Without a Trace

by Amanda Stevens

  “I talked to Jackson a few hours ago,” she said. “He’s on his way home. Fair warning—he’ll be loaded for bear.”

  “A man’s daughter goes missing, he has a right to be angry and scared.”

  “That’s generous of you.”

  He gave her an inscrutable glance before he went back to his search. “You think I don’t have compassion for what he’s going through? You think my dad didn’t have compassion for what your dad went through? It was a bad time for all of us,” he said. “But your family suffered the most. No one in my family was unaware of that.”

  His words hit her like a physical punch. “I promised myself I wouldn’t talk about that night. I wouldn’t even think about it. This is a different time. Different girl, different situation. But what that man said last night.” She paused with a shudder. “Do you think it’s possible Preacher has come back?”

  “I’m not even sure there ever was a Preacher,” Tom said. “Silas Creed was a troubled man. Preacher was a fairy tale. A made-up bogeyman to keep kids away from the Ruins.”

  “For all the good that did. If he didn’t take Riley and Jenna Malloy, then why did he leave town after they went missing? No one ever saw him after that night.”

  “My dad always figured Creed had someone in the area who helped him disappear. A relative, maybe. They probably knew he’d get blamed and felt sorry for him. Or maybe he really did take those girls. All I know is that whoever split open my skull that night had enough strength to drag me out of the Ruins and roll my body down the embankment.”

  “You were lucky you weren’t killed,” Rae said.

  “You don’t have to tell me how lucky I am. My sister, too. If I could go back and change the outcome—”

  Rae turned away abruptly. She didn’t want to hear Tom Brannon’s regrets. She had enough of her own at the moment. “Why would Marty Booker say Preacher took Sophie if he didn’t?”

  “Marty Booker is also a troubled man,” Tom said. “The description he gave of the abductor matched the face on the ceiling in the Ruins. He’s confused at best. I’m not sure he even knows what he saw. His sister is coming in later to pick him up. Maybe she can get more out of him.”

  “You’re just going to let him go?”

  “For now. But don’t worry. We’ll keep an eye on him.”

  Rae dropped to the edge of the bed. “I wish there was more that I could do to find her. I feel like I should be out there beating the bushes with your deputies.”

  “Let them do their job right now. You’re doing everything you can. Just try to relax.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “I know that.” He leaned in to examine the photos taped to the mirror. “Does Sophie keep a diary or journal?”

  Rae traced a pattern on the bedspread. “I have no idea. But kids keep all that stuff online these days. Their whole lives are spread out all over social media. I can’t even keep up with all the platforms.”

  “Do you know if she has accounts under different names?”

  “No. But it wouldn’t be unusual if she did. I have different accounts for business and personal use.” Rae tracked him for a moment as he glanced behind the mirror and then tested the floorboards. “What are you doing?”

  “Teenagers create hiding places for things they don’t want others to find,” he said.

  “Sophie’s been living under my roof for less than three weeks. You think she already ripped up the floorboards?”

  “She had time to redecorate, didn’t she? Kids her age are resourceful. I’ve seen it all.”

  Restless, Rae stood and walked over to the window to stare down at the garden. Despite the heat of late summer, the roses were still in bloom. She could almost smell the lush scent through the double-pane glass. She’d gotten her start from her mother’s prized bushes, everything from American Beauties to Winter Sunsets. Rae didn’t have her mother’s green thumb. She was lucky to get a few decent blooms per season, but she was too stubborn to give up on the garden.

  She said without turning, “Tell me about that night.”

  He didn’t bother pretending to misunderstand. “You said you didn’t want to talk about it or even think about it.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if we focused on Sophie instead?” He sounded tired. And wary. Rae could hardly blame him, given their past.

  She turned and leaned a shoulder against the window frame. “We are focusing on Sophie. I know it’s a long shot to think the disappearances could be connected, but what if they are? What if Preacher really has come back to town? Anyway, I’d like to hear your version of that night.”

  He lifted a brow. “My version?”

  She rested her head against the frame. “Your story. Your account. Call it whatever you like. I know you’ve told it before. Dozens of times, I’m sure, but I don’t think I ever really listened. Why did you go out that night? Why did you leave the girls alone when you promised your folks you’d look after them?” She tried to keep her tone neutral, but a hint of accusation crept in. Just tell me why.

  She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had refused to answer, but he said in a resolved voice, “I drove out to that party to see a girl.”

  “Who?”

  “Ashley Reardon. Do you remember her?”

  Rae straightened from the window, conjuring the image of a pretty blonde cheerleader. “Ashley? Yes, I remember her. I never knew the two of you went out.”

  “We didn’t. We were just starting to notice each other. After everything that happened that night...” He trailed away. “Whatever we had or could have had fizzled.”

  A lot of things had fizzled after that night. The world as Rae knew it had never been the same. She didn’t know if Tom’s candor made her feel better or worse. For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted to punish Tom Brannon and his family for failing to protect her sister. His sister had come home, after all. But how could she keep blaming Tom when she was the one who had really failed Riley? She was the one who was supposed to look out for her little sister. And now her niece had gone missing on Rae’s watch. Payback had never tasted so bitter. Guilt had never felt darker or heavier than the curtain of regret that descended upon her shoulders.

  “Ashley called that night and wanted to see me,” Tom said. “I didn’t want to say no, so I drove out to the party. We only talked for a few minutes. I was away from the house less than an hour, but when I got back, the girls were gone.”

  “How did you know where to look for them?”

  “I called around and badgered my sister’s friends until one of them told me about the dare. I drove straight to the bridge and ran all the way to the Ruins. By the time I got there, I was in a cold sweat. I knew that I would be in trouble if my parents found out, but I didn’t care about the punishment. I had a bad feeling something was wrong the moment I set foot in that place.”

  Rae shivered. “And then you were ambushed.”

  “Another stupid mistake. I let down my guard.”

  “You were sixteen.”

  Their gazes connected for a moment before he glanced away. “Nearly seventeen. And I was old enough to know better.”

  “Then what does that say about me? I was asleep when Sophie left the house. I didn’t hear anything. I knew she had something on her mind when she came home earlier, but instead of trying to talk to her, I took the easy way out.”

  “You couldn’t have known she’d leave the house.”

  “Neither could you.”

  Tom looked taken aback, but he couldn’t have been any more stunned by her defense of him than she was. He’d been her enemy for fifteen years. A target for all her anguish and guilt. So why did she now feel the need to understand him? Why the desire to reach out to him, to draw comfort from his strength and resolve? Why did she wonder, all of a sudden, what it would b
e like to have his arms around her, holding her close as he murmured in her ear that all would be well?

  She was just tired and worried and scared. She wasn’t thinking straight. Hugging her arms around her middle, she looked anywhere but into Tom Brannon’s troubled gray eyes.

  He stirred restlessly. “I’m done in here.”

  Yes, so was Rae. She needed to be alone to regroup. Everything seemed strangely tilted in Sophie’s room, as if the lingering emotions and confusion of a teenager had somehow infected Rae’s common sense.

  She led Tom back into the hallway and then turned to close the door. He was already at the top of the stairs when her phone rang. She fished her cell out of her jeans pocket and lifted it anxiously to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Rae, it’s Dad. Don’t say a word. Just listen. Something’s happened. I need you to drop everything and get out to the ranch as quick as you can.”

  Chapter Four

  Rae clutched the phone. “Dad? What’s going on?”

  He paused for so long she thought he might have hung up. “Are you alone?”

  She glanced at Tom, who waited on the landing.

  “Sheriff Brannon is here,” she tried to say without inflection.

  Her father muttered an oath. “Get rid of him.”

  “He was just leaving. He came to search Sophie’s room. No, we didn’t find anything. Not yet.” She shot Tom another look. “Try not to worry. I’ll drive out as soon as I can.”

  “Get out here now.” West Cavanaugh hung up without another word.

  Tom watched her carefully. “Everything okay?”

  She slipped the phone back into her pocket. “My father is having a difficult time, as you can imagine. Sophie’s disappearance is bringing back a lot of painful memories. I need to go out to the ranch and be with him.”

  “I’d like to talk to him,” Tom said. “To Jackson and his wife, too, as soon as they get back in town. Maybe I should drive out to the ranch with you.”

  Rae bit her lip. “Would you mind waiting until I have a chance to calm him down? I can usually get through to him if there aren’t any distractions. He hasn’t been in the best of health lately. He had a mild heart attack last winter.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Tom turned back to the stairs. “Are you sure everything is okay? Nothing else you want to talk to me about?”

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Rae said. “I’m well aware that our best chance of getting Sophie back unharmed is to cooperate fully with your office.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  They were in the foyer now, standing face-to-face. Tom stared down at her for the longest moment. He probably sensed something was up. Rae had never been that great of a poker player, but she couldn’t exactly fill him in when she had no idea why her father had called. She resisted the urge to check the time on her phone. She needed to get out to the ranch. She needed to be there for her family. But Tom lingered.

  “If you think of anything or hear of anything—”

  “I’ll call,” she said as she reached around him to open the door and then ushered him onto the porch. “You have my word.”

  Trailing him down the steps, she stood on the sidewalk and gave him a brief wave as he backed out of her driveway. She waited until his vehicle had disappeared around a corner before rushing back inside to grab her purse and car keys. Then she backed out of the garage, glanced both ways and laid down rubber as she wheeled into the street.

  Fifteen minutes later, she pulled through the gateway arch that led to the Cavanaugh ranch. Speeding along the curving lane, she was oblivious to the pine trees and honeysuckle thickets that crowded the shoulder. Even with the sun shining down through the bowers, a perpetual gloom hovered, but she was used to all those shadows. She made the last corner and the trees thinned, allowing an expansive view of the rolling countryside. Light glinted off the pond where a mother duck and her babies skimmed across the surface and a heron fished in the shallows. In the distance, black cattle grazed peacefully against a backdrop of robin’s egg blue.

  The pastoral scene seemed obscenely incongruent with Sophie’s disappearance, but the sight of the sprawling limestone-and-cedar house never failed to comfort Rae. Her happiest moments had been spent on the ranch. She and Jackson and Riley riding horses on a frosty evening. Coming home to a crackling fire and the smell of baking bread and their mother’s soft laughter as she bustled about the kitchen. Their father sipping whiskey in his recliner, a dog at his feet and a cat curled up on the hearth. Summers were even better. Waterskiing on the lake. Tubing on the river. Lounging on the back porch as thunderheads rolled in from the east.

  After Rae’s mother died, everything had gone to hell. Her father had eventually remarried and then divorced, Riley had disappeared and Rae and Jackson had grown so far apart she sometimes wondered if her brother actually hated her. If he didn’t before, he certainly would now, she thought with dreaded certainty.

  She pulled around to the back of the house and started to go in the kitchen entrance as she always did when she heard raised voices coming from the direction of her mother’s rose garden. Stepping off the porch, she slipped unnoticed along the flagstone pathway. The French doors to her father’s study were open, allowing in the morning breeze, and Rae paused to savor the garden before facing whatever terrible news waited for her inside.

  As she stood there wrapped in the luscious scent of her mother’s roses, she heard Jackson’s voice lift in anger. So her brother was already back.

  “How can you blame me for any of this? I wasn’t even here!”

  “Which is precisely why I hold you responsible,” her father countered. “You’re the girl’s father, yet you had no qualms about pawning your only child off on your sister even though you know she has no experience in dealing with someone like Sophie.”

  “Someone like Sophie? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

  “She’s a spirited girl,” Jackson defended.

  “She’s a spoiled brat and you know it. That child has always needed a firm hand and a watchful eye. You’ve given her neither. And that wife of yours is no help. Although she does know how to spend money. I’ll give her that.”

  “It’s not enough to disparage my daughter, but now you have to set in on my wife?” Jackson grumbled bitterly. “Under the circumstances, I would have hoped for a little more understanding and compassion. The last thing I need is another lecture from you.”

  Her brother’s sullen tone grated on Rae even as she berated herself for eavesdropping. She knew she should make her presence known, but she stood motionless in the garden, rooted by an indefinable worry. Why were they arguing about Jackson’s second wife when his daughter had vanished from the Ruins just as Riley had? Didn’t they understand that none of their petty grievances mattered anymore?

  “I’m only telling you these things for your own good,” West insisted. “When this is all over and Sophie is back home safe and sound, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself. You’re nearly forty years old, Jackson. It’s high time you grow up and take control of your life. You’ve made plenty of bad decisions in the past few months and the business has suffered as a result. You’re away from the office at all hours. You drink too much, and you’ve allowed your wife to spend you to the verge of bankruptcy. I’m beginning to think I should have put Rae in charge.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t. She’s always been your favorite.” That sullen tone again. Rae winced.

  “Your sister is a hard worker. She’s earned my respect and devotion, and if I play favorites now and then, maybe it’s because she’s the spitting image of your mother. But you’re my only son. I’ve always had high hopes for you. Maybe those expectations have been too much of a burden. I don’t know. What I do know is that none of this matters a whit if w
e lose Sophie. Instead of worrying about Rae, you need to figure out how you’re going to get your daughter back.”

  “How I’m going to get her back? Do you have any idea how cold you sound right now? She isn’t just my daughter. She’s your only grandchild. Or doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Of course it means something to me. We’re all in this together. Why do you think I asked Rae to come out here?”

  “Where is she anyway? Shouldn’t she be here by now?”

  “She’ll be here when she gets here,” West said. “Stop that infernal pacing and try to relax.”

  “I need a drink,” Jackson muttered.

  “It’s barely ten o’clock in the morning,” West said reprovingly.

  “Yes, and my daughter isn’t home yet. If I want a whiskey, I’ll damn well have one.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Rae drew a breath and started to enter through the garden doors when a car sounded in the driveway. She retraced her steps around the house just as Lauren Cavanaugh exited her luxury sedan and strode up the walkway to the front entrance, using her key to let herself in. Rae went back around to the rear door and came in through the mudroom and kitchen, allowing her sister-in-law time to disappear down the hallway. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with Jackson’s wife. She’d never warmed up to the woman. Never really trusted her. But if Jackson was happy in his second marriage, then Rae’s opinion didn’t matter. As far as she could determine, no one in that household had been happy for a very long time, least of all Sophie.

  Rae spoke to the housekeeper for a moment before heading down the long hallway to her father’s study. Lauren was already seated on the leather sofa with her long legs crossed, revealing the red soles of her expensive heels. She wore a white dress belted at the waist and a gold-and-diamond bracelet around her wrist.