Di shuddered. Revolutionary tactics?
Someone began to sing John Lennon’s song about giving peace a chance, and everyone joined in.
She linked arms with Steve and Albert, who were on either side of her. Everyone had entwined arms with his or her neighbors’ and swayed back and forth as they sang.
Lawrence surveyed his minions, searching the crowd with his blue eyes. Look at me, Di prayed silently. Look at me.
But his eyes fell on Gertrude. She had her arms around Jeffrey’s neck and was rubbing up against him.
Poor Lawrence, Di thought, just as his eyes pulled away from Gertrude and connected with hers.
And when he smiled at her, all she could think of was smiling back.
Diana touched the pillow on his side of the bed, where she never slept, even after eight years. “Oh, Larry,” she whispered. “Our intentions were so good. How did things go so terribly wrong?”
CHAPTER 20
The fishy air from the bay clogged her brain as Aubrey jogged the route she used to take when she was in high school—Tigertail Avenue to Vizcaya Museum, then back along South Bayshore Drive. The overhanging oaks and banyans blocked the sharpness of the morning sun and left the cracked, parched pavement dappled, much like on her morning jogs ten, twelve years ago.
After those runs, she had always felt better, as though she actually had some control over her life. But her special tonic had lost its magic.
This morning, the pounding of her feet did nothing to free her of her anger toward the Coles after their attack on her mother the night before, or of her frustration from the lack of results in digging into her parents’ past.
She was winded and covered with sweat when she got back to the house and took in the driveway and bushes. Her mom’s car and one black sedan. No newspaper, but maybe the FBI agents had taken it to check for a ransom note hidden among the pages.
She went into the kitchen for a glass of orange juice, then poked her head into the family room. Smolleck wasn’t there. Agent Tan Lee, whom she’d been introduced to the night before, sat alone in front of his computers. The newspaper was open to an inner page on the table beside him. She could make out the headline: NO LEADS IN MISSING BOY.
It had already become old news, hidden inside the paper. The world had moved on, but Ethan was still missing.
“Anything happening?” she asked.
Agent Lee glanced at the newspaper, then back at her. “Not too much.”
She leaned against the doorjamb. She had read everything she could online before she’d left for her run but was hoping the FBI knew more than the reporters. “Please, Agent Lee. My mother and I are going crazy with worry. Ethan’s been missing for over forty hours.”
Lee looked around the room, as though he were concerned about someone walking in. They’d taken down the blown-up photos from the walls. Had they found a suspect in the crowds at the carnival?
“We cleared all known SOs in the vicinity,” Lee said. “And the carnival employees.”
“That’s good,” Aubrey said, though because of the note, she already knew a sex offender wasn’t involved. “What about the Coles?”
“I’m guessing you’ve seen the tweets,” he said.
She had. #where’sgrandma? #grannychildkiller? #doctordidie. And many others crucifying her mother. “I hope you’re not distracted by them,” she said. “The Coles have a vendetta against my mother.”
“We know that.” His phone rang. “Excuse me.” He answered the call, turning away from Aubrey.
She went upstairs to shower. The door to her mother’s room was closed. It was well after eight. She hoped her mother had gotten some sleep.
The hot water pounded over her as she considered whether the Coles could be behind Ethan’s kidnapping.
She had googled them at length after their appearance on the news, looking for some reason they might want to hurt or even kill Jonathan, in addition to wanting to get even with her mother.
She’d found nothing.
But even though she believed there was a reasonable possibility that the Coles had sent the threatening note, she wasn’t willing to tell the FBI and risk that the kidnappers would act on their threat to kill Ethan.
She quickly dried herself and put her hair up in a ponytail. After she dressed, she went to her mother’s bedroom. The bed was made, and her mother, wearing a flannel nightgown, sat on one of the wingback chairs near the fireplace, a small box and some color snapshots on her lap.
“Morning,” Aubrey said, as she sat down on the other chair. “Did you sleep?”
“A little.” Her mother scooped up the photos and put them back in the box, which was decorated with neon colors and old-fashioned peace symbols. Aubrey had never seen it before.
“Can I bring you some breakfast?” Aubrey asked.
“I’m fine, thanks. I’ll go down in a bit and fix my own.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Old photos.”
“Of what?” The feeling that Mama was hiding something reemerged, even though Aubrey wanted so much to quell it.
“Just some old friends,” her mother said. “Your father and me.”
“Any reason you’re looking at them now?”
“Your questions last night started me thinking about the past. Some terrible things happened, like that explosion, but there were a lot of good memories, too.” She reached into the box and handed Aubrey a photo. “I don’t believe I ever showed you this.”
It took Aubrey a moment to realize the man wearing a white bandanna was her father. Young Larry had shoulder-length blond hair, a cleft in his strong chin, and intense blue eyes that seemed to be searching for something.
“He seemed larger than life to me,” her mother said. “My white knight on a snowy stallion.”