Last Seen Alive (19 page)

“I haven’t told a soul,” Chyna assured her solemnly, “except for Uncle Rex, and he won’t tell.”

“I know. I made him take an oaf.”

“Oath,”
Beverly corrected while Chyna’s mind spun back to the oath she’d taken with Zoey. “And I’d rather you kids stay on the terrace.”

“But we’re
sick
of the dumb terrace!” Kate had sounded loudly petulant. Immediately seeing her mother’s expression hardening into a definite
no,
though, Kate changed her tone. “Mommy,
please.
We won’t get in trouble; I promise. We’ll stay right beside Uncle Rex, I swear, double swear, three times swear….”

Kate shot Beverly her sweetest, most pitifully beseeching expression, and Chyna knew Bev was a goner.

“Okay, you can go on the walk,” Beverly relented. “But don’t go too far, and keep your promise to stay with Uncle Rex. No running off and hiding. After all, you don’t want him to get mad if he has to look all over the place for you. Maybe it would be best if you and Ben held hands with Rex. And I want you back in twenty minutes.”

“Me and Ian don’t have watches.”

“Ian and I,” Beverly corrected again. “Uncle Rex does. Tell him I said twenty minutes. Well, twenty minutes to half an hour. No playing hide-and-seek. And don’t take off your coat.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. You might run and get hot and … just don’t take off your coat. And did I say not to run off and hide?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mommy, about seventeen times.” Kate had become very loose with numbers lately, trying to show how many she knew. “We’ll be good as gold, like Grandma used to say.”

Good as gold, Chyna thought. Yes, her mother had used the phrase so frequently it had gotten on Chyna’s nerves. Now she wished she could hear Vivian say it just one more time.

“Okay,” Bev said reluctantly, managing a weak smile. “Have a good time, Katie.”

Kate walked sedately out the door and shut it quietly behind her before they heard her yell, “She said we can go, Uncle Rex! Let’s find that lost girl!”

For a moment, Beverly looked stricken. Then she almost whispered, “We’ve been so careful not to mention Deirdre around the children.”

“You mean, you talked about Deirdre when you
thought
the children weren’t around,” Chyna returned. “If I remember correctly, eavesdropping on adults is one of the major joys of childhood. I certainly did it constantly.”

Beverly sighed. “I guess I did, too. I think when you become a parent you forget all the forbidden things you pulled

off when you were a kid, in the hope your children won’t do the same.” Her gaze drifted to the door that Kate had just closed. “Hope for your children. Most parents have so much. Hope that they’ll be happy. Hope that they’ll be well.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Hope that nothing bad will happen to them.”

Chyna was determined not to let Bev drift back to the topic of kidnapping. “Speaking of bad, do you know who doctored Kate’s candy with ipecac?” Chyna asked quickly.

“We’re pretty certain it was Mr. Perkins down the street. He’s in his eighties and mean as a snake since his wife died. Several other children got sick, too. He’s also conveniently out of town today. Yesterday he told everyone he was leaving early this morning to visit his daughter in Florida. I guess he couldn’t resist staying last night to do one final bad deed before he left. He’s moving to Miami around Christmas to be near his daughter and seems pretty happy about it.”

“I wonder if
she
is,” Chyna said drily, earning her a smile from Beverly. “Whether or not she is, at least he won’t be around to cause trouble here next Halloween.” Chyna reached out and touched Beverly’s hand. “We should be grateful for small favors.”

“Do not use some hackneyed phrase to get me to stop worrying about Deirdre!” Beverly lashed out so unexpectedly that Chyna drew back. “I resent it and it won’t work anyway.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Maybe you’re
not
the psychic after all, Chyna. Maybe
I’m
the psychic, because I
know
something awful has happened to that girl!”

Thirty minutes later, when Rex returned with the children, Chyna suggested they go to McDonald’s for lunch, mainly to divert Beverly’s thoughts from Deirdre Mayhew and lower her anxiety level a couple of rungs. Sitting here talking about the missing girl was doing nothing to help either of their moods.

The children were delighted, especially when Chyna suggested they take Michelle, pick up the food at the drive-through window, then eat at the little picnic shelter about a block away from the restaurant. Rex begged off, claiming he needed a nap after his long night (he hadn’t returned until around three in the morning), so the children and Michelle loaded noisily into the car for a lunchtime treat while Chyna and Bev tried to act as if there were nothing in the world they’d rather do than go to McDonald’s.

After a brief squabble over lunch selections at the drive-through speaker, punctuated by a few barks from Michelle, they collected their bags of food and ten minutes later drove into the small picnic area across the street from the library. Chyna remembered how as a teenager she’d often made up excuses for library work that would take her most of the day just so she could come here, buy a hot dog and soft drink from the vendor in residence May through September, eat in the park, and enjoy the view.

The library, with its colonial lines and surrounding wrought-iron fence, looked beautiful, like something that belonged in the restored town of Williamsburg, Virginia. The big clock on the courthouse kept perfect time and the chimes always sounded loud, in perfect tune, and, somehow, haunting. The sun shone on a fountain erected in the town square in the early 1900s, and sometimes an ancient character named Billy Newhouse played folk songs on his guitar for donations. In spite of the chill in the air, Billy was singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” today, and the children were delighted.

Chyna and Beverly unpacked the food, including a serving of Chicken McNuggets for Michelle, and sat down at one of the picnic tables. The little ones dived into the fast food as if they’d never eaten in their lives. “Hard to tell Kate was vomiting her head off last night,” Beverly mumbled. “Kids are so much more resilient than we are.”

“Thank goodness,” Chyna said. “Otherwise, they’d never make it to adulthood.”

The temperature couldn’t have been more than forty de-

grees, but at least the sun was out. Beverly seemed to lose some of her nervousness as she sipped a Coke and watched the children eating voraciously and feeding bits of food to Michelle. But all Chyna could think about was Deirdre May-hew. Was her father sitting in the cafe, paralyzed with fright that he might lose his daughter after just losing his wife? Even though Chyna had only seen him once in years and hadn’t even talked to him yesterday when she and Scott were in L’Etoile, she had felt an aura of helplessness about him. He was the type who expected the worst and usually got it, she thought. Unlike Scott, whose tenacity would never allow him to stop fighting, Ben would give up easily, not because he wanted to but because he simply lacked faith.

“I shouldn’t have ordered this fudge sundae,” Beverly said, jerking Chyna’s thoughts from Ben Mayhew. “I need to lose a couple of pounds. Or more like six or seven.”

“You look fine,” Chyna answered.

“You would say that if I were twenty pounds overweight.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Chyna looked into Beverly’s pretty brown eyes. “Honestly, I wouldn’t. If you needed to lose weight, I’d try to be tactful—”

“Not call me a tank or a whale?”

“How about a
baby
whale?”

They both burst into laughter when Ian, who’d suddenly appeared by his mother’s side, demanded, “Where’s the baby whale?”

“Right here if your mommy doesn’t stop eating fudge sundaes,” Bev answered.

“But I like baby whales,” Ian protested.

“Well, your daddy doesn’t. At least he doesn’t want to be married to one.”

Ian frowned and looked at his mother in complete puzzlement. “Is Daddy gonna marry a baby whale?”

“I’d like to be at
that
ceremony.”

Chyna and Beverly turned around to see Rusty Burtram from Burtram and Hodges Funeral Home behind them. He wore jeans, a tan parka, and running shoes. His gray-kissed light brown hair partly covered his forehead rather than

being slicked back as it was at the funeral home. Chyna thought that in casual clothes and away from that atmosphere, he looked at least five years younger.

“Mommy says Daddy’s gonna marry a baby whale,” Ian informed Rusty in injured tones, “but I don’t think it’s true ’cause Daddy doesn’t know any baby whales.”

Rusty frowned ferociously at the sky, then looked back at Ian and said solemnly, “You know, I don’t think I know any, either.”

By this time Kate had stopped stuffing her mouth long enough to address Rusty. “Don’t listen to Ian,” she said with-eringly. “He’s just a baby and not very smart.”

“Am
too
smart!” Ian burst out, throwing a French fry at his sister.

Beverly adopted her severe look. “All right, you two, that’s enough. Both of you leave the table and play with Michelle. Don’t get carried away and start yelling. Don’t go into the street. Don’t let the dog go into the street, either. And no bickering!”

Kate threw her mother a harassed, melancholy look and mumbled,
“Okay.”
She left the table, pulling Ian along behind her as she repeated to her little brother every instruction Beverly had just given.

“Looks like they’re a handful,” Rusty laughed.

“Just between you and me, there are days I think I’ll cry if I have to listen to one more demand or quarrel,” Beverly told him. “Then when they’re visiting my grandparents in Iowa for a week each year, I’m so lonely I can hardly stand it.”

Rusty smiled. “I think most parents feel that way. At least that’s what I’m told. Being a lifelong bachelor—”

“I know several nice women I could fix you up with,” Beverly pounced.

Both Rusty and Chyna turned red, knowing Beverly was a relentless matchmaker and they were each single. Rusty was the first to regain his composure. “I’ve always thought love hits by coincidence. You can’t arrange it or plan for it. It just happens.”

“Me, too,” Chyna said hastily. “I feel exactly the same way.”

Beverly looked at each of them, amusement in her eyes. “You two are hopeless. I’ll bet neither one of you weds and gets to enjoy married life and darling children—”

At that moment, Kate screamed. Everyone jumped up; then she yelled, “Ian pulled my
hair!”

“Ian Greer, you stop that!” Beverly stalked toward the children. “If you two can’t play nicely together…”

Rusty looked at Chyna and raised an eyebrow. “See what we’re missing?”

“My heart is breaking.”

Rusty laughed and again Chyna was struck by how time and plastic surgery had improved his looks. He was still no heartbreaker, not like Scott Kendrick, she thought. Nevertheless …

“I’m sure you’ve heard about Deirdre Mayhew,” Rusty was saying.

Chyna pulled her thoughts away from Scott. “Yes. I’m hoping for the best, but even my brother Ned is out searching for her.”

“You probably think I’m a jerk because I haven’t joined the search party,” Rusty said. “She hasn’t been missing all that long, though, and she is eighteen, not a kid.”

“I wasn’t thinking you’re a jerk. No one considers that she might have voluntarily run away.” Chyna sighed. “But if she hasn’t turned up and her father hasn’t heard from her by this time tomorrow, then I’d say there’s a reason to worry.”

“I agree. And I will be helping search for her if that’s the case, but God willing, it isn’t.” Lines formed between his eyebrows and his gaze took on a faraway look. “For now, though, I have a million errands to run. We have a funeral scheduled for the afternoon, but Dad insisted on handling it, just like he did Nancy’s.”

“Oh yes, Nancy Tierney,” Chyna said, realizing her voice suddenly sounded a bit shaky. No wonder, she thought. She’d been sure the dead girl was saying, “Star light, star

bright, first star I see tonight.” Chyna had been terrified and she was certain Rusty had seen the terror in her expression, but he’d been kind enough not to say anything. “Did her funeral go well?” Chyna asked lamely.

“Well, there were no gaffes,” Rusty said easily. “The minister said nice things, although I don’t think Nancy had been to church since she Was a little girl. Her mother cried like the dickens, but she didn’t faint. We were all worried about that. She usually faints, or pretends to faint, when she gets upset. And best of all, none of the pallbearers dropped the casket. When that happens, it’s always a disaster. Crashing sounds, mashed flowers, gasping from the mourners, sometimes a scream. Last year old man Simpkins—he must be around ninety and frail as a stick—insisted on being a pallbearer for one of his friends. He took two steps holding that heavy coffin, fell down, and yelled, ’Hell’s fire, Arthur always did weigh a ton!’”

Chyna burst into laughter. “How did the guests react?”

“Most of them tried to stifle giggles. Some laughed outright. A few were appalled and said Mr. Simpkins should never have been
asked
to carry the coffin, as if we would do such a thing. Dad didn’t take it well, to say the least.”

“No, I guess he wouldn’t. He’s also not pleased that my mother is being cremated instead of having a traditional funeral.”

“He told me.” Rusty looked at her with kindness in his gray eyes. “But that’s not his decision. It’s your family’s.”

“No, it was Mom’s. I didn’t know about it. Frankly, I never thought about it. I believed she would just always be around. Isn’t that silly?”

“No. Who wants to dwell on death? I certainly don’t, but I can’t escape it because I’ll inherit Burtram and Hodges since Hodges is dead and left no heirs.”

Chyna ventured gently, “You don’t like your job, do you, Rusty?”

He lowered his gaze, paused, and clenched a fist. “I hate it,” he said with quiet venom. “I absolutely hate it.”

“Then leave.”

Rusty’s gaze shot to hers. “Leave? Just like that?”