by Sasha Dawn
With a little hesitation, I enter the hallway. Dad’s workout jams rise up two stories from the basement.
I brush my teeth and splash some cold water over my face. It’s all I have time for. I even leave the crust of mascara under my left eye.
I sneak down the stairs and through the kitchen to the mudroom, where I grab my running shoes.
I don’t put them on here because I’m paranoid about time.
With one eye on Gram’s motor home, I walk in bare feet through the breezeway—eleven steps, then seven—and into the carriage house. Once in the dark confines, I let out a breath. If she saw me, I’m pretty sure she would’ve poked her pointy nose out her door.
Unseen, I escape out the carriage house door, following a path I walked yesterday. To Schmidt’s place.
I near the now-empty flower beds where the sunflowers used to grow. I pause there, out of the way, and allow the cool, dry soil to squish between my toes.
Ryan descends the tree like one of those monkeys in a rainforest, hand over hand, foot over foot, ready to lower another branch to the ground. He catches my glance and gives me a nod.
“Morning, Sami.” He jumps to the ground, covered with sawdust. “What happened last night? I texted, but—”
“My dad took my phone.”
“Oh.” His hands rest at his sides.
“So I didn’t get your message.”
“You’ll see it later, then.”
“You’re taking a tree down.” Apparently, I’m the queen of obvious commentary this morning.
“It’s dying.” He points up at the branches. “Other trees are losing their leaves, but this one hardly had any to lose. It’s struggling, and rotting in places. Probably won’t survive the winter. Best to take it down. It could do some real damage if it fell on its own. Could take down another tree, or a power line. Hell, it could smash through a window or land on a roof.”
“How’d you learn how to do all this?”
“It’s trigonometry.” He shrugs.
I look up at the ropes, tied to three distinct objects. Triangles. “I guess it is.”
“You want some coffee or something? Tea? Cocoa?”
“I was going to go for a run, but sure.” I’m already following him down the brick walk, cold beneath my feet, despite the bright sunshine trying like hell to warm it.
Last night we came in through the back door, directly into the kitchen. Today, he leads me to the front. I spot a rolled-up newspaper lying on the front stoop, pick it up, and glimpse the headline: Evidence Continues to Point to Local Professor. It dizzies me for a second, although if I’d thought about it, I probably would’ve anticipated this.
Of course there would be a story in print.
Ryan opens the door, and we enter.
The front entrance hall is impressive: two stories tall, with a high-hanging chandelier.
Ryan takes a seat on the edge of a long wooden bench and starts to unlace and remove his work boots. Following his lead, I place my shoes under the bench too.
The hardwood floor creaks beneath my bare feet when I follow him into the dim maze of rooms, past a pale blue space with the grandiose piano—the type with the lid propped open—and the window seat. I peek at another room I’ve yet to see—dark paneled walls, bookshelves from floor to ceiling spanning the walls astride a stone fireplace. Every inch of the shelves is packed with books, but there isn’t a television anywhere.
We pass through an arched hallway to an enormous dining room. A photograph snaps in my mind, something like déjà vu. When he presses against a swinging door, another image flashes—me following my mother through a door like this one.
Eventually, we wind up in the kitchen, where we were last night. It seems like a long time ago. “So what’ll it be?” he asks.
“Just water’s fine right now, thanks.”
Even though I don’t want him to see the headline, I tell him, “I brought your paper in.”
“Hmm?” He pulls a mug and a glass from a shelf. “Oh, thanks. Would you mind just tossing it in the burn bin?”
There’s a brown paper grocery bag near the basement door, filled with papers.
“I’ll use it as kindling.”
Jeez, the guys on this property will burn anything.
“I mean, who reads actual papers anymore?”
I shove the paper in with the others. “Your uncle?”
“Not even him. He just hasn’t cancelled it yet. Call it a nostalgic habit he doesn’t want to admit he quit.”
I sit on what has become my favorite barstool in the kitchen, over the back of which my cropped yellow jacket is still draped. “I started Gatsby last night.”
“Yeah?” He slides a glass of water on the table in front of me and turns to the single-cup coffee maker. “What do you think so far?”
“I think I understand why my mother must have read it so many times.”
He nods. Then he turns toward me, leaning against the farmhouse sink, and frowns a little when he looks at me. “Sami . . . are you all right?”
I’m so worn out that tears creep into my eyes again. “Honestly?”
“No. Lie to me.”
I almost smile. But this is nothing to laugh about. I was actually afraid of my father last night. I swear he was talking himself out of doing something to Heather! Heather: nothing happens.
And then today, he seemed like himself again.
Had I imagined it? Or . . .
“Lieutenant Eschermann called me back last night, and when I didn’t answer my phone, he called the landline, looking for me.”
“Oh.”
“So my dad’s pissed, and not just because he had to tell a cop he didn’t know where I was last night, but because I was with you. Did you know your uncle was interviewed on TV? Apparently he said some not-so-nice things about my dad, and that’s why my dad doesn’t want me here. So he took my phone, and now I don’t know when Eschermann’s coming, or even if he’s coming, and I don’t even know if my dad’s going to let me out of the house to talk to him because I think I’m grounded, and I’m not even supposed to be here but I sneaked out.” I take a breath. “So I might be stuck in the house for God knows how long, with my father, and my grandmother who basically hates me. And I can’t exactly talk to the cops about this stuff in front of my dad. I mean, the stuff you found in the loft? Sure. But these drawings?”
“So let’s call the cop now,” Ryan suggests.
“I already left him a message yesterday.”
“And he returned the call. Get him over here now. He’ll come. He’d be crazy not to. Finding your mom is probably the biggest case of his career, right? He’ll come.”
////
Eschermann is sitting on the bench in Schmidt’s foyer. He’s wearing jeans and a worn Chicago Blackhawks pullover. I’m glad he came alone. Sometimes when he brings an entourage, it’s uncomfortable. I don’t think I could’ve spoken so freely with an audience.
And Ryan, even though he knows everything except the bit about the passport and the theory tying my mother and Trina Jordan to the Jane Doe in Georgia, graciously went back to lopping branches off the half-dead hickory to give us some privacy.
“I’ll send these over to one of our child psychologists. They should be able to tell us what they mean, or if they mean anything at all.” Eschermann bags the envelope stuffed with my drawings—it’s all evidence now—and tends to the box. “Can you tell me where you found this?”
“Ryan found it up in the barn,” I say. “By the old wine cellar, he said.”
“Huh.”
“Schmidt thought you’d taken everything of my mother’s before.”
“We did.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird? That’s where I thought my mother went, and all these years later . . .”
“We did check the barn, Sam,” Eschermann says. “Your mother had been keeping some things in there, Schmidt said. So we looked. And we checked the whole house. We cleared Henry Schmidt almost immediatel
y.”
“Then how did you miss the box?”
He looks at me the way I’ve seen him look at my father a hundred times: a deadpan, no-emotion stare. “I don’t know. Maybe it was put there sometime after the search. Maybe it was overlooked. But the important thing is that we’ve got it now.”
“Do you agree it’s proof that what my dad said is true? That she’d planned to go home to Georgia?”
He nods. “And I also agree that if she’d actually gone to Georgia, she would’ve taken these things. Obviously if she’d gotten a job at an institution of higher learning, we would’ve been able to trace her. Maybe she decided to work as a cashier. I don’t know. But this paperwork tells me she intended to strive for more.”
I agree.
“You see what I mean, Sami. There’s too much coincidence surrounding your mother’s case. Either she left in a real hurry, or she left against her will. The kind of mom she was . . .” He shakes his head. “She never would’ve stayed gone this long otherwise.”
“But Schmidt . . .” It feels rather like sacrilege to outright accuse him in this house. Maybe that’s why I’m nervously pacing through the magnificent foyer. “He and my mom were friends, right? What if they were more than friends? What if he loved her, and didn’t want her to go, and there was some sort of accident?”
“It’s a valid theory.”
“Okay, so—”
“But there are others perhaps even more viable. We cleared Schmidt ten years ago. We haven’t yet cleared your father, and we haven’t yet cleared your mother in the Trina Jordan case. And I still have a sneaking suspicion that Heather may recant her alibi. If she does, Sami, you should be prepared for things to get intense for a while.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about that too.” I stop pacing and match his deadpan expression, as best I can. “If Heather and Dad were together, Cassidy had to have been with them. There was nowhere else for her to go. So Cassidy can confirm they were together, or maybe she won’t, but either way you’ll know, even if Heather doesn’t recant.”
“Cassidy was with her biological father that day.”
It hits me like a football in the chest. “That’s impossible.”
“No, it isn’t. I’ll show you the footage of the interview, if you’d like. She specifically states, on camera, that she was with her father.”
“Yes, it is impossible, and I’ll tell you why. Cass hasn’t seen her biological father since forever ago. Did you interview her biological father?”
“He was in Kuwait at the time, but the record checked out. He was deployed after your mother left. In the area at the time of her disappearance. He could’ve stopped for one last visit with his daughter.”
“Could have. But wouldn’t have. The guy could be next door and wouldn’t think of stopping in to see Cass. So you’re trusting what a six-year-old said. And if she said she was with her dad, she said it because someone told her to say it. Or maybe she meant that she was with my dad. I don’t remember a time she didn’t call him Dad, or refer to him as her father.”
“Worth another round of questioning, then, Sam.”
“Of course it is. You question me over and over again. Why don’t you pester Cassidy with this stuff? She’s just as in the thick of it. He’s her father too. Dad and Heather were together. They weren’t married right away, but they’ve known each other—they’ve loved each other—most of their lives.”
“I’ll talk to Heather and Cassidy this afternoon, then.”
“Thank you.”
“I should get you home, so your dad doesn’t start worrying again like he did last night.” He peels the latex gloves from his hands, now that he’s done handling evidence. “And you should know better than to let him worry, Sam. A simple phone call next time, a text, anything, all right?”
“Yeah. I know.” I turn toward the kitchen. “I’ll just get my jacket.”
I retrieve it from the kitchen, stop for a second to put my water glass in the sink, and return to where Eschermann is waiting for me.
“Sam.”
I sit down on the bench and pull my shoes out from under it. “Hmm?”
“Where did you get that coat?”
I look up. Eschermann is pulling another pair of latex gloves over his hands. “Heather’s,” I tell him. “It was in a box of samples. Why?”
“A box of samples? At the Nun?”
“No, in Heather’s apartment.”
“I’m going to need to take it.”
“Why?”
“You know I can’t tell you that, Sam.”
Slowly, I straighten.
Allow Eschermann to take the coat.
“There’s a stain on the left cuff,” I say. “I thought it was the salsa from yesterday, but it wouldn’t wash out when I tried.”
“Looks like an old stain to me.”
In hindsight, I should’ve known then that the jacket wasn’t a sample. It looked worn even before I put it on. And as quirky as Heather can be, the jacket is more out-of-style than retro. But even if the jacket isn’t a sample, it must be Heather’s. At least I assume so. It was at her place.
But so were my creepy drawings.
And if Lieutenant Eschermann wants this jacket, that must mean that he somehow suspects . . .
Puzzle pieces form in my mind. I maneuver them, turn them, try to make them fit.
All these years, Eschermann has been assuming that Heather’s been covering for Dad. But what if Dad’s been covering for Heather?
I’m locked in a staring contest with my father.
Neither of us has spoken for at least thirty seconds.
My phone sits on the table between us.
I know the fate of my phone rests on the outcome of this conversation. But I’m so irked, and confused, that I’m not sure I can be as respectful as I’m going to need to be to play this right.
“Let me tell you a little bit about the state of worry you put me in last night.” He clears his throat and folds his hands on the table. “Imagine not knowing where your daughter is. Calling her, leaving her messages. Texting her, without reply. Imagine meeting up with your wife—”
“You saw Heather?” This is highly irregular since the separation. “Why?”
“And she hasn’t heard from you, or Cass. No one knows where you are. Imagine how that made me feel.”
I want to turn it around on him, tell him that’s how I feel all the time. Like no one wants to tell me anything, like even when he tells me something lately, it’s not true, so he may as well not tell me anything.
“She hadn’t heard from Cassidy since school got out, you closed the Nun early, and you had a migraine.”
I wonder how he knows that.
As if he’s reading my mind, he says, “The nurse at school called Heather yesterday.”
“I caught it in time. Before it got bad.”
“Spent most of the day in your guidance counselor’s office?”
I shrug.
“So why, if you missed classes, were you out last night, let alone out where you weren’t supposed to be?”
“Why, if you and Heather are getting a divorce, were you calling her to talk about me?”
“Tone.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes because I know that’ll only get me in hotter water.
“We touched base,” he says, “to see if either of us had heard from either of you, and when we decided neither of us knew, we drove past the bowling alley. Venture a guess as to whether the Jeep was in the parking lot?”
I don’t say a word.
“After that, we grabbed a sandwich at the Madelaine. We tried the finder app on your phone and Cass’s. You have to get better about leaving that option on.”
We turn it off so they don’t know we’re not bowling.
“Cassidy said she left a note for Heather,” I offer. “I didn’t think—”
“Heather isn’t my priority. You are.”
“I was playing rummy!” I can tell by the way he’s lo
oking at me that he doesn’t believe me. “I think I deserve a little trust in the matter.”
“How do you expect me to trust you when you don’t tell me the truth?”
I yank out my ponytail. “You want to get to the truth? Let’s talk about the truth.”
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
“Were you really with Heather the day Mom left?”
I know I hijacked the conversation, and I know he can’t be happy about it.
His brow furrows. “Of course I was.”
“You swear to God? You swear on my life?”
“Yes, Samantha.”
“You’re not lying.”
“No, I’m not—”
“Because recently, you’ve been a liar.”
“You lied to me last night.”
“Okay, I lied. But I didn’t lie about an ex-girlfriend who happens to actually be my ex-wife, and who happens to have been missing even longer than Mom. And I didn’t try to minimize the issue with my daughter, only to find out the entire story was broadcast in the commons of her school.”
“You didn’t tell me that yesterday.”
“It was a shitty day, all right? And that’s why I couldn’t stay with Brooke and Cassidy. I couldn’t deal with their normal world last night, all right? Because it’s just another reminder that no matter what I do, it’s impossible for people to know me without judging us, and it’s impossible for me to open up to anyone because I know they’re going to judge us even if they take the risk to know us well. And even if I try to set the record straight, there’s enough information out there that makes me look like a liar, so it’s still impossible for people to trust me. I mean, what kind of life do you think I’m going to have when this is constantly hanging over me?”
“I’m sorry we’re in this situation, Sami. But I didn’t create it. I’m just trying to survive. Same as you.”
“And what happened with you and Heather? If you love her, if you’re having dinner at the Madelaine, why the divorce?”
For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. “The stuff with your mom . . . okay, we’ll talk about it. But what happened with Heather and me . . . it’s none of your business.”
“You know how bad it’ll look if something happens to Heather, right? You know no one will believe you if—”