

  "Who's there? Lucas?" Her conscience rang an alarm at entering a person's home without an invitation. But Lucas Riley was practically family.

  Was it Lucas smashing up his home?

  Her breath caught in her throat as she took in the state of the apartment. Sofa cushions lay on the floor and the desk in the corner had been swept clean, down to the desktop computer that sat precariously on the edge. A squat bookcase standing beside the desk was empty. Books and magazines had been strewn all over.

  Somebody had been looking for something. Or maybe Lucas was just a terrible housekeeper?

  Her gaze fell on the far door, her ears anxious for more signs of the intruder who was tearing up the place. She crossed the tiny foyer in small, tentative steps and stopped at the corner of the kitchen pass-through.

  An angry sound, like the shaking of a crystal chandelier in an earthquake crystallized in the silence. It was a twinkling, agitated sound, one she'd have said was a curs
e if there had been words.

  "Who's there? Come out here before I call the cops!" Annabelle knew how stupid it was for a perfect stranger to be threatening to call the police to an apartment she herself had practically broken into. But before she could make herself leave, another, completely different twinkling sound rang from the bedroom.

  "All right, I'm dialing," she bluffed. Annabelle was drawn to the commotion in the bedroom. Comforted that the sound didn't remind her of the rustling of sheets, she was certain someone was searching Lucas Riley's bedroom. She also knew in another situation, she'd be out the door and really calling the cops, but this time, she hesitated, oddly bereft of fear.

  She took step after step down the hallway, toward the intruder. She wanted to see the person. It was so important to see who this was.

  The twinkle chimed again--this time with the sound of command.

  "That's so odd," she whispered. There were no words, but the meaning underlying the twinkling sounds was clear.

  She hadn't stopped moving down the hallway, and now approached the door to the bedroom. It looked pretty much as she'd have guessed a single man's bedroom would look, not that she had much experience in that area.

  Okay, no experience, but she set that problem aside for now and gazed around the room.

  A plain double bed--no headboard--sat against the wall, small tables on both sides, surfaces swept clean. The broken lamp on the floor explained the crash she'd heard earlier now. The bed had an appearance of permanent mess, as though it hadn't been made up in weeks. A medium-sized dresser faced the bed on the opposite wall, its drawers hanging open, empty. It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened to the contents. Clothes littered the floor.

  She scanned the room for another exit, but saw no way the intruder could have escaped. The utter stupidity of her actions, coming into the bedroom alone, struck her in a flash.

  Whoever had done this was still in the room.

  Annabelle swallowed a large lump of apprehension. Her gaze settled on the closet, a small one with folding doors. She'd lived in enough apartments to know how small the closets could be. Whoever was in there couldn't be very big.

  And somewhere in the back of her mind, surfacing just now, was the reporter's instinct that whoever it was had something to do with Lucas.

  Well, duh. She shook her head in self-derision. This is really stupid, Annabelle. Get out of here.

  She turned to go -- fully intending to hotfoot it out before she became an FBI statistic -- when a sound stopped her in her tracks, a twinkling sound that made her want to smile.

  A laugh escaped her. "Come on now, who's in there? I'm not scared, so you might as well come out." Not quite believing herself, Annabelle approached the closet and pulled on the doorknob, folding one-half of the door back.

  A furious jingle rang through the air and the clothes hanging in the closet rippled like the wake of the Titanic. Then three sparks flew out of the closet right by Annabelle's head.

  She squeaked, her first real charge of fright raising her voice to soprano territory. She slapped at her hair, sure sparks from a fire were about to set her ablaze.

  But there was no fire. About to push aside the clothes and see what was going on in the closet, Annabelle stopped, hand in the air, and turned slowly toward the door leading to the rest of the apartment.

  Two, perfect, twinkling, shimmering spots of light flew out the door.

  Just like Tinkerbell.

  She stood staring.

  Annabelle shook her head to clear it. Tinkerbell! For heaven's sake, get a grip!

  She should have gotten some sleep last night. Surely that was all this was. She was tired and the sparks of light were only the result of fatigue.

  She had a job to do. She applied herself to picking up the clothes and laying them across the bed, looking for a clue to Lucas's whereabouts, a matchbook from a bar, a take-out menu, or ticket stubs from a porno house, anything.

  Finding nothing, she went out into the small kitchen.

  The sink overflowed with unwashed dishes. After dismissing this poor housekeeping as only more substantiation for the bachelor-slob myth, Annabelle looked again. Then she tried to raise the top dish, using only one fingertip in an effort to avoid the mess. Five dishes stuck one to another as though super-glued.

  Ugh. Annabelle let the pile down again gingerly. Lucas Riley must be the world's worst housekeeper.

  Still, something didn't fit the rest of the scene. Other than the mess in the bedroom and living room--an obvious ransacking job--the apartment was clean, no pizza boxes littering the coffee table or discarded newspapers or girlie magazines carpeting the floor. Someone kept this place up. And if he had a housekeeper, why hadn't she done the dishes? Something didn't add up until Annabelle followed the evidence before her eyes to the obvious conclusion.

  He hadn't been here for a few days.

  This struck her as the most likely explanation. And it made Erin's story of his disappearance more troubling.

  And those flying points of light? They weren't UFOs. Were they?

  Annabelle dropped down in the big recliner facing the entertainment center, letting everything settle down in her head.

  There aren't any UFOs, Annabelle. You make those stories up, remember? Still, something had flown out of the closet, close enough to her head that she could still hear the...how could she describe it?

  Twinkle? No. It was a tinkle.

  It was time to check herself into the hospital where she and Erin could spin yarns all day long. Only now she believed there was something to the situation besides self-delusion.

  I am not nuts. Once didn't convince her, so she repeated it, a sanity mantra.

  There was nothing more to find here. Not even a clue about where Lucas Riley spent his free time. With a deep breath, Annabelle started to get up, when the phone rang.

  After three rings, the recorded message came on asking the caller to leave his name. No wonder Erin didn't want to admit what a snake he was. Lucas spoke in a rumbling bass tinged with the faintest hint of an accent; so faint she couldn't quite place it. It was about the sexiest thing she'd ever heard.

  At least that was her opinion before she heard the caller's voice.

  "Lucas? You'd better be pickin' up that phone, boyo. Come on, now, pick up!"

  Deeper, richer, the accent a bit stronger, perhaps because of irritation? As seconds ticked by, the caller waited. Annabelle caught her breath, waiting with him, hoping he'd speak again.

  "All right, you want to play that game, do you? Fine. Lucas, this is your brother, Gaelen. I'm in my office. I just got a call to a convocation, and you're invited, too, lad, if you can fit business into your busy social calendar. I have no idea what it's about, only Eochy said it was urgent. So get your rear up there."

  Gaelen hung up, leaving Annabelle to shake off a feeling of loss. It was ridiculous. She didn't even know the man. Just because he sounded sexy and handsome didn't mean he was.

  Still, such a voice couldn't be wasted on an unassuming man. It had to be just one piece of a total package. And quite a package it must be.

  Oh,stop it! She leaned back in the recliner and drummed her fingers on the worn arms. Concentrate on the other Riley brother.

  Of course, to find Lucas Riley she could use his brother. The added bonus brightened the whole scenario.

  Peeking through the pile of bills and papers on the coffee table by the telephone, Annabelle searched for an address book or a telephone book. There was a university catalog. Erin said Gaelen Riley was a professor of Celtic Lit at the university, so he had to be listed. Annabelle thumbed through, quickly locating Riley among the language department members. His credentials were very impressive: B.A. in Linguistics from Rutgers, master's degree from Johns Hopkins, Ph.D. from Harvard, now a full professor at UNC.

  "Pretty toney background. Wonder if he's old money?"

  His office number was listed there, so she dialed.

  "Dr. Riley's office."

&nbs
p; "Is Dr. Riley in?"

  "No, I'm sorry he isn't. May I ask who's calling?"

  Who? All her years in tabloid journalism hadn't been for nothing.

  "My name is Erin Tinker. I'm a..." Annabelle paused so the full effect of the word would hit Riley's secretary, "Friend of his brother, Lucas."

  "Oh, Erin! I didn't recognize your voice. It's Susie."

  Uh-oh. What now?

  "Oh, Susie. Sure. I didn't recognize you either." Annabelle decided to use the misunderstanding to her benefit. "Susie, I don't have a lot of time. Is Gaelen there? I need to talk to him about Lucas."

  "Is something wrong?" Susie was a good friend if the concern in her voice was sincere. Annabelle felt guilty using her like this.

  "I'm not sure. I haven't seen him for a couple of days. We had a little fight." Why not juice up the story a little? "I just wanted to make sure he was all right."

  "Gee, I'm sorry. I haven't seen him since, I guess it was Monday."

  Could it be a coincidence Lucas hadn't been seen by a close friend since Monday, the same day of Erin's ill-fated date with him?

  "Erin?" Again Annabelle noted the concern in Susie's voice. A needle-sharp prick of envy pierced her heart. She didn't have a close friend who'd care what happened to her. The only person she'd told about her trip to North Carolina had been her editor.

  "Erin?" Susie asked again. "Are you okay? What's happened?"

  Annabelle shook off her self-pity. "It's nothing, Susie. Can you tell me where Gaelen is?"

  "You just missed him. He got a call a few minutes ago and dashed out. He said he'd be back as soon as he could, but he didn't say where he was going. Didn't sound like he'd be gone long, though."

  The mysterious convocation he'd mentioned in his message? Where was it? What was it?

  "You sure you're okay?"

  "Yeah, I'm sure. Don't worry. Thanks."

  As Annabelle hung up the phone on Susie's next question, she hoped she hadn't ruined her sister's friendship with her deception.

  More important, though, she'd hit a dead end.

  Chapter Three

  "Of all the inconsiderate, arrogant, downright sassenach things to do!" His footsteps and angry words echoed off the stone walls, reverberating through the hand-hewn hallway descending beneath the New Jersey countryside.