“I can’t believe she’d be so mean to me.” Jamie was hurt and angry. But she also felt a little sorry for her mom. She’d never seen her as pathetic until now.
“She’s probably jealous,” Todd explained. “You’re young and pretty, and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Some women can’t take the competition.”
“Yeah, probably.” It made sense. Jamie put her hand on Todd’s thigh. She was tired of talking about her mom. “I’m falling for you, too, you know.”
Todd gave her a sweet, lopsided smile. “Yeah, I kind of thought so.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“First thing, we need to get you home. Your parents must be worried.”
Screw her parents. “I can’t go home. Don’t you understand? They’ll never let me see you again.”
“We’ll find a way,” Todd assured her.
He didn’t get it. “Let’s leave. Let’s go away where they can’t find us.”
“You’re a minor, Jamie.”
“I’m almost eighteen.”
“Not for another four months.”
“Lots of kids leave home. My parents probably won’t even care.”
“Honey, we can’t just—”
She crawled onto his lap, facing him. The steering wheel dug uncomfortably into her back. She didn’t care. She kissed him on the mouth and pressed herself against him. “Please Todd, I need you so much. I want you so badly.” She put her hand between his legs, and immediately felt him stir. He shuddered and his breathing grew swifter.
“Honey, don’t.” The words might have seemed a warning, but his tone begged her not to stop.
Jamie unbuttoned her shirt and placed his hands to her breasts. Slowly, she rocked back and forth. The movement came naturally, she couldn’t imagine from where. Soon she stopped thinking and lost herself in the sensation.
Todd kissed her ear, nibbled at her neck. His breathing grew hotter and heavier. He made a half-hearted effort to push her away but she only pressed harder. Finally, he took her hand in his and rubbed it hard against the swell of his crotch.
Faster, harder until at last he whimpered. “Oh, God, Jamie. Oh, God.” He buried his head in her neck, clinging to her.
“You’ll take me away?” Jamie asked in a whisper. “So we can be together?”
“Mmm.”
“For sure?”
“For sure.”
Chapter 27
Gordon wasn’t much of a drinker, and his mind was still clouded by the wine he’d had with dinner when Marta greeted him at the door, visibly agitated.
“Where have you been? It’s almost ten.”
“I had a working dinner, remember? I told you about it.” He hadn’t dared admit he was meeting Todd because he knew she’d have a fit. But Todd had been interested in hearing about his conference presentation, and besides, Gordon enjoyed the guy’s company.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Marta howled.
He’d expected her to be asleep, or at least in bed with a book. Instead, here she was practically yelling at him before he was even inside. “I’ve been calling you and calling you. Why do you even have a cell phone if you’re not going to answer it?”
“I turned it off during dinner. What’s wrong?” Clearly something was. Marta was not usually given to hysterics.
“Jamie’s gone.”
“What do you mean? Gone where?”
“I don’t know where, but she’s gone.”
Marta was obviously upset but Gordon was having trouble understanding what was wrong. “Have you tried calling her?”
“She doesn’t have her phone. I do.”
“Let’s take this from the top.” Gordon went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water, as much to give himself time to focus as to quench his thirst. “Tell me what happened.”
“I went to Jamie’s room to say goodnight, and she wasn’t there.”
“What time was this?”
“About nine. Her window was wide open and the screen was on the floor.”
Maybe Gordon had drunk more than he realized. “You think she climbed out the window? Why would she do that?”
“In order to sneak out without my knowing. Or maybe she didn’t go out the window, I don’t know. But she’s gone.”
“You’ve checked the rest of the house?”
“Why are you asking stupid questions. Of course I’ve checked the rest of the house!”
Gordon sat down at the table and unlaced his shoes. He’d worn his dress shoes this morning in anticipation of the dinner, and his feet were killing him.
“I must be missing something,” he said. “Why would Jamie climb out a second-floor window?”
“It’s only a floor and a half where her bedroom is, and it’s an easy drop to the porch overhang.”
“Still . . .”
Marta laced her fingers and flexed them several times before continuing. “We had a fight at dinner and she stormed off to her room.”
A fight. That made the picture a bit clearer, but still didn’t explain why Jamie would sneak off late at night. It wasn’t like they’d never fought before.
Marta lowered herself into the chair next to him and reached for his hand. “Gordon, I’m scared. I’m angry but I’m also really, really scared.”
“She’s probably at a friend’s house.” It wouldn’t be the first time she headed there after a fight with her mother.
Marta shook her head. “I called.”
“You can’t have called everyone she knows.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure she’s with Todd Wilson.”
“Todd?” Gordon looked at her in surprise. Had Marta lost her mind?
“I’m not making this up.” She withdrew her hands and folded them in her lap. “That’s what our fight was about. Jamie’s been seeing him.”
“Seeing Todd?”
“The ‘boy’ she’s been spending time with? It’s not Oliver Glick. It’s Todd.”
Gordon shook his head in disbelief. “You must be mistaken.” He’d just spent the evening with the guy. Jamie’s name hadn’t come up. Besides, it made no sense.
“No mistake. I saw the texts.” Marta got up, opened a kitchen drawer, and handed him Jamie’s cell phone. “Here, look for yourself.”
Gordon hesitated. No father wanted to imagine his daughter romantically involved with a guy, no matter who it was. But the notion that she was seeing Todd was outrageous. He reached for the phone and scanned the most recent exchanges.
He was stunned. It was true—Jamie and Todd, texting. Frequently. How did they even know each other? As far as Gordon was aware, they’d only met one time, the same night Gordon met Todd.
He scrolled down. The messages weren’t overtly sexy, but there was an implied intimacy that turned his stomach.
“They could just be friends,” he offered lamely.
“They’re more than that. Jamie confirmed it.”
“Confirmed what?”
“She claims she loves him.”
Love? Jamie wasn’t old enough to be in love.
“I told her it had to stop,” Marta added. “That we wouldn’t allow it. That’s when she stomped off to her room. And that’s why she snuck out.”
Gordon tried to envision Jamie with Todd. She’d always been so cautious, so obedient, and honest to a fault. She wasn’t a risk taker, and sadly not much of a dreamer, either. She took after him in that way. He couldn’t imagine her sneaking off in the middle of the night to be with a man twice her age.
And he couldn’t imagine Todd being interested in Jamie. “What makes you think she’s with Todd now?”
“Since I had her cell, she used the land line to call him. I checked outgoing numbers. The last one called was his. At a little before eight.”
Gordon recalled the call Todd had received over dessert. They’d met for an early dinner because Todd had to be someplace later that evening, but the call had seemed to catch him by surprise. He hadn’t taken it, but he�
��d listened to the message. Could it really have been Jamie? The timing worked. But why hadn’t Todd said something to him right then?
“We need to contact the police,” Marta said.
“The police?”
“She’s run away.”
“Or maybe just slipped out to see her”—Gordon choked—“him.”
“Todd’s an adult. We have to put a stop to this.”
“Absolutely. But there’s not much we can do until she comes home.” And then he was going to ground his daughter and have a serious, in-your-face talk with Todd. Jamie might have a foolish schoolgirl crush on the man, but Todd was old enough to know you didn’t encourage that sort of thing. Decent men did not prey on young girls.
“She’s not going to come home,” Marta insisted. “She packed clothes and other stuff.”
“Do we really want to involve the cops so soon?” Jamie would be furious.
Marta stomped to the phone. “I don’t see that we have a choice.”
The reality had been slow to sink in, but now hit Gordon with the force of a cannon. His baby girl had run away. She was gone.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I’ll get on the extension.” Jamie might have run to Todd, but he clearly hadn’t brought her straight back home. That was worrisome.
Marta made the call and explained what had happened. The police dispatcher was kind but not overly concerned. It wasn’t yet midnight, he pointed out. It wasn’t uncommon for teenagers to occasionally ignore parental rules. That Todd was older than Jamie caused the dispatcher to mutter disapproval but did not spur him to action.
At some level, Gordon felt vindicated. Marta was overreacting. On the other hand, her agitation was contagious. The call calmed neither of them.
“Let’s step back for a moment,” Gordon said when they were off the phone. “Maybe Jamie does have a crush on Todd. But why would a good-looking guy in his thirties be interested in our daughter?”
Marta shot him a pointed look. “You know why.”
“Todd’s not like that.”
“How the hell would you know?”
Guilt punched him in the gut. He’d continued to stay in touch with Todd when she’d specifically asked him not to. This was the moment to come clean, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Especially not now. Hell, he’d been sitting right there when Todd had taken his daughter’s call. He felt dirty, as if he was somehow complicit in her running away.
“Anyway, it’s more complicated than that.” Marta started to say something more, then stopped. She paced the length of the kitchen, then back again. Looking nervous and uncomfortable, she gripped the back of the chair. “I need to tell you something, Gordon. I want you to promise not to be angry.”
He waited while she took a couple of deep breaths.
“What I mean is, I know you’ll be angry, but please don’t shut me out. I couldn’t bear that. Not right now.”
“Why would I be angry?” Then, in a flash, Gordon had an inkling of what she might say. He hoped to God he was wrong, but feared he wasn’t.
*****
Gordon knew he would never sleep so he didn’t even try. Marta had offered him the bedroom but he insisted on taking the couch in the den. Now he lay awake, alone, staring at the ceiling and running the tape of his wife’s confession over in his mind.
She’d met Todd on her trip to Minneapolis. She had gone for a birthday drink and allowed Todd to join her. Somehow things had gotten out of hand.
“I promise it was just that one time,” she said, pleading for him to believe her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I’ve felt awful about it ever since.”
Gordon didn’t see how something like that could just happen. People made decisions. Acted on those decisions. They might regret them later—or they might not. But at the time, they chose freely.
And he didn’t see why Todd would be here in Sterling if there hadn’t been more to the night than Marta laid out. “Why would Todd follow you here if you didn’t do anything to encourage him?” he’d asked.
“I don’t know. I think he might be a little nuts.”
Gordon wasn’t buying it. Or maybe he was just hurt by his wife’s betrayal. It stung so much he had trouble breathing. His own duplicity in continuing to get together with Todd paled by comparison.
But he also felt like a real chump. He’d considered Todd a friend, and the guy had been screwing his wife. And in all likelihood, his daughter.
He turned to his side and looked at the clock. Three a.m. and Jamie still wasn’t home.
Was she actually with Todd? What if she wasn’t? That possibility frightened Gordon even more. Anything could happen to a girl wandering the streets alone at night.
Finally, he gave up the tossing and turning and stood by the window, hoping to see Jamie stealing home through the shadows.
The street remained empty, the night quiet except for a lone train whistle far off in the distance. Quietly, he climbed the stairs to Jamie’s room and opened the door. Please let her have come home without my hearing. Please let her be here.
When he first saw the lumpy form on Jamie’s bed his heart soared. But stepping closer, he realized it was Marta, not their daughter.
“This way I’ll know if she comes home,” Marta said flatly. “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”
“Me either.”
She rolled to face him. “I’m sorry, Gordon. So, so sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t change what happened.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It doesn’t excuse it either.”
“I know that.” She sat up, pulling the covers to her chin. “I can’t undo what I did. If I could, I would. You believe me, don’t you?”
“That’s not really the point, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
He turned toward the door. “Forget it. I’m not up to talking about this right now.”
“Please don’t hate me, Gordon. I need you. Especially now.”
He left the room without looking back.
*****
Marta couldn’t remember when she’d ever felt more afraid.
Or more alone.
She wondered again if she’d done the right thing in telling Gordon the truth. She’d intended to hold back. To tell him just enough so he’d understand Todd was unbalanced. That what was happening wasn’t about Jamie at all. But the words rushed from her mouth in an unbidden wave of anguish.
She’d only made things worse.
Chapter 28
They waited until eight the next morning, then called the police again. It was a different dispatcher this time—a woman—but she offered the same reassurances before taking their information and advising them that runaways weren’t a priority, particularly those who were approaching their eighteenth birthday.
“Two and a half million kids,” she told them. “That’s how many runaways there are each year. If we chased after them all, we’d never have time to go after the bad guys.”
The number was staggering but Marta refused to believe that Jamie was one of them. “What about an Amber alert? Aren’t they used for missing kids?”
“For abducted kids. And not even all of those. I suggest you check with her friends to see what they know. And call the runaway hotline.” She gave them the number. “Parents can sometimes do more to find a missing teen than the cops.”
“But—”
”She’s not armed, is she?” the dispatcher asked.
“No.”
“Or in danger?”
“Of course she’s in danger,” Marta said angrily. “She’s a seventeen-year-old with a man in his thirties.”
“But she went with him willingly?”
Marta reluctantly conceded that was the case. “Are you saying there’s nothing you can do?”
“We’ll add her to the list of missing kids and spread the word to neighboring jurisdictions. You’ll need to come to the station and file a report. Bring a recent photo and any contact in
formation you have for her friends.”
When the call ended, Marta looked bleakly at Gordon. “What are we going to do?”
She’d assumed that reporting Jamie missing would be a first step, a big step, in finding her and bringing her home. She’d thought the police would mobilize their resources and mount an all-out effort. She realized now how naive she’d been.
“We’re going to begin by filing a police report,” Gordon said. He appeared hollow-eyed and pasty, and had yet to meet her gaze directly.
She was sure Gordon hadn’t slept any better than she had. He was dealing with the double blow of a missing daughter and an unfaithful wife. Marta supposed that the torment of her regret and guilt didn’t hold a candle to that.
“I’d better call Carol to tell her I won’t be in today. And I’ll ask her for the name on Todd’s cell account.”
Gordon turned. “What do you mean?”
In her worry about Jamie, Marta had forgotten to tell him that Todd’s phone was registered to a sixty-four-year-old man by a different name. “Carol’s P.I. traced Todd’s cell account,” she explained. “It’s registered under a different name but I can’t remember what it is.”
Picking up her phone, she noticed she had unread texts. She hadn’t even checked since leaving work yesterday. What if Jamie had been trying to reach her?
Quickly, Marta scanned the list. No Jamie, but there was a message from Carol.
Very interesting discovery about our friend! Call me if you get a chance, otherwise I’ll explain in the morning. I may know more by then, anyway.
“Carol left a message,” she told Gordon. “She discovered something interesting about Todd. Maybe it will help us locate him.”
She punched in the number. When Carol didn’t answer she left a short message. “Hi, it’s me. I’ll try you on the office phone.”
Before she could end the call, Carol’s husband, Mark, picked up. “Marta, is that you?”
Okay, so maybe Carol wasn’t yet at work. Or maybe she’d left her cell phone at home by mistake. “It’s me, I’m trying to reach Carol.”
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