First Impressions (Edenton 1)

Brad looked at the dashboard clock. It was now fourteen minutes to midnight. “I think I should go in your place,” he said. “I brought a black sweatshirt. If I pull up the hood, I—”

“No one would mistake you for me,” she said, looking at the bag in her hand. “You’ll stay here and wait for me? I don’t know what will happen after I leave the necklace. Do you think he’ll…?” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

Brad put his hand on hers. “I think that once he gets the necklace he’ll leave town immediately. I think he probably has a car waiting close by, and he probably has his plane tickets and his suitcases with him. I think he’s already made arrangements to sell the necklace. Once he has the money in his hands, I think he plans to go to some country that has no extradition laws where he plans to spend the rest of his worthless life in a hut on a beach painting pictures that he thinks will make him the next Gauguin. I think he believes that his paintings will be so good that the world will forgive him for what he did to get the money to bankroll him.”

Eden was looking at Brad with her mouth open. “What do you know?” she managed to gasp out.

“Enough to have an idea of what I’m dealing with. I don’t think either you or your daughter are in much physical danger. I think he just wants the necklace.”

“And after he gets it, will he release her?”

“We’ll find her,” Brad said. “You can count on that.” He squeezed her hand again. “I’ve already alerted some people I know in New York. He won’t be able to escape.”

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Later,” Brad said, looking again at the clock. “You’d better go. Oh, and Eden, if something should happen, I put a few weapons in this car. Under the seats, and in the glove box.” He handed her a car key. “Just in case.” As he closed his hands around hers, he said, “But I want you to know that I’ll always be close by you.”

“What if he hears you?” she said, panic in her voice. “He said I was to come alone. He said—”

“Trust me,” Brad said. “Trust me to know what I’m doing as much as you’d trust McBride.” To Brad’s disgust, these words made Eden calm down immediately. He nodded toward the door, and she put her hand on the handle. He wanted to kiss her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Later, he thought, they’d sort out what was between them personally.

Eden took the big flashlight that Brad had given her and walked down the dirt road toward where she knew the old house awaited. She doubted that her daughter would be inside. Would her kidnapper get the necklace, then take it to an appraiser before he released Melissa? If he did that, he’d find out that the necklace was worth nothing. Then what would happen to her daughter?

There was no gravel on the old road and weeds had grown up in the center of it, but she could see that they’d recently been bent by a car running over them. With each step she took, her heart pounded harder and faster.

When the dark outline of the house came into view, she was sweating and shaking. What if—? she kept asking herself. What if he didn’t keep his end of the bargain? But then, she hadn’t kept her end of the deal, had she? She hadn’t come alone; Brad was with her. At that thought she wanted to run back to the car and tell Brad he had to leave, but she didn’t.

When she got close enough to see the house more clearly in the moonlight, she gasped. It was completely enveloped in blooming wisteria. She knew that most people in eastern North Carolina considered wisteria a noxious weed, but she couldn’t see it that way. To her, it was one of the most beautiful plants on earth. She loved the way the trunks twisted about one another, loved the narrow, pointed leaves, and loved the drooping cluster of flowers that hung off it in the spring.

To the locals, wisteria “escaped.” According to them, if you planted one stick of it, “soon” it would engulf everything in its path. The soon was about twenty years, and to Eden’s gardener’s mind, all it took was a bit of pruning each year to control it.

Where wisteria was most likely to “escape” was in old, abandoned houses like this one. Many years ago, someone had planted a wisteria bush and had probably kept it pruned. When the house was abandoned, the other plants, the magnolias and the snowball bushes, had been devoured by wild vegetation that was stronger than the modern, hybridized plants. But not the wisteria. Given the right climate, wisteria could cover the earth. Not even forests could overcome wisteria. The vine would grow right up the tree, keeping all sunlight from it, and eventually kill the tree.

In the moonlight, to Eden’s eyes, the wisteria-draped house was ethereally beautiful. The old house was still strong enough to hold the heavy vines upright, and the flowers cascaded down it. It was a Hansel and Gretel cottage for gardeners, she thought.

The beauty of the old house made her calm down somewhat. She tentatively stepped onto the rotting porch, testing the boards before putting her whole weight on them. The boards creaked, and she paused, listening. She thought she heard something to her right, but it was probably only an animal. The door to the house was open and she walked inside, shining her light around the room. She saw nothing but a falling-down old house, a common sight in North Carolina. The wallpaper and the fireplace surround made her think the house was from the 1840s, maybe later.

A scurrying in the back made her jump. She put her hand to her throat, then turned out the light. “Melissa?” she whispered, but there was no answer. She stood still for a moment, listening, but heard nothing. But her instinct told her that she was being watched. With the light turned off, the house was pitch-black. The wisteria outside kept any moonlight from coming in; she couldn’t see her hand.

“I’m leaving the bag now,” she said too loudly. If anyone was there, he’d hear her. “I just want my daughter back. You can have the necklace. I won’t even report that it’s missing. Please,” she said. “I just want my daughter.”

There was no response, and she heard nothing—which made her sure that there was another human nearby. If she’d been the first person to enter the house, animals would have been scurrying everywhere. But someone else had disturbed them first, and now they were hiding and waiting for all the humans to leave.

“The necklace is here,” she said, then started backing toward the door. She didn’t want to turn the light back on. What if she saw who it was? That might make him refuse to release Melissa.

She backed into the wall, then had to feel her way to the door. When her hands touched the door, she backed through it. Only when she was outside in the cool air did she turn back around and start walking again. In her panic, she hit the step too hard and her ankle twisted under her. She went down, hitting the ground in front of the steps hard. An old board hit her in the side, making her gasp.

But the fall didn’t frighten her as much as what she saw. Under the porch were two pinpoints of light: eyes. An animal? A person?

Fumbling, Eden tried to stand upright, but her hand caught on something, and she flailed about as she tried to get away. She didn’t want to see who it was under the porch. To see, to know, would endanger Melissa.

When Eden finally managed to stand, she started running back toward the car. After the dark of the inside of the house, the moonlight was almost bright, so she didn’t turn on the flashlight. When she saw the car, she breathed a sigh of relief—until she saw that Brad wasn’t in it. Her first impulse was to call for him, but she couldn’t do that. Her second thought was of anger for his not staying put, and anger at herself for asking him to help her. But she couldn’t have done it by herself, she thought. She couldn’t have secretly driven a car out from under the noses of McBride and the whole FBI force, could she?

She leaned against Brad’s car. Now what? she wondered. Did she wait here for Brad like a good little girl, or did she go back into the dark woods surrounding the house and try to find…find what?

My daughter, she thought. Try to find my daughter.

Slowly, she moved away from the car and slipped into the woods that were closing in on the house. There had to be outbuildings still standing. Maybe—She didn’t have any plans or concrete thoughts about what she was doing, but maybe she could see something or find out something.