And Then She Was Gone

by Noonan, Rosalind

  She had come here to learn something about Lauren and little Mac. Frustrated with the lack of information from Hank and the FBI, she had decided to take some initiative and ask around at the Saturday market. In all the times that Lauren had sat at an easel selling portraits while Kevin and Mac made the rounds at the market, someone must have seen them. Lauren had even mentioned that Kevin seemed to befriend some of the regulars here. Rachel figured that the police may have already checked out this avenue of information, but she couldn’t sit back one more minute and watch her oldest daughter suffer the humiliation of being called a liar. So she had put together a hippie-chick costume and recruited Sierra to come along on a little fact-finding mission.

  While Sierra checked out woven handbags, Rachel chatted up the vendor. The bearded man who sold woven blankets and jackets told Rachel that he was here “all the time.” Rachel thought the emerald stud in his nose was attractive, but she had trouble taking her eyes away from the wide-gauge holes in his earlobes—hollow plates that exposed a hole through the center of the lobe. Was he in constant pain? What sort of tool was used for such a piercing?

  She tried to get herself back on track by tracing her index finger along the jagged pink line woven into a blanket. “Do you remember a portrait artist named Sis? She worked here in the market. Usually came with her little girl and a man named Kevin.”

  He scratched the back of his head, a tentative glint in his eyes. “Are they in trouble?”

  She considered lying, but didn’t want to complicate things. “He is. Sis isn’t.” Would he not have seen the headlines or news stories about Kevin Hawkins, kidnapper? It seemed unlikely, but then she didn’t see any signs of technology in the booth—no portable television or even a cell phone. It was a cash-only booth. Maybe this man was one of the eccentric Portlanders who prided themselves on living urban but off the grid.

  “Must be big, because you’re the third person who’s asked about them lately. The others were cops.” He sneered. “You don’t look like a cop.”

  “I’m not. I’m . . . I’ll be honest. I’m Sis’s mother.”

  He squinted up and down. “Yeah, I see the resemblance. I saw them around.”

  He had seen them. Did he mean all three—Mac too? She thought about showing him the sketches in her pocket but didn’t want to seem pushy or too official.

  “Mac, too? Do you remember the little girl?”

  “Sure. I can’t say I knew them or anything. Fact is, I thought little Mac was his kid, the way he toted her around. And I figured Sis was his sister. Just the way it seemed.”

  “Did you ever talk to Sis?”

  “Few times. Nice girl, and a good artist. People were always happy with her sketches.”

  “She is talented. Did you ever speak with them?”

  “We probably talked about the weather and the cops.”

  Reminding herself to keep cool, she said, “Right now I’m looking for information about the little girl.”

  “Little Mac? I’d say she was better at small talk than Kevin. Sort of stuck on himself, that one. But the kid was cute. Smart without being a pest. How’s she doing?”

  Suddenly, it was hard to swallow. “I wish I knew. It’s little Mac I’m looking for. She’s gone missing.”

  “Really? Well, that sucks. Nobody’s ever safe, are they? Got to watch your back, that’s what I say.”

  “Mom?” Sierra came over with a small shoulder bag trimmed in leather. The woven strands of red, purple, and pink reminded Rachel of Valentine’s Day colors. Wasn’t that around the time that Mac had been taken from the compound? Strange, how certain images resonated. “Can I buy this bag?”

  “How much is it?” Rachel asked the perennial question.

  “It’s fifteen, but I’ll give it to you for twelve.”

  Rachel knew she should have offered ten, but she didn’t have the energy to barter. She forked over the money. When the man opened his fanny pack for change, he also extracted a business card. “This is me, Ben Juza.”

  There was no phone number on the card. No address, either. “Thank you, Ben. If some other questions crop up, how can I reach you?”

  He shrugged. “I’m always here.”

  She knew for a fact that the market was closed for two months of each year, but she wasn’t going to argue with a stranger who had given her some precious information.

  As they made their way through the market, Sierra searched for bargains, and Rachel scrutinized vendors for signs of longevity in this locale. A duo of men tromping heavily down the closed street caught Rachel’s eye.

  Was that Hank Todd, Mirror Lake’s police chief? He was walking alongside an armed, uniformed guard.

  “Sierra!” Rachel waved her daughter over. “Come, quick.”

  “But I want to get a paper lantern.”

  “Later.” Rachel grabbed her daughter by the arm and hustled her toward the street. “Hank?” she called, pulling Sierra into a jog as she saw the Max train whispering toward them, eerily silent. Didn’t they have warning bells or beepers on those things?

  “Mom?” Sierra looked back at the train, as if they had just dodged a monster. “Are you crazy? You almost got both of us killed.”

  “I just spotted Hank Todd, and I didn’t want to lose him. Hank!”

  Now that the train had passed, Hank heard her, turned, and gestured for the other man to pause. Arms akimbo, he stared at Rachel and Sierra as if they were trespassing.

  Moving her daughter along, Rachel kept her voice firm. “Hank, what are you doing here?”

  “I could ask the same of you, although Sierra seems to have racked up some purchases.”

  “And out of uniform. Are you working undercover?”

  Hank winced. “Sort of. I’m out of my jurisdiction, but yes, I’m working on the case.” He looked over his shoulder. “Can we not talk about it here and now?”

  She pointed to the market on the other side of the tracks. “Hank, I just talked to a man who remembers Lauren and Kevin and Mac. He really remembers. He thought Lauren was a talented portrait artist and he says Mac was cute. Do you know what that means?”

  Hank held up his hands and drew a deep breath. “Don’t tell me. You talked with Wheatie Steger, the child pornographer.”

  “What?” Sierra winced. “Gross!”

  “No, we did not. His name was Ben J-something.” She pulled out the card. “Juza.”

  “The anarchist and cop-hater. Well, I’m glad he opened up to you. Unfortunately, hearsay evidence is inadmissible if we can’t get him to go on the record. And being that he is anti-just-about-everything . . .”

  “Hank, he’ll go on the record for me . . . for Mac. Don’t you see? It’s evidence that she was real. Hawkins can’t keep denying that she existed.”

  He sighed. “Ladies . . . we know about Mac. Right now we’re trying to get to the next level, trying to find out what happened to her, and I really can’t have you working at cross-purposes here.”

  The crackling noise of voices on a radio made the uniformed guard beyond Hank shift impatiently. “Repeat location,” he said into the mouthpiece clipped to his collar. He listened, and then turned to Hank. “I need to handle this. You can find your way. The tie-dye lady, Crazy Mary, and the Stained Glass Sisters are your best bet for information. If you have time to talk, Ernest at the Portland game of life might have something for you, but he’s an investment.”

  “Thanks, Pike.”

  As the cop walked off, Rachel seized her chance. “We’re going with you. We haven’t been to the vendors in Waterfront Park yet, and a woman is less intimidating. Besides, there’s a definite anti-cop vibe going on here.”

  Hank shoved his fingers into his pockets. “You noticed?” He shot Sierra a concerned look. “How’s it going there?”

  “Good.” She walked ahead, pretending that she was on her own in the riverfront market.

  Hank lowered his voice for Rachel. “I’m not comfortable doing investigations with teens on my task force.�
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  “Sierra is the reason these people are going to talk to us,” Rachel assured him. “This girl is a serious shopper.”

  One look at the tie-dye vendor, and Rachel understood how the woman had earned her nickname. It was all in the eyes—the wounded, wary eyes that shifted nervously. When Hank identified himself as law enforcement, a little moan escaped her throat. “Oh, my gosh. Oh, my land. It wasn’t me, whatever you’re thinking.”

  As Sierra disappeared into her booth, Crazy Mary snapped out of her paranoia for a moment to call: “Let me know if I can help you find something.”

  When Hank showed her the pictures, she moaned again, a pup in distress. “They were here. They used to be. But they’re not here anymore.”

  “Do you remember the little girl?”

  She nodded. “And the other girl—the teenager—she used to smile at me. A nice smile.”

  That sounded like Lauren. Even in captivity, her light had shone through.

  When Sierra emerged from the narrow booth with a shirt of pink, green, and purple circling a red heart, Rachel smiled.

  “That’s cute. Why don’t you get another one with the heart for Lauren?”

  Sierra’s face crumpled. “I don’t want to match her. We’re not twins.”

  “You don’t have to wear it at the same time.”

  “No way, Mom. Can I get this or not?”

  “You can get it, as long as you get another one for your sister.” Your sister. That sounded weird. With a sigh, Rachel forked over the cash. All the better to butter up Crazy Mary.

  It seemed to work.

  “I wish I could help you find your people,” Mary said as she tucked the cash deep into a front pocket. “I’ll keep an eye out for them. I have good eyes.”

  They thanked her and moved on to the Stained Glass Sisters’ booth, where only one of the two sisters was in town today. Holly Cannady was a spare, no-nonsense woman with a short-cropped haircut and enviable biceps. Rachel could imagine her wielding a blowtorch and bending metal or cutting glass with crisp precision.

  “We saw them around,” Holly said when Hank showed her the sketches of the girls and the photo of Kevin. “When you’re a regular vendor, you get to know the others.”

  “Did you ever notice anything odd about them?”

  Holly tucked her hands into the deep pockets of her denim overalls. “We don’t condemn or praise. So no, we didn’t notice anything. Did we see Kevin’s photo on the evening news and put two and two together? Yes. But that was only after you had arrested him.”

  “Looking back, do you remember anything unusual about them? Maybe your sister remembers.”

  “Heidi doesn’t pry. It’s not our job to judge, Officer Todd. We coexist.”

  Rachel thought a person could coexist but still have opinions about other people.

  But despite Hank’s questions, Holly Cannady was as cold and austere as her dark, gothic stained glass creations.

  After another hour or so of canvassing vendors, Hank decided they should wrap it up. He begrudgingly admitted that folks had loosened up when he had Rachel and Sierra along, but he told Rachel to please leave the investigation to the detectives.

  At the edge of Waterfront Park, Rachel paused and stared out over the dark waters of the Willamette. She imagined little Mac, with her wide dark eyes, blond ringlet curls, and button nose.

  “Where do you think she is?” she said aloud. “If he didn’t bury her at the compound and he didn’t leave her to die at the hospital, what did Hawkins do with Mackenzie?”

  Hank followed her gaze to the waterfront, frowned. “Honestly? The possibilities are as endless as that river is deep.”

  The bleak prospect put a damper on her good news for Lauren. We know you had a baby; we just have no clue what happened to her.

  Chapter 30

  A week after the meeting, Paula told Lauren it was time to visit the house she had grown up in—a prospect that filled her with dread, though she was not sure why. Dan and Rachel had been good parents, and Sierra had been a cute and pesky little sister when she lived with them. It had been a very good life.

  The problem was not the past, but the future. There was no going back to the way they used to live, and the O’Neils didn’t seem to understand that.

  But Wynonna did. In Lauren’s first session at the ranch, the therapist had shown her three candles in colored jars outside on the gazebo. The candle in the red jar was for her past.

  “Red for the past, because I want you to think of a stoplight,” Wynonna had explained while Lauren had lit the candle. “The past is over and done, and no amount of regret or wishing can alter what has happened. When we talk about your past, we’ll try to understand the way the events have molded your behavior.”

  The candle in the green jar represented the present. Green for action, for everything going on today. For the future, Wynonna had chosen purple, “A color that hints at mystery and spirituality and creativity. The future is a mystery to all of us, but with some thought and guidance, we can modify our behavior and our way of thinking to live a life of joy.”

  “Joy,” Lauren had murmured as she’d lit the purple candle. She had always liked that word. Joy was bubbling fountains and fireworks and graceful unicorns.

  “That’s right. When you come for a session, you can choose which candle to light to let me know what you want to talk about.”

  The colored candles appealed to Lauren, maybe because it was a way to communicate with her therapist without words. A sort of shortcut in their relationship.

  Lauren imagined that glowing purple candle of the future as the O’Neils’ car rolled toward the house she had grown up in. When Dan turned down Wildwood Lane, a knot formed in Lauren’s throat. They were coming up on the Millers’ house, the spot where she had first spotted Kevin, a deliveryman, she thought. The green lawn dotted with purple flowers, too delicate and perfect to ignore. It was on that patch of green that her life had changed, forever.

  The past, she thought. Let it burn behind you.

  “The reporters are gone,” Sierra said from the backseat, “but Dad says they could still be hiding.”

  “You never know.”

  “Mom calls them vultures. It was kind of exciting, having them out on the street all day. Sort of like a block party. But Dad says it’s not cool to have our pictures on TV or in the newspaper. He might see them in prison—or even some other creep. So I guess it’s good that they’re gone.”

  Lauren had never thought of this connection to Kevin—that he might read about her or see her photo from prison. The thought of him sitting in a prison, hearing about her on a news broadcast struck an odd chord of longing in her. Would he think of her fondly? Did he miss her? Maybe it was crazy, but she wanted there to be some connection between them for the six years that she’d been away from the rest of the world. Yes, she had told everyone she was done with him, but still, didn’t she deserve a flicker of affection from the man she’d spent six years with?

  Dan pulled into the driveway and waited until the door on the attached garage rolled up. They plunged into the shadows, and the engine cut off.

  “Do you recognize the house?” Sierra asked.

  “Sure.” She didn’t mind Sierra’s questions. They didn’t have the same anxiety and pressure of Rachel’s questions about the photos in the scrapbooks she had dropped off at the lake house. “Did you see the photos with Gran and Grandpa? Do you remember your friend Nora?” Of course, all the photos were familiar, but they didn’t help her feel a new connection to this family or their lives.

  The big door rolled closed behind them as they got out of the car. The smells of oil and potting soil reminded Lauren of the small shed at the compound.

  The small door opened to the sweet smell of baking and to Rachel, haloed by the kitchen light. “Oh, good, you’re here. Come on in.”

  Carefully placing her cast on the wooden stair, Lauren stepped inside and hoped that Rachel wouldn’t expect a hug. Although Rachel hel
d back, Lauren could tell that she wanted so much. She wanted Lauren to be happy, to adjust, to come home, to get her high school degree. Rachel’s wants were overwhelming, like a big ocean wave that swept over your head and sent you somersaulting under the surface. And when Rachel went out of her way to do things, like finding people in the market who remembered Mac, Lauren felt even more deeply indebted to her. Yes, it was good that the police and everyone now knew that Mac had been real, that Kevin was lying.

  “Are the cookies done?” Sierra asked.

  “I just took them out of the oven.” Rachel backed up, rubbing her palms on her jeans. “Careful when you bite in.”

  Sierra broke a cookie on the wax-papered counter in half and steam rose. “Still gooey. Do you want one, Lauren? Mom made them for your welcome home.”

  “Thanks.” Holding the warm cookie with both hands, Lauren took a tentative bite. Melted chocolate and buttery flavor made her go soft inside. She had forgotten about the smell and warmth and brightness of a real kitchen. The meals that were brought in to the lake house were good, but nothing quite matched something hot from the oven.

  “So what do you want to see first?” Sierra peeled another cookie from the wax paper. “The upstairs, the downstairs and . . . well, that’s it. It’s a pretty small house, but you probably remember that.”

  “Don’t push her.” Rachel put the cookie tray in the sink and ran the water. “We’re not in any rush.”

  “That’s okay.” Lauren found that she liked Sierra’s blunt approach. She didn’t try to soften things or decorate them with curlicues, like the pictures in the photo albums Rachel had sent. “I guess the downstairs. I remember the room where we used to sit and watch TV.” Or everyone else used to watch shows while Lauren stretched out on the floor and drew things. For a time Sierra used to fill in coloring books with crayons, as if competing with Lauren, but she usually gave up after a half hour or so and flopped on the couch.