by JoAnn Ross
“How could she go missing?” Annie asked, confused. “Wasn’t she at Peggy’s for the sleepover?”
“She and Peggy got in a fight and she left.”
“Left? Peggy’s mother allowed her to leave alone?”
“She wasn’t there,” Mac said. “She left the girls with her teenage daughter while she stopped by the casino in Lincoln City to play the slots on her way home from work.
“When she got home, Peggy was in her room playing Barbies. She’s not sure how long it’s been since Emma left. And her older sister, who isn’t exactly the sharpest crayon in the box, was listening to music on her iPod while texting with her boyfriend and didn’t even notice.”
He raked his hands through his hair. “I dropped her off right after I fed her an early dinner. She could have been gone for two fucking hours. Maybe more.”
“We’ll find her,” Kara promised even as the radio she wore on her uniform shirt crackled. “Let me get this and I’ll be right back.” Looking very much like the big-city police officer she’d once been before returning to her hometown to take over her father’s job as sheriff, she stepped outside.
“I need to go look for her,” Mac repeated.
“Someone needs to be here for when she comes home,” Annie said, refusing to think Emma wouldn’t come home. That was one outcome she wasn’t going to consider. “Where’s your dad?”
“In Portland. He took Marian up there to the symphony. He’s on his way home.”
“Okay.” Annie wanted to be with Mac more than anything, but she also knew that there’d be no keeping him here while his daughter was missing.
Kara came back into the room. Her expression gave nothing away, but her eyes weren’t positive. “Does Emma have a Barbie suitcase?”
“A rolling one.” Mac literally swayed and grabbed hold of the back of the couch. “She took it to Peggy’s. Why?”
“Because a man watering his front lawn found one lying on the sidewalk. On Bayview.”
“Oh, Christ. That’s a good mile from the Murrays’ house,” Mac said. “In the wrong direction.”
“We’ll find her, Mac,” said Kara, who, along with being a sheriff, had a son and daughter of her own. “I promise.”
• • •
Charlie knew he should be grateful to get out of Still Waters. Everyone was always telling him that the field trips were good for him. That they kept him engaged and out in the world. Which may have been true. But they also put him on a van with a bunch of people that he had nothing in common with except that they were all in various stages of losing their minds.
As he sat trying to ignore the chatter of the women sitting at the table in the sports restaurant just outside town where they’d stopped to eat after a sightseeing trip to the lighthouse—during which he’d been forced to listen to stuff he’d known all his life—he hunched his shoulders, bit into his burger, and tried to concentrate on the baseball game up on the TV screen over the bar. Which wasn’t easy, since he couldn’t hear the announcer over the women’s damn voices.
He was about to tell them to tone it down when the AMBER Alert crawled across the bottom of the screen.
“Emma?”
Okay. Maybe her name on the TV was another hallucination like people said he sometimes had. He stood up from the table.
“Where are you going?” the orderly—Jack, Charlie remembered—demanded to know.
“To the john,” Charlie shot back. The kid didn’t look old enough to shave. What right did he have to be monitoring where Charlie went or telling him what to do? “Want to come along and hold my dick?”
That shut the biddies up.
“Just hurry up,” Jack said. “Because the van’s leaving in ten minutes.”
“I might be old,” Charlie said. “But it doesn’t take me that long to piss.”
He knew this place well, from the days when he’d bring fish into the harbor. His memory might not be what it once was, but he damn well could find his way to the john. He stopped at the bar while Jack flirted with the girl who drove the van that had brought them all down here.
He was wearing his WWII Navy vet baseball cap, which usually got him some respect. The Greatest Generation, they were calling him. How about the oldest? But the anchor tattoo on the bartender’s forearm was a positive sign.
“Was that an AMBER Alert?”
“Yeah. Some little girl. Six years old.” The guy shook his head as he drew a draft beer into a frosted mug. “Hope they find her. I’ve got a daughter just her age. Sometimes these things hit home, you know?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I know.”
Only too well.
He glanced back behind him, where Jack the Jerk-off was still making lame jokes to the girl, who obviously had good taste since she was trying to ignore him.
Taking advantage of the diversion, Charlie headed toward the restroom and then instead of taking a right turn, turned and went through the kitchen and out the back of the restaurant.
He might not remember what he had for breakfast, but he did remember Emma talking about that cave where she’d suggested they could go if he ever felt the need to run away from Still Waters.
Charlie could not let himself believe that someone had snatched his great-granddaughter. For such an angelic-looking little tyke, she had one helluva temper. She’d probably just gotten pissed over something at her friend’s house and was headed there.
So, he thought, as he cut through the woods to keep out of sight, then headed back toward the beach, Emma would hide out in the cave, the same way he and Ollie had hidden overnight on that island that time the engine on their whaleboat broke down.
60
“Okay,” Kara said, laying out a map of Shelter Bay. “We’ll start here.” She tapped a pencil point on the place where Emma’s suitcase had been found, “and work in quadrants. Because I know there’s no way I’m going to keep you home,” she told Mac, “you’re assigned this one. And don’t go all Lone Ranger on me, okay? Because this only works if everyone does what he or she is supposed to.”
Mac didn’t like the idea. At all. But he had to admit that it made more sense than just randomly driving down streets. Hell, shortly after they moved here, he’d lost Emma for five damn minutes in the Newport Fred Meyer store, which, until now, had been the scariest moments of his life, even worse than being blown up by the jingle truck.
“It’ll be all right,” Annie assured him as he left the house.
“You can’t know that.”
“No. But I believe it.”
“What happened to always preparing for the worst?”
“That was then,” she said. “Before you and Emma and Charlie and your father taught me to look for silver linings. I know she’s safe and out there waiting for you to find her.”
He gave her a quick, hard kiss. Then, as the sun began to sink over the ocean, Mac began to walk the section Kara had assigned him, in search of his daughter.
• • •
Emma knew she was not supposed to talk to strangers. But it didn’t take her long to figure out that she was lost. Like really, really lost.
She’d been so mad when she left Peggy’s house that she hadn’t really been paying attention. And it wasn’t as if she’d actually ever walked there before—she lived far enough away that whenever they had playdates, either her father or her grandfather or Peggy’s mother drove.
So, even though she liked to think that she was just like the bravest princess of all, she was beginning to get scared. And cold, as she got closer to the ocean and the wind started blowing and it began to rain.
She’d lost all track of the time, and she wondered if Peggy’s mother had gotten home yet. Had Peggy even bothered to tell her that Emma had left? Because what if no one was looking for her? What if no one found her before it got dark?
The longer she walked, the m
ore Emma began to realize that she just should’ve hit Peggy. Because when she finally got home, she was probably going to be grounded for life.
She finally stopped at a big house on the top of a hill. She thought maybe since she could see the whole town and the harbor from here, she’d see her grandpa’s house. But she couldn’t, so it was time to admit she was in trouble.
The house had a sign out in front which read HAVEN HOUSE. And it had pretty flowers in the yard and a stained-glass front door that was reflecting the setting sun like rainbows. Emma rang the bell.
A woman who looked at least as old as her poppy opened the door. She was skinny and wearing jeans and a red shirt with a ballet dancer on the front of it. Which had Emma looking down at her feet, which instead of ballet slippers were wearing sneakers covered in gold sequins.
“Why, my goodness. You must be Emma,” the woman said, opening the door wider.
“How did you know my name?”
“Oh, you’re famous.” Her warm smile told Emma that she’d picked the very best house. “I’m Zelda. Why don’t you come in and have some cookies and milk while we call your daddy to come pick you up?”
“You know my daddy?”
“Only from the radio,” she said. “But I know how to get hold of him. He’s going to be very happy to hear you’re safe.”
“I was always safe,” Emma explained as she entered the house. “I was just lost.”
“And doesn’t that happen to all of us from time to time?” Zelda assured her.
61
Annie had never been as relieved in her life as she was when Mac called to let her know that Emma had been found. He’d arrived back at the Buchanan house with her just as Boyd and Marian pulled into the driveway.
“Annie,” Emma said as she squirmed out of his arms and went running toward her. “Guess what? I was lost!”
“I know,” Annie said, kneeling down to hold her tight. “We were very worried.”
“I’m sorry. I was a little scared, but then I met this really nice lady and guess what else?”
“What?”
“She’s a famous ballerina who’s going to teach me how to dance. Just like Angel!”
Annie looked up at Mac, who while obviously looking better than he had when he left the house, still showed signs of stress around his eyes and his mouth.
“Isn’t that special?” she answered Emma, even as her gaze assured Mac that she knew ways to relieve that stress. Later.
• • •
The good news was that Mac had his daughter back. Safe and sound, thanks, in large part, to Zelda Chmerkovskiy. The bad news was that while Emma was still recounting her adventure, wishing she’d thought to take pictures with her new camera, Kara showed up at the house.
“I hate to tell you this,” she told Mac, her expression echoing her words, “but your grandfather’s gone missing.”
“What?”
According to what the bartender had told Kara when she’d responded to the call at the sports restaurant, Charlie had had the bad luck to see the AMBER Alert about Emma, and had, for some reason known only to himself, decided to go find her.
Which had resulted in the second AMBER Alert of the day.
Were they having fun yet?
Emma, who’d been remarkably calm, though still angry at her former friend when Mac had picked her up at Haven House, burst into tears when she heard the news about her grandfather.
“It’s all my f-f-fault.”
“No,” Annie, who’d stayed calm throughout the ordeal, assured her as she wiped away the tears streaming down Emma’s cheeks. “It’s just one of those things. Your grandfather used to wander off before you even arrived in Shelter Bay.”
“Which is why he’s living in Still Waters,” Mac’s father reminded her. “To keep him safe.”
“I know. That’s why I never should have told him about the cave.”
“Cave?” Kara asked.
“The cave with the diamonds on the beach. I told him if he ever wanted to run away that would be a good place to hide out. And I’d bring him food and stuff.”
Kara and Mac exchanged a look.
“I know the one she’s talking about,” Kara said. “I’ll go check it out. Meanwhile, now that it’s dark, I want you to stay put. Besides, your daughter needs you.”
“Peggy said you had P-P-PMS,” Emma told Mac. “And that you might shoot someone because of it. So I left because you told me I’m not supposed to hit people anymore.”
Mac could practically feel the gray hairs sprouting on his head. “It’s PTSD,” he said. “And no, I don’t have it, and it’s good that you didn’t hit her. But the next time you decide to leave someplace like that, I want you to call me, okay?”
“Okay.” She snuggled closer to Annie. “Or maybe I could call Annie.”
“Absolutely,” Annie said.
“Okay. So, I’m not going to be spanked?”
“Of course not.” Mac wondered what he’d ever done to make her think she might.
“Or grounded?”
“No.” He was too grateful to have her home safe and sound. But they were going to have to have a talk about her tendency to fly off the handle.
“Do you think Poppy will be okay?” She sniffled and her eyes welled up again.
“Absolutely,” Annie repeated.
As Mac thought about Charlie, out there in what had become cold, pouring rain, perhaps walking along the cliff in the dark, lost and confused, he only wished he could feel as confident as Annie, who he knew was as worried as he was.
62
“And isn’t this a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” Charlie muttered as he stood in the center of a grove of towering Douglas fir trees.
Although he hated to admit it, even to himself, Charlie was lost.
Somehow, although he’d been walking for what seemed like hours, he had the feeling he’d been going in circles.
Then again, maybe that could be all in his mind. Maybe, he thought, he was actually back in bed at Still Waters and all this was just a bad dream. Like the one he still sometimes had of the Lexington sinking. Or Annie dying.
“It’s not a dream, darling,” he heard a familiar voice say.
He spun around, almost tripping over a damn stump, only to see her standing on a trail he hadn’t even noticed while stumbling around through the trees like the old man he was.
“Are you real?”
“I suppose that depends on your definition,” she said. “But I’m as real as I am whenever I visit you, and no, you’re not dreaming and no, I’m not a hallucination.”
“Are you here to finally take me with you?” he asked hopefully.
“I’m sorry.” Her expression was the same one she gave him every time he asked. “But I’ve told you, Charlie, my love—”
“We all have our own time,” he finished the damn words for her.
“Exactly.” She reached out and ran her fingers down his cheek. Or perhaps it was simply a gust of soft sea breeze blowing in from the coast. Wherever the hell that was. “Just as you told Emma about her fish.”
“I was looking for Emma.”
“She’s home. Safe and sound and with her father.”
Relief flooded over him. “That’s good news . . .
“I miss you.” He felt his damn eyes filling up. “I don’t know what to do without you, Annie.”
“You’re doing just fine,” she said.
“We both know that’s not true. I’m out in the middle of the goddamn woods in the middle of the night even more lost than when I was bobbing around in the sea after my ship went down. I miss you every day. And every damn night. And it’s just not fair.”
“I can’t argue that,” she answered.
“Ha! I thought once you got to heaven you had all the answers.”
&nb
sp; “And wouldn’t that be lovely,” she agreed. “All I can say is that my time isn’t the same as your time. I can’t explain it, but you’ll understand someday.”
“Why not now? If I just found the damn cliff and threw myself off it, would that finally work?” Remembering what Emma had said about Dory and Nemo, he realized he was now thinking like a six-year-old.
“It might solve one problem. But it would create a host more. Your grandson’s doing better than he was. Mac’s fallen in love and he’s learning to be a father. But he still needs you, Charlie. As does Emma.”
And he needed his Annie. But she’d always been wiser than him.
“They’re probably going nuts,” he said.
“They’ve very worried,” she agreed. “Which is why you’re going to take my hand now. And I’m going to lead you out of the woods and help you find your way home.”
“You’re my home. You’ve always been.”
“Just be patient a little longer and know that wherever you are, darling, I’ll always be with you.”
She led him to what he recognized as the Coast Highway.
“Now take this.” She pressed something into his hands. “And wait just a minute. And you’ll be all set.”
And then she did what he’d been dreaming of ever since she’d had that stroke that had taken her from him.
She kissed him. Full on the lips, a familiar, wonderful kiss that had stayed in his mind all during the war and helped him make it back home to her. And at this moment, it warmed him all the way through.
And then, like morning mist over the harbor, she was gone.
At the same moment, a log truck came barreling around the corner.
Charlie looked down at what she’d pressed into his hand. Turned it on. And waved the flashlight like a beacon signal, bringing the truck to a stop with the squeal of air brakes.