Little Girl Lost (Georgiana Germaine Book 1)

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Little Girl Lost (Georgiana Germaine Book 1) Page 16

by Cheryl Bradshaw


  I raced toward the Jeep, dismayed to find my front tires had been slashed. I slammed my fists onto the hood, again and again and again. I screamed every obscene word that came to mind while reprimanding myself at the same time. I’d had the chance to capture him, and I’d blown it—big time.

  Out of options, I called the police station. I hadn’t gotten close enough to make out the license plate, but I offered what I believed were the color, make, and model of the truck. Ego broken and my body bruised, I made another call to Harvey, and then I leaned against the Jeep and waited. All I could do now was hope my comrades would find him and succeed where I had failed.

  It was a blustery, rainy day, the kind of day when the sky ripped open and poured down the feelings I’d kept bottled up inside. The police had searched all night for the man who’d attacked me, scanning the streets of Cambria and its neighboring towns until dawn, but somehow he’d managed to elude us all.

  After a restless night and less than two hours of sleep, I woke up feeling drab. A drab inside called for a drab outside, so I dressed in a pair of black, high-waisted, pinstripe suspender pants, a black sleeveless shirt, and black oxford heels.

  I’d beaten myself up most of the night for allowing the killer to escape. It was time to work.

  First on the agenda was a phone call to Lance Woods, Polly’s nurse. He said he hadn’t been to Polly’s house the day her husband died. He’d felt ill and had called Andy to say he shouldn’t come to work. Andy agreed and said he planned to cancel his afternoon appointments. Andy’s phone records confirmed he’d received a call from Lance just after one in the afternoon, which lasted two minutes. And since Andy hadn’t canceled our meeting, Silas was able to get a much more accurate time of death.

  While Luka scarfed up his dog food, I grabbed a manila envelope. It contained the crime scene photos that had been taken the night of Jack’s murder. I’d gone over them before and decided I’d do it once again before I headed out. I flipped through them, studying all aspects of each picture.

  Jack had been shot through a thin, dark jacket he’d been wearing. In the photos, the jacket was still wet from him falling into the pool, and it was also stained with blood. Close to the bullet’s entry point, I noticed something I hadn’t before—what appeared to be a small, metal, circular pin. Jack never even wore cufflinks, so the pin was out of place.

  I pulled open my side drawer and looked for the pair of bifocals I’d started wearing at night when I read. They weren’t there. I slid over to the other side of the bed and reached for the other drawer when a rustling sound outside caused Luka’s ears to perk up. He walked to the door and sat in front of it, ready to defend me from the disturbance on the other side.

  I was about to go for my gun, when my sister called my name.

  I hopped off the bed and opened the door.

  She offered me a sandwich inside of a plastic baggie and said, “Here. Mom made it for you.”

  I dangled the bag in front of me, inspecting its contents. “What is it?”

  “A sandwich.”

  “I know it’s a sandwich, Phoebe. What kind?”

  “Egg salad. What else?”

  It was the first time she’d been sarcastic since I’d returned, and for a moment, I saw a glimpse of my sister again. I’d already eaten an hour before, so I popped the sandwich into the refrigerator for later.

  “Tell Mom I said thanks.”

  She nodded and scanned the interior of my place. “I never thought I’d say this, but for the first time, you’re the messy one in the family, not me.”

  “I’ve been busy, too busy to worry about the clothes I need to put away.”

  “And dishes, and shoes, and—”

  “Point taken,” I said. “Want to sit down?”

  She searched for an empty space on the sofa. There wasn’t one. I grabbed an armful of clothes and tossed them onto the bed.

  “There,” I said. “You want a drink?”

  “Sure. Do you have any white wine?”

  “It’s nine o’clock in the morning.”

  “So what? You offered.”

  “I don’t have any white wine.”

  “Pinot noir, then.”

  I shook my head. “I have a bottle Tasha gave to me. It’s shiraz, though.”

  She turned up her nose.

  “Okay, no shiraz,” I said. “What about orange juice?”

  She ran a hand through her hair and said, “You’ve changed.”

  I sat beside her. “I still drink wine. I just haven’t for a while.”

  “I heard you had a tough night.”

  I figured it was the reason she was here.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I had him, Phoebe. We were in the same room together, and I let him get away.”

  “You didn’t let him get away. He ran away, and you shot him.”

  “Not where I should have. I kept thinking—I could kill this guy, right here, right now. But if I do, how will I ever find Lark? So, I didn’t, and now I wish I had.”

  Phoebe fidgeted with a lock of her hair, winding it around her finger, letting it go, and then winding it back up again. “What’s he like, the guy who took her?”

  “It was dark. I didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “You talked to him, though, didn’t you?”

  “For a few minutes. I got the feeling he was trying to disguise his voice, his real voice.”

  “Why? Do you think you might know him?”

  “No,” I said. “I think he was trying to sound tough so I wouldn’t know he was nervous.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me anything about Lark or why he killed Jack. He just said Jack had been curious and alluded to the fact that Jack’s curiosity got him killed.”

  “Huh. Jack never seemed curious to me.”

  “He hired a private investigator,” I said. “He was curious about something.”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about why he didn’t tell me.”

  “Perhaps it was for the same reason you didn’t reveal you had a stalker.”

  “I wish I could go back before this all happened and be straight with him. I should have told him from the start.”

  “Think about Jack’s behavior over the last few weeks,” I said. “Are you sure you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?”

  She shrugged. “I hate to admit it, but between the changes at work and the stalker, I’d been preoccupied. He could have dyed his hair a different color, and I may not have noticed. I know what you’re thinking ... in the end, I was a horrible wife. And you’re right.”

  “You were a good wife, Phoebe. We all check out sometimes. We’re human. It’s what humans do. I know you loved him.”

  “What will you do now? How will you find him?”

  I wasn’t sure.

  I’d been asking myself the same question all morning.

  “I’m going to stop by your house today,” I said.

  “Why? They’ve collected everything they thought was evidence already.”

  “Sometimes the smallest thing appears to be nothing and turns out to be the key to everything. Speaking of small things, I want to show you something.”

  I walked to the bedroom, grabbed the photo I’d been looking at before she arrived, and pressed it to my chest so she couldn’t see it.

  “Before I show you this, I want to make sure you don’t mind looking at it,” I said. “I know it will be hard.”

  “Why? What is it?”

  “It’s a photo of Jack.”

  “Oh, from the night he died?”

  I nodded. “I can cover most of it up and just show you the part I’m wondering about.”

  “Can you just tell me? I don’t ... I mean, I want to help, but I don’t want to see it.”

  “All right. It looks like a small pin he’d placed on his jacket.”

  “What do you mean—a pin?”

  “
Like the kind you get when you’re a member of a club or an organization. Would he have received something like that as a doctor?”

  “I don’t think so, and if he had, he’d never wear it. He hated jewelry. He wouldn’t even wear his wedding ring most of the time.”

  “All right, well, I just thought I’d ask.”

  She held out her hand. “Just ... go on and give it to me.”

  “It’s okay, Phoebe. I can get his jacket out of the evidence locker. It was insensitive of me to ask you to look at it.”

  “Give it here,” she said. “I can handle it. I mean, I’m not sure I can, but I’d like to try for Lark’s sake.”

  She snatched the photo out of my hand, flipped it around, and gasped. I tried taking it away from her, and she jerked it back.

  “Give me a minute, sis,” she said. “All right?”

  “Okay.”

  She placed the photo on her lap, stared at it for a time, and ran a finger across Jack’s face. She looked like she was about to cry, but she didn’t.

  “Where’s the pin you’re talking about?” she said. “I don’t see it.”

  I leaned forward and pointed it out.

  She furrowed her brow and looked closer. “I have no idea what it is. Couldn’t it have come with the jacket? I mean, maybe it’s the emblem of the brand of jacket he was wearing.”

  “Jack always dressed in Adidas when he wasn’t at work, which is what he was wearing in this photo. You can see their trefoil logo on the upper left side. They don’t have metal pins.”

  She shrugged and handed the photo back to me. “I have no idea what it is. Maybe it’s a weird glare from the camera or something.”

  Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t.

  I needed to be sure.

  Phoebe dropped me off at a storage unit I’d rented a couple of years before, right after my breakup with Liam. I removed the padlock, lifted the garage door, took the cover off the car, and stood back, inspecting my antique beauty. The tires looked good, and the car was remarkably clean for the length of time I’d neglected it, but a million-dollar question remained ... Would it start?

  The first few times I tried it sputtered and spit like a rebellious child cross with me for not giving it enough attention. It made sense. The car was in its eighties. I’d abandoned it. I hadn’t kept up on its maintenance. It was one more nail in my coffin of guilt.

  On the fourth attempt to fire it up, it hesitated and then growled back to life. I glanced at the time. I needed to get moving. But the car needed some TLC before it became my daily driver again. I drove it to the same repair place my Jeep had been towed to the night before, a shop I’d trusted for years. My timing was perfect. The Jeep had just been outfitted with new tires. I swapped one vehicle for the other and set off to make up for lost time.

  An hour later, I tossed a tiny plastic bag onto a desk, pointed at it, and said, “What kind of pin do you think this is?”

  Silas gloved up, removed the pin from the bag, and raised a brow. We exchanged glances, and he rubbed his fingers down his jawline, thinking.

  “I mean, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s worn, for starters. Whatever it was when it was first made, it’s become something different now. What kind of pin do you think it is?”

  “The symbol in the center almost looks like a rolled-up newspaper,” I said, “but the metal is tarnished. It’ll be hard to tell unless we get it polished.”

  “I have a better idea.”

  I followed Silas over to a microscope. He stuck the pin underneath it and took a look.

  “See anything?” I asked.

  “Yeah, see for yourself.”

  I bent down and peered through the magnifying lens. “It’s not a rolled-up newspaper. It’s a scroll with what looks to be a quill in front of it.”

  “I agree. Where’d you get it?”

  “On Jack’s jacket, the one he was wearing the night he was murdered. When you looked everything over, you missed this.”

  He swallowed—hard. “I ... uhh, can’t believe ... I don’t know how I— I mean, I kinda remember seeing it on the jacket, but I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t see how it could be tied to his murder.”

  The difference between assumption and being thorough was a slippery slope, one he’d just slipped all the way down. It wasn’t like him to make such an amateur mistake, but we were all guilty of them from time to time.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I said. “I should have noticed it too.”

  “Why’s it so important?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t. I noticed it this morning in one of the crime scene photos, and I pointed it out to Phoebe. Jack wasn’t into jewelry. She said he wouldn’t have worn it.”

  It was a longshot to think something so insignificant could be the catalyst that would lead to the killer’s undoing, but I was willing to follow any leads at this point. And if Jack didn’t wear jewelry, why had he worn it that night?

  There was one person I still hadn’t interviewed yet—the elusive Mitch Porter. Today he’d have an audience with me whether he liked it or not. I pulled into Phoebe’s driveway, parked, and walked across the street. Holly Porter saw me coming, waved at me through her front window, and met me at the door.

  “I need to speak to Mitch,” I said.

  “Good morning to you too,” she said.

  “Is he here?”

  “Not right now.”

  “He does live here, right? Because he never seems to be home.”

  “Of course, he lives here,” she said. “He’s just a busybody, and he’s always running around. He likes to keep active.”

  “If it’s easier for me to go to him, I can. Is he at work?”

  She shook her head. “He popped out to the store for me. I was getting ready to make cookies, and wouldn’t you know it, I realized I was out of butter. Well, not all the way out. I had a quarter cup, and I needed a half a cup, and he said he’d run out and get some for me, and—”

  Please, woman.

  Stop rambling about things no one else cares about.

  I was starting to think she yammered just to hear the sound of her own voice.

  “When do you expect him back?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Fifteen minutes or so, if he comes straight back, that is. You all right, honey? You don’t look good.”

  No, I wasn’t all right.

  I was frustrated and worried and stressed.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  She raised a brow. “Mmm ... are you, though? You know, my mother came for a visit a couple of months ago. She struggles with anxiety and a bit of depression from time to time. Anyhoo, she left behind a bottle of herbal anxiety pills, and ... well, I’ve never struggled with any of those things, and please don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t mean to offend, but it just seems to me like you are. I’d be happy to give you the bottle if you’d like.”

  I didn’t know whether to thank her or deck her in her annoying, exuberant face.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m good.”

  “Suit yourself. If you change your mind, they’ll be here.”

  A tender, young voice said, “Mommy?”

  Holly turned. “Come here, Ethan. Say hello to Mommy’s friend.”

  Ethan crept up and stood behind Holly, hiding part of his face behind her dress.

  “Hi, Ethan,” I said. “How are you doing today?”

  He poked his head around her dress and blinked at me but said nothing.

  “Don’t be shy,” Holly said. “She’s nice. She’s going to find Lark and bring her back so you can play with her again.”

  Great job, Holly.

  Make promises you have no idea if you or I can keep.

  Ethan looked at Holly. “Can I have a fruit snack?”

  “You’ve already had one today, honey.”

  “Pleeeeease,” Ethan said.

  “It depends. What do you want more, fruit snacks or cookies? Because when Daddy gets home, I’ll finish maki
ng the cookies, and you can’t have both.”

  I was shocked. I didn’t see her as a strict parent.

  Ethan whined in dissatisfaction and sauntered back down the hallway, resigned to wait for the cookies she’d promised.

  Once he was out of earshot, Holly said, “It’s my fault, you know.”

  “What’s your fault?” I asked.

  “Ever since Lark’s been missing, I’ve been spoiling him. He’s having a hard time dealing with what happened to her. He has nightmares every night now, and he’s started wetting the bed, which he’s never done. He thinks since someone took her, they’ll come back and take him. Before it happened, he was an outgoing, rambunctious kid. Now he’s timid, afraid of his own shadow.”

  We internalized so much as adults, it was easy to forget what a child might be experiencing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t imagine what Ethan must be going through.”

  “Lark was his best friend. The first day he met her, he told me when they grew up, they were going to get married. It was the sweetest thing he’d ever said. I pray for her every night. I just know you’ll find her.”

  She had the kind of faith in me I should have had in myself but didn’t.

  “I need to head to Phoebe’s house for a bit,” I said. “I’ll hang around there until Mitch gets home. Will you send him over when he gets back?”

  She nodded. “You bet.”

  I crossed the street feeling an overwhelming rush of emotions. The weight of all those counting on me kept piling higher and higher. It had been too long. I needed to catch a break soon.

  I entered Phoebe’s house and tried to resist approaching the wall in the living room that Phoebe called “the wall of photos.” I couldn’t resist. Her hobby had always been taking photos of those she loved, framing them, and adding them to various walls in her home.

 

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