The Letters (18 page)

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

He softened at that, and leaned in to kiss her on the lips, gentle and sweet, then he jerked his head back and glanced in the kitchen windows when he heard the sound of the boys yelling to each other. “I’d better go.” He kissed her again, before she could object. “Start looking for those books.”

Shootfire!
“Jake! Wait! You can’t just show up and disappear like a spook. I want to know why my letter got returned!”

He grimaced, ashamed. “I hated to let the apartment go. Couldn’t make the rent. I’m just staying on friends’ couches.”

“Well, how am I supposed to reach you if I find those books?”

“Good point.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket and scribbled a number on it with a small pencil. “This is my cell phone number.”

Her eyes narrowed. “When did you get a cell phone?”
And why didn’t you bother calling me on it?

He read her mind. “I got it for job interviews—but it’s the kind with limited minutes. Call me the minute you find those books.” He kissed her again. Then again and again, until the sound of her brothers’ footsteps thundering down the stairs jerked him away. “Trust me on this, honey. You find those books and we can help Tobe clear his name.” And he vanished into the shadows. She waited awhile, hearing his footsteps head down the driveway. In the distance, she heard a horse whinny and Silver Queen answer back from the barn. Then she heard the sound of Jake’s truck drive off.

Honey.
He called me his honey!
Bethany hugged herself with happiness. He still loved her. Of course he did. Why had she ever doubted?

She inhaled the sharp night air, feeling a surge of pleasure. Then it passed and in its place rushed a thought that filled her with discomfort: Tobe has been staying with their mother. She wanted to know more, and yet she didn’t.

On Monday morning, Jimmy Fisher woke up a determined man. He marched into Galen’s kitchen and helped himself to a mug of coffee. “Where’s Naomi?” he asked.

“She’s not feeling too well this morning.”

Jimmy pulled out the kitchen chair and dumped three teaspoons full of sugar into his coffee cup.

Galen finished buttering his burnt toast. “Any luck finding the horse?”

“No, no sign of him.” He took a long sip of coffee. “But I am going to find Lodestar and get him back. Yesterday, I went to all the neighbors and told them to keep an eye out for him. If you can spare me for a few hours, I’m going to staple posters on telephone poles and street signs. Someone’s bound to have seen him. I was even thinking about taking out an ad in the paper, maybe adding a reward.”

“Well, I hope you do find him. But there are other horses in the world.”

“None like Lodestar. You haven’t seen him. When you do, you’ll know what I mean.”

“If he’s that fine a horse, someone will find him and keep him.”

“Now, Galen, that’s the difference between you and me. You’re negative. I’m positive. You’re pessimistic. I’m optimistic. You think people are all bad. I think there’s good in them. Someone will find him and return him to me.”

Jimmy snatched his hat off the wall peg and jammed it on his head. “I’m going out to look for him. I’ll be back in a few hours.” That horse was his destiny. He was going to find Lodestar. He was going to prove Galen King wrong.

Every few days, Rose stopped by the phone shanty to pick up her messages. She knew from experience that she couldn’t handle it more often. At first, her message machine was filled with pleas from people who had invested with Dean’s company. The first few months, after it all broke open, she would listen to the messages and her stomach would churn all day
long. These people had trusted Dean with their life savings. So many people had been left penniless. Futures had been destroyed. Family homes had been foreclosed on. They begged Rose to return the money they had invested.

Didn’t they understand there was no money?

She took down the information and wrote letters to each person who called, explaining the situation. She tried to include some cash in each letter—$5 or $10 or $20. There was a part of her that wanted to scold these people for trusting so easily, for getting tempted by high returns on their investment. What made them think that Schrock Investments could beat the market? In a brutal recession? It made no sense.

Today, she was relieved to see there were only a handful of messages. The calls were coming less frequently now and in a way, that made her sad too. They had given up hope of getting their money back. She wished she could tell each one, “I haven’t forgotten! Just give me some time. I’m going to repay you, if it’s the last thing I do.” She picked up a pencil to take down notes from the messages. She had to listen carefully to the last one before it made sense. Then she listened to it again. As soon as her mind grasped what the message meant, she ran down the long driveway and pounded on the basement door. “Delia, something’s happened! Something terrible.”

Delia opened the door, an alarmed look on her face. “What’s wrong? Come in. What’s happened?”

Rose had to stop and take a deep breath after running from the shanty like that. “My first guest at Eagle Hill was a woman named Lois. Tony and Lois. She left a message that she had met you at . . . a gas station . . . and told you to come here. She had bright red hair—truly red, not orange-red—and orange lipstick.”

Delia nodded. “Yes. Yes, I remember her. She helped me pump gas.”

“She said that you seemed upset and looked like you needed a quiet place to be.”

“That’s exactly right. She’s the one who told me about your inn. Has something happened to her?”

Rose sat down on the couch. She took a deep breath. “She said that your picture is all over the television. As a missing person. The news said your son reported you as missing . . .”

“My son? My son, Will?”

“Yes . . . that your son is on every news station pleading for some information about where you might be.”

“Oh no.” A trace of color rose under Delia’s fair skin. “I should have called Will. I should have let him know. It’s just that he’s going through midterm exams and Charles didn’t want to let him know about our . . . marital problems.”

“Charles. Is your husband Dr. Charles Stoltz?”

“Yes. Why?” Then, impatiently, “Why?”

“Maybe you should sit down for this.”

Delia sank to the sofa and Rose sat beside her. “Lois said she just heard on the news that your husband has been taken to the police station for questioning. She said that there’s concern he might have something to do with your disappearance . . . that apparently he is having an affair.” She lowered her voice. “Lois said there is speculation growing that your husband killed you and has hidden your body.”

“Oh my,” Delia said. “Oh my.” She covered her face with her hands, but for just a moment. Then she let them fall to her lap in a gripping fist. “I should get to a phone. I need to straighten this all out.”

Rose bit her lip. “Lois already did. She said she called the police to let them know where you are.”

Delia looked sick. “Please tell me this is a bad dream.”

The sound of a siren was heard in the distance, getting louder and louder as it came up the road. Rose and Delia went to the window and watched a police car with a flashing red siren pull up the driveway. “As a matter of fact,” Rose said, “I think you’re wide awake.”

Delia Stoltz spent the next two hours at the sheriff’s office in Stoney Ridge, on the phone with the Philadelphia police, explaining that her husband was innocent—sort of, she wanted to add, but didn’t think it would be wise to complicate the situation. It was already far too complicated. “My husband did not kill me and hide my body,” she said in a wry tone. “I just didn’t happen to mention to him where I was going.”

As soon as the sheriff allowed, she called her son, Will. She felt terrible when she heard the relief in his voice.

“I’m coming down there,” Will said. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. I’m leaving now.”

“No, Will—you’ve got exams to get through. I’m fine. I really am. I’ll call you each day if you like. I can’t get service out at the farm, but I’ll drive into town. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know where I was. But what made you think I went missing?”

“Dad called me, thinking you might have come to Ithaca. I started phoning your friends to see if they knew where you were. None of them had heard from you in weeks. You weren’t returning any of Dad’s or my phone messages. Dad said not to worry, but that only made me worry all the more.
I mean, it’s not like you, Mom. Dad is hard to get hold of, but you’re always available. My imagination started rolling . . . too many CSI shows, I guess. So I called the police, thinking they might be able to locate your car or check with any hospitals to see if you might have been in an accident. Suddenly, it turned into a missing person’s report, then I was interviewed for the evening news, then someone at Dad’s office tipped off the police that Dad was having an affair with his attorney . . . and things got carried away.”

Delia rubbed her forehead. What a mess. “I’m sorry to have caused you concern. I just needed a little time to catch my breath. So much happened, so quickly.”

“Mom, I didn’t know about Dad and this attorney bimbo.”

“I just found out myself a few weeks ago. The day I found out about the cancer, in fact.”

There was a long silence. “Wait.
What?
You have cancer?”

Delia squeezed her eyes shut. How could she have blurted that without thinking? She kept her voice calm and steady. “They found a lump in my breast and took it out. I’m sure they got it all.” She wasn’t at all sure.

“What did the doctor say? Were the margins clear? Anything in the lymph nodes?” Will’s voice started to crack, which made Delia’s eyes fill with tears.

“I . . . haven’t gotten the results yet. I’m sure it’s all fine.” In fact, with each passing day, she felt a sense of growing dread about those results. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was too late to call today, but she would drive into town and call tomorrow.

“Does Dad know?”

“No. Not yet. I will tell him, Will.” Her voice was firm. “Let me do that.”

“So he’s having an affair with his lawyer while you’re recovering from cancer surgery.” His voice was filled with disgust.

“To be fair to him, he didn’t know, Will.”

She heard Will call his father an unmentionable word and she cringed. She didn’t want to become that kind of a woman—who told her son too much and turned him against his father. It wouldn’t take much, she knew—Will and Charles always had a fragile relationship. “Listen—this is between me and your father. Not you and him. Nothing has to change between the two of you.”

“Nothing has to change?” Will snorted. “Everything has changed! Dad destroyed our family. Life will never be the same again. Every holiday—Thanksgiving, Christmas—will be divided between parents. I’ve got plenty of friends from split-up families.” He paused. “Look, Dad’s . . . tomcatting . . . isn’t as important as your cancer. You’ve got to find out the results of the surgery. I don’t know when you’re planning to come home, but you can’t ignore this.”

“You’re right. I can’t.”

“I’ll come down to Stoney Ridge. I’ll tell my professors that my exams are just going to have to wait.”