Stonebrook Cottage

“A little while ago.” His chin was thrust up at her, as if he was daring her to try to pin him down to an exact time or tell him he’d done anything seriously wrong.

Kara paced in her small living room, its cozy fabrics and woods having no soothing effect on her. The kids’ backpacks were leaning up against her couch, unzipped, water bottles and CD players poking out. Who wouldn’t believe anything they said?

“Did the cab take you to my door?” she asked.

Henry stretched out his legs and dipped his hand into his popcorn bag. “We had him drop us off on the corner.”

That wouldn’t divert Jack and Sam for half a second. “You left a hell of a trail. I’m surprised I got here before the police. You know they’re bound to be looking for you by now, don’t you?” She groaned at the mess these kids had made for themselves. And they no doubt thought they were so smart. “You’re calling your mother right now. ”

Lillian glanced at her brother, and his mouth drew into a straight, grim line. “She knows we’re here.”

“No, she doesn’t. I talked to her earlier—”

“Then she lied to you because someone was listening and she couldn’t tell you the truth.” Henry gazed up defiantly, Lillian following his lead. Given her years as a criminal defense attorney, Kara could sense fear behind defiance, bravado, loud, false protests of innocence—and she did now, with her godchildren. There was a quaver to his voice when Henry went on. “Mom told us we had to get out of the ranch as fast as possible and go to you. She couldn’t come for us. We had to get away on our own. She knew we could do it.”

“Henry. Lillian.” Kara continued to pace, her head pounding. The smell of popcorn turned her stomach. “Your mother would not have asked you to run away like that. No one in their right mind would. She’d call me and have me go pick you up—”

“She didn’t, ” Lillian said.

Kara sighed. “You two have put me in a hell of a position,” she said, not unkindly.

“We know.” Henry spoke softly, but his eyes—a clear, pale blue almost identical to his father’s—grew wide and serious. “Aunt Kara, we’re in trouble.”

Lillian nodded, gulping for air. “Big trouble.”

There was no bravado now, no pride in having slipped off to Austin on their own, with no one the wiser. Kara stopped pacing, staying on her feet as she waited for them to continue. Their fear was palpable.

“That’s why Mom’s acting so weird,” Henry said.

Lillian reached into her backpack and withdrew the first of the Harry Potter books, its cover greasy and torn. She opened up to a page marked with a twig and stared down at it, her braid flopping down her front, hands greasy from the popcorn.

“Mom sent us a letter to give to you.” Henry unzipped the outer pocket of his backpack and pulled out a grimy water bottle, a CD player, two fruit-bar wrappers, a compass and, finally, a limp, rumpled envelope. He handed it to Kara. She noticed it was sealed, no postmark. He said, “She put it in with other stuff she sent down for us. We didn’t read it.”

Kara sat on the edge of an overstuffed armchair a few feet from her godchildren. She’d gone to a store decorator with the dimensions and style of her living room and said go to it. She liked to think she’d have time one day to fuss with proper renovations and decorating, but this was her life, she thought. Here she was, listening to two middle-schoolers defend their inexplicable actions.

Henry had always been precocious and quiet, skilled at getting people to do what he wanted them to do without them even realizing it. He wasn’t manipulative so much as an effective negotiator, always certain of what he wanted the outcome to be. In this case, apparently, it was to convince his godmother that he and his sister had run away with their mother’s permission because they all were in big trouble.

Kara recognized the heavy cream-colored stock and dark green ink, the elegant lettering, of Allyson’s personal stationery. Nice touch. The letter inside was handwritten. Smart. If it had been typed, she’d have nailed Henry and Lillian immediately. The handwriting was similar enough to Allyson’s to pass initial muster, and whoever had done the writing had even thought to use her signature black fountain pen. Kara still wasn’t willing to declare the letter genuine. She read skeptically:

Dear Kara,

I know this will come as a shock, but you’re the only one I can trust right now. Henry and Lillian are in grave danger. We all are. I’ll explain everything when I see you. Please take them to Stonebrook Cottage and wait for me there. Tell no one! Don’t call me. It’s too dangerous. I’ll come to you. Please, Kara. I’m trusting you with my children. I have no other choice.

Please believe what they tell you and do as they ask. I’ll see you soon.

Love,

Allyson

When she finished, Kara quelled any sense of panic or urgency she felt in response to the dramatic words she’d read. She had to stay calm and reasonably objective, and above all, she had to think. At the very least, she had a tricky situation and two troubled kids on her hands. But if the letter was genuinely from Allyson, it was a dangerous situation, confusing, mystifying, illogical…and, still, she had two troubled kids to see to.

Stonebrook Cottage was located at the end of a dirt road on the southern border of Stockwell Farm. Allyson owned it, and Kara had stayed there a number of times during her years up north.

“Henry, Lillian. Listen to me.” Kara refolded the letter and placed it back in the envelope. “If this is a forgery, I’m not going to be happy about it. Do you understand?”

They nodded solemnly, their expressions serious, frightened, tired.

Kara was unmoved. These were her godchildren, and she loved them, but she couldn’t let that lower her defenses. “What grades did you get in English?” she asked. “You first, Henry.”

He gave her a blank stare. “What?”

“Language arts, English, writing—what were your grades?”

“A’s.”

“He got a D in math,” Lillian said without looking up from her book.

“What did you get in language arts?” Kara asked her.

“A’s.”

Henry and Lillian are in grave danger. We all are.

The letter didn’t make any sense. Allyson was the governor of Connecticut. If she thought her children were in danger down in Texas, why not call Texas authorities? Or send a couple of state troopers to fetch them? At least why not call Kara and ask her to intervene? Why take such a huge risk and have them sneak off to Austin on their own?

If she didn’t want to involve law enforcement, Allyson was rich—she could hire a private bodyguard.

Nothing in Allyson’s call had prepared her for this development. Her friend had sounded genuinely near panic.

Kara knew how to shoot and had taken a couple of self-defense classes, but that was it. She didn’t have the training, the expertise, the weaponry or the mandate of the Texas Rangers, the Austin police. Allyson had to know the entire state of Texas—including Kara’s brother—would be on alert for the two missing kids of a New England governor. How did she expect Kara to get them out of Texas on the sly? Allyson’s actions defied logic.

For two middle-schoolers to engineer such an elaborate plan and think it made sense—that might not defy logic. The trauma of Big Mike’s death, homesickness, isolation and a natural sense of drama could have gotten Henry and Lillian plotting, but there had to be more. Something else had to be going on.

What?

Suddenly hot and frustrated, Kara shot to her feet and turned the air-conditioning up a notch. She heard it hum, felt the rush of cooler air. It was almost ten o’clock. Eleven o’clock in New England. She recalled her brief conversation with Allyson. “I have a million people around right now, so I can’t talk, but Kara—please, keep an eye out. I know you’re a ways from the ranch, but maybe they’ll turn up.”

Was that a hint?

Not bloody likely, Kara thought. Henry and Lillian’s story had to be bogus. It was the only reasonable conclusion, and it meant their mother and the people at the dude ranch were still worried sick about them. It meant the searches for them would continue. It meant all hell would be breaking loose in Texas and Connecticut until someone tracked them to their godmother’s doorstep—or until Kara called her brother and told him what was going on.

Lillian yawned, her book looking heavy on her skinny thighs.

“Don’t you two want to call your mother and tell her you arrived safely?” Kara asked.

Henry seemed to know she was trying to trip him up. “She told us not to call. You’re supposed to take us to Stonebrook Cottage and wait for her there. Doesn’t she say that in the letter?”

He’d know if he wrote it, wouldn’t he? Kara tried to keep her skepticism from showing. Her godchildren had gone through a lot of trouble to get her to believe them—it was important to them. She needed to be very careful about how she unraveled their story.