“If you have a message of encouragement for these people, please speak.”
–Acts 13:15, NIV
Chapter
One
The alarm next to my ear shrieked me
awake at two forty-eight a.m.
I scrambled upstairs to my home office to catch the urgent summons. My
messenger service board light sputtered an angry red, signaling an incoming
call for one of my clients—ID code, the mayor’s office. I frowned. In the
middle of the night? This had to be a crank call. I hoped it wasn’t one of
those angry at the world verbal abusers. I was tired and not in the mood to be
professionally pleasant. I held the headpiece next to my ear and answered. “Office
of the mayor.”
“Mm—get—call—mmm—”
I couldn’t make anything out through
the crackling static and so I boosted the gain. I tried to turn the outside
antenna with the automatic control, but another burst of static rocketed me out
of the chair. I whipped off my earpiece. “Oww!”
I sat down again slowly. The light
blinked balefully now. I checked the caller ID. Chicago Summersby Building Summersby Building
The next evening, after my third
attempt to reach my friend Donald, the mayor of Apple Grove , Illinois
When I moved here two months ago,
April Fool’s Day, to be exact, the phone and cable companies had wondered about
how I could make McTeague’s Messenger Service work with my three servers. I
showed them Donald’s letter of reference and the preliminary approval of the
exception to the zoning ordinance in this quiet little neighborhood.
Usually, I took messages. This
evening, I needed to give one. One that I dreaded. I took a deep breath,
plugged in my headset, and dialed.
“Apple Grove Police. Officer Ripple.
How can I help you?”
“Hello,
hello? I need to report a kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping?
Name?”
“Ivy
Preston.”
“Right.
High Vee? Could you spell that, please?”
“I-V-Y.
Preston .”
“And
where are you now, ma’am? Can you see any weapons? Do you know the name of your
kidnappers?”
“Oh,
no, Officer. It’s not me. It’s the mayor.”
“Mayor?
Got that. First name?”
“Donald.”
“Donald
Mayor. And is he a relative? Is there a note?”
“No…you’ve
got it all mixed up. I’m calling about somebody kidnapping Mayor Donald
Conklin.”
“You
think someone’s going to kidnap the mayor? That’s a pretty serious charge.”
“Not
going to. I think they already did.”
“We’ll send someone over to talk to
you. What’s your address?”
“Three-twelve
Marigold.”
“Ah,
yes. The Pagner house. And you have some sort of evidence?”
“Well,
I received the strangest message last night and now he won’t answer his private
number. I’m worried.”
“Message?”
“I’m the new messenger service in
town. McTeague’s. Donald invited me.”
“Okay.
Sit tight. I’m sending Officer Dow over to you to take your statement.”
“Thank
you.” I hung up and wondered what kind of a statement I was expected to give. I
had the recording, but unless one knew the context, it could mean anything.
Maybe I should call someone. How did I know I could trust the police here? You
saw it all the time on TV. Sometimes, the bad guys aren’t who you thought. My
mental contact list was pretty slim. My neighbors, who I didn’t know all well.
Mom, who lived a couple of hours away.
A knock on the door saved me from a
slide into self-pity. I let in Officer Ann Dow. And smiled politely at the
little wisp of a blond who looked like the east wind would carry her away if she
hadn’t been anchored by her sturdy shoes and even sturdier holstered shiny
black weapon. “Thank you for coming.” I wasn’t huge, but I looked down a couple
of inches on her.
“So,
tell me about this alleged kidnapping.” The officer got out her pad and pen.
She shushed her shoulder mic.
“I
believe the mayor is missing.”
She didn’t say anything at first.
“And you believe that because…?”
“I received this strange message
late last night. On my business line. You know, I’m hired to reroute phone,
fax, and electronic mail service from the mayor’s office while he’s out?”
“I’m not privy to the mayor’s office
practices,” she said, straight-faced.
I ignored her implication and
instead led her to my office, explaining she could hear for herself. “This
message came in, cued for the mayor’s office, but it was all staticky and
garbled. I couldn’t make anything out, except ‘get’ and ‘call.’”
She listened. “Get what? And you
think it came from the mayor?”
“I don’t know for sure. The caller
ID said Summersby
Building Chicago
Officer Dow tapped her pen on her
pad. She shook her head and returned to the kitchen, me following like a lost
puppy. “I’ll make a report,” she said, reaching for the door. “Maybe you should
notify the FCC. If you get threatening calls, you should call the telephone
company. We’ll talk to Mrs. Bader-Conklin, who’s been in the office all week covering
for her husband. If that’s all, I’ll let you get back to…what you were doing.”
“Thank
you. But—”
Click. She shut my door.
And I thought Apple Grove seemed
like such a nice town.
I let out a sigh of pure
exasperation and tapped my size seven-and-a-half sandal on the tile floor. Last
night’s message…I just couldn’t get it out of my head. I get mistaken numbers,
of course, but I had a funny feeling. And that was a new one—Donald’s wife had
been in the office? Why did he need me? Calling the police wasn’t the best
first move. But what else could I have done?
Donald,
or the city I guess, hired me to take messages this week while he went to court
another incubator business to start up in Apple Grove. He was nice like that,
paving the way for other people to trust my business, just like he did.
Maybe
I should have been mad at him instead of concerned. With my ringless fingers, I
tucked a loose spiral of my dishy-blah hair back into its sloppy bun. Donald
would never have ignored me this long. And he’d want to talk about the next CAT convention coming up. That was Cat Association
Titlists—the group where we met years and years ago. We both had silver
Egyptian Maus.
I
have never been a whimsical person, and this was a big deal in my life, but
I’ll get to that later. Let’s just say his request, that I move
McTeague’s—that’s me, Ivy Amanda McTeague Preston—Message Service to Apple
Grove happened to fall at a good time. Pun intended.
If
the police thought Donald was perfectly safe, I should just wait until tomorrow
and then see if Mrs. Bader-Conklin had some notion about what was going on. I
could go visit her at the office and ask, casual-like, if she’d heard from him.
And offer to leave his messages.
***
My next hint that something was
wrong was that Donald’s secretary, Marion Green, was not at her usual post. If
the mayor’s office was open for business, Marion Marion
I heard a distinct sneeze from
inside the office. Then the tap of high heels.
Why had I waited so long before
getting concerned enough about Donald to call the police? Final registration
for CAT was in two days. Donald
never missed. He hadn’t registered yet—I checked. And he told me before he left
town that it was the one thing he looked forward to all summer. He could take
his cat, Tut, out of his wife’s hair for awhile, and since she claimed she was
allergic to animals, she didn’t insist on coming along. He never said anything
negative, but I got the impression the vacation was a three-way blessing
between him, his wife, and Tut.
A woman opened the door to the
mayor’s office. I recognized her from a photo that Donald had showed me—Margaret.
She studied me over half-glasses perched on a razor-thin nose; Joan Crawford
eyebrows raised toward her curled-under bangs. I shivered.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss
Preston. Please.” She gestured to me to follow her. And then she invited me to
sit in the ugly straight-back chair on the opposite side of Donald’s desk
instead of the comfy one in front of the computer. Donald had never done that.
I warily started a conversation. “I
hope Marion
“I gave Mrs. Green the week off. My
personal assistant is with me.” The wife of the mayor of Apple Grove leaned
back in her husband’s leather chair. “Now, what can I do for you, Miss…Preston ?”
I swallowed hard. “Uh, well, Don—the
mayor asked me to take messages as he was going to be out of the office all
week. I wondered…if you’ve heard from him?” Dang, I tried hard not to squeak
with nerves at the end. I couldn’t help it, yet instinct told me that I must
not show fear. I hoped she wouldn’t get the wrong impression.
“May I know the nature of your
business with the mayor?”
No wonder Donald needed an annual
break from this woman. Did she act like such an iceberg at home, too? Margaret
sneezed again and took out a dainty lace handkerchief. “Something in the air,”
she muttered, sniffling. “You must have a cat or a dog at home. I’m allergic.”
“Oh?” I said, stopping before I
mentioned I already knew that. Wrong impressions and all.
“I recall Donald speaking of you,”
she said. “From that little group he goes to, right? So, did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Bring the messages you’ve been
supposedly taking.”
“Sorry.” I handed over eight yellow
and green carbons. I kept the pink copies locked in a safe for three months,
per contractual agreement. “Mrs. Lendler wants her neighbor’s box elder tree
cut down as a public menace because of the bugs—”
“Thank you. I can read. Was there
anything else?”
“So, am I still on the job for the
rest of the week? And Don—the mayor—will be back on Saturday? He’s all right?”
“Of course he’s all right. Why
wouldn’t he be? Letty can handle business.”
Letty must be the battleaxe up
front. Margaret stood and I had to follow suit. She was taller than me. I
supposed if I had on heels instead of tennies, I could have looked at her nose
instead of her chin. She had three black hairs sprouting under her makeup. I
pressed my lips tight to hold in the grin while she turned to open the door to
her office.
“How’s Tut these days?” I asked,
testing her out on a whim.
“Tut? Oh—fine, just fine.”
Mmhmm. “Mem’s just fine, too.”
“Mem? Memo? I don’t underst—” She
looked over my shoulder. “Oh, ah, good to know. Excuse me while I, ah….”
I followed her line of sight to see
Letty in the doorway, frowning, while her left hand came to rest on her folded
elbow. We locked brown-eyed stares. Her irises had weird little gold flecks in
them. She blinked first. She went back to her desk.
“I’ll be glad to care for Tut,” I
said, a bit giddy with my victory in the stare down, “since you’re allergic and
all, while the mayor’s away. Our cats get along swell.”
She bit the corner of her lip, just
for an instant, but enough to give me the feeling that something was amiss.
“Tut’s all right, isn’t he? Or is he
with Donald?”
She frowned when I said Donald.
Oops. “I mean, the mayor.”
She pushed forward, forcing me to
move to the door. “Of course. If you’ll excuse me, we have a great deal of
work. Good-bye, now. Take care.”
I nodded to Letty on my way out. I
got turned around in the maze of staircases and hallways and ended up leaving
city hall by the back door. In my muse, I had to dodge a dark-colored delivery
van squealing right up to the back door before I found the walk that went
around to the side parking lot where I had left my car. What on earth would
Mrs. Bader-Conklin do in her husband’s office?
How I got home, I’m not sure. I
don’t think I ran into anyone on the way. I paced my tiny kitchen, three steps
forward and back, as the evening wore on, deciding how much further to get involved
in this business.
Judging by the officer’s response to
my initial phone call, I wondered if I would ever rate any respect for my
theory that the mayor needed help. I only hoped it would not be too late for
Donald. I needed to find a better way to explain my dilemma to the police if I
felt like I had to call again.
I could talk to someone else. Of
course! Someone else. True! He’d know what to do. How could I have forgotten
Truesdale Thompson, Donald’s other pet project? I grinned. True had moved to
Apple Grove not long after me. Mea Cuppa, his little bookshop and fancy coffee
joint, needed more prep time than my machines, so he’d only recently opened. I
spent my odd hours helping him sort merchandise and stock shelves.
I drove through downtown, chased by
an occasional scrap of newspaper or leaf swirling in the spring breeze riffling
up from the river through alleys. I knocked on the front door of the closed
shop. I didn’t think True heard me at first, as he took some time coming down
from his apartment.
“Ivy. What’s wrong? Come on in. Sit
down.”
A solid comfort, True. I babbled. “I
don’t know where else to turn. Please, listen to me!
“Of course I will.”
I looked around, feeling vulnerable
through the huge plate glass window. Any passerby could see us clearly. “Not
here.”
He seemed unfazed. “Okay. Come on
up. I wasn’t exactly expecting visitors, though.”
And clearly, he wasn’t. He tossed
aside a pile of towels and picture hangers and bade me sit on his recliner
while he went to fix tea. I felt antsy and couldn’t sit still. There was little
room to pace with the floor so covered with boxes and bubble wrap. I could
barely tell the color of the carpet.
He smiled and put a steaming cup of
ginger tea in my hand. “I told you it was a mess.”
I inhaled. “Thank you.”
He looked around the room and
grimaced. “Let’s go in the kitchen, shall we?”
His kitchen was a different world.
Neat and cozy. I could see where True felt most comfortable. We sat. I sipped
while appreciating his patience. I mulled over a couple of ways to tell my tale
and decided direct was best.
“Donald’s missing. I think he’s in
trouble.” I stopped, and took a deep, whimpery breath. True put one of his
gigantic warm hands over mine and anchored me with his calming gray stare. I
had no idea what he thought, but I knew I trusted him.
“Ivy. Donald told us that he was
going on a business trip. In fact, I thought you were on the job.”
“I thought that too. Until the
police told me that Margaret was in the mayor’s office.”
True’s eyebrows went up with comforting
incredulity. He shook his head; his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“When I called the police, he said
he saw the mayor’s car leaving the parking lot. Wouldn’t he have taken his car
on his trip?”
“Not if he was flying. Ivy, you
called the police? Based on what?”
I twisted my mouth to the side and
jiggled my foot. “Um, well. A feeling, I guess. Donald hadn’t registered for CAT yet. I knew he wanted to go, so I tried his
emergency number. Three times. To remind him. He didn’t answer. Then, later, I
started putting this strange garbled message—I could only make out what sounded
like ‘get,’ and ‘call,’ I think, from some number in Chicago—together with
Donald’s absence, and wondered if the two might be related. So, what do you
think it means?”
True sat back, not saying anything.
Then he got up and walked over to the sink. I admired his height and flexed
back muscles, the efficient way he moved and the deliberate way he thought
before speaking—so unlike my scrambling around and blurting out the first thing
I thought. He was older than me—I’m almost thirty-two and single, thank you to
my ex-fiancé Stanley Chicago
“I suppose he’s just busy,” I said.
“Or out of cell range. And the other call could have been some wrong number or
something. It happens.”
“What do you think might be going
on?”
“I don’t know. Donald is my friend.
If he’s in trouble, I want to help.”
True’s mouth twitched. “What kind of
help?”
I sighed, thinking how ludicrous my
actions had been. “I thought I’d just go over to city hall and visit Margaret.
You know, just ask if she’d heard from Donald. So I did. But Margaret wasn’t
talking. Marion
“She might not spend all day in the
office if Donald was out,” True reminded me.
I took another deep breath. “But
there was someone else there. Someone I didn’t know sitting at Marion
“Ivy, you wouldn’t know many people
here anyway, remember? We just moved.”
I liked the “we” part of his
comment. “Right. But did you know that Margaret’s allergic to cats? I thought
she just hated them.”
“That’s one of the reasons Donald
was so interested in that new company. Happy Hearts Bioengineering? They’re
working to produce a hypoallergenic breed of animal.”
“I thought he was…well, maybe I
hadn’t been paying attention. I thought he was going after a pet food company.
Fel-feli—”
“Feli-Mix. He told me they signed an
‘intent to build’ contract based on getting the zoning approval.”
“Oh. Good.” I scratched my ear. Isis wandered in from a dark hallway to curl around
True’s ankles. True’s Mau smoke female was daintier in looks than disposition.
My Mem had been at the receiving end of her ferocity since they’d been
introduced two years ago at a convention. Poor Mem had only tried to be polite.
True nudged me back to the present
topic at hand. “What did Margaret say?”
“She wouldn’t talk to me.” I saw him
wipe a hand over his face. “I didn’t think I was nosy. So I asked her if I was
supposed to continue taking messages. She said her assistant could handle it.”
“Oh?”
“Then I asked Margaret about Tut.
You know. I was concerned. She said he was fine. I asked if I could take care
of him while Donald was gone. She didn’t answer me. Not really.” I looked
toward the lopsided drape that hung over the kitchen sink.
“But you’re still worried.”
“Yes, about both of them. I wish now
I hadn’t called the police first.”
“What exactly did you say to them?”
My lip protruded again. “That I
wanted to report a…a kidnapping.” My voice had dropped to a too-low whisper on
the last word. I sounded perfectly ridiculous and I knew it.
“Based on a message you couldn’t
understand? And after the police officer stopped laughing?”
“He didn’t laugh at all! He sent a
lady cop to check on me.”
“And?”
“She said she’d report it.”
True uncrossed his arms and got up
from the table. He gently removed the mug from my hands and raised me to my
feet. I liked the feel of those hands. I liked the confidence he exuded even
more. “Ivy, I can tell you’re concerned about this. Why don’t you let me go
talk to Margaret tomorrow, see what I think. Okay? I’m not dismissing you, but I
have to think about this.”
I nodded. “I know it sounds wild,
True. I need to do something, but I’m not sure what.”
True walked me to the door and down
the steps. The moccasins he wore silenced his path across the floor of the
shop. “You drove. You want me to take you home?”
I appreciated his thoughtfulness.
“I’m all right.” I caught my reflection in the window of the door.
Shoulder-length corkscrew hair in all directions, eyes wide—I looked like a
nutcase. No wonder he had been concerned I couldn’t drive. I stopped and
turned. The top of my head came to his shoulder, giving me a good view of his
throat. His turtleneck shirt hid most of the scar that I knew snaked around his
neck and across his right shoulder. I never asked about it and I was too shy
around him yet to pry, but I hoped that would change in the near future. “Thank
you, True, for listening. I hope it’s just some kind of mental lapse on my
part.”
“We both care about Donald. I’ll
talk to you tomorrow.” He flashed a grin and closed the door behind me, staying
at the window to watch until I sat safely in my car.
I did not expect to sleep much, so
after checking my client list and the current work orders in my office, I
settled on the couch with my pet Memnet nearby and popped a movie into my
player.
Mau owners give their friends names
popular in ancient Egypt Stanley
Memnet’s scratching woke me sometime
later. Cold and stiff, I came to my senses abruptly when I heard a loud crack
and tinkling sound from the kitchen. Mem was not as cautious as me and streaked
toward the sound, a silver shadow in the blue glow of the television screen.
His screech was primeval.
My hand shook as I dialed the number
of the police department with a legitimate complaint this time. After being
assured they would send someone immediately, I peered into the kitchen to see
the broken window panel of the door and the swinging chain. Mem sat guard, his
tail twitching and ears forward, his paw resting on top of a stone with
something tied to it.
“What have you got, Mem?” I
crouched, wary of glass. With a low growl pulsing from his furry throat, he
reluctantly let me examine the rock. I supposed it was evidence, but it was in
my house. And Ripple had laughed at me earlier, after all. With one eye
watching for the police car, I hurriedly untied the string and read the
attached note.
“Busy-body’s don’t belong in our
town.”
I hated misused apostrophes.
