Not a Moment Too Soon

by Linda O. Johnston

  “Hi.” Hunter released Shauna and approached the man with his hand outstretched. “I’m Hunter Strahm. Andee’s dad. Do you know my daughter, or her mother Margo Masters? Margo lives there.” He pointed to Margo’s yard.

  As Hunter spoke, Shauna realized he was right. It made more sense for him to start conversations with Margo’s neighbors than for her to jump in.

  “Sure, I know them.” The man’s voice was deeper than Shauna expected. “I’m Conrad Chiles.”

  “Margo said she spoke with you yesterday,” Hunter said. His shirt today was soft plaid, and its lines made the breadth of his back seem even more impressive. But that didn’t mean Shauna intended to stay behind him. She eased to the side to watch Conrad Chiles’s face.

  “Is the little girl okay?” Conrad asked. “Margo said she’d wandered off and got lost. I told her I’d check with people on my street, but no one saw her. I called and let Margo know.”

  He sounded sympathetic. Maybe he was that neighbor.

  “That’s what she told me,” Hunter said. “I hope she let you know that Andee’s fine. A friend’s mother recognized her, took her in and called Margo.”

  Conrad reached into his car and turned it off before shaking his head. Its fumes didn’t immediately dissipate. “Nope. She didn’t tell me, but I’m glad to hear it. Who was the friend? I know pretty much all the kids in the neighborhood.”

  “Someone she knows from school,” Hunter replied.

  “But I thought she didn’t go to school around here. She lives with you most of the time, doesn’t she?”

  This man apparently knew Margo fairly well. Or was he simply the nosy neighbor?

  “That’s right,” Hunter said.

  “Your story isn’t making sense.” Conrad peered at Hunter suspiciously. “My first thought when Margo asked me was that Andee’s dad was trying to make trouble. That happens in divorces. I like kids. Don’t like to see them in trouble. When they’re young, I have neighborhood kids over for lemonade in the summer. Hire them to mow my lawn when they’re older. You sure everything’s okay with Andee?”

  Right now, he sounded like the irritable neighbor.

  “Have you ever invited her over for lemonade?”

  Did Hunter suspect Conrad in Andee’s abduction?

  “Of course. Margo, too. I like them, and if you’re trying to hurt them in any way—”

  “All I’m trying to do is find out if anyone saw her get out of Margo’s yard so I can prevent it from happening again.”

  “Sure. Well, I’m not one to stand back and let kids get hurt. Their mothers, either.”

  “What do you mean?” Shauna blurted.

  “Not a thing, miss. But if you’re this man’s lady friend, tell him that if he’s going to try to keep Andee from seeing her mother because of one little incident, I’ll have something to say about it.”

  He got into his car again, turned the key in the ignition and backed out without looking at them again.

  “That guy was jumping to some ridiculous conclusions,” Hunter said as they continued down the alley. “I don’t like him, but I think he’d have called the cops if he saw anything suspicious.” No one else was around, but Hunter kept peering into windows and between garages. Nothing helpful jumped out and shouted, Here’s how to find your daughter. Damn it.

  “I agree,” Shauna said. “I mean about his letting someone know if he saw anything. And he didn’t like you, either.”

  “In terms of your story, he’s got to be the irritable neighbor—assuming that part of what you wrote is right.”

  “Till we see otherwise, I’m assuming everything is right.”

  He heard what she didn’t say: Each detail in her damned stories was always correct. Including the endings.

  At the end of the alley, he strode down the street perpendicular to Margo’s block. “We’ll hit them all, one by one.” He had a list of owners from a reverse directory.

  Chatting with someone at every house, for a block in each direction, was in his plan.

  No one was at home at the first house. The older lady in the second one hadn’t spoken with Margo and wasn’t aware that Andee had supposedly gotten out of her yard.

  At the third house, two doors down from Margo’s, a tired-looking young woman answered, a baby in her arms. “Mrs. Kelly?” Hunter asked.

  After his prepared speech, Mrs. Kelly said, “I’m so glad Andee is all right. I saw Margo looking for her and asked what the matter was. She looked upset, and no wonder. I told her to let me know if I could help. I called some neighbors for her, but no one was home.”

  She hadn’t seen anything to help them prevent Andee from getting out again—Hunter’s continued cover story. He felt sure if she’d seen someone with the child, she’d have said so.

  “She’s got to be the helpful and sympathetic one,” Shauna said as they continued down the street.

  Hunter referred often to the notes he’d taken during his conversations with Margo, cross-checking names and addresses of the neighbors with what his ex had said about each. A couple could have fit the designation of “nosy neighbor.” Several seemed sympathetic, and another couple bordered on irritable at being interrupted from whatever they were doing to discuss a situation that Hunter claimed was already resolved.

  None had noticed anything out of the ordinary around the time that Andee had been taken. Or at least no one said so.

  Standing on the street corner while Shauna strolled ahead, he called his office, but Simon hadn’t yet reached everyone Hunter considered possible enemies, Simon’s assignment that day. Next, Hunter called Banger. The police detective grumbled about having one heck of a time conducting an important investigation surreptitiously, but he and the other cops had succeeded in avoiding media attention. So far.

  As Hunter ended his last call, he found Shauna back at his side.

  “I’d hoped we’d get someone, just one person, to say they saw Andee with someone who didn’t belong here,” he said.

  “That wasn’t what you asked them,” she reminded him quietly.

  “You think I was too subtle?”

  “I think you did what you felt was best.”

  “Spoken like a true psychologist.”

  “I am a—”

  “—true psychologist,” he finished with what he hoped passed as a grin. He walked in the direction of Margo’s house, though he wasn’t through here. Someone must have seen something.

  Yeah, like that unidentified neighbor in Shauna’s story who’d seen something without recognizing its importance.

  “So you think Conrad Chiles is the neighbor who was irritable,” he said to Shauna, “and Mrs. Kelly was the sympathetic one. A couple could have been the nosy ones.”

  “I’d put my bet on the one who seemed really put out to have been shopping at the time Andee got out. She sounded as if otherwise she’d have been observing the entire neighborhood through her field glasses.”

  Hunter didn’t want to smile at that, but he did. “The intrepid Mrs. Bremer.”

  “Exactly.” Shauna’s return smile reminded Hunter too much of the old days, when they’d shared a similar sense of humor—among other things.

  Abruptly he said, “I’ll try a few houses in the blocks behind the alley, just in case.” That wasn’t in his plan, but he had intended to get information from someone here. And hadn’t. Yet.

  “Do you really think anyone that far from the alley would see something no one here did?”

  “I won’t know unless I ask them.”

  “Well, I’ll go talk to Margo a little more. Maybe she saw something important that she didn’t recognize.”

  Hunter couldn’t help lifting his brow skeptically. “And you think she’ll spill that to you?”

  “Not if I don’t ask her.”

  Shauna knocked on the door, hoping Hunter’s ex-wife would let her in without him along.

  Not unexpectedly, Margo frowned when she opened the door, then glanced past Shauna as if looking for someone
.

  “Hunter’s talking to some neighbors around the block,” Shauna said. “I hoped you and I could chat for a while about Andee.”

  Margo’s reddened eyes narrowed, but there was a hint of curiosity. “Come in,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’ve found her.” She sounded dejected.

  Shauna shook her head, and Margo’s lips quivered before she turned away.

  This time she showed Shauna to her kitchen, obviously not intending to entertain her as formally as she had with Hunter and their friends. Like the other room in Margo’s home that Shauna had seen, this one was a decorator’s delight, with dark wood cabinets trimmed with ornate carving, a lighter wood floor and rust-colored counters devoid of clutter. No sign of food beloved by a child here.

  Margo motioned Shauna toward a small drop-leaf table against one wall. There were chairs at either end. Shauna pulled out the nearest and sat on its embroidered upholstery.

  “Would you like some iced tea?” Margo’s tone suggested she asked only because it was the polite thing to do.

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t offer if it was.”

  Shauna smiled. “I figured.”

  A few minutes later, Shauna took a sip from the tall glass Margo had placed on a stone coaster in front of her. “This is delicious!” she exclaimed. “Do I taste peach in it?”

  “That’s right. A little tangerine, too. My own mixture. I leave out the tea and add a little sugar for Andee. She loves it…” Her voice broke. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I understand your worry for your daughter.”

  “I’d be out there looking for her myself, asking questions, but I was told to wait here in case the kidnapper calls again.” Margo sat down and faced Shauna. “Why are you really here, in L.A.?”

  Shauna took a deep breath. “I know Hunter’s mother,” she said vaguely. “I heard about Andee from her after Hunter and she talked, and I thought I could help.”

  “Because you’re a shrink?” Margo asked deprecatingly.

  “Yes.” But Shauna knew Margo wasn’t convinced, so she blurted, “Besides, I was curious about the woman Hunter cared enough about to marry—and to have his child.”

  A look of something Shauna couldn’t quite identify shot over Margo’s expression—deeper sadness? Vulnerability? But it was replaced immediately by a cynical look.

  “It was a mistake,” Margo said with a sigh. “He came to town all hungry to make changes in his life. Find himself. We met at a bar and I liked him right away. Showed him around, helped him locate what he needed to get started. I even introduced him to the private investigator he worked for while he got his license. I’d met the guy while he worked security on a movie shoot I was on.”

  “I’ll bet Hunter really appreciated it.” Shauna pictured the young, angry man who had stormed away from Oasis and the Phoenix Police Department in disgrace, partly because of her.

  Had stormed away from her.

  “So he said. And I really appreciated him. He was different from the guys I meet in the industry.”

  Shauna translated: the entertainment industry.

  “He was the strong, sexy type—not silent, though. He never kept his opinions to himself.”

  Shauna knew that well.

  “Anyway, one thing led to another. I fell hard for him. Guess he cared for me a little, too.”

  “I’m sure he did. He married you.”

  “Yes, but though he didn’t tell me what made him leave Arizona, I knew a woman was involved. A woman he hadn’t gotten over. He told me about you and what had happened later, a little at a time.”

  Panic zapped through Shauna. Did Margo know the whole story? Story. An inadvertent yet perfect choice of words.

  “I’m sure his feelings for me weren’t exactly fond by then,” Shauna said. “What did he tell you?” She held her breath.

  “Only that he’d been seeing a woman who sometimes consulted with the police department,” Margo said with a shrug of her slim shoulders beneath her yellow blouse. “She’d learned something that could have helped him on a case, but kept it to herself long enough to make things harder to resolve. He got canned for it and didn’t forgive her. Didn’t forgive you. But he didn’t forget you, either.”

  Of course not. People don’t forget those they feel have done them grave injury.

  The ironic thing was, Shauna had been trying to help Hunter.

  She’d met Elayne first, while following up a story she’d written about a frightened child in a domestic-abuse situation—that child’s emotions had projected themselves through her onto the computer. She had worked with Elayne, the social worker assigned to the case—and Elayne had somehow extracted from Shauna the truth of how she’d learned about the sad situation. Elayne then referred her to the Phoenix police.

  Introduced her to Hunter.

  Shauna had made friends with a couple of other officers, too. She had never hesitated to let them know when a story she’d written described a criminal situation.

  Hunter hadn’t wanted to believe in her stories. Despite their love, their passionate relationship, he’d seemed embarrassed by her claims of writing tales that came true—even when they did. He had tried to get her to stop writing them, as if she could. But she’d learned by then how much Hunter needed to feel in control.

  Which did not help their relationship. Her ability—gift or curse—remained uncontrollable.

  Then had come the rash of bank robberies. Vicious ones. Ones in which she had somehow sensed the violent emotions of the perpetrators.

  Hunter had been put in charge of the investigation.

  In the first story she’d written about a robbery in progress, the location wasn’t clear, and she’d guessed wrong. Later, Hunter had ridiculed her story. And her.

  The next time, the location was more certain, but she’d hesitated about telling him. A bank employee and two patrons were killed. The other police officers who knew of Shauna’s stories and who had relied on them to solve other cases had made life hell for Hunter. Without telling his source, they’d asserted in official reports that he’d ignored a credible tip, to the public’s detriment.

  He had stonewalled the investigation, keeping quiet about Shauna and her stories, protecting her from media scrutiny and public ridicule while resenting the entire situation. He had been reprimanded for his lack of cooperation, which had made him angry enough to resign from the Phoenix P.D.

  Had quit Shauna and their relationship…

  “Hunter never cared for me the way he cared for you,” Margo was saying. “Even though he had the hots for me. That’s the main reason he married me. And because he wanted kids.”

  Shauna hoped her expression did not reflect the anguish she felt—and not just from her recollection of the past. Of course Hunter would have fallen for this beautiful woman, wanted her.

  And Margo had given birth to his beloved Andee.

  He’d been out of Shauna’s life. He’d had every right to go his own way and to seek happiness.

  “And I wanted Hunter,” Margo went on. “Though he’s not the easiest man. I don’t think the word ‘compromise’ is in his vocabulary, you know?”

  Shauna nodded. Oh, yes, she knew. But still—

  “Once we were married, things got a little…well, difficult. But I tried, and so did he. Mostly, to make him happy, I agreed to have a child, though I worried what it would do to my career. It certainly didn’t help. But Andee’s such a great kid.” A look of pain passed over her face, and she buried it in her hands. When she spoke again, her voice was muffled. “I’m so worried about her.”

  “Of course you are,” Shauna said sadly. “I doubt there’s anything I can do to help you, any more than I’m helping Hunter, but if you think of anything, please let me know.”

  Margo looked up, tears in her eyes. “Here’s one thing you can do—tell me why he’s really got you with him. He won’t admit it, but there’s something between you again, isn’t there?” She cho
ked a little, as if the idea of Hunter being with another woman was painful, even though he wasn’t with her any longer.

  “Not what you think,” Shauna said. “What’s between us is—”

  She was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

  “Excuse me,” Margo said. Approaching the set mounted on the wall, she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as if in shock.

  “It’s him,” she mouthed.

  “The kidnapper?” Shauna whispered.

  Margo, who had gone pasty, nodded.

  Shauna got close to Margo, tried to put her ear close enough to hear, but only got a sense of a garbled, too-cheerful voice.

  She hoped Banger had already put the recording equipment in place. She watched Margo nod, tears streaming down her face, making her look like a mother whose child was abducted, and who suffered for it.

  Shauna’s heart raced in her chest. Please, she whispered to whatever demon inside her forced her to create her stories. If not for my sake, or even for Hunter’s or Margo’s—for little Andee Strahm’s sake, let this one be wrong.

  Hurrying up Margo’s front walk, Hunter wondered if he’d made a mistake by leaving Shauna alone in Margo’s presence this long.

  Maybe not. But as he’d gone impatiently from one house to the next, to the homes of people whose names he hadn’t even attempted to find in advance, he’d wound up dragging his feet—mostly because he hoped someone would remember something, come running out and give him news of Andee.

  But also, he admitted to himself, because the way Margo had given Shauna the cold shoulder felt a little like punishment. For both of them, maybe, but mostly for Shauna, for writing that damned story and continuously putting roadblocks in the way of his hoping for a changed ending.

  Yeah, like changing the story would—

  The door to Margo’s house burst open and Shauna flew out. “Hunter, thank heavens you’re here. The kidnapper’s on the phone with Margo. I couldn’t hear—”

  Hunter pushed past her. Ran into the house. Where was Margo? He heard a sound in the kitchen and rushed in.

  Margo stood near the wall phone, hanging on as if it was all that kept her from falling down. Her face was white, her eyes strained.