Hearts Unfold (13 page)

When there was
no answer in Stani's room, Milo asked the desk clerk to check the bar.
 
Stani was not there, he was told, and the
doorman had not seen him leave during the evening.
 
Perhaps he had turned off his phone, the
clerk suggested.

Not completely
satisfied, but with little choice other than to wait until morning, Milo had
gone to bed, planning to call again first thing in the morning.
 
If necessary, he would have Robert go to the
hotel to check Stani's room.
 
He felt
certain Stani would never do anything to harm himself, but it was possible that
if he had been drinking he might have fallen.
 
He would never forgive himself if something had happened to the boy, all
because he had wanted some time away.

At seven, he
called the hotel.
 
Still no answer in
Stani's room, but this time he was told a member of the hotel staff had
recalled seeing Stani in the bar around four-thirty the previous
afternoon.
 
He had left the hotel with a
lady, a very stylish young lady.
 
No one
could recall seeing him return.
 
Would
Milo like for security to check the room?

The result was
the discovery that Stani had indeed been gone all night.
 
In his room, they found only his bag, never
unpacked, and his violin.
 
There were two
telephone messages, which had come in before his arrival, one from Jana and one
from someone named Betsy.
 
Milo phoned
Robert at his hotel, asking if he had heard from Stani, already sure of the
answer.

Who Betsy might
be, Milo had no idea.
 
He had never known
much about the young people Stani had met since returning from the world tour
over a year ago.
 
He had encouraged the
boy to go out, to join in the night life New York was famous for.
 
He felt it would be good for Stani's career
to keep his name before the public; it might even attract a broader
following.
 
Stani was an appealing young
man now, with his elegant figure and his striking auburn hair.
 
Certainly, women of all ages found him
attractive.
 
After concerts all over the
world, eager fans, many of them young girls, flocked around the stage doors
seeking autographs.
 
In some cases, there
had even been overzealous fans who sought to get closer, to touch him or place
some token in his hand.
 
But as far as
Milo was aware, there had never been one particular girl.

It was
possible, as the desk clerk implied, that Stani had left the hotel with a call
girl.
 
Milo had never known him to use prostitutes.
 
He rarely spent much of the generous
allowance he received every month.
 
But
if he had been feeling rebellious after being so harshly scolded, he might have
done something out of character, just to prove that he was his own man.
 
At twenty-one, Stani had yet to declare his
independence, seemingly satisfied to let Milo direct his every step, not only
in his career, but in every aspect of his life.

Milo called the
hotel again, this time requesting the telephone numbers of the mysterious
Betsy.
 
No answer at the first number, he
dialed the second.
 
An answering service
operator informed him that Miss Mason, who was available for auditions the week
after Christmas, had not picked up her messages since noon yesterday.
 
Milo left a message, stating that he was
Stani Moss's manager and to please return the call as soon as possible.
 
He hesitated to say that the matter was
urgent, but he was more and more concerned that it might be.

They waited all
morning, he and Jana, huddled together near the phone in their hotel room.
 
Milo wanted to return immediately to New
York, but Jana urged him to at least wait until one o'clock.
 
If Stani failed to appear at the church for
his rehearsal, they would have real cause for alarm.
 
At one ten the call came from Robert.
 
He had gone to the church as instructed.
 
Stani was not there.
 
What did Milo want him to do next?
 
They agreed that Robert would inform the
music director that Stani had been taken ill.
 
Nothing serious.
 
He would
definitely be able to make the performance tomorrow night.
 
That would at least buy a little more time
for a response from Betsy.
 
Even if she
and Stani were involved in some impulsive tryst, surely she would check her
messages.

While Jana
called the airport to place them on stand-by to return to New York, Milo
debated the wisdom of filing a missing persons report.
 
But if Stani were somewhere with this girl,
he would eventually have to surface.
 
He
might yet make the concert on Christmas Eve, and no one would need to know that
he had ever disappeared.
 
There was no
reason to create unwanted publicity for either of them if they were only guilty
of being in love.

But in his
heart, Milo believed he would have known if Stani had become emotionally
involved with this girl.
 
He was not an
impetuous boy.
 
Rather, he was too
cautious at times.
 
He had been so
painfully shy as a child, always tucking his head as if he had something to
apologize for.
 
It had taken a great deal
of careful coaching to transform that timid boy into a confident
performer.
 
Milo had enlisted able help
to prepare Stani for the world's great concert stages.
 
When his training was completed, the little
boy who had once shaken Milo's hand and agreed to become partners had become a
young man far exceeding anyone's expectations.
 
Even Jana, who had taken the role of mother to heart, expressed
amazement at this newly charismatic Stani.
 
Yet inside, Milo suspected, the boy who had sought approval above all
else remained unchanged.
 
He could not
accept the image of a rebellious Stani, who would intentionally disappoint a
conductor and orchestra he held in highest regard.
 
He would not simply ignore his
commitments.
 
Still, the thing that most
alarmed Milo, though he did not mention it to Jana, was the fact that Stani had
left his violin in the hotel room.

They arrived at
the apartment late that night, with no idea where to look next.
 
There was nothing in Stani's room to indicate
that he had made any plans other than to go to Washington.
 
Afraid to look into one another's eyes, they
wandered about the apartment, with its spectacular view of the city lights,
scarcely noticing the snow that had begun to fall.

Chapter Seven

Emily woke with
a start, stiff and sore, and confused at the presence of something next to her
on the floor.
 
The dim light from the
fire and the oil lamp cast shadows around the room; and for several minutes she
stared up at them, trying to remember how she had come to be here.
 
Then with her heart in her throat, she raised
herself on one elbow and searched the face beside her.
 
She touched his cheek and was rewarded by its
warmth.
 
His color, in the firelight,
seemed a little better, too.
 
When she
moved against him, he drew a deep breath, as if in response to her touch.
 
Slipping from beneath the covers, she knelt
on the floor and carefully tucked the quilts around him.

“It shouldn't
be long now before help comes.
 
I know
they're looking for you.
 
I've put as
many lights as possible in the windows.
 
Someone's sure to see them and come soon.”
 
It sounded reassuring, she hoped, assuming he
could hear her.
 
She'd read that even
comatose patients could hear, so it was worth trying to comfort him.
 
And talking broke the unbearable stillness of
the room.

The fire was
low again; she'd slept for almost two hours.
 
The candles must have burnt down as well.
 
Making the rounds, she replaced as many as
possible from her dwindling supply, added logs to the fire and made a sandwich
for her supper.
 
She couldn't just sit
and stare at him all night she decided.
 
Still,
she needed to stay awake to keep the fire going and tend the candles.

She had to face
the fact that with nightfall there was little likelihood anyone would be out
there searching for him.
 
The wind
continued to blow, piling the snow in drifts across the yard.
 
The house was cold now, with only a capsule
of warmth around the hearth.
 
She
gathered blankets from the wardrobe, spreading two more over him, and reserving
two for herself.
 
As added protection
against the chill, she put on her robe and an extra pair of socks.
 
Not much of a fashion statement, but she felt
sure he wouldn't notice.

Looking around
the room, she saw for the first time the mayhem she had created in her struggle
to get him to the fireside.
 
She began to
put the room to rights, gathering up the sodden coverlet and both of their wet
coats from where they had been cast aside in heaps on the floor.
 
As she shook out his black wool overcoat she
felt something in the folds, a stiff rectangle—a wallet?
 
It hadn't occurred to her until now that of
course he would be carrying some form of identification.
 
If he had died out there in the snow, it
wouldn't have mattered whether she knew his name or not.
 
Now, reaching inside the breast pocket of the
coat, her pulse began to race.
 
Opening
the cold leather folder cautiously, she found a considerable number of large
denomination bills, and a New York driver's license.
 
His name, according the license, was Stanley
Moss.
 
He lived in Manhattan.
 
The only other item was a worn cardboard pass
of some sort to Lincoln Center, with the words “stage #4” and perhaps a
signature handwritten on the faded lines.
 
It probably wasn't anything of importance, she decided.
 
But at least now he had a name, though she
would never have pictured him as anyone so ordinary as a “Stanley.”

Something about
the information she'd found nagged at her memory.
 
She let the words toss about in her brain,
said them aloud, studied his sleeping face with new eyes, now that it had a
name.
 
Drawing one of the wing chairs
close to the fire, she sat hugging her knees, watching him, willing him to
move, to open his eyes, to make some sound.
 
Anything to reassure her that he was going to live through the
night.
 
She longed for something to break
the silence.
 
Music, it occurred to her,
would be so comforting, for both of them.

“Music!” she
said aloud.
 
“Moss.
 
Stanley Moss.
 
Stani Moss?”
 
She leaped from her
chair, going to the other end of the room.
 
Taking the candle from the windowsill, she held it high over the records
lining the shelves, searching.
 
It would
have been one of the last acquisitions, she knew.
 
She only half remembered her mother telling
her about this boy, a violinist, near her own age, who was setting the concert
world on fire.
 
Her fingers flew over the
album jackets, finally locating what she thought must be the right one.
 
Pulling it free, she carried it to the lamp,
studying the photograph on the cover—a serious young boy cradling a gleaming
violin, a frame of curling hair, a scattering of freckles.
 
Her eyes went back to the fire-lit face of the
man on the floor.
 
Sinking into her
chair, she clutched the record jacket to her chest.
 
How could it be possible that the boy in this
photograph was lying injured and unconscious in front of her fire?

She sat there
for a long time, trying to make sense of what she could piece together.
 
He lived in New York, yet here he was,
hundreds of miles away, alone, lost in a storm, injured in a car accident, she
had to assume.
 
People like Stani Moss
didn't go around the country alone.
 
They
traveled with managers or assistants, didn't they?
 
Everything was arranged for them.
 
They were pampered and protected, not left to
wander the countryside in the dead of winter without so much as a hat or
gloves.

She studied the
liner notes on the recording.
 
“He has
been earning accolades since the age of ten for his brilliant virtuosic
rendition of the classical repertoire,” she read under her breath.
 
“At fifteen, he is considered a modern
prodigy, acclaimed by critics for his skill and passionate interpretation.”