The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

by Diane Chamberlain

  King seemed skeptical. “But she was taken by the Gleason brothers to try to force then-Governor Russell to get their sister off death row, right?”

  “That’s what was understood at the time. But why then is the baby missing?”

  “Good question,” King said, then he looked into the camera. “We’ll be back after this message.”

  Eve clicked off the television.

  So, Ken was reporting on the Gleason case, she thought. His plum assignment. What was he learning? What did he know? She looked at the clock. It was too late to call Cory now, but she’d try her early in the morning. It was a Saturday; Cory wouldn’t have to rush off to work. With any luck, she might even answer her phone.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Cory did answer her phone when Eve called her the next morning.

  “Oh, hi, Mom,” she said. She sounded disappointed, and Eve guessed she’d picked up the receiver without looking at the caller ID display. Still, she felt the way she always did when she had a connection with Cory, no matter how fragile that connection might be. She wanted to reach through the phone line and hug her. Tell her how much she missed her. She’d learned not to even try.

  “Hi, honey. How are you?” Eve sat on the sofa in the living room, not wanting to disturb Jack, who was still asleep. She’d awakened in pain, hobbling to the bathroom and then out here to make this call.

  “I don’t have much time,” Cory said. “I’m going to the gym in a few minutes.”

  “I just…” Eve closed her eyes. Oh, she missed Cory! She missed the girl Cory used to be. The girl she’d loved and kept close to her. Too close, Cory would say. But she didn’t dare tell Cory what she was thinking.

  “Dru told me that Ken got a plum assignment on the Russell news story,” she said, “and I just wanted to call to say congratulations.”

  Cory was silent, probably thinking that this was a very weird communication from a mother she hadn’t spoken to in months. A mother who had never hidden her disdain for Ken. It was very weird.

  “Yes,” Cory said finally. “He’s pretty happy about it. I guess it’s big news up there, too, huh?”

  “Very. Though it doesn’t seem as though they’re getting very far with their investigation. The last I heard was that they couldn’t find the…the baby.”

  “Right. Which is bizarre. Ken’s actually down in New Bern now.”

  “I guess they’re still searching the grounds?”

  “Ken said they’re tearing the place up. Did you hear about the gun and knife?”

  “Lorraine thought they’d found a gun.”

  “And a bloody knife,” Cory said. “They haven’t said that in the papers yet. They told Ken to keep it quiet, but I think they’ll be going public with it really soon. It’s a major scoop for him.”

  “So…” She remembered cutting the cord. Gloves on. Had her gloves been on? How long would fingerprints last on a knife buried in the dirt for nearly three decades? “I’m surprised blood would last all these years on a knife.”

  “Yeah, well, it did,” Cory said. “So they’ve got both a gun and a bloody knife and they don’t know yet which killed her.”

  Eve was quiet for a moment. It hadn’t occurred to her that they would see the knife as a murder weapon. It had been used to bring Cory into the world.

  “Hmm,” she said, just to acknowledge that she was still on the line.

  “Now some people are wondering if they cut the baby out of her and then shot her. Or vice versa.”

  “I heard that on Larry King last night.”

  “If that’s what happened, I sure hope she was dead first.”

  These were the most words she’d heard from her daughter in ages. Maybe the key with Cory was to talk to her about something other than their relationship. Maybe that had been her mistake all along.

  “Well, I’m very glad for Ken that he’s gotten this.”

  “Why?” Cory asked. “You don’t like him.”

  “I never said I didn’t like him, Cory.”

  “Oh, come on, Mother.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t,” Eve said. “I love you and you love him, so what’s good for him is good for you.”

  “That’s true,” Cory agreed. “Thanks. And I’m sorry, Mom, but I’ve got to run.”

  “One more thing.” Eve hurried. “I sent you a letter telling you that Dru and Dad are going to be in a play together at the Helms Theater next week. Did you get it?”

  “A letter? Uh-uh.”

  “Well, you—and Ken—are invited as my guests if you’d like to come.”

  “I don’t think we can, but thanks for letting me know.”

  “I miss you, honey.” The words slipped out of Eve’s mouth.

  “Don’t start, Mom. Please.”

  “I can’t talk to you and pretend…” She shook her head. “Never mind. Thank you for picking up the phone.”

  “You’re welcome,” Cory said. “And tell Dad I said hi.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “I think you’re obsessed,” Jack said when he walked into the living room an hour later. She was eating breakfast—a bowl of Cheerios, which was all she could manage—in front of the TV.

  “I’m just fascinated by it, that’s all,” she said. She was obsessed. She was certain other people were following the Russell story almost as intently as she was, but they were hoping for some new intriguing tidbit. Eve, on the other hand, wanted as few new tidbits as possible. She was waiting to hear something she didn’t want to hear. She was waiting for the name CeeCee Wilkes to pop up in connection with Genevieve Russell.

  “They’re going to have a press conference in a minute,” she said.

  Jack sat next to her. “How are you feeling?” he asked, brushing her hair over her shoulder.

  “Okay. Better.” She forced a smile as he put his arm around her.

  “You kind of scared me last night,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in that much pain in so long.”

  “Scared me, too,” she said. “I’m still a little stiff.” That was an understatement. “But I’ll be okay.”

  “You’re better because Cory talked to you.”

  “Maybe.”

  She’d told him a little of her conversation with Cory, but not that she’d picked her daughter’s brain about the Russell case. She felt an emptiness inside her chest that she could not open up to Jack. She hadn’t felt this way since Russell first came to UVA, when she’d been unable to let Jack know why she suddenly wanted to leave Charlottesville. She hated the wall between them, the wall he didn’t even know was there. Or maybe he did. Maybe that was part of the concern she saw in his face this morning.

  “Here they are,” he said, nodding toward the TV as a uniformed officer stepped up to a bank of microphones.

  The officer chatted with another man quietly for a moment, their words silent on the television. Then it was the officer alone on the screen. He cleared his throat as he checked his notes.

  “We’ve found both a gun and a chef’s-type knife in the shallow grave where Genevieve Russell’s remains were discovered,” he said. “Fingerprints could not be recovered from either the gun or the knife, but the gun was registered to Timothy Gleason, who along with his brother, Martin, is suspected of kidnapping Mrs. Russell. The blood on the knife, we know, was Mrs. Russell’s.”

  “No surprise there,” Jack said. “Whose else would it be?”

  A picture of the brothers was on the screen. Tim was on the left, Marty on the right. Even after all this time and in spite of all she knew about him, young Tim’s sexy grin tugged at her belly. How could that be? How could she not be repulsed by him?

  “Of course,” the officer said, “these pictures were taken twenty-eight years ago. The Gleasons are now in their late forties and early fifties, and are almost certainly living under assumed identities.” The officer looked to his left. “Yes?” he asked.

  A male reporter out of camera range addressed the officer. “Is the gun the only
evidence that Timothy Gleason was at this cabin?” he asked.

  “Does that sound like Ken?” Jack asked her.

  “Don’t know,” she said quickly, wanting to hear the police chief’s answer.

  “The people who owned the cabin at the time of the abduction were relatives of the Gleason brothers,” he said.

  She’d forgotten that. Tim and Marty used to stay there with their cousins.

  “Were the relatives involved in the abduction?” a female voice asked.

  “We don’t know that right now,” the officer said. “We have reason to believe there were others involved, but that’s something I can’t get into at this juncture.”

  Eve tensed, wishing she knew what he was talking about. What others was he referring to?

  “What does ‘juncture’ actually mean?” Jack asked. “It’s a great word, don’t you think? Juncture.” He repeated it to himself, because he knew she was not listening to him. “Junc-ture,” he said again. Then he tousled her hair. “Hope they find those guys and hang them by their earlobes.”

  “Mmm,” she agreed, but she was really hoping that Tim and Marty were underground so deep they would never be heard from again.

  “Could the baby have been born while Mrs. Russell was in captivity,” a voice asked, “and then thrown over the cliff into the river, and that’s why you haven’t found it despite tearing up every square inch of this property?”

  “Oh,” Eve said. The thought of beautiful baby Cory being tossed alive into the river was unbearable. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Eve?” Jack was looking at her.

  She tried to listen to the officer’s answer, but her mind felt thick and foggy.

  “Eve? Honey, what’s wrong?”

  She looked at him. “I was just thinking of how cruel that would be,” she said. “Throwing the baby…” She shook her head, unable to even say the words.

  Jack had deep frown lines between his eyebrows. “You’re not yourself, Eve,” he said. “Is it the RA? Are you trying to cover it up so you don’t upset me? Because I don’t want you to do that.”

  “I’m just feeling a little emotional these days,” she said with a shrug, but his words echoed inside her head. Not yourself. She felt CeeCee slipping back inside her, full of the insecurities and craziness that led her to do things Eve never would have done.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  She was getting ready to go to the play the following Friday night, smoothing the wildness out of her hair with her curling iron, when Jack walked into the bathroom.

  He picked up his toothbrush. “They found one of those guys,” he said.

  No. She lowered the curling iron to the counter. “One of what guys?” she asked.

  “You know, those kidnappers.” Jack spread toothpaste on the bristles of his brush.

  “You’re kidding,” she said. “Where? How did you hear?”

  “It was just on the news.”

  She walked into the bedroom and turned on the TV, changing the channel to CNN.

  “Did they show pictures or anything?” she called to Jack. Maybe they had the wrong guy. Please let them have the wrong guy.

  Jack stood in the doorway, toothbrush in hand. “I just caught the tail end of it. They said they found him in California.” He looked at his watch. “Honey, we only have about twenty minutes.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’m ready. I just…”

  A picture of a man flashed on the screen. He was handcuffed and being led by a guard or a police officer, someone in uniform. Eve sat on the bed, leaning close to the screen. The prisoner was fiftyish, wiry and bald. For an instant, the camera caught his eyes, translucent as green glass. Tim.

  You pig, she thought. You lying, cheating pig.

  “Timothy Gleason, suspect in the kidnapping and murder of Genevieve Russell, has been arrested in California,” a male voice said. “Gleason was living in Modesto under the name Roger Krauss and was working as a bartender.” A police officer, the same man who had given the press conference the week before, appeared on the screen, again in front of a bank of microphones. “Gleason accompanied the arresting officer without resistance,” he said. “We expect him to be extradited to North Carolina immediately, where he’ll be charged with the kidnapping and murder of Genevieve Russell and her baby.”

  The camera returned to Sophia Choi at the news desk. “Police reported that Gleason was turned in by a cousin, David Gleason, whose family owned the cabin near where Russell’s body was found two weeks ago,” Choi said. “David Gleason said he knew that his cousins had gone underground, but hadn’t realized the seriousness of the charges against them until Russell’s body was discovered. He said that the other suspect, Martin Gleason, died of a heart attack in 1998.”

  “Okay.” Jack laughed from the doorway of the bathroom. “You got your news fix. Now let’s get going.”

  She nodded, getting to her feet. The room spun and she nearly lost her balance. Was she going to get sick again?

  She walked woodenly into the bathroom and leaned against the counter as she waited for the dizziness to pass. Then she switched off the curling iron and turned away from her reflection in the mirror. Right now, her hair was the last thing on her mind.

  During her break the next day, she went to the faculty lounge to watch CNN. She was glad she was the only person in the lounge, because she probably looked as crazed as she felt when the footage of Tim aired. He was being led quickly toward a car in preparation for extradition to North Carolina, but a reporter managed to dive in front of him to ask if he killed Genevieve Russell and her baby.

  “I kidnapped her,” he said, a bit breathless as he was rushed past the camera, “but I didn’t kill her or her baby.”

  A man walking next to him—his lawyer, most likely—whisked the reporter away with a wave of his hand. “We have no further comment,” he said, grasping Tim’s elbow and pushing him forward.

  Eve sat still when the footage ended. She stared into space, wondering if Tim had already told his attorney about the girl who knew he’d murdered no one. The girl who knew what really happened in the cabin on the Neuse River.

  She looked at her watch. Nearly one. Time for her weekly appointment with a first-year student, Nancy Watts, whose obsessive-compulsive disorder was getting in the way of her studies. Eve walked back to her office thinking that she was the last therapist who should be working with a student who had OCD. At least now, she could have some real empathy for the demons Nancy had to deal with much of the time.

  Nancy was waiting for her, and Eve ushered her into her office. She was a likable young woman who was highly motivated to conquer the hand washing and repetitive thoughts that were dogging her. She started to tell Eve about the improvement she’d made during the week, but Eve barely heard a word she said. She felt tense and jumpy and kept shifting her gaze from Nancy’s face to the window, through which she could see the entrance to her building. At any moment, she expected to see a police officer walk through that entrance with a warrant for her arrest.

  Okay, she thought to herself. Stay calm. So Tim tells his lawyer about CeeCee Wilkes. How would they be able to find out that CeeCee became Eve Bailey, who became Eve Bailey Elliott? Maybe it would be impossible. Maybe her tracks were so well covered that no one could ever learn the truth.

  If, though, they somehow found Naomi and Forrest and could get them talking, she was doomed. Did they still live on that run-down piece of property outside New Bern? Were they still together? God. She remembered the box of disguises, the magically appearing documents and the general insanity in that household. Ugh. She’d been such a fool. If only she could turn back the years and make different choices. Take herself back to the coffee shop where she’d worked with Ronnie and ignore the overtures of the sexy guy in the corner. If only she had kept her mind focused on her goal: getting into school. If only.

  Then of course, she would never have had Cory, and that thought, despite her daughter’s antipathy toward her, was so painful i
t made her jerk in her seat.

  “Eve?” Nancy asked. “Are you all right?”

  “What? Oh, yes.” She smiled. “Just had a sudden chill.” What had Nancy been talking about? She tried to rewind the young woman’s dialogue in her memory, but it was gone. She hadn’t registered a word of it.

  “Nancy,” she said. “I’m sorry. Could you repeat what you just told me? My mind slipped away for a moment.”

  Thank God, Nancy was the easygoing sort. “Sure,” she said, and she proceeded to tell her about the ritual she went through before bed every night and how it was driving her roommate crazy. Eve managed to pay attention, nodding and empathizing, for only another minute or two before her mind returned to her own travails. So the cops would somehow find Naomi and Forrest, who would tell them they’d sent CeeCee Wilkes to live with Marian Kazan in Charlottesville. Marian would be easy to find; just stop anyone on the street and ask if they knew her.

  “Marian?” they’d say. “Of course! Everyone knows Marian. She lives in the retirement home on Sycamore Street.”

  At eighty-nine, Marian was still sharp as a tack, if not particularly agile. Eve visited her a couple of times a month, taking her books or magazines or movies for her VCR. Marian would do her best to protect her if the cops questioned her, but she might realize the jig was up. Even if she denied that Eve had ever lived with her, there were a hundred people who knew the truth. The connection would be made. The path to Eve’s door suddenly looked easy to follow. I’m trapped, she thought. She would be caught, but it was Cory who would suffer most when the truth came out. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “I think your mind is slipping again,” Nancy said.