Ellen didn’t want to go there. “Do you know the family?”
“Sure, Carol’s a doll, and so is Bill. And that little baby, Timothy, he was adorable.”
“Adorable,” Linda repeated, without breaking stride. “That baby was so cute you could eat him.”
Ellen hid her emotions. The brown bag crinkled in her pocket when she walked.
“What a shame.” Linda shook her head, her rich brown eyes tilting down at the corners. She had an oval face with a largish nose, and a thick gold chain with a coral horn bounced on her bosom as they turned the corner, passing a large brick Georgian mansion, more Monticello than Miami.
“It’s so sad.” Phyllis made a clucking sound. “They shot the babysitter, too. It doesn’t seem fair. It’s like when people rob a store and shoot the clerk. Why do they have to shoot somebody? I don’t know what gets into people nowadays.”
Ellen didn’t say anything. Phyllis and Linda didn’t need the encouragement to keep talking, and she was running out of breath anyway. A fireball sun climbed a cloudless sky, and the humidity was 120,000 percent. They passed a woman walking a black poodle, and Phyllis waved to her.
“Carol and Bill were in terrible shape, after it happened. It just about killed them. There were reporters camped out on the street day and night, bothering them all the time. Cops and the FBI, always coming and going.”
Ellen let her talk, to see what she could learn. They reached the next corner, turned around the block, and walked past a house intended to look like a Roman temple.
“Bill was a great father, too.” Phyllis sipped from her water bottle. “You know, he has his own investment company, very successful. He makes a lot of money for people in the neighborhood, and he doted on his son. Bought him golf bibs and a golf hat, too. Remember we saw him, Lin?”
Linda nodded. “Carol had such a hard time getting pregnant. I’m not telling stories out of school here. She talked about it all the time, right, Phyl?”
“Yes, she had a very hard time.” Phyllis’s lips flattened to a lipsticked line. “They tried for a long time. She really wanted that baby, they both did. Now look what happened.”
Ellen felt a stab of guilt, flashing on Carol as Mother Goose.
“The poor woman.” Linda wiped her upper lip. “Isn’t that just the worst luck? They finally had their miracle baby, then they never see him again. End of story.”
“There’s no justice,” Phyllis said, puffing slightly.
“It’s a sin,” Linda added.
Ellen didn’t know it was possible to feel more guilty than she felt already. She had always thought of Will as her miracle baby. But he could have been Carol’s miracle baby. Only DNA would tell for sure. She needed that sample.
The moment passed, and Linda said, “You know, if you live long enough, you realize there’s nothing you can’t handle. I lost my husband and I lost my kid sister. If you asked me, I never would’ve thought that I’d be standing here afterwards. Life makes you strong, and death makes you strong, too.”
Ellen was thinking of her mother.
Phyllis shook her head, which jiggled slightly as they rounded the block. “She always says that, but I think she’s full of baloney.”
“Ha!” Linda waved her off. “Go ahead, tell her about the waves.”
“Okay.” Phyllis looked over at Ellen and her lined face grew serious, even as she pumped her arms like a pro. “I lived in Brooklyn all my life. We couldn’t believe it when we retired down here, everywhere with the water, the intercoastal, and the ocean. We loved it. My Richard used to fish, I went out with him on the boat. On the boat is where I get my best ideas.”
“It’s boring, take it from me,” Linda stage-whispered behind her hand. “She makes me go. I wanna drown myself.”
“Are you going to let me talk to our guest?” Phyllis asked, mock indignant.
“Go ahead, just don’t take the long way.” Linda turned to Ellen. “I’m Italian, so I love to talk, and she’s Jewish, so she loves to talk.”
Phyllis smiled. “That’s why we’re best friends. No one else can put up with us.”
They all laughed, passing Ellen’s car on the main drag, then taking a left onto Surfside Lane again, lapping the block.
“Here’s my theory about waves.” Phyllis extended her arms, palms up. “Bad things are like waves. They’re going to happen to you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. They’re part of life, like waves are a part of the ocean. If you’re standing on the shoreline, you don’t know when the waves are coming. But they’ll come. You gotta make sure you get back to the surface, after every wave. That’s all.”
Ellen smiled, considering it. “That makes a lot of sense.”
Suddenly Phyllis and Linda fell silent, their gaze on the open door of a wooden contemporary on the left side of the street, catty-corner to the Bravermans’. A pretty redhead was emerging in a crisp black dress, with a black bag on her arm. She locked the door, then clacked in stylish black pumps down a concrete path to her driveway and a silver Mercedes.
“Who’s that?” Ellen caught the mischievous look Phyllis and Linda exchanged. “Someone we don’t like, evidently.”
Phyllis burst into laughter. “I forgot my poker face.”
Linda looked over at her. “You don’t have a poker face. I know, I play poker with you.”
“Fill me in, ladies.” Ellen smiled. “I love to dish.”
“She’s a big snob,” Phyllis answered, with the trace of a smile. “Her name is Kelly Scott and her family has more money than God. She’s from Palm Beach.”
“Pink and green country,” Linda added with a naughty giggle, and Phyllis nodded.
“I’ve met her at least four times, and she acts like she never met me before. I hate that.”
“Me, too,” Linda said.
“Me, three,” Ellen said, and they all laughed again. But she was watching the Braverman house as they walked by, looking past the yellow ribbons and the Timothy memorial and the curtains. Inside was Carol Braverman.
And Ellen needed her DNA.
Today.
Chapter Fifty-five
The sky began to cloud over, cutting the temperature, and Ellen sat low in the driver’s seat of the car with the window open, watching the Braverman house. It was 10:36 A.M., but there’d been no sign of Carol, and the red flag on her mailbox was still down.
Ellen was still hoping that she’d mail a letter. She checked her BlackBerry, and Marcelo hadn’t emailed or called. She wondered if she still had a job to go back to, or a crush.
Please tell me what is going on. I can help you.
She kept an eye on the house and straightened up as a mail truck appeared on the main drag and began stopping at the houses, delivering packets of mail. No sign of Carol with an envelope to be mailed, and now it was too late. The mail truck turned onto Surfside, traveled up the street on the right side, and delivered the mail to the Braverman house.
Damn.
Ellen felt on edge. Hot and testy. She sipped warm juice, then dug in her purse for the notes from the DNA test, reminding herself of the sample possibilities. Gum, soda can, cigarette butt, blah blah blah. She tossed the list aside and glanced back at the Bravermans’ house, where there was finally some activity. Carol was stepping out the front door.
Ellen’s senses sprang to alert. She couldn’t keep waiting for something to happen. She had to make something happen. She got out of the car in her sunglasses and visor and went into her I’m-just-a-walker routine, strolling across the main drag and entering Surfside. She walked slowly, staying on the opposite side of the street as Carol walked from the front door and disappeared into the garage.
Ellen cut her pace, taking smaller steps, and the next minute, Carol came out of the garage with a green plastic gardener’s tote. She had on a cute sundress and another visor, with her dark blond hair in its ponytail again.
Ellen kept her eyes straight ahead, but watched Carol cross the lawn to the memorial to Timothy, then she knelt down, s
etting the gardener’s tote next to her. She slid on a pair of flowery cotton gloves and began to weed in front of the memorial.
It’s as if she’s tending a grave.
Ellen felt a twinge of conscience as she turned the corner, and as soon as she was out of sight, she broke into a light jog. She didn’t know how long Carol would be out front and she couldn’t blow this chance. It was almost too humid to breathe, and she was panting by the time she lapped the block and reached the intersection of Surfside Lane and the main drag, where she knelt next to a tall hedge, pretending to tie her sneaker.
Carol gardened at a leisurely pace, pulling the weeds and putting them in a neat pile on the left. A small plastic bag of peat moss and a large flat of yellow marigolds were sitting on the lawn next to the memorial, and a full sun bathed the front lawn. Ellen’s breathing returned to normal, but she was sweating behind her sunglasses, and Carol must have been feeling the same way, because in the next second, she took off her sunglasses and visor and set them down. Ellen flashed on the DNA list:
Hair with the follicle still attached.
She couldn’t be sure there would be a hair on the sunglasses or visor, and she wouldn’t get another chance, so she rejected the idea. She shifted her feet and fake-tied the other sneaker, watching as Carol moved to the marigold flat and twisted off a small packet of flowers. Ellen watched her from her crouching position, and Carol gentled the plant from the flat and set it on the ground. She reached into the gardener’s tote and pulled out a can of soda, then popped the tab, and took a sip.
Bingo!
Ellen scanned the block, and there was no one in sight. She slid the plastic glove from her other pocket, put it on her hand, and rose slowly. Then she slid her BlackBerry from her pocket and pressed the number for information in Miami. She asked for the Bravermans’ phone number, and while the call connected, she walked toward Carol, who was bent over her flowers, making a hole for the new marigolds with her fingers. The phone rang once in Ellen’s ear, then again, and in the next second, Carol looked up at her house.
Get the phone, Carol.
Ellen slid the paper bag from her pocket and started walking down Surfside Lane, keeping her gloved hand at her side, out of view. In the meantime, Carol was rising, taking off her gardening gloves on the fly, and hurrying toward the house.
Yes!
Ellen crossed to the Bravermans’ side of the street, her heart pounding. She hustled up the sidewalk, getting a bead on the soda can. There was nobody exercising or walking dogs, and she wouldn’t get another chance. She broke into a light run, the ringing cell phone to her ear. Ten feet away, then five, then right in front of the Braverman house. Carol’s soda was a Diet Sprite, sitting next to the tote.
Now, now, now!
She ran straight up the Bravermans’ lawn, swooped down with her gloved hand, grabbed the Diet Sprite and took off like a shot, running down the block. She turned the can upside down so the soda poured out, and she ran like she’d never run in her life. She tore around the block, bolted all the way to the main drag, then darted across the street.
HONK HONK! went a truck, skidding to a stop behind her.
Ellen tore open her car door, jumped in, and dumped the can in the brown paper bag. She twisted on the ignition, floored the gas pedal, and headed straight for the causeway. She felt like cheering. Wind off the causeway whipped her hair around, and she hit a red light, taking off the glove and leaving it on the seat, its purpose served. She took off her visor and sunglasses, relieved to finally shed her disguise. She caught a glimpse of the street sign and did a double take.
Charbonneau Drive?
The traffic light turned green, but instead of going straight over the causeway, she turned right onto the street.
Chapter Fifty-six
CHARBONNEAU DRIVE, read the street sign, and Ellen flashed on the dentist’s reminder from the Bravermans’ trash bag. She had known that Charbonneau sounded familiar, though she couldn’t remember how. She’d passed the street every time she’d driven back and forth to the causeway. Charbonneau Drive had to be connected to Carol Braverman. It was too distinctive a name not to be.
Curious, she drove along Charbonneau Drive, which was winding and pleasant. She passed a white stucco rancher, a fake French château, and a brick McMansion; the houses had the same variety as on Surfside Lane, but all of them were the same, more recent, vintage. Palm trees lined the road, throwing dappled shade on the street, but they weren’t as established as the palms on Surfside, and the vegetation, white oleander and bougainvillea, looked newer. A woman in a running singlet and shorts jogged by, and two men walked matching dachshunds.
She followed the street, and at the end of a cul-de-sac stood an immense mansion of pink stucco with a clay tile roof. It was three stories tall, with at least thirty arched Spanish windows and a covered walkway that sheltered a grand main entrance. A sign on the lawn read, CHARBONNEAU HOUSE, and underneath that, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
I’m the public.
Ellen pulled into a parking lot of crushed shells and turned off the ignition. She’d make it quick, but she put her DNA samples under the seat anyway, then got out of the car and walked to the house. The stucco had been repainted and the tiles on the roof meticulously maintained, but the mansion was much older than the houses surrounding it on the drive. The lot was at least three acres of lush lawn, the breeze was fragrant, and the place a reminder of a slower, older Florida. She walked up the breezeway, climbed stairs of red Mexican tile, and went inside the door, looking around.
The entrance hall had a black-and-white tile floor and was dominated by a huge staircase, covered with an Oriental carpet. There were three large rooms off the hall, furnished as meeting rooms, and she entered the center room, which overlooked an expanse of green lawn and a small circular fountain.
“May I help you?” a voice asked, and she turned around. It was a woman with a dark brown bob, light eyes with friendly crow’s-feet, and a warm smile. “Were you looking for something?”
“I was driving past the sign, and I’m not from around here. I thought the building was so pretty, I wanted to see it.”
“Why, thank you. We’re very proud of Charbonneau House and the work we do here.”
“What is that, may I ask?”
“We promote theater arts and other cultural events to children in the community.” The woman, professional in a crisp white blouse and a khaki cotton skirt, with red espadrilles, gestured to the main hallway. “In addition to the conference rooms and classrooms, we have a full theater in the back, which seats seventy-five people. We have a large backstage and several dressing rooms. We stage three productions a year and we just finished our run of Once Upon a Mattress.”
“How nice,” Ellen said, meaning it. “And I see there’s Charbonneau House and Charbonneau Drive. I assume it’s related to the Charbonneau family?”
“Yes, exactly. The Charbonneaus are one of the oldest families in the area, and they’ve donated the house for the community’s use.” The woman gestured to an oil portrait in an ornate golden frame, one of two flanking the windows. “That’s our benefactor, Bertrand Charbonneau, who unfortunately passed away about five years ago, at the age of ninety-one.”
“How interesting.” Ellen looked at the painting, of a reedy, silver-haired man in glasses and a light green business suit, leaning against a wall of bookshelves. She tried not to stare at the picture, to see if there was any resemblance to Will. Her head was already swimming, and the bag in the car would eliminate any guesswork.
“Bertrand was a wonderful man, a friend of my father’s. He was one of the community’s first residents and developed much of the real estate here. This house, his childhood home, was only one of his many gifts to our community.”
Ellen was trying to piece together where, if anywhere, Carol Charbonneau Braverman fit in, but didn’t want to show her hand, especially since this woman knew the family. “I gather Bertrand Charbonneau had an interest in theater?”
br /> “His wife Rhoda had a brief career as an actress before she retired to raise their children. Even then, she remained very active in children’s theater.” The woman strolled over to the other oil portrait, and Ellen followed her. The painting showed another man, this one in a casual brown sweater, by a pool. The plaque read Richard Charbonneau.
“So this must be Bertrand’s son?” Ellen asked, scanning the man’s features. He had the same blue eyes she’d seen on Carol, and Will. It was the tour of Will’s bloodlines, maybe, but she’d know soon enough.
“Yes, Richard was my father’s contemporary. He and his wife Selma continued their father’s efforts. Unfortunately, they both passed away many years ago, in a car accident.”
“That’s too bad. Do you think the family will carry on this tradition? It really seems like a wonderful idea.”
“No worries there.” The woman smiled pleasantly. “Richard and his wife had a daughter, Carol, and she works with the children every Wednesday and Friday morning. She understands all aspects of children’s theater and even directs a play a year.”
“Well, that’s wonderful.” Ellen’s chest tightened, and she looked away from the portrait, hiding her emotion. If Will was really Timothy, then Bertrand Charbonneau would be his great-grandfather and Richard Charbonneau his grandfather. Will would be part of a wonderful family, born to extraordinary wealth. She thought ahead, to the day she’d get the DNA results, when she’d have to make a decision, or not.
You’ll have to make a choice I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
“Will that be all?” the woman asked, cocking her head.
“Yes, thanks,” Ellen answered, turning away.
She said another good-bye, walked from the room, and hurried out the entrance hall to the door. By the time she hit the walkway, her pace picked up from a light jog to a full-out run, and her footfalls crunched the seashells. She wanted to forget Charbonneau House, Charbonneau Drive, and her DNA samples, which would answer a question she never wanted to ask. Her chest heaved and panted, and she reached the car out of breath, then she flung open the door, grabbed the paper bag from under the seat, and raised her arm to throw it across the gorgeous lawn.