Trouble in Paradise

Chapter 8

Dusk was falling as Griff’s station wagon devoured the last miles between Duluth and St. Paul. The goal had been to get home before dark on Sunday, but a side trip had taken them to Griff’s four hundred acres, where jack pine was slowly being replaced by aspen and spruce and elm and birch.

“Planting trees in a row will never add up to a woods,” Griff had told her. “A forest is a living thing. You have to know soil acidity and weather and wildlife… You have to tease the land into trying again.”

That was the heritage he wanted for his children, a Minnesota wilderness not so very different from where they’d spent the weekend. Not sawmills, not industrial plants like the ones he owned in St. Paul. Susan leaned back against the headrest, totally and happily exhausted, studying her husband with secret pleasure. He could lash out at business competitors with a machete tongue; very few people saw his idealistic side.

He was dressed in jeans, as she was, and a soft flannel shirt, like hers. Her toes felt sand-gritty, and her hair was tousled, and the very instant she got home she would head for the shower.

In the meantime, she felt perfectly beautiful. Griff’s doing.

“Snuggle up and nap,” he advised her lazily. “We won’t be home for at least another hour.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Those eyelashes weigh two tons and you know it.”

Four tons. And all she wanted to do was curl up like a kitten with her cheek on his lap, but she didn’t. The long weekend had confirmed too many things, and she wanted to mull them over at leisure. How much she shared Griff’s values. How much she loved him.

And Griff loved her. Yes, she had known that before, but somehow in the back of her mind over the past few weeks had come a sneaking sense of insecurity, a nagging suspicion that he’d also married her because he wanted a mother for his children. She thought of the old cliché about the way to a man’s heart… But that didn’t apply to her situation. Griff was a decent cook in his own right; his stomach was adequately taken care of. But his kids were not. And until this weekend, the most horrible anxieties had been creeping up on her. She’d told him nothing of her exchanges with Barbara and nothing of the feelings of inadequacy Tiger dredged up in her. And she wouldn’t tell him. Her heart felt full and pleasantly bursting at the moment, and hope was part of that. She would work harder on the kids, in silence. Griff had made it clear that she had her own place in his life and his heart that had nothing to do with his children.

“Too cold?”

“Not really.” But Griff switched on the heat in spite of her.

“Take off your shoes,” he coaxed.

She bent down to unlace the canvas shoes. “You’re extremely dictatorial,” she announced sleepily.

A hand hooked itself over her shoulder and tugged her closer until her cheek was resting in the crook of his arm. “I don’t want you falling asleep against the door. There’s a draft.”

“There is no draft, and you can’t drive with one hand.” Her protest was only a token. They’d had no more than three hours’ sleep last night. Then they’d made the canoe trip back to base, rearranged all their gear and hiked through his forest… Perhaps she was tired. A little.

“Did you know you always argue when you’re sleepy?” Griff asked dryly. His fingers sifted gently through her hair, then settled.

“It’s my turn to drive. You must be as tired as I am.”

“Hmm.”

Her head jerked up, and she stared suspiciously into his eyes, but Griff was suddenly busy driving. “You just turned my own ‘hmm’ against me.”

“I caught the habit from you. Why bicker when you know you’re not going to win? You are not going to drive, Susan, you’re going to sleep.”

She yawned, about to deny it, and then wondered vaguely if she really did quibble over nothing when she was tired. Her cheek snuggled just so against soft camel-colored flannel. It was like trying to find a spot on soft rock; beneath his shirt were muscles that just didn’t yield. She couldn’t imagine why she was so comfortable.

Her eyes opened instantly, like a doe instinctively reacting to danger. Griff was gently untangling himself from her, but there was something stiff about his movements, a strange, silent tension that had nothing to do with the gentle man whose shoulder she’d fallen asleep on. Outside it was dark; Griff had just pulled into their driveway. His eyes were distracted, black-cold, flickering beyond the car window toward their house.

“What’s wrong?” she asked groggily.

“We seem to have company.”

“Company?”

He gave her a swift kiss, square on the lips, his eyes holding hers in the dim light of the car for several seconds. “Don’t worry, Susan. Everything will be fine.”

Worry promptly clawed at her. Griff’s expression was grim, his jaw tight and white as he reached behind the seat to start gathering their gear. Susan glanced at the strange white car parked ahead of them. She hadn’t noticed it before. The huge elm in the yard threw its giant shadow on the driveway so that it was impossible to identify the person who stepped out of the house, slammed the door and stalked toward them.

“Where on earth have you been? I’ve been waiting here more than two hours. For God’s sake, Griff! At least you always used to have the courtesy to leave me a phone number.”

Griff bounded out of the car, slamming his door as Susan fumbled with her shoelaces. Then she frantically reached for the door handle. The grating female voice seemed to flip an instinctive switch inside Susan from calm to nervous. Hurriedly, she reached up to restore some kind of order to her hair before she stepped out of the car.

Sheila wasn’t quite as beautiful as Barbara’s photos of her, but the difference wasn’t worth mentioning. Her raven-black hair was sleeked back in a coil, aristocratic features were mounted on a spotless complexion. The color of the crepe blouse was indecipherable in the shadows, but the leather jacket had that certain luster, rippling in the darkness when the woman moved; it was unmistakably expensive. And expensive was the first label Susan had unconsciously pinned on Griff’s former wife.

But not tonight. Hysterical was the label tonight. Sheila’s hands were whipping around her as she talked, and her venom was clearly directed at Griff. “You care so much-so you’ve always said-but then you turn around and take off without a single thought for any of them. You didn’t even leave a phone number!”

“Why don’t you just tell me what the hell is wrong?” Griff snapped.

“I thought at least there was a chance he went somewhere with you-otherwise I would hardly have wasted nearly two hours just sitting here. It would be just like you to scare me half to death.”

“Sheila, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Tom is what I’m talking about. He’s disappeared. Just taken off…”

Griff turned white, a sudden statue in stone. Susan felt a lump too big to swallow form in her throat as she moved swiftly to his side. Sheer anguish fired a terrible bleakness in her husband’s eyes as he grappled with the thought of his son gone, missing.

Sheila seemed to see something else in Griff’s expression. Her jeweled hands went into overtime and, like a miracle rain, tears started to fall from her eyes. “Griff, don’t you dare blame me! After all I do for those kids-your kids-they pay me back like this. Barbara won’t listen to a word I say. Tiger makes more of a mess in the house than ten normal children. Tom doesn’t have a damn thing to be unhappy about. He’s got everything. He can come and go when he pleases, he’s got a car-”

“Sheila, shut up. This isn’t the time to play Lady Macbeth.” The statue took life. Griff threw back his head and breathed, and when his eyes focused on Sheila again they were perfectly calm. And as cold as ice. His voice came out in a long, low growl. “What have you done?”

“What do you mean, what have I done? I’ve worried myself half to death about him, that’s what I’ve done. He went to school on Friday. I went out Friday night. I assume he came home, but he wasn’t there when I looked for him on Saturday. He has this girl-”

“You called her?” Griff barked.

“I-”

“Did you call her? Did you call the school, his friends, the police?”

Sheila stared around wildly, spotted Susan and froze. She took in the mop hairstyle, the wrinkled flannel shirt, all of it down to half-tied canvas shoes. Like a dealer in diamonds, she seemed to have an uncanny ability to detect flaws. Susan got the message. “If you hadn’t been so busy,” Sheila said defensively, “I could have contacted you. I can’t do everything, you know. You have just as much responsibility to know where your son is-”

Griff muttered something distinctly unprintable and stalked toward the house, snarling at Sheila to follow him, demanding to know where Barbara and Tiger were. If she knew.

“They’re at my mother’s, of course. Don’t you talk to me like that, Griff…”

The two faded into the shadows of the doorway. Of their own will, Susan’s arms wrapped themselves around her chest. The night had turned incredibly chilly, and her mind was filled with the image of a lonely boy out in that black cold.

Tom was already special to her. She hadn’t spent as much time with him as she had with the others, but when he called his father he always made a point of talking with her. Twice now they’d stayed on the phone together over an hour, talking about this and that, sharing a rapport that just seemed to develop naturally. She’d felt the promise of that even during the first dinner they’d had together, and had been sincerely disappointed that so far he’d missed having a weekend alone with them, even though she understood that he had his own interests. There would be other times. She had been so sure that with Tom there would be an easy acceptance, a ready trust she’d believed had already begun…

And now he was missing? Susan felt as if she’d been thrown into nightmare. Instinctively, she felt a dread anxiety about the child who worried Griff most, followed by an unsettling disorientation. Griff had turned into a stranger as soon as he saw his ex-wife. He’d become a cold and furious man barely keeping his violence in check… Sheila seemed to goad him deliberately. Susan tried to dredge up some compassion for Sheila, aware that the woman was frantic with worry, that her panic made her seem shallower and more selfish than she really was. She reminded herself that people weren’t themselves in times of trouble… Yet it was Sheila who was in the house with Griff. It was Sheila who was wrangling with him in a way that seemed sadly familiar to them both. Susan had been left outside, forgotten and forlorn, frantic to help but somehow feeling like an intruder.

She grabbed her purse and followed, the weekend of intimacy fading into the past. The blazing light in the kitchen seemed harsh after the soft darkness; she blinked hard and silently set down her purse. Griff was already on the phone, his face ashen, his movements as tautly controlled as those of an angry cougar. He slammed the phone book down on the table as Sheila nervously paced, lashing out at Griff whenever he gave her the least opportunity.

“I fail to understand how you could not know her name-”

“I told you. It’s Candice. There was never any reason for me to know her last name.”

“You’ve also all but told me you think he’s sleeping with her. I think that’s more than adequate reason to know her last name. And God knows how long you’ve let that go on.”

“You’ve always had the most archaic ideas. That’s probably exactly why I didn’t tell you. He’s spent the night there plenty of times. That’s really why I wasn’t even worried at first.”

Griff drew in a very long, very slow breath. “You are not going to tell me the boy has been out of your sight for days at a time.”

“Not for three days. That’s why I-”

Griff hurled out an expletive, and suddenly there was silence. Sheila slumped in a kitchen chair, staring at her hands while Griff riffled through the phone book and then started dialing.

In those long seconds as the monotonous ringing sound reverberated in his ear, Griff felt an explosion of terror and rage and anguish inside him. Gut terror for his son, rage at Sheila’s neglect, and anguish at himself for having failed to snatch his children out of harm’s way long before this. From the corner of his eye, he saw the movement of Susan’s red flannel shirt and turned.

Susan’s face was as white as chalk, and her slim fingers were shaking. She was pouring cream into a pitcher; the coffee was perking, and cups were lined up on the counter. Her fragile profile struck him as incredibly beautiful. She kept moving, all lithe grace and total quiet. Nothing else on earth could have soothed him at that moment. His head was racing out of control with images of his son lying wounded in some alley, in an accident, in trouble…yet he kept his eyes riveted on Susan’s back. By the time a boy answered the phone, Griff had gained control of his voice.

He pelted the boy with quiet, fast questions. Tom’s best friend, John Paul, knew nothing. No, Tom had not been in school on Friday, but then he’d been skipping classes lately. No, nobody really knew much about Candice; she went to a different school, and ever since Tom had started going around with her…

Griff knew other names. Steve Baker, another friend. Harley Ross, the principal of the high school. He called one hospital, then another.

Susan placed a cup of coffee in front of him, then quietly set one down for Sheila, who barely looked up. Food seemed the thing then. Not that anyone was going to eat it. But what else was she going to do? Sit across from Sheila and get involved in the cross fire?

“His grades have always been terrific,” Sheila snapped defensively. “Why should I get all upset just because he skipped an occasional day at school? It would be different if he were a poor student…”

The tirade had lost its momentum. Griff was no longer even looking at his ex-wife. Susan spooned mayonnaise onto slices of bread, aware as Sheila evidently wasn’t that Griff was all done shouting. His profile was rigid as he made phone call after phone call, asking the same exacting, probing questions. His fingers mechanically flipped a pencil over and over, tapping first the eraser and then lead against the telephone.

Sheila let out a strangled sound when Griff dialed the police. “For God’s sake, there’s no need for that. It’ll be in all the papers-”

Griff held the receiver to his shoulder. “They need to know what he was wearing Friday morning,” he said coldly, his eyes like gun metal. At his ex-wife’s look of bewilderment, he made a strangled sound of disgust and held the receiver to his ear again. “Probably jeans. We don’t know. I do know the make of his car and the license number.”

There were no more calls after that. Silence flooded the kitchen like a threatening stranger, and fear touched all of them in very different, lonely ways. Susan knew Griff too well. For a few minutes, he’d been busy making telephone calls. Now he could do nothing but wait. Taking charge came easily to him; sitting helpless was a form of torture.

She placed before him the sandwich that she knew he wouldn’t touch, and pressed her palm to his shoulder, letting it linger there. His eyes met hers, just for a second, bleak with anguish, almost unseeing. He covered her hand with his, but his gaze moved past her to his ex-wife again. “You didn’t see Tom Friday night, you said you were out. But even if he skipped school, he might have gone back home that night. You must have checked his bed when you did come in.”

“Actually, I didn’t exactly-” Sheila bit back the rest of the sentence. No one could have missed the way Griff’s jaw locked. She stood up jerkily, her dark eyes darting in his direction. “You can have custody of the damn kids,” she shot out wildly. “I don’t care! I just don’t care anymore. You think it’s some kind of crime that I need to lead my own life. You always did. It’s not as if they’re not old enough to spend the night alone on occasion.”

As if in slow motion, Griff unbent from his leaning position against the wall by the phone and raked a hand through his hair. His eyes met Susan’s again, hers just waiting to pour out a stream of silent communication. Easy, Griff. She’s hysterical, you must see it. Don’t say anything that…

He understood. More than she knew, Griff understood. He was well aware that Susan hated the sound of bitter, harsh words. Her fingers were trembling violently, his Susan who always acted out of gentleness and compassion and who loved that in him…but Susan had had no experience with women like Sheila.

She was confused and unhappy over his treatment of his ex-wife; he would have liked to offer Susan an apology for that, but he couldn’t. What he did do was reach out and very gently smooth back the tousled hair from her cheeks. A chair scraped behind them. Griff’s hand didn’t falter. His voice was gentle, directed at Susan alone. “I’ll be back, honey. Just…be here.”

“Griff-”

“The police may call back. They’ll check the hospitals and runaway centers. Beyond that, there’s nothing anyone can do. Susan…” He hesitated only a moment. “Stay here.”

He didn’t give her time to nod her automatic agreement before striding past her into the hall to grab a corduroy jacket.

“Griff? Where are you going?” Sheila demanded, taking a step toward his retreating form. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

Griff strode back into the kitchen only long enough to button his coat, staring impassively at his ex-wife. “I’m going to find my son. And as for what you said about custody, Sheila, you didn’t need to bother. You and I both knew already that after tonight the kids were coming here. To stay. With or without the approval of a court of law.”

“You wouldn’t-”

“I won’t need to. Between your questionable morals and your flat-out neglect of our children, there’ll be no problem with the courts. It won’t take two weeks to hustle this one through the judicial system. I guarantee it.”

The door slammed behind him with a little echo.

Sheila stared after him openmouthed; then her lips pressed together as her eyes darted to Susan. Susan’s throat went suddenly dry. Griff was gone… Well, she was too perceptive not to understand that he was totally preoccupied with Tom, and that his mind would be working at a thousand rpm. Griff would never sit still and just wait for the police to do his job. He would visit Tom’s friends, go to the places Tom frequented in his free time.

Somehow, though, it was one of those times when she expected him to be superhuman. It was terribly unfair, but she simply did not want to be left alone with Sheila.

Sheila laughed suddenly, a mirthless sound, and turned away to pick up her purse from the floor. “He’ll find him. Don’t doubt it, honey. The kids do come first with him, don’t they?” She stood up, smoothing back her hair, her hands nervously fluttering. “When he divorced me-but then I expect you know all about that-I fought like a viper for those kids, and you know why, don’t you?” Sheila violently nodded. “You know why.”

“Sheila…” Susan groped for something to say. “Griff is upset. I know you are, too. If you would feel better staying here, at least until the police call back-”

“I fought for the kids because I still loved him. Then. I knew that if the kids stayed with me, I’d still see a lot of Griff. The only thing he ever really wanted from me was to be a mother to those kids. I thought I still needed him then, but I was wrong.” She swung toward the door with her head held high. “There are plenty of men around. Plenty of them. You’re welcome to Griff, honey. You seem like the perfect little mother. You’ll have no more problems from me… Not that I won’t fight for a decent settlement when we hit the courts again. Griff and Sheila and courts are a familiar threesome.”

The door slammed a second time. Susan had a curious urge to open the door and slam it a third time, just so she would have her own chance. Sheila had still loved Griff after the divorce. Susan understood Sheila’s game. Part of her indifference toward the children had always been a red flag to Griff, a signal that she needed his help. He was hopelessly caught in the complexities of her manipulations, trapped between his love for his children and his unwillingness to promote any involvement with his ex-wife. It was all so complicated…

But Sheila had apparently thrown in the towel, finally. Griff’s last threat to his ex-wife echoed in Susan’s head. In two weeks, he would have the children… A heated statement in the middle of an argument didn’t ensure that he would get custody, but Susan knew from the look on Griff’s face that the court system would be wise to work at Griff’s speed. She thought fleetingly of how desperately uncertain she’d felt of Griff’s love only a few days ago as she had tried to deal with Tiger and Barbara. The weekend with him had dissolved some of her insecurities, but she and Griff had been alone then, with no worries and no tensions. If the children came to live with them, they would rarely be alone anymore. Sheila had said it… Griff’s children came first with him.

Her thoughts turned to Tom, a seventeen-year-old boy gone missing, and her heart lurched in anguish. Griff had to find him. At this moment, that was the only thing that mattered.

Yet it was two more days before they heard anything more of Tom, a Tuesday Susan was never likely to forget.