Nighttime Is My Time

36

They had agreed to meet at seven o'clock in the dining room. At the last minute Jean decided to change into dark blue slacks and a light blue sweater with a floppy wide collar that she had bought at an Escada sale. All day she had been unable to shake off the chill of the cemetery. Even the jacket and slacks she had been wearing seemed to retain the cold and dampness she had felt there.

Ridiculous, of course, she told herself as she touched up her makeup and brushed her hair. While standing in front of the bathroom mirror, she paused for a moment, holding the brush and staring at it. Who had been so close to Lily that he or she had managed to take her brush from her home or handbag, she wondered.

Or was it possible that Lily managed to trace me and is punishing me for giving her up? Jean asked herself, agonized by the thought. She's nineteen and a half now. What kind of life has she led? Have the people who adopted her been the wonderful couple Dr. Connors described to me, or did they turn out to be bad parents once they had the baby?

But instinct immediately told Jean that Lily wasn't playing games to torment her. This is someone else, someone who wants to hurt me. Ask for money, she pleaded silently. I'll give you money, but don't hurt her.

She looked back into the mirror and studied her reflection. Several times she had been told that she resembled the Today show host Katie Couric, and she felt flattered at the comparison. Does Lily look like me? she wondered. Or is she more like Reed? Those strands of hair are so blond, and he used to joke that his mother said his hair was the color of winter wheat. That means she has his hair. Reed's eyes were blue and so are mine, so she certainly has blue eyes.

This line of speculation was familiar territory. Shaking her head, Jean laid the brush on the counter, turned off the bathroom light, reached for her purse, and went down to meet the others for dinner.

Gordon Amory, Robby Brent, and Jack Emerson were already at the table in the nearly empty dining room. As they stood up to greet her, she was aware of the marked contrast in the way they looked and dressed. Amory was wearing a cashmere open-necked shirt and expensive tweed jacket. He looked every inch the successful executive. Robby Brent had changed from the cableknit sweater he had worn to the brunch. To Jean, the turtleneck shirt he was wearing now emphasized his short neck and squat body. A hint of perspiration on his forehead and cheeks gave him a glistening appearance that she found offputting. Jack Emerson's corduroy jacket was well cut, but cheapened by the red-and-white-checked shirt and bright multicolored tie he wore. The thought went through her mind that with his fleshy florid face, Jack Emerson embodied the old anti-Nixon political ad with the slogan "Would you buy a used car from this man?"

Jack pulled out the empty chair beside his own and patted her arm as she stepped around it. In a reflex action, Jean stiffened and pulled her arm away from him.

"We've ordered drinks, Jeannie," Emerson told her. "I took a chance and ordered a chardonnay for you."

"That's fine. Are you guys early, or am I late?"

"We're a bit early. You're exactly on time, and Carter isn't here yet."

Twenty minutes later, as they were debating whether or not to order, Carter arrived. "Sorry to keep you waiting, but I didn't expect another reunion quite this soon," he observed dryly as he joined them. He was now wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.

"None of us did," Gordon Amory said in agreement. "Why don't you order a drink, and then I suggest we get down to the reason we're here now."

Carter nodded. He caught the waiter's eye and pointed to the martini Emerson was drinking. "Continue," he said to Gordon, his tone dry.

"Let me start by saying that after some consideration, I believe and hope that our concern for Laura may be unnecessary. I remember hearing that a few years ago she accepted an invitation to visit some big bucks guy, who shall be nameless, at his Palm Beach estate, and she reportedly left in the middle of a dinner party to go away with him on his private plane. That time, as far as anyone could gather, she didn't even bother to bring her own toothbrush, never mind her cosmetics."

"I don't think anyone returned to Stonecroft in a private plane," Robby Brent observed. "In fact, I think from the looks of some of them, they probably backpacked to get here."

"Come on, Robby," Jack Emerson protested. "A lot of our graduates have done mighty well. That's why quite a few of them have bought property around here for an eventual second home."

"Let's skip the sales pitch for tonight, Jack," Gordon said irritably. "Listen, you have big bucks, and you're the only one, as far as we know, who has a house in town and could have invited Laura to join you for your own quiet reunion."

Jack Emerson's already florid face darkened. "I hope that's supposed to be funny, Gordon."

"I don't want to displace Robby as our comedian in residence."

Gordon said as he helped himself to an olive from the dish the waiter had placed on the table. "Of course I was joking about you and Laura, but not about the sales pitch."

Jean decided it was time to try to redirect the conversation. "I left a message for Mark on his cell phone/' she said. "He called me back just before I came downstairs. If we haven't heard from Laura by tomorrow, he's going to rearrange his schedule and come back."

"He always had a thing for Laura when we were kids," Robby observed. "I wouldn't be surprised if he still does. He made it a point to sit next to her on the dais last night. He even changed place cards to make it happen."

So that's why he's rushing back, Jean thought, realizing she had read too much into his phone call. "Jeannie," he had said, "I want to believe that Laura is okay, but if anything has happened to her, it could mean that there is a terrible pattern to the loss of the girls at your lunch table. You've got to realize that."

And I assumed he was worrying about me, she thought. I was even thinking of telling him about Lily. Since he's a psychiatrist, I thought maybe he'd have some insight into what kind of person is contacting me about her.

It was a relief when the waiter, a slight, elderly man, began passing out menus. "May I tell you our specials for this evening?" he asked.

Robby looked up at the waiter with a hopeful smile. "Can't wait," he murmured.

"Filet mignon with mushrooms, filet of sole stuffed with crab-meat…"

When he had finished the recitation, Robby asked, "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course, sir."

"Is it a habit of this establishment to make last night's leftovers today's specials?"

"Oh, sir, I assure you," the waiter began, his voice flustered and apologetic, "I've been here forty years, and we're very proud of our cuisine."

"Never mind, never mind. Just a little humor to lighten the table talk. Jean, you first."

"The caesar salad and rack of lamb, medium-rare," Jean said quietly. Robby isn't just sarcastic, she thought; he's nasty and cruel. He likes to hurt people who can't strike back, people like Miss Bender, the math teacher at the dinner last night, and now this poor guy. He talks about Mark having a crush on Laura. But no one had a bigger crush on her than he did.

Suddenly, a disquieting thought occurred to her. Robby's made a lot of money now. He's famous. If he invited Laura to meet him somewhere, she would go, I know she would. Jean was aghast to realize that she was seriously considering the fact that Robby might have lured Laura away and then harmed her.

Jack Emerson was the last to order. As he handed the menu back to the waiter, he said, "I promised some friends that I'd drop in for a nightcap, so I think it would be a good idea to start discussing who we think Laura might have paid a lot of attention to over the weekend." He shot a glance at Gordon. "Besides you, of course, Gordie. You were at the top of her A-list."

Dear God, Jean thought, they'll all be at each other's throats if this keeps up. She turned to Carter Stewart. "Carter, why don't we start with you. Any suggestions?"

"I saw her talking a lot to Joel Nieman, better known as the Romeo who forgot half his lines in the school play. His wife was here only for the cocktail party and dinner Friday night, then went home. She's an executive with Target and was flying to Hong Kong Saturday morning."

"Don't they live somewhere around here, Jack?" Gordon asked.

"They live in Rye."

"That's not that far away."

"I was talking to Joel and his wife at the party Friday night/' Jean said. "He doesn't look at all like the kind of guy who would ask Laura to go home with him the minute his wife is out of town."

"He may not look like it, but I happen to know he's had a couple of girlfriends," Emerson said. "Also that he was damn near indicted for some shady deals his accounting firm was involved in. That's why we passed on making him an honoree."

"How about our missing honoree, Mark Fleischman?" Robby Brent asked. "He may be, as his introduction at the dinner quoted, 'tall, lanky, cheerful, funny, and wise,' but he also was hanging around Laura every minute he could. He broke his neck rushing to sit next to her on the bus to West Point."

Jack Emerson finished his martini and signaled the waiter for a refill. Then he raised his eyebrows. "Just occurred to me. Mark would have a place to invite Laura. I know for a fact that his father's out of town. I met Cliff Fleischman in the post office last week and asked him if he was coming to see his son honored. He told me he had longstanding plans to visit some friends in Chicago but that he'd give Mark a call. Maybe he offered him the house. Cliff won't be back till Tuesday."

"Then I think Mr. Fleischman must have changed his mind," Jean said. "Mark told me that he'd passed his old house and there were a lot of lights on. He didn't say anything about hearing from his father."

"Cliff Fleischman leaves a bunch of lights on whenever he's away," Emerson replied. "His house was burglarized when he was on vacation about ten years ago. He blamed it on the fact that it was so dark. He said it was a dead giveaway that there was no one home."

Gordon broke off a bread stick. "I got the feeling Mark was estranged from his father."

"He is, and I know why," Emerson said. "After Mark's mother died, his father gave up the housekeeper, and she came to work for us for a while. She was a real gossip and gave us the lowdown on the Fleischmans. Everybody knew that Dennis, the older son, was the apple of his mother's eye. She never got over losing him, and blamed Mark for the accident. The car was at the top of that long driveway, and Mark was always pestering Dennis to teach him to drive. Mark was only thirteen and wasn't allowed to start the car unless Dennis was with him. That afternoon he'd started it and then forgotten to put on the parking brake before he left the car. When the car started to roll down the hill, Dennis never saw it coming."

"How did she find out?" Jean asked.

"According to the housekeeper, one night shortly before she died, something happened and she turned completely against Mark. He didn't even come to her funeral. She cut him out of her will, too; she had big bucks from her mother's family. Mark was in medical school at that time."

"But he was only thirteen years old at the time of the accident," Jean said in protest.

"And always jealous of his brother," Carter Stewart said quietly. "You can bet that. But maybe he has been in touch with the father, and maybe he still has a key to the house, and maybe he knew the father was away."

Did Mark lie about having to go back to Boston? Jean wondered. He went out of his way to stop at the table in the bar when I was with Alice and Sam to tell us about walking past his father's house. Could he still be right here in town with Laura?

I don't want to believe that, she acknowledged to herself, as Gordon Amory volunteered, "We're all assuming that Laura went with someone. It's also possible she went to someone. We're not that far from Greenwich and Bedford and Westport, where a lot of her celebrity friends have homes."

Jack Emerson had brought a list of the people who attended the reunion. In the end, they decided that each of them would take names to call, explain why they were concerned, and ask for their thoughts as to where Laura might have gone.

When they left the dining room, after promising to be in touch in the morning, Carter Stewart and Jack Emerson headed for their cars. In the lobby, Jean told Gordon Amory and Robby Brent that she was going to stop at the desk.

"Then I'll say good night," Gordon told her. "I still have some phone calls to make."

"It's Sunday night, Gordie,' Robby Brent said. "What could be so important it can't wait till morning?"

Gordon Amory stared at Robby's deceptively innocent face. "As you know, I prefer to be addressed as 'Gordon,'" he said quietly. "Good night, Jean."

"He is so full of himself," Robby said as he watched Gordon walk across the lobby and press the button for the elevator. "I bet he goes up and turns on the television. Tonight's the opening of a new series on one of his channels. Or maybe he just wants to look in the mirror at his pretty new face. Honest to God, Jeannie, that plastic surgeon must be a genius. Remember what a dorky-looking kid Gordie used to be?"

I don't care why he's going up to his room, Jean thought. I just want to check to see if by any chance Laura has phoned and then go up to bed myself. "More power to Gordon that he was able to turn his life around. He had a pretty nasty time growing up."

"Like all of us," Robby said dismissively. "Except of course, for our missing beauty queen." He shrugged. "I'm going to grab a jacket and go out for a while. I'm a health nut and except for a couple of walks, I haven't had any exercise all weekend. The gym in this place is the pits."

"Is there anything about this town or this hotel or the people you've been meeting that isn't the pits in your opinion?" Jean asked, not caring if her voice sounded sharp.

"Very little," Robby said cheerfully, "except for you, of course, Jeannie. I was sorry to see that you looked kind of upset when we talked about Mark hanging around Laura this weekend. For the record, I could see that Mark was playing up to you, too. He's a hard guy to figure out, but then most psychiatrists are more nuts than their patients. If Mark did release the brake on the car that killed his brother, I wonder if consciously or unconsciously it was deliberate. After all, it was his brother's new car, a gift from Mommy and Daddy for graduation from Stonecroft. Think about that."

With a wink and a wave of his hand he was on his way to the bank of elevators. Furious and humiliated that he had so correctly diagnosed her reaction to the comments about Mark and Laura, Jean walked over to the desk. The clerk on duty was Amy Sachs, a small soft-voiced woman with short graying hair and oversized glasses that hung loosely over the bridge of her nose.

"No, we definitely have not heard from Ms. Wilcox," she told Jean. "But a fax came in for you, Dr. Sheridan." She turned and reached for an envelope on the shelf behind the desk.

Jean felt her mouth go dry. As she told herself that she should wait and read the contents upstairs, she ripped open the envelope.

The message it contained consisted of eight words: lilies that FESTER SMELL FAR WORSE THAN WEEDS.

Lilies that fester, Jean thought. Dead lilies. "Is anything wrong, Dr. Sheridan?" the mousy clerk asked anxiously. "I hope that isn't bad news."

"What? Oh… no… it's quite all right, thank you." In a daze, Jean made her way upstairs, went to her room, opened her purse, and ransacked her wallet for Sam Deegan's cell phone number. His terse, "Sam Deegan" made her realize that it was nearly ten o'clock and that he might have been asleep. "Sam, I probably woke you up-"

"No, you didn't," he interrupted. "What is it, Jean? Did you hear from Laura?"

"No, it's Lily. Another fax."

"Read it to me."

Her voice trembling, she read the eight words to him. "Sam, that's a quote from a Shakespeare sonnet. He's referring to dead lilies. Sam, whoever sent this is threatening to kill my child." Jean heard the rising hysteria in her voice as she cried, "What can I do to stop him? What can I do?"