by David Bell
But Lynn . . . She’d be better.
Her sister-in-law answered on the third ring. Her voice sounded tired. And a little scratchy as though she suffered from a cold.
“Are you sure this isn’t too late?” Angela asked.
“No, it’s cool. I was working on a song, a new one. Just kind of trying it out.”
“Sorry to interrupt. You sound like you have a cold or something.”
“Allergies, I guess. But I’m up.”
“So you were working today?” Angela asked. “Writing and recording?”
“Yeah. Long day. I’m not at home. What’s up?”
Lynn sounded somewhat guarded as well, which Angela chalked up to the late hour. And it wasn’t unusual for Lynn to sound that way. As a single, unattached person, Lynn was free to come and go as she pleased, and she didn’t always let her family know where she was or what she was doing. It wasn’t unusual for them to learn that Lynn had left town, flying to Los Angeles or Austin or somewhere else for a session or a meeting related to her music career. It was a far cry from Angela’s settled life with Michael.
And while Angela would never classify their relationship as intimate, Angela always liked talking to her sister-in-law. She respected her for being a straight shooter, more of an open book than anyone else in the family. And she admired the hell out of the career she had, even if Lantern Black broke up after only a few albums. Her sister-in-law had made it in a difficult field, made her mark on the world in a way few people did. Every once in a while, Angela envied her the travel and the attention, the adoration of people who didn’t even know her. She’d been to lunch with her more than once when fans came by seeking autographs and selfies. Angela liked those moments of basking in Lynn’s reflected glory.
“I got your flowers before I left,” Lynn said. “Thanks. It was really sweet.”
“Of course. It’s a big anniversary.”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Lynn said. “I’m still here. I’m lucky.”
“And, you know, if you want to go out to dinner and celebrate or anything like that, let us know. I’m sure you might have plans with your friends, but we’re around this week.”
“Thanks. Maybe we can.”
“And did Michael call you?” Angela asked. “He’s been so busy.”
“Oh, I know,” Lynn said. “He’s Mr. Frazier Home Health now, following in Dad’s footsteps.” Lynn sniffled. “It is kind of late, though.”
“Right, well, the reason I’m calling . . .” Angela hesitated. How exactly did one explain this mess to another person? Was it better to be delicate or to dive right in?
Angela tried a little delicacy.
“So you haven’t heard from Michael?” she asked. Angela knew Lynn and her husband had a fairly typical brother-sister relationship. They weren’t overly close, didn’t confide in each other or spend a great deal of time together outside of family functions. But Michael often expressed his admiration for Lynn, his sense that she was the golden child who had achieved in her twenties what most people couldn’t achieve in several lifetimes. But a buzzing current of sibling intimacy flowed between them. They shared inside jokes and memories, managed to laugh at and worry about their widowed mother, and never crossed a line into true criticism of each other. How much of that grew out of the mutual loss of their sister, Angela couldn’t say. She knew they were both there the day Robyn died, that they’d both seen their sister’s lifeless body on the ground and heard their mother’s cries.
Lynn saw the accident, saw Robyn fall to her death. Angela felt an aching regret between her shoulder blades every time she thought of the awful memory her sister-in-law lived with. Angela assumed, without ever asking, that Lynn’s music was one way of working through what she’d witnessed and lost that summer day, an outlet to channel everything she saw and felt.
“You know how Michael is,” Lynn said. “He doesn’t always just call me out of the blue. Only Mom does that. Why? Is something wrong?”
Angela took a deep breath. Time to dive in. She told Lynn about Erica showing up at the door, as well as her claim about Felicity. While she talked, relating the story as concisely and clearly as she could, she recognized how absurd it all sounded to her own ears. And if someone called her with the same facts, she’d doubt them and wonder whether the person telling the tale had lost her mind.
When she was finished, the line filled with silence. She checked to see if the call had been dropped and saw it hadn’t.
“Are you there?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Lynn said, her voice low. “I’m processing it all. So Michael went with her?”
“He did.”
“And you let him?” Lynn asked. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just . . .”
“It’s fine.” But Angela kicked herself a little for letting him walk out the door. Why didn’t she grab him? Tackle him? Offer an ultimatum? But were marriages supposed to work that way? “I know I’m putting you in an odd position here. I never wanted to include my in-laws in anything going on between Michael and me. And I know you and Erica were friends back then.” She paused and decided to fish for information. “Maybe you still are.”
Silence again. Angela wanted to know how to take it. Did that mean they were still close? Or was Lynn just listening? Waiting to decide what to say next?
“Lynn, did Michael ever say anything to you about this? Do you know if he was still in touch with Erica?”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she said. “Michael is dedicated to you. You know how he is, Mr. Straight and Narrow. He’s not going off the rails. He never has. He didn’t choose to be a rock star like me.”
“I know.” Angela decided to go all the way, to tell the rest of it, even at the risk of upsetting Lynn. “Erica showed Michael a picture of the girl. Her missing daughter. She told him she looked like Robyn. That’s part of the reason he went along. I know it.”
“He went along because he sees himself as a good guy. That’s all.”
“Lynn, I’m sorry to bring it up. I know you don’t like to discuss it.”
“I don’t. No. You’re not going to bring this up with my mom, are you? You’re not going to mention my sister to her? My mom is fragile enough right now about my dad. . . .”
“I wouldn’t. I know not to. That’s why I called you. . . .”
“Michael’s not doing anything wrong. He never does. And I’m not friends with Erica anymore. Not for years, not since they split up.” Music swelled in the background, and then the volume dropped. Was Lynn alone? “Look, if I were there, in town, I’d come over. We could have a glass of wine and wait this out, but I’m not. Do you think you need me to come back? I can cancel—”
“No, Lynn, I wasn’t calling for . . . Look, it’s late.”
“Not too late for family. I hate to think of you sitting there alone while Michael is doing whatever he’s doing.”
“No, Lynn, really. Thanks. I don’t want to interfere with your life. I just . . . I wanted your insights. About Michael. And Erica. All of it. And I didn’t want to bother your mom with it.”
“Are you okay?” Lynn asked.
Angela took a moment, really assessed herself. She refused to crumple, to let circumstances get the best of her. She was in the house. Their house. That mattered.
“I am,” she said. “I’m good. Really. He’ll be back soon.”
“Are you sure?” Lynn asked.
“No, it’s okay. It’s late, and you’re tired. And I’m going to get off the phone in case Michael calls.” She nodded her head, even though no one could see. “Thanks, Lynn. If I need anything else, I’ll call.”
“Please do. I’m here.”
“That’s good to know.”
Angela hung up. Her sister-in-law’s words made her feel marginally better.
chap
ter
thirty
11:30 P.M.
They continued on, taking the bypass on the south side of Trudeau, a loop that skirted some of the city’s newer suburbs, allowing drivers to avoid a number of stoplights and intersections. During the small city’s brief rush hour, drivers going from one side of town to the other could avoid the congestion. According to Erica, they could cut off the bypass in a few minutes and head into downtown and the police station, a shortcut Michael didn’t know about when he lived there.
Traffic was light. They passed the usual conglomeration of fast food restaurants and car dealerships, warehouses that manufactured windows for houses, and a large plant that assembled air-conditioning units. Long stretches of the bypass remained undeveloped. Cornfields and farmland stretched away, their vast acres dark in the night. Cattle and horses grazed out there as well, a part of some farmer’s or rancher’s holdings.
The tires hummed against the road. The streetlights, evenly spaced, provided regular illumination.
Michael regretted every word he’d said in front of the cameras. He knew he’d looked unprepared, unconvincing. What would viewers see when they turned on their televisions? A nervous man, blinking in the bright lights, stammering over his answers. And unable to respond to the simplest questions.
Are you Felicity’s father? Are you a suspect?
Was he?
And worst of all, what would Angela think if she saw it? She rarely watched the local news, rarely watched TV at all. He hoped that continued. . . .
“This isn’t going to look good if I go to the police,” Tolliver said.
“Why?” Michael asked, but he answered more out of obligation than actual curiosity.
“Think about it. I’m a middle-aged, single guy. A music teacher, no less. And there’s a child missing. People jump to conclusions.”
“But you already talked to them,” Erica said.
“They didn’t really talk to me. Not too long once I provided an alibi. They were hurried, I could tell. Overwhelmed a little. Those state budget cuts don’t just hurt education. They hurt the cops as well. They’re understaffed. They told me not to leave town, that they’d likely be coming back sometime tonight to talk to me more.”
“We’re saving them the trip.”
“I’ve been in trouble before,” he said. “I got a DUI once. And there’s a misdemeanor assault charge from another incident with a friend of mine. Former friend.”
“So?” Michael asked.
“I don’t want more trouble,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about this more and more since we saw those reporters. I don’t want to be involved in this.”
Michael looked in the rearview, catching Erica’s eye. “How do you think I feel? I just got forced onto television, forced to kind of admit a child was mine when I have no idea if she is or not.”
“No one forced you,” Erica said, her voice carrying a sliver of resentment.
“It felt that way to me.” Michael looked ahead, watching the road. “Let me ask you something. Is she really missing? No one saw her in the park. She hasn’t been to her lessons. Erica, did something else happen?”
Tolliver made a low noise in his throat, a reaction to Michael’s pointed question.
Erica remained silent for a long time, the tires and the passing lights the only accompaniment.
Finally, she said, “What a terrible thing to suggest, Michael. Is this what Angela told you when you talked to her on the phone? Is this her theory?”
“You aren’t going to answer the question?”
“No, I’m not.”
They came to a long, slow curve in the road. Michael eased off the gas but kept his eyes on Erica, waiting for—hoping for—an answer that never came.
She stared out the window, her face defiant. He remembered that look, her refusal to engage or even discuss when they encountered problems. She tended to shut down.
And shut out. And Michael felt the frost in that moment.
“Erica?” he said.
Then Tolliver was reaching over, his hands taking the car’s steering wheel and turning it to the right, toward the side of the road.
“No!” Michael shouted.
But the vehicle slipped from his control. It bounded across the shoulder and the berm, the tires making a grinding sound as they left the smooth pavement. In the headlights, Michael saw a flash of cornfield, the stalks taller than the roof, and then a wire fence just before the car smashed through it.
Erica yelped in the back. The bouncing impact threw Michael off balance. His head jerked forward, making contact with the steering wheel. His foot scrambled to hit the brake. It missed, once and then twice before he found it, before he managed to stop the car. But they’d gone fifty feet into the corn, the stalks to the left and right brushing against every window like taunting monsters.
Tolliver pushed his door open and jumped out. Michael reached for him, came up with nothing but air. Then Michael struggled with his seat belt, tried to unlatch it so he could move, but he felt groggy, dazed.
He saw the open door, the space Tolliver had vacated. He said Erica’s name, but she did not respond. He tried to remember whether she was wearing a seat belt. He didn’t think she was. She seemed to be sitting close to the driver’s seat, leaning way forward to watch Tolliver.
Michael felt tired. He let himself close his eyes.
Just for a second, he told himself. Close your eyes. . . .
part
two
NIGHT
chapter
thirty-one
11:45 P.M.
Twitchell parked behind the station. When they’d entered downtown Trudeau, Griffin noted how quiet the city seemed. It was nearing midnight, and the streets were nearly empty, the stoplights flashing yellow or red at most intersections. Tuesday night in the small city, she thought. Maybe everyone was out on the east side, drinking and partying with Helen Winningham.
When they got out of the car, however, she saw the station was buzzing. More vehicles in back, more noise and conversation when they walked inside where the building smelled like burned coffee and fast food. They headed for the boss’s office, found her staring at her computer screen. She addressed them without looking up.
“Have a seat.”
Louise Reddick had turned fifty just three months earlier. Griffin remembered because the night-shift detectives covered her office with black crepe and Styrofoam headstones, and Louise came in, saw the decorations, and smiled about as broadly as she ever had. Which was to say . . . not very much.
But she did smile.
She tapped the keyboard a few more times and then swiveled in her chair so she could face the detectives. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth added character and gravitas rather than making her appear old. Griffin feared her and admired her. Her own parents had been wonderful, and she felt especially close to her mother, but she sometimes secretly wished Louise Reddick had been her mother. Or at least a very cool aunt.
“Anything new?” Twitchell asked.
“Since I last talked to you? No. Phillips and Woolf are back here, but I doubt I’ll be able to get them to sleep tonight.” She rubbed her eyes, looking a little more frazzled than Griffin had ever seen her. “I don’t know if I’ll sleep much either.”
“The volunteers didn’t find anything useful?” Griffin asked.
The boss shook her head. “A lot of junk and false alarms. They’re all so eager now to find something. They all think they’re going to get on TV if they crack the case, so they pick up every discarded sock, every McDonald’s wrapper.”
“We do tell them anything might help,” Twitchell said.
“I know, I know. And I’m so grateful to see so many people turn out. When a kid disappears like this, everybody gets shaken up. It h
its everyone in the gut.”
“Did they find anything on Erica Frazier’s computer?” Twitchell asked. “Or anything else from her house?”
“They’re going through the computer and cell phone records. We had to send everything to Louisville.” She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “We’re still kind of a stepsister out here. They have their own big-city problems.”
“But a kid is missing.”
“I know, Erin,” Reddick said. She pointed at her own head. “Don’t you see my new gray hairs? The ones that just came in today? We should hear something tomorrow. I’ve got a call in. I’m ready to get Congresswoman Bartel to reach out on our behalf if I have to. She and I disagree on everything, but she’s also up for reelection this fall, so she’s eager to do anyone and everyone a favor. I didn’t go sit at her stupid fund-raising dinner to not use her when I need to.”
They fell silent. From down the hallway, the sound of ringing phones and muted conversation reached them. Voices straining to make a difference, but also carrying out the routine business of the station. Domestic disturbances, car accidents, drunk and disorderlies. It all went on whether Felicity Frazier was missing or not.
Griffin held the armrest of her chair tight, her knuckles aching and turning white under the pressure.
“Have we ruled out the possibility the kid ran away?” Twitchell asked.
“Not entirely,” Reddick said. “We’ve been looking for her everywhere. Her mother says she had no money, no wallet. No way to get around, not even a bike. Unless someone picked her up or helped her, I’m not sure how far she’d get.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing to this missing baby we turned up on the east side?” she asked.
Reddick rubbed her chin. She stole a quick glance at Twitchell before looking back at Griffin and saying, “You think Erica Frazier kidnapped this baby ten years ago and raised her as Felicity? You think our missing kid was really kidnapped ten years ago? And then kidnapped again?”