“Read the book next time,” Dr. Quinn said, “or you’ll be penalized.”
Stevie could almost feel the ashen figure at her back.
April 20, 1936
FLORA ROBINSON AND LEONARD HOLMES NAIR STOOD ON THE stone patio outside the ballroom and Albert’s office. It had been a week since the phone rang and the world shattered. Albert had spent most of the week in his office with Mackenzie, manning the phones, waiting for news. Nothing had come since the night when he lowered a bag of money off Rock Point, and each day’s silence was more ominous.
No one was forcing them to stay, but the outside world was wild and dangerous and full of people who would want to question them, to pick every bit of meat off the bone of the story. So they wandered around the house, smoking and nibbling at the endless platters of sandwiches the kitchen produced for the crowds. Waiting for something to happen. Anything. The police were roaming the grounds, poking the hollows with sticks, putting in phone lines, shooing off the press and the curious.
This evening, they walked along the patio, watching the sun set against the mountains. Leo had grown tired of the silence.
“Iris asked me about the father,” he said, drawing his finger along the stone railing. He looked over to Flora, who took a long, anxious drag on her cigarette.
“Obviously, I had nothing to tell her,” he went on. “But I’ve been thinking, Flo, dear . . .”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It didn’t matter before,” Leo said. “But things . . . could develop.”
“Nothing is going to develop. They’ll be found. That’s it.”
Leonard let out a long sigh and snuffed out his cigarette under his shoe. He came close to his friend and sat on the rail.
“There will be a lot of talk about young Alice,” he said in a low voice. “It’s going to start soon. They’re getting tired of writing the same thing day after day. They’ll want more. Her photo is in every newspaper in the world. And people may note that she doesn’t look much like Albert or Iris.”
“Sometimes small children don’t look like their parents.”
“Then they’ll start asking why Iris went to Switzerland to give birth. . . .”
“To avoid the press, that was the story. . . .”
“And then some intrepid reporter will go to the clinic and start asking questions. No matter how well everyone there was paid—someone will want to sell a story.”
“There’s nothing wrong with adopting a child.”
“Of course there’s nothing wrong with adopting a child,” Leo said. “This isn’t about right and wrong. This is about a world that’s hungry for a story. She’s the most famous child in the world. And since you and I are in this mess together, perhaps you do want to share this one piece of information with me. This is to protect you, and Iris, and Alice. This isn’t the world’s business. I want to know in case there is someone out there who might also want to make a quick buck off this story. Tell me, because I only want this for you and for Alice. You know this about me. You know I keep everyone’s secrets.”
Two policemen walked close by, and the pair stopped speaking for a moment.
“It was always all right,” Flora said when they had passed, “because here, she would have the best home possible. She would be rich. She would be safe. She would have the best of everything. Albert will pay. Albert will pay and they’ll come home. They’ll . . .”
Something transfixed Flora’s attention below. Leo followed the line of vision. Below them, Robert Mackenzie and George Marsh were walking around the ornamental pond and in their direction. Now Leo saw it. The line of Alice’s jaw. Her blue eyes.
So like George Marsh’s.
“So he’s the one,” Leo said quietly. “How did I not see it before?”
“It didn’t last very long,” Flora replied. “A few weeks. You know how boring it can get up here when the weather turns.”
“Does he know?” Leo said.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “He hasn’t got a clue.”
“Good,” Leo replied. “At least he’s not likely to sell his story to anyone, but better he has no idea.”
“Alice will come home,” Flora said, mostly to herself. “She’ll come home safe and sound and they’ll take her back to New York, away from here, and nothing like this will ever happen again. She’s safe. I know she is. She has to be. I’d know if she wasn’t. I’d know.”
The sun dropped over the line of the horizon, and the mountain birds made their final circles across the sky for the day. Leo put his hand on Flora’s shoulder. He wanted to say that everything would be fine, but that would be a lie. Leo was many things, but a liar was not among them.
“We’ll have a cup of tea,” he said, hooking his arm through hers. “Maybe something stronger. Let’s go inside. It’s far too crowded out here.”
8
WHEN STEVIE RETURNED TO MINERVA, THERE WERE BAGS IN THE COMMON room, including the one she had gotten in Burlington.
“And you’re sure you’re okay with the staircase to get to the bathroom?” Pix was saying. “I want to make sure everything is accessible.”
“It’s no problem,” a voice replied. “I can do stairs. Thanks.”
There was a single arm crutch leaning against the hallway wall. A moment later, Hunter emerged from the room that was once Ellie’s, the one next to Stevie’s.
Hunter bore little resemblance to his aunt except for his blue eyes. There was something sunny about him, maybe the light sandiness of his hair, or his smatter of freckles. When he saw Stevie he smiled, taking up his crutch in his left arm and coming into the common room.
“Hey,” Stevie said.
“I didn’t see this coming,” he said. “Moving in. Surprise?”
“Your room is next to mine,” she said. It was a simple fact, but it sounded weird saying it out loud. “Do you need help? Setting up or unpacking or . . . ?”
“Sure.”
She followed him back into the room, number three, at the end of the hall by the turreted bathroom. The room was no longer filled with peacock feathers, colorful clothes and tapestries, paints and colored pencils, art books and cabaret costumes. The bits of French poetry that had been illicitly painted on the walls were still in evidence; the maintenance crew had yet to repaint. One thing Stevie clearly remembered about Ellie’s room—she threw her underwear on the floor, proudly. Dirty panties. She could toss them around as easily as a dude threw his boxers on the floor. Where they had been, there were now shopping bags, the new sheets still with the folds from the package.
“I heard you got me some of this stuff,” he said.
“Well, the school did. I picked it out.”
Hunter picked up the heavy puffer coat Stevie had purchased for him and slipped it on.
“Thanks,” he said. “This is a serious coat. We don’t have coats like this in Florida. I feel like I’m wearing a mattress. In a good way.”
He examined his arms in the coat, then looked around at his scattered belongings. There were not many to speak of. It’s easy to pack when everything you have goes up in flames.