Heads nodded again.
John went to the door, stopped, and turned around. “Most of all, remember that time is of the essence.”
Lucky for him, Trish wasn’t his editor. Annie knew she surely would have killed his cliché.
Chapter 26
After the group dispersed to tend to their tasks, Annie closed the door behind them and moved to the small table where the brass banker’s lamp with the green glass shade stood. It was her favorite spot. She’d discovered the iconic lamps at the Boston Public Library when she’d been young; sitting at one of the tables there became a comfortable, quiet place for her—the kind of comfort and quiet Annie needed now to think about the list John wanted her to make.
The note on her doorstep, if it was not a prank, should convince her that someone had taken Bella, that she hadn’t “wandered off.” But who? Anyone on the island who knew, or knew of, Bella most likely knew her story: that her mother had died a few days after giving birth to her; that Francine had been unable to support her and had felt she needed to give her up. Bella’s little life had seemed to be on the path to a bleak future, until the people of the Vineyard embraced Francine and her. Why would someone want to cause her harm now when she’d already been through so much turmoil?
Aside from Annie’s obvious suspects—Rex, Rose, and Abigail—who else could there be? Who else would have a motive? Even Bella’s biological father, Stephen Thurman, a house painter from Edgartown who’d first denied his culpability by claiming that either of his sons could as easily be Bella’s father, finally admitted that he was. But Francine hadn’t wanted to pursue getting child support from him, so Annie highly doubted that Thurman would have the need, the desire, or the chutzpah to kidnap her now. Especially since, not long after his admission, he’d packed up his family and slithered away from the island.
She tapped the pencil on the edge of the table. Who else?Think, think, think, she commanded her brain, which felt too wrung out now to be able to.
Then another idea began to form, slowly at first, until she realized it honestly might be possible:Francine’s aunt and uncle.
Annie didn’t know them, but they certainly knew Bella. Maybe they felt entitled to have her. Maybe they were angry that Francine hadn’t agreed to move to Minnesota permanently. Maybe that was the real reason Francine had wanted to come back to the Vineyard to have her baby—because they’d been pressuring her. Marty and Bill could have secretly come to the island in the past week, for the sole purpose of taking Bella back. Or maybe they’d stayed home and paid someone to snatch Bella away. In which case, it was possible that she was now in Minneapolis. With them.
Annie tried to sort out the possibility. If she were right, how would it make Francine feel? Maybe Bella mattered more to them than Francine did. Maybe they planned to try to get custody of Bella, basing their actions on Francine’s behavior by being pregnant and unmarried to a boy whose father had died under mysterious circumstances and whose grandmother was currently in jail for reckless assault and battery. Hadn’t Francine told Annie that Marty and Bill had no children? And that Marty was the only sibling of Francine’s late mother—which made Francine and Bella her only blood relatives?
The possibility grew stronger.
But would they really have abducted her?
Taking a long breath, Annie knew she needed to reel in her thoughts.
“Oh, Murphy,” she said, “this is such a mess.” She ran a hand through her hair, waiting for a reply. But apparently, Murphy was unavailable.
So Annie needed to continue. But for the thousandth time since Jonas had raced into the school gymnasium that afternoon (My God,she thought,had that only happened today?), her thoughts went back to Bella. She could almost hear her infectious giggle and see the way she spread her little arms wide open and cried “Ammie!” whenever Annie walked into the room. She could envision Bella’s tiny face aglow at the simplest things: picking blueberries, helping Francine snap fresh green beans for dinner, talking to her dolls—the yarn-topped cast of characters that Claire had made, and that Bella brought to life in her budding imagination. It was hard to push away those sounds and images and concentrate on the task at hand. Especially because of the note that claimed she was safe. It reminded Annie of the other note—the one that had arrived when Bella first came into Annie’s life.
HER NAME ISBELLA, that one read. Annie had found it in the handwoven basket where the swaddled infant had been tucked. Outside, a nor’easter had roared across Chappaquiddick, snow was piling high against the thin walls of the cottage, wind whistled down the vent of the woodstove where sputtering logs of ash and cedar struggled to warm the room.
PLEASE TAKE CARE OF HER. . .
So Annie had.
But the baby cried. It was a tiny cry, soft and forlorn. She was in Annie’s arms by then, this innocent creature with a perfect little pink mouth and shining black eyes that gazed squarely up at Annie, pleading.
Annie had sat down in the antique rocking chair in front of the woodstove. She’d leaned back and slowly began to rock. Baby Bella stopped crying. And Annie had melted.
Suddenly, footsteps in the reception area jostled Annie back to the present. She sat up straight and turned off the green-glass-shaded brass lamp. And realized she’d been crying. She quickly wiped the traces of her memories. The footsteps stopped. She waited for the door to open. But it did not. She did not hear anyone go up the staircase. And no one spoke.
Annie clenched her teeth. Then she heard a light tapping on the door.
“Who is it?” she asked, her voice small and tentative, as if it belonged to Rose.
“Jonas,” came the response.
Her face, her shoulders, her spine relaxed. She sighed. “Come in.”
The door opened. Standing in the doorway, Jonas looked like a frightened boy instead of a twenty-five-year-old almost-man, an almost-new-father, an almost-highly-successful-artist with a following most artists would not achieve, even in their dreams.
“I can’t find her,” he said quietly. He crossed the room, sat down, and then he cried, too.
And Annie’s heart broke for the thousandth time that day.
“I’ve lost them both, haven’t I?” he said in a low voice after he stopped crying. “I’ve lost Bella. And I’ve lost Francine.”
