Summer's Awakening (52 page)

Summer had never expected to find herself staying at the Golden Tulip Barbizon a few blocks from Bloomingdales.

It was one of a number of all-women hotels in the city, and although most of its rooms were occupied by permanent residents, some were available for transients. She had checked in and left her luggage there before meeting Raoul at the Plaza, secure in the knowledge that there was no possibility of James invading her room and insisting she return to the apartment.

The Barbizon was very security conscious and claimed to be the safest hotel in New York. The elevators were attended and male visitors were not permitted in any part of the building other than the lobby and the public lounges.

Her room had a private bath and was attractively furnished, but it seemed very small compared with the spacious rooms to which she was used. Not that her surroundings mattered to her as she lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to come to terms with the total disruption of her life which had taken place in less than twenty-four hours. This time yesterday she had been preparing for the party with no sense of impending chaos.

The telephone rang. Summer sat up, but she didn't immediately reach for the receiver. She had told Emily where she was planning to spend the night and it might be Emily who was calling. Or it might be James. She had a strong intuition that it was James.

She wanted to hear his voice and yet she was afraid of speaking to him. What would he say? What was there to say?

It was curiosity to know how he would handle the situation which made her answer the call instead of ignoring it.

'Hello?'

Without any preliminaries the familiar, deep, slightly clipped voice said, 'Is Emily with you?'

'No... no, she isn't.'

'She left the apartment soon after you did, telling Victoria she'd be back before dinner. She's still out. Have you any idea where she might be?'

He didn't sound unduly anxious, but the instant he had said, 'She's still out' Summer felt a stab of alarm. Emily had never been known to miss a meal before, or even to be late for one.

'No, I haven't... no idea at all,' she answered worriedly.

There was a short pause before he said, 'She may have been involved in an accident. If so, she's going to need you. I think you'd better come over right away.'

'Yes—yes, I will. I'll grab a cab and be there in five or ten minutes.'

She replaced the telephone receiver, grabbed her room key from the night table, thrust her feet into her shoes and moments later was dashing along the hall to the elevators. On the way down to the lobby she shrugged into her raincoat and looked in her purse for dollar bills to pay the fare.

Fortunately, she had no trouble getting a cab and the traffic in the streets was light. Even so it seemed to take forever to drive the short distance to the apartment. All the way there, and while she was going up in the elevator, she had nightmare visions of Emily being injured in an accident and rushed to hospital with no identification on her so that no one would know who she was or how to contact her family.

Is this my fault, Summer wondered, with a pang of anguish. Was she not looking where she was walking because she was worried about my leaving? The thought that she might be indirectly responsible for Emily being badly, even fatally hurt was agony to her.

José opened the door looking worried and, she thought, accusatory. But perhaps it was only her own sense of being to blame which made her see reproach in his expression. He took her raincoat and told her she would find his employer in the study.

James was on the telephone when she entered his sanctum. His desk chair was on a swivel base. When she opened the door he was facing the window with its view of the East River. As she crossed the threshold he swung round and indicated with a gesture that she should take the chair in front of the desk. As their eyes met she gave no thought to what had passed between them the night before. Concern for Emily had driven everything else from her mind.

'Yes, that's a good idea, Morton. If you can get hold of him, bring him with you. We may be over-reacting, but the way things are—'

He left the sentence in the air and concluded the call with a brisk goodbye.

As he replaced the receiver, he said, 'That was my lawyer, Morton Eliott. He's going to organise a check on hospital admissions. Then he'll try to contact a friend of his, a very experienced senior police officer who's recently retired and who can advise us what to do if we draw a blank at the hospitals.'

He paused, his expression grim. 'I'm afraid we can't dismiss the possibility that Emily may have been kidnapped.'

This was something which hadn't occurred to Summer, and which was even more horrifying than the thought of Emily lying unconscious in an emergency department. Suddenly the room began to sway. Although it had never happened to her before, she knew she was about to black out.

Something must have shown in her face. As she tried not to let the great wave of dark fog engulf her, she saw James spring up from his chair and come round the desk.

The next thing she knew was that she was sitting bent double, looking at the toes of her shoes and the legs of the chair and the twisted wool pile of the carpet, with something heavy on her back holding her down.

As her head cleared she realised that it was his hand. Seeing her about to keel over, he had pushed her into this position and was keeping her there till she showed signs of recovery.

'I'm all right now,' she murmured.

The weight was removed from her back, and James took hold of her shoulders and helped her to sit up.

'Sorry about that... the last thing you need...' she apologised muzzily.

'When did you last eat?'

She tried to recall, but what came back into her mind was the psychological shock which had caused her to faint.

We can't dismiss the possibility that Emily may have been kidnapped.

Without waiting for her reply, James leaned across his desk and touched a key. When José's voice said, 'Yes, sir?' he gave instructions for a glass of milk and some sandwiches to be brought to the study.

Then he sat on the front of the desk, his arms folded, looking down at her.

'Tell me what happened here today? What explanation did you give Emily for moving out?'

Miserably Summer repeated the gist of her conversation with Emily. But it was remorse for inflicting such a painful shock, not embarrassment, which made her hang her head. Her anxiety for the girl who was as close as a sister to her still outweighed every other feeling.

'Did she seem greatly upset?' he asked.

She nodded.

'Did she cry?'

'Not then. Perhaps she did later... after I'd gone.' She looked up at him, pale and distraught. 'I shouldn't have left her alone. If I'd stayed, she wouldn't have gone out... this wouldn't have happened.'

'Maybe nothing has happened. Five minutes from now she may walk in here, right as rain.'

'But where could she have been all this time?'

'Walking around, thinking things out. Sitting in a coffee bar, maybe.'

She shook her head. 'Not all this time.'

'People can lose track of time when catastrophe hits them. You and I are Emily's family. A split between us is bound to have a traumatic effect on her.'

José brought the food he had asked for. Seeing the sandwiches made her realise that apart from fruit at breakfast, she had eaten nothing all day.

James said, 'I'm expecting Mr Eliott, José. When he arrives, we'll have a large pot of coffee.'

'How long do you think it will take to check the hospitals?' she asked, when they were alone again.

'Not too long. A teenage girl with red hair is more easily identifiable than someone with common-place colouring.'

She forced herself to eat a sandwich. She still wasn't hungry, but she knew that it was partly lack of nourishment which had made her pass out momentarily. That and a sleepless night and almost twenty-four hours of emotional stress, starting with James's arrival at the party last night.

Now it was essential she should pull herself together and be ready to give sensible answers to any questions which might be put to her by the lawyer and the former police officer.

Barely twenty minutes after her own arrival at the apartment, James's lawyer was introducing the man he had brought with him, John Hurst.

Both men had the brisk but calm manner of people accustomed to handling crises. The lawyer, one of the city's leading attorneys, had a telephone in his car on which he had made several calls while being driven across town to collect the other man.

As they seated themselves in the chairs which James had drawn up for them, he said, 'It appears unlikely that your niece has been involved in a street accident, James. No one answering to her description has been admitted to any of the midtown hospitals. So let's check through some other possibilities. He addressed himself to Summer. 'Has she ever been late home before, Miss Roberts?'

'No, never. She hasn't many girl-friends. When she does go out without me, she's always back by the time arranged. Emily isn't a rebel. She's mature for her age, and considerate. She would realise how anxious we'd be if she didn't come home at the right time.'

John Hurst leaned forward. A big, burly man with grey hair and bushy eyebrows, he said, 'How about boy-friends, Miss Roberts?'

She sometimes spends time with boys who share her passion for computers. But she doesn't have dates in the usual sense.'

'She's almost seventeen and she doesn't date?' Clearly he found this surprising. 'Is she pretty?' he asked.

'More than pretty. She's on the brink of being beautiful.' She hesitated, reluctant to betray Emily's confidence but realising that, if she kept silent, they might follow a lead which led nowhere. 'The reason she isn't interested in boys is because she's in love with an older man. Not much older—he's twenty-four. Probably she will grow out of it, but meanwhile he far outshines any of the boys who might like to date her.'

She saw John Hurst's next question coming and forestalled it by adding, 'But he can have nothing to do with her disappearance. He lives and works in Florida. I know Emily very well, Mr Hurst. She isn't secretive. For a long time we've been more like sisters than tutor and pupil.'

He gave her a searching look before switching his keen gaze to James.

'You won't like this suggestion, Mr Gardiner, but please think about it carefully before you dismiss it. Is it possible your niece could be on drugs?'

It was Summer who reacted indignantly. 'Absolutely not!' she said sharply.

Mr Hurst turned to her and said mildly, 'Miss Roberts, if you went to any one of the drug rehabilitation centres in this city, you'd find the patients include many young men and women from wealthy, socially prominent families. Often the habit starts in school and continues for years before it's discovered by the parents. It's been estimated that twenty million Americans have tried snorting coke. What makes you so sure that Mr Gardiner's niece isn't one of them?'

'I'm equally sure of it, Hurst,' James intervened. 'Emily is a girl with a lot of character. Even if she'd been to school, which she hasn't, it's unlikely she'd have been persuaded to try pot or pills or whatever. She hasn't even tried cigarettes. Both she and Miss Roberts are on the exercise kick. They work out every day. People who do that aren't usually inclined to abuse their bodies in other ways.'

'No, I guess not,' the older man agreed. 'How come she hasn't been to school?'

Briefly, James explained the origins of Emily's private education. 'But the last time she had an attack was two years ago in a garden full of exotic plants in Florida. I doubt that her asthma has anything to do with her failure to come home tonight.'

It seemed to Summer that they were wasting time, ignoring the worst possibility. She said, 'James... Mr Gardiner thinks she may have been kidnapped.'

'I doubt it,' said John Hurst. 'If that had happened, I'm sure you'd know about it by now. Kidnappers usually make their demands not too long after the snatch and before the victim's relations are seriously alarmed. Also, although Mr Gardiner's a public figure, the fact that he has a niece living with him hasn't been publicised. I'm not saying we can rule out kidnapping, but at this stage I think we should consider other reasons for her absence. I'd like to go through the details. Who was the last person to see her?'