Blood Orange Read online

  Dana sensed Gary did not approve of David defending Frank Filmore. Well, neither did she. Some days she was so angry with him she had to leave the room to keep from blurting what she thought, that it was his fault Bailey was gone.

  Police, sheriffs, and the highway patrol were on the lookout for a white van like the one that had run over Moby Doby. One had been seen in the neighborhood right after Bailey disappeared, but there were tens of thousands of white vans in San Diego County. The rock and the note attached to it had been examined and yielded information Gary called valuable. The rock was of a sort most commonly found in the Sweetwater River bed; the note had been written on the kind of cheap paper used by schools and churches and for bulk mailings.

  From a friend, an attorney with a brother in the sheriff’s department, Dana and David learned that for several months officers in the area of the Sweetwater School District had been watching an elementary school teacher about whom a parent had made a complaint. The accusation of abuse had proved to be a malicious response to a child’s poor grade, but the authorities weren’t quite convinced. Probably another dead end, but don’t give up hope, Mrs. Cabot.

  Dana thought hope wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Sometimes it was harder to fight against it than for it.

  The operator asked, “Do you want to leave a message?”

  Tell him and the other police officers not to abandon Bailey just because her father is defending Frank Filmore. They should not hold the father’s job against the little girl. “No. Thank you.” She had no more to say to him than he to her.

  She keyed in David’s number and waited for someone in the office to answer, drumming her bitten-down nails on the steering wheel.

  Barbara, the firm’s receptionist, said, “Cabot and Klinger, Attorneys for the Defense.”

  That was new. Probably Marcus’s idea. She asked for David.

  “He’s in court, Dana. Can I take a message?”

  He was always in court; he was only happy in court these days.

  The unstoppable memories rolled over Dana as if something in her wanted to be more miserable than she already was.

  When she met David Cabot he was only nineteen but already a star in the world of college sports. A hustling quarterback tall enough to see over the line to his receivers, a basketball player, and a better than average third baseman. She never got tired of watching him throw a ball or catch one. She saw that more than anything else games were fun for him; the joy he got from competition lifted him and gave him wings. And the miracle was, he loved her and lifted her with him. He had seen not a quiet, studious girl with a crummy wardrobe and only two pairs of shoes, not Margaret Bowen’s abandoned daughter or Imogene’s unwanted grandchild. He had seen straight through to the heart of who she really was, the laughter in her, the courage, the dogged determination to succeed that perfectly matched his own.

  Sitting in the parking lot with time on her hands and resting on her shoulders like a bag of cement, she tried to remember what that love had felt like. She thought of a story she had read to Bailey about a train making it over a steep mountain, thinking it could, it could, it could, and then it did. If only she could apply her will and think herself back to the way it had been just a few months ago. But love and trust and loyalty were not cars behind a locomotive. No matter how much she wanted to make things better, there was nothing she could do.

  Just as well David was not in his office because a part of her mind knew the sound of his voice would only irritate her. It was so clearly no longer the voice of the boy who loved games for the sake of the play. The boy had vanished beneath layers of ambition and professional pride. Bailey’s disappearance had smothered the last of him entirely.

  No message, she told Barb, and put her cell phone away.

  She envied David being overworked and stressed for time. All her days were empty. There were things she should do but nothing she wanted to do, and so she did nothing. She sat and stared out the front window; she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. She sat through terrible movies she forgot the instant she stepped out of the dark and into the sunlight. Since May she had lost fourteen pounds. Levi’s that had been snug and sexy hung on her hips like a punk’s. Once she had loved food, loved cooking and serving; and even cleaning up had never been the grind for her that it was for some. But the kitchen had become no more than a room she walked through on the way in or out of the house. She had stopped making coffee and instead drank hot water from the tap or drove twelve blocks to Bella Luna, where the barista comped her cappuccinos and avoided her eyes.

  She turned the key in the ignition and backed the big SUV around the tail end of the church sextant’s rusty old Beetle and out onto the street.

  She would take a nap; a nap was always a worthy option, since at night she rarely slept more than three or four hours. David was just as bad. Closed within their individual cells of fear and guilt, they were awake at four A.M. in their own silent corners of the house. Dana had begun to knit during the dark hours. She knit stockingstitch rectangles in shades of lime and pink. The rectangles were all sizes and done on several different pairs of needles. Whatever suited her from night to night, and of no practical use at all except to occupy her hands. She did not know what David did in his wakefulness. Played solitaire perhaps or went on-line.

  Despite his sleeplessness he bounded out of bed at five-thirty, ran four times around the park with Moby at his heels, and left for the office before seven. Sometimes he slept in the living room and she did not hear him leave, showered, shaved, and dressed in one of his beautiful suits. She knew he was eager to escape the house. Lexy said he filled up his life with work so there would be no room to think about Bailey. Dana believed he loved Bailey less than she did. It would take more than a job to make Dana forget their daughter.

  At a stop sign she let the car idle longer than necessary as she watched a pair of girls in Arcadia School uniforms. They crossed the street, ignoring the 4Runner, and ambled up the sidewalk with their heads together, laughing.

  She wished they had been taken instead of Bailey.

  She turned onto Miranda Street, looking ahead to her house, fourth from the corner. There was someone sitting on the front steps.

  n hour later Dana barged into Dr. Wren’s office with Bailey in _ ….her arms.

  The receptionist stood up, looking alarmed. “You can’t come in without an appointment. If you have an emergency you need to see the doctor on call.”

  “It’s not an emergency. It’s a miracle!” Dana cried as she pushed through the door to the inner office.

  Before the receptionist could do anything, Dr. Wren’s nurse appeared around the corner, saw Bailey, and screamed. Dana began to laugh and then to cry as the office staff converged at the front desk, all of them either laughing or crying, all of them wanting to hug Dana and Bailey. Dr. Wren invited Bailey into an examining room immediately, where he checked her for external signs of abuse or injury, weighed her, and found that she had actually gained a pound during her absence.

  “As far as I can tell,” he said in his quiet, gentle voice, “Bailey is in fine condition.” He grinned at her. “Roses in her cheeks.”

  “Thank God,” Dana said and hugged Bailey tighter.

  “There is one thing, of course. It’s difficult …” The thoughtful lines between his eyebrows deepened. “Would you like me to do an internal exam?”

  “No,” Dana said quickly. She would be able to tell if her daughter had been sexually abused.

  “If you change your mind-“

  “I won’t.”

  “Well, let me know if I can be of help.” Dr. Wren walked them out to the waiting room. At the door, he kissed Bailey’s forehead. “Welcome home, little angel.”

  She had seemed perfectly healthy, but she had changed. She was subdued and watchful.

  Little silent angel.

  When the media learned of Bailey’s return the public outpouring of love overwhelmed Dana and David. Cards and flowers from friends and st
rangers, toys for Bailey, gifts of potted plants, and from someone they didn’t know a dreadful pink plaster statue of a cherub that Dana put out in the garden hoping it would only last a season. Occasionally strangers knocked at the front door. Dana thought there was something ghoulish in their eagerness to see Bailey, and she learned to ignore the doorbell unless she recognized the car at the curb. Once or twice a white van drove by slowly. Behind the smoked windows she thought she saw two heads but could not be sure. Nor could she tell if there was a bumper sticker on the back driver’s side. She told Lieutenant Gary anyway.

  The policeman wanted Bailey to be examined by a doctor to determine if she had been molested.

  “I’ll find out myself,” Dana said.

  “Begging your pardon, but you’re not a professional, Dana. You won’t be able to tell.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m her mother.”

  Gary also wanted Bailey to speak with a psychologist to get her to name her abductor and describe him or the place where she was taken. Dana was opposed to this too, and at first David supported her.

  At night they lay in bed, their faces inches apart, and whispered that they wanted to put the whole nightmare as far behind them as possible.

  One evening after supper Dana took Bailey into the bath with her. In a tub full of warm water and clouds of grapefruit-scented suds, she soaped her daughter’s body, pausing to enjoy the pleasure of her silken skin, the feel of slender arms and legs under her hands. Dana had feared she would never see her again, and when she touched her now, it was as if the world had been made new. Bailey was bony and straight, with valiant little squared-off shoulders, and her skin was the warm, dark color of eucalyptus honey except where her bottom had been covered by shorts or underwear. Though she had not lost weight during her months away-had, in fact, gained a pound-she had grown taller, causing her knees and elbows to lose their pillows of flesh, and when Dana ran her hands up Bailey’s side, her daughter’s ribs felt like a xylophone.

  “Stand up, Bailey.”

  She was a water sprite with two new teeth, huge, unblinking brown eyes, and hair made dark by the water, plastered against her head, dripping down her face.

  “I need to look at you, Bailey. I need to touch your private places.” The moment was delicate as old parchment. One careless touch and all would crumble. “May I do that, Bailey?”

  Bailey blinked and nodded once.

  “And you must tell me, just nod your head, did anyone hurt you, Bailey, while you were gone?” It was not a matter of being gentle; the question itself was an assault.

  Bailey blinked and looked at Moby standing guard at the bathroom door.

  Dana rested her hands at her daughter’s waist, the butterfly bones where her hips would be. She smoothed a hand across the pout of her tummy and kissed her belly button, this place where they had been connected for nine months. Bailey had swum in the waters of Dana’s womb, rocked and jollied there like a dolphin baby. She had been warm and secure in the dark one moment and then expelled into the glare of an electric sun, hung by her heels and slammed by sound. And then in May it had happened again. Someone had ripped her from the home where she knew only warmth and love. She had been dragged off and forced into a strange van. It was too easy to imagine Bailey’s fear. If her kidnapper had done more than steal her, Dana almost did not want to know.

  But she had to know.

  At eye level Bailey’s labia was innocent and tender as a folded rose, as sweet as anything Dana had ever seen. She thought of a man’s hands resting where hers did now, the heel of her hand on the small mons, and a sob choked her and she forced it to the back of her throat.

  A man with bright white hair and starched black eyebrows had lived alone three houses down from Imogene and Dana. He gave the children of the neighborhood generous treats at Halloween, and one October he said his house was haunted and dared the kids to come inside. Dana took the dare first. The place did not scare her at all, but something in that house must have frightened some little girl, because right after Halloween there was a furor up and down the street and a policeman came to the house and stood in the kitchen talking to Imogene. He asked Dana questions, and she thought he had a mean voice so she was not very cooperative. Then Imogene stepped in, angry with her, saying she was as stubborn as your mother. Eventually Imogene took her to a doctor, and Dana was made to undress and put on a voluminous cotton gown. She lay on a table and the doctor told her to stop shaking and open her knees, but she couldn’t or just as likely wouldn’t, so the nurse and Imogene held them so far apart Dana thought she would split in two.

  No one would force Bailey to do anything.

  Bailey stood in the tub, and Dana asked her to turn around. The only marks on her body were a scab on the knee and another on her elbow. Ordinary kid scrapes. No rope burns or bruises.

  Dana’s hands slipped down to Bailey’s thighs and gently, barely, parted her legs. As she soaped her, she keyed her senses for a flinch or shudder; just the ripple of a muscle beneath her hands might indicate a tender spot. But Bailey let herself be washed as she had done all her life, without shame or apprehension, with heartbreaking trust and perfect innocence.

  “Turn around, sweetheart.”

  Dana ran her soapy hands down Bailey’s back, along the straight knobbed spine;, feeling each bone as if she suspected the crime against her daughter might even be this, the theft of a vertebrae. She spread Bailey’s buttocks so she could see the dark pink circle of her anus, and again her child submitted without shying. No bruises, no tears. Dana drew her down onto her lap in the water, holding her tight against her breasts, trembling with relief as the water sloshed about them.

  For several days after Bailey’s return Dana kept her indoors. David spoke to the press gathered around the front steps, holding his daughter in his arms. Reporters asked him how Mrs. Cabot was holding up and wasn’t she thrilled to have Bailey back.

  “Say I’m an emotional wreck,” Dana told David, laughing as she prodded him toward the front door. “Tell them I’m dead-drunk with joy.”

  She watched the scene from a window.

  A female reporter put a microphone in front of Bailey and asked, “How’s it feel to be back with your mommy and daddy, Bailey?”

  Bailey hid her head against David’s shoulder.

  David did not say that though Bailey was healthy, eating and sleeping well, watching her old favorite videos and hanging her arms around Moby’s neck whenever the dog would let her, she had not spoken a word since Dana found her on the steps.

  The blonde asked David, “Is she all right? Have you had her examined by doctors?”

  “She’s seen the family doctor and she’s fine. We’re all happy and relieved to have our girl back with us.”

  Another reporter shoved a microphone in David’s face and asked, “Do you think Bailey’s kidnapping’s connected to the Frank Filmore case?”

  “I really couldn’t say.” David looked behind him at Lieutenant Gary. “You’ll have to talk to the police about that.”

  Gary stepped forward. “It does seem pretty clear that the crime was part of a pattern of harassment designed to intimidate Frank Filmore’s defense team. The fact that Bailey appears to be unharmed supports our theory.”

  “Do you have any leads?” the blonde asked.

  “I can guarantee it’s only a matter of time until we get whoever’s responsible.”

  A matter of time. It could take the rest of Dana’s life and make little difference to her. Bailey was home, Bailey was safe, and noth ing else mattered. She wondered why she did not feel the need for revenge expressed by almost everyone she spoke to. For a week the letters in the newspaper had been about catching the perp and making him pay. She remembered that when she taught school she had always liked the look of a clean white board on Monday mornings. The blank surface and the morning faces of the children had encouraged her and suggested wonderful possibilities for the week ahead. If Dana had spoken to the press, she would have said, “L
eave us alone. Let us get a fresh start on our life.”

  Ten days after Bailey’s return St. Tom’s hosted a gala luncheon in the undercroft following the Sunday service, where Lexy preached eloquently about gratitude and grace and the choir sang Dana’s favorite hymn, the words, Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love, ringing loud in the little old church. The Sunday school had decorated the undercroft with pink and lime crepe paper, balloons and streamers-Bailey Cabot’s signature colors. Above a long table dressed in linen and crowded with dishes of food, hugely enlarged photos of Bailey smiled down as people loaded their plates with Konnie’s Mexican casserole and Mrs. Lindley’s homemade peach pie. Others pressed in around the old oak upright piano that served the Sunday school classes and sang along as Imogene-David said they had to include her in the celebrationplayed rousing hymns. I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true. Dana tried to enjoy the occasion, but she was only going through the motions, as if anesthetized. The undercroft would always remind her of the Bailey Committee and three months of desperate days.

  The guests drank a champagne toast to Bailey and then one to Dana and David and a third to the committee for its hard work. Dana wondered if she was the only person at the party who remembered it was nothing the committee did that brought Bailey home. She had been returned for reasons none of them would ever understand, though everyone had a theory. Dana believed the kidnapper felt remorse and shame and wanted to undo his crime.