11

In the warm kitchen of Eagle Hill, Bethany washed dishes, suds up to her elbows. Mim dried and put the dishes away. Seated at the kitchen table, Luke was reading his essay to them.

“‘Noah and his wife, Joan,’” he read, “‘lived on the Ark for a long time.’”

“What makes you think Noah’s wife is named Joan?” Bethany asked. “I don’t remember reading what her name was in the Bible.”

“Everybody knows that. Joan of Ark.”

Bethany and Mim burst into laughter. Luke ignored them and went back to his essay. “‘The ark came to its end on Mt. Error Fat. It is still up there, teetering on the top of the mountain, just waiting to be discovered by National Geographic magazine.’”

“Luke, where did you get that information?” Bethany asked, scratching her nose and leaving a spot of suds there.

“I made it up,” Luke said, looking pleased. “What do you think?”

“Luke, you can’t make up facts!” Mim protested. “You research facts. Facts are true. Made-up facts are not true.”

“Unless you happened to have interviewed Mr. and Mrs. Noah,” repeated Bethany, scouring out the soup pot, making Luke smile.

“Can I say I did?”

“No!” Mim and Bethany shouted.

After Luke and Mim went upstairs, Bethany finished up the last of the dishes. She was standing at the sink, her hands immersed in soapy water, when she noticed movement outside, half in the darkness, half in the square of light thrown out from the window.

Her heart skipped a beat. Shootfire! She smacked her hands to her cheeks. Oh my. Oh my! He’s come for me! “Jake! Jake Hertzler.”

He didn’t hear her; he was staring in through a window now, as if searching the room. She waved a hand, signaling to him, and he startled, hesitated, then smiled.

She dried her hands before opening the kitchen door, and tried to appear calm as a cucumber, as if the arrival by night of Jake Hertzler lurking in the darkness was nothing unusual. As soon as she had closed the door, she ran into his arms. “You’ve come. You’ve finally come!” She was floating, lighter than air. She loved him, loved him so much! Her relief was so great, she felt dizzy with it. Jake had come for her!

Jake put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back. “Bethany, I’m here for Tobe’s sake.”

Her chin jerked up. He hadn’t even seen her in months and months . . . and he was worried about Tobe? About Tobe? “Well, that’s a fine way to greet your girlfriend.”

He glanced into the kitchen. “Keep your voice down. Tobe’s in trouble. He needs our help.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s he been?”

Jake took his time answering. “He’s been with your mother.”

Bethany’s head snapped up. “WHAT?”

“Hush!” he clamped his fingers over her mouth. “There’s something I need your help with. Tobe said he left something important in the basement. But when I looked in the windows—”

“You peeped in the basement windows? There’s a paying guest in there!”

“Relax. She didn’t see me. But obviously, stuff has been moved out of the basement. Where would it be now?”

She shrugged. She was still reeling over the news that Tobe was with their mother. She had no idea where her mother lived. Somehow, Tobe had tracked her down and was living with her? “I . . . I don’t know. I could ask Rose.”

“No!” Jake snapped. She stiffened and he noticed. His face softened as he added, “I don’t want Rose to find out about this. It’ll only make things worse for Tobe.”

“But she should be told if he’s in some kind of trouble. She’ll know what to do.”

“Legal trouble, Bethany. I’m trying to help him stay out of jail. We can’t get Rose involved in this—not yet. Not with the SEC lawyer sniffing around. It puts her in a tight spot. She’d have to turn him in or she could be in trouble herself. You understand, don’t you?” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. “I’m sorry, Bethany. I’m trying to do all I can to help your brother. Now I want you to think hard for a minute. Where would things be that were stored in the basement?”

She breathed in the familiar scent of Jake: Old Spice shaving cream and peppermint gum. He always smelled so good and looked so good—unlike most of the farm boys in Stoney Ridge who wore the barn on their boots. She wished she could stay in his arms forever. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

“Most importantly, two black books with red bindings.”

“Books?” She pulled back to look right at his eyes. “Tobe didn’t read.”

“These are ledger books. For Schrock Investments.”

“What’s the next most important thing?”

He hesitated. “I’m looking for a key. But I’m not sure Tobe took it. I couldn’t find it after the SEC cleaned the office out.”

She tilted her head. “What kind of key? For a car?”

“No. Smaller than that.” He shook his head. “Never you mind. The books are what I really need. What Tobe needs.”

“Where will you be?”

“I’m on the road a lot—interviewing all over, trying to find a job. But everyone seems to have been an investor in Schrock Investments or their grandmother was—it ain’t good. It’s been tough, you know.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

He softened at that, and leaned in to kiss her on the lips, gentle and sweet, then he jerked his head back and glanced in the kitchen windows when he heard the sound of the boys yelling to each other. “I’d better go.” He kissed her again, before she could object. “Start looking for those books.”

Shootfire! “Jake! Wait! You can’t just show up and disappear like a spook. I want to know why my letter got returned!”

He grimaced, ashamed. “I hated to let the apartment go. Couldn’t make the rent. I’m just staying on friends’ couches.”

“Well, how am I supposed to reach you if I find those books?”

“Good point.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket and scribbled a number on it with a small pencil. “This is my cell phone number.”

Her eyes narrowed. “When did you get a cell phone?” And why didn’t you bother calling me on it?

He read her mind. “I got it for job interviews—but it’s the kind with limited minutes. Call me the minute you find those books.” He kissed her again. Then again and again, until the sound of her brothers’ footsteps thundering down the stairs jerked him away. “Trust me on this, honey. You find those books and we can help Tobe clear his name.” And he vanished into the shadows. She waited awhile, hearing his footsteps head down the driveway. In the distance, she heard a horse whinny and Silver Queen answer back from the barn. Then she heard the sound of Jake’s truck drive off.

Honey. He called me his honey! Bethany hugged herself with happiness. He still loved her. Of course he did. Why had she ever doubted?

She inhaled the sharp night air, feeling a surge of pleasure. Then it passed and in its place rushed a thought that filled her with discomfort: Tobe has been staying with their mother. She wanted to know more, and yet she didn’t.

On Monday morning, Jimmy Fisher woke up a determined man. He marched into Galen’s kitchen and helped himself to a mug of coffee. “Where’s Naomi?” he asked.

“She’s not feeling too well this morning.”

Jimmy pulled out the kitchen chair and dumped three teaspoons full of sugar into his coffee cup.

Galen finished buttering his burnt toast. “Any luck finding the horse?”

“No, no sign of him.” He took a long sip of coffee. “But I am going to find Lodestar and get him back. Yesterday, I went to all the neighbors and told them to keep an eye out for him. If you can spare me for a few hours, I’m going to staple posters on telephone poles and street signs. Someone’s bound to have seen him. I was even thinking about taking out an ad in the paper, maybe adding a reward.”

“Well, I hope you do find him. But there are other horses in the world.”

“None like Lodestar. You haven’t seen him. When you do, you’ll know what I mean.”

“If he’s that fine a horse, someone will find him and keep him.”

“Now, Galen, that’s the difference between you and me. You’re negative. I’m positive. You’re pessimistic. I’m optimistic. You think people are all bad. I think there’s good in them. Someone will find him and return him to me.”

Jimmy snatched his hat off the wall peg and jammed it on his head. “I’m going out to look for him. I’ll be back in a few hours.” That horse was his destiny. He was going to find Lodestar. He was going to prove Galen King wrong.

Every few days, Rose stopped by the phone shanty to pick up her messages. She knew from experience that she couldn’t handle it more often. At first, her message machine was filled with pleas from people who had invested with Dean’s company. The first few months, after it all broke open, she would listen to the messages and her stomach would churn all day long. These people had trusted Dean with their life savings. So many people had been left penniless. Futures had been destroyed. Family homes had been foreclosed on. They begged Rose to return the money they had invested.

Didn’t they understand there was no money?

She took down the information and wrote letters to each person who called, explaining the situation. She tried to include some cash in each letter—$5 or $10 or $20. There was a part of her that wanted to scold these people for trusting so easily, for getting tempted by high returns on their investment. What made them think that Schrock Investments could beat the market? In a brutal recession? It made no sense.

Today, she was relieved to see there were only a handful of messages. The calls were coming less frequently now and in a way, that made her sad too. They had given up hope of getting their money back. She wished she could tell each one, “I haven’t forgotten! Just give me some time. I’m going to repay you, if it’s the last thing I do.” She picked up a pencil to take down notes from the messages. She had to listen carefully to the last one before it made sense. Then she listened to it again. As soon as her mind grasped what the message meant, she ran down the long driveway and pounded on the basement door. “Delia, something’s happened! Something terrible.”

Delia opened the door, an alarmed look on her face. “What’s wrong? Come in. What’s happened?”

Rose had to stop and take a deep breath after running from the shanty like that. “My first guest at Eagle Hill was a woman named Lois. Tony and Lois. She left a message that she had met you at . . . a gas station . . . and told you to come here. She had bright red hair—truly red, not orange-red—and orange lipstick.”

Delia nodded. “Yes. Yes, I remember her. She helped me pump gas.”

“She said that you seemed upset and looked like you needed a quiet place to be.”

“That’s exactly right. She’s the one who told me about your inn. Has something happened to her?”

Rose sat down on the couch. She took a deep breath. “She said that your picture is all over the television. As a missing person. The news said your son reported you as missing . . .”

“My son? My son, Will?”

“Yes . . . that your son is on every news station pleading for some information about where you might be.”

“Oh no.” A trace of color rose under Delia’s fair skin. “I should have called Will. I should have let him know. It’s just that he’s going through midterm exams and Charles didn’t want to let him know about our . . . marital problems.”

“Charles. Is your husband Dr. Charles Stoltz?”

“Yes. Why?” Then, impatiently, “Why?”

“Maybe you should sit down for this.”

Delia sank to the sofa and Rose sat beside her. “Lois said she just heard on the news that your husband has been taken to the police station for questioning. She said that there’s concern he might have something to do with your disappearance . . . that apparently he is having an affair.” She lowered her voice. “Lois said there is speculation growing that your husband killed you and has hidden your body.”

“Oh my,” Delia said. “Oh my.” She covered her face with her hands, but for just a moment. Then she let them fall to her lap in a gripping fist. “I should get to a phone. I need to straighten this all out.”

Rose bit her lip. “Lois already did. She said she called the police to let them know where you are.”

Delia looked sick. “Please tell me this is a bad dream.”

The sound of a siren was heard in the distance, getting louder and louder as it came up the road. Rose and Delia went to the window and watched a police car with a flashing red siren pull up the driveway. “As a matter of fact,” Rose said, “I think you’re wide awake.”

Delia Stoltz spent the next two hours at the sheriff’s office in Stoney Ridge, on the phone with the Philadelphia police, explaining that her husband was innocent—sort of, she wanted to add, but didn’t think it would be wise to complicate the situation. It was already far too complicated. “My husband did not kill me and hide my body,” she said in a wry tone. “I just didn’t happen to mention to him where I was going.”

As soon as the sheriff allowed, she called her son, Will. She felt terrible when she heard the relief in his voice.

“I’m coming down there,” Will said. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. I’m leaving now.”

“No, Will—you’ve got exams to get through. I’m fine. I really am. I’ll call you each day if you like. I can’t get service out at the farm, but I’ll drive into town. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know where I was. But what made you think I went missing?”

“Dad called me, thinking you might have come to Ithaca. I started phoning your friends to see if they knew where you were. None of them had heard from you in weeks. You weren’t returning any of Dad’s or my phone messages. Dad said not to worry, but that only made me worry all the more. I mean, it’s not like you, Mom. Dad is hard to get hold of, but you’re always available. My imagination started rolling . . . too many CSI shows, I guess. So I called the police, thinking they might be able to locate your car or check with any hospitals to see if you might have been in an accident. Suddenly, it turned into a missing person’s report, then I was interviewed for the evening news, then someone at Dad’s office tipped off the police that Dad was having an affair with his attorney . . . and things got carried away.”

Delia rubbed her forehead. What a mess. “I’m sorry to have caused you concern. I just needed a little time to catch my breath. So much happened, so quickly.”

“Mom, I didn’t know about Dad and this attorney bimbo.”

“I just found out myself a few weeks ago. The day I found out about the cancer, in fact.”

There was a long silence. “Wait. What? You have cancer?”

Delia squeezed her eyes shut. How could she have blurted that without thinking? She kept her voice calm and steady. “They found a lump in my breast and took it out. I’m sure they got it all.” She wasn’t at all sure.

“What did the doctor say? Were the margins clear? Anything in the lymph nodes?” Will’s voice started to crack, which made Delia’s eyes fill with tears.

“I . . . haven’t gotten the results yet. I’m sure it’s all fine.” In fact, with each passing day, she felt a sense of growing dread about those results. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was too late to call today, but she would drive into town and call tomorrow.

“Does Dad know?”

“No. Not yet. I will tell him, Will.” Her voice was firm. “Let me do that.”

“So he’s having an affair with his lawyer while you’re recovering from cancer surgery.” His voice was filled with disgust.

“To be fair to him, he didn’t know, Will.”

She heard Will call his father an unmentionable word and she cringed. She didn’t want to become that kind of a woman—who told her son too much and turned him against his father. It wouldn’t take much, she knew—Will and Charles always had a fragile relationship. “Listen—this is between me and your father. Not you and him. Nothing has to change between the two of you.”

“Nothing has to change?” Will snorted. “Everything has changed! Dad destroyed our family. Life will never be the same again. Every holiday—Thanksgiving, Christmas—will be divided between parents. I’ve got plenty of friends from split-up families.” He paused. “Look, Dad’s . . . tomcatting . . . isn’t as important as your cancer. You’ve got to find out the results of the surgery. I don’t know when you’re planning to come home, but you can’t ignore this.”

“You’re right. I can’t.”

“I’ll come down to Stoney Ridge. I’ll tell my professors that my exams are just going to have to wait.”

“Will, I’m going to be fine.” She said it firmly, a mother to a son. “I can handle this. I won’t have you jeopardizing your future because of me. You stay put at Cornell and I’ll call you with the results. The minute I hear. Until then, no news is . . . no news.”

She heard him exhale loudly. “Either way? You’ll tell me the truth? The absolute truth?”

“I promise.”

“Mom . . . do you think you and Dad can fix this?” Something in his voice reminded Delia of Will as a little boy, wanting a Band-Aid or a hug to make the hurt go away.

“Maybe. But I want you to know that I will be fine. And so will you. I love you. Now . . . go study.”

Delia didn’t leave the sheriff’s office until he assured her that Charles had been released from questioning. She thought about calling Charles but knew he would be furious, and she couldn’t take any more upset today. She still felt shaky from that call with her son.

Her mind drifted back to Will’s question: Could this marriage be fixed? She was still trying to figure out when it had broken, and why.

Delia thought about a dinner she had at P.F. Chang’s with Charles just last month. It was their favorite restaurant. He had left the table four times to make urgent phone calls and returned edgy, distracted. Delia had seen nothing unusual about it at the time. He was often edgy and distracted, though he had become far more so in the last month, since the malpractice suit.

Charles had a patient, a middle-aged woman, who had come to him with an enormous aneurysm pressing against her brain stem—a very dangerous situation. The brain could be surprisingly forgiving and tended to accommodate aneurysms or tumors as long as they grew slowly. Not in the brain stem with its tight pack of nerves. He explained all that and more to the patient, concerned she didn’t understand how serious the situation was. The aneurysm had to be dealt with before it proved fatal. Charles persisted and she finally agreed to the surgery. The procedure was successful.

Delia remembered that evening—how satisfied Charles had been as he described wrapping coil after coil around the large aneurysm. She could tell he was pleased with himself. He had saved the patient’s life.

And then the hospital called. Delia had never seen a look of fear on Charles’s face until he hung up from that phone call. He didn’t move for a long moment, and she heard him say, “Oh God, please no.” The patient suffered a massive stroke and was having difficulty speaking.

The patient’s husband ended up slapping a malpractice suit on Charles—his first. The husband insisted that his wife did not understand the risks of the surgery and that she would never have agreed to the procedure if she had known she might have ended up impaired. She didn’t mind dying, he said, but she would mind living with such loss of function. And that was when Charles connected with Robyn Dixon, the attorney who represented him.

When Delia first learned of the lawsuit, she thought it might even be a good thing. Charles was so proud, taking on riskier and riskier surgeries. He thought he could do anything and do it well. He’d had very few failures in his career. He needed to remember that even he had clay feet.

Robyn Dixon convinced him to countersue, based on the fact—and it was a documented fact—that the patient had signed an agreement to have the surgery and therefore was duly informed of the risks. The countersuit claimed that the patient was causing him undue professional harm.

Delia had tried to talk Charles out of a countersuit. The poor woman and her husband had suffered enough.

Charles wouldn’t hear of it. “It’s never easy making decisions in matters concerning life and limb. Every surgery has its risks. She knew that. Bad outcomes are part of the medical profession. I’m only human.”

If Charles really believed that, then why didn’t he just admit he might have minimized any risk in his eagerness to have the patient agree to the surgery? He frightened the patient into thinking the aneurysm might kill her, but did he help her to understand that her life might never be the same, even with the surgery? In this situation, Delia thought his impatience and arrogance had interfered with his judgment.

But wasn’t that the fatal flaw in Charles’s character? He was never wrong, never at fault.

As Delia drove back to Stoney Ridge, she listened to her messages. There were quite a few from Will and Charles, increasingly frantic as they wondered where she was and why she wouldn’t return their calls. She listened to two calm ones from Dr. Zimmerman’s receptionist, asking her to call to schedule her follow-up visit, and then the voice mail said the box was full. She was just about to erase them all but decided to leave it full. She didn’t want to hear anything more today. Not from anybody.

She pulled into the driveway and stayed in the car for a moment. Delia dabbed her eyes with an already damp tissue. Her face crumpled, and she started weeping softly.

Far above her flew the eagle couple, swirling in a courting ritual, skimming the distant trees, disappearing beyond the ridge. Their life was so simple. Why then did human beings not keep theirs simple too? Love, marry, till death do us part?

She was startled by a tap on her car window. Rose was waiting to speak to her. Delia didn’t know what she was going to say. Ask her to leave, perhaps? She wouldn’t blame her at all.

Until that phone message was left by Lois, Delia knew Rose had no idea why a stranger had arrived at Eagle Hill and collapsed like a rag doll. She was far too polite to ask, but now, it must have all become clear. She wondered what Rose told the family: Delia Stoltz’s husband had left her for another woman. And a happenstance meeting with a stranger at a gas station convinced her to come here for her nervous breakdown.

Well, wasn’t that the truth?

Delia opened the car door and stepped out.

“I need to take something over to the neighbor’s,” Rose said. “Would you like to come with me? Get some fresh air? It’s a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky.”

For the first time in hours, the tight, pained feeling in Delia’s abdomen lessened a little. “I believe I would,” she said with a hint of a smile.

So Rose and Delia took a loaf of extra bread over to Galen and stayed to watch him work his horses. They leaned against the top of the corral fence, transfixed by Galen’s calm manner with very high-strung Thoroughbreds. Delia looked up. A dome of the lightest blue filled with air, with swirls and eddies of wispy clouds. She breathed in deeply, and felt the sweet air fill her with a buoyant optimism. Life, for just this moment, was good.

“I’ve been bringing fresh bread to Galen every other day, to thank him for tolerating the boys’ help with his horses,” Rose whispered. “Mostly, it’s my excuse to spy on the boys and make sure they’re behaving. But I do like to watch how Galen works with those prickly horses. He gets a look on his face as if he has a vision of what the horse will be like, once trained.”

An Amish couple drove up in a buggy with a beautiful gelding tied behind them. Rose and Delia watched from afar as the husband explained to Galen that this horse had been a gift to his wife. The gelding had been a reliable horse, he was told from the previous owner, but now was behaving unpredictably in traffic.

The woman was quite upset. “I don’t want to get rid of him. But I can’t seem to get him to mind me. He bolts at the slightest thing.”

Galen walked around the horse, stroked his neck. “The problem is you don’t understand him.”

“But I love this horse,” the woman said. “I’m very kind to him.”

“I didn’t mean that you’re mistreating him,” Galen said. “Just the opposite. Horses from the racetrack are taught to go forward and run, no matter what. As long as they’re headed in the right direction, forward, the trainers don’t care how they behave. They don’t want to kill the drive to win the race. So that’s what the horse is trying to do now. Win the race.”

The husband took off his hat and scratched his head. “What can you do to change that?”

“I need to work with him so he doesn’t think running is the right choice. If he’s in doubt or encounters the unexpected, he needs to pay attention to you.”

The couple left the gelding in Galen’s care. Delia overheard him tell Jimmy Fisher that most of the time the horse’s training was just fine, and his job was about retraining the horse owners.

Delia wished Will could watch Galen work with these horses—he would find it fascinating, like watching a horse whisperer. Just being around Galen was very calming to the spirit.

She wondered what Rose thought about Galen. She was nice and polite to him, and he was as pleasant as could be to Rose, but now and then he seemed to look at her in a wondering sort of way. Why was that?

It was the kind of discussion Delia would have had with Charles over dinner, and he would vaguely answer as if he was listening to her, which he wasn’t.

But there was the rub: there were so many things she wanted to tell Charles. Every day she thought of something new.