He went to the pay phone outside the gymnasium door, dialed his home number with a feeling of dread. He glanced at his watch. Eleven forty-five. By now, he didn’t even care about the trouble he was going to be in for being late. He just wanted to hear that Sherry was home.
His mother answered the phone.
“Mom?”
“Hi, honey, I thought you two would be back by now. We just got in the door.”
The dread inside Nicholas spread, and a few seconds passed before he could bring himself to say the words. “I can’t find her, Mom. I was late picking her up, and she wasn’t there.”
“What do you mean she wasn’t there, Nicholas?”
“I thought she might have left with some of her friends, so I drove around, but no one has seen her since they left the game.”
“Where are you, son?”
“At the gym. In the parking lot.”
“Stay right there,” she said, her voice somber. “Your father and I will be there in a few minutes.”
They waited in silence until his parents’ car pulled into the spot beside the Jeep. Nicholas’s father got out, his expression troubled. “No sign of her?”
Nicholas shook his head. “I didn’t know what to do, Dad. I was late getting here.” He shot a guilty glance at Maria who looked down at the pavement. “I’m sorry, Dad.” He explained then what the janitor had said as well as Sherry’s friend Tina.
Taylor Wakefield put a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder and said, “There’s got to be an explanation. You and Maria take the south end of town. See if anyone’s seen her. Your mom and I will take the north end. Let’s meet back here in twenty minutes.”
Nicholas glanced at his parents’ car where his mother sat in the front seat, looking more worried than he’d ever seen her. They all knew this wasn’t like Sherry.
He and Maria did as his father suggested, but again to no avail. No one had seen her.
Twenty minutes later, when they all met back at the same spot, his parents’ faces were grave with concern. They both got out of the car, his father saying, “We’ve called home twice to make sure she wasn’t there. No answer. I’m going to call the police. I know they’ll say she hasn’t been missing long enough, but I don’t know what else to do.”
Missing. The word hit Nicholas with the force of a tractor trailer. This couldn’t be happening. He’d been late. But what could have happened in thirty minutes?
Charlotte Wakefield came over and put her arm around him. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Nicholas loved his mother more in that moment than he’d ever imagined loving her. He knew how scared she was, how upset she must be with him. But she’d sensed his guilt and fear, and rather than blame him, she consoled him.
Taylor went to the pay phone and called the sheriff’s department. Within five minutes, a patrol car pulled into the parking lot beside them, Sheriff Wally Akers getting out and nodding to them. “Taylor. Charlotte. What’s the problem?”
“It’s Sherry. Nicholas was supposed to pick her up at ten. He was late getting here, but no one has seen her since a little before then.”
“You sure she didn’t decide to leave with friends?”
“We’ve both driven around and asked the kids in town. She wasn’t with any of them.”
Nicholas supposed that in some places, the police would have said there was nothing they could do yet. But in a town like the one in which they lived, there was nothing normal about a missing fifteen-year-old girl. Wally went back to the car, reached for his radio and said something into the speaker.
Maria moved closer to Nicholas and took his hand, squeezing it with the same fear he himself was feeling.
Two more squad cars arrived with their lights flashing. The police asked his parents a lot of questions about Sherry’s habits, what kind of child she was, whether there was a possibility she could have run away.
Nicholas watched his mother’s face grow more and more ashen, and when the police asked what Sherry had been wearing, she could barely get the words past her lips. Once they’d finished with the questions, Wally suggested that they go home and wait in case Sherry showed up there. “There’s nothing you can do here. We’ve put out an APB for her, and the minute we hear something, we’ll call you.”
They left, reluctantly. Nicholas drove Maria home, and as they pulled up in front of her house, she turned to him with tears trailing down her face. “I’m sorry, Nicholas. I feel like this is my fault. If I hadn’t asked you to stay longer—”
“It’s not your fault, Maria,” he said, his voice heavy.
She leaned across the seat and kissed him. “I’ll say a prayer for her. Please call me as soon as you hear something.”
“I will,” Nicholas promised.
He drove home then, still not quite able to believe this was happening. He went inside the house where his parents were waiting in the den by the phone.
He sat down on the couch, his hands on his knees, his gaze on the floor. “I’m sorry, Mom and Dad. If anything’s happened to her, I don’t know how—”
“Nicholas. Don’t say such things,” his mother said quietly, crossing the room to put her arm around his shoulders. “Let’s pray for the best and not think about anything else.”
Nicholas looked up at his father who nodded and said, “She’s right, son. This is no time for blame.”
They waited throughout the night, drinking coffee and willing the phone to ring, yet dreading it more with each hour that passed. It was just after 6:00 a.m. when a knock sounded at the front door. Taylor Wakefield jumped up and went to answer it. Charlotte and Nicholas followed close behind.
Sheriff Akers stood there in the early morning light, his hat in his hand. Harry Clark, one of the local doctors, at his side.
“Taylor, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.”
Charlotte put a hand to her mouth, a moan escaping her lips. “Oh, no. No.”
Nicholas caught her as she began to faint. Taylor stepped back and put his arm around her, holding her up. Nicholas moved away, trying to swallow and yet unable to for the fear lodged in his throat.
“Tell us, Sheriff. Where is she?” Taylor demanded.
“She’s dead, Taylor,” Sheriff Akers said in a stricken voice. “Dear Lord, I’m sorry, but she’s dead.”
Charlotte slumped to the floor. Taylor leaned over and picked her up in his arms, tears streaming down his face.
Dr. Clark stepped inside and said, “Let’s get her upstairs, Taylor. I’ve got something I can give her.”
Nicholas stood frozen in the same spot, unable to think, not feeling anything except the awful realization that this wasn’t a dream, that he wasn’t going to wake up, that he couldn’t go back and redo last night. A half hour. That was all. Dear God, please don’t let this be true. Please give me another chance. I won’t be late this time. I’ll give up however many years you want me to if you’ll just give me back that half hour so Sherry will be safe. Please, God. Just a half hour.
Nicholas didn’t know how much time had passed before he heard his father’s voice from the top of the stairs. “No, Wally. I have to see her.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Taylor.”
“I have to see her.” His father was halfway down the stairs then. He looked at Nicholas and said, “I’m going with Wally, son. You stay here with your mother, all right?”
Of all times, Nicholas knew he should have listened to his father. But he couldn’t. He had to see her for himself, or he didn’t think he’d ever believe it could be real. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Sherry. “I want to go with you, Dad. Please.”
Taylor hesitated for several seconds, his grief-stricken face making it clear that he didn’t have the strength to deny his son.
They rode in Wally’s squad car to the track where they’d found Sherry’s body. In a low voice, Wally told them an early-morning runner had spotted her just an hour ago. Nicholas heard the words as if they had been issued
through some muffling device. The track. But that couldn’t be. It was only a few hundred yards from the gymnasium. Up on the hill. Why hadn’t Sherry heard him when he’d called her?
An ambulance and three other police cars were waiting for them. Wally pulled up beside them. Taylor looked at Nicholas in the back seat and said, “Stay here, son. We’ll be right back.”
Nicholas nodded, hearing and seeing what was taking place around him, but feeling completely separated from it. He watched his father walk toward the scene, stop and stare down at what he saw there, before listing forward like a ship that is about to sink beneath the waves.
Nicholas got out of the car and ran to the spot where two men gripped his father’s arms.
Lying behind one of the mats the track team used for practice was his fifteen-year-old sister. Her beautiful face was bruised and swollen, and if she hadn’t been wearing his old aviator jacket, he wouldn’t have believed it was her. The short cheerleading skirt she’d been wearing was up around her waist. Her thighs were bruised and bloody.
Nicholas felt as if he couldn’t breathe, as if he were in the middle of a nightmare so terrible that it couldn’t possibly be true.
But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.
Sherry was dead.
And it was his fault. His fault.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NICHOLAS STOOD under the shower for a long time, trying to find the energy to move. His body felt heavy with the weight of the memories. It was a place he hadn’t let himself go in many, many years.
His sister’s killer had never been found.
This was what he’d never been able to accept: that the cruelty of one human being could go unpunished, could continue to be perpetuated against others.
Throughout his career, this was the hole he’d been trying to fill, but never could. It was as though the bottom had its own trap door, and no matter how much good he tried to pile in on top, the trap always gave way, and he was left with the same emptiness, the same feeling of failure.
As a prosecutor, he’d taken every case personally. Felt the pain of the victims’ family as if it were his own. Because he knew what they were feeling.
And that made it impossible to ignore the little voice inside him where Audrey Colby was concerned. He’d seen Jonathan’s grip on her arm last night, knew with bone-deep certainty that her life was nothing like it appeared to be.
He wanted to ignore it.
And knew with absolute certainty that he could not.
JONATHAN LEFT the house early the next morning, before Audrey came downstairs. After dropping Sammy off at school, she drank two cups of coffee at the Starbucks on Peachtree while she waited for the mall to open. At two minutes before ten, she got in her car and drove across the street to Lenox Square. She started at the department store on the end, buying dresses, shoes and lingerie.
The leggy blond saleslady stacked the items by the cash register. “You must be going somewhere special,” she said, slipping a protective bag over one of the dresses.
“Yes,” Audrey said. “I am.”
A few minutes later, receipt in hand, she took everything out to the car and then headed for the next store on her list.
By twelve o’clock she had filled both the trunk and the back seat with bags. She then went home to unpack.
AS THE NEW guy on the block, Nicholas had inherited a batch of cases no one else in the office wanted to mess with. It was all pain-in-the-neck stuff, conjuring the kind of tedium that made him think chewing glass would be a nice alternative.
At just after noon, he walked down the hall to Ross’s office with a file in his hand, determined not to let his irritation show. He’d e-mailed the attorney twice the day before and twice again this morning with the same question. He still hadn’t received an answer.
Nicholas stuck his head inside the slightly open door. Ross was on the phone, but waved him in and pointed at a chair. Nicholas sat and picked up within seconds that he was talking to Colby.
Once Ross had hung up, Nicholas stood and held up the file. “You get an answer?”
Ross ran a hand over his face. “Sorry. I forgot to ask him about those leases. Why don’t you give him a call? He’s at the office.”
Nicholas nodded and made his way back down the hall. He stood in front of his desk for a moment, weighing the wisdom, or lack thereof, in what he was about to do.
He looked at the number in the file, then buzzed his secretary and told her he was going to lunch.
HE TOOK the interstate out to Buckhead, pulled into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven, picked up his cell phone and dialed Colby’s number. The secretary put him through.
“Jonathan, Nicholas here. Got a couple of questions for you.”
“I have a meeting here in five minutes,” Colby replied in a curt voice.
“Five minutes is all I need.”
Nicholas got his answers and made some quick notes in the file. He tossed his cell phone on the passenger seat and wheeled out onto the road.
AUDREY PARKED her car at the front of the house. She would take some of the bags upstairs for Jonathan to see. He loved for her to buy things. He took it as a symbol of her forgiveness.
She glanced at her watch. Less than an hour before she had to pick up Sammy. She grabbed several bags from the back seat, then hurried up the front steps of the house.
A car downshifted and slowed at the end of the driveway. Audrey glanced over her shoulder.
She let go of the bags, and they dropped to the stone entryway at her feet. She could feel her heart pounding. What was he doing here? Meeting Jonathan? Leaving something for him again?
Audrey closed her eyes for a second and forced herself to take a deep breath. Don’t overreact. Just see what he wants. Tell him you have to leave, and he’ll be on his way.
He pulled in behind her, and it occurred to her that she would never again hear this particular car and not think of him. The thought was so unexpected, so out of place that she stood, transfixed, while he cut the engine and got out.
“Hello,” he said, looking unsure of his reception.
“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Wakefield?” She heard the coolness in her voice, saw it change the expression on his face and knew the word he would probably use to describe her.
“Do you have a minute to talk?”
“No, actually, I don’t. I have to pick up my son.”
He wore a dark-navy suit and a light-blue shirt, his tie loosened at his throat, as if he tolerated the notion of respectability but never quite gave it his full endorsement. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants, the action strangely out of synch with the confident attorney she had seen at the Ritz Carlton the night before. “I won’t take up much of your time.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any to offer you, Mr. Wakefield.”
He moved closer, stopping just short of the steps, his uncertainty a stumbling block to the icy unwelcome she’d intended to project. If Jonathan came home…if one of the neighbors mentioned having seen the car in the drive…
“Don’t worry,” he said. “He’s in a meeting. I made sure before I came.”
The words shocked Audrey into silence, their implication kickstarting her heart into overdrive again. “Come inside,” she said, turning her key in the lock and pushing open the door. He followed her in and shut it behind him.
She dropped the bags at her feet and whirled on him, so caught off guard that she didn’t take the time to censor the fear and anger from her voice. “What are you doing?”
“Audrey—”
“You don’t know me. You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. But if you need help—”
“I don’t want your help.” Her voice rose with sudden panic. “What I meant is I don’t need your help. What would make you think such a thing?”
He stared at her for a few long seconds, glanced at his feet, then met her eyes again. “I know it seems crazy.
It feels crazy to me, but since we met, I’ve just had this feeling that…maybe you do.”
It was all Audrey could do to stand there and not let the emotions raging through her show on her face. The kindness in his voice nearly buckled her knees. For so long she had prayed that someone would see…
But not now. And not this man.
She pressed her lips together, reaching for composure. “Mr. Wakefield, there is only one thing I want from you. And that is for you to leave. Whatever it is you think you’ve imagined is exactly that. Imagined. Now please, go.”
She opened the door, stood to the side and waited for him to move. He held her gaze for several unnerving moments, his eyes dropping to her shoulder and the now-concealed bruise she had explained away when he had been here before. He stepped outside then, looking at her open car and the bags visible in the back seat and trunk. “So I guess I had it all wrong,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied. “Obviously, you did.”
He walked to his car, opened the door and got inside. She watched him drive away. And for some inexplicable reason, she wanted to go after him, to tell him all those material things meant nothing to her. That tomorrow she would return every single bag to the store from which it had been purchased and ask for cash.
HE’D SEEN it with his own eyes.
So why was he having trouble believing that Audrey Colby was the kind of woman who didn’t mind being slapped around in exchange for a life of unlimited shopping?
He pulled into a Texaco and cut the engine at the unleaded tank. He popped the gas latch, then got out and swiped his AmEx through the credit card machine. He stood with his back against the car while the gas ran, arms folded across his chest.
Outside the store, two teenage boys argued over rightful ownership of a lottery ticket they’d gone in on. From the corner of his eye, he saw the BMW whip by, Audrey’s blond hair a blur.
His response was automatic. He popped the nozzle out of the tank, hung it up and slapped the cap back on the car. The machine beeped its take-your-receipt reminder, but he left it hanging and jumped in.
A Year and a Day (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 9