Lost

Quickly locking the door, Michaele dialed the phone with trembling fingers.

On the fourth ring, he answered. “Yeah?”

“Jared, thank God.” His strong though irritated voice had her instantly forgiving what had transpired between them earlier. “I know I should have called the station, but I—”

“Michaele? What’s wrong?”

“I think Faith is missing.”

He was silent for several seconds. “Come again?”

“She never got home, and I just got this awful call—”

“Stay put,” he snapped. “I mean it. Don’t go outside. Do nothing until I get there.”

“But I haven’t told you—”

He hung up.

As soon as she replaced the phone receiver and looked out the parted kitchen-door curtains, out beyond the moths circling dizzily in the porch light to the indecipherable darkness beyond, the skin along her arms and at the back of her neck began tingling and her heart beat wildly.

Someone could be standing just beyond, maybe hiding as close as beyond the wrecker, watching her….

“Ms. Myers never fails to give the reader an entertaining story with fresh characterizations and dialogue that sparkles.”

—Rendezvous

Also available from MIRA Books and HELEN R. MYERS

COME SUNDOWN

MORE THAN YOU KNOW

DEAD END

Lost

Helen R. Myres

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Acknowledgments

With every book a writer’s list of indebtedness grows. I would like to thank the following…

Ethan Ellenberg, not only for his input into this story, but for all the support, wisdom and perseverance from day one of our association.

Robert and Lacy Cooper, and Linda Varner Palmer for getting me through that ill-timed computer crash.

Betty and Cindy Meece for bunches, but most of all the Linda Vachon print. You did, indeed, inspire.

For answering questions and sharing anecdotes…

Wayne Bryant

Bobby Cole

Carol and C. F. David

Brad Taylor

RCR

And to Burt, whose real “Precious” inspired Michaele into taking on that Cameo restoration in the first place. I can only hope that hers would have come out half as good as yours did.

Just in ratio as knowledge increases, faith diminishes.

—Thomas Carlyle

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

1

Split Creek, Texas

Wednesday, May 13

4:30 p.m.

“Where’s Faith?”

Her father’s slurred question warned Michaele Ramey of two things: first, that despite her attempts to keep an eye on him, the son of a bugger had gotten hold of some hooch again; and second, that, as usual, her sister Faith’s word wasn’t worth squat.

Too annoyed to risk answering right away, she rolled out from under the ’56 Chevy Cameo, and used her cleanest knuckle to carefully rub at the rust particles in her eyes. “There’s a hole the size of an egg in her muffler,” she told Pete Fite, the watchful owner of the old vehicle. “But I can’t patch metal that’s turning into confetti. You’ll need a new one.”

The chicken farmer bowed his head, which had Michaele thinking that the fifty-nine-year-old was beginning to bear a strong resemblance to the poultry he raised on the forty-acre farm on the south side of town. He had the same wide-spaced, blank eyes, the same sharp, beaklike nose, and damned if he wasn’t scratching his boot at the concrete floor of the garage the way those razorial critters did when searching for food.

He slowly shook his head. “Can’t afford that. Just wrap something around it to get me through inspection. I’ll look into buying a new one as soon as I send off the next truckload of hens.”

This time Michaele used the back of her left wrist to wipe at the sweat trickling down her throat. “Why not the next egg shipment? I saw that batch of tired hens being hauled out of your place last week. You won’t have another load for a while, and I’m not a magician. Make it the next egg check, Pete.”

Shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of overalls that all but swallowed his skinny frame, he gaped. “You’d leave a man with nothing to live on!”

“Oh, stop.” Michaele pulled off the baseball cap she’d been wearing backward while under the truck and slapped it against her jeans to shake off any lingering debris, replaced it, and tugged the bill low over her narrowed eyes. “Just sell me the damn thing, already. You’ll only let it sit and rust until it’s nothing more than a weed-covered snake den—”

“Where’s my baby?”

The new whine from her father drew Pete’s attention, but when Michaele continued to act as though she hadn’t heard anything, he tugged at his earlobe and shrugged. “How much did you say you’d give me for her?”

They went through this every time he came in, which was becoming more frequent thanks to the increasing number of potholes on his lengthy, unpaved driveway. What’s more, he knew what he had in the Cameo, as did Michaele. Chevrolet hadn’t made over 5,000 of them in ’55, and fewer than 1,500 in ’56. Considering the growing love affair going on with the American pickup truck, this one would be worth a tidy bundle if sold for parts; a small fortune if restored properly, something Pete had neither the skill nor finances to do. Michaele wanted a chance to try.

“A thousand,” she replied. “Less the cost of a new muffler.”

Although that was a couple of hundred dollars more than she’d offered last time, he managed to look offended. “Can’t replace her for that!”

“You want to pay liability insurance and the registration fee on something that’ll be illegal to drive in a few days, go ahead. I suppose once you get tired of collecting tickets, you can always use your ’73 Ford.”

“Not likely. It’s got two flats.”

“Mike!” Buck snapped, his bloodshot eyes finally focusing on her. “You hear me, girl? Where’s Faithy?”

Michaele shot her father a cold look. Despite his grip on the door frame, he wobbled dangerously, and she found herself half wishing he would topple face first onto the garage floor and knock himself out.

“I’m with a customer,” she said sharply.

Buck squinted. “Well, shoot, that’s just ol’—” he hiccuped “—Pete. Pete, you seen my little girl? Got a call for her inside. She’s u-usually back from school by now.”

Yeah, right, Michaele thought sourly as she pushed herself to her feet. Only if the sneak couldn’t find somewhere to hide until closing. More often than not, her younger sibling didn’t show until Michaele was home putting dinner on the table.

Pete scratched at his thinning silver hair as he pondered Buck’s question. “Nope. Can’t say I have.”

Exasperated with the whole situation, Michaele snapped, “For heaven’s sake, Buck, you know Pete lives south of here. Faith commutes to and from Mt. Pleasant, which is north. Tell whomever’s on the phone that she hasn’t arrived yet and hang up so someone with a real problem can get through!”

She turned back to the town’s newest widower. She knew he was in no hurry to leave and would rather spend the rest of the afternoon shooting the breeze with her; but she had too many problems of her own to be swayed by compassion. “Sorry,” she said, rising, “I have to finish servicing Chief Morgan’s car, and I promised that it would be done by six. If you want to avoid getting a ticket in two weeks when this expires—” she nodded to the sticker on the truck’s windshield “—you’ll have to come to terms with what that means.”

She wiped her hands on the already filthy rag and shoved it into the back pocket of her jeans, then stepped over to the patrol car still in need of an oil change and lube job.

“Guess I could let her go for the thousand…if you threw in new tires for the ’73 to sweeten the deal.”

Michaele almost let out a whoop. She’d been wanting to get her hands on “Precious” since she was seventeen, but wasn’t about to admit anything of the kind to Pete. Instead she muttered, “Jeez, Louise. All right, already! Bring the title tomorrow along with those flats, and I’ll write you a check.”

“Cash.”

That would mean a trip to the bank, because she didn’t keep that kind of money around; it presented too much of a temptation to Buck, who could easily finish drinking himself into a grave on a fraction of the amount. “Okay, cash it is. I’ll hop over to the bank as soon as it opens in the morning.”

“And I’ll need a ride home.”

She shot Pete an irritated look. “Why don’t I just adopt you? Never mind,” she added, as he began to grin. “Okay, I’ll see that you get home. Now, please, go away and let me earn a nickel.”

Satisfied, Pete left, and Michaele went back to work. But no sooner did she start unscrewing the drain plug from the patrol car’s oil pan than a vehicle pulled up to the gas pumps. She listened for the sound of Buck’s shuffling steps. When he failed to budge, she called over her shoulder, “Customer!”

After several more seconds, she headed outside herself. “And people ask why I don’t smile more,” she grumbled under her breath.

Their customer was none other than Reverend George Dollar. Michaele’s mood went from soured to curdled. Of the twelve-hundred-seventy-something people currently calling Split Creek home, why did he have to be the one driving up?

She circled around the back of the white Escort wagon that the church had inherited several years ago and went straight to the gas tank. “Fill it, Reverend?” she called up front.

He leaned out the driver’s window and smiled into the sideview mirror. “Please, Michaele. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was around. You really do need to get that service bell repaired.”

“Uh-huh.”

The only thing wrong with it was that she’d disconnected the thing. Even when she manned the garage by herself, she would have to go blind and deaf before missing anyone pulling in.

Sliding the pump nozzle into the tank’s mouth, she glanced over the car into the station’s office-store area. As she’d suspected, her father was slumped on his throne again—whether asleep or unconscious, she couldn’t tell. What she could see, though, was that he hadn’t put the phone’s receiver back into the cradle.

She shook her head. And he insisted the crap he drank wasn’t pickling his brain?

“The windshield needs cleaning, Michaele.”

Sure it does.

Gritting her teeth, she latched the nozzle for automatic filling and reached for the squeegee soaking in the pail of cleaning liquid at the other end of the island. But she was burned. Damn it all, the old buzzard would have to be gumming the steering wheel to be bothered by the smudge or two on the otherwise sparkling windshield. No, he just wanted her stretched across his hood to get his cheap thrill for the day.

“I was sorry not to see you joining Faith at services Sunday.”

She briefly considered enlightening him. The only reason her younger sister went to church was that there were few other excuses to dress up in Split Creek without looking like a lost tourist, and Faith did like to dress up. Not Michaele, though; nor did she have the stomach to sit through any hypocritical sermons, let alone the kissy-huggy stuff that followed those gatherings. However, the businesswoman in her stopped her from being all-out rude to a customer—even a tightwad like George Dollar.

“Well, Reverend, I had an emergency tow,” she said, careful to keep her chest away from the windshield.

“I understand. Running a business is a mighty big responsibility on such a pair of small shoulders. Plus, you have sweet Faith counting on you to be both mother and—forgive me—father to her. But that’s no excuse to turn your back on the Lord, child.”

As he spoke, Michaele could feel his gaze moving over her. She was relieved when the pump suddenly shut off. Then she glanced back and saw why it had stopped so soon.

Here we go again.

Michaele slammed the squeegee on top of the pump and with jerky movements replaced the nozzle in its holder. As she screwed the fuel cap back on, it was all she could do not to grind her teeth into powder.

“I haven’t turned my back on God, Reverend,” she said, finally stepping up to the driver’s window. “It’s just that it’s been years since we had much to say to each other. That’ll be three-fifty.”

He made a great show of patting various pockets. “Dear me…I seem to have misplaced my wallet somewhere.”

Was there no limit to the man’s nerve?

“Try the glove compartment,” she drawled.

“Ah! Of course.” Without an iota of embarrassment, he reached into the compartment and soon presented her with a five-dollar bill. “You know, it grieves me to hear you speak with such cynicism, Michaele.”

“Well, there’s a cure for that, too.” She stretched to her full five foot four to dig out change from the front right pocket of her jeans. “From now on, let your tank get closer to E before stopping by.”

Accepting the money, he wagged a cadaver-white finger at her. “You’re not getting off that easy. I’m a patient shepherd, and I will bring you back to God’s flock sooner or later.”

Michaele glared after him as he pulled away. “Do me and God both a favor,” she muttered, “and hold your breath.”

She didn’t like that he brought out her worst side, but his arrogance irritated her as much as his sneaky sexual leers disgusted her. On the other hand, she allowed, for once maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that Buck was inebriated. Had he been the one serving “the good reverend,” he would have let the charity hog have the gas free, thinking it would make him points Upstairs.

“Fruitcakes and freeloaders. It might as well be Christmas.” She strode into the store and slammed the phone’s handset into the cradle. As expected, the resounding clamor didn’t win her so much as a muscle twitch from her father. With his mouth wide open and the rest of his alcohol-swollen body almost as slack, a thin stream of drool was beginning to run down the side of his jaw.

Michaele kicked the sole of his booted foot with the toe of her athletic shoes.

He jerked upright, the movement knocking his cap to the cement floor. “Wh-what?”

“Where is it?”

“Huh?”

“The bottle.”

He went from dazed to pit-bull mad. “I was sleepin’! In case you ain’t noticed, it’s hotter ’n hell in here, and I’m full wore out.”

“Yeah, guzzling battery acid is exhausting work. Well, I have news for you. It’s hot out there, too—” she nodded toward the garage “—and we’re busy, which is the only reason why I actually give a flying fig if you drink yourself into a coma. Now we had a deal, old man. You promised to carry your weight and not get soused during working hours. So hand it over.”

He stared at her outstretched hand and resumed his comfortable slouch. “Leave me alone, ya mouthy li’l bitch. Nag, nag, nag. I shoulda drowned you back when I had the chance and your ma wasn’t looking.”

The insults no longer stung as they once had. She’d heard so many over the years, she’d grown numb to them. “I’m sure it crossed your mind,” she replied coldly. “Aren’t I lucky the liquor anesthetized any guts you had about the same time it leeched your mind of sense.”

Casting a glance at the wall clock, she saw she had ten minutes before Jared was due. Leaving her father, who was already drifting off again, she hurried back to the garage.

There was still no sign of Faith.

2

5:03 p.m.

Jared Morgan dropped the previous day’s reports on day clerk and dispatcher Norma Headly’s desk. “Let Curtis handle them if you want. I’m out of here. See you in the morning.”

“Just a second, Chief. I have Garth Powers on line one. He says there’s something out at the high school that you’d better see.”

Jared waited for more information, but Norma didn’t elaborate. “Does he want me to play twenty questions? What’s up?”

“I asked. He won’t say. He’s concerned someone will hear and start a scare ‘again.’ Those were his exact words,” she added with emphasis.

Jared didn’t like the sound of that. There weren’t many things that would prompt the ex-jock-turned-administrator to call for outside help. It would have to be more than a hastily tossed-away reefer or a racial situation that had gone beyond the name-calling stage. A firearm brought to school? All possible these days, but none of those things would make Garth so secretive, and that had the hairs on the back of Jared’s neck rising. He could have done without the inflection on again.

“Tell him I’m on my way to pick up my car. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Slipping on his cowboy hat and sunglasses, he exited the white-brick building, resigned that the cold beer he was looking forward to at the house would have to wait a while longer.

Split Creek’s police station was located on the northeast corner of Main and Dogwood, in a three-streetlight downtown. The community itself was one of the more resilient in Wood County, but that was hardly due to brilliance in city planning or any law enforcement. Situated between Dallas and Shreveport, Louisiana, and nestled in the heart of the photogenic Pineywoods, it also lay in the fork created by Big Blackberry Creek that eventually fed into the Red River on the east, and Little Blackberry that emptied into the Sabine River on the west. In other words, the town transformed itself into a virtual island during spring’s and autumn’s heavy rains. Hardly impressive strategy by anyone’s standards, but the addition of bridges over the years had improved the situation somewhat.

It was the residents, however, who made the rustic, visually quaint community stand out. They were an odd assortment of old-fashioned eccentrics, economic progressives, religious conservatives and creative liberals. That strange brew could make things percolate during political elections, and passions didn’t quiet down much during high school football or basketball season, either; nor when the competition was on for spring and autumn tourist traffic. But so far, the only blood shed was from the occasional bruised nose on the playing field…or when a picnic involved one beer or wine cooler too many.

Well, almost, Jared thought with a pang of sadness.

Overseeing this motley group had been his responsibility for almost five years. He’d been a member of the department for nine. Like many East Texans, his ancestors had emigrated here from the deep South—Georgia, in his case. For the first half of his life, he’d bounced around the Lone Star State as his father dealt with transfers with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Later there followed a stint in the marines and, finally, a last year down in Austin to finish getting his college degree, before returning here to move into the family home. The unexpected death of his parents had precipitated that. Now thirty-five, he was all that remained of his side of the Texas Morgans.

He often thought things should have turned out much differently, but it would be dangerous to dwell on that. It was Garth’s call that had triggered the reminder, had triggered too many memories. He didn’t need that.

Only as he crossed Main Street and approached Ramey’s did it become easier to push away his gloomy thoughts, thanks to the sight of Michaele Ramey bending to pick up something from the concrete floor in the garage.

Damn, he thought. For a slip of a thing, she could snag his attention faster than a bored bull could pick up the scent of forbidden heifers in a distant pasture.

“Hold that pose, Ramey,” he drawled as he drew nearer, “and you’ll cause a traffic pileup out here the likes of which Split Creek’s never seen before.”

Michaele glanced over her shoulder, her expression showing she was anything but impressed with his humor. “Just once I’d like to see you come and go without making a sexual innuendo.”

“It’s a free country—I suppose you have a right to dream.” He grinned to hide the more complicated emotions she stirred in him. “How’s my car?”

“Not much better than your line of bull. I swear, Morgan, you’re only across the street. Why can’t you get this thing serviced on a regular basis? This old oil is thick enough to sculpt with!”

“Blame yourself. If you didn’t turn me down every time I ask you out, I wouldn’t need so long between visits to heal my wounded ego. Exactly how much rejection do you think a guy can take?”

She didn’t waste so much as a blink on him. “Have Red or one of the others bring it over.”

“You stay away from Samuels,” Jared said, pointing at her. “He’s a happily married man with two growing boys needing three big meals a day if they’re going to bring home another division football title this fall.”

“Idiot.” Michaele punched the controls, and the lift began its slow descent.

The failure to get even a hint of a smile out of her told him that her day wasn’t ending any better than his. He knew why; he’d seen the reason as he’d crossed the street. “I take it Buck’s sleeping off another binge?”

“No, I fed him rat poison with his lunch, and I’m just waiting for dark to bury the body.”

“And Faith’s running late?” There was no sign of her red Trans Am.

“Who knows? And from now on, I refuse to care. She’s about to graduate, she turns twenty-one in two months, and, so help me, the minute that happens, I’m washing my hands of her.”

“Sure you are.”

Blue eyes clearer than any dream and sharper than any laser sliced into him. “Watch me,” she said.

“Caretakers don’t know how to shut off, honey. Even the ones trapped in dysfunctional families.”

She kicked the lift’s power unit out of her way, and reached for the clipboard on the nearby workstation. “‘Dysfunctional’ doesn’t begin to cover my zoo. Why don’t you cheer me up and tell me you shot a bad guy today and saved us taxpayers a bunch of money on a trial?”

“My, you are in a bloodthirsty mood. Let’s see…I wrote two speeding tickets this morning, spent lunch listening to the mayor worry about another store for rent on his block, moved a small mountain of paperwork off my desk. Nope, didn’t empty so much as one chamber. Wait! I did run over a water moccasin, driving in this morning. Does that count?”

“Knowing you, it was probably an accident.”

He liked that she sometimes saw through him better than others did. Because of his military background and his hard line regarding certain types of legal infractions, some in town considered him a hard-ass. To be accurate, he had his calluses and edges, even an unhealed wound or two; but as long as people didn’t probe those too much, he considered himself one heck of an amiable guy—and patient. Particularly where one diminutive career cynic was concerned.

As Michaele finished filling out the invoice for his car, he reached out to wipe at a streak of grease along her jaw. Like the rest of her, that chin was finely contoured, in total contrast to her personality and occupation. Barely tall enough to reach his Adam’s apple, and easily a hundred pounds lighter than him, she made most people around her feel huge. But most knew she was as physically tough as she was psychologically resilient. Heaven help her, she had to be.

Not surprisingly, she stepped out of his reach, but kept writing. “Get it over with,” she said, sighing.

“What?” He waited for her to look up so he could feel the kick that always came when their gazes connected. To define her eyes as blue was as insulting as saying that short mop of hair, mostly hid under her cap, was black. The media could fuss all they wanted about Liz Taylor, but to him nothing struck the heart like Michaele’s gem-clear eyes.

“Ask me out so I can say no, and you can be on your way.”

“Not tonight.”

As she handed him a copy of the bill, there was an instant when concern broke through her cool reserve. “What’s wrong?”

“Did I say anything was wrong?”

“You don’t have to. It’s written all over your face. Come to think of it, you look as though you were served bad oysters at lunch.”

“Maybe I’m worrying that nothing’s ever going to change between us.”

She quickly lowered her thick lashes. “Knock it off, Morgan. How many times do I have to tell you that you’re wasting your time toying with me?”

“Until it sinks into that pretty but thick head of yours that I’m not playing a game.”

“There is no us.”

“Right. Keep trying to convince yourself of that.” Fighting a stronger frustration than usual, Jared shoved the receipt into his shirt pocket.

Michaele slapped the clipboard back onto the workbench. “What’s gotten into you? We go through the same song-and-dance every time you come over, then you go on your merry way. Why get bent out of shape today?”

“B