Disguised Blessing (24 page)

“
S
O WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO HIT THE PANIC BUT
ton?” Phyllis asked. “Seems to me it better be pretty soon.”

Catherine leaned forward to wave to the guard at the gate and saw that it was someone new. “You might as well stop. The new ones take their job seriously.”

Phyllis dutifully identified herself and waited for the guard to check the list of approved visitors. “What is he doing in there? Didn’t he see the grocery bags in the back seat? For all he knows we could have ice cream melting back there.”

“Goodness!” Catherine exclaimed. “I had no idea you were operating with such a short fuse today.”

“You know how I feel about all this business. Who are you people trying to keep out of here, anyway?”

“Girl Scouts. You should see them. Every year they storm the gates to try to sell us their cookies.”

Phyllis laughed. Finally the guard came back, but instead of simply opening the gate, he saluted first. “What nonsense.” Phyllis couldn’t resist adding, “You’d think he was letting us into a top secret military compound.”

“You won’t have to put up with it much longer,” Catherine said cheerfully. Her house had sold the first day it was officially on the market, at the asking price. Which, of course, convinced her that they’d priced it too low. She spent five minutes stewing over the possibility before calling her mother to celebrate. They’d gone to lunch at Cooking with Linda, Catherine’s favorite restaurant, the one place she allowed herself to indulge without a moment’s hesitation or guilt.

In the week and a half since then, Lynda had started school, Catherine had started her new job, and Rick had missed Brian’s first football game when he was called in for overtime.

“Have you at least decided where you’re going to look for a new house?”

“Lynda and I talked it over. She wants to stay in the area while she’s still in school and then doesn’t really care where I move when she starts college. I have a list of places the woman from the rental agency gave me. We’re meeting her when I get home from work tomorrow. There’s one in Johnson Ranch that looks promising, but I don’t know about the others.”

“Johnson Ranch is nice.”

Nice, certainly, but nowhere near what they were accustomed to. Catherine had never lived in a tract
house and didn’t know what to expect. The idea that she could walk into a neighbor’s house that was just like hers was a disconcerting novelty.

“More important,’’ she said, “it’s somewhere I can afford. And small enough that I can take care of it myself.”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t do this…the last thing I want to do is interfere…”

Catherine smiled. “What is it?”

“Do you need money? I have more than I’ll ever spend and I’d rather give it to you now than make you wait until I’m gone. I certainly don’t see any fun in that.”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t see how you could be. I know it’s none of my business, but—”

“By renting another house instead of buying one and investing the money I’m clearing on the sale of this place, I’ll be able to support myself and Lynda on the income from the interest and my job.”

“You’re handling this thing a lot better than I thought you would.” Phyllis pulled into the driveway and set the parking brake.

“I know. It’s a little surprising to me, too. I keep waiting for depression to set in. Instead I wake up every morning with this incredible sense of freedom. I love my new job and Lynda loves being back in school. I’m excited about the direction our lives are taking. For the first time ever I’m completely on my own. Life couldn’t be better.”

“Now all you need is a good man to keep you—”

“Don’t even start,” she warned. Phyllis had been
asking pointed questions and dropping decidedly unsubtle hints about Rick since the birthday party. “Whether you want to believe it or not, what I told you about Rick and me being friends is the way it is.”

“I understand why you’re moving slow. I thought about what you told me and I can’t say I blame you for thinking you’re a pretty poor judge of men. But you have to have figured out by now that Rick is nothing like Jack or Tom.”

“I don’t need a man in my life right now. I’m doing fine on my own.”

Phyllis was halfway out the door when she said, “That’s your problem, Catherine. You get need and want mixed up. You needed the other two to define and support who you thought you were. There was a time when you thought having a guard and a gate was a good thing, important enough that you let yourself get caught up in believing what a man could provide was somehow related to what he was inside.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say. You make me sound like—”
Like the woman she was.
Or at least the woman she had been.

Phyllis came around the car, carrying a bag of groceries in each hand. “Now I suppose you’re mad at me and I’m going to have to stick around until you get over it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because it took me this long to figure it-out. Not every insight comes riding in on a lightning bolt, you know.”

“Is that why you married Dad?” With Phyllis, insight was often based on experience. She took the groceries from her side of the back seat, joined her mother on the porch, and, instead of digging through her purse for her keys, rang the bell for Lynda to let them in.

“I think that was part of it. In the fifties, girls were raised to be homemakers. No one ever told me I could take care of myself, so it was important I chose someone who could do the job right. I don’t know whether I was smart or just lucky that I wound up with your father.”

Catherine looked at her mother, trying very hard to be serious when she said, “So, what you’re saying is that it’s all your fault that I can’t tell a good man from a bad one.”

Phyllis blinked in surprise. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

“Gotcha.” She rang the bell again. After several seconds, she tried the door and found it open. Puzzled, she glanced at Phyllis. “Could I have forgotten to lock it?”

“No, I distinctly remember you checking.”

A feeling of unease crawled up her spine. She moved into the foyer. “Lynda?” No answer.
“Lynda?”
she said louder. Still no answer.

“Maybe she’s out back,” Phyllis suggested.

Catherine went into the family room and saw Lynda’s backpack on the sofa. The magazines that had been stacked on the coffee table lay scattered across the floor. The portable phone was in the fireplace and the curtains had been torn from the kitchen
window. The coin of her fear flipped to terror.

“Lynda?”
she screamed.
“Lynda, where are you?”

Phyllis dropped the groceries. “I’ll check upstairs.”

Her heart in her throat, Catherine ran to the sliding glass door, flung it open, and crossed the deck. Lynda wasn’t in the backyard.

“She’s not up here,” Phyllis called as she hurried back down the stairs. She came into the family room and slowly looked around. “My God…What happened?”

Frantically, Catherine began searching the room. “Do you see her purse? She wouldn’t have left without her purse.”

She flung open the closet and checked it top to bottom. Phyllis looked behind pillows and under cushions. “Where could she have gone?” Phyllis asked. “And why?”

“Damn it.” Catherine hugged herself tight. “When I took the job, I promised her I would be here for her when she came home from school. I never should have gone shopping.”

“That’s crazy,” Phyllis said. “You can’t be with her every minute.”

Catherine whipped around when she saw a movement at the front door. For an instant, less than a heartbeat, she felt profound relief. And then she saw that it wasn’t Lynda, but Brian standing there. He looked pale and scared.

“Is she gone?” he asked.

His fear fueled Catherine’s. “What happened?”

“It’s Ray. He’s dead.”

The heat drained from her body. Her mind screamed a denial. Not Ray. He’d been through so much, fought so hard, had so much to give. “How?”

“His kidneys stopped working. The doctors tried everything but nothing worked. It was like he just gave up. At least that’s what his aunt told Lynda when she called to talk to Ray.”

Catherine’s knees gave out. She reached for the sofa and collapsed on the arm. “When did he die?”

“Yesterday. Lynda didn’t even know he was sick. I was going to tell her, but…I didn’t.” He caught his breath in a sob. “Everything was going so good for her at school I didn’t want to spoil it for her.” He held his hands out in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t know he would die.”

Phyllis reached for him and brought him into her arms. His sobs became tears. “I’m so sorry,” she crooned softly. “For all of you.”

Catherine could picture Lynda bubbling with excitement when she called to talk to Ray, full of news about school that she wanted to share, eager to find out how Ray was doing in his new school. How many times could Lynda come back from having her world shattered? Which time would be the one that stole her youth and turned her into an old woman at fifteen?

“We can’t just sit around here,” Catherine said. “How long has it been since you talked to Lynda?” she asked Brian.

He wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “Half
hour—maybe a little more. I thought she was going to be okay, and then she totally freaked when I told her that I knew Ray had been in the hospital for over a week. She kept asking me why I didn’t tell her, and nothing I said made any difference.”

“She couldn’t have gone far.” Catherine tried to put herself in Lynda’s place. Where would she go to cry? Someplace where she could be alone. “She’s probably headed for Folsom. The lake is only a mile from here by the back roads. I’ll drive down and see if I can intercept her.”

“What do you want me to do?” Brian asked.

“Take the horse trail in case she went that way.” As far as she knew, Lynda never went that way because the path wandered through the hills a long time before it dropped down to the lake. But there had been too many first times in that summer to discount another one. Since he would have to travel by foot, she asked, “Do you have your cell phone? I don’t want you wandering around out there if she’s already come home.”

“It’s in the car. I’ll take it with me.”

Phyllis started picking up magazines. “I’ll wait here in case she shows up before you get back.”

Catherine grabbed her keys and headed for the garage.

Seconds later she was back again. “Catch Brian,” she told Phyllis.

He came back inside. “The car’s gone,” she said, fighting to control a rising panic. “Lynda took the car. She doesn’t know how to drive.”

“Yes, she does,” he said softly, a stricken look on
his face. “I’ve been teaching her. We go out behind one of my dad’s warehouses. Actually, she’s pretty good for only—”

“Pretty
good?” Catherine glared at him, at last finding a target for her fear. She knew she wasn’t being fair but couldn’t stop herself. “What is that supposed to mean? Does she know how long it takes to stop a car going sixty-five miles an hour? Can she merge into traffic at that speed? Can she defend herself against the commuter lunatics who are on the road right now?”

Phyllis dropped the magazines on the table. “You’re not being fair. This isn’t Brian’s fault.”

Catherine needed her anger. It gave her something to hang on to. But not when it was aimed at Brian. He deserved her loyalty, not her rage. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Miller,” Brian said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have taught her how to drive, but I swear I didn’t know anything like this could happen.”

He was as terrified as she was. “Do you have any idea where she could have gone?”

He thought about it for a long time. “Anywhere.”

“I’m going to call Jack,” Catherine said. “She was going to spend the night there tomorrow.”

“I could try Wendy,” Brian offered.

“Yes, of course,” Catherine told him. “Thank you for thinking of it.”

“If she’s not at Wendy’s, maybe Wendy would have some ideas where to look,” he said.

“You can use Lynda’s phone upstairs. Her address book is in the nightstand.” She knew there
wasn’t a whisper of a chance that Lynda had gone to see Jack, but she had to do something.

She dialed her ex-husband’s number, waiting breathlessly while it rang. The housekeeper answered and informed Catherine that Jack wasn’t home, and no one had stopped by.

“What about Rick?” Phyllis asked when Catherine struck out with Jack.

“He’s at work. If she went there, he would make her call me the minute she walked in the door.” She didn’t know how she knew this, she just did.

“The police?” Phyllis offered tentatively.

Even the suggestion was more than Catherine could bear. If she called the police, she accepted the possibility Lynda might need them. She couldn’t lose her daughter. Not now. They’d walked through hell that summer and come out the other side. She couldn’t go back. Not again. Please, God, not again. “Not yet. Not until Brian comes down.”

The words no sooner left her lips than he appeared at the top of the stairs. In silent reply to her unasked question, he turned his head from side to side. Just once. It was enough.

R
ICK HEARD THE CAPTAIN’S PHONE RINGING AS SOON
as Steve shut off the engine. He climbed down and made a dash across the apparatus room and down the hall to his office.

He snatched the receiver from the cradle. “Captain Sawyer.” When no one answered, he assumed they’d hung up and was about to do the same when he heard Catherine’s voice.

“Rick? Thank God. I was afraid you were gone and I…”

The desperate note in her voice raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “What’s wrong, Catherine?
Talk to me.”

“It’s Lynda. She’s disappeared. She took my car and she can’t drive—at least not well enough to be on the roads with other cars. I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe she’d gone to see you. I knew you’d make her call if she had. But then I started thinking that you could have been out when she got there and if you didn’t answer the phone she could
be sitting in the parking lot waiting for you.” She paused to take a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not making sense. It’s just that I don’t know what else to do, who to call.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“I don’t know—at least not for sure. Maybe an hour.”

She could be anywhere in an hour, including a hospital emergency room. “Is anyone there with you?”

“My mother. Brian is out looking for her.”

“Why did she bolt? What happened?” He was hoping the answer would give a clue to where she’d gone.

“She called to talk to Ray and found out he died yesterday.”

“Jesus—I didn’t know.” He wasn’t as surprised as Lynda must have been, since he hadn’t been as hopeful that the worst was behind Ray. He’d seen unexpected complications take too many kids just when everyone thought they were in the clear. “Who have you called to help you look for Lynda?”

“No one yet. If she wasn’t with you, I was going to call the police.”

“Let me see what I can find out first.” If something had happened to Lynda, he didn’t want Catherine to hear about it over the phone. He grabbed a notepad and took down her license number and the year and make of the car. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

He hung up and immediately called the contacts he had in the Placer, El Dorado, and Sacramento
police departments, asking them to run Catherine’s license for any routine stops or accidents. He then called the fire departments and asked for the readouts on all emergency calls for the past two hours.

Fifteen minutes later he was back on the phone with Catherine. “Have you heard anything?”

“Only where she isn’t. Brian and Phyllis call every time they go somewhere and she’s not there.”

“There haven’t been any police reports and she’s not in any of the hospitals in the area,” he said. “Wherever Lynda went, she managed to get there without receiving a ticket or wrecking the car.”

Catherine sobbed in relief. “Thank you, Rick. I was so scared. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to Lynda again.”

“I told the people I contacted to get back to me if they heard something, but I don’t think they will. Wherever Lynda was going, she’s arrived by now. Once she calms down a little she’ll realize she has no business driving your car and she’ll figure out another way to get home.”

For the first time since discovering Lynda missing, Catherine felt as if the weight had been lifted from her chest and she could breathe normally. “I’ll call you the minute I hear something.”

“I’ll see what I can find out about Ray. Sometimes just knowing helps.”

She reached for a tissue to wipe the tears running down her cheeks. “I told him—I
promised
him, that he could come home with us.”

“Then he died knowing he was loved and wanted.”

“I should have found a way. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own problems that I put him to the back of my mind and—”

“Catherine, I’m going to hang up on you now. We can talk about this another time.’’

Why should he listen to her when she hardly made sense to herself? She said good-bye and went to sit on the corner of the sofa, her legs drawn up, her chin resting on her knees, the phone by her side.

A half hour later the doorbell rang.

It was Rick.

“I thought you could use some company,” he said, as if he’d done nothing more than walk across the street to get to her.

Speechless, she went into his arms, his metal badge and captain’s bugles cool against her warm skin. She knew if she tried to tell him how much his being there meant to her, she would start crying again. Instead, finally, she tilted her head back and said, “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.”

“You’re welcome.”

Brian didn’t know where to look next. He drove around aimlessly, rechecking places he’d already been. He was headed back to the coffee house in Gold River when it hit him with sun-up certainty where Lynda had gone. As sure as he’d been that he wouldn’t find her at Wendy’s or with any of her other friends, he knew he would find her now. He didn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of it first.

Lynda loved driving through the foothills, especially in the evening when they would roll down the
windows and let the hot summer wind blow through the car. Just when the heat was at its worst, they’d hit a pocket of cool, moist air from the lake or the river and it would be like a promise that the heat of summer would end.

When they stopped, it was always in the same place. Out on a point where they could watch the city lights start to appear at dusk. As the sun set, the lights formed a patchwork pattern, slowly filling in until the entire valley floor was a shimmering blanket in the rising heat.

He made a U-turn on Old Auburn, crossed over Folsom Dam, and turned left on Green Valley Road. A half hour later, he made the final turn on the narrow dirt road that wound around the hillside and felt a gut-punch of disappointment when the car wasn’t there. He only had another hundred yards to go and should have been able to see her no matter where she’d parked.

Refusing to believe he’d been wrong, he went on.

When he reached the point where the road had been washed away by decades of rain, he stopped and got out to look around. A hot wind blew through the tall golden grasses, creating a lonely, whispering sound. From somewhere behind him came the hammering of a woodpecker as it slammed its beak into a dead tree. From everywhere came the low rasping of grasshoppers and crickets, and the call of the birds that made the foothills their home. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing he didn’t hear every time they came here. Nothing to give him hope.

Instead of going back to the car, he walked another hundred yards, following a pathway marked with deer droppings. He stopped to look around and saw nothing that would lead him to believe Lynda had been there. In frustration and fear he yelled her name.

“Lynda
—where the hell are you?”

“Over here.”

His heart in his throat, he whipped around, thinking she had come up behind him. “Where?”

“Here,” she called. She came out of a stand of oak halfway down the hill and waved to him. “Right here. Can you see me? I’m here, Brian. Please, please see me.”

He waved back and started down the hill at a run, slipping on the tall grass, falling, getting up and falling again. When he reached her, he took her in his arms and kissed her over and over again, the volatile combination of fear and joy finding voice in touch. Her shirt and shorts were torn, her pressure garments covered in dirt, her knees scraped and bloody, her face tear-streaked.

“I knew you would find me,” she said. “No one else could. Only you.”

He cupped her face with his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “I would have searched forever.”

Fresh tears glistened in her eyes. “I love you, Brian.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Ray.”

“You were only trying to protect me.”

He kissed her again, tenderly, with pent-up pas
sion and longing, tasting her tears, her heartache. “I should have tried harder to keep him here,” he said, tears burning the back of his throat. “It’s my fault. If he hadn’t gone with her—”

She put a finger against his lips. “Don’t say that. It’s not true.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “You were his friend. You gave him hope.”

He tried to swallow his own tears, but the hurt ran too deep. With a soul-wrenching sob, he told her, “I should have done more. He was counting on me and I let him down.”

Lynda cradled him and cried with him. “I never told him good-bye,” she said, her heart breaking all over again. “I should have called when I got home from camp. He must have thought I didn’t care.”

“He knows you cared,” Brian said with absolute conviction.

She leaned back to look at him. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because his family told him when he was with them again.” Brian wiped his eyes and then gently wiped hers. He kissed her cheeks and lips and whispered into each ear that he loved her, then gathered her in his arms and sat down with his back to the ancient oak that gave them shelter from the sun. He held her without saying anything for a long time.

He believed what he’d told Lynda, the same way he believed the universe owed its creation to a Higher Being. He hadn’t known that Ray was with his family until he heard himself say the words aloud. Now he knew those words were a parting gift from a friend who somehow felt their sorrow
and wanted them to know he was all right.

“I think we should plant a tree for Ray,” Lynda said. “Somewhere safe where we can watch it grow and never have to worry about it being cut down.”

“An oak tree that will live a couple of hundred years,” he said.

“And be home to birds and squirrels and in the autumn drop thousands of acorns to feed the deer and raccoons.” She sat up and looked at him. “How will we make it safe?”

“I don’t know yet.” She was so beautiful. He could tell her every day for the rest of their lives how much she meant to him and still not say it enough. “But we’ll find a way.”

“I love you, Brian.” She offered him a smile. “I wish this hill was ours and we could stay here forever.”

It was the forever part that made him remember why he was there. “What are you doing down here? And how come your knees are all skinned up?” He looked around. “And where’s the car?”

She pointed down the hill to the bottom of the ravine. “My mom is going to kill me.”

“Holy shit. Your mom. I promised I’d call her as soon as I found you.” He jumped up and reached for his back pocket. It was empty. “I must have dropped the phone when I fell.”

“She’s going to kill me,” Lynda repeated.

“Maybe—but my guess is you’ve got a couple of days. She’s going to be too happy to see you to do anything before then.” Brian took Lynda’s hand and brought her to her feet. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

“I made it this far.”

“How did you get down there?”

She didn’t answer right away. Then she said with a sigh, “I was trying to turn around and I must have gotten too close to the edge, because the car started going downhill. Backward. I stepped on the brake as hard as I could, but it didn’t do any good.”

He stopped to look at her. “Are you telling me you slid all the way down there from up here?”

She nodded.

“Did you roll over?”

“I thought I was going to a couple of times, but I didn’t. I don’t know how we’re going to get it out. There aren’t any roads down there. I looked.” She kicked something, glanced down, and said, “I found the phone.”

“Good. Now call your mother.”

“I thought you said you were going to call her,” she said hopefully.

“No way. This one’s on you.”

She sat on a rock and dialed the number. Catherine answered on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom,” Lynda said, a sudden catch in her voice. “It’s me.”