Betrayed by Trust (11 page)

“We weren’t arguing, Gran.” Dan hugged me to his side with an arm around my shoulders. I could tell from the way I eased under his touch that I’d been standing there rigid as a poker.

I forced a smile. “I’m sorry we woke you. Dan wasn’t happy that I woke him up this early. He’s not used to it anymore, now that he’s out of the Army.”

He looked askance at me. Then I caught Gran’s skeptical expression. She wasn’t buying my explanation.

I felt like a kid caught in a fib. “We weren’t arguing, really. We just weren’t seeing eye-to-eye.”

“About what?” she asked. “It must be something important if you’re talking about it in the wee hours of the morning.”

Dan let his hand slide away and cocked an eyebrow at me, clearly interested in how I was going to persuade his Gran to leave her home before dawn.

“I …” I had no idea what to say, and covered my confusion by sitting at the kitchen table. Dan sat next to me, but didn’t offer any help. I took a deep breath; blew it out. My mind agreed with Dan. Why was I so anxious? It wasn’t as if the house was on fire. But a ferocious urgency still drove me. I couldn’t ignore it, but I tried to speak calmly. “I think something bad is going to happen. We need to leave here as soon as possible.”

Gran nodded. “That’s the pregnancy talking, dear.”

I’d expected her to say something like this. It was a reasonable assumption to make, but it was still wrong. “This isn’t hormones. I’m not delusional.”

She raised her hand to stop my protest. “The warning is real, but it’s more forceful because you’re pregnant. Do you have any specifics?”

I shook my head, too surprised to speak.

“We have time to eat breakfast, then, and maybe even wait to find out what and where the problem is before we have to go.”

The stunned expression on Dan’s face was almost comical. “Gran?”

“Where do you think you got your sharp instincts, Danny?” She turned the sputtering bacon with a fork. “I’ve had premonitions all my life. Kept them to myself mostly. They’re not as strong now as they were when I was younger. I think it’s because I don’t have babies to protect anymore. I knew when you were hurt over there in Vietnam. And I knew that suddenly you were better.”

Dan gaped at his grandmother.

Gran turned her attention to me. “Your momma didn’t tell you any of this?”

“No.”

“Well, sometimes the sight skips a generation.” She looked at Dan. “It’s stronger in the women than in the men. The men, if it shows up in them at all, just think they’re smarter than everyone else, or have better instincts.” She poured a splash of milk into the bowl of broken eggs, and started beating them with a fork.

“Does everyone else in the family know about this?” Dan asked.

“I haven’t gone into much detail about it with anyone except your momma. Your aunts and uncles and cousins all know I have my hunches, and sometimes they ask my advice because I “guess right” so often. I told everything to Alice because my little girl had the sight, too—though it didn’t save her and your daddy from that drunk driver. Sometimes the warnings don’t come in time, or they’re too vague.”

Gran turned her back on us for a moment, fussing with the bacon. I thought she might be blinking back tears. Dan’s hand fisted on the table. He looked like he wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t move. Maybe he knew from experience that she’d rather deal with her sorrow on her own.

A minute later, she continued. “I haven’t seen any sign of the sight in your sister, or I’d have told her. None of your cousins seem to have it either. Maybe it’s dying out in our family.” Gran looked a little sad, but then she brightened. “But maybe not. When the sight is there, as it is in you, like calls to like. That’s how you and Marianne found each other, I expect.” She smiled. “And now you’re bringing a new little Collier into the world. Maybe you’ll have a girl, and she’ll have the gift.”

I was glad she was still facing the stove, because I couldn’t have met her eyes. My baby might be born with the Collier name, but he wouldn’t have the Collier blood.

Gran speared bacon out of the pan to drain on a paper towel, pulled an old coffee can from the fridge and poured in the bacon drippings. It was something I’d seen my mother do a thousand times. I felt warm and cozy in this kitchen, happy to be a part of Dan’s family. I tried to ignore the guilty nag in the back of my mind that accused me of bringing a cuckoo’s egg to the nest.

Gran put four slices of bread into the toaster. “Now, about this premonition of yours,” she said as she poured the eggs into the sizzling pan. “I don’t doubt you’re experiencing something, but it might not be as urgent as it seems. Pregnancy changes everything, honey. Your whole body is out of whack. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, though. After we’ve eaten, I’ll call Sheriff James and find out what’s going on. Then we can figure out what to do about it.”

Maybe she was right. I’d never had a feeling this strong before. Maybe being pregnant was making mole hill intuitions into mountains.

I tried to relax. Clearly I wasn’t going to hurry her, and I was sure Dan wouldn’t leave without her. For that matter, I didn’t want to leave her behind either. My stomach rumbled. And as much as I wanted to hurry us all out the door, I wanted to eat, too. I was beginning to understand that my body’s demands shouldn’t be ignored. Not eating when I was hungry had bad consequences.

“Okay.” I stood slowly and made sure I was steady, then started gathering plates and silverware to set the table.

Thirty minutes later, my stomach was full but we were no closer to leaving. Dan had volunteered us to wash and dry the breakfast dishes to keep me busy. Gran called the sheriff’s office, but at five in the morning, Sheriff James wasn’t in, and the graveyard shift had no news of anything significant happening anywhere in Dauphin County.

“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “They just haven’t got the report yet. We should go.”

Dan chewed a corner of his mouth. “That could be true. But you said yourself that just knowing something might happen can change it.”

My heart sank. I thought he’d believed me, especially now that he knew his Gran had these feelings too.

“My feelings may not do me any good,” I agreed. “But when I get them, they always mean something. Or at least they do when I
pay attention to them
.”

Dan didn’t flinch. “Okay, but I can’t see running when we don’t know where the danger is. We could be running into the middle of the problem instead of away from it.”

“How about a game of gin rummy?” Gran asked, as Dan dried and put away the last of the plates. “You can win back that five dollars you owe me.”

Maybe Gran was right, and the pregnancy was making me overreact, but I couldn’t play cards. Not now. Not when my instincts were yelling at me to get the hell out of Dodge. I looked at Dan, hoping he would throw his persuasion in with mine, but he shrugged and told his grandmother, “Deal.”

I went up to our room to lie down, trying to ignore the anxiety that was twisting in my gut.

I
t was nearly nine in the morning when I woke up. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep. Worry still crawled under my skin, but I felt better for having a few more hours of rest. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I shuffled downstairs to the kitchen.

Everything looked so normal and domestic, I felt as if I didn’t belong. Dan and his Gran were still playing cards, and Toto’s “Hold the Line” was just wrapping up on the radio.

I could feel Dan’s gaze on me as I helped myself to a glass of milk. I avoided looking at him. I didn’t want to see the doubt in his eyes.

“Feeling better?” He sounded concerned.

I started to answer, “The same,” when Gran reached across the table and turned up the volume on the radio, drowning me out.

“… at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. A utility spokesman says there is a problem with a feedwater pump. Emergency personnel are monitoring the situation, but at this time there is no danger to the public.”

A chill speared my spine. I shivered, and put my hand over my belly.

Gran turned down the radio again. “There, you see? That’s probably what your premonition was about,” she said. “And there’s no danger.”

I shook my head. I didn’t care what the guy on the radio said. I was leaving, and I was taking Dan and his grandmother with me. “They’re wrong. There
is
danger. Whatever is happening isn’t under control yet.”

Dan stood and went to the phone, his expression focused and determined. “I’ll call Greg. He can get the others moving.”

My mouth dropped open. “You believe me?”

“I know spin when I hear it. And when it comes to you and the baby, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

It wasn’t exactly an endorsement, but I’d take it. “Thanks.”

“I’ll get my bag,” Gran said, stiffly getting to her feet.

“You’re already packed?”

“I didn’t doubt you, dear. I just didn’t want to go off half-cocked, not knowing where the problem was. Now we know.”

I kissed her on the cheek. “You stay here. I’ll get your bag.”

When I came back down with Gran’s things, Dan was frowning. His knuckles were white from his grip on the handset. “You shouldn’t wait until he gets home. Call him at work, Paulette.” He listened, then said, “What about your kids?” He held the receiver away from his ear.

I could hear an irate female voice from across the room, though I couldn’t make out the words. I didn’t need to. She was clearly not happy.

Dan’s voice took on a soothing tone. “Of course you’re a good mother. I don’t doubt that for a second.” Paulette must have calmed down a little, because Dan didn’t flinch at whatever she said next. Then he hung up, and dialed another number.

I went back upstairs for our luggage. The steps were narrow, so it took me three trips, carrying one bag at a time. By the time I had everything lined up in the living room it was a little after nine, and Dan had made all his calls. His expression was grim. “They’re not leaving.”

“Why not?”

“You name it. The kids are in school. Greg is on deadline. Steve just started a new job and can’t get time off. Bob can’t leave without telling all his people to go, and they have a shipment to get out. And, of course, the radio said there’s no danger.”

I sat down. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t ask Dan to leave his family behind.

“Take me over to Sissy and Bob’s,” Gran said. “They’re just up in Middletown. It’s a little farther away from
TMI
, and I can keep working on Sissy. She trusts my hunches more than the others. If I can get her to go, the others will fall in line.”

Dan frowned, but before he could say anything, I put my hand over Gran’s and said, “I’d rather you came with us.”

She sandwiched my hand between hers. “Danny found a good one when he found you, dear. Thank you, but I still have chicks to look after, even if it’s more like herding cats.”

A few minutes later we were on the road, Gran riding shotgun because she knew the way. As we turned north onto
PA
441, she pointed past Dan, who was driving, at the cooling towers rising from the sandbar in the middle of the river. “Look. There’s no steam coming from number two.”

I didn’t have to ask if that was unusual. Traffic going past the power plant in both directions had slowed, as drivers rubber-necked to see what might be going on across the water. A police car followed by an ambulance sped by going south, but they didn’t take the causeway to the island. Then we were past the plant and traffic picked up again. Twenty minutes later we pulled up in front of Aunt Sissy’s gray and white clapboard house northeast of Middletown.

Sissy welcomed us with cookies and hot cocoa, and her Golden Retriever, Jasper, greeted us with licks and nose nudges. I twisted Mark’s
MIA
bracelet, fidgeting in my need to get going.

Dan murmured near my ear, “We’ll just stay a few minutes. Maybe we can change Sissy’s mind.”

His words reassured me, and I shivered as his warm breath on my neck reminded me of last night’s lovemaking, when I still felt safe and secure.

I nodded. I didn’t want to delay for even a moment, but I also didn’t want to be seen as a troublemaker, the new spouse who couldn’t get along with the family, who wasn’t polite enough to accept a moment of hospitality. “Maybe we can use her phone,” I murmured back. “We need to change our flight out.”

The four of us, plus Jasper, sat in the formal parlor. Sissy took down a pet gate to let us in. I didn’t think anyone had been in the room since the Eisenhower administration except to dust.

I tried to sit quietly as my mother had taught me to when visiting older relatives, but after ten minutes of polite chit-chat between Gran and Sissy and Dan about everything but the elephant in the room, I was a wreck. Why was Dan dawdling? Why wasn’t Gran telling Sissy she had to go?

Jasper came over to me and put his head in my lap. I couldn’t not smile at him, and the feel of his silky ears under my fingers soothed my nerves a little. He looked at the little plate beside my cup, which still had half a peanut butter cookie on it, licked his lips, and rolled his big brown eyes at me. I had to laugh.

“Is this what you want?” I said, picking up the cookie.

“What do you say, Jasper?” Sissy asked.

Jasper made a peculiar sound deep in his throat that was half whine, half growl.

“That’s the way he says, ‘please,’” Sissy said.

“Well, since you ask so nicely,” I said, and gave him the cookie.

Jasper took it with great delicacy and munched it happily. Then, with my plate empty, he lay down at my feet with a sigh.

Sissy continued her detailed account of organizing the local flower show. I finished the last of my cocoa, and stopped the nervous wiggling of my foot for the fourth time. When Sissy finally took a breath, I jumped into the conversation. “Didn’t you want to make a call, sweetheart?”

“Sure.” Dan stood up with an abruptness that told me he’d just been waiting for an opening.

Sissy waved him off to the kitchen phone, and Dan left the room. A long fifteen minutes later, he returned. “I got us on a flight to O’Hare. We can surprise your folks.”

“That’s great,” I said, but Dan’s expression told me there was another shoe getting ready to drop. “What?”

“It’s not until seven thirty.”

I shot to my feet. “That’s eight hours from now!” The room tilted abruptly, then Dan was by my side, guiding me back down into my chair. “I’m really getting tired of that,” I grumbled.

“Don’t worry,” Sissy said. “The dizziness usually goes away after a few months.”

“Or maybe it’s just that when we start getting bigger we can’t stand up very fast.” Gran added.

“That’s something to look forward to,” Dan’s said.

The room steadied again. “What, me getting bigger?”

Dan chuckled. “I think the correct answer is: there will just be more of you to love.”

Gran laughed. “I always said you were a quick study. Anyone for gin rummy?”

“No,” I said, getting up more carefully this time. “No cards. We’re not waiting to fly out. We’re leaving now. We’ll drive to Philadelphia. Fly out from there.”

The humor faded from Dan’s face.

“Trust me on this. The emergency isn’t under control. Whatever is happening over there at
TMI
, it could still go either way, and I’m not waiting around to find out if my baby is going to be irradiated. If it all goes to hell, we’re too close here.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Sissy asked. “The man on the radio said—”

“I don’t care what the moron on the radio said! I’m not going to put my head in the sand and expose myself and my baby to God knows what levels of radiation!”

Gran raised her brows at my outburst, and Sissy looked shocked. I didn’t give a rat’s ass anymore. Dan put a warm, steadying hand on my back.

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said in a slightly calmer tone. “But this really isn’t open for debate.” I looked at Dan, hoping I wouldn’t see flat refusal there, but he was looking at his grandmother.

“Sissy,” Gran said, “Marianne gets hunches, like I do.”

Aunt Sissy’s eyes widened. “Oh—”

The doorbell rang, and I jumped. Dan took my hand in his warm one, while his aunt and Jasper went to see who was at the door. I squeezed Dan’s fingers as they curled around mine. His touch soothed my nerves, and, for that moment, I felt as though nothing bad could happen as long as he held my hand. I smiled at him sheepishly, embarrassed at pitching a fit. His wink told me he understood. A few moments later Sissy came back, followed by Jasper and a man in a dark suit. He carried himself like Dan did, in a way I’d come to recognize as former military.

“This man says he’s here to take you somewhere,” Sissy said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Collier?” the man asked.

Dan stepped in front of me, his posture alert and ready. “Yes?”

“I’m Thornton, from the Harrisburg office. I have a car waiting. Mr. Kincaid contacted us. He thought you might need some assistance evacuating the area.”

I glanced from Thornton to Dan. Dan’s expression was a neutral mask. “That was very thoughtful of him,” he said.

“Oh dear,” Sissy said. Her gaze met Gran’s, then skittered from Dan, to Thornton, then back to Gran. “Evacuating? This sounds serious. Maybe I should call Bob.”

“Maybe you should,” Gran said. “And Greg and Steve, while you’re at it.”

“I’ll get our bags.” Dan led Thornton back to the front hall.

When Dan returned, Gran said, “You must be pretty important for your boss to send a car for you.”

“Not me, it’s Marianne. She keeps the place running.” Dan smiled so convincingly, I almost believed him.

He hugged his gran, then his aunt Sissy. “I’m sorry our visit was cut short. Next time we’ll stay longer.”

I felt a surge of anxiety when he said that, though I could see no reason for it. Then it was my turn to kiss Gran and Sissy goodbye. “Are you sure you won’t come with us?” I asked Gran.

“No, dear. I’ll stay and help Sissy herd the family out of the area.” Then Gran speared me with a sharp look. “Don’t you worry about us. You take care of each other and your baby. No matter what.”

I wondered if she’d had one of her premonitions, but now wasn’t the time to ask. “We will.”

When Dan and I finally made our way outside, Thornton opened the rear door of the big black Cadillac for us. I wanted to ask how Kincaid had known where to send the car, but there was something in Dan’s expression that made me decide to hold my questions until later.