"We?" Jessie scoffed angrily. "Who the Hell are ‘we?’ Zainab was worried. You were out with the Evil Emperor, and Richard was working—as usual. Zainab was worried, only I bet she wasn’t actually because she’s the only one with any sense here."
Zainab put her hand on Jessie’s arm. "Jess, I’m sure you had a long night. Why don’t you go upstairs and take a nap, okay?"
Jessie opened her mouth, then rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Good idea," she mumbled as she ran up the stairs.
"Zainab—"
"Richard, please!" Zainab said so sharply that Miranda jumped. "We’re not her parents, and even if we were, she’s right—she isn’t a little kid."
"She was out all night—"
"And so were you," Zainab said quietly. "I’m just going to be happy that you both came home safely. So why don’t you take a nap also, and Miranda and I will bring something back for you, okay?" Before he could say anything, she kissed him on the cheek and walked out the door. Miranda looked at him, then did the same. Once out with Zainab, she knew without asking that it was better not to ask.
Miranda contemplated the weekend that Monday morning as she stood in line at the café near work to grab her coffee. She was already in a better mood. She hummed to herself again, but this time remembered to order before being told to.
She knew she should go back to work immediately, but she couldn’t resist grabbing an open seat by the window. She hummed to herself, aware of how silly she must seem to everyone else who was reading the paper there. But she was happy, wrapped in a familiar refuge, and she didn’t care.
She started softly singing the few words she knew to the song, then stopped. Ruby My Dear. Something was wrong. She waited until the end of the song. She held her breath. She was imagining this because no one ever played that song except her.
Then she heard the strident, confident piano. There it was. Eronel. She froze. Her palms started to sweat even as her coffee got cold. She waited. They were both Monk. It wasn’t inexplicable that it would be those two songs. In that order.
She gasped when the next song came on. Good Morning, Heartache. She trembled. Exactly the same version. Her hands shook so much she spilled her coffee. She ran out of the shop, her heart racing. She plunged into her bag until she found her iPod. She scrolled through the song list. The same songs, in the same order. She wasn’t going crazy.
~~~
Miranda walked past Emily without a word and rushed into Richard’s office. "I have to ask you something," she whispered.
Richard stood up. Miranda was as white as a sheet. "What’s wrong?"
"I need to know…" she started to say, but then his phone rang. He picked it up and read the name on the caller ID.
"Just a second. It’s Zainab." He picked up. "Hi, sweetheart. What?" His eyes widened. "Oh my God, are you sure? Okay—I’ll be right over." He slammed the phone down and grabbed his jacket. "Miranda, I’m sorry. I have to go."
Miranda gratefully forgot what she wanted to talk to him about. "What’s wrong?"
"Just stay here, please. You and Emily hold down the fort, alright?" Then he ran out.
Emily ran into Richard’s office a minute later and found Miranda standing there. "What’s going on?"
"I don’t know," Miranda said softly. "Whatever it was, he was pretty spooked." She scoffed. "I guess there’s a little bit of that going around today."
~~~
Richard got to his house in fifteen minutes, breaking at least three traffic laws in the process. He found Zainab and Jessie sitting on the couch. Zainab was rubbing Jessie’s back.
"Oh, thank God you’re both okay!" he said. He knelt down and hugged the both of them. Zainab squeezed him back, but Jessie pushed him away.
"God, would you two just knock it off?"
Richard tried to smile, but he couldn’t do it. "Do you still have it?" he asked Zainab. She nodded, then got the folded up note off the table. She handed it to him.
His face burned as he read it. "The same God damned thing," he muttered to himself. It was a simple typed note, but it was just like the last one.
The lyrics to All Through the Night.
Zainab walked over to Richard. "It was addressed to her?" he asked. Zainab nodded again and handed him the envelope. He turned it over. Just Jessie’s name and address. Not even a stamp. "This close," Richard said. "He got this close."
"I think we should go to the police," Zainab said.
Richard shook his head. "Why? What did they do the last time?"
"What are you going to do?" Zainab whispered in alarm.
"I’m getting the security guards back," Richard whispered back. "It isn’t safe for her here without them."
"Hi, I am here," Jessie said loudly. "And you are not locking me up in a tower again."
"Jessie, this isn’t a joke," Zainab said. "Someone’s stalking you, and the last time…"
"The last time I almost slipped into the abyss," Jessie said through gritted teeth, "but I didn’t."
"I’m getting the guards, and we’re taking you to your therapist. Now." Richard held up his hand. "This is not a discussion." Jessie sighed but didn’t complain. Both Richard and Zainab knew that meant that she was more spooked than she let on.
Richard called the security company, and Zainab called the doctor. "Doctor Wolfe’s office," a female voice said.
"Hi," Zainab said pleasantly. "I’d like to make an appointment for Jessie Bartolome. Today. It’s urgent." She looked at Jessie, who didn’t say anything but nodded. "Great—thank you." She hung up. "Come on, he can see you in an hour."
Zainab and Jessie were in the doctor’s empty waiting room forty-five minutes later. Ten minutes after that, the office door opened. Zainab held her breath just a little bit. Doctor Andreas Wolfe’s face was very angular and pulled tight. She stopped herself from smiling as she surmised that he was vain enough to have had work done.
"Thank you for agreeing to this visit on such short notice," Zainab said as she shook his hand. "We had a little incident today, and we all thought it would be best if she could speak to you immediately."
"Of course," he said with a slight accent Zainab couldn’t quite place. And she was pretty good with accents. "Jessie, why don’t you come in and talk?" Jessie got up obediently and the doctor smiled. He turned to Zainab. "Why don’t we give you a call when the session’s over? This might take a little while."
Zainab patted her bag. "That’s alright. I brought some reading."
"Really," the doctor said gently but insistently. "There’s a café right across the street, and there are a bunch of shops you can browse. We’ll call."
Zainab found herself nodding. "Of course." She turned to Jessie. "You’ll call me, okay?"
"Zainab, just get out of here, okay?" Jessie said irritably. Zainab smiled. Jessie would be fine.
When she got downstairs and walked to the coffee shop, Zainab was still trying to place Doctor Wolfe’s accent. Swiss was the best she could come up with, but it still seemed wrong.
CHAPTER 14
"Are you going to tell me what that was about yesterday?" Emily demanded when Richard walked in on Tuesday morning.
"When are you going to accept that sometimes secrets can be a good thing?"
"As soon as you show me a secret that doesn’t blow up in someone’s face."
"You’re only asking me because Zainab wouldn’t tell you anything, and Miranda doesn’t know anything."
"You know if I really wanted to find out I could."
"Which is why I’m grateful that you actually use more discretion than you generally let on." He turned on his computer. "You’re still here, I see."
"Yes."
"Something else I can not tell you?"
"I have an errand to run at ten-forty-five."
"Ten-forty-five exactly?" Emily nodded. "Doctor’s appointment?"
"Office hours."
Richard raised his eyebrow. "I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to ask what it’s about?"
"No it wouldn’t," Emily agreed. "But since I’m so wonderful, I’m going to tell you. Just not right now."
~~~
Bobby had been in his office for exactly six minutes when the door swung open and then slammed shut. He sat back. "Hello, Emily. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"How’s Jess?" She clutched a small manila folder to her chest.
"Why are you asking me? Don’t you two talk?"
"Shockingly, she’s been a little bit hard to track down since I saw you two on Saturday night…"
"You mean since you arranged to bump into us?" He asked evenly.
"Have it your way. But no, Jess hasn’t been easy to reach. My friend Zainab, however, was. I guess Jessie didn’t come home on Saturday night. How about that?"
Bobby blinked as he sat up. "Why don’t you get to your point?"
"What do you think my point is, Bob?"
"I think you’re about to blackmail me with some kind of revelation to Joanna."
"I wouldn’t embarrass Jess like that."
"Then what are you here for?"
"To find out who you really are." She put the folder on the desk. He looked at it but didn’t say anything. "You know what’s in here? Copies of ten sources listing Hippodameia as Pelops’ wife."
Bobby didn’t flinch. "Emily, forgive me. My specialty was American Renaissance authors. Ask me about Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville and I bet you’ll find that I know quite a few things that you don’t, as shocking as that might seem."
"There’s a lot I don’t know, I just don’t go to Wikipedia when I want to find out about it. Especially if it might end up in a class lecture."
"It didn’t though, did it? It was just between me and Jess."
"Oh, you’ve got me there." Emily leaned onto the desk. "And you know what? I called Oberlin yesterday morning. But you knew that already, right? And wouldn’t you know, they confirmed that someone named Robert Lester graduated three years ago. Now guess what? They couldn’t tell me one thing about your area of study, or your teachers, or even what year you entered. Go figure—I guess I thought that was strange."
"Security’s gotten pretty stringent in the last few years."
She nodded. "I thought someone might say that. And that’s a good explanation. So I looked up some resumes online and found a couple of people who went to Oberlin. And I had someone in my office call back and ask for details about them. For a job. Which was the same reason I used to call about you. And you know what? I even got phone numbers so I could reach their department heads. Isn’t that funny?"
Bobby shrugged. "You probably just got a really officious person when you called asking about me."
Emily winked. "And I thought about that too. So I got another resume. And another person to call. And another person answered. Same thing."
Bobby stood up. Emily craned her head up but didn’t move. "I don’t think that proves anything."
She pushed herself away from the desk. "You know, I think you’re right. That in and of itself doesn’t prove anything. I gave you, Bobby Lester, the benefit of the doubt. So I searched online. Bobby Lester. Bob Lester. Robert Lester. And Oberlin. And English. Nothing. Whatsoever."
Bobby leaned forward now. Emily didn’t move. "You’d be surprised how many people aren’t listed on the great information superhighway. It’s a big wide web, but an even bigger world. So many people are still off the grid."
Emily smiled. "Yeah, but you know what is really funny about those search engines? Quotes can make all the difference. See, when I searched for Bobby Lester, I had quotes so it was looking for one name. Same thing with Bob Lester. But then, silly me, I forgot to do that when I searched for Robert Lester. And you know what happens when you don’t use quotes? A lot of search engines put in an ‘AND’. So I didn’t just get listings for Robert Lester, I also got listings that had 'Robert' and 'Lester', on the same page. Anywhere. The same sentence, or different paragraphs." She leaned forward again. "Or in different names, right next to each other."
Bobby narrowed his eyes. Emily could see why Mitch thought he was older. "Yes, that’s pretty interesting."
"I’m afraid I lied," she said, still smiling. "There were just too many references to lug around. That’s not what I brought."
"So what did you bring?"
"Well, I got some names, but on the web, you get only so much. If you want more, you have to do it the old fashioned way and hit the library for their archives. So I took those names, and that’s just what I did."
"What’s in the folder?" he hissed.
"Here you go." Emily opened it. There was a picture from the early Eighties of a newly married couple. Bobby blinked. "That," she said, pointing to the smiling, blonde bride, "is Theresa Elizabeth Lester. And that," she pointed to the husky man with dark red hair, "is Joseph Teague. Excuse me, Joseph Robert Teague." She turned the folder around so she could examine it again. She turned her head to look back at him. "I’m no expert, but I think I see a little bit of a resemblance. Same chin as Theresa Lester. Same eyes as Joseph Teague. Or should I just call them Terry and Joe? But you called them Mom and Dad, didn’t you?"
"If you had anything, you’d take this to Joanna."
Emily shook her head. "I know Joanna must have noticed something. And maybe I have to stop if Oberlin shuts me down, but Joanna doesn’t. Or if she does, then she doesn’t have to hire you."
"This is a scary, conspiratorial world you live in, Misses Graham. What might have happened to make you so paranoid? I wonder if I can guess."
He had that same knowing tone again. That was okay—she was almost done. "I’ve got one more thing in here," she said. "Don’t you want to see what it is?" Before he could answer, she flipped over the wedding announcement and pulled out a small piece of paper. "This," she said, waving it back and forth, "is a birth certificate for Robert Joseph Teague." She looked at the piece of paper. "How hard do you think I’d have to work to get some up-to-date information about him?"
"You might have to work pretty hard," he said very softly. "As I said, you’d be amazed at how many people still operate under the radar."
"I don’t know. I can be pretty persistent."
"You should have been a detective," he said without any expression.
"I don’t like this enough to do it for a living. I don’t like it at all. You know why I did it?"
"What do you want?"
"I want you to leave my friend alone. You have one day to call it off and explain everything. Everything. And if you don’t, I will."
"Oh, okay," he nodded without betraying any emotion. For the first time, Emily couldn’t read him. "Anything else?" he asked.
"No, I think that’ll do it." She slid her folder to him, then turned and walked out.
He picked up the wedding announcement and turned it over. He looked at the closed door as he sat down, picking up the phone and taking a deep breath. "It’s me. I’m afraid we need to move this a little more quickly than we’d thought."
CHAPTER 15
Miranda knocked on Richard’s door at eleven. He was on the phone and looked up when she came in, holding up his finger. "I’m sorry, I have to go. Yes, I’ll call you back." Then he hung up. "Come in."
Miranda closed the door after her. She sat in the chair across from Richard, carefully placing her hands on top of his desk. "Sorry to bother you," she said softly.
"It’s okay. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you last night after you came home. I had to sort some things through."
Miranda looked away and nodded. "Is everything okay with Jess?"
"Everything’s fine now. But...don’t be surprised if you see someone standing guard when you go home."
Miranda looked up at him. "Are you kidding me?"
"No."
"That’s what you call everything being okay?"
"That’s me making everything okay."
"Can I help?"
He shook his head. "No, I really don’t think so." He sighed. "But that’s not what’s botherin
g you."
"Well, not the only thing." She looked down. "Is Michael back?" she whispered.
"What?"
"Did Michael come back, and you didn’t tell me for some reason? If that’s what happened, I’m not going to be angry with you, I just need you to tell me now."
"What if he was back? What would you do?" Richard asked with a raised eyebrow.
Miranda looked up. His heart almost broke looking at her. "I don’t know," she said. "But I’ll know if you tell me that he’s back."
Richard came around the desk and hugged her. She squeezed him back. "Sweetie, I would have told you if he’d come back."
"Really, Richard? You wouldn’t have thought it was best not to? One more secret for everyone else’s good?"
"That’s not fair."
"But is it true?"
He took her hands. "I miss him too. Sometimes I wish he were back." He squeezed her hand. "What made you think he’s back?"
"Because he’s everywhere," she said pleadingly. "He’s in my dreams—but he’s always there. He’s there when I wake up; he’s there when I go to sleep. I thought I could finally live with that. But now I’m seeing him everywhere. In the library. In the café, when I hear music." She closed her eyes. "When I’m walking down the street. When I look at my computer." She laughed, aware now of how ridiculous she sounded. "Everywhere. And I can’t make him go away."
Richard would never tell her what it had been like when Michael had left. How Richard had to stay with him so he wouldn’t hurt himself. How Michael had wept when Richard drove him to the airport. How Michael had forced himself to go only by reminding himself over and over that Miranda had begged him to leave. Richard would never tell Miranda how much Michael had loved her.
"I think it’s normal," he said finally.
She laughed. "Now that’s not a word we’d usually apply to this situation."
"I mean it. I know what it’s like to lose someone. It takes years for it to go away." He paused. "Maybe it never really does, but it gets better after a while."
"I’m never going to be able to move on being like this, Richard. I’m never going to have anything—with anyone—if he’s still in my heart." She looked down at the floor. "Alex asked me to marry him."
The China Doll Page 7
