A thorough search of the ledge showed him nothing until he turned to start the climb back up. There, embedded in the cliff, was the titanium-colored cell phone he had seen Archer using in the hospital.
Archer had gone over this cliff.
Mitchell rushed back up the side of the cliff and called Tony Dalton from his car phone.
“Sergeant Dalton,” he said when Tony answered. “This is Dr. Mitchell Caine. You’re looking for Archer Pierce in the wrong place.”
***
Mitchell pulled back into his own driveway at home about seven-thirty Tuesday evening after successfully convincing Tony Dalton to move the search upriver. Of course the searchers had been thorough but they hadn’t thought about that stretch of County Road 22 as a possibility.
Why would they? Everyone expected Archer to be on his way out of town on Highway Z, which would have been a direct shot across the bridge. But if for some reason the highway had been blocked closer to town Archer would have taken County 22 to intersect with the highway above the bridge.
Mitchell knew the river well. He’d explored its banks when he was a kid. If his estimates were correct—if Archer had gone into the river—he might have floated down the other branch of the river, which divided from the main branch above the bridge. No one had considered this before. But they were doing it now.
When Mitchell pulled into his garage he found Trisha standing in the doorway, her painfully slender form outlined in the light from the kitchen pantry. He parked and got out, trying to decide what to tell her about his discovery.
He held his arms out to his sides, indicating the mud that covered him from shirt collar to shoes. “I’ve been searching for a friend.”
“Dad?” Her voice was soft and tremulous and she stood hugging herself as if chilled. She paid no attention to his words or to his appearance.
“Trisha? I hope I didn’t frighten you. Did you see my note?” He pressed the button to lower the garage door.
“I saw it.” Her lashes were spiked with moisture.
“Is something wrong?”
She turned and preceded him into the house, then stopped and turned back to him. Tears poured down her cheeks. “Dad, I’m in trouble. I need help.”
***
Tuesday night at eight-fifteen, Grant wielded his spatula and wok with expert ease. The smell of grilled steak, onions, and peppers filled the large great room of the Sheldon home with its smoky aroma.
“I’m really sorry about last night,” Lauren said. “I just didn’t see how I could leave Jessica—”
“Would you stop it?” Grant sliced three avocados in half. “You make me feel like some hardhearted ogre. Of course I was disappointed but if there had been something for me to do to help Jessica right then I’d have done it just as you did.”
Lauren perched on the stool at the end of the breakfast bar to watch Grant cook. She loved cooking—she could watch it for hours. That was another thing she didn’t have in common with this family. She could grill a mess of white bass over live coals that would please the most discerning camper, but she’d never been much of an indoor cook. Of course, neither was Brooke most of the time.
“You know you can come over any time,” Grant said.
“I don’t think she wants to get that comfy with us, Dad,” came a feminine voice from the hallway at the far end of the living room.
Lauren and Grant turned to see Brooke sauntering toward them, arms crossed over her chest, the edge in her expression as sharp as the prick of a needle.
“You know that isn’t true,” Lauren said. “Don’t I keep root beer in the fridge for you all the time? And those gross sweet-potato chips you love so much?”
Brooke shrugged. Her cool gaze slid from Lauren’s face.
Lauren scrutinized Brooke’s behavior more closely—the way her thumb rubbed the knuckles on her right hand, the frown line between her brows.
Lauren looked at Grant, who kept his attention focused on his culinary efforts. This must be some kind of test to see if she and Brooke could work out their differences without him as go-between. Now if she could just remember those books she had read years ago about handling interpersonal conflict with teenagers in a healthy way.
If it had been one of Lauren’s brothers or sisters they would have shouted it out and recovered quickly. Ordinarily, Brooke would have done the same. Something else was going on here—had been going on for the past few days. Had Brooke suddenly realized she was jealous of her father’s affection for Lauren? Did she feel threatened?
“Brooke, I didn’t want to stand you up last night,” Lauren said.
Brooke slid her gaze back to Lauren in her typical “Oh, sure” expression.
Again, Lauren curbed her impatience. “You know about the scare Jessica had last night.”
“I heard. But I also know it didn’t take them all night to discover the poor guy they found was an ATVer from Jefferson City. I think you just used that as an excuse not to come over.”
“That isn’t true and you know it. Jessica needed—”
“Don’t even say it,” Brooke snapped. “Jessica needed solitude,” she mimicked. “Jessica needed reassurance. You know what I think? Maybe you’re just trying to cut us out of your life and you’re using Jessica as an excuse.”
“That isn’t fair,” Lauren said gently. “I don’t want to cut you out of my life but I will always be available for friends in need. I would never use Jessica’s dire need as an excuse to do what I did. I had a good reason to be there.”
Brooke’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She crossed her arms and looked down at the floor as if the pattern of the wood grain fascinated her.
Lauren moved a stool out from beneath the bar with her foot and gestured for Brooke to have a seat beside her. “You’re not still mad about my fishing trip are you?”
Brooke didn’t make a move toward the stool. “Who said I was mad?”
“Honey, you didn’t have to say a word—your expression says it for you.” Lauren hesitated. How far should she push it? Especially with Grant listening to every word across the kitchen and Beau most likely somewhere nearby doing the same thing. She should have made it a point to spend some time alone with Brooke before this.
She hadn’t. Maybe that was the whole problem.
“So if you’re not mad about the fishing trip, what are you mad about?”
Brooke gave a shrug and sauntered across the kitchen, sidled up beside her dad. She reached for a fresh slice of avocado and slid it into her mouth.
“You’ll ruin your appetite for fajitas,” Grant warned her.
“I’m not that hungry, Dad.” She gave Lauren a pointed look. “Maybe you two’ll want to eat alone.”
Lauren gave a quiet sigh. “I wouldn’t have come over here if I’d wanted to be alone, Brooke.” She tried to keep the sharp edges from her voice but she didn’t quite get the job done.
“Well, maybe I don’t feel like eating tonight.”
“Brooke.” Grant slid the wok off the burner.
“Dad, I’m just saying—”
“Maybe we should save it until after we eat. Then, if Lauren is agreeable, we’ll have a family discussion and clear the air.”
Lauren’s appetite did a death plunge. Oh, yeah, give this discussion even more significance, as if their whole future together hinged on this dinner and her ability to make amends with Brooke, who might be rightly accused of behaving like a spoiled brat if there weren’t so much more involved.
In reality, Lauren knew Brooke was behaving like any healthy, strong-willed seventeen-year-old coming to terms, once again, with the permanence of her own mother’s death and the possibility of a future stepmom coming to take Annette’s place.
“Dad, I don’t think she wants—”
“As I said, save it until after we eat. Where’s your brother?”
“In here, Dad,” Beau called from the other room, in the vicinity of the office. “Out of the danger zone.”
“Get washed
up for dinner. You, too, Brooke.”
After Brooke left the room Lauren swallowed, took a deep breath, and avoided looking at Grant. What a joyous occasion, their first big family fight. And she hadn’t even told him she wanted to be a part of this family.
Did she?
***
After changing from his muddy clothes, Mitchell sat beside his daughter on the love seat in front of the unlit fireplace. All other thoughts and fears about his responsibility for Archer’s disappearance receded from his mind at the broken sound of Trisha’s crying.
She sat huddled against the overstuffed arm, wearing a pair of black silk pajamas her mother had left behind. The V of the neckline plunged deeply and Mitchell was shocked by the sharp outline of her ribs and collarbone. He should have insisted she get on the scale as soon as she arrived Saturday morning.
She continued to hug her shaking shoulders and her face shone with tears. In her right hand she clasped a handful of tissues Mitchell had given her.
“Trisha, just tell me what’s wrong. If I know what it is maybe I can do something—”
“There’s nothing anybody can do.” Another tightly controlled sob. “I’ve spent so much time online reading about this stuff and they say the damage is permanent.”
“Who are they?”
“The experts! It’s the meth. You were right all the time, Dad. I didn’t listen because I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen to me.”
“What damage are you talking about?” he asked quietly.
“You know. Even if I can stay off the drugs, they’ve already damaged my system. I’m more prone to heart attacks and strokes and I’ll always struggle with depression. It’s right there on your computer if you want to pull it up. And that’s just if I never do drugs again. But the temptation to go out and find another hit—just to get rid of this awful feeling that I’d be better off dead—is almost too strong to resist sometimes.”
He carefully controlled his own panicked reaction. “You wouldn’t be better off dead.”
“No? Look at what I’ve done to you and Mom.”
“You haven’t done anything to us. If anything this is what we’ve done to you. It’s what a drug pusher did to you.”
She nudged away more tears.
“Trisha, when did he convince you to start doing the meth?”
“About six months after we met and even then it was just the pills.” She dabbed at her face with the tissues, blew her nose, leaned her head against the cushion. “I lost the weight, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Simon was so friendly, so fun, so hot.”
“Tell me more about your experiences with the meth.” He needed to know how long she’d been shooting up or snorting.
“Like I said, I just did the pills at first but then Simon convinced me to try the injection. He said it would feel so much better.”
Mitchell truly did hope there was a real hell so he could know for sure that Simon Royce was burning in it. “How long after you first started did you go to injections?”
“I’m not sure. It was after I left the second time.”
“Several months, then.”
“Yeah. A few months I think. The high was so extreme,” she said. “It felt so great at first.”
“Those times you left were two of the worst of my life.”
“Why?”
“That should be evident. My only child runs away from home with a drug pusher who is ruining her life?”
“Mom told me last year that you were just upset because it would hurt your practice.”
Her loathsome mother had stooped to new lows. “And you believed her?”
Trisha looked away and Mitchell swallowed his own pain. “If that had been the case I wouldn’t have brought you back home with you protesting at the top of your lungs to anyone who would listen. What happened after you left us the second time?”
She blew her nose and dabbed at her tears again. “Everything just got worse. The highs were good at first but not for long.” She buried her face in her tissue-padded hands.
“Trisha,” he said gently, “tell me about the baby.”
Her eyes squeezed shut. Her shoulders rocked with silent sobs.
Mitchell ached to put his arms around her like a real father would do for his daughter. “It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it right now.”
She sniffed and nodded, looked up at him. “I want to. Mom was still sending me money but Simon took it before I could use it for visits to the doctor. When I was about seven and a half months pregnant, he moved out for a while. He told me I looked repulsive.”
“He was the repulsive one.”
“He said I was used up and worthless. He injected me one more time before he left, saying it was a good-bye present. I had the baby two weeks later. She died. That was when I gave up.”
Mitchell felt the overwhelming wash of his own grief at the child’s death. “What did you name her, Trisha?”
She shook her head. “She never had a name. I wasn’t even in my right mind long enough to think about anything like that.”
“Then her name is Angela,” he said. “My granddaughter, Angela.”
Trisha looked up at him. “You’re naming her?”
“I named her in the hospital when she was still alive.”
Trisha looked away, face crumpling again. “I was too ashamed to tell you what was happening.”
“A friend of mine called me. I tried to see you when you were in the hospital. Don’t you remember?”
“No.” She blinked at him. “I guess I don’t remember much of anything.”
“I spent as much time with Angela as I could.”
Again, Trisha cried. It was as if the well of tears had no end. As Mitchell endured the sound of her suffering he felt the final supports of his carefully planned life give way beneath him.
There was no hope, nothing left. His family was in ruins and his own daughter sat broken before him. The one person whom he had thought, for a brief period of time, might actually have some kind of tenuous grasp on hope had disappeared in a storm.
And yet.
Mitchell remembered sitting on a love seat one day years ago—a seat not nearly as padded and comfortable as this one—while Darla Miller confided to him that she was pregnant with his child. He remembered, even now, the horror and the joy that flooded and confused him. Though horrified by the overwhelming sense of responsibility he had still reveled with excitement at the knowledge of life he had helped create.
“Trisha, you can’t give up,” he said. “Those websites don’t take everything into consideration.”
She didn’t raise her head. “What?”
“You’re not alone. You will always have a place with me and I’ll help you with this.”
She looked up at him. “But look at what I’ve done, Dad. I’ve ruined it all. You know those plans you had for me? College and a career? I can barely concentrate on anything now. Get it, Dad? I’m used up, burned out.”
She sounded too much like him.
“You’re Trisha Caine. You still bear my name and you will always be a part of me. All those plans I had for you were because I loved you. That hasn’t changed and it never will.” He felt his own tears and watched the blurred lines of Trisha’s face, a face that reddened and crumpled as she leaned forward into his outstretched arms.
She clung to him, staining his fresh shirt with her tears, those precious tears. His child had come home broken and needy and once again, just like when he first heard about her conception, he felt the heaviness of his own responsibility. Now he also felt the renewed joy of their connection.
As he held her and rocked her, he wished so badly he could talk to Archer. But Archer wasn’t there.
One other person had offered to talk with him.
It went against his nature. How could he possibly confide in the one man who had done the most damage to his professional career in the past year?
Or maybe Mitchell ha
d done it to himself.
He would call Grant.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“It’s almost ready,” Grant announced.
Lauren looked across the kitchen in time to see him spill a slice of grilled onion on the counter and burn his hand on the stovetop grill.
He gave her a sheepish grin. “Even expert chefs have off days.”
“Nervous, huh?” she taunted.
“Maybe a little. Hungry?”
“Not a bit.”
He grinned at her and she grinned back and she realized again that she desperately wanted to be able to work things out with this family. She owed them that and she owed it to herself, in spite of the doubts and inner conflicts.
Yes, one of the reasons she had moved away from Knolls was to get away from the influence of her parents and siblings. This was different in every way.
Marriage was something she’d dreamed about for years. If she were to marry Grant and become Brooke and Beau’s stepmother the McCaffreys would be ecstatic. That old uncomfortable feeling of disconnection from the rest of the world—of being a misfit single in a society of couples—would be gone.
But she refused to use that as a reason to get married. The real reason she wanted to marry Grant was because she loved him and she loved his kids.
The stool beside her shuffled backward and she heard Grant groan softly as he sat down next to her.
“I know my family can be... a little challenging,” he said in a tone of frustrated amusement.
Challenging? Is that your term for it? “These past few days I’ve spent a lot of time trying to imagine what my life would be like if your family suddenly vanished,” she said. “I hated the way it made me feel.” Although it wouldn’t hurt if Brooke would quietly get out of her face on occasion, just not permanently.
“And yet, you don’t think feelings should be the basis for a permanent relationship,” he said.
“That wasn’t exactly what I said. I just didn’t want to get all caught up in some emotional moment, make all kinds of promises, and then realize later that I couldn’t keep those promises.”
“So you don’t want to get married.” There was no inflection in his voice.
She studied his face carefully. She couldn’t tell by his expression if that would relieve him or break his heart. “You’d be a great poker player.”
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