She breathed in huge chunks of air.
Wonderful soft smells of summer filled her. She could smell honeysuckle and pine. She could see fireflies.
I’m out.
Fear stayed inside the cellar with the dust and the plastic explosives. She was standing on real grass, soft stems brushing wetly on her bare legs. Compared to the blackness of her imprisonment the starry night was utterly clear. She gazed upon the world as if she had been away a thousand years.
In the end, she had simply hung her whole weight on the knotted wires until they separated. There was no current in them and nothing happened. After all that horror and fear, there was nothing to it. Then she had slid the bar out of its handle and used her shoulders to press upward and lift the bulkhead door.
Annabel Annabel Annabel Annabel. The world reverberated with her name, welcoming her home.
What time is it? she wondered. Midnight? Two A.M.? Four A.M.?
Annabel Annabel. Who was calling her? Was she making it up in the residue of her fear or were people out there looking?
She had no idea where she could be. Around her were buildings whose silhouettes in the moonlight seemed rather formal, as if they should be gathered about a city square, but beyond them she could see the outlines of the hills. She could smell the forest.
Headlights penetrated the sky. Far away and high above, a car had stopped on a hillside. The headlights went out. Stopping for what reason? To watch an explosion?
Annabel began to run.
Who? Who? Who?
Who had locked her up? Who was coming to watch her die?
“Daniel is a very sick boy, Emmie,” said Mr. Thiell to Emmie. She was dwarfed by him and his two thugs. It terrified her to be standing among them. But she had no place to go. “He wanted to take his revenge by killing Hollings Jayquith’s daughter. There’s a certain twisted logic to that. Destroy the person Jayquith loves, just as Jayquith destroyed the person Daniel loved. Daniel knows about the wildlife preserves, you see, because he’s my son’s good friend. It was really very clever of him to utilize the buildings.”
“Stop it!” hissed Emmie. “You cannot get away with this! You cannot transfer any blame to Daniel Ransom! You are responsible for everything. And if anything happens to Annabel or Daniel or Alex, I will know.”
“Ah, Emmie, you’re a young girl whose jealousy of her beautiful older sister is pathetically obvious. Would anyone in authority believe such a sad little case? No. To whom would you carry your little version, Emmie?”
He was right. He would brazen it out. After all—look who would be on his side! Theodora Jayquith herself. Theodora could never allow herself to believe that she had associated all these years with a man willing to murder her beloved Annabel. Willing now also to murder Daniel and Alex. Presidents of countries, CEOs of corporations, Wall Street hotshots—they got away with their crimes; why could J Thiell not get away with his?
“Emmie, Emmie,” said Mr. Thiell sadly. “Your poor sister will have to deal with your nervous breakdown when she gets back from her honeymoon. Is that fair to her?”
The high-beam headlights in the Mercedes went back on. Blinded, they swerved to stare. Who could be in the vehicle?
Yellow light like some evil X ray exposed them on the hillside.
“I used your car phone, Mr. Thiell,” said Annabel in her high clear voice. “The state police are on their way. Also my father.”
Emmie’s knees gave way.
Annabel was out. Annabel was safe.
“Give me the detonator, Mr. Thiell,” said Alex.
From her new position low in the grass, Emmie saw the two boys appear behind Mr. Thiell’s men. Nobody was armed. Nobody had thought it was necessary. They had expected that the boys would get themselves blown up and that would be that. Who needed guns when there were plastic explosives in place?
“You and I, Mr. Thiell,” said Alex, “are going in there. I will have the detonator. Once you and I are inside, I’m going to detonate the buildings. Because there’s no point in trying to get you through the law. The law will smile on you, the way it always has, because you pay it off, what you don’t own already. Nobody knows better than me. My brother Alan—you got away with that. Well, you’re not getting away now.”
Alex is willing to die, too, in order to get his revenge, thought Emmie. She struggled to her feet and backed away from the group. Annabel was in the Mercedes, Daniel and Alex were facing J Thiell and his two men. The men’s eyes were darting, assessing, trying to decide what to do here. Waiting, Emmie thought, for directions from J Thiell.
Or from me, she thought. Because after all, one of them was armed. Emmie Pearse lifted the gun that she had taken from Mr. Thiell back at the country house. “No, Alex,” she said. “You won’t be a murderer, too. You are a good person. That’s the point here. They are the bad guys. We are the good ones.”
J Thiell’s fingers closed on the small black case in his palm. Emmie would have done the same. Send the buildings up now. Why leave even the slightest chance that Alex would manage to escort him onto the grounds? It wouldn’t be a nice way to die.
J Thiell provided them with the greatest fireworks on earth. Black and silent buildings leaped into the sky with color and grandeur and great screaming noise. Metal clashed on metal like a thousand cars crashing.
The explosion ended far more quickly than seemed possible. The night was too dark to see its effect. The stink spread quickly. Baked dust, roasted wood, heated brick.
But no corpses, thought Emmie. The people I care about are alive.
She heard sirens in the distance. Whether or not Annabel had actually reached help on the car phone, help was going to come after the sky lit up like a neutron bomb. Emmie handed the gun to Daniel and ran for the Mercedes. Annabel got out and the two girls embraced. “You’re alive!” whispered Emmie. “Oh, Annabel, I thought maybe—I was so scared for you—it’s been awful!”
It had been awful for Annabel. But no longer. She was floating on relief. She would never tell anyone, even Daniel, that she had believed her own father had ordered her death. Of all the secrets of her life, she now had the greatest: She had believed that Hollings Jayquith was capable of evil.
Her father was good; he just had bad taste in friends.
Her aunt was good; she had just deceived herself over a man, and what woman hadn’t done the same at least once?
Her family loved her. Sidetracked by J Thiell’s manipulations and by Jade’s arrival. But they loved her.
And Daniel … he could love her now … he could admit it … he could say her last name out loud … and stand next to her … be joined to her.
Annabel let Emmie spill out emotions. Annabel kept hers.
Up the torturously narrow drive came the first police car, followed by the first rescue truck and the first fire engine.
Daniel put the gun away. He didn’t feel like explaining it to the rescue squads. No sense confusing the issue.
Mr. Thiell and his men retreated to the Mercedes and the four young people stood on the opposite side of the Bronco. None of them was going anywhere, not with those huge vehicles lumbering up that narrow drive.
“There’s going to be terrible publicity,” said Emmie shakily.
“We’ve been there,” said Daniel. “Publicity is nothing new.”
The immensely powerful lights of the rescue vehicles bathed them. Annabel narrowed her eyes to see Daniel. I wonder what my hair looks like, she thought. I don’t want a reunion when my hair is disgusting.
She had to laugh. Her laugh caught Daniel and he laughed with her, and ran toward her and caught her in his arms. He kissed her in the dark and they tasted the dust of the explosion. They kissed it away.
“What’s new,” said Annabel, “is proof. J Thiell is going to jail.” She traced Daniel’s sturdy profile with her fingers.
“He’ll be out in ten minutes with bail,” protested Alex. “If the local police even book him. They’ll probably book us.”
&
nbsp; “No,” said Daniel Madison Ransom. “I’m going to use my name. It’s a name that gets done what needs to be done. It’s time I stopped pretending I’m not there. It’s time I leaned into my name. Shout it out loud. Give interviews. Say my piece. Daniel Madison Ransom is somebody. Not just somebody’s son.”
Twenty-one
THE CENTERPIECE WAS A sandcastle seven feet high. Slender towers and window slits trembled above moats and courtyards.
Daniel was mesmerized by it. “What’s it made of?” he said to Annabel, who didn’t know. “I think it’s Styrofoam,” Daniel said. “The florists designed it like architecture and sprayed sand on it. It is fabulous, Annabel! We’re keeping it!” He grinned at her.
“Our first home?” teased Annabel.
Daniel didn’t risk answering that one. “Let’s dance,” he said.
“There’s also food. As I recall, you like food even better than dancing.”
“Dance me over to the food,” said Daniel.
Her dress was pale and frosty, like lemon sorbet. Her wonderful hair was loose and sweetly scented. He turned his cheek against it, savoring the silkiness.
The night of the kidnapping—actually, the morning after; it was way past dawn before they got back to Annabel’s country place—Annabel’s first priority had been washing her hair. She insisted that nothing more, absolutely not one thing more, could take place until she had showered and washed and dried her hair.
Daniel had loved that.
No confrontations without beauty.
He and Mr. Jayquith did not become buddies while waiting for Annabel to get her hair squeaky clean. It was all they could do to stand in the same room. When Annabel came into the vast white living room where the men waited, her hair black as starry nights, they both walked toward her.
She could hug only one of them first.
She hugged Daniel.
It kept a smile on his face all through the week that followed. Not an easy week. Alex had been right. Mr. Thiell did have presence; every sentence he uttered carried the weight of experience and money and power. All the local police said was, You rich New Yorkers should stop boozing so much at your weddings. Celebrating by blowing up buildings is going too far.
But Daniel’s attorneys had arrived. Mr. Jayquith’s attorneys arrived. Theodora was told. Duplicates of Alex’s brother’s disks were booted up on the computers in Mr. Jayquith’s office. It was now a matter of time. Justice would follow as it had followed other powerful men, from presidents to Thiells.
How peaceful, after the years in which the death of his father ruled his entire life, to have it solved.
I’m sorry, Dad, thought Daniel, remembering the living father who had tossed him baseballs and taken him skiing. I need to bury it. I need to live. I can’t follow in your footsteps, Dad. They’re yours. I’m going another way. Please be proud of me.
The party tonight had been Annabel’s decision. She said no matter what had gone wrong, they were going on, and they were going on with glad hearts. Both families, she said firmly, were going to get out there in the public eye and rejoice that they were alive and had each other.
Theodora, who had wanted to go into seclusion, was there. Reeling from the shock of J Thiell’s ugly life, she still toughed it out.
Jade, who in Daniel’s opinion should be shipped in an airless box back to Ohio, was there.
His mother, whose vengeful center had evaporated, leaving her wispy and confused, was there.
Emmie was there, and Scott Alexander, whom they still called Alex, was there.
No party with those guests could be a success. But it was. Annabel was a demanding hostess. Be cheerful! she ordered. Laugh! Dance! Enjoy!
Over at the food, Daniel found himself next to Mr. Jayquith again. They gave each other the tight smiles of former enemies who had been told by the United Nations (Annabel) to be nice.
“But what about Tommy?” asked Emmie. “He’s the one I don’t understand at all.”
Mr. Jayquith was still shocked over his chauffeur. “J Thiell recommended him,” he said, trying to shrug. “Years ago. Tommy was in the front seat listening in on half my telephone discussions! He knew about my buyout difficulties, my merger headaches, my stock option nightmares. I never thought about his presence. He was so much furniture. All along he was selling information to J Thiell.”
“But I always thought Tommy liked Annabel and me,” said Emmie.
“Tommy claims he didn’t know what was planned for Annabel. He insists that he was told she was going to be locked up for a few days until things cooled off. I’d like to believe him, but I don’t.”
How much would any of them believe other people’s stories now? How much could any of them trust or relax in the future?
“What happens to Jade?” Annabel said quietly to her aunt.
Jade was dancing with one of the television people in Theodora’s train of admirers. She was not wearing a dress of Annabel’s. Theodora had taken her to a shop whose one-of-a-kinds were legend. Jade did not look like a legend. She looked like the daughter-of-a-legend.
Theodora remained expressionless, which was unlike her. For television she had learned large, camera-ready expressions. “Jade needs a wider horizon. I think the United States is too confining for her. There’s a delightful program for students on an ocean liner: classes on board ship while sailing to ports from Portugal to Hong Kong. Jade will be gone ten months, seeing the world. When she comes back, we’ll see what kind of woman she is. I want to believe that the temptations of money overcame her. I want to believe she is a decent person.”
We want to believe everyone we know is a decent person, thought Annabel. But it wasn’t money that overcame Jade. Aunt Theodora is still deceiving herself. Hate motivated Jade, and the hate is still there, waiting like revolution, to come out from under the dictatorship.
Annabel was relieved that Jade would vanish for ten months, but she wondered if that was wise. Jade would know that she was literally being shipped off. Just as Jade, dancing across the room, knew that the Jayquiths were talking without her, a group the excluded her … that always would.
Daniel turned Annabel’s cheek to face him. Annabel forgot her sudden cousin.
Emmie had eyes only for Alex, who was talking to Mr. Jayquith. Alex had used Emmie and still she adored him. Alex’s list of things to do and people to meet began and ended with avenging his brother’s death. He had come to the party only to discuss the next stage in prosecuting J Thiell.
Emmie had so completely lost her heart in so short a time. Losing your heart turned out to be terrifying. You could lose it, as Theodora Jayquith had, to a friend who brutalized your own family.
Say good-bye, thought Emmie. Don’t show emotion. Don’t even have emotion. Just check Alex off as experience.
Emmie had talked to Venice by phone. Not only would Venice weather this, she would flourish in the face of this adversity. This was thunder and lightning, sleeping out in the storm, laughing in the face of nature. Venice and Michael were going to be all right.
Halfway through the evening, Alex thanked her for her assistance in a difficult time. He appreciated Emmie’s understanding, he said, and he hoped she didn’t hold it against him.
“I do, actually,” said Emmie. “I think there were more direct and less hurtful ways to do what you were trying to do.”
Alex did not know what to say to that. “Take care of yourself,” he said finally. He waved good-bye, although they were only a foot apart.
“You, too,” she said quietly. Alex left the room and her life, while Emmie forced her heart to shrug. If I’m going to take care of myself, she thought, I’d better do a decent job at it.
She crossed the room and tapped Gavin on the shoulder.
“Hey, Emmie,” he said, glad to see her. Genuinely glad. Maybe they’ve always been glad to see me, she thought, and I never bothered to look. “Hey, Gavin. Let’s dance.”
“Or talk?” offered Gavin plaintively. “Dancing wears me out
.”
“You’re everybody’s dance partner at these things,” she said, surprised.
“I know. That’s why they invite me. I’m a good sport. But I’d rather talk any day. Tell me about your college plans. Engineering, isn’t it?”
He had remembered. That surprised her. Well, maybe there were more surprises in store for her. Nice surprises.
Daniel’s hand lay on Annabel’s waist, as it had in the Egyptian Room, warm and heavy and sure of itself. Annabel took his big hand between her smaller ones, making an envelope of her fingers.
We hardly know each other, she thought. And my heart and mind are convinced that he is not only decent, but absolutely wonderful … and meant for me.
If I had another penny, I would make another wish.
That the next promise will be no secret. It will be in front of our friends. A vow to love and to cherish forever and ever.
You have only just become acquainted with the Jayquiths, Daniel Madison Ransom. So let me tell you something about us.
We get what we want.
A Biography of Caroline B. Cooney
Caroline B. Cooney is the author of ninety books for teen readers, including the bestselling thriller The Face on the Milk Carton. Her books have won awards and nominations for more than one hundred state reading prizes. They are also on recommended-reading lists from the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and more. Cooney is best known for her distinctive suspense novels and romances.
Born in 1947, in Geneva, New York, Cooney grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where she was a library page at the Perrot Memorial Library and became a church organist before she could drive. Music and books have remained staples in her life.
Cooney has attended lots of colleges, picking up classes wherever she lives. Several years ago, she went to college to relearn her high school Latin and begin ancient Greek, and went to a total of four universities for those subjects alone!
Her sixth-grade teacher was a huge influence. Mr. Albert taught short story writing, and after his class, Cooney never stopped writing short stories. By the time she was twenty-five, she had written eight novels and countless short stories, none of which were ever published. Her ninth book, Safe as the Grave, a mystery for middle readers, became her first published book in 1979. Her real success began when her agent, Marilyn Marlow, introduced her to editors Ann Reit and Beverly Horowitz.