Kitabı oku: «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?”
“Because, believe it or not, you’re not the only one who’s had a long day, and maybe I’m a little tired of you insisting this is all a joke, when you know damn well it’s not.”
Her laugh was brief, but confirmed her confusion and growing unease. “Of course it’s a joke. That’s why you mess with me. You know I’m not interested in a relationship with anyone. And I sure as hell wouldn’t start anything with someone who drinks!”
Jared knew that, all right, and thought her reasoning reeked worse than their creeks’ stagnant water during a dry spell. “Damn it, not everyone who has a beer once in a while is going to turn into the alcoholic your old man is!”
“Didn’t say they were. But I’m not planning to test the theory, either.”
He didn’t want to analyze it, but something that wouldn’t stay contained got the best of him. “Then start dressing like you mean it.”
“Excuse me?” Arms akimbo, she stared down at her stained denim shirt and jeans.
“Getting as dirty as a man doesn’t make you one. You know full well that my office window faces here. In the future, try wearing a bra once in a while and jeans that don’t look sprayed on, if you find my attention so offensive.”
As he headed for his patrol car, Michaele followed like a rabid terrier on the heels of a postman. “What I wear is my business, Chief Morgan, have you got that?”
Jared didn’t answer. Instead he all but threw himself into the patrol car and slammed the door shut. Tight-lipped, he gunned the engine and drove the hell out of there.
Son of a bitch. He groaned as he headed toward Split Creek High School. Of all the stupid blunders…
He’d met Michaele Ramey when she’d been a runt of sixteen, and she’d already known more about cars than most men learned in a lifetime. Even then she was going through seven kinds of hell with her family. Her inner strength, that incredible determination not to crumble, had quickly won his respect, just as her apparent disregard for—or more accurately, her obliviousness to—her exotic beauty had won his admiration. But, of course, she’d only been a kid…and he had met Sandy. Sandy, who, after his parents’ death, brought a calm and sweetness to his life—until that awful day six years ago when he’d kissed her good-night, not realizing it was goodbye.
Jared rubbed his stubble-rough jaw, disgusted with himself. This was the wrong time to think about that, just as he’d chosen the wrong moment to push Michaele. She still wasn’t ready.
Fool, she probably never will be.
Damn Garth’s phone call. Who needed old ghosts resurrected?
He owed Michaele an apology—and she would get it, right after he dealt with whatever was going on at the school. Watch that not be anywhere near as bad as Garth had insinuated, too, he thought grimacing. But then, nothing could be that bad again. Not ever.
Split Creek Jr.–Sr. High School was located right after the bridge over Big Blackberry Creek, a half-mile before the eastern perimeter of town. Jared pulled into the sprawling school’s curved driveway, eyed the near-empty parking lot, and stopped before the canopied entryway. Hurrying inside, he found Garth Powers waiting for him in the main hallway.
At 42, the six-foot-seven-inch former basketball star had served as trail master to herds of high school kids for several years longer than Jared had been a cop, and had the trim build of a man several years younger. His open-minded sense of humor had helped him sustain a more youthful attitude than many his age, so he’d proven himself to be a big favorite among students, faculty and parents. Now Jared grew uneasy as he noted Garth’s spooked countenance and the way the grim-faced man kept glancing nervously over his shoulder.
“Thanks for coming,” Garth said. “By chance did you see anyone hanging around outside?”
“No. Are we waiting for someone else?”
“I’d say he’s already been here and gone. The question is, for how long?” Garth pushed open the door to the men’s rest room, and Jared entered.
He stopped only a step beyond the threshold.
Up on the tiled wall were scrawled large letters painted in a bright red that ran the entire length of the tiled urinal wall. Garth illuminated them even more by turning on the rest of the overhead fluorescent lights. That made the message look even more insane.
I’m back! 666
3
Although every instinct told him to turn around and walk out, to climb back into his car and keep going until he ran out of gas, Jared forced himself to stay put.
“Tell me it’s not blood,” Garth said, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.
“It sure as hell looks it.”
“But surely not…?”
“Human? Considering the amount this would have taken, let’s guess against it for the moment, and hope to heaven somebody doesn’t show up missing within the next day or so.”
“Jesus, Jared.”
“If you don’t want the truth, don’t ask the questions.”
The harsh reprimand had the older man backing away a step. “Just tell me what kind of sick bastard decided to resurrect this part of our past.”
Someone who remembered what horror they’d lived through that terrible day six springs ago tomorrow. Someone who knew what it had done to the town and wanted another taste of that craziness. But he knew Garth didn’t want to hear that any more than Jared wanted to believe such a thing possible.
“It’s almost graduation,” he said, grasping for a credible alternative. “You of all people know how revved kids get at this time of year.”
“This isn’t something to joke about. Not in Split Creek.”
Amen, thought Jared, because the last time they’d been exposed to anything like this—the first time—the price had been a life, one very dear to them both, a life that had cost the town its innocence. Anyone who thought it amusing to stir up any of that was sick, pure and simple, and needed to be found.
“Who else has seen this?” he asked, unable to take his eyes off the numbers.
“Just me. I noticed the light under the door, but knew Brady had finished in here over an hour ago.”
“Brady Watts? Where is he?”
“Over in the science lab. Should I get him?”
The school’s janitor was a gentle-natured old black man, who kept to himself and wasn’t the kind to repeat gossip, let alone encourage it. But first and foremost he was a Southern Baptist. Seeing this message would shake him enough to seek out spiritual guidance, which would mean Reverend Isaac Mooney entering the picture, someone who did like to talk. Jared neither needed nor wanted that.
“No. But if you can find a couple of mops and pails, then lock that door, I’ll help you clean up this mess. Or paint over it, if we need to.”
“Don’t you want to take a picture, get a sample, or dust for—”
“It’s kids!” Jared snapped. “Yeah, it’s six years tomorrow, but that’s no secret. You’ve heard the talk around town. People always remember what they should forget and forget what they should remember.” He turned back to the wall. “No, this is a juvenile prank meant to shock us, and why should we be surprised? Local gossip reflects what’s on TV and in the movies these days. People are being desensitized right and left, and the kids are the first to be affected. Apparently, one or two of them thought it would be fun to spook you. Don’t give him, or them, the satisfaction. We’ll wash it off and forget it. When they see this didn’t get a rise out of you, they’ll lose interest and move on to using keys to scratch car paint or something equally lamebrained.”
“She was my sister-in-law, Jared. How can I forget?”
“Damn you, Garth. She was my fiancée! I say, let her rest in peace.”
Garth looked as though he wanted to continue arguing the point, but after several seconds, although red-faced, he stormed out of the rest room. As soon as the door shut behind him, Jared reached for his pocketknife and pulled a paper towel from the wall dispenser. The procedure wasn’t as pure as using the collection gear in his trunk, but he couldn’t afford to take the time to get it. If Garth got so much as an inkling of how deeply troubled Jared was by this, the guy would need a tranquilizer to get any sleep tonight, and that would mean bringing Jessica into the picture. Sandy’s older sister didn’t deserve this, either.
Acutely aware of the risks he was taking, he used the knife to scrape at the driest corner of the first letter.
4
6:06 p.m.
Michaele didn’t bother trying to rouse her father after locking up. It wasn’t the first time she’d left him snoring in his chair, and she doubted it would be the last. In any case, she didn’t have the energy to put up with the wrestling match and verbal abuse it would take just to get him into the truck; what would she do with him at home? Besides, with the police station directly across the street, he was perfectly safe, and she would have the time alone that she needed with Faith…once her sister showed up.
Preoccupied, Michaele drove badly through the intersection, and the wrecker shuddered in protest to her delay in downshifting. But she finally got the 454 big-block engine smoothened out and continued north on Dogwood, then turned west on Cypress and across Little Blackberry Creek.
Convinced she would find her sister at the house soaking in the tub, as Faith was apt to do on afternoons when she was feeling particularly lazy, Michaele was disappointed to reach their place and find only the family’s aging pickup truck in the dirt driveway. The irony of her reaction didn’t escape her. How often had she pulled in here hoping there would be no one at the two-story frame house?
So be it, she decided. If this was to be her moment, she would celebrate. There was more to be grateful for than peace and quiet; there was also the acquisition of the Cameo. This called for a pan-fried steak, and later maybe one of Faith’s luxurious, long baths. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d taken the time to pamper herself.
But once inside the house—dark and stuffy from being shut up all day—she felt like a stranger. It was the unusual quiet, she supposed, so unnatural considering her volatile family. The mess was the same, though. There were dishes in the sink, newspapers and magazines everywhere, laundry waiting for someone to shove it into the washing machine or dryer.
“Gross,” she muttered.
She supposed she could keep the house in better shape if she did everything herself; however, working herself into an early grave the way her mother had wasn’t on Michaele’s list of goals. Bad enough her father and sister let her support them.
She loaded the washing machine, adding the shirt and jeans she’d been wearing. Then, stripped down to her cotton panties, she ran upstairs for a shower.
It was a rather quick shower. Thanks to her line of work, she could scrub herself raw daily and still fail to get off every last trace of the day’s grime. That was also part of why Jared had upset her so.
It had been unfair of him to accuse her of being a tease. She had never tried to be anything but what she was—a damn good mechanic, who would never have clean nails or Faith’s flawless skin. Michaele dug around in too many engine manifolds, had wrestled with too many stubborn nuts and bolts to win those kinds of compliments. So where did that big lug get off thinking she was interested in provoking him? She needed a man about as much as she needed an earring pierced through her tongue.
When she returned downstairs, there was still no sign of Faith.
Determined to wait up for her no matter what, Michaele fried the steak and nuked a potato in the microwave, then ate the simple meal, balancing the plate on her knees as she sat outside on the stoop to escape the stale house smells.
For as long as she could remember, they’d lived on this wooded dead-end street in the middle of a cleared pasture that a tornado hadn’t yet found. Thirteen acres of sandy loam that liked yucca cactus, nut grass and every other variety of weed, but resisted her sporadic attempts to grow vegetables without pesticides or heavy doses of chemical nutrients. The garden had been her mother’s idea, as had been the E tacked on to Michaele, after Buck—disappointed that he wasn’t getting the son he’d wanted—insisted on keeping the male name, anyway.
By the time she returned inside, it was nearly dusk. After cleaning up in the kitchen, she threw the washed clothes into the dryer and added another load to the washing machine. Then she stretched out on the couch with a mystery novel she’d been meaning to get to since buying it for herself as a Christmas present.
By ten o’clock she gave up trying to pretend she was concentrating and accepted that something was seriously wrong. Faith had never been this late, not from classes; and if she’d had plans, she would have stopped at the house first to change.
Michaele’s concern grew after she called her sister’s closest friends. All of them—with the exception of Harold, whose mother had answered and informed her he wasn’t home yet, either—said they hadn’t heard from her today.
Could Faith be with Harold Bean? They hadn’t dated in some time, but both attended Northeast Texas Community College and remained friends.
Frowning at the clock, Michaele decided to give her sister until midnight, simply because she dreaded the thought of calling the police station. It didn’t matter that Jared wouldn’t be there; he would be told, and she didn’t want to be accused of playing another game. Surely Faith would wander in before then.
Michaele returned to the front room, turned off the lights and settled in the rocker by the picture window. It looked so much darker out there tonight. The driveway seemed longer, and the woods across the street appeared downright ominous. For the first time since those early days after her mother’s death, she regretted that their neighbors were acres away, hidden by trees and thick brush.
She closed her eyes against the view and tried to think pleasant thoughts. What came was an ugly scene this morning with Faith, the way her sister had stormed out of the house…the taunting image of her lying bloody and crying for help in a crushed car somewhere…her father telling the police, “It’s Mike’s fault! She drove my poor baby to her grave!”
The ringing phone made her jerk upright. Disoriented, in her rush to get to it she almost knocked the whole thing to the floor before successfully bringing the handset to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Is Faith there?”
She didn’t recognize the voice, wasn’t even alert enough to know if it was a man or a woman calling. “Um…no. Who’s this, please?”
“You mean she didn’t call to say goodbye? She wanted to.”
Michaele’s confusion turned instantly to lung-freezing dread. She gripped the phone more tightly. “What did you say? Who is this?”
There was no reply…only a soft click as someone hung up.
5
Thursday, May 14
12:01 a.m.
Michaele stood there in shocked disbelief. Even after the buzzing reminded her to hang up, she remained rooted in place, trying to reassure herself that she’d heard incorrectly.
Suddenly, reacting as though the phone’s handset was a venomous thing, she dropped it back into the cradle, then stared out the picture window at the empty road. Beyond. Into the opaqueness of the dense woods.
As understanding grew into fear, she reached for the phone again, only to draw back.
Who are you going to call? Calm down. What if you’re wrong? What if this is somebody’s idea of a joke?
That was it. Michaele rushed into the kitchen and jerked open the door. “So help me,” she muttered under her breath, “if you borrowed someone’s car phone or got someone else to call me, thinking you would pay me back for—”
The Firebird she had expected to see in the driveway, with her sister laughing behind the wheel, wasn’t there.
Michaele’s stomach grew queasy. Quickly locking the door, she snatched up the phone book next to the refrigerator and, with trembling fingers, flipped through the white pages. Her dialing was equally haphazard, and she exhaled with relief when she finally heard the ringing that told her she hadn’t botched that last attempt. The stove clock read 12:03. The ghoulish time didn’t slip past her, nor did the belated realization that she must have dozed off, after all.
On the fourth ring, he answered. “Yeah?”
“Jared, thank God.” His strong, though irritated, voice had her instantly forgiving him his earlier behavior. “I know I should’ve called the station, but I—”
“Michaele?” There was a muffled sound as though he were sitting up. “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. He said—”
“Are you and Buck at the house?”
“Yes. No! Buck’s at the garage.”
“You’re there alone? 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.
She couldn’t believe it. Instead of listening to what she had to say, instead of assuring her that he would immediately have his men on the night shift look for Faith, he was coming here because she was alone? Heaven save her from the entire male race! Calling him instead of the station had been a mistake, after all.
But her frustration didn’t last long. As soon as she hung up 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. Someone could be standing just beyond, maybe hiding as close as behind the wrecker, watching her. The thought made her feel exposed even though the oversize NASCAR T-shirt she liked to wear to bed almost reached her knees.
Her heart pounding, she rushed over to tug the curtains closed and to recheck the lock. The lock was one of those flimsy twist jobs in a door that was half glass, which made her think about the other doors. Not once since she’d come home had she bothered checking them to see if they were locked or not.
With a new dread, she hurried from the back door to the front, testing each one. Everything was as it should be, but her heart continued its wild beating, anyway, and so when done, she stopped in the hallway, her back pressed to the wall, the one spot where she knew she couldn’t be seen from any window.
Get a grip, Ramey. This isn’t like you.
Nevertheless, a flash of lights on the living room wall made her catch her breath. In the next instant she recognized them as car lights. Jared? He lived north on Dog-wood, more than a half-mile away. Could he have dressed and gotten here this fast?
Faith!
Anger blossomed anew as Michaele ran to the kitchen. Once again she flung open the door.
With mixed feelings, she heard the white patrol car’s engine shut down just before Jared climbed out and rushed up the steps. It looked as if he’d pulled on the short-sleeved blue shirt he’d been wearing earlier because one of the buttons was undone, and his jeans were zipped but not fastened. Although his face was shadowed by the straw cowboy hat, she saw that his eyes were bloodshot and that the always pronounced shadow of whiskers was darker than ever. The scent of beer that drifted in with him confirmed the hunch that he hadn’t gotten as far as bed yet when she’d called.
“Should you be driving in your condition?” she asked as he entered.
“If that’s an invitation for coffee, I won’t turn it down.”
With a lift of her eyebrows, she took the saucepan they kept on the stove and filled it with what she estimated was enough water to fill a large mug. They didn’t bother with coffee machines in the Ramey household; Faith refused to drink anything but store-bought latte, and Buck doctored anything put before him with so much sugar and milk, Michaele figured instant was good enough.
As she went to the pantry for the jar, she said, “Maybe you should call one of your men to handle this.”
“I’m not drunk.”
She refused to be intimidated by his terse reply. If anyone had the right to be out of sorts, it was her. “I call you and tell you that I think my sister is missing, and not only don’t you ask me any questions about her, but you waste valuable time driving over here when you should be out looking for her.”
“My first priority was to make sure you were all right.”
“Of course I’m all right. I’m here!”
Jared took off his hat and ran his other hand over his hair. “Michaele, you don’t know what’s—” He signaled her to give him a moment, then replaced the hat. “It’s not going to help anything to get sarcastic.”
Although not ready to admit she was out of line, she did back off by getting a mug from an open cabinet. “Faith never got home from school,” she told him. “And there’s been a phone call.”
She repeated everything the caller had said. When she finished, she glanced over her shoulder. Jared just stood there, his eyes closed.
“You’re thinking someone’s pulling one over on me, that I’m being melodramatic. I hope I am. But the more I think about it, the more I feel—He was smiling when he spoke, I could tell. That’s what unnerved me. He was enjoying himself.”
Once Jared met her gaze again, not only did his expression tell her that he didn’t think she was overreacting, but he looked sick to his stomach. “Did you recognize the guy’s voice?”
“No.” She suffered a new pang of guilt. “To be honest, I’m not even sure it was a man.”
“You just said—”
“I’d fallen asleep and was disoriented. The call lasted only a few seconds.” As she replayed the awful conversation in her mind, she tried to portion out a spoonful of coffee granules. Most spilled onto the counter.
Jared took over and completed the task. “Could the caller have altered his or her voice?”
“I guess. I don’t know. No, it had to have been a man.”
“Because…?”
“Because.”
“Harold Bean, maybe?”
One of the less appealing things about small towns was that everyone knew everyone else’s business, including who was or had been paired with whom. Michaele shook her head. “Jeez, no. He’s still nuts about her, sure, and as far as I know they’ve remained friends, but…no. Faith’s moved on.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Harold’s voice cracks like a thirteen-year-old’s when he’s the slightest bit emotional.”
“You sound more like a protective parent than a worried sister.”
“Damn it, Morgan, I’m not protecting him. I’m simply not going to say what I don’t believe, so back off!”
Jared held her angry stare. “When did you receive the call?”
“At midnight. I phoned you right afterward. Maybe I should have called the station or 9-1-1.”
“You did the right thing.”
Then why did he look as though she’d become his worst nightmare, as though he were about to excuse himself and charge for the bathroom?
Before she could say as much, he stepped around her, turned off the flame under the pot and poured the boiling water. “Have you searched the house thoroughly? There’s no sign that she might have been here while you were at work? Maybe she packed a bag or something, planned to stay with friends for a few days?”
“No, I didn’t notice anything when I was going around opening windows, and she didn’t say—”
The pot clattered as he slammed it back onto the burner. “You had the windows open?”
“Hello! This is Split Creek, not L.A. What’s more, two of the three people living here think we have round-the clock maid service. Maybe you can tolerate that kind of stench, but not me.”
“Okay, okay. Go lock up. Then check the closets, under the beds…Do it,” he intoned when she didn’t budge. He started for the door. “And yell like hell if you find anything. I’m going outside to have a look around.”
“For what?”
The glance he cast her over his shoulder left her feeling like a slow five-year-old. As the screen door shut behind him, she muttered, “It’s my house, buster. I have a right to at least ask.”
What did he think he was going to find out there, anyway? She’d told him Faith wasn’t here. And what did he think she’d run into upstairs?
Somewhere above her a board creaked. It was the same sound Faith used to make when she tried to sneak out of the house for a date on a school night. Of course, this time, Michaele thought, it was the house cooling, a board expanding—
Another creak sounded.
“So I’ll placate him.” She might as well, she decided. Otherwise he would do it for her and know once and for all what slobs the Rameys were. The heavy flashlight she snatched up along the way was for her own peace of mind.
Five minutes later they were both back in the kitchen.
Jared reached for the still steaming mug of coffee. “I’ve radioed the station and told them to keep an eye out for Faith, and to check on Buck. You know we can’t initiate an official missing persons search for twenty-four hours, but I’ll set in motion what I can. If you could give me a recent photo of her, that would help.”
For what? Everyone in the area knew what Faith looked like. She was one of those people who never met a stranger and talked to everyone.
“We’ll need it if we have to broaden our search,” Jared said gently. “Also, come morning, if…well, you’ll have to come into the station to fill out some forms.”
As he spoke he made less and less eye contact. That, more than anything, triggered a new dread in Michaele. “You don’t think she’s going to show up, do you.”
“I’m merely explaining procedure.” He put down the mug. “Could you get me that photo?”
The one she chose was from the top of the TV in the living room—a Glamour Shots creation, yet another indulgence the girl couldn’t afford. At the time it was taken, Michaele had been too angry to admit her sister looked gorgeous, more stunning than most of the empty-eyed skeletons in the countless fashion magazines the kid bought. It wasn’t just the filtered lens, the way Faith’s long black hair was brushed in uncharacteristic but sexy disarray, or the artful makeup that gave her eyes an almost Far Eastern tilt, her mouth a pouty just-kissed look. Faith simply had…something.
Returning to the kitchen, Michaele handed the picture to Jared. “All I was trying to say before was that if you know something, I think I have a right to be told what it is.”
Jared slipped the photo into his shirt pocket without looking at it. “I’ll be in touch.”
That was it? “Fine!” she snapped, as he headed for the door. “Then hear this—as soon as I change, I’m going to start searching for her, too.”
“The hell you will.”
Before she could move he’d spun around and grabbed her upper arms, almost lifting her off her feet to bring her face-to-face with him. It wasn’t hard to do. He might not be the tallest guy in town, but he had to be one of the strongest, and if he wanted, he was capable of making a larger man feel like a Chihuahua confronting a rottweiler.
“You stay put,” he growled. “And don’t think I won’t be checking in to make sure you’re here.”
“I can’t sit and do nothing.”
“Then pray.”
Jared Long Morgan talking about prayer? Next to her, he had the worst church attendance record in town. “Now you’re frightening me.”
“It’s about time.” But he frowned once he noticed his grip on her, and abruptly let her go. “Stay here. If she shows up, you’ll be able to let me know all the sooner.”
He started to leave again.
“Jared.” When he looked back, Michaele chewed on her lower lip. “You might as well know something. We fought before she went off to school this morning.”
“So what else is new?”
Despite his wry, even kind tone, she didn’t allow herself off the hook. “This time I threatened to shut her off financially if she didn’t start helping out more. She left crying and cussing.” Remembering the awful scene, Michaele felt her own throat ache. “What am I going to do if…?”
Jared swore under his breath and this time drew her completely into his arms. “Don’t go there, honey.”
Holding Jared was like trying to wrap her arms around the single, ancient oak in the middle of their pasture; but for once Michaele let herself need his size and strength. She almost believed that if she held him hard enough, if she shut her eyes tight enough, she could stop what felt like a free fall into the worst nightmare ever imagined.
Jared’s breath teased the top of her head. “Ah, Mike. Everyone knows the burden you’ve been carrying for years, just as they know it’s a fact of life that siblings fight. There’s nothing to beat yourself up about. Now listen.” He eased her to arm’s length. “Lock up tight behind me. Don’t open up for anyone except me, Faith or Buck. If there are any more calls, let me know immediately.” He nodded to the card on the counter. “I’ve left you my cellular phone number.”
She hadn’t noticed, and gave the card only a brief glance; all she was focusing on was him. He was about to leave, and she didn’t want him to. She didn’t want to be alone.
“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
“I’ll try to be patient.”
“Don’t hurt yourself straining.”
Although the words were warmly spoken, there was something close to despair in his eyes, and suddenly she had the strongest urge to be in his arms again, to smooth away the grim lines that were deepening around his mouth. The need was as frightening as it was compelling.
“About this afternoon…I’m sorry,” she heard herself say. “I hated that we fought.”
“Me, too.”
“I mean really hated it. Your—” she didn’t know what word to use “—your respect means a lot to me.”
“We’ll talk about that someday.”
His thumb’s caress at the corner of her mouth had a surprisingly debilitating effect on her ability to remember all the reasons for believing romantic entanglements weren’t for her. Nuts, she thought, finally succeeding in putting more space between them.
Sighing, Jared reached for the doorknob. “Remember what I said. Keep everything locked up.”
“Yes.”
And she did…only to find it didn’t quite work, in that she wasn’t alone. Jared’s presence lingered long after his car was out of sight. That disturbed her almost as much as everything else going on.
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
