Missing

by Lynette Eason

  It wouldn’t stop them from looking, but he knew they were too late. Someone had grabbed her. Police cars had already started to arrive on the scene. Three pulled up in front of the homeless shelter.

  Lacey pointed. “The phone.”

  He didn’t tell her he’d already seen it. “Keep your eyes open. She may be hiding nearby.” He wanted to believe it…but didn’t.

  Lacey jumped out of the car the minute he pulled to a stop next to the curb. He didn’t bother to stop her. Whatever danger had been here had already claimed its victim today.

  Bethany.

  Daniel began issuing orders. “Question all the residents of the shelter. I’ll start with her, she’s a regular and pretty friendly with the cops.” He flagged a ragged-looking woman down and asked, “Helen, did you see anything over there by the pay phone?”

  “Like what?” She tilted her head and gave Mason and Lacey the once-over.

  “Like someone attacking a teenage girl and forcing her to go with them.”

  Helen shrugged. “Nope. Sorry. I just got here a minute ago.”

  “That’s about when this happened,” Lacey muttered.

  Daniel sighed and walked away. He spoke into his microphone and someone squawked an answer. Mason planted his hands on his hips and watched the action. Officers questioned suspects. The crime-scene unit finally arrived, and he grabbed Lacey’s hand to pull her next to him.

  He turned to speak to one of the officers. When he turned back around, she was gone.

  *

  Lacey watched Daniel disappear around the phone booth and decided to follow him. She knew she might get yelled at, but had to know if he’d found anything.

  Sidling up next to him and the other officer, she listened unashamedly.

  “…a syringe.”

  “Where?” Daniel asked.

  “On the ground, underneath the receiver. What did you get?”

  “Nothing of any importance, but we’ll check it out anyway.” With a gloved hand, Daniel shoved a multicolored piece of material into a brown paper bag and folded the top over.

  Lacey turned when Mason walked up beside her, his face a thundercloud. She looked at Daniel. “Is that syringe a clue?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll have the lab check it out.” He stuffed it into a paper bag and handed it to the tech standing nearby.

  Then he turned to Mason. “I called Catelyn and asked her to pull up every white Buick registered within a thirty-mile radius.”

  “Good.” Mason pulled Lacey to the side. “Lacey, I understand you’re anxious to find Bethany, but if you get in the way of the investigation, you could hinder it and that’s not going to help Bethany.”

  Guilt hit her. He was right. She was acting impulsively, her desperation to find Bethany short-circuiting her usual calm, rational thought. Biting her lip she looked at the ground. “I’m sorry.”

  A finger under her chin tilted her face up to look into his compassionate gaze. “I know. We just need to be careful, all right?”

  She nodded and he sighed, pulled her next to his chest and placed a kiss on her head. “We’re going to find her.”

  If the determination in his voice was anything to go by, they would have Bethany back in no time. Unfortunately, she had a hard time believing this.

  “But now someone has her. For real this time. She’s not just out there on the run able to come home any time she decides to.” Tears clogged her throat yet again and she swallowed hard.

  “Hey, Mason!” Daniel called.

  Mason turned and Lacey peered around him to see an officer escorting one of the residents of the shelter. A clean-cut young man in his early twenties. Lacey decided he looked rather out of place for a shelter resident, but she supposed they didn’t all have to look like ragged misfits.

  The officer, whose nametag read P. Hines, and the man stopped in front of them. The young man nodded and shoved his hands in his front pockets. Officer Hines said, “Troy here saw something. I’m going to let him describe it to you.”

  Troy shuffled his feet then shrugged. “I was heading out to look for a job and saw a girl near the pay phone over there. It looked like someone ran into her. She turned around to yell at the guy, then she dropped the phone and looked kind of sick. That’s when a woman approached her. The girl looped her arm around the woman’s neck and they walked off together.”

  Lacey’s questions burned holes in her mind, but she kept her mouth shut and let the professionals handle it. Mason asked, “Did you recognize the guy?”

  “No, he had his back to me and when the girl started yelling at him, he took off down the street.”

  Mason nodded. “All right, what about the woman and the girl. Did you see where they went?”

  Troy shook his head. “Naw, I wasn’t paying that much attention once I saw the girl had some help. I started walking down the sidewalk. Then I saw all the police cars headed this way and thought I’d turn around and come back to find out what was going on.”

  Lacey pulled in a deep breath, relief filling her. “She had help?”

  “Looked like it to me.” He shrugged.

  “Anything else you can remember?”

  “No, but, um—” he scratched his head “—seems like I remember seeing Billy Rose around. You might ask him if he saw anything.”

  “Thanks,” Mason nodded. “We’ll do that.”

  Daniel looked confused, troubled. Lacey looked at him.

  “What is it?”

  He jerked. “Nothing. Just thinking.” He looked at Troy. “You said she looked sick.” Troy nodded. Daniel looked at Mason. “We found a syringe.”

  “You think she was drugged.”

  “It’s possible. The syringe certainly indicates that.”

  “And this woman just came out of nowhere to help her,” Mason said flatly.

  Daniel shook his head. “I don’t buy it.” He held two bags, one that contained the piece of material he’d found and the other the syringe. “I’ll get these to the lab and beg for a rush on the contents of the syringe.”

  “But if the person in the white car got out, Bethany would have run. Instead, she stayed on the phone, watching the car. Then she said ‘ouch.’” Lacey frowned, trying to work through a possible scenario of what had happened. She had to. Dwelling on the fact that she’d once again lost Bethany was killing her.

  Mason rubbed his lips and nodded. “I agree. So the person who jabbed her with the syringe didn’t expect help to come along. Whoever the woman was that helped Bethany probably saved her life. Now we just have to find out who the woman is.”

  “Who hates me so much?” Lacey whispered. “And—” she lifted her hands, palms up “—why?”

  Daniel pursed his lips and looked at her. “You’ve really made an enemy in this town. Anyone in particular come to mind?”

  “Just you,” she blurted, then spun on her heel and stomped to the car.

  *

  Surprise slugged Mason like a baseball bat to the gut. As soon as the words left her mouth, he could tell she regretted them.

  But they made him think.

  Shooting Daniel a look, he said, “I’ll be in touch. Let me know what you find out about the syringe and the white Buick, will you?”

  Daniel’s jaw looked tight enough to shatter, but he managed to mutter, “Sure.”

  Mason caught up with Lacey at the car. She had her elbows resting on the hood with her face buried in her hands. Praying? Probably. “Are you all right?”

  “No. I shouldn’t have said that to Daniel. I owe him an apology,” she mumbled into her palms. “I’m very ashamed of myself right now.”

  He sighed. “Do you really think Daniel would do the things that have happened to you?”

  She looked up, eyes weary. He thought if he could see her soul, even it would look tired. She gave a tiny shrug. “I don’t know. He’s the only one I can think of that might be threatened by my return to town.”

  “Why would you coming back here be a threat to him?”


  Biting her lip, she looked away for a brief moment, then back. Straightening her shoulders, she said, “Because only two people know the truth about that day you found us together. One person wants the world to know that story. The other doesn’t.”

  Skepticism found its way into his mind and by the look on her face, he didn’t hide it very well.

  She waved a hand and gave a humorless laugh. “Why do I keep trying?”

  “Lacey, I’m sorry. Daniel has been nothing but a friend to me. He was there in elementary school with me the day my mom left. He was the only one who understood because his mom left, too. We had a bond that—” He shrugged. “I can’t really explain it.”

  She’d known Daniel’s mother had left shortly before Mason’s had, but hadn’t realized that had been the reason they’d become fast friends. No wonder Mason had such loyalty to the man. Loyalty to a man who’d once been a teenager who had betrayed his friend. Too bad Daniel didn’t feel the same way about Mason that Mason did about him.

  But how did she convince Mason of this? Part of her wondered why she even had to convince him. Why did it matter if he believed her or not?

  The only answer she could come up with was because she cared. Because she’d never stopped loving him and wanted another chance with him.

  Her heart squeezed. Oh, Lord, don’t let me get hurt again. And open his eyes to the truth. I think only You can do that now.

  “Then I’m not going to try to convince you.”

  “Lacey…”

  “What’s next?”

  He sighed. To her frustration—and relief—he let it drop. She’d just have to continue to earn his trust. Show him she would never be like his mother. And pray. Pray that God revealed the truth to him and opened his eyes.

  He reached over and opened the passenger door. “All right, let’s go. I’ll take you home. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

  Lacey looked back the pay phone. Her last connection with Bethany. She was loathe to leave it, but deep down she knew Bethany wasn’t coming back here.

  She climbed in and Mason shut the door with a snap.

  When he crawled in the driver’s side, Lacey firmed her jaw and took a deep breath. “Okay, I know I said I wasn’t going to try to convince you that I’m telling the truth and Daniel is lying through his teeth. I really wasn’t planning on getting into this, but I want you to hear the whole story. I’ve protested my innocence until I’m blue in the face. If you choose not to believe me, so be it. But here’s the truth whether you want to hear it or not.”

  Surprise lifted his brow and he did a double take. She blundered on. “That day, I was going to wait for you after school like I always did. On that bench under the tree behind the gym. That day you told me you’d be running a little late and had to meet with your calculus teacher. Remember?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I do. I’d missed a test because of the flu and had to schedule a time to make it up.”

  “So I took my time getting there. When I arrived, Daniel was already there.”

  A frown flitted across his forehead, but at least he was listening.

  “He knew I was waiting for you because he said ‘Looks like we have a little time to talk before Mason gets here.’”

  “Talk about what?”

  “I don’t even remember now. He patted the seat beside him, I do remember that. So we talked a bit, then all of a sudden he said he had something in his eye and asked me if I would look at it.”

  Mason scoffed, but without heat. “That’s the oldest trick in the book. You fell for that?”

  She felt the flush creep up. “I wasn’t thinking anything except he looked like he had something in his eye. Up to that point, he didn’t act like he was hitting on me or anything. I leaned over. He kept leaning farther back. Then all of a sudden, I felt him tug on me and I lost my balance. I landed practically on top of him and he started kissing me. When I tried to pull away, he held me down. And then you were there.”

  Silence filled the car. Then she whispered. “You can believe me or not, but that’s the truth.”

  “But why?”

  His cry nearly ripped her heart in two.

  “Because he was jealous of you. He wanted to drive us apart. And he knew the one thing that would do it.” She gulped. She had to tell him all of it. “He saw you coming and said, ‘If I can’t have you, Mason sure isn’t going to.’” A tear dripped off her chin.

  *

  Mason felt the anguish fill him.

  She wasn’t lying to him.

  After spending the last couple of days together, he’d seen a lot of what she was experiencing go across her face to land in her eyes. Deceit wasn’t one of the things revealed there.

  It took him a moment to process that he’d believed a lie all these years. He stared at her. Blinked. “I believe you.”

  He’d shocked her into silent stillness.

  Reaching across the car, he took her hand. “I believe you.”

  Still, she simply stared at him. Her mouth worked and nothing came out. Finally, she squeaked, “You do? Why?”

  “Why?” He gave a choked laugh. “Because I’m looking at you and thinking I know you so well and I remember who you were. I see who you’ve become and you’re not lying—I believe you.”

  A whimper escaped her. Then tears welled and began to roll down her cheeks. “Really?”

  “Really. And I’m sorry,” he whispered back, feeling his own throat go tight. “I’m so very sorry.”

  She nodded and swiped her cheeks. Leaning over, he placed a hand behind her head and pulled her in to close his lips over hers. A soft sigh escaped her and she didn’t resist. Gratitude filled him. He meant the kiss to reassure her, to be a promise, to renew hope that they could still have a life together. Please, God.

  His heart smiled at the short prayer.

  When he pulled back, he zeroed in on her flushed cheeks and soft eyes. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. A lot to plan. But first…”

  “…we find our daughter,” she finished.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. His heart beat with unrestrained love for this amazing woman. Regret and anger pierced him as he thought about the lost years, but he pushed them aside with determined force. Nothing was going to dampen what was building at lightning speed between him and Lacey.

  After one last lingering kiss, he gave her soft cheek a gentle stroke. When he turned back to crank the car, emotion blindsided him. Pulling in a deep, steadying breath, he said, “Right. We find our daughter.” Then his jaw hardened. “And I have a heart-to-heart with Daniel Ackerman.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mason dropped her off at home and left. She chewed the inside of her lip as she watched him drive away. And frowned.

  She waved to the unmarked car sitting on the curb. Mason had called in a friend of his. Another marshal giving up her day off to keep an eye on things at Lacey’s house.

  Her heart clenched with gratitude. She was very blessed in spite of her daughter’s disappearance. She just had to keep reminding herself of this fact.

  Entering the house, she found her parents in the den watching the news. Probably hoping to hear Bethany had been found.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  Her father looked up, his lined face seemed to have a acquired a few more wrinkles just in the short amount of time Bethany had been missing. “Anything?”

  “We thought we had caught her, but—” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I’m not sure what to think. It seems she was attacked, then rescued by a woman. But we still don’t know where she is!” Tears filled her eyes and this time she couldn’t hold them back.

  Sinking onto the sofa next to her mother, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Warm arms enfolded her and she let her mother hold her as they shared their common fear in a flood of tears.

  A hand covered the back of her head and soft whispers finally reached her ears.

  Her father was praying.

  But would God hear t
his man? She thought He might now. In the short time she’d been home, he’d proven to be a different person than the one she grew up with. Her mother had told her he was, and Lacey had to admit she had seen a huge difference in the man ever since they’d moved in.

  She looked up and palmed the tears from her cheeks. Her mother did the same, and her father returned to his recliner, leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  But his lips still moved. Her heart breaking at their anguish, she sighed and headed for the kitchen.

  Her mother hurried after her, wiping her own tears on a tissue magically produced from one of her pockets. “What is it, Lacey? What are you not telling us?”

  Lacey pulled the milk from the fridge and the cocoa, sugar and other items from the cabinet. “Want some hot chocolate?” So what if it was eighty-five degrees outside. She felt chilled from the inside out.

  Her mother watched her, sighed and pulled two mugs from the cupboard. “Sure, that would be lovely.”

  “Bethany loves this stuff,” Lacey murmured. “She always has. I never could fool her when I fixed the package mix. She would always shake her head and say I fixed her the fake chocolate and she wanted the real deal.”

  “She’s turned into a wonderful girl, Lacey,” her mother said softly. “You’ve done a magnificent job. And all by yourself, too.”

  Lacey watched her mom purse her lips and blink back tears. “Well, I did have a little help. God placed some amazing people in my path along the way.”

  She wondered whether or not to broach the question she’d wanted to ask for years. Then went for it. “What did the congregation say when I basically disappeared that summer, never to be seen from again?”

  Her mother drew in a deep breath. “Oh, my. That was one of the hardest summers of my life.”

  Surprised, Lacey froze then turned to look at her. “Why?”

  “Why?” Her mother gave an incredulous laugh that held no humor. “Because I had to send my baby girl away.” Tears filled her eyes and she looked away. “I didn’t want to but your father convinced me it was for the best.”

  “He had an image to maintain,” Lacey said angrily. She couldn’t help it. The words came out wrapped in hurt and bitterness.