Lost Innocents

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Bonnie. “You’re not calling anybody.”

  “Let go of my mommy,” Amy cried.

  “You shut up,” said Bonnie.

  “Mommy, why is she holding you?”

  “It’s all right, Amy,” Maddy said. She felt the fear thundering through her. But she couldn’t show it. For Amy’s sake, for her own, for the baby’s. She couldn’t. “Let me go,” she said to Bonnie. “You’re scaring Amy.”

  “I don’t care,” Bonnie said defiantly. “You’re all going to do what I say.”

  Maddy glanced at Sean, sitting on the floor, whimpering. “Bonnie, I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

  “Please. Don’t play stupid,” Bonnie stated. “I know you heard me.”

  “Heard you what?” Maddy cried. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re making me angry,” said Bonnie, but she seemed to waver a little. Bonnie tried to size up the situation, wanting to believe, as much as Maddy wanted her to, that her secret was safe. Sean began to wail on the floor, and Maddy looked over at him. Bonnie kept her gaze trained on Maddy.

  “Don’t you think you’d better see to him?” Maddy asked.

  “Stop telling me how to take care of my kid,” Bonnie said, and Maddy felt a flicker of hope. It was working. Bonnie was resuming the fiction.

  “I’m sorry,” said Maddy, keeping her tone unconcerned. “I do that, don’t I? It’s a bad habit of mine.”

  Suddenly, from the direction of the floor, a weak voice said, “Bonnie, why did you say that? Why did you say he wasn’t ours?”

  Both women turned and looked at the man who had pulled himself up to a sitting position on the floor, his back against a bureau drawer. Maddy felt all the hope drain out of her as Bonnie stared at her husband. It was no use, she realized. Bonnie was not an actress. She was not subtle. She was a heavy-handed person. She must have applied that heavy hand to the head of Rebecca Starnes to get this baby. Maddy flinched at the thought of that innocent young girl, doing a little baby-sitting for some pocket money, never having a reason to suspect that it would lead her to her death.

  Then again, why was Terry asking these questions? Hadn’t he been in on it? Maddy’s mind raced. She could see that Terry really thought the baby was his. Suddenly Maddy remembered Father Nick’s words, the words that had convinced her that the Lewises were on the up and up. He had baptized Sean. Father Nick would never lie about that.

  Well then, it couldn’t be Justin Wallace, could it? Hope returned once again. Maddy’s mind bounced around other possibilities. Maybe Bonnie had adopted the baby and not told Terry. That wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Maybe they would quarrel over it, but it was no cause for mayhem.

  “Bonnie?” Terry asked again, then he grimaced and let out a yelp of pain. But he was determined to get an answer. “Why did you say it? Sean is our baby.”

  Bonnie stared at her husband, her eyes large and the whites showing behind her glasses. “I didn’t mean it,” she said.

  Suddenly Terry tried to get to his feet. “Did you sleep with someone else?” he demanded.

  Bonnie shook her head fearfully. “No. No. Never,” she pleaded. “Only you.” She let go of Maddy and rushed to his side. “Believe me, darling. I would never.”

  “Then why did you say it?” he whispered.

  “It was a mistake,” Bonnie said miserably. “I don’t know why I said it.”

  Maddy rubbed her arm where Bonnie had gripped it. She was sure that Bonnie was lying. No mother, no matter how indifferent, would deny her child. There was no mistake, but there was something that Terry didn’t know.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Terry threatened her. Maddy saw a menacing hint of the man who had weathered years in prison. “I heard what you said.”

  “Bonnie,” Maddy tried to say as gently as possible, “did you adopt Sean? Is he a foster child?”

  Bonnie whirled around and glared at her. “You keep out of this!” she shouted. Sean was crying loudly now, and Maddy had to resist the urge to go and pick him up. Amy clung to her leg, pale and silent.

  Terry shook his head. “She was pregnant,” he insisted. “That’s why we got married.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” Bonnie protested.

  “Save your strength,” Maddy interrupted, trying to derail his insistent curiosity. She didn’t want to hear any more. The more she heard, the deeper into danger she would slip. “You need to get to a hospital right away. You can talk about this later.”

  Terry stared at his wife. “You told me you were pregnant. And I figured it was God’s will and his plan that I marry the woman who was bearing my son.”

  “Don’t say it like that. We were in love,” Bonnie said. There were tears in her eyes.

  “Bonnie, you’re being childish,” he chided her. “You knew my feelings. I wrote you many letters about it. About my new purpose—about doing God’s will.”

  “But you signed them ‘love,’ ” Bonnie whimpered.

  “Now you’re telling me,” he breathed, his eyes closing in pain, “that this is not my son.”

  Maddy knew he was right, that Bonnie was lying about something, but she didn’t know or care what. All she wanted was to get these people out of here. Now. And here was her chance. “Bonnie,” she said sternly, “can’t this wait? Terry needs help, right now.”

  Bonnie did not look up or even seem to hear her. She gripped her husband’s arm and began to shake him. “You said you loved me. You told me so. You said we would be together forever. That wasn’t just because of the baby. That was because you loved me. Only me. I know you did.”

  Terry did not open his eyes. “If he is not my son, then you are not my wife,” he muttered. He leaned against the bureau and back down to a sitting position.

  Bonnie began to sob. “That’s not fair.”

  Maddy almost felt sorry for her, so complete was her misery. This plain, lonely woman had wanted to believe in her Cinderella story. She had clung to it, and now the truth was being slapped in front of her.

  Amy tugged at her mother’s trouser leg. “Why is she crying, Mom?” she asked.

  “She’s upset, honey,” said Maddy. “You go to your room.”

  “Why is Sean crying?”

  “They have to leave,” said Maddy, trying to think of something quickly. “He doesn’t want to leave.”

  “Can’t take Big Bird,” said Amy with determination.

  “No, no, he won’t,” Maddy said absently.

  “He will. It’s in the bag. I saw him. He’s taking it.”

  “Amy, stop it,” Maddy cried.

  “He can’t take it,” the child insisted, stomping her feet. “I’m getting it. It’s in there. I’m getting it.”

  The diaper bag that Bonnie always carried sat on the floor beside her where she had set it down when she walked in. Big Bird’s foot was visible, sticking out of the top. Before Maddy realized what Amy was doing, the child marched over to it and rifled through it, trying to free the toy.

  “Amy, don’t,” Maddy scolded, but the child had hold of her stuffed animal’s leg and was tugging. As she pulled the fluffy yellow head free from the bottom of the bag, a flash of red caught Maddy’s eye. She had heard about it before on the news, a hundred times. Whenever they showed those photos of the curly-headed Justin they always mentioned that he was wearing a hand-knit red sweater with a Dalmatian embroidered on the front. Amy let out a triumphant crow and embraced Big Bird as Maddy stared at the red sweater, lying in a heap on the floor, the Dalmatian on the pocket looking back at her with a cocked head and a whimsical look in his eye.

  Bonnie, seeing the look on Maddy’s face, gazed down at the red sweater and the diaper bag she had guarded so carefully. She sighed almost wistfully, then looked back at Maddy. “I should have thrown it away,” she said. “But it was in perfect condition.”

  Maddy tried to pretend that she still did not understand. “I don’t think this argument is any of my business. I’m going
to take my daughter out of here. I want you two gone when I get back. I don’t care where you go or what you do. I just want you gone.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Bonnie.

  “This is your quarrel,” Maddy said, trying to sound weary. “It’s none of my concern.”

  “Leave Mrs. Blake alone,” Terry ordered from his powerless position on the floor. “None of this is her fault.”

  “She knows too much,” Bonnie retorted.

  Maddy felt fear bubble up inside of her. “I don’t know anything. I don’t care about your personal life.”

  Streaks of mascara smudged on Bonnie’s face, and Maddy was surprised to realize that Bonnie wore makeup. She had never looked closely enough at this woman. Bonnie was the kind of person who was overlooked. Until it was too late.

  “You know who he is,” Bonnie said flatly, inclining her head toward Sean. “Don’t you?”

  Of course she did. No matter what Father Nick had said, there was only one possibility. She looked at the baby sitting on the floor of her guest room, wailing, and she knew. That meant that this woman before her in the shapeless turtleneck and the dull gray skirt, streaks of mascara under her eyes, was a killer.

  Maddy’s breath was coming in short gasps, as if she had been sprinting and come to a halt. As if she had been forced down an alley with no exit. She had to face the facts. Suddenly, as if in a moment of calm in the chaos around her, she knew that she could not deny the baby any longer. She could not deny his wailing, or his identity, or all the horrible things that had happened to him. She didn’t think it could save her if she did.

  She walked over to the child, who was crying miserably on the floor, his face red, his nose running. It seemed inhuman to deny him, to leave him there uncomforted. None of them was going to get out of this unscathed. At least she could hold him. She bent down and picked him up, cradled him tenderly in her arms. She wiped his nose, and kissed his head, and held him to her chest.

  “Don’t cry, Justin,” she said. The child’s wailing stopped, and he lay very still against her, his eyes wide, clutching her with his tiny hands. “Don’t cry, baby.”

  She turned and faced Bonnie, who was standing in front of her holding a gun.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  There had been only three customers in the cafe, and Nick’s meal had been served without the slightest visible curiosity on the part of the server about the identity of the stranger. The atmosphere did not invite one to linger. He had quickly dispatched his Salisbury steak and walked back out onto the deserted streets. Now he stood in front of Number Twelve Maple Street, a small clapboard-sided gray house that sat on a large untended lot covered with an ankle-high layer of leaves. The front of the house was almost obscured by scraggly evergreens, and even in the gathering darkness Nick could see that the paint on the clapboard was peeling off in large patches. A few lights were on in the windows behind the curtains, but Nick hesitated to intrude. The house was modest and shabby, and it seemed unlikely that anyone within would be able to offer the Lewises any financial support. But maybe there was someone who really did care about Bonnie. Moral support could be just as valuable. It couldn’t do any harm to try, he reasoned. The worst he could meet was a short rebuff, which seemed standard in this part of the world. That didn’t bother him.

  He walked up to the front step and rang the doorbell. He was a little surprised to hear it chime inside the house. He had kind of figured that the doorbell would be broken, too. Everything else about the house was in such a state of disrepair. He noticed, as he stood waiting for someone to come, that one of the shutters had fallen off the front window and was resting up against the house, as if waiting for someone to come and fix it.

  He heard footsteps approaching. For a moment he felt a tiny surge of apprehension. The house was so run-down and gloomy, he half expected a ghoulish figure to open the door and glare at him. To his surprise and relief, the door opened, and inside stood a pretty young girl in her early twenties, in bare feet, jeans, and a cheerful flowered shirt. Her gaze was guileless, and her bright smile lit up the gloomy foyer.

  “Hello,” she said pleasantly, throwing the door open wide.

  “Miss…Hartwell?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Hartwell,” she said, beaming at him. “Colleen, actually.”

  This girl isn’t from around here, Nick thought. He could hardly believe she belonged in this town, where he hadn’t seen a smile since he arrived. “Urn…my name is Nick Rylander. I’m a Catholic priest, actually, and I…uh, I have a friend who used to live here.”

  “In Gravesport, you mean?”

  Nick glanced down at the card. “Yes, well, actually, here, in this house. I believe she rented a room from you. Bonnie…Bonnie Lewis?”

  “Oh,” she said, reaching out her hand across the threshold and shaking his vigorously. “You’re a friend of Bonnie’s? Well, that’s okay, then. Come in, Father. Come on in.”

  Surprised but pleased by this reception, Nick stepped into the gloomy foyer.

  “I’m sorry it’s so dark in here,” she said. “The light bulb’s burned out, and I can’t reach it without a ladder. I’m waiting for my husband to come home, so he can fix it,” she explained, motioning for him to follow her into the considerably brighter rooms of the house.

  “Is he working late tonight?” asked Nick.

  Colleen laughed as if he were being incredibly witty. “Oh no. I must have given you the wrong impression. He’s a fisherman. He’s out for weeks at a time. That’s why the place gets so run-down. He’s not around to keep it up.” Colleen’s placid expression radiated kindness, if not intelligence. “I try to keep up with it, but it’s impossible.”

  Looking around her house, Nick wondered how hard she tried to keep up with anything. The house was a mess, every surface piled high with junk, and it looked as though no one had tried to pick up in weeks.

  Colleen removed some newspapers, comic books, and a few pairs of worn socks from the corner seat on the sofa and tossed them onto an end table. “Sit down, why don’t you?” she asked pleasantly. “Can I get you something? A cup of tea?”

  He said yes before he stopped to consider the condition of her kitchen. Well, tea was only herbs and boiling water. How bad could it be?

  “I was just having one myself,” she said. She went into the kitchen, switched off the little TV on the counter, then stuck her head back in the living room. “What do you take in it?” she asked.

  “Just sugar,” he said.

  She emerged in a few moments with two teacups in chipped saucers. She handed him one, made a space on the coffee table for her own, and cleared a teddy bear, some laundry, and a pile of catalogs off a chair so that she could sit, too.

  She carefully tucked a long, shiny curl behind her ear, took a sip of tea, and gave him, once again, her warm, unruffled smile. “So,” she said, “what brings you to Gravesport? It’s nice to have a visitor. We’re alone here so much with Georgie out to sea all the time.”

  “I’m passing through,” said Nick. “I’m on my way to Canada. Nova Scotia, actually.”

  “Vacation?” she asked.

  “No. I’m…working up there. At a monastery. Doing some art restoration.”

  She nodded, as if thinking this over carefully, but her expression told him that she didn’t have a clue what he might be talking about. “And how do you know Bonnie?”

  Nick looked at her narrowly. She didn’t seem the judgmental type, but he wondered how much she actually knew about Bonnie’s life. He tried to phrase it carefully. “I actually knew her husband before I met Bonnie,” he said.

  “Terry!” she exclaimed. “Did you know him before he went to jail?” Her tone was absolutely without reproof. Nick congratulated himself on having come here. This woman might not be able to do much to help. She hardly seemed able to do much for herself. But she would certainly care.

  “I met Terry while he was in jail,” said Nick. “We spent a lot of time talking. I performed their wedding, act
ually.”

  “You did!” she exclaimed. “That is wonderful. Bonnie told me about the wedding. She can describe something and make it seem real. I think that’s ’cause she reads a lot of books, you know. I don’t read much,” she admitted. “But Bonnie, she’s different that way.”

  “I remember Terry telling me that he had sent out an ad asking for books, and she had sent him some,” Father Nick recalled.

  Colleen appeared delighted at this. “I always thought that was the sweetest romance, you know. Bonnie was so lonely, and they were penpals. There was something…I don’t know, kind of old-fashioned about it, if you know what I mean. She used to wait for those letters. She would really and truly wait by the mailbox. Then rush up to her room when they came, just like a teenager.”

  Nick smiled and sipped tea. “It was good for both of them.”

  “Of course I never thought he’d get out of that jail. I used to say to her, ‘Bonnie, he can never be a real husband to you.’ It was a hopeless situation. But she didn’t worry too much about it. She loved him, and that was that. Then, all of a sudden, that other guy confessed. Wasn’t that great?” she enthused.

  Nick nodded. “I was happy for him. For both of them.”

  Colleen nodded thoughtfully. “It was just like a miracle. I don’t see how some people have no belief in miracles. I mean, that was one, right there.”

  “I agree,” he said.

  “Well, you would, wouldn’t you, being a priest and all. I mean, poor Bonnie. No one in this town ever thought she’d find someone. She is a little…” Colleen tried to think of an apt phrase. She waggled her hand in front of her. “A little…stiff. But when you get to know her…”

  “You knew her pretty well?” he said.

  “As well as anyone, I guess. She wasn’t one to confide in people. But we got along. Poor Bonnie had it rough, you know,” Colleen confided, turning sad at the memory. “Her mother was terrible. Very mean to her. She was a pretty woman. Didn’t look at all like Bonnie. She treated Bonnie like a slave, I hear, and I don’t think she ever gave her any love. I think Bonnie just escaped into those books of hers. Nobody shed a tear around here when that lady died, I can tell you.”