Chapter One
The high whine of a blow-dryer gnawed at Caroline Spencer's last nerve. Why on earth had she agreed to let Annie have her friend over for the night, when they all had to be at the airport by 5:00 a.m. for check-in? The girls, too wired with excitement to sleep, had giggled up to the sound of the alarm. Now they primped and preened and monopolized the bathroom, while Caroline fidgeted outside the door.
"Annie, honey, please hurry. I have to dry my hair," she called.
"Karen's in there," her daughter replied from behind her.
"Sorry, Miz C. Be right out," Karen called, cutting the dryer off.
"Mom, you don't have to dry your hair. That's the whole point of your new perm." Annie fluffed the wet ringlets of Caroline's red hair with her fingers. "That's why that old salon woman called it wash-and-wear."
"Stylist," Caroline corrected, feeling the ringlets rearrange themselves the moment her daughter let them be. "Old" salon woman indeed. "And Sally is just a few years older than I am."
"Whatever."
"Just what I need, a sixteen-year-old know-it-all at three in the morning. Besides"--Caroline yawned and recovered--"that's what the tag said about this shirt too, but guess who's been ironing while you gals scarfed down your breakfast burritos?"
The bathroom door flew open, revealing Annie's counterpart, her enviably dry shoulder-length hair pulled up in a ponytail with a sparkling band.
All those kilowatts, not to mention precious minutes, just for that?
"Oh, no, Miz C," Karen said, looking at Caroline's crisp safari-print top as though the cheetah on it had bared its teeth. "You've got to wear the T-shirt Senora Marron handed out." She cut her gaze to Annie. "Like, you did give it to her, didn't you?"
Annie smacked her palm to her forehead and spoke, preempting the snap of Caroline's one remaining nerve. "I totally forgot. I'll get it right now."
Lord, lead me not into this melodrama, Caroline thought as she followed the girls into her daughter's bedroom.
"Here ya go, Mom. The bigger one's yours."
Caroline stared at the neon orange garment in her hand.
"Oh my."
On the front was the Edenton Christian High School mascot perched on a banner that said "Go Eagles."
"What's the Spanish word for clash?" she asked.
"Mom, you will be totally cool, trust me . . . and everyone is wearing them."
"Well, we certainly won't lose anyone with these on," Caroline conceded. "Guess I'll pack my safari shirt for--"
The phone rang, launching Annie into overdrive. "I'll get it!"
As Caroline changed her shirt, she heard Karen's voice from the next room.
"What do you mean he's not there? He's gotta be. Gram . . ." she whined, as if she stood on the deck of Star Trek's Enterprise and the future of all mankind was hanging in the balance. "I knew something would go wrong. He didn't want to go to start with. All he cares about is work, work, work."
"What is it, Karen?" Caroline called out.
Caroline knew that Karen's trip had been touch-and-go since her grandmother fell and her father volunteered to go in Gram's place. The trip rules, designed to promote family togetherness, required that every child have at least one parent or relative along.
"Dad's not come home yet from Toronto, so Gram is going to take his suitcase to the airport. I'll just die if he doesn't make it."
Look out, William Shatner. The princess of drama is rising. Caroline let out her breath in a mingle of relief and annoyance. She should have known better. Since Karen had enrolled in Edenton several months earlier and become Annie's friend, Caroline had seen the girl become melodramatic over something as simple as cold fries. "Honey, calm down. It's just a change of plans. I'm sure that if your father misses this flight, he can catch up with us in Mexico City."
"But if he doesn't go, then--"
"Honey, he's going . . . bought and paid for." Caroline had helped Senora Marron coordinate the trip and had personally taken care of the last-minute change in the airline bookings.
"Besides," she said, zipping up her toiletry bag, "you're staying with Annie and me anyway, so if your dad misses the first night in Mexico City, it won't be the end of the world. With all that's going on in airports these days, delays are common."
From what Caroline had gathered in bits and snatches from Karen and chitchat with Karen's grandmother at the women's Bible study, Karen's father was a widower, away a lot on business.
"Hey, at least your dad is more than a support check," Annie consoled her friend. "My dad replaced us with a whole new family."
Caroline said a quick prayer for the hurt and cynicism in her daughter's voice. Frank Spencer had left Caroline for a colleague, claiming that Caroline, who ran a day care at home to put him through law school, was no longer his intellectual match. Annie had been six at the time and never understood why Daddy remarried and moved to the West Coast, much less why he never visited.
But this was no time to dwell on what she might or might not have done to make it easier on them both. Taking up the blow-dryer, Caroline stared in the mirror, bemused by her unaccustomed curls. She'd worn her hair in a single braid for so long that she had no idea how to attack this shorter, wilder, shoulder-length job. In desperation, she snagged a pair of Annie's barrettes to pull it off her face.
With the jeans and tee, she could almost pass for one of the kids instead of the owner of Little Angels Day Care Center. At least until someone got close enough to see the bags under her eyes. Not enough makeup in the Cover Girl empire to hide those babies--especially at this hour of the morning.
"Mom, are we supposed to be leaving at four?" Annie said, sticking her head in the doorway. "'Cause it's quarter till."
In disbelief, Caroline glanced at her wristwatch and shifted into high gear.
"Okay, troops. It's time to zip and load," she announced. There was no time to dry her hair now. She'd have to trust in her hairdresser and go as she felt at the moment--washed and worn.
The Philly airport reminded Blaine Madison of an ant colony, hundreds of individuals busily making their way through the network of intersecting corridors. He claimed a generic black piece of luggage from the conveyor belt and checked the ID tag. Not his. With an aggravated grunt, he tossed it back onto the moving platform to snake its way around the bend. Maybe he should have put some ridiculous marker on the handle to make it stand out--like the neon pink pom-poms on the case claimed by the older lady next to him.
"Cute bear," the woman said, referring to the stuffed toy under his arm.
"My daughter collects them," he explained, without taking his attention from the endless stream of black nylon cases. "I try to bring her one from every place I travel."
It was something he'd done since Karen was old enough to appreciate the toy more than the box it came in. He'd picked up this bear--which sported a T-shirt with a Canadian maple leaf superimposed over crossed hockey sticks--at the Toronto airport during the delay caused by a security check. He'd missed his connecting flight and had to catch a later one. He'd be lucky if his bag even made it.
The lady leaned over and picked up a smaller bag bedecked with matching pom-poms while Blaine checked the tag on another black nylon case. He let it go and shoved frustrated fingers through his dark brown hair. He didn't have time for this.
"Here," the lady said, handing him a pink slip of paper. "Take a look and take a breather."
Blaine glanced at it, but on seeing the header "Psalm 127:1-2," he shoved it into his pocket. Why do these self-appointed evangelists force this stuff on people? If he wanted to get spiritual, he'd go to church. And he'd seen no point in doing that in a very long time.
"Thanks," he said with polite indifference. "I could use a breather."
Not that chaperoning the Edenton Christian High School's class trip to Mexico was his idea of a break. It meant time with his daughter, and he'd begun to wonder if his little girl had been abducted and some moody clone left in her place. No more ribbons and lace. The new clothes she wore looked like rags. She had no concept of time or commitment, except when it came to meeting her friends at the mall. And despite the private schooling that Blaine worked hard to afford, he hadn't heard her complete a sentence
in months. Now he was boarding a plane with a whole group of similarly clothed, idly chattering, high-strung, attention-deficient creatures and their holy-roller parents.
He grabbed another likely looking suitcase and flipped the tag. Bingo. And by the time he hoisted it off the conveyor and lifted the pull handle, the tract-passing pom-pom lady was gone. At least she hadn't tried to save him on the spot. Maybe his luck was changing.
With a stab of guilt at the antagonism he felt toward basically good people, he took up the briefcase at his feet. Blaine had no quarrel with religious people, as long as they kept their faith to themselves. He hadn't the time for a God who had ignored his prayers one time too many.
Hurrying to the security checkpoint, he almost...
