Dawn

  "We never stole!" I cried.

  "Never?" She twisted her lips into a cold, sharp mocking smile. My eyes fled before the onslaught of hers. My knees began to click together nervously even though I had nothing to fear. I was innocent. Swallowing first, I repeated my innocence and looked at Sissy. The poor, intimidated girl swung her eyes away quickly.

  "Tear this place apart, Burt," she ordered, "from top to bottom until you locate that necklace." Reluctantly he moved toward the small dresser. "It's not here. I told you . . . I swear . . ."

  "Do you realize," she said slowly, her eyes now like two hot coals in a stove, "how embarrassing this can be for Cutler's Cove? Never, never in the long and prestigious history of this hotel, has a guest had anything stolen out of his or her room. My staff has always consisted of hardworking people who respect other people's property. They know what it is to work here; they think of it as an honor."

  "I didn't steal it," I moaned, the tears now streaming down my cheeks. Mr. Hornbeck had everything out of my drawers and was turning the drawers over. He looked behind them in the dresser, too.

  "Sissy," my grandmother snapped, "take her bed apart. Strip off the sheets and pillowcase and turn that mattress over."

  "Yes, madam," she said and moved instantly to carry out my grandmother's orders. She gazed up at me, her eyes asking my forgiveness as she began to tear off my bed sheet.

  "I won't leave here until I have that necklace back," my grandmother insisted, folding her arms under her small bosom.

  "Then you will sleep here tonight," I said. Mr. Hornbeck turned to me, surprised at my defiance, his eyebrows raised in a question mark. I could see the doubt flash across his brow—perhaps I was innocent. He turned to my grandmother.

  Her puckered, now prune-colored mouth drew up like a drawstring purse. I watched and waited for her sardonic smile to come and break her parchment skin. I expected her voice to crackle, cackle, witchlike.

  "You won't fool anyone with this defiance," she finally said. "Least of all me."

  "I don't care what you or anyone else thinks—I didn't steal any gold necklace," I insisted.

  Sissy had the bed stripped down. She pulled off the mattress, and Mr. Hornbeck searched under the bed. He looked up at my grandmother and shook his head.

  "Look in those shoes," my grandmother told Sissy. She got down on her knees and searched every pair. My grandmother made her sift through all my garments and look in socks and pants pockets while Mr. Hornbeck searched the remainder of the room. When both came up empty-handed, she scrutinized me closely with her suspicious eyes. Then she turned to Mr. Hornbeck.

  "Burt, step outside a moment," she said. He nodded and left quickly. At this point I was shivering from the fright and the indignity. My grandmother stepped toward me.

  "Drop that blanket," she commanded.

  "What?" I looked at Sissy, who was standing on the side looking as frightened as I was.

  "Drop it!" she snarled.

  I released the blanket and she gazed upon me, giving my body such close scrutiny, I couldn't help from blushing. Her eyes lifted to mine, and I felt as if she were delving the depths of my soul, trying to absorb my very being into her own so she could control me.

  "Take off your brassiere," she said. I stepped back, my heart pounding. "If you don't do it now, I'll have to have the police from town come here and take you down to the station for an even more embarrassing strip search. Do you want that?"

  Memories of the police station where I had been questioned and told of Daddy's crime returned vividly. I shook my head and my tears flowed again, but she was unfeeling, unsympathetic, her metallic eyes cold and determined.

  "I'm not hiding any necklace," I said.

  "Then do what I say," she snapped back.

  I looked at Sissy, and she looked down, ashamed for me. Slowly I brought my hands behind my back and unfastened my bra. Then I slipped it down my arms and quickly folded my arms across my bosom to shield it from her probing eyes. I stood there trembling. She stepped forward and checked the inside of my bra, of course finding nothing.

  "Lower those panties," she said, not satisfied. I took a deep breath. Oh, the horror of her, I thought. I couldn't stop crying. My body shook with sobs.

  "I can't stand here all day and wait," she said.

  I closed my eyes to block out the embarrassment, and I brought my panties to my knees. As soon as I did so, she demanded I turn around.

  "All right," she said. I pulled up my panties and put on my bra. Then I wrapped the blanket around myself again. I was shaking as much as I would had I been left out naked in the middle of a winter storm. My teeth wouldn't stop clicking against each other, but she didn't appear to notice or care.

  "If you have hidden this necklace somewhere in this hotel, I will eventually know about it," she said. "Nothing, absolutely nothing happens here without my knowing about it one way or another, one time or another. And this is a unique necklace with rubies and small diamonds. You can't hope to sell it without it being known."

  "I didn't take the necklace," I said, holding my sobs back and keeping my eyes closed. I shook my head vehemently. "I didn't."

  "If I leave here now, and we discover you have the necklace, I will have to turn you over to the police. Do you understand? Once I leave, I can no longer cover for your crime," she warned.

  "I didn't steal it," I repeated.

  She pivoted and seized the door handle.

  "You can't imagine the embarrassment I have to face now. You are defiant and stubborn, refusing to listen and do the things I have told you. Now thievery has been added to the list. I won't forget it," she threatened. She gazed at Sissy. "Let's go," she said.

  "I'm sorry," Sissy mumbled quickly and rushed out after her. I collapsed on my naked mattress and cried until my tears dried up. Then I remade my bed and crawled under the blanket, stunned by the events that had just occurred. It all seemed much More like a nightmare than reality. Had I been dreaming?

  The emotional tension exhausted me. I must have drifted off into a sleep of escape, because when I opened my eyes, I saw the rain had stopped, although there was still a wet chill in the air and the world outside was pitch dark—no stars, no moon, just the sound of the wind rushing in and over the hotel and grounds, swishing around the building:

  I sat up with my back to the headboard, keeping the blanket wrapped around me. Then I decided to get up and get dressed. I needed to talk to someone and Philip was the first person who came to mind. But when I. went t. open the door, I found it locked. pulled on the handle, disbelieving.

  "No!" I cried. "Open this door!"

  I listened, but all I heard was silence. I turned the handle and pulled. The door wouldn't budge. Being locked in this small room suddenly filled me with panic. I was sure my grandmother had done it to add salt to my wounds, to punish me this way because she hadn't found the necklace in my room as she had expected.

  "Someone open this door!"

  I pounded the door with my small fists until they grew red and my arms ached. Then I listened. Someone had heard me. I could hear footsteps in the hallway. Maybe it was Sissy, I thought.

  "Who's there?" I called. "Please, help me. The door is locked."

  I waited. Although I didn't hear anyone speak, I sensed someone was there. I could feel someone's presence on the other side of that door. Was it my mother? Or Mrs. Boston?

  "Who's there? Please."

  "Dawn," I finally heard my father say. He spoke through the crack between the door and the jamb. "Please, unlock the door and let me out," I said.

  "I told her you didn't take the necklace," he said.

  "No, I didn't."

  "I didn't think you would steal."

  "I didn't!" I cried. Why wasn't he opening the door? Why was he speaking through a crack? He must be standing right up against it, I thought, with his lips to the opening.

  "Mother will get to the bottom of it," he said. "She always does."

  "She's a very cruel person,
" I said. "To do what she did and then lock me in my room. Please, open the door."

  "You mustn't think that, Dawn. Sometimes she appears hard to people, but after she makes her point, people usually see she's right and fair and they're happy they've listened to her."

  "She's not a god; she's just an old lady who runs a hotel!" I cried. I waited, expecting him to unlock the door, but he said nothing and did nothing. "Father, please open the door," I pleaded.

  "Mother just wants to do the right things, bring you up the right way, correct all the wrong things you've been taught."

  "I don't have to be locked up in here," I moaned. "I didn't live like some animal. We weren't thieves, dirty, and stupid," I said.

  "Of course you weren't, but there is much you have to learn that's new. You're part of an important family now, and Grandmother Cutler just wants you to adjust.

  "I know it's hard for you, but Mother's been in this business for more years than even I've been alive, and her instincts about people and things are excellent. Look what she's built here and how many people come back every year," he said in a soft, reasonable tone of voice through the crack.

  "I'm not going to wear that dumb nameplate," I insisted, my eyes burning with determination.

  He was silent again, this time for so long that finally I thought he had left.

  "Father?"

  "When you were stolen away from us, you weren't just taken away from your mother and me; you were also taken away from Grandmother Cutler," he said, his voice now louder. "When you were stolen, her heart broke, too."

  "I can't believe that," I declared. "Wasn't she the one who decided to put a monument in the cemetery with my name on it?" I couldn't believe I was talking to him through a door, but in a way it made it easier for me to say what I wanted.

  "Yes, but she did that only to save my sanity. I thanked her for it later on. I couldn't work; I was no good to Laura Sue or to Philip. All I did was call police departments and chase around the country whenever there was a slight lead. So you see, it wasn't such a terrible thing."

  Not a terrible thing? To symbolically bury a child who wasn't dead? What sort of people were these? What kind of family had I inherited?

  "Please, open the door. I don't like being locked in."

  "I have an idea," he said instead of opening the door. "People who don't know me well call me Mr. Cutler and other people, close friends and family, call me Randolph."

  "So?"

  "Think of Eugenia the way I think of Mr. Cutler and Laura Sue thinks of Mrs. Cutler. How's that? Your friends are always going to call you by your nickname."

  "It's not a nickname; it's my name."

  "Your informal name," he said, "but Eugenia could be your . . . your hotel name. How's that?"

  "I don't know." I stepped back from the door, my arms folded under may breasts. If I didn't agree, they might never open the door, I thought.

  "Just do this little compromise, and you'll bring peace and tranquillity back. We're right in the middle of the season, and the hotel is full, and—"

  "Why did you give her my letter to Ormand Longchamp?" I snapped.

  "She still has that letter?"

  "No," I said. "I have it. She returned it and forbid me to have anything to do with him. She likes to forbid things," I said.

  "Oh, I'm sorry, I . . . I thought she was going to get the letter delivered. We had discussed it, and although she wasn't happy about it, she said she would get the police chief of Cutler's Cove to take care of it. I guess she got so upset, she—"

  "She was never going to have the letter delivered," I said. "Why couldn't you do it yourself?"

  "Oh, I guess I could. It's just that Mother and the police chief are good friends, and I thought . . . I'm sorry," he said. "I'll tell you what," he said quickly. "If you agree to wear the nameplate, I'll take the letter to the chief myself and see to it that it's delivered. How's that? Is it a deal? I'll even make sure there's a receipt so you can see that it was delivered."

  For a moment I was caught in a storm of confusion raging through my mind and heart. The kidnapping had put an ugly stain on Momma and Daddy. I could never forgive them for what they had done, but deep inside I still clung to the hope that there was some explanation. I had to have Daddy tell me his side of it.

  Now I had to pay a price to have any contact with him. One way or another Grandmother Cutler got her way at Cutler's Cove, I thought. But this time I was going to get something, too.

  "If I agree, will you find out what has happened to Jimmy and Fern?"

  "Jimmy and Fern? You mean the Longchamps' real children?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll try. I promise, I'll try," he said, but I recalled what Mother had said about his promises and how easily he made them and then forgot them.

  "Will you really try?" I asked.

  "Sure."

  "All right," I said. "But people who want to can call me Dawn."

  "Sure," he said.

  "Will you open the door?"

  "Where's the letter?" he replied.

  "Why?"

  "Slip it under the door."

  "What? Why won't you open the door?"

  "I don't have the key," he said. "I'll go get it and tell Mother about our agreement."

  I slipped the letter under, and he took it quickly. Then I heard him walk of leaving me feeling as though I had just made a deal with the devil.

  I sat down on the bed to wait, but suddenly I heard the turning of the key in the lock. The door opened and I faced Philip.

  "How come your door's locked?"

  "Grandmother did it. She thinks I stole a necklace."

  He shook his head.

  "You better get out of here. Grandmother doesn't want us to be alone together. Clara Sue told her stories and—"

  "I know," he said, "but I can't help it this time. You must come with me."

  "Come with you? Where? Why?"

  "Just trust me," he said in a loud whisper. "Hurry."

  "But—"

  "Please, Dawn," he pleaded.

  "How come you had the key to my room?" I demanded.

  "Had the key?" He shook his head. "It was in the door."

  "It was? But . . ."

  Where had my father gone? Why did he lie about the key? Did he have to get permission before opening the door to let his own daughter out?

  Philip seized my hand and pulled me out of the room. He started down the corridor to the side exit. "Philip!"

  "Quiet," he ordered. We rushed out and around the building. When I saw he was leading me to the little cement stairway, I stopped.

  "Philip, no."

  "Just come, will you. Before someone sees us." "Why?" I demanded, but he tugged me forward. "Philip, why are we going in there?" I demanded. Instead of answering, he opened the door and dragged me into the darkness with him. I was about to shout angrily when he reached up and pulled the light cord.

  The contrast between pitch darkness and blazing brightness hurt my eyes. I closed them and then opened them.

  And there, standing before us, was Jimmy.

  13

  A PIECE OF THE PAST

  "Jimmy! What are you doing here?" I asked, half in shock, half in delight. I had never been so happy to see anyone as I was to see him. He stared at me, his dark eyes twinkling impishly. I could see just how happy he was to set his eyes on me, too, and that warmed my heart.

  "Hi, Dawn," he finally said.

  We both faced each other awkwardly for a moment, and then I embraced him. Philip watched us with a half smile on his face.

  "You're drenched to the bone," I said, pulling back and shaking out my palms.

  "I got caught in it just outside of Virginia Beach." "How did you get here?"

  "Hitched all the way. I'm getting to be real good at it," he said, turning to Philip.

  "But how . . . why?" I squealed, unable to cloak my joy.

  "I ran away. Couldn't take it anymore. I'm on my way to Georgia to find our . . . to find my relatives
and live with them. But I thought I'd stop by here and see you one more time."

  "One of the guys came into the hotel looking for me," Philip explained. "They said someone from Emerson Peabody wanted to see me outside. I couldn't imagine . . . anyway, there he was."

  "I thought I should get a hold of Philip and have him find you. I didn't want to take any chances. I'm not going back," he declared firmly, pulling back his shoulders.

  "I told him he could stay here in the hideaway for a few days," Philip said. "We'll get him some food, warm clothing, and some money."

  "But, Jimmy, won't they just come after you?"

  "I don't care if they do, but they probably won't. No one really cares," he said, his eyes small and determined and full of anger. "I didn't know when you and I would ever see each other again, Dawn. I had to come," he said.

  Our gazes locked warmly on each other's, and in that gaze I saw all our happier times together, saw his smile, and something inside me became warm. Suddenly I felt safer here at Cutler's Cove.

  "I'm going back to the hotel and sneak into the kitchen to get him something to eat," Philip said. "I'll also get him some dry clothes and a towel. We've just got to be careful that no one discovers him," Philip emphasized. He turned to Jimmy. "My grandmother would blow her stack. Don't go out without checking carefully to see that no one's around, okay?"

  Jimmy nodded.

  "Give me about fifteen minutes to get the food and the clothing," he said and hurried out.

  "You'd better start taking off those wet clothes, Jimmy," I advised. It was as if we had never been apart and I was still looking after him.

  He nodded and pulled off his shirt. His wet skin gleamed under the light. Even in the short time we had been apart, he looked changed—he was older, bigger, with broader shoulders and thicker arms. I took his shirt and draped it over a chair as he sat down to take off his soaked sneakers and socks.

  "Tell me what happened to you after we were taken to the police station, Jimmy. Do you know anything about Fern?" I added quickly.

  "No, I never saw her after we were brought to the station. They took me to what they called a holding house where there were other kids waiting to be assigned to foster homes. Some were older, but most were younger than me. We slept on bunk beds not much bigger or nicer than this one," he said, "and we were crowded four in a room. One little boy kept whimpering all night. The others continually shouted at him to shut up, but he was too frightened. I got into a fight with them because they wouldn't stop terrorizing the kid."