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“Because they were old friends,” she answered coolly. “One is a teacher, a woman in her fifties. She’d brought her niece with her, on a field trip. They were driving through town and stopped to say hello, and I gave them some hot soup and cocoa. We talked a bit, and they went on their way.”
“Old friends, huh? And they just dropped by—all the way out here in Carmel Valley—to say hello in the middle of the night?”
Abby shrugged. “They were tired. They’ve been touring the old missions and needed a pit stop on the way to I-5. As you probably know, there’s not much open in Carmel at night. Besides, everyone who knows me knows that I’m up half the night.”
Ben stared at her for a long moment, as if by doing so she might break and give herself up. But then he said to Lessing, “That’s true. Abby’s a freelance writer. She does her best work at night.”
The agent gave Ben a weary look. “We’re getting nowhere here. Let’s all go back to the station.”
Ben turned to Abby, and for the first time his voice was soft. “Ab? You’ll be all right?”
Too little, too late, she thought bitterly. He’d betrayed her, and he wasn’t getting off that easily. “Of course I’ll be all right,” she said irritably, “once all of you people get out of here and I can get to bed.”
“I…I’ll see you in a little while,” he said.
“No. It’s almost three in the morning. I’ll call you. Later.”
He looked taken aback. Shaking his head, he led the way out of the foyer and onto the front drive. The female agent lagged behind. Just before she went through the doorway, she said to Abby, “I’ve heard about you. A couple of years ago, wasn’t it? You must be pretty tough, to have gone through all that and come out unscathed.”
Unscathed? Abby thought. Hardly.
But that was the point, she realized suddenly. The woman somehow knows there are things about me that haven’t healed, and that I don’t always act wisely, but out of leftover emotions—good and bad.
“What are you, some kind of shrink?” Abby said.
“No. Just someone who admires the work you’re doing. There have been times—” She broke off and looked toward the front door, where the men were gathered around the cars.
“You were saying?” Abby prompted.
“Nothing. Gotta run,” the woman said. “Looks like everyone’s leaving.”
5
Abby locked up and stood at a front window, watching till every car had gone down the twisting, oleander-lined driveway to Carmel Valley Road. There they turned right, heading back into town. Finally. The FBI woman’s words kept repeating themselves in her mind. To have gone through all that…come out unscathed…
How does a woman end up unscathed, Abby thought, when she’s so brutally raped she’ll never be able to carry a child? How does she even end up close to being what other people call “normal”?
And the rape was only the beginning. What followed had nearly killed her, just as Ben had said. If he hadn’t been there…
Which didn’t excuse his betrayal tonight.
Glancing at her watch, she decided to wait ten minutes before going up and releasing Alicia and Jancy, just to be safe. In the meantime, she looked for Helen, wanting to thank her for her help. When she didn’t answer the knock on her door, Abby quietly opened it to make sure her old friend was all right, but glancing around, she saw that Helen wasn’t there.
The room was small, no more than a “cell,” as the nuns in former times had called their ascetic cubicles. Most had held little more than a bed, a chest of drawers and a crucifix. Though Helen could have had the biggest, nicest bedroom in the house, this was what she’d asked for, and Abby had built this room to her specifications.
“I can’t sleep if there’s too much space around me,” Helen had muttered. “Or too much clutter, for that matter. Those young sisters and the others can have their big, pretty rooms with their flowered curtains and sheets. To my mind, that’s all nonsense.”
Sister Helen had been Abby’s teacher in high school, and though Abby had feared her at the time, she’d come to love her as an adult. The job of answering the bell that announced nighttime visitors was actually a perk. Because of the arthritis in both her hips and knees, it had been painful for Helen to climb the stairs every night. This way, she could remain on the first floor at all times.
The elderly nun would be aghast, of course, to think she had special privileges, or if she knew that Abby and the other women had come up with this solution to ease her discomfort. Helen was from the old school of Catholics. She believed in suffering and in “offering it up” in exchange for more stars in her crown in heaven.
Abby was no longer a practicing Catholic, despite the year she and her best friend, Marti, had spent in a convent at the age of eighteen. She didn’t know if “offering it up” toward a better future in heaven was still a viable plan, but to each his own.
Come to think of it, she and Marti had both followed a different drummer. Going off to become nuns right out of high school seemed to be a wacky thing to have done later on. But they’d honestly had some idea that to do so would better the world. When they didn’t turn out to be the greatest of nuns, they left, went to college and became journalists.
Marti, though, became a famous photojournalist, while Abby married a guy who turned out to be no Prince Charming. He had an affair with a woman who had boobs out to “there” and dressed like a Hooters waitress. In fact, Abby thought, I called her “the bimbo” every chance I got—until I finally had to stop and forgive her, given that she was my sister.
And where was Karen Dean now? Off on some new adventure in Africa, God love her, trying to save her poor tattered soul by working with children who had AIDS.
Abby looked at her watch. A good ten minutes had passed since everyone had left. It should be safe now to go up and get Alicia and Jancy. Alicia had damn well better have some good explanation as to what she was doing earlier in the hotel room of a dead man.
In the solarium, Abby knelt down and tapped on the panel to the hidden cubbyhole. She waited, but didn’t hear the inside bolt slide open.
“Allie, open up,” she said in a low voice. “It’s me, Abby. They’re gone.”
She waited a few more seconds and tapped again. “Allie? Jancy? It’s okay. You’re safe. Open up.”
Leaning her ear against the panel, she heard a rustle and what sounded like someone sniffling. Another few seconds and the bolt was thrown. Abby opened the panel and saw Jancy, her face swollen and red from crying. The girl shuffled backward on her behind and leaned against the back wall, drawing her knees up to her chin.
“Allie?” Abby squinted, looking around the small dark space. She’d worried about squeezing the two of them into it, as the priest’s hole was never meant to hold two people comfortably.
Well, hell, she thought, both fear and anger vying for a place in her head. That doesn’t seem to matter much now.
Allie was gone.
Abby couldn’t get Jancy to come out, so she sat on the floor just outside the paneled door, talking in gentle tones. “Where did your mother go? Do you know where she is?”
Jancy wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt and murmured something Abby couldn’t hear.
“Jancy,” she tried again, “where is your mother?”
“I don’t know,” Jancy mumbled, covering her face with her hands. “Gone. Like always.”
Like always. Her tone of voice set alarm bells off in Abby’s head. “You said that before, honey. Does your mom go away a lot?”
Jancy shrugged.
“How often?” Abby asked.
“I don’t know. At least once a month.”
“Didn’t I hear somewhere that she gives speeches around the country? Something about voting for better health care?”
“Ha.”
“You don’t believe that’s what she’s doing?”
“Oh, sure, she does that sometimes. But a couple times when my school tried to reach her on one of those trips, they couldn’t. Her cell was off the whole three days she was gone, and when they called the hotel she was supposed to be staying at in Chicago, she wasn’t even registered.”
“What about when she got home? Did you ask her where she’d been? Maybe they lost the reservation and she stayed somewhere else.”
Jancy made a sound like a snort but didn’t answer. Abby studied her a moment, then reached for her hand. “C’mon, let’s get you out of there.”
Jancy turned away. Abby touched her arm gently until she looked at her. “C’mon, honey. It’s okay.”
“Will grown-ups ever stop saying things like that?” Jancy said angrily. “It’s not okay. Nothing’s ever okay!”
But she ducked her head and crawled out into the solarium, still not taking Abby’s hand. “Oh, God, I’m stiff!”
Standing, she stretched, bending from the waist and touching her toes. Letting out a long breath, she rose slowly, then raised her arms over her head, bending from side to side in an exercise position Abby recognized as hatha yoga. It seemed to come naturally to her, as if she’d done it out of habit, without thinking. Abby watched her curiously.
When it seemed Jancy was loosened up, Abby took her to the nearby bedroom that was always prepared for unexpected visitors. “It’s so quiet here,” Jancy whispered. “Doesn’t anybody live on this floor?”
Abby smiled. “There are eleven other women on this floor, and fifteen on the one above. It’s quiet because the sisters observe the Grand Silence, and the women who aren’t nuns join them in it, out of respect.”
“Grand Silence?”
“That means they don’t talk between night and morning prayers, except in an emergency.”
Jancy rolled her eyes. “Emergency? Here?”
“You’d be surprised,” Abby said. Two years ago, she’d been pushed from the chapel balcony at the end of this very floor. Murder and mayhem were the order of the day back then, and she was the one who’d brought it inside these walls.
“What about Sister Helen?” Jancy asked. “And the one who brought us our soup?”
“They’re exempted from keeping silence at night because their jobs sometimes require they talk.”
“Oh.”
Abby was glad she didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, Jancy sat heavily on one of the sparse twin beds with its coarse white linens. As she looked up at Abby her chin trembled, despite her brave attempt to hide it with a smile.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked. “Do I have to stay here till my mom comes back?”
“I don’t know,” Abby said honestly. “There are still a lot of questions to be answered. Like, first of all, why doesn’t your mom want you to be with your dad?”
“She told you, he has some important deal coming up. He can’t come home.”
“But now that your mom has left, if I tell him you’re alone here and what’s happened—”
“Believe me, he won’t come home,” Jancy said.
So her mother goes off on private little jaunts whenever the mood hits her, Abby thought, and her father’s too busy to hang around. Or at least he’s left her with that impression.
“You mentioned Big Sur,” she said. “Is that where you’ve been living? I thought you were still in L.A.”
“We are. But we come up to Big Sur sometimes. Look, I’m not supposed to talk about it. It’s not even ours.”
“What isn’t?” Abby asked.
“The house in Big Sur. My dad’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Randolph, loaned it to my dad so we’d have more privacy. From reporters and stuff, you know?”
She looked at Abby quickly, anxiety showing in her eyes. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Don’t worry,” Abby assured her. “My lips are zipped. But what were you doing at the Highlands Inn, if you weren’t staying there?”
“Having dinner in the restaurant,” Jancy said, yawning. “Can I go to sleep now?”
Abby had hoped Jancy might give her some clue as to what had actually happened, but the question had closed her down.
She studied the girl a moment, wondering if she should press for more. But the kid genuinely looked tired, and it wouldn’t have surprised Abby if she simply fell over with her clothes on and stayed like that all night.
“Of course. Get some sleep,” she said. On the side of the antique night table there was a button. “If anything happens that worries you, or if you just feel troubled, push this. It rings through to my room, and I’ll come right up.”
Abby took clean, plain white pajamas out of a drawer in the dresser, and put them on the bed for her. “Restrooms are down the hall on the right,” she said. “It’s communal, so you may run into some of the other women who live here. Don’t let that bother you, just don’t talk to them until after morning prayers. That’s at six. And here’s a clock so you’ll know what time it is when you wake up.”
Abby turned the tiny travel clock so that it faced the bed. “I see it’s almost five, so you’ll probably sleep through breakfast. When you’re ready, come down to the kitchen. It’s along the hall, the opposite way from where you and your mom came in. I’ll tell Sister Binny to expect you. But watch out. She’ll probably try to bury you under pancakes.”
For the first time, Abby thought she saw a genuine smile pass over Jancy’s face. It didn’t last long, but she was ready to take anything she could get.
“Thank you,” Jancy said softly. “I’m really sorry, Abby.”
“Sorry?” Abby said, surprised. “For what?”
“For all this trouble. For making you do so much stuff, and for being such a brat. You’ve been really nice.”
Abby smiled. “You’re pretty nice to do stuff for, Jancy. Now, sleep tight, and I’ll see you when you get up.”
Closing the door behind her, Abby was still smiling, but her expression quickly turned to a frown. She might not know a lot about teenagers, never having raised one, but one thing she had discovered from friends’ kids was that when they made such a fast turnaround from bratty to sweet, they usually wanted something.
Or they were planning something.
Like running away.
Abby didn’t even try to go back to bed. In her apartment, she changed clothes, then sat for a few minutes in her double-wide armchair before going to the kitchen. Ben and I used to sit in this chair and cuddle, she remembered. Used to. After tonight, will that ever happen again?
She deliberately tried not to think of Allie and where she had gone, why she had left her child here alone even after Abby had told her that was out of the question. It was all too much for one night—Allie and Jancy appearing without warning, then the FBI, Allie under suspicion for murder…
And Ben. His betrayal.
Back to Ben. Always back to Ben.
She squeezed her mind shut against that worry, but other memories crowded in. Her eyes took in this small, compact living room that she’d built for herself, and the few things she’d brought with her from Ocean Drive. She’d sold the multimillion-dollar house “as is” and fully furnished, except for the photos of her and Murphy—
Damn. At times like this, she missed Murphy more than ever. Her adventurous little dog had gotten loose one day and been struck by a car out on Carmel Valley Road. One of the carpenters, who helped build the very room she was sitting in, saw it happen and picked Murphy up off the road and carried him to her. The thing that had gotten to her most was that he looked just as he had when asleep, so she didn’t realize at first that he was gone. Then she saw the blood on the side of his head that was next to the carpenter’s arm. He had thoughtfully hidden it from her until the first shock was over.
Abby chose a spot on the edge of the forest to bury him. There were five other workmen on the property at the time, and they all stood around with the sisters and other women to offer prayers. By the time the little ceremony was over there were heaps of flowers on Murphy’s grave. The workmen brought wildflowers from the surrounding meadows, and it touched her heart to see their big, rough hands carrying those fragile little stems and placing them so carefully over Murphy’s grave. The Prayer House women brought early spring flowers from the gardens, and several of them wept along with her.
It took Abby a while to get past the stage where she was looking for her little companion around every corner and expecting him to be there to greet her when she walked through the door. She would never get over the feeling that it was her fault he ended up in the road in the first place. Murphy had an adventurous soul, and he’d gotten away once when he was younger. She should have been watching him better the day he died, but she’d trusted him not to run like that again.
