I've Got You Under My Skin

95

Mark Garret, the camp director at Mountainside, stared incredulously at Toby Barber. “You mean you let Timmy Moran leave with a stranger last night?” he asked.

“His grandfather is dying. A policeman came for him,” Toby said defensively.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I did, sir. You didn’t answer your phone.”

With a sinking heart, Garret realized that Toby was right. He had taken off his jacket, and in the noise of the party could not have heard his cell phone ring.

I spoke to Leo Farley yesterday, he tried to reassure himself. He told me he was in the hospital.

But he also warned me that the person who killed Timmy’s father had threatened him and his mother. Suppose he was the one who picked up Timmy?

Desperately afraid, Garret picked up his phone. Leo Farley’s number was on his desk, ready to reach at any time in case a threat to Timmy materialized. He could only hope and pray that Leo Farley had indeed been in an emergency situation.

Farley answered on the first ring.

“Hello there, Mark,” he said. “How are you doing?”

Garret hesitated, then asked, “How are you feeling, Commissioner?”

“Oh, I’m okay now. In fact, I’m getting discharged this morning. I spoke to Timmy last night. He’s having a great time with you at the camp.”

There was nothing Mark Garret could do except blurt out, “Then you didn’t send a cop for him last night?”

It took seconds before Leo could absorb what he was hearing. His nightmare was happening. It could only be Blue Eyes who had taken Timmy.

“You mean despite all my warnings you let my grandson go away with a stranger? What did he look like?”

Garret asked Toby to describe the policeman.

In despair, Leo heard a description matching the one that elderly Margy Bless had given to the police five years ago of Greg’s murderer: below average height, kind of bulky-looking…

Leo asked, “Did he have blue eyes?”

“I asked Toby. He didn’t notice. He was very tired.”

“You fool!” he shouted as he broke the connection.

He ripped off the wires that were monitoring his heart. In his mind he could hear the words Blue Eyes had shouted to Timmy: “Tell your mother that she’s next. Then it’s your turn.”

Frantically he dialed Ed Penn’s phone. If he kept to his threat, Blue Eyes would kill Laurie first. He had to be heading for her now-and pray God, with Timmy still alive!

Robert Powell, haggard and worn but impeccably dressed in a shirt and tie and summer-weight jacket, quietly listened to the greeting from Alex. The graduates were stationed behind him.

“Mr. Powell, this is hardly the way I expected this program to end. Did you ever know or suspect that Jane Novak had murdered your wife?”

“Absolutely not,” Robert Powell said wearily. “I have always suspected that it was one of the graduates. I was not sure which one, and I wanted the answer. I wanted closure. I needed closure. I am not a well man; my days are numbered. I have just learned that in addition to my other medical problems, I have a fast-moving form of pancreatic cancer. Before too long, I will be joining my beloved Betsy in heaven or in hell.”

For an instant, there was silence.

“I am planning to leave five million dollars to each of the graduates. I know that, in different ways, Betsy and I have damaged each and every one of them.”

He turned to look at them, expecting expressions of gratitude.

Instead he stared at identical expressions of contempt and disgust.