The China Doll (9 page)

"Where have you been?" Richard asked
angrily.

Jessie looked him up and down. "I could ask
you the same thing, buddy."

"I was at work," Richard said, and Miranda
noticed that he clenched his fist. He never did things like that,
no matter how angry Jessie made him. "Where were you?"

"I was at a friend’s," Jessie said as she put
down her jacket.

"Call next time, Jess." Jessie looked at
Zainab, and she knew that Emily had spoken to her.

"Yeah, sorry—I hope you weren’t up worrying."
Then she looked at Richard. "But maybe that’s no big deal, since I
think she was probably up anyway."

"Jessie, stay out of this," Richard said
angrily.

"Fine, Richard. Then stop acting like I’m
fourteen!"

"Jess," Miranda said gently. "We were just
worried."

"We?" Jessie scoffed angrily. "Who the Hell
are ‘we?’ Zainab was worried. You were out with the Evil Emperor,
and Richard was working—as usual. Zainab was worried, only I bet
she wasn’t actually because she’s the only one with any sense
here."

Zainab put her hand on Jessie’s arm. "Jess,
I’m sure you had a long night. Why don’t you go upstairs and take a
nap, okay?"

Jessie opened her mouth, then rolled her eyes
and shrugged. "Good idea," she mumbled as she ran up the
stairs.

"Zainab—"

"Richard, please!" Zainab said so sharply
that Miranda jumped. "We’re not her parents, and even if we were,
she’s right—she isn’t a little kid."

"She was out all night—"

"And so were you," Zainab said quietly. "I’m
just going to be happy that you both came home safely. So why don’t
you take a nap also, and Miranda and I will bring something back
for you, okay?" Before he could say anything, she kissed him on the
cheek and walked out the door. Miranda looked at him, then did the
same. Once out with Zainab, she knew without asking that it was
better not to ask.

Miranda contemplated the weekend that Monday
morning as she stood in line at the café near work to grab her
coffee. She was already in a better mood. She hummed to herself
again, but this time remembered to order before being told to.

She knew she should go back to work
immediately, but she couldn’t resist grabbing an open seat by the
window. She hummed to herself, aware of how silly she must seem to
everyone else who was reading the paper there. But she was happy,
wrapped in a familiar refuge, and she didn’t care.

She started softly singing the few words she
knew to the song, then stopped.
Ruby My Dear
. Something was
wrong. She waited until the end of the song. She held her breath.
She was imagining this because no one ever played that song except
her.

Then she heard the strident, confident piano.
There it was.
Eronel
. She froze. Her palms started to sweat
even as her coffee got cold. She waited. They were both Monk. It
wasn’t inexplicable that it would be those two songs. In that
order.

She gasped when the next song came on.
Good Morning, Heartache
. She trembled. Exactly the same
version. Her hands shook so much she spilled her coffee. She ran
out of the shop, her heart racing. She plunged into her bag until
she found her iPod. She scrolled through the song list. The same
songs, in the same order. She wasn’t going crazy.

~~~

Miranda walked past Emily without a word and
rushed into Richard’s office. "I have to ask you something," she
whispered.

Richard stood up. Miranda was as white as a
sheet. "What’s wrong?"

"I need to know…" she started to say, but
then his phone rang. He picked it up and read the name on the
caller ID.

"Just a second. It’s Zainab." He picked up.
"Hi, sweetheart. What?" His eyes widened. "Oh my God, are you sure?
Okay—I’ll be right over." He slammed the phone down and grabbed his
jacket. "Miranda, I’m sorry. I have to go."

Miranda gratefully forgot what she wanted to
talk to him about. "What’s wrong?"

"Just stay here, please. You and Emily hold
down the fort, alright?" Then he ran out.

Emily ran into Richard’s office a minute
later and found Miranda standing there. "What’s going on?"

"I don’t know," Miranda said softly.
"Whatever it was, he was pretty spooked." She scoffed. "I guess
there’s a little bit of that going around today."

~~~

Richard got to his house in fifteen minutes,
breaking at least three traffic laws in the process. He found
Zainab and Jessie sitting on the couch. Zainab was rubbing Jessie’s
back.

"Oh, thank God you’re both okay!" he said. He
knelt down and hugged the both of them. Zainab squeezed him back,
but Jessie pushed him away.

"God, would you two just knock it off?"

Richard tried to smile, but he couldn’t do
it. "Do you still have it?" he asked Zainab. She nodded, then got
the folded up note off the table. She handed it to him.

His face burned as he read it. "The same God
damned thing," he muttered to himself. It was a simple typed note,
but it was just like the last one.

The lyrics to
All Through the
Night
.

Zainab walked over to Richard. "It was
addressed to her?" he asked. Zainab nodded again and handed him the
envelope. He turned it over. Just Jessie’s name and address. Not
even a stamp. "This close," Richard said. "He got this close."

"I think we should go to the police," Zainab
said.

Richard shook his head. "Why? What did they
do the last time?"

"What are you going to do?" Zainab whispered
in alarm.

"I’m getting the security guards back,"
Richard whispered back. "It isn’t safe for her here without
them."

"Hi, I am here," Jessie said loudly. "And you
are not locking me up in a tower again."

"Jessie, this isn’t a joke," Zainab said.
"Someone’s stalking you, and the last time…"

"The last time I almost slipped into the
abyss," Jessie said through gritted teeth, "but I didn’t."

"I’m getting the guards, and we’re taking you
to your therapist. Now." Richard held up his hand. "This is not a
discussion." Jessie sighed but didn’t complain. Both Richard and
Zainab knew that meant that she was more spooked than she let
on.

Richard called the security company, and
Zainab called the doctor. "Doctor Wolfe’s office," a female voice
said.

"Hi," Zainab said pleasantly. "I’d like to
make an appointment for Jessie Bartolome. Today. It’s urgent." She
looked at Jessie, who didn’t say anything but nodded. "Great—thank
you." She hung up. "Come on, he can see you in an hour."

Zainab and Jessie were in the doctor’s empty
waiting room forty-five minutes later. Ten minutes after that, the
office door opened. Zainab held her breath just a little bit.
Doctor Andreas Wolfe’s face was very angular and pulled tight. She
stopped herself from smiling as she surmised that he was vain
enough to have had work done.

"Thank you for agreeing to this visit on such
short notice," Zainab said as she shook his hand. "We had a little
incident today, and we all thought it would be best if she could
speak to you immediately."

"Of course," he said with a slight accent
Zainab couldn’t quite place. And she was pretty good with accents.
"Jessie, why don’t you come in and talk?" Jessie got up obediently
and the doctor smiled. He turned to Zainab. "Why don’t we give you
a call when the session’s over? This might take a little
while."

Zainab patted her bag. "That’s alright. I
brought some reading."

"Really," the doctor said gently but
insistently. "There’s a café right across the street, and there are
a bunch of shops you can browse. We’ll call."

Zainab found herself nodding. "Of course."
She turned to Jessie. "You’ll call me, okay?"

"Zainab, just get out of here, okay?" Jessie
said irritably. Zainab smiled. Jessie would be fine.

When she got downstairs and walked to the
coffee shop, Zainab was still trying to place Doctor Wolfe’s
accent. Swiss was the best she could come up with, but it still
seemed wrong.

"Are you going to tell me what that was about
yesterday?" Emily demanded when Richard walked in on Tuesday
morning.

"When are you going to accept that sometimes
secrets can be a good thing?"

"As soon as you show me a secret that doesn’t
blow up in someone’s face."

"You’re only asking me because Zainab
wouldn’t tell you anything, and Miranda doesn’t know anything."

"You know if I really wanted to find out I
could."

"Which is why I’m grateful that you actually
use more discretion than you generally let on." He turned on his
computer. "You’re still here, I see."

"Yes."

"Something else I can not tell you?"

"I have an errand to run at
ten-forty-five."

"Ten-forty-five exactly?" Emily nodded.
"Doctor’s appointment?"

"Office hours."

Richard raised his eyebrow. "I suppose it
wouldn’t be fair to ask what it’s about?"

"No it wouldn’t," Emily agreed. "But since
I’m so wonderful, I’m going to tell you. Just not right now."

~~~

Bobby had been in his office for exactly six
minutes when the door swung open and then slammed shut. He sat
back. "Hello, Emily. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"How’s Jess?" She clutched a small manila
folder to her chest.

"Why are you asking me? Don’t you two
talk?"

"Shockingly, she’s been a little bit hard to
track down since I saw you two on Saturday night…"

"You mean since you arranged to bump into
us?" He asked evenly.

"Have it your way. But no, Jess hasn’t been
easy to reach. My friend Zainab, however, was. I guess Jessie
didn’t come home on Saturday night. How about that?"

Bobby blinked as he sat up. "Why don’t you
get to your point?"

"What do you think my point is, Bob?"

"I think you’re about to blackmail me with
some kind of revelation to Joanna."

"I wouldn’t embarrass Jess like that."

"Then what are you here for?"

"To find out who you really are." She put the
folder on the desk. He looked at it but didn’t say anything. "You
know what’s in here? Copies of ten sources listing Hippodameia as
Pelops’ wife."

Bobby didn’t flinch. "Emily, forgive me. My
specialty was American Renaissance authors. Ask me about Hawthorne,
Emerson, Thoreau, Melville and I bet you’ll find that I know quite
a few things that you don’t, as shocking as that might seem."

"There’s a lot I don’t know, I just don’t go
to Wikipedia when I want to find out about it. Especially if it
might end up in a class lecture."

"It didn’t though, did it? It was just
between me and Jess."

"Oh, you’ve got me there." Emily leaned onto
the desk. "And you know what? I called Oberlin yesterday morning.
But you knew that already, right? And wouldn’t you know, they
confirmed that someone named Robert Lester graduated three years
ago. Now guess what? They couldn’t tell me one thing about your
area of study, or your teachers, or even what year you entered. Go
figure—I guess I thought that was strange."

"Security’s gotten pretty stringent in the
last few years."

She nodded. "I thought someone might say
that. And that’s a good explanation. So I looked up some resumes
online and found a couple of people who went to Oberlin. And I had
someone in my office call back and ask for details about them. For
a job. Which was the same reason I used to call about you. And you
know what? I even got phone numbers so I could reach their
department heads. Isn’t that funny?"

Bobby shrugged. "You probably just got a
really officious person when you called asking about me."

Emily winked. "And I thought about that too.
So I got another resume. And another person to call. And another
person answered. Same thing."

Bobby stood up. Emily craned her head up but
didn’t move. "I don’t think that proves anything."

She pushed herself away from the desk. "You
know, I think you’re right. That in and of itself doesn’t prove
anything. I gave you, Bobby Lester, the benefit of the doubt. So I
searched online. Bobby Lester. Bob Lester. Robert Lester. And
Oberlin. And English. Nothing. Whatsoever."

Bobby leaned forward now. Emily didn’t move.
"You’d be surprised how many people aren’t listed on the great
information superhighway. It’s a big wide web, but an even bigger
world. So many people are still off the grid."

Emily smiled. "Yeah, but you know what is
really funny about those search engines? Quotes can make all the
difference. See, when I searched for Bobby Lester, I had quotes so
it was looking for one name. Same thing with Bob Lester. But then,
silly me, I forgot to do that when I searched for Robert Lester.
And you know what happens when you don’t use quotes? A lot of
search engines put in an ‘AND’. So I didn’t just get listings for
Robert Lester, I also got listings that had 'Robert' and 'Lester',
on the same page. Anywhere. The same sentence, or different
paragraphs." She leaned forward again. "Or in different names,
right next to each other."

Bobby narrowed his eyes. Emily could see why
Mitch thought he was older. "Yes, that’s pretty interesting."

"I’m afraid I lied," she said, still smiling.
"There were just too many references to lug around. That’s not what
I brought."

"So what did you bring?"

"Well, I got some names, but on the web, you
get only so much. If you want more, you have to do it the old
fashioned way and hit the library for their archives. So I took
those names, and that’s just what I did."

"What’s in the folder?" he hissed.

"Here you go." Emily opened it. There was a
picture from the early Eighties of a newly married couple. Bobby
blinked. "That," she said, pointing to the smiling, blonde bride,
"is Theresa Elizabeth Lester. And that," she pointed to the husky
man with dark red hair, "is Joseph Teague. Excuse me, Joseph Robert
Teague." She turned the folder around so she could examine it
again. She turned her head to look back at him. "I’m no expert, but
I think I see a little bit of a resemblance. Same chin as Theresa
Lester. Same eyes as Joseph Teague. Or should I just call them
Terry and Joe? But you called them Mom and Dad, didn’t you?"