Diane Chamberlain - The Lost Daughter

It was the first time he’d ever raised his voice to her and she had to struggle to keep from crying. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He pressed his palms against his eyes, his breathing harsh. “Shooting holes in a plan you know nothing about … it doesn’t make it any easier on me, CeeCee.”

She bit her lip, unsure what to say. When he dropped his hands from his face, his eyes were red and wet.

“It’s my sister, damn it!” He pounded his fist on the steering wheel. “I have to help her.”

“I know,” she said, “and I know how much you love her.” She leaned forward to embrace him, wanting to absorb some of his pain. “What exactly did you want me to do?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it. We can get somebody else to do it.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket and lit one, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. “There’s this girl in SCAPE who’d probably—”

“Tell me what you wanted me to do,” she repeated.

He sighed, rolling his head back and forth as though the conversation was making his neck ache. “It’s like this,” he said. “Some relatives of ours have a cabin on the Neuse River near New Bern. Do you know where that is?”

“Sort of,” she said. “It’s a couple of hours from here?”

“Right. They don’t ever use it this time of year, so that’s where we’ll take the wife. Then Marty and I will stay in this other house in Jacksonville and communicate with Russell—the governor—from there. Once Russell says he’ll do it, we’ll go get the wife and return her to him. Unharmed,” he added.

“You’ll just leave the wife alone in the cabin? Won’t she—” She caught herself. She was shooting holes again.

“That’s where you’d come in,” he said. “You … or the girl from SCAPE or whoever … you’d stay with her.”

She tried to imagine herself, sixteen years old, trying to keep a grown woman under lock and key. “I don’t think I could do it,” she said.

“I know you don’t think you could.” He touched her cheek, and she was relieved that his anger had passed. “You don’t want to do it, and that’s cool. You’re just someone Marty and I knew we could trust. We need someone who’d make sure the wife stays safe and who’d take care of her. You’re really good at that kind of thing. I don’t know the girl from SCAPE all that well, but maybe she’ll be good at it, too. You care about Andie and Marty and me, so it just made sense to ask you.”

Guilt rested on her shoulders like a lead weight. He’d done so much for her. The girl from SCAPE, sure of her values and ready to fight for them, would be willing to help them when she didn’t even know them.

“Tim.” She leaned across the space between their seats to put her arms around him, careful to avoid the cigarette. “I wish you wouldn’t do this. It’s too dangerous.”

He let out a long sigh and she heard both frustration and disappointment in the sound. “It’s the only choice we’ve got, CeeCee,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. “And we’re going to do it. With you or without you.”

The hospice counselor asked why I never cut your hair. I said it was your decision when to cut it. You’ve made good decisions from the time you were little. (With the exception of the time you flushed Teddy-Doodle down the toilet, remember that?) I think the important thing about making a decision is just to make it. Otherwise you can go nuts thinking about the pros and cons. It’s like when I decided to come to Duke for the breast cancer study. It was a big decision, uprooting you from your friends and trying a new drug and everything. My mind was saying, “Don’t do it!” but my heart said, “You’ve got to give it a try.” Was it the right decision? I don’t know. I’m dying, so I guess you could say it was the wrong one, but if I never did it I would probably be dying in New Jersey, wondering if I should have taken the risk. So, when it comes to making a decision, look at both sides, listen to your heart, then pick one and dive in.

IN THE COFFEE SHOP THE FOLLOWING MORNING, SHE SET Tim’s plate of eggs and grits in front of him, then leaned over to whisper. “I’d like to talk to you and Marty about—” she shrugged “—you know.”

Tim’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you considering it?” he asked.

“I have a lot of questions.”

“Sure you do.” Tim touched her hand briefly. “Come over tonight. We’ll get pizza and talk.”

“With Marty,” she said. “I need to know we all agree on the plan before I make a decision.”

“I’ll make sure he’s there,” Tim said. “And I’m sorry if I was hard on you last night.”

Ronnie had been awake when CeeCee got home the night before. She wanted to know if Tim had proposed. CeeCee shook her head with a smile, having planned on the question. “I can’t believe we thought that,” she said, making light of it. “He wanted my advice on getting a gift for an aunt.”

“Ew.” Ronnie winced. “Are you disappointed?”

“Relieved,” she said. “It’s not time yet.” But she was hardly relieved by Tim’s actual proposal. It was a lamebrain idea, wasn’t it? Or could it actually work? She stayed up much of the night thinking about his outrageous plan, making a list of her concerns and questions. She had to remember that Tim was one of the smartest people she’d ever known. He knew so much more than she did about how the world operated, especially when it came to politics and that sort of thing. He wouldn’t do something so risky unless he was certain of the outcome.

Two pizzas were being delivered as she arrived at the mansion, but she doubted she’d be able to eat a single slice. She watched Tim pay with a twenty, telling the delivery boy to keep the change.

Marty was already seated at the head of the massive dining-room table by the time she and Tim carried the pizzas into the room. Marty’s straggly brown hair looked like it needed washing, but he’d shaved for the occasion. His hands were folded on the table in front of him as if he were chairman of the board. “So,” he said. “I hear you might help us out.”

CeeCee sat down across the table from Tim. It was an incongruous scene, she thought. Formal dining room, crystal chandelier, heavy gold jacquard draperies that must have cost a fortune, eating pizza on paper plates, planning a kidnapping.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I still think it’s a crazy idea.”

Marty smiled his lunatic smile. “Sometimes you gotta bend the rules to get any action,” he said.

“You said you had questions,” Tim prompted her as he put a slice of pizza on her plate.

She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out the list she’d made the night before, flattening the paper on the table.

“Won’t the governor know it’s the two of you doing this, since you’ve been working to help Andie all along?” she asked.

“Unless he’s a complete asshole, which is certainly possible, yes.” Marty took a bite of pizza.

“So … then won’t you get locked up after you let his wife go?”

“Only if they find us,” Marty said, his mouth full.

She looked at Tim. “What does he mean?”

“We’ll go underground,” Tim said.

“You mean like … into hiding?”

“Yes,” Tim said. He was watching her for a reaction. “We’ll change our names. Change our looks a bit.”

“Tim.” She was incredulous. “Then how would I see you?”

Tim set down his pizza and reached across the broad table to take her hand. “Saving my sister’s life is the most important thing in the world to me right now,” he said, “but I don’t plan to lose you in the process.” His eyes could melt her. “You’ll know where I am. Just no one else will.”