The Summer Hideaway

The patrol car, black and shiny as a jelly bean, kept its lights running, signaling to all passers-by that a criminal was being apprehended.

“Put that away,” she ordered George.

He did so with a shrug. “I could call my lawyer,” he suggested.

“I’d say that’s premature.” She studied the police car through the van’s side mirror. “What is taking so long?”

“He—or she—is looking up the vehicle records to see if there’s been an alert on it.”

“And why would there be an alert?” she asked. The van had been leased in George’s name with Claire listed as an authorized driver.

Yet something about his expression put her on edge. She glanced from the mirror to her passenger. “George,” she said in a warning voice.

“Let’s just hear the officer out,” he said. “Then you can yell at me.”

The approaching cop, even viewed through the side mirror, stirred a peculiar dread in Claire. The crisp uniform and silvered sunglass lenses, the clean-shaven square jaw and polished boots all made her want to cringe.

“License and registration,” he said. It was not a barked order but a calm imperative.

Her fingers felt bloodless as she handed over her driver’s license. Although it was entirely legitimate, even down to the reflective watermark and the organ donor information on the back, she held her breath as the cop scrutinized it. He wore a badge identifying him as Rayburn Tolley, Avalon PD. George passed her the folder containing the van’s rental documents, and she handed that over, too.

Claire bit the inside of her lip and wished she hadn’t come here. This was a mistake.

“What’s the trouble?” she asked Officer Tolley, dismayed by the nervousness in her voice. No matter how much time had passed, no matter how often she exposed herself to cops, she could never get past her fear of them. Sometimes even a school crossing guard struck terror in her.

He scowled pointedly at her hand, which was trembling. “You tell me.”

“I’m nervous,” she admitted. She had learned over the years to tell the truth whenever possible. It made the lies easier. “Call me crazy, but it makes me nervous when I get pulled over.”

“Ma’am, you were speeding.”

“Was I? Sorry, Officer. I didn’t notice.”

“Where are you headed?” he demanded.

“To a place called Camp Kioga, on Willow Lake,” said George, “and if she was speeding, the fault is mine. I’m impatient, not to mention a distraction.”

Officer Tolley bent slightly and peered across the front seat to the passenger side. “And you are…?”

“Beginning to feel harassed by you.” George sounded righteously indignant.

“You wouldn’t happen to be George Bellamy, would you?” asked Tolley.

“Indeed I am,” George said, “but how did you—”

“In that case, ma’am,” the cop said, returning his attention to Claire, “I need to ask you to step out of the vehicle. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Her heart seized up. It was a moment she had dreaded since the day she’d realized she was a hunted woman. The beginning of the end. Her mind raced, although she moved like a mechanical wooden doll. Should she submit to him? Make a break for it?

“See here now,” George said. “I would like to know why you’re so preoccupied with us.”

“George, the man’s doing his job,” said Claire, hoping that would mollify the cop. She motioned for him to sit tight and did as she was told, stepping down awkwardly, using the door handle to steady herself.

Tolley didn’t seem put off by George’s question. “There was a call to the station about you and Miss…” He consulted the license, which was still clipped to his board. “Turner. The call was from a family member.” He glanced at a printout the size of a cash register receipt on the clipboard. “Alice Bellamy,” he said.

Claire looked over her shoulder at George, a question in her eyes.

“One of my daughters-in-law,” he said, a note of apology in his voice.

“Sir, your family is extremely worried about you,” said the cop. He stared at Claire. She couldn’t discern his eyes behind the lenses, but could see her own reflection clearly, in twin, convex detail. Medium-length dark hair. Large dark eyes. A plain, she hoped, ordinary, nondescript face. That was always the goal. To blend in. To be forgettable. Forgotten.

She forced herself to keep her chin up, to pretend everything was fine. “Is that a crime around here?” she asked. “To have a worried family?”

“It’s more than worry.” Officer Tolley rested his right hand atop the holster carrying his service revolver. She could see that he’d released the safety strap. “Mr. Bellamy’s family has some serious concerns about you.”

She swallowed hard. The Bellamys were made of money. Maybe the daughter-in-law had ordered a deep and thorough background check. Maybe that check had uncovered some irregularity, something about Claire’s past that didn’t quite add up.

“What kind of concerns?” she asked, dry-mouthed, consumed by terror now.

“Oh, let me guess,” George suggested with a blast of laughter. “My family thinks I’ve been kidnapped.”

Chapter Two

KAIA (Kabul Afghanistan International Airport)

“She did what?” Ross practically shouted into the borrowed mobile phone.

“Sorry, we have a terrible connection,” said his cousin Ivy, speaking to him from her home in Santa Barbara, where it was eleven and a half hours earlier. “She kidnapped Granddad.”

Ross rotated his shoulders, which felt curiously light. For the past two years, he’d been burdened by twenty pounds of individual body armor plates, a Kevlar helmet and vest. Now that he was headed home, the weight was gone. He’d turned in the IBA plates, shedding them like a molting beetle.

Yet according to his cousin, the civilian life had its own kind of perils.

“Kidnapped? ” The loaded word snagged the attention of the others in the waiting room. He waved his hand, a non-verbal signal that all was well, and turned away from the prying eyes.

“You heard me,” Ivy said. “According to my mother, he hired some sketchy home health care worker off of Craigslist, and she kidnapped him and took him to some remote mountain hideaway up in Ulster County.”

“That’s nuts,” he said. “That’s completely nuts.” Or was it? In this part of the world, kidnappings were common. And they rarely had a good outcome.

“What can I say?” Ivy sounded almost apologetic. “It’s my mom at her most dramatic.”

Growing up, first cousins Ross and Ivy had bonded over their drama-queen mothers. A few years younger than Ross, Ivy lived in Santa Barbara, where she created avant garde sculpture and wrote long, angsty e-mails to her cousin overseas.

“And you’re certain Aunt Alice’s overreacting? There’s no chance she might be on to something?”

“There’s always a chance. That’s how my mom operates—within the realm of possibility. She thinks Granddad is losing it. Everybody knows brain tumors make people do crazy things. When can you get to New York?” asked Ivy. “We really need you, Ross. Granddad needs you. You’re the only one he listens to. Where the hell are you, anyway?”

Ross looked around the foreign airport, jammed with soldiers in desert fatigues, trading stories of firefights, suicide bombers, roadside ambushes. Transport here had been his last movement on the ground. He remembered thinking, please don’t let anything happen now. He didn’t want to be one of those depressing items you read about in hometown newspapers—On his last day of deployment, he died in a convoy attack…