“Thank god they were off on that call!”
“So are you going to be alright? I mean, was there any permanent damage or anything from the fumes?” Erin asked.
“No, I’m going to be fine. Just as crazy as I’ve always been, so they tell me.”
“I’ll bet that was scary.”
“Oh, it was very scary. I was fortunate that someone found me when they did. Otherwise, that customer would have been dead right.”
Erin fell silent as Tom pulled into the Starbucks on North High Street.
“Actually, the whole experience was scary for other reasons, too,” Tom said.
“What do you mean?”
I’ll tell you when we get inside.”
Tom bought them both a cafe mocha and led the way to a table.
“This is really good-thanks,” Erin said after taking a sip of her espresso-laced hot cocoa.
“You are more than welcome.”
“Okay, so tell me what you meant a minute ago.”
Tom hesitated a moment before beginning. It was so strange sitting there with this girl! The feeling of deja vu was both surreal and overwhelming as he flashed back to the times that he and she had sat together just like this, in the Jeep, in his house, at the Waldorf Astoria, sharing their thoughts and fears, running for their lives in a lonely, frightening world.
“I warn you, this is going to sound really strange.”
“Okay.”
“Well, while I was unconscious in the Jeep, I apparently had a dream-a very long dream. And you were in it.”
Erin gazed at him with a combination of shock and fascination as Tom proceeded to recount the dream in its entirety. When he was finished, he explained to Erin that he had asked to speak to her because he wanted to be absolutely certain that she couldn’t possibly be his daughter, as crazy and far out as that may sound.
When she replied to this, Erin stared at him with eyes that expressed great compassion.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why are you sorry?”
“That I’m not your daughter.”
Her blunt, unexpected comment hurt Tom more than he could easily conceal from the girl. Although he hadn’t really expected her to be his daughter, he hadn’t given himself time to prepare for the reality of the fact.
“How can you be so sure?” he asked weakly, his voice nearly cracking.
“I just know I’m not. First of all, my last name isn’t Myers, it’s Landry. But since this was just a dream, my last name could probably have been anything. But you will see that I am obviously my father’s daughter once you take a look at this.”
She opened her purse, took out her wallet and showed him the first picture on the top. Tom realized what she meant when he saw the tall smiling man in the Landry family portrait, who no doubt was her father. She was a spitting image of him.
Tom forced a laugh. “I see what you mean. Your brother resembles your dad quite a bit, too.”
“Yes, he does. My mom is always joking that she is on the short end of the gene pool when it comes to her kids.”
Tom gazed at Erin’s mother in the portrait and had to agree. She was blonde, blue-eyed and very short, quite unlike her husband and children.
So Erin Landry wasn’t his daughter after all. No real surprise there, so why was he so damn disappointed?
Partly, because he was now back to wondering why he had had the dream in the first place. And partly because deep down inside he wanted her to be his daughter.
He wondered why that was so but couldn’t come up with an answer. Not now, anyway.
“You look sad, Mr. Grayson. I’m sorry this didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to.”
The girl’s insight was remarkable, Tom thought. She seemed able to read him like a book.
Just as Erin Myers had…
“I’m okay, Erin. And I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to present you with this rather strange situation.”
“No problem. I have enjoyed talking to you, Mr. Grayson.”
“Please, call me Tom.”
“Okay, Tom. If I tell you something, will you promise me that you won’t get mad?”
“Of course. I couldn’t possibly get angry at you.”
“Well, I sort of have a theory on why you had your dream, if you’d like to hear it.”
“I’d love to.”
“Well, it’s sort of obvious why the girl in your dream looked like me, since I was the last girl you saw before you went back to your car yesterday. You also no doubt saw my name tag, so you gave her my name.”
“That’s a fair enough theory,” Tom agreed.
“You said that this Mindy woman had called to tell you she was pregnant, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And in your dream, you realized that Erin could have been the child that Mindy had been pregnant with after you saw the picture of the two of them together.”
Tom nodded.
“Well, Erin had been an orphan and apparently had had a pretty horrible life, it sounds like. I think you wanted Erin to be your daughter in the dream so you could finally be assured that your child was alive and safe, now that you had found her. “
Tom wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “You sort of lost me there.”
“I’m not sure how to put this,” she said, hesitating a moment. Her eyes looked past Tom then refocused on him. “Maybe after all of these years you felt sort of guilty about this child you never knew and if Erin had ended up not being your daughter, that meant that your child could possibly be, uh, gone forever.”
Now he knew what she was driving at.
And he realized that this young girl had just hit the nail on the head.
Because now that he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Erin Landry wasn’t his daughter in real life, he had no idea what had ever happened to the child Mindy Conkel had given birth to. And since Donnie Shortridge had been only a figment of his imagination, he couldn’t even be certain that the child had been put up for adoption He was going to have to find out what had ever happened to his child. For all he knew, his child could still be living in Smithtown, Ohio.
Tom said, “Your theory is quite sound, Erin.”
She blushed. “Well, I’ve sort of always wanted to be a psychologist. In fact, I’m majoring in psych at Ohio State.”
“I think you’ve made the right career choice.”
“I hope so-thanks for your encouragement.”
Tom glanced at his watch. “I’ve kept you long enough. I am so grateful to you for letting me unload all of this on you. You’ve been most kind and helpful, Erin.”
“No problem. And thanks for the treat.”
“It’s the least I could do. Ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
They arose from the table and left the coffee shop. When Tom pulled into Erin’s driveway to drop her off, she leaned over and gave him a heartfelt hug. Then she faced him with her expressive brown eyes and said softly, “I hope you find her.”
“Thanks, Erin. So do I.”
CHAPTER 18
Tom had just pulled away from Erin’s house when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the LCD, saw that it was Peg calling and cursed out loud. She was going to ream him a new one!
He flipped the phone open, brought it to his ear and said. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m on my way now.”
“You have got to be kidding, Tom! Do you realize that you were supposed to be home an hour ago? What have you been doing all this time?”
Her question caught completely off guard as he floundered for some kind of excuse. He realized that he couldn’t come up with one quick enough.
“Are you still there?” Peg snapped, absolutely livid now.
He finally said, “Yes, dear. I decided to stop off at the library and look for something decent to read. I guess I lost track of the time.”
“You are kidding, aren’t you? You are a horrible liar, Tom, and I don’t believe that for a second! Not only have you screwed up dinner but you’ve probably ruined the milk, too. That is if you even remembered to get it!”