Jake's Return

by Liana Laverentz

  Rebecca didn't get it. Warner wasn't the place for a man like him. It never had been.

  * * * *

  "Katie, honey, we need to talk,” Rebecca announced quietly later that day as they shared an unusually solemn after school snack of milk and chocolate chip cookies in Jake's kitchen. Jake wouldn't be home from work for another half hour, which would give them the privacy they needed to discuss moving out before he returned and they had to leave for the soup kitchen at four.

  "About what?"

  Rebecca didn't like the almost sullen note Katie's voice had taken on lately, but was doing her best to try to see things from her daughter's perspective. They'd been through a lot these past four weeks, since the tornado, and things were about to get rough again.

  She'd thought about Jake all morning as she baked cookies at home, then went to the soup kitchen to serve lunch. How could she find a solution that would make everyone happy? The only answer she could come up with was she and Katie would have to move. They couldn't stay with Jake any longer, not if Rebecca wanted to maintain any semblance of pride. She was too vulnerable where Jake was concerned, and she'd be damned if she'd let him use her.

  The man didn't want what she had to offer him. He'd made that clear enough. “We need to find another place to live."

  That got Katie's attention. “What's wrong with here?"

  "Jake wants to leave Warner, sweetheart. To do that, he needs to sell his house. To help him out, we need to move."

  "He doesn't want us anymore?"

  Rebecca reached out and covered Katie's hand with her own. “It's not that, sweetheart. Jake loves having you here more than anything. But he's not ... he's not responsible for us, Katie. We're responsible for ourselves, just like we've always been. We can't impose on him any longer."

  "Couldn't we stay until he leaves? Until he at least sells the house? I mean, it could be months, right?"

  "It's not that simple.” Rebecca had no choice but to tell Katie what little she could. “Jake and I ... well, you might have noticed we're not getting along very well these days."

  "So?"

  The innocence of children. Rebecca couldn't believe how much it hurt to admit she'd failed with Jake. “Katie we don't agree on some pretty important things."

  "Like what?"

  Like loving each other. Like wanting to build a life together. Like wanting what's best for you. “Grown up things,” Rebecca finally said. There was no way she could tell Katie the truth.

  "Where will we go?"

  "Barb Peca has offered to rent us an apartment over her antique shop. I've seen it. It's very nice."

  "It's in town."

  "Yes, just off of Main street."

  "But nobody lives in town."

  "Plenty of people live in town, Katie."

  "Nobody we know."

  She was back to being sullen again. Rebecca couldn't blame her. “You'll still see your friends at school."

  "Yeah, right."

  Rebecca stared, wondering what had happened to her usually sunny seven-year-old. Now that she thought about it, Katie hadn't been herself for about three weeks. Since school started. Suddenly Rebecca recalled Avery Dillenger's announcement at the meeting last night about a sexual predator on the loose in Warner. “Katie?” she ventured uneasily. “Has something happened?"

  Fear flashed in her daughter's eyes, followed by a firm lifting of her chin. “Like what?"

  Katie knew all about good touches and bad touches and not talking to strangers. Thanks to her own terrifying experiences with the men her mother had brought home, Rebecca had made a point of educating Katie on the subject. Surely she would have said something if someone had approached her in that way.

  "Something at school,” Rebecca prevaricated. She didn't want to scare Katie if she didn't have to. “Are you having any kind of trouble with your teachers?"

  "No."

  "At the soup kitchen, then?” Rebecca knew she hadn't watched Katie as closely as she normally did among strangers while she was busy serving, but with so many people around...

  "Just forget it, Mom. There's nothing going on."

  She knew Katie was lying, but she also knew to push would make Katie clam up tighter. “You'd tell me if there was, wouldn't you?"

  "Yeah. Can I go now?"

  Rebecca didn't know what else to say. She'd never encountered this situation before. Nor had she ever felt so scared and helpless. “Can I give you a hug, first, sweetie?"

  Katie shrugged as if she didn't care one way or another. A piece of Rebecca's heart shriveled up and died. “Sure, if you want to."

  Gently Rebecca pulled her small, slender daughter into her arms, and forced herself not to hold on as tightly or as desperately as she wanted to. Everything seemed to be falling apart on her ... her reputation, her job, her dreams, her temporary truce with Jake ... her previously unshakable relationship with Katie, who didn't resist the hug, but neither did she return it, which only cut Rebecca more deeply.

  She dropped a quick, determined kiss onto her daughter's baby soft hair, released her and forced a cheery smile. “Don't worry about packing. You've been through enough these past few weeks. I'll take care of it, okay? But maybe tomorrow after school we can go to the new apartment and you can help me make a list of what we'll need to fix the place up, hmm?"

  "Sure,” Katie said, not meeting her eyes. “I've got homework to do."

  Rebecca watched her daughter leave the room, knowing something was terribly wrong, but having no idea what, much less how to deal with it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  For the hundredth time, Jake cursed himself for telling Rebecca about Feeney's offer. He'd known all along he wasn't going to take it. He couldn't. To buy out Feeney he'd have to mortgage the house and take out a loan. He couldn't see either of the two banks in town giving him one.

  The thought of being so deeply in debt—to anyone—for anything—left him feeling suffocated. He might not have much, but what he had he owned free and clear. There was no way he could risk his only chance of escape from Warner in a gamble like taking over Feeney's. For that, he'd have to trust the good citizens of Warner to support him.

  And that was something Jacob Donovan could not do. Not when they hadn't given him an iota of support in over twenty years.

  Nope. Jake didn't owe anything to anybody and that was the way he liked it.

  But he also liked Rebecca's company. In fact, he yearned for it constantly now that she'd withdrawn it. The woman had clearly cut her losses and was moving on. He hadn't missed the packed boxes piling up in her room. Or her cooler than cool greeting when he'd come home from work that afternoon.

  Come Tuesday, she wouldn't even be around to frost him out.

  "Jake? Have you seen Katie?"

  Frowning, he looked up from the soup kitchen sink where he was elbow deep in scrubbing warming pans. How did the woman manage to look so kissable with cheese sauce spilled down the front of her sweatsuit? “No, not since we got here."

  "Are you sure?"

  The note of fear in her voice revved his own instincts. One of the hot topics in the kitchen that evening had been whether Avery Dillenger's child molester claims were true or a scare tactic to get the council to see his way. Apparently it was well known around town that Dillenger believed the end justified the means.

  Jake got a strange kind of satisfaction at knowing people didn't think too highly of his cousin, considering how highly Dillenger thought of himself. What felt even more strange was the realization that no one was looking his way when they discussed Dillenger's claims.

  Maybe Rebecca was right. Maybe the tide of fear his return had inspired was turning—or at least ebbing.

  "It's nearly seven-thirty,” Rebecca said, jolting him back to the present.

  He reached for a towel to dry his hands. “Has anyone else seen her?"

  "I haven't asked. I just noticed she was missing."

  "I'll get someone to fill in for me here and meet you in the dining ro
om."

  He arrived a minute later to find Rebecca talking to the mother of several young children Katie usually played with.

  "No one's seen her, Jake. Not since before we served dinner."

  "FX mentioned seeing her outside as we were setting up."

  "Do you think she might have taken a walk?” This from the young mother.

  "Not without telling me where she was going,” Rebecca said. “She never wanders off alone. Never."

  "I'll keep asking around,” Jake said. “If she doesn't show up in the next five minutes we'll start looking for her, okay?"

  No one had seen Katie for hours. She'd apparently slipped away just as dinner was starting. At FX's suggestion, Rebecca went into his office to call home, but no one answered. She called Aunt Martha, and when Katie wasn't there, asked her aunt to go over to Jake's house and call her back.

  Ten more agonizing minutes passed before Martha called with the news that Katie wasn't at Jake's, either. Or if she was, she wasn't answering the door. Desperately, Rebecca started to phone Katie's friends, but after receiving another self-righteous earful from Mrs. Mueller, was stunned to learn some of her daughter's other friends had been forbidden to have anything to do with Katie as well.

  A call to Katie's teacher confirmed Katie had been having a rough time of it at school. As Rebecca knew all too well, kids could be viciously cruel, and her daughter had been serving as class outcast since the start of school, despite her teacher's best efforts to include her in class activities. It didn't comfort Rebecca to hear Katie continued to staunchly defend Jake in the face of her classmates’ cruelties, not when she knew Katie had never breathed a word of the problems she was having to her. By the time she got off the phone, Rebecca was feeling hurt, betrayed, confused, angry...

  And terrified for her little girl. Anyone could have her.

  Within minutes Rebecca and Jake were in Rebecca's Focus, heading home first, to check for themselves. “Katie's been awful quiet, lately,” Jake said from the driver's seat once they were on their way. “Maybe she needed some time to be alone."

  Rebecca shook her head furiously. “No. She wouldn't just disappear without telling me. If something was bothering her, if what her teacher said is true and her friends are shunning her—"

  "Shunning her?"

  "It's not just Mrs. Mueller who has refused to let her daughter play with Katie. But Katie would have told me. She would have."

  Jake wasn't sure how to handle Rebecca's retreat into denial. He was still reeling from the news that Katie's friends were shunning her. Why, oh why couldn't he have stayed away from her and Rebecca? Now look what he'd done. “What makes you so sure she would have told you?” he finally asked.

  "We've never had secrets from each other. Never."

  "What about me? We're keeping something from her about me."

  Rebecca looked over at him, then shook her head again, almost violently. “That's different."

  "Maybe not. Maybe she suspects something's up."

  "How could she? No one knows she's yours but you and me."

  "Could there be any documentation lying around that names me as her father?"

  "No. Her birth certificate is in my safe deposit box."

  "I still think her disappearance has something to do with me. It has to, if the kids have been giving her a hard time."

  "Then why wouldn't she tell me?"

  "Maybe she wasn't comfortable telling you.” He hoped that was all it was. Because if it was his fault, he could probably fix it by leaving town. But if it was something else...

  "I'm her mother, Jake. Who else would she go to?"

  "I don't know.” Jake pulled into the driveway of his dark house. “But—and please don't take this wrong, Rebecca, but you haven't been all that available to her lately."

  She turned on him then, as he'd feared she would. “What do you mean I haven't been available? I've been here every night!"

  "Physically, yes,” Jake said in the most soothing voice he could manage under the circumstances. “Physically you've been around. But mentally? Emotionally?” He looked into her eyes, and willed her to try to understand what he was saying. “Think about it, Becca. You've had a lot on your mind lately. We all have. Katie's apparently been dealing with it by getting quieter, more withdrawn."

  "Damn it, Jake, why didn't you mention this to me sooner?"

  He looked at her in genuine surprise. “You're blaming me for not interfering in your relationship with Katie? I figured if you weren't worried, there was no need for me to be. What do I know about raising a kid? Besides, we haven't exactly been available to each other much lately, either. Unless you count last night, but...” One look at her expression, and he mentally switched gears. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Listen, Becca. I know you're scared and upset. We both are. But I can't help but think there's something more going on here than meets the eye."

  "I talked to her about moving this afternoon,” she finally offered, grudgingly.

  "And?"

  "She didn't want anything to do with me."

  Jake's heart ached for her. He wondered if she had any idea how small she looked, hunched in the passenger seat, her arms wrapped around herself as she tried to deal with the pain of her daughter's rejection. It was all he could do not to reach for her and make promises he had no way to keep.

  "I told her we needed to move, and she assumed you didn't want her any more."

  The dull note in her voice sliced into Jake like a knife to the chest. He hadn't thought about how moving might affect Katie. All he'd worried about was getting more involved with Rebecca. Or, rather, trying not to get more involved with Rebecca.

  And Rebecca knew it. “Did you tell her it wasn't true?"

  "She didn't believe me, any more than ... oh, never mind. Let's just get going. We're never going to find her sitting here."

  "All right.” Jake didn't really want to go down that road, either. “After we check the house, we can check your aunt's.” Katie wasn't at either house, so while Aunt Martha waited by the phone at Jake's, Jake and Rebecca cruised every street in Warner proper, not once, but twice, Rebecca's attention never leaving the road. Jake ached for her, feeling her pain and guilt and terror as acutely as his own.

  "I heard Mimi called you this afternoon,” he said in a desperate bid to distract them both. It was a shame he had to find out what was going on with Rebecca from his customers at Feeney's when they were living in the same house, but that was the least of his concerns at the moment.

  Rebecca glanced his way, then resumed her search. “Apparently the council voted to table the decision until the matter could be investigated further."

  "Investigated? Who are they planning to investigate? You?"

  "Doesn't matter. I'm not going back. If they have to deliberate on whether to allow me to keep my job based on the way I conduct my personal life, then I don't want the job. I won't be anyone's puppet, Jake."

  Including his. Her message was clear. He dropped the subject. Now was not the time to get into it.

  "Maybe you should start knocking on doors. She's obviously not out in the open.” Or if she is, she's hiding from us, he thought, but didn't add. He didn't dare speculate on the reasons for that.

  Rebecca looked surprised, and slightly offended. “You won't come with me?"

  "I'd rather not. If I start showing up on doorsteps, it'll probably send the town into a panic. Besides, while you're at the front door, I can watch the shadows."

  Rebecca stared at him for a long moment, but didn't argue. Retracing their path, they re-combed the town's quiet streets, Rebecca asking Jake to stop the car at every place she could think of that Katie might have gone. She knocked on doors, interrupting family meals, family fights, evening baths and television time, while Jake searched every shadow he could find. In between, they stopped people on the street. Those Rebecca didn't know, she showed Katie's first grade school picture.

  Within two hours the entire town knew Katie Reed was
missing.

  At the very edge of town they met a woman who thought she might have seen Katie several hours earlier. “Just before dusk, I saw a girl who coulda been your daughter's age walking alone on the road that leads out of town. But then a car stopped, and she got inside."

  Bone deep terror clenching her insides, Rebecca asked. “You saw her get into a car?"

  The woman nodded. “Since she wasn't carrying no kind of luggage, not even a knapsack, I guessed her parents must've forgotten to pick her up somewhere and she'd started walking home."

  Rebecca wasn't assuming anything of the kind. This was the first remotely viable lead they'd had, and terrifying as it was, she intended to pursue it. “What kind of car was it?"

  "Oh, a nice one. One of those big luxury cars. New, I think."

  "What color was it?” Jake asked tersely, thinking of the black Town Car he'd seen cruising the streets late at night, long after most of Warner had gone to sleep. The one that had dropped that young boy off near the old railroad station.

  "I'm not sure. It coulda been black, maybe gray. The light wasn't so good."

  "Was the driver a man or a woman?"

  "I never saw the driver. But if I had to guess, I'd say it was a man."

  "Why would you say that?” Rebecca asked, the growing edge of fear in her voice echoing Jake's own deepest fears.

  The woman hesitated, then must have recognized Rebecca's fear. “Seems to me if the girl's mama had found her walking alone at night like that, she would have gotten out of the car and either hugged her or hit her. I know I would. Hug her, I mean. I'd be so relieved just to find her ... but then those people up in Glenhill are different, aren't they?"

  "Glenhill?” Jake repeated, the chill in his soul turning icy.

  "They went to Glenhill?” Rebecca asked, her face pale as she looked between the woman and Jake. It was all Jake could do not to grab her and bolt for the car.