The Way You Look Tonight (12 page)

The man turned and bolted down the street. He ran so fast his hood fell backward, but his face was turned away from them. Kim burst into tears as a crowd of excited young children gathered around her.

Three

After the state troopers left Deborah's house, Joe was quick to follow. ‘Got a couple of errands to run,' he said brusquely, ‘but I'll be back in time to pick the kids up from school.'

‘I wonder what that's all about?' Barbara asked.

Deborah shrugged. ‘I don't know, but we're really disrupting his life. Maybe he needed to pick up some things at home.'

Twenty minutes later the phone rang and Deborah rushed to answer it.

‘Mrs Robinson?'

The female voice was vaguely familiar but quavery. She didn't sound like a reporter or a policewoman.

‘Yes, this is Mrs Robinson,' Deborah said guardedly.

‘This is Lois Hart, Kim and Brian's teacher.'

Panic rushed through Deborah. ‘What is it?' she asked loudly. ‘Are the children all right?'

‘There was an incident today at recess—'

‘Oh, God, is one of them hurt?'

‘No, they're fine. Kim is just a little upset. You see, there was this man…I looked away at two little boys fighting and I didn't realize at first…I only looked away for a couple of minutes…and then—'

‘You're scaring the life out of her. Let me talk to her.' Deborah recognized the booming, impatient voice of Howard Morton, the principal. Her heart hammered during the moment of silence before he began speaking with false cheer. ‘Mrs Robinson, the man who brought the children to school today, Pierce I believe he said his name was, apprised me of your unfortunate situation. You have my condolences. He asked that we keep a close eye on Kimberly and Brian, and it's fortunate that he did. I informed Miss Hart. At recess, a man came to the gate of the schoolyard and tried to lure Kimberly away.'

‘
What?
' Deborah shrilled.

‘I assure you, everything is all right. Miss Hart saw what was happening and reached Kimberly just in time.'

‘Just in time?' Deborah repeated dumbly.

‘Just before the man got his hands on Kimberly and spirited her away.'

Who but the pompous Howard Morton would say ‘spirited her away'? Deborah wondered in spite of her fear. ‘Is Kim hurt?' she asked tremulously.

‘No, no, not at all, Mrs Robinson. She's just a bit shaken, but under the circumstances we feel it would be best for both her and Brian to go home today.'

‘I'll be there in ten minutes.'

‘That would be fine. And I'd like for you to know we've called the police. Miss Hart will be giving them a complete description of the man.'

‘Did she recognize him?'

‘No, but Kimberly said at first she thought he was her father. Now she's not certain. Miss Hart has never met your husband, so she can't say.'

Slowly, Deborah hung up the phone. A man had tried to abduct her daughter, a man the little girl had thought was Steve. Could it have been? Or was someone else out to harm her children?

Four

Artie Lieber leaned on bed pillows he'd propped against the headboard and stared intently at the grainy color picture on the portable television across from him. It was 12.20 and the noon news was ending. Weather maps flashed in front of him. Warmer weather was predicted for tomorrow with a high of thirty-seven degrees, the weatherman announced gleefully. Hot damn, Artie thought sourly. Might as well be in Miami Beach. Let's have a party over this great weather.

The news anchors were back on, interviewing the star of some new series. The star declared the series location, the staff, and the scripts were in turn terrific, wonderful, and fantastic. It was an honor to work on the show. Why don't they ever say they're starring in a piece of crap for the money? ‘Because then they'd lose the show and wouldn't be making the big bucks any more,' Artie answered himself. Now the anchors were making ‘happy talk', seemingly delighted with each other's inane chatter. Finally they promised another scintillating news cast at six o'clock before they relinquished the stage to a soap opera. Artie tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, ignoring the beautiful, perfectly made-up and coiffed blonde who drooped around her sumptuous house in supposed mental turmoil.

Nothing had appeared on the news about Steve Robinson. Artie's square jaw tightened. He couldn't even think of the man's name without a wave of revulsion shaking his slender frame which he'd kept strong by at least two hours of exercise a day while he was in prison. Robinson hadn't been home all night and the police were at his house this morning. Still, it was too early for him to be considered officially a missing person. That's why there hadn't been anything about him on the news.

Artie breathed heavily, thinking about what he'd seen at the house that morning. People besides the police were there, too. He'd spotted a woman with short dark hair. She wasn't much of a looker. There'd also been two men. Robinson's wife must have called in help.

Artie had also seen the two little kids. Brian and Kimberly. He knew their names as if they were his own children. They'd acted upset as one of the men put them in a Jeep Cherokee and drove off with them. Artie's own little girl, Pearl, used to look like that sometimes. In fact, she'd looked like Kimberly the last time he saw her before he went to prison, when his ex-wife – whom he now always referred to as The Slut – had brought Pearl to the courtroom to see him convicted. He'd never forget the confusion and fright in Pearl's big brown eyes when they'd dragged him, shouting curses, from the courtroom. Pearl was twenty-two now, but he hadn't seen her since that day. The Slut had taken her away to Florida. He'd learned Pearl was married and had a kid of her own – a boy. Jeez, he was a grandfather! He'd contacted her when he got out of prison, but she always hung up on him after telling him she didn't even acknowledge him as her father.

He'd been crushed at first, then decided Pearl just needed time. He wasn't one to give up so easily. Maybe with patience he could repair the damage her mother had done, turning the kid against him, filling her head with all kinds of garbage. And when he'd fixed everything with Pearl and got to know his grandson, he'd get even with The Slut.

But now his concern was Steve Robinson. What the hell was going on at his house, anyway? They knew he was missing – that was a given. But he wanted to know every little detail. What did they think had happened to him? They'd found his car. Did they assume he'd been murdered? Did they know that he, Artie, was in Charleston? Was he a suspect in Robinson's disappearance? Had anyone talked to his parole officer and found out he'd missed his meeting that morning? Hell, what he wouldn't give to have the house bugged. Then he could keep more accurate tabs on the whole situation. He wanted to know how much
they
knew about him. He had to know, for his own safety. He hadn't meant to stay in Charleston for so long, hadn't meant to miss even one parole meeting. He sure as hell hadn't meant to be spotted on Saturday when he got that traffic ticket. Why hadn't he just gone home then? Why had he let his obsession get the better of him, overriding his instinct that this wasn't the time to get Steve Robinson? Now he couldn't leave. The police would pick him up before he got anywhere near Wheeling.

His mind skittered around like a mouse trapped in a room with a cat. He suddenly thought of Robinson's young wife, Deborah. He'd caught a glimpse of her when she'd gone out on the porch to bid the kids goodbye. Now
she
was a looker, not like the older one with short hair. The bastard. Robinson had robbed him of his little girl and sent him to prison for fifteen godforsaken years while he'd made a big career for himself and married some young, sexy broad. Like he couldn't have done better with his own good looks which even prison hadn't been able to obliterate.

Suddenly furious, Artie jumped up from the bed and flipped off the TV. He'd had a rough morning and a narrow escape. Still, he had to resume his surveillance, providing the cops weren't still crawling around. The jerks would bury him under the prison if they caught him anywhere near the Robinson house. He'd been a fool to come, but now he couldn't leave. He also couldn't make himself sit here in this dismal motel room all afternoon. He felt like he was tingling all over. He couldn't hold still for more than a few minutes at a time. A tic he'd developed last year began to wiggle around his right eye. His nerves and emotions were on fire.

He opened the bottle of vodka sitting on the scarred bedside table and poured some into the glass he'd been drinking from for the past hour. One more shot to calm him down, and then he'd make another pass by the Robinson house. In a coat with the collar turned up and that stupid hat and the sunglasses he'd bought yesterday, they'd never recognize him driving the white heap he'd ‘borrowed' a couple of hours ago when he found it in the unlocked garage of an empty house near the Robinson kids' school. At least, Artie hoped they wouldn't recognize him. He also hoped the car hadn't yet been reported missing. Driving it around was risky, but it was a chance he had to take. He couldn't stand not knowing what was going on at Robinson's house. Damn, he just couldn't stand it.

One

Barbara had gone home to pack a bag – she insisted on staying with Deborah until ‘we find out something', she'd said tactfully. The children were in the back yard playing ball with Joe and Scarlett. Deborah slumped at the kitchen table feeling abandoned and self-pitying beneath her fear.
Why
hadn't Steve told her about this serial killer business? Why hadn't he told her about Artie Lieber? He'd felt free to confide in Evan and Joe, but not her, his own wife, and no matter how many times they told her it was because Steve didn't want to worry her, she felt hurt and excluded. She reprimanded herself for being immature and selfish when Steve might well be dead, but that didn't help, either. Nothing changed how she felt about her husband's secrecy. She deeply resented it. To her it did not seem like mere protection of her peace of mind – it felt like one more way in which Steve had kept her at a distance throughout their entire marriage.

She sighed, ran her hands through her hair for what seemed the hundredth time, longed for a cigarette, and checked the spaghetti boiling on the stove. Beside it bubbled a pan of canned spaghetti sauce. She didn't like to take short cuts with the cooking, but the children loved simple, ‘fun' meals. Without Steve's presence, they would probably have a contest to see who could suck in the longest piece of spaghetti and make the most noise while doing it. Tonight she didn't care how messy they were as long as their minds were diverted from their missing father and the incident at the school. Kimberly had talked about it incessantly for an hour after she got home, one minute saying the man who'd tried to grab her was Daddy, the next saying he was like Daddy but he wasn't like Daddy, either. Then she went upstairs to play with her dolls and had said no more about the man.

Deborah wandered over to the dining-room window that looked out on the back yard. The children laughed as Joe tossed the ball. Kimberly repeatedly caught it while Brian missed, even when Joe threw it directly to him. Deborah could see the frustration growing on his little face. Maybe he needed glasses. She'd been wondering about the acuity of his eyesight for a few months. She'd take him for an exam soon. She wasn't sure how he'd react if he
did
need glasses. After all, he was only five. She had been ten when she'd started wearing them – a horrible peacock-blue pair her mother had selected – and cringed through the teasing she'd taken at school, the sudden label of ‘four-eyes' and the disdain of a ‘boyfriend' who said he didn't like a girl who couldn't see good and had to wear dumb-looking specs. But Brian was a resilient little boy. He would probably ignore any barbs thrown his way. Both children possessed a confidence she'd never had as a child, a confidence she still didn't command.

She moved away from the window to the wall lined with shelves of plants Steve grew inside. She loved the rich African violets that blossomed under his touch. Five pots of them rested on the top shelf, and she wondered if they needed watering or something. Steve would be so disappointed if he came home to find she'd allowed them to die. If he came home…

Deborah shuddered. She looked at the two pots of oleander sitting near the violets, high out of the children's reach. Why had Agent Wylie been so curious about oleander? Maybe he, too, was an amateur horticulturist, but Deborah didn't think so.

Her gaze drifted down to the hardy heartleaf philodendron, the English ivy, the jade plants, and, of course, a huge poinsettia. Steve's parents always sent one at Christmas. They never visited and rarely called, but a poinsettia arrived without fail a week before Christmas every year, sent by a florist who had a standing order from them. Deborah had noticed this was the one plant Steve never cared for scrupulously. By March the poinsettia was usually dead.

Looking at the plant reminded her that his parents still didn't know about Steve. Earlier in the day she'd had an inspiration and called the nursing home. She thought they would certainly have left the address of their hotel in case anything happened to Emily, and she'd been right. She had called the hotel, but no one answered in their room. She'd been told at the desk they'd gone off for a boat trip around the Hawaiian islands. They wouldn't be back for two or three days. She told herself she should leave word about Steve being missing. Their friends would probably hear it on the news and break it to them when they got back. Intellectually she knew that was a cruel way for them to find out, but emotionally she couldn't work up much pity for them. They'd unfairly shut him out years ago. Now it was their turn to hurt, if they still felt enough for him to care.

Joe and the children burst through the kitchen door smelling of the chilly outdoors. ‘When's supper?' Brian asked, shrugging out of his coat.

‘Five minutes. Everyone go wash their hands.'

‘C'mon, Joe,' Brian said. ‘We wash hands upstairs.'

Joe made a wry face at Deborah, who smiled back. He was really being so good with the children, much better than she was. She would never have guessed that he could be so patient. She knew he'd never been married, and had no children of his own. Maybe he had nieces and nephews, though, because he certainly had a way with kids. He was now trooping dutifully upstairs behind Brian and Kim as Scarlett skittered ahead of them. It was a miracle that neither child had questioned her about Steve again. ‘Is Daddy home yet?' had already been asked at least twenty times since they'd come home from kindergarten at noon. It would probably be asked twenty more times before they went to sleep.

When they came back downstairs, Deborah set steaming plates of spaghetti in front of everyone and took a loaf of Italian bread from the oven. As she'd anticipated, the children had a contest and Joe joined in, slurping spaghetti until even Deborah was amused. After winning the contest, Kim announced, ‘I love s'qetti. And I like your hair that way, Mommy. You look like Rapunzel.'

Deborah smiled. ‘I don't think my hair is quite long enough to hang out a tower window to reach the ground. And I sure wouldn't want someone climbing up it. Ouch!'

Kim giggled. ‘It wouldn't be an ouch if a prince climbed it.' Sadness swept over her face. ‘Or Daddy.'

‘Your daddy doesn't have to climb her hair to get in,' Joe said quickly. ‘He's got his own door key.'

Fear swept over Kim's features. ‘What if that was Daddy at school today and he has a key and comes in and takes me?'

‘That wasn't your daddy,' Joe said. ‘He wouldn't scare you like that. The man was just someone who
looked
like him.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes, I'm sure. But you must never go near anyone like that again.'

‘I won't,' Kim said fervently.

‘And don't worry. Your daddy will be home soon.'

‘I hope.'

Brian laid down his fork. ‘He's been gone an awful long time.'

‘Not really,' Deborah said. ‘It just seems long to us because we miss him. But he'll be back.'

Brian's face abruptly assumed a mournful and hauntingly mature look. ‘I don't think so. I don't think Daddy's coming back at all.'

Two

Pete Griffin passed his son's opened bedroom door and peered in. The handsome boy, with his longish black hair, slender face, and azure eyes, sat on the bed holding a gold frame, his expression wistful. Pete felt the familiar sinking sensation in his heart. After three years the boy hadn't forgotten his mother, Hope, who gazed out at him with laughing azure eyes exactly like his own and a perfect, dimpled smile. ‘We haven't heard from her for a long time,' Pete said.

Adam jumped, looked guilty, then flashed his father a charming grin, offset by the wounded look that in unguarded moments sometimes crept into the gay eyes. ‘She kind of looks like Deborah Robinson, don't you think?'

Pete looked at the picture critically. ‘Well, she was only about twenty-three when this was taken. She was more vivacious than Deborah and I think she was much prettier, but the coloring is very similar. I see a slight resemblance. Maybe that's why you've always liked Deborah so much.'

‘I guess. I never thought about it.'

Pete doubted this. He'd often wondered if the boy had a secret crush on Deborah. He wasn't bothered by the possibility – Deborah was thirteen years older than Adam and certainly not one to encourage a young boy. But his son's overly nonchalant dismissal of Deborah struck him as touching. Adam was embarrassed by his crush.

Adam studied the picture. ‘She doesn't look like the kind of person who'd abandon her family, does she?'

‘She had a different way of seeing things than most people do,' Pete said easily, sitting down on the bed beside his son. ‘She was very gentle – she loved flowers, poetry, animals—' He paused and smiled. ‘And Judy Collins. Have you ever heard of her?'

‘Sure. The singer. I found some old albums downstairs and played them. I especially liked that song “Suzanne”.'

Pete threw him a surprised glance. ‘That was your mother's favorite, too. I never dreamed you'd like that kind of music.'

Adam shrugged and said with joking egotism, ‘Hey, what can I say, Dad? I'm a versatile guy.'

‘Apparently so. The Renaissance man. Anyway, Hope was a very good woman in her way. She wanted to do great things in the world. You know, leave a mark. And she had these passionate devotions to things – the environment, whales, baby seals—'

‘And now it's wolves.' Pete and Adam smiled at each other. ‘Do you think I could go up to Montana to see her?'

Alarm flashed across Pete's face. His tongue nervously touched his lips. ‘I don't think this time of year would be so good.'

‘I don't mean now. This summer.'

Pete's eyes searched the room, as if looking for inspiration. He twisted his hands, as he always did when he was uncomfortable. He still wore his wedding ring.

‘Dad, what is it?'

‘Well, actually, I'm not sure she's in Montana any more.'

Adam stared at him. ‘What do you mean? She sends me birthday cards and Christmas cards. She never says anything except “Love, Mom”, but she
does
remember. And I write to her every few months.'

Pete's eyes dropped. ‘I knew this moment would come. I thought I'd be able to handle it better, but diplomacy has never been my strong point. All I can do is be blunt. Your letters have been returned with “Address Unknown” stamped on them for years. I always managed to intercept them.'

Adam gaped. ‘But the
cards—
'

‘I had a friend of hers in Montana send them to you for the last couple of years. You were so young and I didn't want you to be hurt.' Pete's eyes begged for understanding and forgiveness. ‘Son, I'm so sorry.'

Adam's hands tightened on the picture frame as he gazed down at the smiling face of his mother. Then he looked back at his father. ‘I feel like a dope, but I understand what you did, Dad. You were trying to protect me. But what if she's
dead?
'

‘Unless she destroyed her identification, I would have found out. Her parents would have let me know so I would take care of funeral expenses. I don't believe she's dead. I think I'd
feel
it, if she were, if that makes any sense.'

‘You loved her a lot, didn't you?'

‘I adored her. I don't think she ever felt the same way about me. I believe she was looking for stability at the time. There had been a lot of trouble in her family. A sister the parents had kicked out of the family for marrying outside the Catholic Church, a father who was chronically ill.'

‘When did she leave Montana?'

‘Nearly two years ago. It was my fault, really. I'd written to say I wanted to bring you to visit her. There would be no pressure to come home, I promised – I just wanted her to see what a fine young son she had.' Pete laughed ruefully. ‘All I accomplished was to scare her away.'

‘She never wants to see us again,' Adam said flatly. His eyes had taken on a sheen of unshed tears. ‘I just don't understand. I remember her as so much fun. Everyone thought I had the coolest mom in the world – she was so pretty and laughed a lot and she
never
nagged, not like everyone else's moms who were always bitching about something stupid. And she seemed to really
love
me.' His expression hardened. ‘But I guess she didn't.'

Pete's face contorted slightly, then he said in a broken voice, ‘I can't have you believing she didn't love you, and I guess you're old enough to hear the truth now. If you want to, that is.'

Adam paused, dread showing in his eyes, then nodded.

Pete looked away. ‘It's so sordid and clichéd, it's embarrassing – but all right. For a couple of months she'd been acting secretive. Then there had been phone calls when someone hung up if I answered the phone. Never if she answered. One day I came home at noon to pick up some papers I'd forgotten and I could tell something was wrong. She was in bed, very flustered, and, well…without going into details, it was obvious she'd been in bed with a man.'

Adam's eyes widened. ‘
Who?
'

‘I don't know. She would never tell me, although she confessed to the affair. I was devastated, but after a lot of talking and crying, your mother and I decided to try to work things out. After all, the man – whom she claimed to love madly and who'd told her the same thing – didn't want to see her any more when he found out I knew about the affair. Her illusions about him were destroyed. He didn't really give a damn about her. Under the circumstances, why not stay with good old Pete?'

Bitterness crept into his voice, but he quickly controlled it. ‘Sorry about that. I decided a long time ago not to turn into some hostile loud-mouth, always talking about his faithless wife. Besides, there was so much more to Hope's behavior than an indiscretion. I just wasn't the right man for her. I was too staid, too unimaginative for her.'