The Test (24 page)

“Ashley?” Frank preempted.

“No, we haven't heard a thing. I finally had to give Rory a sedative. Something she hates, but with the kids—That's why I'm calling. Meredith decided to pick up Elise tonight. We expected her by now.”

Frank's shoulders sagged. He'd craved a night alone with Meredith. Just the two of them, no Elise. “I'll call her on her cell,” he said. “If she's tied up, I'll run over and get Elise if that's what Meredith wants.”

“I've tried her cell,” Chan said. “No answer. I left a message.”

It was then that Frank heard the chime of the door bell, followed by a loud, rapid pounding at the front door. For crying out loud, what was going on out there? Why would Meredith use the front door? And why would she be trying to knock the door down?

“Got to go, Chan, I think she's home now.”

Before heading down the step, Frank glanced out the window. He drew in a sharp breath. A state police car, red and blue lights flashing. Had to be news about Ashley.

“Senator, sir,” stammered the rosy-cheeked, strapping state trooper, “Will you come with me, sir? There's been an accident, sir. I've been ordered to take you immediately—I mean as soon as you're dressed, sir. I'm to take you to Jefferson Hospital emergency room.”

Jefferson was where Ashley was doing her residency. “What kind of accident?”

“I don't have all the details, sir. Just that they need you there. I can wait right here while you—” Blushing, he gestured toward Frank, where the towel wrap was starting to unravel.

Frank turned toward the stairs. Should he go with this polite young man? Was there any security risk? After what happened today, nothing could be taken for granted. But this trooper was clearly not a terrorist. He hastily ran his hand though the rack of slacks. What to wear? A stupid issue after a day like today, but an issue a politician is programmed to consider. He snatched up a pair of dark gray slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. The loafers he grabbed were mismatched, one brown, one black.

The officer was clearly nervous as he shifted from foot to foot as Frank came back down the stairs.

“Car's ready,” he said, already halfway through the door.

“Front or back?” Frank asked, blinking at the flickering red and blue lights against the night sky.

“Uh, sit up front, sir,” he said with a glance to the back seat manacle restraints. As the trooper navigated the property's long drive, Frank took out his cell phone to try Meredith again. She'd be concerned, finding an empty house, lights on, wet towel.

“Can you tell me about Ashley's condition?” Frank asked as soon as the cruiser had made it to Route 611, heading toward Street Road and I-95 into the city.

“Sir?”

“My sister, Ashley Parnell?”

“Sir, this is not about your sister. The accident victim is your wife, sir. Mrs. Meredith Parnell. So sorry, sir.”

Frank stopped breathing. How could he? There was no air in the cruiser. Grasping the dash with both hands, trying to steady himself, he finally spoke, “Is my wife—” He couldn't say the word.

“We'll be at the hospital in fifteen minutes,” the trooper said, swerving to pass the vehicles signaled to the shoulder by the siren and flashing lights. “Light traffic tonight, we'll be there right away.”

Frank was numb with panic, but not numb enough to realize that an evasive answer portended the worst. His twelve years of Catholic education, mostly neglected now, came back in a flash and he began to recite the Hail Mary nonstop.

Conrad turned on every light, the Parnell estate a beacon to guide Ashley home. In a circular motion, he paced the first floor. Foyer, living room, library, dining room, den, kitchen, conservatory. Around and around at a steady pace. The red-hot anger that had kept him up all night was now an icy fear.

He went over the facts. Ashley had lied to him. Having given her word, she had gone into Manhattan with Meredith. She'd attended the press conference and the foundation board meeting. According to Terry, the only Parnell who returned his calls, she hadn't made a peep during the meeting, and had left within minutes of adjournment. The next thing anyone knew was that she had dinner at Le Bernardin with Schiller. The old man admitted it, adding that he and Ashley were to meet with lawyers in the morning. The law firm was located in the World Trade Center, North Tower, Tower One. The first to be hit, the second to collapse. Schiller had been running late, Ashley early.

For the fifth time that day, Conrad called Schiller at the Parnell apartment in Manhattan. Each time Schiller picked up himself. Each time the conversation went, “Carl, you must know something. With all the Parnell connections. I've been trying to get the senator, but I can't get through to him.”

“The country's in a national emergency. We've got investigators in Manhattan looking for Ashley. Meredith herself is leading the effort to find her, and that woman does not take no for an answer,” Carl Schiller had answered.

How well Welton knew that. “We have to find her. She must be hurt or lost or suffering from posttraumatic shock. She's never been on her own before, now to be thrown into this mayhem. She just won't know what to do. Tell me, what can I do? There must be something.”

“I'll stay here in the city until we find her,” Carl promised, but Welton could hear the defeat in his tone.

“I'll join you as soon as they open the tunnels,” Welton said.

“Suit yourself.”

Welton said to himself,
How fucking ironic that terrorists attack Manhattan at that very moment that Ashley is heading to see lawyers, just three days before they were to be married
.

Heading to see lawyers
. Welton had been explicit with Ashley: no prenuptial agreement. That she was seeing a lawyer behind his back convinced him that Ashley had relapsed. Relapsed just at the crucial point. Welton knew that Ashley was alive. There was no doubt in his mind, and he would find her. He would get her back to the Esdaile state, a difficult hypnotic depth to manage, but not for someone with his skills.

By ten o'clock, Welton's knees throbbed and he settled into Paul's deep leather chair in the library. He picked up the remote, awaiting anything new on the TV, trying to piece together what he'd learned about the location of the law firm where Ashley was to meet, relating its location to the worst of the damage reported in the North Tower before it collapsed. Massaging his temples to ward off a tension headache, he wrestled with facts. Crissy, now Ashley. What if Ashley had
not
escaped?

Welton had gone to Cincinnati to put an ugly plan into effect. Next week, he and Ashley were to be married. In January, just four months away, he'd have the Parnell money.

Conrad Welton was a successful, respected psychiatrist with a distinguished medical background, but in truth, he was a madman. And he had waited a long time to find a solution to the obsessive hatred he held for his brother, the equally distinguished Dr. Stanley Welton, a Cincinnati plastic surgeon. Welton held a searing grudge against his brother, who he believed had alienated him from his parents, causing his father to turn on him and his mother to abandon him. What Welton was planning, in his insanity, was first to see that Stanley's two sons met a tragic death. Then he would make it seem as if Stanley's wife, the mother of the two boys, had committed suicide. Next, Welton planned to buy out Stanley's partners in his company, Surgi-Center, so that he could bring about an avalanche of lawsuits: malpractice, negligence, sexual harassment,
misappropriation of funds. Welton would settle for nothing less than total humiliation. Then, at the moment of his choosing, Welton would watch Stanley take his last muffled breath, just as he had their father.

But he needed money and for that he needed Ashley alive.

At eleven Welton was about to click off Philadelphia's channel ten and turn to Fox News when a photo of Meredith Parnell filled the screen. “Our hearts go out to the Parnell family, especially Senator Parnell who spent this tragic day consoling the families of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania,” intoned the news reporter.

Frantically, Welton clicked around various channels, but the news was dominated by the day's devastation and speculation as to what evil forces had perpetrated the atrocities. At the computer he immediately found the sketchy facts. Meredith Parnell had died in a fatal car accident on I-95 near Woodhaven Road when her chauffeur-driven limousine struck the rear of a tractor trailer that had swerved to avoid an out-of-control Jeep. The impact of the crash threw her across the passenger compartment, breaking her neck on impact. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Jefferson Memorial Hospital. The driver of her vehicle was treated for minor injuries and the driver of the truck was unharmed.

“Aha!” Welton smiled for the first time that day. Ashley had always said that Meredith was the brains behind Frank Parnell.

Ashley sat with her new friend, Julie, in Aunt Bea's kitchen. Both were too numb to eat, but with Aunt Bea's clucking and hovering they'd forced down a little baked chicken. They'd showered off layers of soot, and Ashley had put to use the package of L'Oreal sable brown dye she picked up during her march out of Lower Manhattan. Now her cinnamon hair was darker and chopped from shoulder length to just below her chin. Both women sat wrapped in fluffy bathrobes, unable to shake the chill despite the cozy room temperature and the comfort food.

“Two mothers to be,” Aunt Bea kept repeating, urging them to finish the twelve-ounce glass of milk she'd poured for each. Aunt Bea had known that Julie was expecting, and she accepted Ashley's pregnancy without judgment, never asking why she did not have her own place to go.

“Aunt Bea, I've checked with everyone. Craig's mother—anybody I could think of who works with him. I know Craig's dead, Aunt Bea. His office was—”

“Julie, my dear. There are a lot of people missing. Just wait.”

“But the baby. What am I going to do?”

“Oh, Julie, dear.” Aunt Bea hugged Julie, comforting her, promising her she could have her house, making Julie promise that she and the baby live with her. “And of course, Ruthie, my dear, you can stay here with your baby, too.”

Aunt Bea's generosity stunned Ashley. How willingly she'd squeeze two mothers and two babies into her tiny two-bedroom home. She'd never met such a big-hearted person before. Aunt Bea, a spinster, short and plump, with white hair permed into curls, welcomed Ashley into her home, no questions asked. It was clear that Aunt Bea had two passions, feeding people and nonstop, daytime television. Her eyesight was
failing and her hearing had deteriorated, so she kept the volume on loud and sat directly in front of the set. In the aftermath of September eleven, she couldn't get enough news. Over and over, she played the flames raging out of the towers, the people jumping, the soot-covered survivors. As these images kept pouring out, Ashley remembered the sound as that car had exploded so very close to her. That was how Crissy, Conrad's wife, had died.

And it was through Aunt Bea's TV that Ashley learned of Meredith's death. Shaken, she'd absorbed the news silently, agonizing as to whether to attend the funeral. Maybe by disguising herself? But the services were to be private. The location not even disclosed. Meredith had been Jewish, so she'd have to be buried, Ashley couldn't remember the exact requirement, something about before sundown of the following day. With what had been happening to the country, naturally, Frank would opt for something quiet.

Facing the finality of Meredith's death, Ashley felt her own resolve turn steadfast. She would do all in her power to protect her child. When her father's inheritance was settled, she could confront Conrad. He'd so easily dominated her before, and she couldn't risk losing control to him again. This time it could mean her life and that of her baby.

With the television still blaring in the background, Ashley gently massaged her abdomen, thinking of Frank and Meredith. They had one of those symbiotic relationships, feeding off one another, supporting one another, seemingly communicating without words, always on the same wavelength. Meredith had been the perfect wife for Frank. And Ashley would never forget her sister-in-law's efforts to help Carla.

The day of Meredith's funeral, Ashley busied herself by helping around the house. She dusted Aunt Bea's furniture, vacuumed the rugs, and mopped the kitchen floor, chores that she was doing for the first time. That evening she announced she'd be leaving the next day. Aunt Bea tried to talk her out of it, but Ashley knew she couldn't stay. New Jersey was too close to Philadelphia, Conrad's epicenter. He would find her.

“You're sure you'll be all right, Ruthie?” Aunt Bea asked over and over as she kept stuffing food into a thermal bag. “You know that you can always come back here.”

“I know, Aunt Bea,” Ashley said. “Naturally, after talking to my aunt in Toronto, I think I should be with family. My uncle is a lawyer. I can do secretarial work, and my aunt can help out with the baby.”

A blatant lie, but Ashley felt no guilt. If this fib made Julie and Aunt Bea feel better, why not? Her life from now on would be nothing but lies.

“I understand. You just better send pictures of the baby.” Aunt Bea predicted that Ashley would have a boy and Julie, a girl. So she and her lady friends had shopped accordingly at a garage sale. As Ashley said her good-byes, the old lady pressed a bundle of tiny powder blue garments into her hands.

“Thank you.” Tears filled Ashley's eyes as she kissed Aunt Bea's downy face. “You'll never know how much I treasure your friendship.”

At the train station, Julie reached over and patted Ashley's abdomen. It was still flat whereas hers already had a small mound. “You know, Ruthie, you never did tell me who the father is. I didn't want to pry. You seem so—secretive. Do you want to tell me?”