Capturing Angels

by V. C. Andrews

  We slipped off the bar stools together and walked hand-in-hand into his bedroom. “I hope I’m not just any port in a storm,” he said.

  “Don’t mention ships,” I told him, and kissed him again.

  Minutes later, both of us naked, I embraced him under his blanket and buried my face in his chest. He kissed my hair, stroked my shoulders, and kissed my neck, slowly moving down to my breasts and my stomach. I moaned softly and leaned back on the pillow.

  Sex was rapidly becoming a respite, a time-out from my sorrow, my anxiety, and my anger. When he entered me, it was truly as if I could step out of not only my body but my entire life. The past and the present, even the future, evaporated. I was nameless, floating on the rhythm of the ecstasy being created between us. I didn’t see him or hear him. It was like making love to a ghost, my orgasm sending me farther and farther away from myself, until I had drifted too far and cried out with a mixture of grand pleasure and fear. He tightened his embrace around me and whispered my name as if he knew I needed to hear it. Moments later, luxuriating in our comfortable exhaustion, we lay still and silent, as if we were both afraid that a single vowel or consonant, even too heavy a breath, would shatter the glow.

  He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he put his arm around my shoulders and closed his eyes. I curled up against him. His body was harder than John’s, more muscular and, dare I think, more manly. Strangely, I didn’t feel guilty until I thought that. That, even more than my lovemaking, seemed to be more of a betrayal. It was as though I hadn’t really committed adultery until I admitted to myself that I enjoyed Sam’s body more than I enjoyed John’s.

  As I lay there drifting, I was struggling with the thought that I was really drawn to Sam for one reason. He was more determined than John to find our daughter. He was my hope, and for that, I would gladly sell my soul, which I knew was something John would truly believe I had already done. Every other reason for my being there was probably a rationalization, but I could live with that. In fact, it amazed me now how much I could live with after Mary’s abduction. Nothing was off the table. The mother in me was that strong.

  Of course, I knew that Sam had these thoughts, too. For a few moments, I considered all of this from his point of view. He was a good man, and a good man by definition couldn’t help but feel guilty, feel he was simply taking advantage of me for his own pleasure. It struck me that neither he nor I would completely get over this possibility, ever.

  We both fell asleep, but I knew that I had to get up very early and get back to my house. Sam knew it, too, and was up ahead of me. He was half dressed when I opened my eyes.

  “I’ve got some coffee on. You want to shower?”

  I looked at the clock and sat up quickly.

  “No, I’ll shower at home,” I said. I reached for my clothes. “Margaret will be calling me in an hour or so to see how I am, and she’ll go into a panic of some sort if I don’t answer.”

  “And John?”

  “He won’t call early. He’ll squeeze me in between a breakfast meeting and something else.”

  “I’ll put some coffee in a hot cup. You can take it along. I don’t want you driving in your sleep.”

  “Oh, I’m awake,” I said, smiling. It took me only a minute to get my clothes on, but he was standing in the entryway with a cup of coffee anyway.

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” I said. I took the coffee, kissed him on the cheek, and went to the door.

  “Grace.”

  I turned and waited. I could see that whatever it was, it was something he had agonized about. There was that look on his face, the look of someone who was struggling with his own tongue to formulate the words.

  “What is it, Sam?”

  “Can I ask you to do something without you asking me any questions why?”

  “Probably not, but I’ll make every effort.”

  “I’ll promise to explain as soon as I can. Will that be good enough?”

  “I guess it will have to be, otherwise I’ll be on social security before I open this door.”

  He smiled. “Okay. I want you to call me when you get home. I want you to give me the address of that costume shop in Pomona and the numbers on that receipt you found.”

  “But what—”

  He held up his hand. “Something occurred to me last night, and I want to follow up on it today. Trust me?”

  I nodded.

  “And when you call, no questions. Just give me the information.”

  “All right, Sam.”

  I walked out to the elevator. My heart was racing so hard and fast I thought I might faint in the hallway before the elevator door opened. I went down to my car, finished what I wanted of the coffee, and dropped it into a garbage bin in the garage. Then I got in and drove out.

  The city was just coming to life, so the traffic was very light. It took me half the time to get home, and the first thing I did was go into John’s office and get the receipt. Then I picked up the phone and called Sam. I gave him the information.

  “When will I hear from you?” I asked.

  “Soon. I promise,” he said.

  After I hung up, I went upstairs to shower and change. As I was on my way down, the phone rang. I rushed to it, thinking it might be Sam already with some information, but it was John.

  “So,” he began, “how was your night?”

  It was always difficult for me to tell from the tone of John’s voice what he really meant or what he was really thinking. He was like that with most people, however. It was a power he enjoyed, the power to keep from revealing himself unless he wanted to. Sometimes, when he was having fun at the expense of one of his friends at a dinner party or elsewhere, he would deliberately take a contrary position on an argument and seem perfectly believable. It wasn’t until he had driven whoever it was to frustration that he would break a smile and admit that he was just teasing. Some believed him; some didn’t. Everyone agreed that he would be a terrific poker player, although he hated gambling of any kind and wouldn’t even play church bingo.

  “Tired,” I said.

  “So, you didn’t take a pill?”

  “If I do, I still wake up tired, John.”

  “Okay. I might cut things short here and come home earlier than I expected tomorrow.”

  “Really?”

  “I thought that would make you happy.”

  “Of course it does,” I said.

  “Right. I’ll phone from the airport if that’s what occurs. What are you doing today?”

  “A little grocery shopping,” I said. “Not much more.”

  “I gotta go. I see someone waving to me. The meeting’s starting. Call you later,” he said.

  John was never one to say “I love you” at the end of a phone call, so I wasn’t surprised not to hear it this morning. When he told me that he thought things said routinely lost their meaning because they were like words without passion, I hit back, reminding him of prayers recited mechanically in church.

  “Not me,” he countered. “I don’t recite what I don’t feel.”

  Maybe he was telling the truth. Who was I to deny that he always brought a devout passion to his church and his Bible? When he read his favorite psalm or any psalm, he read it so dramatically that anyone listening would hear how much he believed in the words he spoke.

  Even though I, like any woman, needed and wanted to be cherished on an almost daily basis, I saw merit in what he was saying. Precious things lose their value when they become too abundant, too common. So be it with “I love you,” I thought, and let it go. Now, however, it was something I desperately needed to hear. Why didn’t he see that? Was it me, keeping that wall up between us?

  I made some breakfast for myself and sat thinking about how I might spend the day.

  The phone rang, and ag
ain I thought it might be Sam. It was Margaret. I tried not to sound disappointed, knowing that might bring her right over to mother me.

  “How are you, dear?” she asked.

  “I’m okay, Margaret. John might come home earlier tomorrow.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “Do you need anything? I’m going to the supermarket.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She hesitated and then asked, “Did I see you drive in this morning?”

  “What are you doing, sitting by your living-room window all morning? You really are watching over me, Margaret. I asked you not to do that.”

  “I wasn’t there to watch your comings and goings, dear. You know I like to look out at the street. Were you visiting your parents?”

  “No, Margaret.” I didn’t add anything, and there was a brief silence.

  “Oh, well, is there anything new about Mary?”

  “Not yet.”

  She was obviously waiting to hear more.

  “Thanks for calling, Margaret,” I said. “I’ll speak to you later.”

  “Yes.” Her voice seemed to drift off before I hung up.

  I did have to do some grocery shopping myself, but most of what Sam had told me the night before about missing children lingered in my thoughts. I went to my computer and sat reading up on various missing-children cases and then read about reported incidents of miraculous healing. It went from the ridiculous to the sublime, stories about people who were healed over the telephone, even over the Internet. There were people advertising their pamphlets guaranteed to teach someone how to heal through prayer, and of course, there were those selling miraculous objects, stones, jewels, and pieces of cloth worn by prophets. I realized that there was an entire industry for miracles out there, obviously a very profitable one.

  If people were willing to pay so much for something their every instinct should tell them was phony, what would they pay if they had evidence that it was not? There were pages and pages of testimonials made by people who were supposedly healed of their cancers, addictions, diseases, and even inherited malfunctions. Nothing was off the table when it came to miracles.

  Something occurred to me, so I shut down my computer and went into John’s office and turned on his. I knew how to check to see what he had in his bookmarks, the sites he had gone to and wanted to remember. Because of his penchant for facts and information, John was an expert when it came to surfing the Net. Almost everything I knew about computers I knew because of John’s instruction.

  He had so many sites bookmarked. Most of them had to do with business and Internet software, but not far down the list, there they were: some of the same sites I had gone to in order to read about miraculous healing. I tried to convince myself that this really shouldn’t surprise me. Once a topic was raised in his presence, John ravished any information about it, whether it was political, social, or religious. He would never argue without detailed facts and references, which was why most people avoided arguing with him, especially if they wanted to hold on to their beliefs. It did them no good to try to attack the source of his information, either. He always had cross-references. In college, after all, he was a champion debater.

  I shut down his computer and sat there thinking.

  What was Sam pursuing now? What had come to his mind last night? Why was he so confident Mary wasn’t in any physical danger?

  The only way to keep myself from obsessing about it constantly was to busy myself with something else. I went grocery shopping and decided to go to a Whole Foods on Montana because I could prolong the day by walking the avenue first and looking in at the boutiques. I bought myself a frozen yogurt with fruit and cereal for lunch and then finally went into the grocery store and accumulated three full bags of groceries. After I got home and put everything away, I watched television to keep myself from agonizing about the investigation.

  I didn’t hear from Margaret all day. I think my tone of voice had shut her down for a while, and I was grateful for that. I knew she meant well, but I thought my dependence on other people was actually doing more to weaken me at a time when I needed to find new strength. I had no idea how I would go about it, but somehow, I told myself, I was going to get more active in the investigation and the search for Mary.

  Then, as if the devil himself could listen in on my thoughts, the phone rang. I knew almost the instant I heard his voice that Sam was going to say something that would bring thunder and lightning right into my house.

  “David Joseph has decided to call John in for a formal interrogation,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because of what I’ve told him.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What bothered me last night and has been troubling me ever since we met that day in the mall and went through how Mary disappeared from your side was why would a little girl so bright and so devoted to you let go of your hand and let herself be led away from you so easily? Why wouldn’t she call to you?”

  “And?”

  “Not only from what you told me but from what I learned from others, she seemed too smart to be fooled by just someone dressed as Santa. Besides, why wouldn’t she call to you to tell you Santa wanted her?”

  “Yes. I suppose that was why I didn’t put much credence in the idea, either, when it first surfaced.”

  “You were right not to,” he said. “That was why we were thinking Santa might just be a diversion, but what if Mary recognized who the Santa was, and what if whoever it was put his fingers to his lips, indicating that she should be silent so they could both surprise you?”

  “What are you telling me, Sam?”

  “John wasn’t just keeping a record for the company. He was the one who picked up the costume.”

  “But it could still have been for the company party. You said so yourself, right?” I asked with a note of desperation.

  “No,” he said. “The man who played Santa at the party already had his own costume. He’s had it for years. This was the fourth time he played that role, because he’s the president of John’s company. That’s when he gives out the Christmas bonuses.”

  “But then, why would John . . . why would he do that? She’s our daughter.”

  “I’m working on that. It’s why I have to speak to him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, there might very well be a perfectly innocent reason for it, but I’m not calling you just to tell you this.”

  “What else do you have, Sam?”

  “That Sister Alice Francis you told me about, that so-called miraculous abortion that saved the woman’s life . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I looked up the story. Her picture in the papers . . .”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I faxed it to those people I interviewed yesterday. They said they think it was the same woman.”

  “Well, does the FBI know? Are they looking for her?”

  “Yes, but so far, no result. She left the hospital and the area without any forwarding address.”

  “What about her sister, Carla Shanley? She might know where she is.”

  “I visited her about an hour ago. She hasn’t heard from her in years. She said it was as if she disappeared off the face of the earth.” He paused and then asked, “Did John ever mention her again or recently . . . anything?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Neither he nor Margaret ever discussed her or that case again.”

  “Okay, but there’s another reason I called, Grace.”

  “What?

  “What did you do with the receipt?”

  “I put it back where it was.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “For now, it might be better if John doesn’t suspect that you gave me the information on that receipt.”

 
16

  Trust

  What Sam was implying left me so cold that I felt as if I was moving into rigor mortis. I stood there for almost a full minute after he hung up and clung to the receiver like someone who was afraid to let go of a strap on a subway. The earth did seem to tremble under my feet, and I thought the room swayed. Shadows born out of the descending late-afternoon sun shoved the sunlight away from the windows, and the darkness unfurled like a shroud being cast over me. I heard a small gasp and realized it had come from me. Then I returned the phone to its cradle and stepped back, as if I thought it might leap off the wall and attack me.

  It rang again, the sound slicing through my breasts and across my heart. Frozen, I let it ring and ring until the answering machine went on and I heard John’s voice.

  “Grace, where are you? I’ll try your cell phone, but just in case, I’m on my way to the FBI office in L.A. I had to come home earlier than expected. I’ve been asked to answer some questions. You haven’t been asked, or I’d have heard from you, right? Or would I? Bob Mercurio is meeting me there in about five minutes. Innocent people need lawyers more than guilty people these days. On second thought, I’m not going to call your cell phone, Grace. Why be repetitive? I think you already know all this. I think you have what we call insider information, don’t you?”

  I heard the click and then the dial tone before the answering machine went off. The panic that stung me exploded and fanned out through my body the way a crack in a windshield would fan out into a glass spider web. What did John know? More important, what had John done?

  My first instinct was to call Sam, but what would I say, and how would I sound? I could feel that I was losing myself, falling into a frenzy. I fought it back and tried to think rationally—ironically, to think the way John would think. What was it Sam had asked? Had John ever spoken again about Sister Alice Francis? Not to me, I thought, but he certainly could have discussed her with Margaret. I would ask her, but first I thought I would look in John’s office. This time, when I entered, I didn’t feel any awe. It might be his temple, but it wasn’t mine, not now. I went to his file cabinet and began to search. I didn’t know what I was looking for, exactly, but John was so organized that it took me less than a minute to place my fingers on a file labeled “Sister Alice Francis.” He had never told me he was keeping this file.