Unspoken

  “Want some popcorn?” Bryce asked.

  She glanced up from her sketch. “Sure.”

  Bryce headed to the kitchen. She found the remote to put the movie on pause. She thought she had seen the film before. In the same vague way she was pretty sure Bryce had asked that question about popcorn more than once before she tuned in and heard him. She stretched her arms over her head and pulled against the stiffness in her back. Never before had she enjoyed regular evenings sitting with a guy simply to watch a movie, talk a bit, and draw. Sometime in the last few months she had come to realize these evenings were mini-vacations for her, and instead of finding reasons to push them off to a later date, she was at the point she preferred to say yes.

  “Want butter?” Bryce called.

  “Please.”

  He fed her, generated more ideas for giving, printed checks for her to sign, was curious about her day, and had stories to share about his family that made her silently regret her world was at its core only John and Ellie. He wasn’t pushing at the question of marriage resting quietly but very much there on the table, hadn’t even hinted at it. And that willingness to wait for her decision was more helpful to her than anything he could have said. He had made his case and was letting it be her decision.

  The doorbell rang as Bryce came back with the popcorn. He changed directions to answer it. “John.” Charlotte heard his surprise. “Please, come in.”

  “Sorry to interrupt the evening.”

  “In here, John.” Charlotte recognized his expression and set aside pencils and sketchbook. “This isn’t going to be good.”

  “How about a drive?”

  She knew what he was asking and simply shook her head. “He can hear it.” John would have said they needed to take a drive if what he was about to tell her was in the terrain of information she wouldn’t later tell Bryce. She’d rather not have to repeat the bad news.

  “I’m sorry I can’t buffer this.”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “A reporter is doing a book titled The Bazoni Girls’ Kidnapping. The publisher approached him to time its publication with the twentieth anniversary of the crime, he thought about it, and said yes.”

  “We know him.”

  “Gage Collier.”

  Charlotte knew John and every nuance of how he handled trouble, had trusted him in crowds and when she was afraid. “That fact has you driving me home tonight and breaking the news, but you’d give me the few last hours of the evening to enjoy without knowing this.” She braced with a deep breath. “Give me the rest of it.”

  He reached over and firmly took her hand. “Tabitha is cooperating with him.”

  She felt the punch.

  And then she felt nothing.

  She iced it over and left the emotions for later. “You’re certain,” she whispered.

  “Do you want a flight to New York to try to talk her out of it? She’s mailing her diary, your father’s journal, the case file and notes your father had gathered, and once the package is postmarked we’re going to be out of options.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes and thought of a lifetime with Tabitha. She opened her eyes and met John’s gaze. “No. She’s doing what she considers best for both of us.” It was the wrong decision, horribly wrong in ways Tabitha did not know, dangerously wrong. But if she didn’t trust Tabitha’s motives, she had lost a relationship with her sister forever. To cooperate with a book—Tabitha needed to talk, needed people to hear her story, or she would have said no.

  Charlotte could feel the nausea, knew the reaction was going to hit hard, and didn’t want Bryce to see the shakes that were coming. “Would you take me to Ellie’s?”

  “She’s on her way here. I want you north. Gage knows your name.”

  A reporter knew her name. It impacted like a bullet. Had she lost it all?

  A reporter was doing a book about the Bazoni girls’ kidnapping and knew Ruth Bazoni was Charlotte Graham. Bryce immediately understood the implications, was thinking through it better than Charlotte was right now. “Drink this, Charlotte.” He folded her hands around a mug of hot chocolate.

  She did as he asked. Bryce was relieved some color was coming back into her face. John had stepped out to arrange with Mitch to take Charlotte’s truck back. “A book publication is at least six months to a year away. There’s time,” he told her.

  She nodded. “Gage is . . .” She stopped and looked up at him, the panic in her eyes nearly breaking his heart. “Bryce, he’s the best investigative reporter in Chicago.

  “At the hospital he used to send me homemade sugar cookies, movies, and these scrapbooks he had made on various topics—everything that happened in music the last four years, popular culture, world events. To help me get up-to-date. He wanted an interview like every other reporter, but he was nice about including a genuine get-well along with the request.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  She shook her head as she sipped at the chocolate. “Talked to him twice, briefly, on the phone. John knows him.” She handed back the mug when it was empty. “Tabitha didn’t call me, Bryce. Didn’t warn me.”

  He knew the deep pain that simple fact created. Tabitha likely hadn’t wanted Charlotte to try to stop her from cooperating with the book, so she had not warned her. “I’m very sorry she didn’t.”

  He heard the front door open and wished he had more time. “Will you call me later, just to talk? It doesn’t have to be on important things. We can talk coins and dogs and what movie to watch next.”

  She smiled briefly, then began gathering her things. “If I knew how the rest of this night was going to unfold, I’d say yes. I’ll be in touch, Bryce. I just don’t know when.”

  “You’ll be in my prayers, Charlotte.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Thanks for that.”

  Bryce hoped and prayed to hear from her that night, but the phone never rang.

  John called him the next morning. “She’s at Silverton with Ellie for the next few days.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Hard to read. Charlotte handles something like this by getting very quiet, which is why I wanted Ellie along. Over the coming weeks the rest of this picture is going to become clear—what Tabitha is thinking, what Gage is planning. If we can keep Charlotte’s current name out of the book, that will be a good step in the right direction for her.”

  “John, is Gage Collier the kind of guy who puts together Ruth Bazoni, the Legacy Trust, and one of the richest women in the country?”

  “He’s not looking for it.”

  “But if he bumps into something that makes him wonder—he’s the guy who would find it?”

  “Yes.”

  Bryce pushed a hand through his hair. “It’s a reason she needs to consider staying at no regarding the money.”

  “She hasn’t mentioned the matter, but I’m sure it’s crossed Charlotte’s mind.”

  The odds had just risen significantly that Charlotte was going to turn it all down—marriage, the inheritance. And Bryce couldn’t disagree with that outcome given the circumstances. “You’ll call if there’s anything she needs?”

  “I will.”

  “Keep her safe, John.”

  “It’s what Ellie and I do, Bryce. When it matters we’re her family. I’ll be in touch.”

  Charlotte walked alone up the steps to the two-story townhouse, rang the doorbell. She had declined John’s offer to accompany her. She was on time and expected, and the door opened before the sound of the chimes had faded.

  “Charlotte, thanks for coming.”

  “Gage.”

  He stepped back so she could enter. “I asked for twenty minutes of your time, and I won’t keep you longer than that. May I offer you a soft drink or some refreshments?”

  She thought she’d test how he wanted to approach this. And how good a memory he had. “Have any sugar cookies?”

  “Straight up or with a glass of milk?”

  She could survive twenty minutes talking
with him. “Make it with milk.” He disappeared into the kitchen.

  Surprised at how calm she was feeling, she looked around his home with interest. He was working on the book here, it appeared. The living room was an office, the dining room crowded with four long tables neatly stacked with paper. Charlotte recognized her father’s journal, two of the cloth-covered diaries Tabitha favored, the neat handwriting on the folder tabs—the material from her sister was on the second table.

  The background report John had handed her on Gage Collier ran five pages single-spaced. Pulitzer Prize, weekend investigative pieces, scandals and crimes he had uncovered—his work had been admired and feared for decades, and he had a solid reputation as a cynic who didn’t trust an answer he couldn’t verify. That work history she expected and respected.

  His personal information had been more useful. Gage Collier was a widower who had lost his wife and unborn son in a house fire. That particular fact was enough for her to accept she’d be able to find some common ground with the man. He understood personal pain in a profound way.

  Reading the report hadn’t completely settled her nerves, though. She was the fact-finding target of this man. He might be a decent man at the core—John liked him—but she had good reason to fear what he could do. She stopped the thought. She was here, it was her choice, and she could walk out the door to the car idling at the curb whenever she wished.

  Gage returned with a tray holding two glasses of milk, a plate piled high with sugar cookies, and a stack of napkins. He placed it on the table between two comfortable chairs, took a seat and picked up one of the glasses. He dunked a cookie. “I haven’t forgotten any detail of our short relationship to date. If you’re willing to trust me with more, you’ll find I don’t forget those details either.”

  “A useful trait for a reporter,” she noted as she sat down.

  “You interest me, Charlotte. Which is one reason I didn’t dismiss the publisher when they approached me about this project.”

  Charlotte reached for the glass of milk and a sugar cookie to have something in her hands.

  “I wasn’t the first one they asked—Ann Falcon turned them down—and I modified the terms to suit me before I said yes. This will be my first book, and it will be well researched, on par with the best journalism I’ve done in my career. The cops who worked the task force, both local and federal, have retired, and many are willing to now go on the record.

  “I didn’t expect your sister to cooperate with me. She’s spoken on background for a couple of articles over the years, and while she’s a polite woman in her dealings with the press, I expected her to decline to offer anything more than the same for this book. She instead agreed to sit for an interview concerning the day of your abduction and the twenty-four hours before you shoved her out of the van. She’s provided me with what she had in written materials up to the day you were rescued—your father’s journals, her diaries, the case file the family had built, notes about what the investigators told the family, what they thought had happened. She won’t discuss her conversations with you or arrangements made after you were rescued. That’s the background for our conversation now.”

  Charlotte nodded and picked up another cookie. “What do you want from me?”

  “For you and I to reach an understanding.”

  Gage broke a second cookie and dunked it. “The book will stay with the name Ruth Bazoni. I will say you’ve changed your name and that you now live in Europe—or wherever you want it to say. There will be a disclaimer in the front of the book saying names and locations have been changed where necessary, so technically I won’t be lying.

  “I’m going to offer what I never offer, Charlotte. Read what I write as I develop the manuscript. Comment on anything you would like, or not, as you choose. You’re welcome to review the materials gathered, go through the transcripts of interviews I do, treat this”—he gestured to the tables of materials—“as your own resource as well as mine. You lived through what happened, but I don’t think you know many of the details of what was going on within the task force or with your family. If you want to go back and understand some of your own past, I’m offering you an open door to do so.”

  “I appreciate that,” she finally replied.

  Gage smiled. “I want your comments, Charlotte. I want whatever you decide to share with me. It’s the only way it becomes an extraordinary story. As you see what’s developing I think you’re going to decide it’s in your own interests to be part of this book, to offer your perspective.” He dug in his pocket and came up with a key. “For you.”

  She didn’t take it, too surprised by the offer.

  “Take it,” he encouraged. “A key to the front door. The alarm code has been set to also accept your birthday. I generate a printout of the current manuscript each Friday. The pages are marked by the date on the box and stacked on that far bookshelf. If you want to stop by at two a.m. and read, you’ll probably find me at the desk. It’s an open invitation. Come and go as you wish. I trust you. I trust you not to take something from this room or damage what is here. This is your story, Tabitha’s. You should be involved.”

  “I don’t talk about it, Gage. I never have.”

  “That’s your choice. Read what I write. Then decide what you want to do with it. Give me that. You won’t be blindsided by what’s coming in the book, you’ll know what I’m going to publish.”

  Charlotte accepted the key. “This isn’t the conversation I was expecting to have with you today.”

  “I asked what I would want if our places were reversed. I can’t give you control over what is going to be published, but I assure you I will listen carefully to your perspective on anything you see on paper. I can put you in the place to know what and why something is being written. If you disagree with what I’ve written and I’m not willing to change my words, I will promise to footnote it and give you space to reply as you like.”

  She nodded. “Thanks for that.” She tightened her hand around the key. “I need John’s name kept out of the book.”

  “I can give you that. John’s the real difficulty for you, Charlotte, not Tabitha, a fact you both know. Reporters want to find you, they simply find John, and watch. It might not be common knowledge you’ve stayed friends, that he’s in your life again, but a good reporter is going to find out rather than assume he’s not. And while you may not look anything like your twin sister, you do look a lot like your mother. She was a beautiful woman.”

  “One statement we can agree on. How much time do I have?”

  “I’m looking at a first draft to be finished in nine months. But I’ll start having pages for you to read within a month.”

  Ann paused from wiping off the kitchen counter as the security panel lit. She saw with surprise it was Charlotte Graham in the lobby. “Please, come up, Charlotte,” she said into the intercom. “Floor four.” She keyed the elevator to release security.

  Ann pushed bare feet into shoes, ran a hand through her hair, and went to meet her guest, somewhat nervous about the unexpected visit, and the reason for it. So few people knew this address that she guessed Bryce had to have been the one who passed it on. She met Charlotte at the elevator with a smile. “Welcome, Charlotte.”

  “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d chance you were home.”

  “I’m pleased you stopped by.” Ann picked up the rag she had dropped, gave a laugh, and grabbed the bottle of polish sitting on the floor next to the sculpture in the entryway. “You caught me on a cleaning day. I hide away for a week every month or so if I can—a much-needed chance to recharge. I try to leave Paul a clean house before I disappear. I’m inevitably disorganized about it. Would you join me for something to drink? Tea or soda?”

  “Some tea would be nice.”

  Ann led the way to the kitchen, turned on the burner under the teapot.

  “You turned down writing the book. I’d like to know why.”

  Ann pulled a soda from the door of the refrigerator, got out a cup
and tea bag for Charlotte, and tried to get a read on her guest before she answered the question. Charlotte obviously knew about the book, so the bad news had already hit her. There were numerous ways to truthfully answer that question. Ann chose to take a very big risk.

  “I was snatched too, Charlotte. Call it an odd form of kinship. I thought you deserved your privacy.”

  Charlotte visibly jolted. “You’re the diary writer.”

  “Yes.”

  Charlotte could have said nearly anything given the shared terrain the news conveyed. She absorbed it, slowly nodded, then visibly relaxed. “And I thought I’d had it tough ducking the media.”

  Ann smiled, turned to pour hot water into the cup. “The form letter says, ‘Thank you for the question, please see the press release and book for what I would like to say.’ The firm handling my mail still sends out a few hundred of them a month.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Ann handed Charlotte her tea and gestured to the living room. “I gather you’ve had a conversation with Gage.”

  “He’ll do an excellent job with the book, I’m sorry to say. It would be easier on me if it was going to be a sloppily written piece of fabricated true crime. I wouldn’t wish a man to be hit by a bus, but I wouldn’t mind Gage getting a job offer he couldn’t refuse from some remote town in Alaska.”

  Ann laughed. “I understand the sentiment perfectly.”

  “He’ll have to do the book without my help. I don’t talk about it.”

  “I know.”

  Charlotte turned from looking at the artwork to look at her.

  Ann simply nodded, indicating that she knew the reason. A cop had some of the ransom money. The cop was dead, but it was still going to be news to the public. “Gage will find the money trail because he’s good at what he does.”

  “Figured that. Tabitha doesn’t know,” Charlotte said.

  Ann understood a great deal more with that simple statement. “For what it’s worth, it was a good decision to leave it unsaid, Charlotte. It’s what you do for family. You protect them.”