Strangers (22 page)

This was a cool fact that would add a bit of human interest to her report on the property. When people stopped to think about life without bathrooms, they unanimously agreed that life was better with them.

A room on the second floor was labeled, “The Nursery.” It was closet-like, with no window, opening only into another large bedroom. By Faye’s best guess, these rooms had been converted into the living room of the owners’ suite where Daniel and Suzanne lived.

She remembered sitting in that area, surrounded by people worried about Glynis on the very day that she disappeared. Picturing the room, Faye remembered the wide bank of windows overlooking the front yard. She remembered the suite’s front door, which opened onto the hallway and faced the windows. She remembered a door into the suite’s kitchen and dining area. But she didn’t remember a door on the wall facing the kitchen door.

Squinting at the floor plan, she decided that the wall between the living area and the old nursery had been removed to enlarge the space. Perhaps the Dunkirks had done it themselves, when they finally recognized the truth: there would be no babies sleeping there.

Faye remembered how lovely little Rachel had looked, running through the atrium, and she realized that no child had lived in this house since lonely Raymond had watched his mother walk away. Only Victor had graced the house with bubbling youth, and his presence must have hurt Allyce and Raymond in an undefinable way. He wasn’t theirs. And, if Faye could believe her suspicions that his mental state wasn’t just a function of age, he wasn’t…
right
.

Allyce could love a child like Victor with all her heart, but she couldn’t give him her hopes. She couldn’t dream that he would grow up to be the handsome, intelligent, and masterful man that her husband Raymond seemed to be. He was a forever child, someone to love and grieve over. And he had other parents, whose rights superseded the rights of a woman with all the love and money in the world.

It was hard to imagine that he’d fallen through the cracks, with both his parents and the Dunkirks to care for him. His parents had died without providing for him, and perhaps they weren’t capable of it. And the Dunkirks, who might have made sure that he never wanted for anything, simply didn’t.

Her eyes stung a little, thinking of Victor and wondering if she could do anything to help his situation now. Maybe the best place to start would be to check with shelters that could provide a much better roof for his head. And food—now that she’d seen Victor’s home, she had to wonder what on earth he ate. He’d lived in St. Augustine so long that he surely knew the location of every soup kitchen and charitable restaurateur, but this was no way to live the last years of a long life.

She picked up her laptop, planning to look around for social service agencies, then indulge herself by rambling around the web in search of Robert Ripley and his Believe-It-or-Not empire. She’d gotten as far as typing “s-o-c-i-a-l s-e-r-v-” when the door opened.

Joe stood there, loaded down with bed linens, towels, and a loaded plate. “I bumped into Daniel down the hall. He said that Suzanne sent you these.”

“We will never again have clients who care so much about our well-being. You know that don’t you? Usually, their attitude is, ‘Would you finish this project already? And I don’t know why you can’t work for fifty cents an hour on Christmas!’”

“They’re very nice people. And I think they’re so, so sad about their daughter Annie. Always will be. Seeing you healthy and strong and ready to have a baby makes them happy, maybe. And that makes them want to help.”

“They really are kind. But you know what, Joe? I’m not hungry and I think maybe Victor might be. He’s just a few steps down the street. Would you take that plate to him?”

Feeling like maybe she’d staved off Victor’s needs for a few hours, she went back to her computer and dropped a few emails to some people who might be able to help him for longer.

Then she crawled the web, reading about Robert Ripley’s travels to places she wanted to go—China, Madagascar, Brazil, Morocco. She dozed off, dreaming of touring exotic lands with a baby strapped to her back, and she stayed asleep until Joe came back with another plate of food that she
was
hungry enough to eat.

So sleepy by the time she finished eating that the last forkful just looked too heavy to lift, she dozed off again. When she opened her eyes, Joe was asleep at her side. It was midnight and she was wide awake. Quietly, she pulled on her robe and a pair of cotton gloves. She crept out into the nearest dining room and laid Father Domingo’s book on the ornate tablecloth.

The dining room was a bit spooky, perhaps, but Faye didn’t believe in ghosts…much. At midnight, her logical mind was a bit less resistant to such things, but no matter. Faye felt sure that the ghosts of Dunkirk Manor confined themselves the atrium, walking endlessly in circles around the balconies and climbing for all time on staircases that had no end.

From the journal of Father Domingo Sanz de la Fuente

Translated from the Spanish by

Faye Longchamp-Mantooth, Ph.D.,

and Magda Stockard-McKenzie, Ph.D.

I cannot say that my life among the Timucua has been unpleasant. It seems that Ocilla was of noble birth, as such is determined by her people. By walking with me away from the River Seloy, she left her homeland forever. Still, there are many Timucua villages within a few days’ walk of the new Spanish settlement of St. Augustine. Many of their chieftains are Ocilla’s kin, and we wandered for a time, staying first in one village, then another, but always as most honored guests.

Many of these chieftains told us of a fierce young man of God who had come to them looking for a runaway priest traveling with two women. There was never a mention of an older priest. I knew that Father Francisco would not hunt me down. For the rest of his life, he would pray for me, but he would let me be.

I also knew that Father Esteban would not forgive my desertion nor the heresy that surely prompted it. And he would never forgive me for the blow that I dealt to his dignity by stealing his woman.

The deerhide shoes covering Timucuan feet are far better for carrying news across the countryside than hard Spanish boots. Before many months had passed, Father Esteban could hardly have failed to know that I had stolen more than his woman. Chulufi delivered his daughter before the maize ripened. With the addition of an infant to our number, we could not continue our ceaseless travel. We picked a village and settled there.

It is also not possible that Father Esteban did not know where we were. Those deerhide shoes could not have failed to bring him that news. For a time, I wondered why he left us alone. Then a pair of those shoes brought us the news that he had been recalled to Dominica, and I began to dream of a peaceful life in my adopted home. For a long while, that dream was mine.

The village welcomed me with the respect due a shaman, since Ocilla told them that I was well-acquainted with magic and spiritual matters. In all my years with the Timucua, I was never certain that I communicated to them the difference between their blood-magic and Our Lord’s Holy Communion.

I was educated in the medicinal arts in Spain, and my knowledge of herbs and tinctures made me useful in my new community, to the extent that I could find the herbs I needed. The Timucuan shaman, Humka, was mortally offended by my presence and refused to acknowledge me for the better part of a year, until one of my poultices broke the fever of the chief’s young son.

Once so reticent to share his status of holy man, Humka now seized on every particle of knowledge I could offer. In return, he taught me to use plants no healer in Spain had ever seen.

Together, we brought God’s blessed healing to some of the sufferers among us. Not all, for God’s judgment is not to be questioned. We all must die, and He will determine the time and place, but I believe that the shaman and I served as God’s comforting Hand for the sick and dying among us. And Merciful Mother, there were so many sick and dying.

As I learned to speak their language, I learned the truth about the sickness among us. When a young mother came to us with pockmarks covering her face, Humka told me that he had been a man before he ever saw such a sickness. He cannot tell me his age, but my eyes tell me that his shoulders are not hunched and that he still has many of his teeth. It has not been a great span of years since he became a man.

These people die of illnesses that make Spanish children whine and cry for a few days before returning to their toys. I am not as highly educated as Father Francisco, nor even Father Esteban, but I can count and do sums. I know when Spain claimed this land for herself, and I believe we brought these diseases with us. I fear such sicknesses will be the end of Ocilla’s people, just as they have already been the end of her.

If every village across this wide land has seen as much death as I have witnessed here, then the destruction is greater than any war ever fought. It is greater than all our wars added together. How many people have we killed merely by stepping off our tall ships?

I spend much time in prayer these days.

__________

I, Father Domingo Sanz de la Fuente, attest that the foregoing is a statement of actual events.

Chapter Twenty-one

Spending the night’s small hours in Dunkirk Manor’s public areas had taught Faye something. The house was full of clocks, and they were all accurate. Or, at least, they were all set to the same time. There were clocks on the mantelpieces of both dining rooms. There was a grandfather clock in the entry hall, standing against the wall opposite the new elevator, and there was a delicate and ornate clock on each balcony, sitting on shelves that were dead-center on the back wall.

Faye wondered whether there had been two grandfather clocks in the entry hall, before the elevator was added. The rest of the house was so utterly symmetrical. Had Daniel and Suzanne trashed one to make room for the elevator? Or had they added a clock to balance the visual weight of the elevator doors? She was a little surprised they hadn’t just gone for broke and installed matching elevators, to avoid destroying the manor’s perfect balance.

A late night spent listening to clocks tinkling and chiming at fifteen-minute intervals reminded her of something else—the sound-absorbing power of the poured concrete walls in this house. She’d never had an inkling that there was so much ethereal noise going on outside her bedroom every night.

When her eyes tired of the effort of reading Father Domingo’s handwriting, and her mind tired of the labor of translating his words into English, and her hand tired of laboriously recording that translation, Faye found that she still wasn’t sleepy.

She’d brought Harriet’s book, knowing that she might need a moment of light reading before she was ready to go back to bed. Turning again to the Dunkirks’ biographies, she noticed that Allyce had survived Raymond by six years. His 1950 obituary mentioned his bereaved wife. The fact that she had outlived him explained the fact that Raymond’s family home, Dunkirk Manor, had passed to Suzanne, whose father was Allyce’s great-nephew.

All that wealth, and no one but a not-too-near relative to pass it to…well, a not-too-near relative and a feeble-minded boy who lived down the street. Faye’s heart clenched inside her a little, at the very thought of it. The echoes of all those clocks as they marked the passing minutes sent her mind down passageways of time, reminding her of all the little things it steals, one by one.

Dawn was pink in the sky outside her little bedroom window when she crawled under the covers beside Joe and, finally, she slept.

***

Joe was on time for work. The crew had agreed to work a half-day to make up for the time lost to Glynis’ disappearance, but just because it was Saturday didn’t mean it was okay to drag around and waste half the morning.

Joe was always on time for work. This meant that his crew was also always on time, because they knew their tardiness would be noticed. Joe might or might not comment on that tardiness, but he wouldn’t have much to say to them for the rest of the day. Their work assignment might not be the one they wanted. And it was just possible that, before he handed them their break-time water bottles, he might leave them out in the sun for just long enough to blunt their cool edge.

It wasn’t so much that Joe consciously thought this quiet management strategy through. It was just that Joe instinctively understood animal behavior, even when the animals were human. He had never raised his voice to Levon or Kirk, but they treated him with respect. A portion of this respect might be due to the fact that Joe towered over them both, but another portion was due to his quiet confidence.

Another reason he never had raise his voice was because Magda showed up, she did her job, and then she did the job of anyone around her who was slacking. After that, she gave the perpetrator a good lashing with the sharp side of her tongue. It had occurred to Joe that maybe this job wasn’t running smoothly due to his management prowess, nor Faye’s. It was running smoothly because everyone concerned was tiptoeing around Magda. Joe loved her like a big sister—albeit an opinionated and crotchety one—but even now, Magda sometimes scared him a little.

Joe set out to circle the worksite, checking the crew’s preparations for the day from every angle, then he stopped short in his tracks. Something was wrong.

The equipment was in its place. The excavated areas were exactly as they’d left them the previous afternoon. Levon and Kirk were bent, heads together, over the day’s work plan. But Magda was nowhere to be seen.

Now, Magda had been happily late for work on the day that she and Faye spent glorying over the old Spanish diary. But other than that, the woman was a machine. She could get herself and her kid dressed and fed and out the door in less time than it took most sleepy people to figure out how to turn the coffee pot on.

Magda had not been at the breakfast table. She had not been in his room that morning, pestering Faye to quit consulting and be a professor, as God intended. He knew in his heart of hearts that she was not lounging in bed, hitting the snooze button again and again. When a reliable person slips, people notice. Joe noticed. He headed indoors, but not before wordlessly telling Kirk and Levon where they should be working, by the simple expedient of eye contact and a nod.

There was no place left to look but Magda’s bedroom, and Joe was too much of a gentleman to barge into a lady’s boudoir alone, not when the lady’s best friend was right down the hall typing up the outline for her first big consultant’s report.

Joe left his workers to their jobs and went to get Faye.

***

After being forced to parade across Dunkirk Manor’s back garden in her flannel pajamas, Faye had taken to sleeping in sweatpants and a t-shirt. Her maternity work pants were so snug that she was afraid she’d soon be wearing sweatpants around the clock. Remembering how trim her waist had always been made her want to swear.

When Joe stuck his head in the door, flustered and upset, Faye was glad she’d switched her sleepwear. She couldn’t say exactly how she knew Joe was flustered. His body was still relaxed yet ready for action. His hands didn’t show the slightest signs of a tremble. He wasn’t sweating or pale. She truly believed he had conscious control over all his reflexes and bodily functions, which really came in handy when he wanted to stop breathing long enough to draw his bow and shoot something tasty. Right now, the look in those clear green eyes was enough to jolt her out of her chair and onto her aching feet.

“Magda didn’t show up for work or for breakfast. Come with me. Let’s check her room.”

Faye paused only long enough to slide on her house slippers. The last time she’d met a crisis in her sleepwear, she’d been very sorry to be barefoot.

Magda’s room was maybe five steps down the hall, but two words echoed in her head with each step.

“Where’s Glynis?”

“Where’s Glynis?”

“Where’s Glynis?”

“Where’s Glynis?”

“Where’s Glynis?”

She was not capable of adding
Where’s Magda?
to that list, not until she opened the door and saw that her friend was gone. And so was Rachel.

Rachel’s toys were strewn exactly as you’d expect a three-year-old’s toys to be strewn. Magda’s morning cup of coffee was sitting half-drunk on the nightstand. That morning’s paper was casually refolded, beside the cup. Everything was as it should be, except that two of the people nearest to Faye’s heart were simply not there.

Entering the room with Joe, Faye saw that Magda’s blue cotton shirt was still draped over the ironing board, and the iron had been left on. So had Magda’s curling iron.

Magda used a curling iron? Who knew?

Something was wrong. Faye felt it.

Then her foot brushed something small, but heavy for its size. She couldn’t see what it was, because her belly was in the way. Joe bent down easily and handed it to her: Magda’s cell phone.

The last number dialed was 911, but the call had been dropped. Of course it had. Cell reception was nonexistent here in this pile of concrete. Magda had tried, but her phone hadn’t been able to push that call for help out into the world.

Faye clutched the phone as if she thought its navigation system would take her straight to her friend. Her first thought was to question how someone could kidnap Magda. How could anyone simply take her, with no sign of a struggle and no sound? Glynis, young and dainty and innocent, might have been easy to abduct. But Magda? She would fight to her last breath.

That last thought took Faye’s own breath. She shoved it out of her head.

The absence of sound was easy to explain, here in the fortress that was Dunkirk Manor.

But why did the room show no sign of a struggle?

The answer to that question was easy and heartstopping. How hard would it be to take a mother, if you already had her child?

Faye’s knees wanted to buckle, but she held firm for Magda. Her body was wrecked by this pregnancy, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. To find her friend and her godchild, Faye needed to get to the truth. And the fastest way to the truth was to ask the right questions.

Who could possibly be so inhuman as to hurt a woman and her child?

No. She didn’t know that they were hurt. She only knew that they were gone. Faye reached again, looking for the simplest possible question, the one that most clearly addressed the facts.

Who could possibly be so inhuman as to
take
a woman and her child?

As soon as that silent question sounded in Faye’s mind, she knew. Short, dumpy Magda and tall, wispy Glynis were separated by more than twenty years in age, and they were separated by light-years in terms of money and glamour and privileged upbringing.

They had only two things in common. They were both women. And they both had a child. Glynis’ unborn baby looked nothing like Magda’s rowdy toddler, but Faye knew they looked much the same to a woman desperate for a child of her own.

Less than a year ago, Faye had been nearly that desperate for a baby herself, though not so much so that kidnapping one would have ever crossed her mind. Perhaps Allyce’s sad story had given her some insight into a psychic pain so deep that it was almost physical.

Perhaps it
is
physical,
she thought,
this business of a woman’s body craving the chance to do what it was made to do.

And there was yet another woman in this house, one whose loss of a child might well have driven her to do the unthinkable.

Faye looked at Joe and said, “I know who has them. And I know where they are.”

***

Five steps back down the hallway took them to their room, where Faye showed Joe the floor plan of Dunkirk Manor. She tapped on the tiny room labeled “nursery,” and said, “Remember? We were in that room, but this door wasn’t there. I noticed the discrepancy last night, but I just figured Daniel and Suzanne had taken out a wall to make their living room bigger. But that’s impossible. This house is built of poured concrete. That wall ain’t going anywhere.”

“You think they closed up the door to the nursery?”

“I think somebody, maybe Daniel and Suzanne or maybe somebody long ago, closed that room behind a hidden door. Lots of houses like this have secret rooms. What better place than an old nursery to hide a woman who’s going to give you a child?”

“But Glynis is barely pregnant. Hide a woman for nine months? Faye. That’s insane.”

Faye thought of the dimming of the light in Allyce Dunkirk’s eyes. She thought of the way she retreated from life in her latter years, secluding herself in this barren home that was not a haven and not a comfort. She thought of the disturbing images in the paintings Allyce chose for the house and of the paintings that she made herself. And she wondered about Allyce and her great-great-niece Suzanne, the trial attorney who had retreated into a world so limited that a wilted flower or a misplaced piece of parsley or a wound-down clock became critically important.

“Yes,” she said. “It is insane. And I’m beginning to think that insanity runs in this family.”

***

The plan was simple and it would unfold immediately, because the time since the abduction was being measured in minutes, not hours. Maybe even seconds. The “on” light on Magda’s curling iron showed that it hadn’t even been abandoned long enough to switch itself off. It was possible that Suzanne hadn’t had time to hide Magda and Rachel yet.

And Daniel? Was he involved, too? There was no way to know, so she had to presume that he was.

Joe was going to go upstairs to the owners’ suite, and he was going to do it now, in hopes that he could snatch Magda and her child out of danger before they’d ever really gotten there. Faye didn’t even argue with his flat, unyielding position that she was not going with him. She’d be no help to him, physically, it was true. But more than that, Faye needed to protect herself for their baby’s sake.

She couldn’t allow herself to be harmed, not now. Magda would understand that. If Faye showed up to rescue her now, Magda’s first response would be to bark, “Faye. Are you nuts?”

If Glynis had been kidnapped because she offered the promise of a baby in nine months, and if Magda had been kidnapped because she offered the reality of a young child now, then how much would Faye be worth to their kidnapper? She could deliver an untouched newborn, almost immediately, one who wasn’t already bonded to its mother. In Faye’s womb, she carried the most human of dreams.

Was this why Daniel had taken her, alone, to the storage room? Had he been planning to kidnap her? Joe’s arrival might have prevented that, and Suzanne and Daniel might then have turned to their backup plan—stealing Glynis, a woman who could provide a baby, eventually, to a couple willing to wait nine months.

Faye remembered Daniel bringing a meal to her and then being interrupted by Joe. She remembered that Joe had intercepted Daniel just the day before, while he was carrying food and sheets and towels to Faye, who certainly had not requested them. She especially remembered the vise grip of his hand on her arm on the elevator and in the entry hall on the day he had urged her to come with him because she needed some rest. Again, Joe had intercepted Daniel’s attempt to get Faye alone.

Had the man been trying to take Faye, who had her attentive husband to thank for the fact that she wasn’t trapped wherever Glynis was right now? More to the point, had Daniel been trying to take her baby, so that Suzanne could be happy again?