Deirdre pushed her soup bowl toward the center of the table and stood. “Well, sports fans. Gotta go.”
Daddy and Paul rose politely. Daddy extended his hand; when Deirdre took it, he covered both their hands with his left. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay and see in the New Year with us?” I held my breath, hoping she had other plans. Like having to alphabetize her spice rack. Or neuter her houseplants.
“No, sorry. I’ve got to get back to Bowie. My roommates are having a party and I’m expected to make the pizza.” She turned to us. “Bye. Happy New Year.”
We watched her go, Daddy looking wistful, whether from melancholy over what might have been with Darlene or for some hope of a new relationship with her daughter it was impossible to tell.
I worried about this through the rest of my roast duck, but by the time Mary Ellen cleared the dishes and began hovering tableside for our dessert order, Daddy had remained so cheerful that I knew Darryl was full of baloney.
When my cell phone rang again, catching me in mid-Key lime pie, I hurried to answer it, thinking it had to be Captain Younger.
But I was wrong.
“Hannah, thank goodness I got you!”
I closed my eyes. “Hi, LouElla.”
“No time to chat! Hurry! You’ve got to find Emily and warn her!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” All eyes at our table and several pairs from the adjoining tables glommed on to me.
“Virginia’s gone crazy! She just came over here and demanded my log book.”
That was the silliest thing I ever heard, but there was no use telling LouElla that. “Why would she do that?”
“She hit me in the face. Knocked me over,” LouElla whimpered. “I’m going to have a black eye.”
“I’m sorry, LouElla, but what can I do to help?”
“She’s going to destroy it, obliterate it, wipe it off the face of the earth! Oh, my poor log book!”
An alarm clanged in my head. “What does all this have to do with Emily, LouElla?”
“Emily?” LouElla paused, as if she’d lost her train of thought.
“Yes, Emily. What were you saying about Emily?”
“Oh! It was Emily who told Virginia about my log book. I’m sure Emily didn’t mean any harm by it, and I certainly don’t hold anything against the dear girl, but Virginia says that now Emily’s seen what’s written in it, she’ll have to be stopped.”
I sighed. Another one of LouElla’s loopy conspiracy theories. “That doesn’t make any sense, LouElla. You wrote the log book and she didn’t stop you.”
“That’s what I told her, but Virginia said that nobody’d believe a crazy old witch like me.” She snuffled noisily. “Except she used the B-word.”
“I’m sure you’re overreacting.”
“No, I’m not. You should have seen her face! All red and purple and the veins in her neck popping out.”
I needed to drag LouElla back on track before she wandered down a divergent path. “You said she went looking for Emily?”
“She blames you, Hannah, for messing up her plans. She said there was only one way to make you understand why she had to do it. You were going to find out, firsthand, how it feels.”
How it feels? Adrenaline suddenly shot through my veins, cold as ice water, but I had to ask. I had to be sure. “How what feels, LouElla?”
“How it feels to lose a child.”
I leapt up from my chair, clutching the cell phone to my ear with both hands. “LouElla! Look out your window. Is Virginia’s car still parked in the lane?”
“Just a minute.”
I filled the time with silent prayer: please, oh, please, oh, please, oh…
“She’s just leaving!” LouElla seemed suddenly focused. “But don’t you worry! I’ll follow her. I’m good at it.”
“Don’t hang up!” I shouted. “Wait a minute!”
“It’ll be OK,” LouElla soothed. “I’ve trained with the best.”
“What makes Virginia think she can find Emily, LouElla? It’s New Year’s Eve. The city is packed with people.”
“Emily told her where she was going.”
“Oh, my God!”
“And, Hannah?”
“What?”
“I know for a fact that Virginia owns a gun.”
The phone went dead in my ear.
19
Everyone stared-Ruth’s mouth ajar, Paul’s brow deeply furrowed, Daddy’s eyes like slits-as if trying to determine if I’d lost my mind. “We need to find Emily and Dante,” I blurted at last. “Virginia’s come unglued. LouElla thinks she’s on her way here to kill Emily!”
“That’s crazy!” Paul said.
“Maybe so, but there’s usually an element of truth in what LouElla says.” I smiled grimly, thinking about my father. My eyes locked with Paul’s. “Can we afford to take that chance?”
Ruth grabbed my hand and jerked me back into my chair. “But where do we look?”
Paul’s chair screeched against the floor as he scooted closer to me. “Hannah, can you remember where the kids were going?”
“I didn’t ask! Oh, God, I didn’t ask.” Panic seized me. Where did they go? Oh, Lord, where did they go? I shook my head violently, trying to drive the random bits of memory that were ricocheting around inside my skull into their proper slots. “The magic show finished at four-thirty, so that’s out. After the face-painting, there was the Punch and Judy Show…”
“Wait a minute!” Daddy nearly knocked over his coffee cup as his hand shot across the table in front of him. “How will Virginia find Emily in all these crowds?”
“Emily told Virginia where she’d be going, Daddy! When she called Virginia to warn her about LouElla.” I buried my face in my hands. “Oh, how did things get so bass-ackwards?”
I peeped out through my fingers. “We need a plan.” I pulled the First Night Annapolis program out of my bag and spread it on the table. I scanned the program, looking for events marked with a balloon indicating their suitability for children. “There’s a comedy juggler at St. Mary’s. Ruth, you take that. And there’s some sort of sand craft workshop at Annapolis Elementary. You can check that out, too-”
Paul shook his head. “No, forget that, Ruth. Chloe’s too young for sand crafts.”
I threw up my hands in frustration. “What, then?”
Paul stabbed his finger at a green section of the program: Zone 5, the U.S. Naval Academy. “There. The Harlem Wizards.”
“A basketball game? With Chloe?” I thought Paul had lost it. “What makes you think so?”
“Dante’s a nut for basketball, Hannah. Trust me. After watching puppets duke it out and having his face painted, he’ll be ready for something like this.” He tapped the program where a balloon was drawn next to the event. “Besides, this is an event for kids. And it’s practically at the Visitors’ Center where we agreed to meet and watch the fireworks.”
A wave swept over me, half of sadness, half of shame, that I had distanced myself so much from my son-in-law that I didn’t even know he enjoyed basketball.
I checked my watch. “If LouElla is right, it will take Virginia an hour to get here, another twenty minutes or so to park…” I turned to Paul for reassurance. “The game doesn’t start until nine-thirty, so that gives us plenty of time to find them. Doesn’t it?”
He nodded. “I certainly hope so.”
My cell phone burbled to life. With frantic fingers, I fumbled for the talk button. It was Captain Younger, returning my call. I blurted out my suspicions about Virginia Prentice and about Marty O’Malley’s missing Compres tablets, then babbled on about LouElla.