was here to hear her?
Nobody.
And that was her problem. She’d told the family to leave her alone, and they’d actually done it.
For a lot of families, this would make sense. You ask something reasonable, and they respond reasonably.
But her family? Her grandmother? To let Jessica walk away, actually help her pack…and then not phone her every day, visit her twice a week, ask her a million and one questions? Her grandmother wouldn’t even bother to make up lame excuses for her calls, her visits. She’d just barge in, plant herself in one of the high-back wicker chairs on the sunporch, and say, “Well? Ready to talk yet, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”
No. Jessica knew it just didn’t compute. She shouldn’t be alone, even if she’d said she wanted to be alone.
And here she’d always believed her family loved her.
Just showed you how wrong you could be.
Allie was probably all wrapped up in Maddy and Joe, who must be back from their honeymoon by now. After all, even millionaires who owned their own computer software companies had to go back to work sometime, didn’t they? Of course, they’d be living right next door to the family home in Allentown, and Allie was probably tripping over there every day, poking her surgically perfect nose into Maddy’s business until both she and Joe threatened to put a For Sale sign in the yard…but at least Maddy and Joe had somebody paying attention to them.
Why, for all the family knew, she could be lying on the kitchen floor with a broken hip, unable to reach the phone and slowly starving to death. She could have been carjacked on the way down the Atlantic City Expressway, and never even made it to Ocean City. Had they thought of that? Huh? Huh?
No. They couldn’t have thought of that. Because no one had called, not in a whole week. Seven days. Seven nights.
She was all by herself. Completely by herself.
That’s what being the middle child got you, Jessica decided, heading for the kitchen, letting the old wooden screen door slam shut behind her. Overlooked. Forgotten. Especially if you were a good child, never giving anyone a problem, never making waves, never even thinking about getting into trouble.
She eyed the refrigerator, knowing she had plenty of healthy salad-makings in the bottom crisper drawer. Then her eyes slid to her left, to the smaller freezer door of the side-by-side appliance, knowing that she had a half gallon of double-Dutch chocolate ice cream nestled inside. Calling to her. Singing to her.
“It’s a milk product, right?” she reasoned with herself as she headed for the wall of white-painted wooden cabinets and retrieved her favorite bowl from childhood—the one with Pebbles Flintstone on it. “It’s just in a more…more convenient form, that’s all.”
In the end she left Pebbles on the counter and picked out a nicely pointed tablespoon, snagged the cardboard ice cream container and returned to the porch. After all, there was no one else around to see her, to want her to share with them. Not that she would, she decided, holding the rounded container close against her as she sat down on the low brick wall surrounding the porch and watched the steady parade of families making their way down the sidewalk on their way to the beach.
Suddenly she was crying again. That was just about all she did these days. Cry. Or think about crying. Or go mop up after crying. If this was what hormones could do to a person, Jessica was definitely in favor of banning them.
Still, it was nice to sit here and look out at the people passing by. The happy people passing by.
She could remember holding Maddy’s chubby little hand as they followed their big brother, Ryan, down that same sidewalk, Allie and their beloved Grandpop bringing up the rear, loaded down with beach umbrella, blankets, sand chairs and three sets of sand toys. Even when their parents had still been alive, it had been Allie and Grandpop who’d taken them to the shore, taught them to jump the waves, helped them build sand castles on the beach.
Carefree days. Happy summers. Their fun-loving, jet-setting parents were gone, lost in a plane crash, but as they’d never been around very much, the Chandler children had adjusted well, as if anyone could resist the loving arms of Allie and Grandpop for more than a moment.
Now Grandpop was gone, and Allie was, thanks to the miracles of modern cosmetic surgery, looking younger every year. Maddy was married and happy. Ryan was running the family business and showing all the signs of becoming a stodgy, rather than happy, bachelor.
And Jessica? Ah, she thought, placing her hand over her flat stomach.
Oh, yes. Can’t forget Jessica.
Because Jessica, heading for thirty, a hormonal mess with a queasy stomach and her mind filled with notions that had nothing to do with her usual sane approach to life, was about to become a single mother.
She took another bite of ice cream, let it melt on her tongue. Thought about the day she would tell them, tell them all, that she was about to become a mommy.
She smiled sadly. That’ll teach them to lull themselves into believing this particular middle child wasn’t capable of upsetting an applecart or two….
Matt drove over the Ninth Street Bridge and onto the island that was Ocean City, still rehearsing his lines, rearranging them in his head, mentally striking out whole paragraphs and inserting new ones.
Abraham Lincoln had said more in the short Gettysburg Address than Matt had been able to condense into a near novella of explanations, excuses, sorry reasons and apologies—none of which Jessica would probably give him time to recite, anyway.
And, with all he had to say, all he had to atone for, be forgiven for, he could not say the one thing that would get Jessica’s full attention.
He had left Ryan’s office the previous afternoon and made a beeline straight for the Chandler mansion, dedicating himself to hunting down Almira Chandler and convincing her that telling him everything she knew would be a good thing; that telling it all to him, without prompting, would be an even better thing.
He’d found her on the tennis court, returning serves from an automatic-serving machine being manned by none other than the perpetually black-clad Mrs. Ballantine, the Chandler housekeeper.
Or, as Maddy had more than once referred to the two women: the Good Witch and Morticia, both with Pinocchio noses—noses that were forever poking into everyone else’s business.
The two women, Matt knew, made a big to-do over goodnaturedly detesting each other, but he also knew that the pair thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. Even if their friendship was pretty much based on a mutual desire to rule the world—or at least as much of it as they could reach.
That was why he had come, after Ryan had let slip that Almira had told him to tell Matt where Jessica had gone off to a week ago. That one statement had been enough to warn Matt that there was more to Jessica’s disappearance than a desire to get away by herself for a while.
When Matt combined that one statement with the knowledge that Jessica was about as conscientious as a person could get, and would never stay hidden at home for weeks on end, or go on vacation while the end of the fiscal year passed over Chandler Enterprises—well, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Not
