The moon was high, so we weren’t in the house’s shadow for very long. Reaching the driveway, I tiptoed carefully, worried that my shoes would be too noisy, and when I reached the other side, I stayed in the grass all the way to the carriage house.
I hadn’t driven in days, and when I’d looked in the box on the wall in the butler’s pantry for my car keys after Terrance and Marlene had gone to bed, I’d seen that both sets of keys to both cars were gone. My heart sank as I realized that Press was thinking ahead of me, and I knew we were in more danger than I’d first imagined. The Jeep keys were there, but it would’ve been foolish to try to sneak away in the growling, topless Jeep. It was as though he’d left its keys there to taunt me.
Panic set in for a moment, and then I remembered that he had ordered a third key for the Eldorado Brougham that had been delivered a few weeks after Olivia died. A key that he kept hidden in his golf bag in the garage. I prayed that he had forgotten about it.
I nearly wept when I found the single key in the bottom pocket of the golf bag.
Michael began to fret as I worked to strap him in the passenger seat. He was still far too small for the seatbelt, but he was much too big for the infant basket. “Shhhh. We’re going to see Grandpapa and Nonie. You want to see Nonie, don’t you? Look. I’ve brought Bear for you.” I tucked the bear against him, and he wrapped an arm around it, somewhat comforted. I didn’t have a plan for driving away with a screaming toddler, and had no idea what I would do if he didn’t sleep most of the way. Every other time we’d traveled, Nonie or Eva had been there to entertain him.
Headlights off, I drove the quietly rumbling Cadillac across the expanse of grass that met up with the driveway at the beginning of the lane’s line of trees. My heart seemed to skip a beat when I pressed on the gas pedal a bit too forcefully so that the tires skipped and spun as they finally met the gravel.
Good-bye, my darling Eva.
I dared not look in the rearview mirror as I continued, slowly, down the lane to the county road that led to town.
As we entered town, I couldn’t help but smile. I would be at my father’s house—home—in a matter of hours. By dawn. And twenty-four hours from that moment, I would be in the bed I’d slept in for more than half of my life. I knew I would be welcome there, but I had no idea what would happen with Press. He would no doubt come after us, probably showing up on my father’s front porch, looking serious. What would he tell my father?
What would I tell my father? I had no proof. Only suspicions. I’d never given him reason not to trust me, had I? I prayed that he’d take me in his arms and tell me, “I’m glad you’ve left that worrisome place, Lottie.”
Chapter 35
Helen
So lost was I in my thoughts that when I noticed the red lights in my mirror, I suspected they had been there for an unconscionably long time. In the late 1950s, Old Gate was even smaller than it is now, and I never imagined that the county sheriff’s deputies would bother patrolling in the middle of the night. It wasn’t as though Old Gate was on the way to anywhere. The town’s two service stations even closed at 8:30 in the evening.
But, yes, the red lights were following me, so a half-mile from the two-lane highway that would take us to Highway 60 and closer to my father’s house and safety, I pulled to the shoulder. It was the second time in a month I’d been pulled over, and only the second time in my life. Michael didn’t stir.
As the patrol car pulled up behind me, the Cadillac filled with pulsing red light the color of a carnival candy apple. I couldn’t imagine why I was being stopped. I’d been careful coming through town, and definitely hadn’t been speeding despite being desperate to get to the highway.
I waited for what seemed like ten minutes before a man, silhouetted by the patrol car’s blazing headlights, appeared in my side mirror and then at my window.
Relieved to see Dennis Mueller’s attractive young face, I rolled down my window.
“Why, Dennis, we really have to stop meeting like this!” I tried to sound gay and charming, but my words came out in a staccato rush.
Dennis leaned forward and peered into the car. Seeing Michael, who was slumped over, asleep, he straightened again.
“I’ll need to see your license and registration, Mrs. Bliss. Please.” I wondered at his anxious formality.
“Is something wrong? I don’t think I was speeding.”
“Just your license and registration, please.”
As I looked up at him, another car—a Mercury coupe—passed us slowly. A woman’s face stared boldly from the passenger window, and they drove on.
“I don’t understand.” But I hurriedly took my driver’s license from my wallet and felt for the leather folder in the glove box that held the car’s registration. It surely couldn’t matter that the car was registered in Press’s name. I handed them to Dennis, whose lips pressed into a hard, narrow line as he shone his flashlight on them to read.