See Tom Run (21 page)

Erin eyed him suspiciously and Tom could tell that
she was more than a little put off.

“About what?” she said.

“Well, it’s difficult to say, really. Is there any
chance I could buy you a soft drink or a coffee somewhere so we
could talk? I’m afraid it may take a while to explain.”

Erin suddenly lightened up a bit and smiled. “Okay, I
guess that would be all right. Let me just run inside to let my
brother know I’m home then we can go.”

“Great. I’ll just wait here.”

Tom stood by as she unlocked the door and went
inside. When he realized that the teenager lived in this house with
her family, he questioned how in the world he could ever fathom
that she was his long lost daughter. He considered the absurdity of
it all and was about to abandon the whole thing before he made an
utter fool of himself when Erin suddenly came out the door.

“Let’s go,” she said sweetly, joining him at the
bottom of the porch stairs. “Where are we going?”

Tom said, “How does Starbucks sound?”

“Awesome—I’m in the mood for a great big café
mocha!”

“You’ve got it.”

Tom led the way to Peg’s car, held the door open for
Erin, went over to the driver’s side and got in. He started the
engine, noticing out of the corner of his eye that she was staring
at him.

“I feel sort of weird doing this,” she confessed.

Tom fastened his seat belt. “I don’t blame you at all
for that. I realize this must seem very odd, but I want to assure
you that I my intentions are good. If it would make you feel more
comfortable, we could just talk here in the car or on your porch,”
he added.

She chuckled. “Oh, no—I would much rather be treated
to Starbucks! And I’m not afraid of going with you, Mr. Grayson. My
brother told me he’s seen you at Capital and that you teach
there.”

“Smart girl—you had him case me out while I was
waiting, didn’t you?”

“Yeah—one can never be too careful nowadays,” she
said with a knowing grin.

Tom pulled out and headed back toward High Street. As
he tried to think of a good way to lead into what he wanted to say,
Erin cleared the way for him.

“Aren’t you the man they found unconscious in the
supermarket parking lot yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes I am, as a matter of fact. I was overcome by gas
fumes and carbon monoxide.”

“Wow, I thought you were the same guy when I saw you
earlier at the store, but I wasn’t sure. I sort of doubted it since
it seemed unlikely that you would be out of the hospital so soon.
You looked awfully bad when they pulled you out and wheeled you
into the ambulance.”

“You were there when they did that?”

“I watched from the store. It was snowing really hard
so I couldn’t see what was going on very well. One of the customers
came in who had seen everything and said you looked like you were
dead!”

“Thank god they were off on that call!”

“So are you going to be alright? I mean, was there
any permanent damage or anything from the fumes?” Erin asked.

“No, I’m going to be fine. Just as crazy as I’ve
always been, so they tell me.”

“I’ll bet that was scary.”

“Oh, it was very scary. I was fortunate that someone
found me when they did. Otherwise, that customer would have been
dead right.”

Erin fell silent as Tom pulled into the Starbucks on
North High Street.

“Actually, the whole experience was scary for other
reasons, too,” Tom said.

“What do you mean?”

I’ll tell you when we get inside.”

Tom bought them both a café mocha and led the way to
a table.

“This is really good—thanks,” Erin said after taking
a sip of her espresso-laced hot cocoa.

“You are more than welcome.”

“Okay, so tell me what you meant a minute ago.”

Tom hesitated a moment before beginning. It was so
strange sitting there with this girl! The feeling of déjà vu was
both surreal and overwhelming as he flashed back to the times that
he and she had sat together just like this, in the Jeep, in his
house, at the Waldorf Astoria, sharing their thoughts and fears,
running for their lives in a lonely, frightening world.

“I warn you, this is going to sound really
strange.”

“Okay.”

“Well, while I was unconscious in the Jeep, I
apparently had a dream—a very long dream. And you were in it.”

Erin gazed at him with a combination of shock and
fascination as Tom proceeded to recount the dream in its entirety.
When he was finished, he explained to Erin that he had asked to
speak to her because he wanted to be absolutely certain that she
couldn’t possibly be his daughter, as crazy and far out as that may
sound.

When she replied to this, Erin stared at him with
eyes that expressed great compassion.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why are you sorry?”

“That I’m not your daughter.”

Her blunt, unexpected comment hurt Tom more than he
could easily conceal from the girl. Although he hadn’t really
expected her to be his daughter, he hadn’t given himself time to
prepare for the reality of the fact.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked weakly, his voice
nearly cracking.

“I just know I’m not. First of all, my last name
isn’t Myers, it’s Landry. But since this was just a dream, my last
name could probably have been anything. But you will see that I am
obviously my father’s daughter once you take a look at this.”

She opened her purse, took out her wallet and showed
him the first picture on the top. Tom realized what she meant when
he saw the tall smiling man in the Landry family portrait, who no
doubt was her father. She was a spitting image of him.

Tom forced a laugh. “I see what you mean. Your
brother resembles your dad quite a bit, too.”

“Yes, he does. My mom is always joking that she is on
the short end of the gene pool when it comes to her kids.”

Tom gazed at Erin’s mother in the portrait and had to
agree. She was blonde, blue-eyed and very short, quite unlike her
husband and children.

So Erin Landry wasn’t his daughter after all. No real
surprise there, so why was he so damn disappointed?

Partly, because he was now back to
wondering why he had had the dream in the first place. And partly
because deep down inside he
wanted
her to be his daughter.

He wondered why that was so but couldn’t come up with
an answer. Not now, anyway.

“You look sad, Mr. Grayson. I’m sorry this didn’t
turn out the way you wanted it to.”

The girl’s insight was remarkable, Tom thought. She
seemed able to read him like a book.

Just as Erin Myers had …

“I’m okay, Erin. And I appreciate your giving me the
opportunity to present you with this rather strange situation.”

“No problem. I have enjoyed talking to you, Mr.
Grayson.”

“Please, call me Tom.”

“Okay, Tom. If I tell you something, will you promise
me that you won’t get mad?”

“Of course. I couldn’t possibly get angry at
you.”

“Well, I sort of have a theory on why you had your
dream, if you’d like to hear it.”

“I’d love to.”

“Well, it’s sort of obvious why the girl in your
dream looked like me, since I was the last girl you saw before you
went back to your car yesterday. You also no doubt saw my name tag,
so you gave her my name.”

“That’s a fair enough theory,” Tom agreed.

“You said that this Mindy woman had called to tell
you she was pregnant, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And in your dream, you realized that Erin could have
been the child that Mindy had been pregnant with after you saw the
picture of the two of them together.”

Tom nodded.

“Well, Erin had been an orphan and apparently had had
a pretty horrible life, it sounds like. I think you wanted Erin to
be your daughter in the dream so you could finally be assured that
your child was alive and safe, now that you had found her. “

Tom wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “You sort of
lost me there.”

“I’m not sure how to put this,” she
said, hesitating a moment. Her eyes looked past Tom then refocused
on him. “Maybe after all of these years you felt sort of guilty
about this child you never knew and if Erin had ended up
not
being your daughter,
that meant that your child could possibly be, uh, gone
forever.”

Now he knew what she was driving at.

And he realized that this young girl had just hit the
nail on the head.

Because now that he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt
that Erin Landry wasn’t his daughter in real life, he had no idea
what had ever happened to the child Mindy Conkel had given birth
to. And since Donnie Shortridge had been only a figment of his
imagination, he couldn’t even be certain that the child had been
put up for adoption—

He was going to have to find out what had ever
happened to his child. For all he knew, his child could still be
living in Smithtown, Ohio.

Tom said, “Your theory is quite sound, Erin.”

She blushed. “Well, I’ve sort of always wanted to be
a psychologist. In fact, I’m majoring in psych at Ohio State.”

“I think you’ve made the right career choice.”

“I hope so—thanks for your encouragement.”

Tom glanced at his watch. “I’ve kept you long enough.
I am so grateful to you for letting me unload all of this on you.
You’ve been most kind and helpful, Erin.”

“No problem. And thanks for the treat.”

“It’s the least I could do. Ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

They arose from the table and left the coffee shop.
When Tom pulled into Erin’s driveway to drop her off, she leaned
over and gave him a heartfelt hug. Then she faced him with her
expressive brown eyes and said softly, “I hope you find her.”

“Thanks, Erin. So do I.”

CHAPTER 18

Tom had just pulled away from Erin’s house when his
cell phone rang. He glanced at the LCD, saw that it was Peg calling
and cursed out loud. She was going to ream him a new one!

He flipped the phone open, brought it to his ear and
said. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m on my way now.”

“You have got to be kidding, Tom! Do you realize that
you were supposed to be home an hour ago? What have you been doing
all this time?”

Her question caught completely off guard as he
floundered for some kind of excuse. He realized that he couldn’t
come up with one quick enough.

“Are you still there?” Peg snapped, absolutely livid
now.

He finally said, “Yes, dear. I decided to stop off at
the library and look for something decent to read. I guess I lost
track of the time.”

“You are kidding, aren’t you? You are a horrible
liar, Tom, and I don’t believe that for a second! Not only have you
screwed up dinner but you’ve probably ruined the milk, too. That is
if you even remembered to get it!”

“I got the milk and it will be fine, Peg. I’ll be
home in five minutes.”

“Your cold, over-cooked dinner will be awaiting
you—”

Click.

Tom flipped the phone closed and stepped down hard on
the accelerator. He couldn’t blame Peg for being angry—he had
gotten so caught up with Erin and his dream that he had totally
lost track of the time.

It was scary how compulsive he’d become lately. The
last thing in the world he wanted to do was screw up his
relationship with Peg. They had had plenty of scrapes through the
years but had always managed to keep it together and mend things if
they ever got broken. Sometimes he wondered how she put up with him
as long as she had, considering his absent-minded ways and
crispy-fried memory. He meant well most of the time, but the old
gourd just wasn’t quite as sharp as it used be.

A little too much partying in his former, single
life?

Duh!

He nearly broadsided a car as he sped around a
corner, prompting him to slow down his speed. What he didn’t need
now was a car accident.

After he got home and cooled Peg down, he was going
to have to come up with an excuse for driving down to Smithtown
tomorrow. This was not going to be easy, especially on such short
notice and with the New Year’s Eve party happening the following
day. Whatever he came up with was going to have to be really
good.

Should he invite her and the kids along? No, that
wouldn’t work at all. There would be no way he could track down
Mindy Conkel with his family there with him.

Whatever he schemed to do, he knew that Peg was going
to be suspicious. After all, he no longer had any family in
Smithtown since his parents had migrated south to bask in the
Florida sun. So what on god’s green earth could prompt him to
suddenly have to make the two-hour drive to his former
hometown?

All of a sudden, he had an idea.

Frank!

Instead of making up an excuse for driving to
Smithtown, he would pretend to be going somewhere with Frank for
the day. He would ask his friend to cover for him so that he could
take a very important out of town trip. Frank would no doubt assume
that this had something to do the secret affair he had alluded to,
which would be fine—he had almost seemed to think it was cool that
Tom had played around on his wife.

So what could he tell Peg that he and Frank were
going to do for an entire day? Then he remembered Frank suggesting
that they drive up to Cleveland sometime and check out the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Perfect.

Later on tonight, he would call Frank to see if he
would be game for this scheme. The hardest part would be how to
deal with Frank’s wife, Julie. Frank would have to make himself
scarce for the day in case Julie and Peg touched base with each
other—there was no way he could have him tagging along while he
looked for Mindy Conkel in Smithtown. Maybe Frank would be willing
to go to Cleveland by himself.