Second Time's the Charm

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So Jon improvised. The doctor said that Abe’s nap times would change over the next year. If the toddler didn’t want to sleep and wasn’t exhibiting signs of crankiness due to fatigue, then he should give him a chance at staying up.

But Abe still took two naps at the day care—morning and afternoon. Jon should do what he could to stick to the routine.

He compromised. With Abe in his crib, he hauled out the navy duffel that had seen him through many phases of his life. He could afford to replace it but he didn’t care to.

Barbara Bent had given it to him the day she’d told him that she was getting married, planning to have a child of her own and giving up foster care.

He’d been twelve at the time. And had spent the majority of his life in her home.

He’d packed that duffel twice since Abraham was born. He had a system. Knew the ropes. Diapers filled both side pockets—enough to get him through twenty-four hours. They were bigger now, but they still fit. And regardless of whether or not he liked Lillie Henderson, there was a very real possibility that she’d been hired by Clara Abrams to collect enough evidence of his poor fathering skills to persuade the courts that the toddler was better off with his wealthy and well-situated grandparents than he was with a single male with a criminal record.

Jon had learned his lessons the hard way. He wasn’t going to forget them. Or get lazy. He wasn’t going to sit around and let the courts decide his future. Or the future of his son.

If Clara came after them, he’d grab Abe, the bag, and run.

“Uh!”

Abe stood up in his crib, pointing to Jon, asking what he was doing.

Jon’s mouth was forming a reply, something about always being prepared, when he stopped himself. “You want to know what I’m doing?” he asked.

“Uh!” Abe said, reaching toward his father.

“Ask me what I’m dooiinng and I’ll tell you.” Jon enunciated the key word carefully, just as Lillie had done the evening before.

A resealable bag of toiletries—tear-proof shampoo, lotion, body wash, cleaning wipes, thermometer, acetaminophen drops and syrup of ipecac—went in the front pocket.

“Uhhh!” Abe’s voice rose in conjunction with the whiny tone that had entered his voice.

“Dooiinng.” Jon faced his son. Abe was getting tired. He could tell by his tone. But he wasn’t going to give in. He wasn’t going to reward bad behavior.

“Uh. Uh. Uhhh.” Abe stood his ground.

Jon strode over, gently picked his son up off his feet, laid him down in his crib, told him to sleep well, grabbed the duffel and left the room, checking to ensure that the working light on the baby monitor was engaged on his way out. He could finish packing for the two of them outside the toddler’s room.

Half an hour later, most of which was spent enduring demanding—and then just exhausted—screams, he very quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping son, hid the fully packed duffel in the back of his bedroom closet.

A safeguard.

Just in case life came crashing down on him again.

* * *

LILLIE PLAYED OUTSIDE with Abraham on Sunday for the twenty minutes it took Jon to install the security lock on her sliding glass door. Her house wasn’t exactly child friendly.

She came home one night later that week to new ceiling fans whirring softly in her living room and kitchen—Jon had finished his lab early and had had an extra hour and a half of free time before he had to go to work. He’d stopped by the clinic for her key.

She’d refused to picture him in her home, among her things, free to explore at his will. Why would he bother snooping? He was there in a professional capacity, that was all.

There’d been another break-in that week. A home on the outskirts of town. The thief had taken everything of value—guns, electronics, jewelry—but he hadn’t damaged anything except the standard lock on the sliding glass door as he’d lifted it off the track. It was this detail that had people convinced the two crimes were related. Word was that the guy had special suction cups used by glass installers to remove the doors.

On Friday, after observing Abraham playing happily by himself at Little Spirits Day Care, Lillie phoned Jon and got his voice mail.

Sitting in her car in the day care parking lot, she tried to pretend that she hadn’t chosen that particular time to call because she’d known that her chances of reaching him were slim.

“This is Jon. Leave a message.”

“Hi, Jon, it’s Lillie. Lillie Henderson. I just wanted to call and thank you for your thoughtfulness in installing the safety catch on my sliding door. There was another break-in and I feel a lot better knowing that I’m protected. So...thank you.”

She could have said more. Should have said more. This was, after all, an exchange of services and she had some thoughts about his son. But they could talk about Abraham when he called her back.

With her hand on the keys, ready to turn the car on, Lillie froze. She’d left the message unfinished so that he’d call her back.

As though she was playing some kind of cat-and-mouse game.

It was completely and totally not her style.

* * *

JON HEARD HIS phone ring. Saw Lillie’s number pop up. He was elbow-deep in the belly of a five-foot-tall steel grinder, removing a twelve-inch-by-five-inch steel blade. The third of eight. He was working on his own, and he could have stopped to take the call.

He waited to see if she left a message instead. There was an outside chance that she was calling because of some emergency with Abraham, but it wasn’t likely. Bonnie Nielson or one of her full-time employees would be calling if that were the case.

Still, vice grips and pliers in hand, he watched his phone, hit voice mail as soon as it popped up and—after listening to a voice that reminded him of flowers in a garden—pressed nine to save the message.

* * *

CAROLINE STRICKLAND, THE mother of a twenty-four-year-old Harvard graduate, a second-grader and a kindergartner, stopped by Lillie’s office at just past four on Friday afternoon. “Oh, you’re on the phone,” she said, backing out the door.

“No! Come on in.” Lillie smiled at the woman who’d been one of her first clients when she’d come to town. Caroline’s middle child had been two at the time and in for stitches.

Putting her cell phone back in her purse, Lillie swore to herself that she’d leave it there unless it actually rang. If Jon Swartz called, she’d know it. If he texted, she’d know it. She could hear. She didn’t have to keep looking at the damned thing.

“What’s up?” she asked as Caroline, slim and comfortable looking in her jeans and T-shirt, settled into the rocker in the corner of the room.

“John wants to take me to Italy for our anniversary.” Caroline was not smiling.

“You love Italian food,” Lillie reminded her. “And you’ve always wanted to see the Mediterranean.”

Caroline and Lillie met early in the morning three times a week to ride bikes on the quiet streets of Shelter Valley.

To exercise when no one was watching.

“I know.” Caroline’s usually cheerful voice fell on the last word.

“So what’s the problem?” There was one; that much was evident. Lillie hated to see her friend so obviously bothered. It wasn’t like Caroline, who’d taken her first husband’s unexpected death, an unplanned pregnancy and a move across the country in stride.

“I don’t know.” Caroline looked at the paperwork on Lillie’s desk.

“Weren’t you just saying last week that you wanted to spend more time alone with him?”

“Yeah.”

“So?” She frowned. Caroline wasn’t afraid of flying. She and John and the kids spent a lot of time on Caroline’s family farm in Kentucky and flew back and forth several times throughout the year as the kids’ schooling allowed.

“When he told me...” She grinned, but there were tears in her eyes as she paused. “He’d told me he had a business thing in Phoenix.” As an architect of some renown, John Strickland did a lot of business in the city, and often took Caroline to dinner meetings with clients. “But instead, he took me to this fancy restaurant and ordered wine, and when they brought the bottle they also delivered the travel documents....”

“Romantic!” Lillie liked John and found him to be genuine. Still, she’d found Kirk to be genuine, too, back before she’d realized that a man could look her straight in the eye and lie and she couldn’t tell the difference.

Kirk had plied her with romance throughout their courtship and after they were married, too. Even when he’d also been plying Leah.

If Caroline was here to tell her something bad about John, to tell her she’d found out that he’d had an affair, Lillie would be surprised. But she’d also believe her.

“It was romantic,” Caroline said, still smiling. Still avoiding Lillie’s gaze with eyes that were glistening. “He’s the best, Lillie. And I love him so much.”

Here it comes. Lillie braced herself. Still hoping that Caroline merely had a schedule conflict with John’s probably prepaid travel arrangements. And that she didn’t want to hurt her husband’s feelings and...

“I don’t want to leave the children.” Caroline looked up, her brow creased. “I don’t know what’s come over me, but the second I saw the reminder to bring current passports, I thought of the kids and got scared to death. What if something happens to them while we’re gone? I’d be too far away to get to them. It’s over an eight-hour flight, Lil.”