Chapter 20

"Wow," Jack said, when he and Janet were alone. "There's never a dull moment around here, is there?"

"Apparently not," Janet agreed.

They were sitting on the terrace watching the sun slowly sink into the vast blue ocean. Maggie, TC and Rick had left, Terri had gone to work at the hospital, and Jonathan was making sure Lily had everything she needed for the night.

"I felt so bad for Lily when she realized she left her doll at the church," Janet said.

"Especially since that doll is apparently what saved her life."

Janet nodded. "Do you think Jonathan would let me take her shopping tomorrow?"

"You've really become attached to her, haven't you?" Jack asked.

"How could I not? She's adorable. Plus," she added with a grin, "she became attached to me first."

"Just shows she has good taste," Jack said and smiled.

"I wish she spoke more English, though. Do you think we'll have a hard time communicating?"

"Not if you can point."

Janet chuckled. "I suppose you're right."

Jack stroked Janet's dark hair as he gazed at her. "It's nice to see you looking and sounding more like yourself. What if I went shopping with you and Lily tomorrow? I think we would enjoy ourselves. For a change."

Janet smiled. "I'd like that, Jack. I'd like that a lot."

When Terri arrived at the estate late that night, all was quiet as she headed for her room. Walkingquietly along the upstairs corridor, she decided to look in on Lily who was sleeping peacefully. Terri leaned against the door frame to watch the little girl as she slept. She'd been discouraged when she left the hospital. Thomas had not made any significant progress. She'd thought about telling him that his daughter was at the estate, but she didn't. She didn't think it was her place to be the one to tell him, although she certainly thought it wouldn't hurt to tell him even if he couldn't respond to the news.

An hour later, after trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep, Terri cinched her pink robe around her waist and padded her way to the guest house. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to spend some time there, but she did, so she didn't question her instinct. She just followed it.

She found the key Higgins had told her was hidden underneath a planter box and used it to unlock the door. She saw the light switch at the top of the staircase and flipped it on. After quietly closing the door, she ambled down the staircase and entered the living room where she turned on a lamp. She looked around and had to chuckle, even as she was shaking her head, at the clothes scattered about on the sofa and on the banister, the dishes that hadn't been washed or even moved from the coffee table, and the assorted books, magazines, and CDs that were all over the place.

"That's my Thomas," she said out loud, with her hands on her hips.

And then she stopped. Had she really referred to him as "her" Thomas? Where had that come from? Absentmindedly, she moved a stack of magazines and sat down on the sofa. She wasn't sure why she had called him that, but she knew it was true. Somewhere, in all this crazy chaos of the past few days, she realized she had come to care about Magnum a great deal. She had no idea if he felt the same way about her, and at the moment, it really didn't matter, but she clung to the fact that he had confided in her about Lily. Had even told her about the journals he had been writing for his daughter. She had shared that information with no one, not even her closest friends, Janet and Jack.

"I need to see those journals," she said, again out loud. "I need to find them, so I know they exist and so I can show them to Lily, if it comes to that."

Remembering where he told her they were because she had memorized every single detail of the last conversation they'd had, she started to make her way into his bedroom, the one room she had not been in during her previous visits, when she realized she needed to straighten up his guest house. Lily would want to see where her father lived. Terri would like to be the one to show it to her.

She began cleaning up when she realized it was too quiet in the house. Too eerie. She tried to work the radio or the CD player but found she couldn't. Her eyes drifted to the television and VCR. She saw a videotape sitting on top of the VCR. She wondered briefly if it was the videotape that was sent to Thomas with malicious intent. She told herself not to think about it and continued to clean up. But a little while later, curiosity got the better of her. She had to know what was on that videotape. She managed to work the TV and the VCR. She found the remote on the coffee table. After sitting down on the edge of the table, she pressed "play". She soon wished she hadn't, but like a car accident on the road, she found she couldn't look away as the scene played out in graphic detail before her. When she saw the horrific footage of the car exploding, she literally jumped up from the table and covered her mouth with her hand but not before a small scream escaped from her lips. She fumbled for the remote and finally stopped the tape.

She got up and began to frantically wash the dishes, scrubbing them so hard she would have rubbed off the design on the plates if it had been possible. She thought if she scrubbed hard enough she could erase the mental images she now had in her mind, but she knew she was only kidding herself. She thought the taunting Thomas' enemy did throughout the beginning of the video had been hideous but that turned out to be nothing compared to videotaping the actual car bombing. Who would do something so heinous? She decided she couldn't think about it any more and concentrated all her efforts on making the guest house respectable for Thomas' daughter.

Two hours later, she finally plopped down on the sofa and looked around at the near spotless rooms. Exhausted but still too keyed up to sleep, she cautiously entered Thomas' bedroom, which she found to be extraordinarily neat compared to the rest of the house. She wondered why that was as she looked around the room. After a few moments, her eyes landed on a gold picture frame atop his dresser. It was a wedding picture of him and Michelle. Terri carefully picked it up and held it in her hands. Michelle had been an attractive woman; she couldn't deny that. She saw where Lily got her rich hair and brown eyes. Thomas, dressed in his Navy whites, almost took her breath away. He looked dashing and very happy, she had to admit, despite the fact he was fighting the war in Vietnam. He looked like a man in love, she decided, as she returned the frame to its rightful place on his dresser.

The king-size bed called to her. She finally sat down and opened the drawer to the nightstand. She peered in and saw that the journals were there, just as Thomas had described. She removed one from the drawer and ran her hand over the smooth tan leather. She quickly flipped through the pages and saw his handwriting on almost every page. He certainly had a lot to tell his daughter. Knowing that it was not her place to read what he had written, she returned the book to the top of the stack in the drawer and closed it. It was enough, for now, to know that his journals, his letters and thoughts to his daughter, had not been disturbed.

Now barely able to keep her eyes open, Terri removed her slippers and stretched out on top of the bed. Just for a little while, she told herself, as she found a blanket on a nearby chair. She reached for it and covered herself with it. His bed was so comfortable, she told herself, as she stretched out even more. Before five minutes had passed, Terri was off in slumber land, dreaming of a world without danger to herself, Thomas, or any of their friends.