Voices Carry Read online

  Disappointed at having to leave voice mail, rather than speak with her nephew directly, Patsy still hung up the phone with a sense of satisfaction. That takes care of that, she reasoned. Nothing at all to worry about. Brian will take care of it.

  Patsy wiped off the breakfast counter for the fifth time, trying to convince herself that today’s developments explained that creeping sense of foreboding she’d had since the beginning of summer. It had hung over her spirits in exactly the way that the early morning fog hung over the lake, dense and nebulous. There had been absolutely nothing she could put her finger on, no moment when she’d first noticed it. It had simply been there, that shapeless precognition, that impression that something was about to strike.

  And yet it had been a peaceful enough summer, a pleasant summer. The fishing had been good, if not great, and she’d had lots more company than she’d had in the past. Certainly, she’d spent more time this summer with Genna than she’d had through all the past winter and spring.

  Or maybe I’m just getting old. Patsy shook her head and wiped down the top of the stove. Again.

  “Ready, Pats?” Genna emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed except for her feet. “I just need to get my sandals,” she said as she breezed through the kitchen.

  Or maybe all the years worrying about my Gen are finally catching up with me.

  Patsy sighed.

  Bikers and drug dealers, child pornographers and white slavers. No wonder she was feeling uneasy, all that talk about killers and deviants last weekend. Nancy had been fascinated, and it had all seemed harmless enough at the time. Now, in light of the day’s developments, Patsy wished the conversation hadn’t gone on for as long as it had.

  She also wished she’d made more of an effort to talk Genna into a career in teaching when she’d had the chance.

  It almost hurt to breathe.

  For the third night since the weekend, Genna awoke in a sweat, her hands fisted in the sheet, her jaws clenched, her heart racing. She sat up slowly, pushing herself quietly into the headboard, bringing her knees up to her chest, orienting herself to her surroundings. Realizing where she was, she was grateful that she hadn’t cried out. She wouldn’t want to awaken Patsy, wouldn’t want her to know that she still had the dreams, that the old devils still taunted her.

  It’s just that I’m so close to the camp, she rationalized. I’ve had the dream here before.

  But not night after night, she reminded herself. She’d never had the dream this many times in succession. And each time, she’d awakened feeling those piercing dark eyes focused on her.

  It’s the stress from this whole drug thing with the Frick boys. Worrying about Mrs. Frick, worrying about the entire Frick family, how they’ll cope. Worrying about the boys going to prison.

  Worrying about Patsy in the aftermath.

  That was the big one, she acknowledged. Worrying about Patsy. Though it had eased Genna’s mind to know that Patsy had called Brian. Surely he will see to it that she is watched carefully until this is over. Brian would move in here himself if he thought there might be a problem. Hell, he’d move the National Guard in if he thought he had to. She wished she’d thought of calling Brian herself.

  On tiptoe, she walked through quiet rooms into the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water. Taking small sips, she calmed herself before unlocking the back door and stepping out onto the deck. A three-quarter moon shimmered behind the trees on the far side of the lake and clouds drifted in ragged shreds across its face. A mosquito made itself at home on her bare arm, and she slapped at it with a vengeance. Somewhere, up on the road above the lake, teenage boys revved their car engines and prepared to race that long, flat stretch of asphalt. The familiarity of it all calmed her.

  It’s just that I’m so close to the camp, she repeated. The dreams will stop as soon as I get back to my apartment tomorrow night.

  * * *

  But the dreams had persisted, even after she had arrived home.

  The first thing that Genna did upon entering her apartment on Friday evening was to throw open all the windows in the hopes of banishing the stale hot air that lay stagnant in the quiet rooms. She listened to the messages on her answering machine and made notes of the numbers she needed to return calls. She opened her suitcase and put away her clothes. She searched a closet for a box suitable to wrap the baby quilt in. She went into the kitchen and searched the freezer for something she could make for dinner. Finding nothing that fit her mood, she went back into the bedroom and grabbed her purse from the bed where she’d earlier dropped it.

  She’d gone to the mall and picked up a cute gift bag and a card for the baby quilt. She’d checked her favorite boutique for a summer sale and picked up a few great selections for dinner in the food court. On her way home, she’d stopped to grab a movie at the video store.

  And then she’d called a tow truck when the Taurus died in the parking lot outside the video store.

  An hour later, she was back in her apartment, wondering if the car would be fixed in time for her to drive to Philadelphia on Sunday for Baby Carmen’s christening. Wondering if perhaps the car’s demise might not be a sign that she should not be mingling with the Mancini clan. That maybe she should use the convenient excuse to skip the entire thing and spare herself an entire day in John’s company and in the always-gracious hospitality of his family.

  Maybe this was fate’s way of letting her know that maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to have accepted Angie’s invitation.

  Or maybe it was just another reminder that the Taurus was in fact on its last legs.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and walked to the front window, pondering her options. Maybe there was a train.

  If there’s a train on Sunday morning, maybe it means I should go.

  She reached for the phone and dialed information, called the train station and jotted down the Sunday schedule. There was an early train into Philadelphia that would arrive with plenty of time to take a cab to the church. If she chose to take it.

  On the other hand, maybe she should just skip it. What was the point, anyway? She wasn’t even dating John anymore. And what would be more awkward, for her to show up and be with him, or to show up and not be with him? What was Angie thinking of anyway, inviting her? And what had she been thinking of, accepting?

  Better to skip it, she reasoned. Better for everyone to avoid the situation altogether.

  She could mail the gift.

  But she should call Angie and make her excuses.

  Genna rustled in her handbag for the old scrap of paper on which she had long ago jotted down Angie DelVecchio’s phone number. She could have sworn it was in her wallet. . .

  Perhaps in her briefcase.

  Or a desk drawer.

  Twenty minutes later, Genna decided it would be easier to just call John and leave her regrets on his answering machine.

  That decision made—for the moment—Genna found herself looking for something to keep her mind off the dreams that had plagued her all week, leaving her weak with fatigue and edgy with anticipation of. . . what?

  Brian had stopped at Patsy’s cottage yesterday morning and while he’d agreed that he’d be happier if Patsy went back to Tanner for a while, he’d promised to make certain that his mother—Patsy’s sister Connie—moved up to the cottage for a few weeks. He also made arrangements for a private security guard to move into a cottage across the road after he contacted its absent owner and asked if he could rent the place for a few weeks. Remembering Brian as a child and happy to make a few unexpected dollars, the elderly gentleman was pleased with the arrangement.

  So Patsy should be fine.

  And I’ll be fine, too, Genna assured herself as she settled in to watch the romantic comedy she’d picked up. All I need is a good night’s sleep and a return to my normal routine. Both of which I hope to get soon.

  She stopped the tape and went into the kitchen and lopped off a piece of the chocolate cake that Patsy had made the ni
ght before and forced Genna to take home with her. She poured a glass of cold milk and carried her snack back into the living room. She licked the frosting off the fork and idly studied the train schedule she’d scribbled on the back of an envelope, looking for the Sunday morning trains to Philadelphia. It still wasn’t too late to change her mind.

  She called John’s apartment in Virginia and left a message on his answering machine asking him to call her. She wondered if he was still in Delaware, or if his case had concluded and he’d driven straight to his mother’s house. Either way, he’d check his answering machine for messages.

  On the other hand, she thought, it would be good to see John’s family again. They were a raucous crew, but good-natured and fun to be with. The christening would be in the same church where Angela and Carmen had been married just shy of two years ago. On that occasion, John’s mother had taken the opportunity to tell Genna that every major event in their family history had taken place beneath the roof of that church. Both she and John’s father—rest his soul—had received all the sacraments of the Church there, baptism through marriage. John’s father had been buried from that church. And all of their children had done likewise, except for Tess eloping and everyone knew how that had ended up, as if breaking with family tradition had alone been responsible for her unsuccessful marriage. Genna couldn’t help but think that Mrs. Mancini was letting Genna know what the consequences might be for bucking the system, just in case Genna might be thinking of marrying into the family and harbored thoughts of having the wedding elsewhere.

  And everyone, it seemed, had engaged in heavy speculation over Genna’s involvement in John’s life. She’d just about gotten used to that when John had disappeared last year.

  Maybe he was out to dinner tonight.

  Maybe he had a date.

  She chopped off a piece of cake with a little more force than the confection deserved.

  She leaned forward and slid the cake plate onto the coffee table and picked up the remote control and began to channel surf.

  Maybe he’d finally given up on her and was looking for—or found—someone else.

  The thought of John falling in love with someone else rippled through her like a shot. She tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore it.

  Well, maybe it would be better for him if he did. After all, we both give so much to our jobs, what do we really have left to give to each other?

  Genna squirmed in her seat. Rationalization had never been her strong suit.

  She knew exactly what she and John had given to each other. Knew she’d never experienced that depth of emotion with anyone else, and suspected that she might never again do so. Just as she knew she had never stopped missing him. Maybe never stopped loving him.

  Genna had never known a man like John Mancini. From the first time she saw him, standing in the front of the classroom at Quantico and her heart had gone thump, there had been no one else in Genna’s thoughts or in her heart or in her bed. John was tall and broad shouldered with dark hair and equally dark eyes, an irreverent sense of humor, and a twinkle in his eye. And up until that moment, Genna had scoffed at the idea of love at first sight. John was smart and his classes were among the most popular, not only for their content—psychological profiling—but for his mesmerizing personality and easy smile. She’d barely opened her mouth in his class, so afraid she’d say something totally stupid or that the words would come out in a chirp and she’d sound more like a high-school girl than a future agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Somehow Genna had managed to complete John’s course with barely a conversation having passed between them.

  Not that John hadn’t made an attempt. At least in the beginning. But she’d given him no encouragement whatsoever and he’d backed off. At least that’s what she had assumed when he’d stopped trying to catch her eye every chance he got. Once the course had been completed, however, he made up for lost time.

  On the evening after the last class, John had shown up at the local bar where the future agents had gathered to celebrate the successful completion of yet another round of classes. He’d approached the table where Genna sat between Claire, her roommate, and Dennis, another recruit, and pulled a chair from a nearby table to place himself at Genna’s left elbow. He’d bought a round of beers for the group, and while they were being served, leaned over and quietly asked Genna to have dinner with him the following night. When she recovered from her surprise, she’d said yes. They were together from the night of their first date until the morning of Sheldon Woods’s arrest and John’s breakdown in the aftermath.

  There were times when Genna missed John’s presence in her life so badly she’d awaken with tears running down her face, other times when the pain of his abandonment was so fierce she’d wished she’d never met him. But she’d never been able to deny that she had loved him deeply.

  And maybe still did, even now.

  She wished she could get past it, get on with her life, but that seemed impossible, with John popping back in and out of it every chance he got.

  With a quick click of the remote, Genna turned off the TV, then carried her plate and glass into the kitchen.

  Maybe I should just go on Sunday. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe John and I can really learn to be friends, she told herself.

  Yes, of course, her little inner voice taunted her. And maybe between now and then, you’ll learn to ignore the way your heart flips over when you look at him.

  Maybe you’ll learn a way to forget what it was like to kiss him, the feel of his mouth and the strength of his hands. And what it was like to make love with him. To. . .

  “Oh, shut up,” she growled aloud as she snapped off the living room light.

  There were, she later acknowledged as she climbed into bed and settled onto the pillow, some things she’d never forget, despite her best efforts to do so. The thought came to her, as her eyes closed in sleep, that maybe if she allowed herself to remember, she might find a way to forgive. That maybe in forgiving, they’d find a way to start over.

  And maybe that was exactly what she was afraid of.

  8

  When Genna’s train pulled into Philadelphia’s Thirtieth Street Station at twelve-ten on Sunday afternoon, John was there on the platform, waiting for her. Even had his height not made him the tallest man in the sparse crowd, the joy in his smile when he saw her would have caught her eye.

  “Hi,” he said as he leaned down to kiss the side of her face. “You’re right on time.”

  “Yes.” Genna cleared her throat, not for the first time this morning questioning the wisdom of having let him talk her into coming. “The train was running right on schedule. It was nice of you to offer to pick me up. I appreciate it.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, looking somewhat amused. “I’d never have heard the end of it from the family. No one arrives for an official Mancini event in a taxi. A limo, maybe, but never a taxi.”

  She followed his lead through the crowd that had emerged from the train and headed up the steps to the concourse, her heels clicking on the marble floor. Overhead, the painted ceiling loomed. She had never walked through this station without admiring it.

  “You look wonderful, by the way,” he told her. “I like that color on you. It brings out that greenish tint to your eyes. What are they calling that shade these days?”

  “Hazel.”

  John laughed.

  “I didn’t mean your eyes. I meant the color of your dress.”

  “Oh. Turquoise, I guess.”

  “Well, whatever, I like it. It looks good with that tan you’re getting.” John held the door open for her.

  Genna looked down at her arms. She’d spent a goodly portion of her time at Patsy’s out on the lake in the sun and was secretly pleased that for the first time in the past few years, she’d been outside in the sun long enough to get that bit of summer color. That John had noticed, pleased her even more.

  “Of course, next to my sister Tess, we’d have to call that more of a pale
than a tan,” he teased.

  “No fair comparing. Tess spends every weekend on a beach in New Jersey.”

  “Hey, you’re welcome to join the family down the shore anytime. You’d love it. Can’t you just picture yourself, sitting on the sand, watching the waves crash onto the beach. Ocean breezes in your hair. The smell of the salt air. . .”

  “The scent of burning flesh as the summer sun fries all that exposed and oiled skin,” Genna continued wryly. “The grit of sand in your face, kicked up by the tiny feet of the four-year-old on the blanket next to yours.”

  “You’ve been spoiled by so many years on that lake of yours, where there’s no one to infringe upon your space. Hell, on the Jersey beaches, infringement is a sacred right and duty.”

  They stepped outside into the shadow of the portico where John had left the car double-parked, but even the relative cool there, shielded from the sun, could not belie the fact that they were already well into one hot summer day and that the humidity swirled around them in a near-tangible mass. Genna’s legs stuck to the front seat of John’s older model Mercedes sedan as she eased onto the well-heated leather. John opened the windows just long enough to let out the steamy air and turned on the air conditioning as he pulled from the parking lot, then headed across the bridge that spanned the Schuylkill River and led into the heart of the city.

  “How’s the new case progressing?” Genna asked, smoothing her skirt, deliberately chosen as not too short for a church yet not so unfashionably long as to appear dowdy.

  “It’s done,” he told her without looking over at her. “We got a lead on Wednesday afternoon that turned out to be right on the money.”

  “Wow. That doesn’t happen very often.”

  “Not that quickly, anyway. Cases like this can drag on for years, but sometimes all you really need is that one witness who is willing to come forward. You just don’t usually get it as fast as you need it. This time, we did.”