Making Her Way Home

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Okay.” She was quiet for a minute. “Thank you for calling. Not knowing is the worst.” No, he thought. No, the worst part is when you do know. When you race into the hospital with terror in your heart only to be told your child is dead.

  “Never knowing would be bad,” he conceded.

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Now that the guy has made contact, the odds of finding her have improved a whole lot.”

  “Okay. Um, when they come to talk to me. Will you be with them?”

  He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and felt like a love—or at least lust—sick teenager when he asked, “Do you want me to be?”

  “Yes. You’ve been kind, even when…”

  When she didn’t finish, he did. “Even when I was pawing through your underwear drawer.”

  “Yes.” Though the reminder had renewed the starch in her voice.

  Mike counted his blessings that he hadn’t actually poked through her lingerie. He was already holding on to his honor by his fingernails. If he had to picture her in a skimpy black satin bra, he’d be dead.

  He closed his eyes and turned his back on the yard. “I’ll be there if I can.”

  “Thank you,” she said very politely and with renewed distance. Mike realized she must not have read his gruffness right. And maybe, he thought, that was just as well. This was still, on some level, his investigation, and she still played a significant role in it. He’d be an idiot to forget that.

  “I’ll be talking to you,” he said, and ended the call, feeling like a son of a bitch, but also knowing he had to be careful.

  Yeah, he sympathized with her. He even believed, on a gut level, that she was innocent. He kept asking himself how much more he would have suffered if he’d not only had to grieve for Nate, but had also been under suspicion of causing his death. And what if he had been as alone as she was? His marriage had essentially ended that day in the hospital, but through it all he’d had his parents, his sisters. Beth apparently had nobody. She’d probably tell him she didn’t want anybody, but he didn’t believe it. He remembered the way she’d leaned on him today, clutching him with desperate hands.

  He closed his eyes in anguish. The truth was, learning about her abuse had infuriated him, but it had also raised a big red flag he couldn’t ignore. Abused children grew up to be abusers. That was reality. He’d seen her meltdowns and now knew the rigid woman he’d first met sometimes lost control in spectacular ways. He didn’t like thinking it—he still didn’t believe it—but the possibility existed that she had lost it with Sicily and killed her. That this whole mess really was a cover-up. Maybe she wasn’t so alone after all; maybe she had an associate who’d made that phone call. Was that really Sicily’s voice at all? Greenway thought so. If Beth insisted that she was sure, she might be lying.

  They’d have to get Sicily’s teacher to listen to the message, too, he realized. He hoped they could do that without Beth knowing.

  He’d been an idiot not to check her finances, too, personal and business. What if this wasn’t a cover-up? What if it really was a kidnapping, but Beth was in on it? She had more reason than anyone to hate her parents. Maybe they hadn’t been willing to help her out of a bind. Or maybe this was simply a way to hit them where it hurt. He could see her justifying it in her head; Sicily wasn’t in any actual danger, and the Greenways owed Beth and Sicily, too. He heard again the way the scum had said “your precious grandchild.” The bitterness. Reflecting Beth’s bitterness?

  “Damn,” he muttered, dismayed at how sick he felt. At how much he wanted not to believe in any of it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MIKE WAS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE in the morning, five minutes ahead of the FBI agents. Not until this morning had she gotten a call making an appointment.

  Beth felt such a rush of gratitude at the sight of him, her voice cracked when she thanked him for coming.

  He looked at her without any emotion whatsoever. “It’s still my case.”

  She automatically drew back into herself. This was not the man who’d cooked dinner for her last night. This was the detective who’d spearheaded the search of her house yesterday. Had everything he’d done and said later been an act? Maybe her suspicion that he was playing good cop/bad cop was truer than she’d known. Playing bad cop hadn’t gotten him anywhere, so he’d come back to take another shot at it. Be nice, get her talking.

  I exceeded his wildest expectations, Beth realized, shame gripping her. Oh, boy, had she ever opened up to him. She’d been stupid enough to think he did believe her. Believed in her? What a fool she was.

  He was back this morning not because she’d asked, or thought she needed support, but because it was his job. Because, even if he wouldn’t be the one grilling her this time, he’d still be weighing her every word.

  “You’ve heard everything I have to say,” she said coolly, and went to the kitchen without looking to see if he followed.

  He didn’t. The doorbell rang, followed by the sound of voices. Déjà vu.

  Determined to remain utterly composed, Beth went to greet the two agents, a man and a woman, and to offer them coffee. Everyone murmured pleased acceptance. She brought the cups in on a tray along with sugar and cream and let them all doctor their coffee to suit themselves.

  Logically she knew there were female FBI agents, but was still surprised to meet one. Middle-aged and pleasant-faced, she introduced herself as Agent Trenor and the younger man as Agent Vandemark. Clearly, they weren’t going to be on a first-name basis.

  They had all been standing when she brought the coffee. When she sat at one end of the sofa, Mike moved without haste but also without wasting any time to take the other end. The two federal agents, left flat-footed, had no choice but to sit in chairs facing the sofa. Maybe their preference, she reminded herself; they might have even asked him to give them the direct line of sight since he’d had the advantage of earlier interrogations. Or maybe he was intimidated by them… One sidelong glance killed that idea. He was watchful, but at ease. Deferring to their expertise didn’t seem to diminish his air of sheer male dominance.

  Carefully setting her coffee cup to one side, the woman agent opened a laptop on the table and booted it up. “Let’s start with the ransom demand,” she said.

  Beth tensed.

  The message, played from the laptop, was startlingly loud and clear. Her eyes widened at the sound of a click right after the man said, “Here, Sicily, talk.” She almost forgot it in a rush of emotion when Sicily’s voice came on. She jolted when Sicily gasped. And…was that a smaller click when Sicily finished talking?

  “Are my parents prepared to pay?” Staring at the two agents, Beth knew she looked and sounded fierce.

  “You haven’t been in communication with them?” the woman asked. Her tone was law-enforcement neutral, which failed to disguise her intense interest.

  “We don’t have a close relationship. I heard about the ransom call from Detective Ryan.” She hoped they didn’t hear the slight hitch where she’d almost said “Mike.” His expression didn’t change, while the other two studied her as if she were a bug on a pin. She didn’t care; didn’t care about anything but the answer to her question.

  “We hope it won’t come to that,” the man said, “although your father has expressed his willingness to follow instructions.”

  Her sinuses burned. She swallowed, nodded. Of course he would. How would it look if a man as wealthy as Laurence Greenway refused to pay ransom for his granddaughter?

  “You believe that’s Sicily’s voice,” Agent Trenor said.

  “Yes.” Oh, yes. She had never heard Sicily scared before, but for a moment there, she definitely was. “He recorded her earlier, didn’t he?”

  In her peripheral vision she saw Mike’s hand twitch. She wished quite suddenly that it was holding hers. She imagined
it warm, strong, possibly callused. Get over it, she told herself harshly. The comfort he’d offered her was a tactic, no more. And don’t forget it.

  The two agents glanced at each other before the woman inclined her head. “Yes, we believe so.”

  “Do you think she’s still alive?” Beth heard how calm she sounded, how in control. She’d never been so aware she was pretending.

  “The odds are excellent.” The woman was clearly the designated spokesperson. “It’s the norm in a ransom negotiation for the person paying—in this case, your father—to insist on proof that the hostage is alive and well. Anyone asking for an amount as substantial as a million dollars will have anticipated that request.”

  She nodded. Oh, Sicily. No. Focus. “Have you learned anything from the message?”

  There was the briefest hesitation. They were here to ask her questions, not answer hers. But Agent Trenor said matter-of-factly, “It came from a throwaway cell phone, which is what we would expect.”

  She went on to ask questions, all of which Beth had answered before. Was this new territory to them? How much had Mike briefed them? Were they trying to trip her up? Or merely wanting to gain an impression of Sicily and her family background firsthand? Beth couldn’t tell. They didn’t seem very interested in family dynamics, but were very focused on Chad Marks. He had an arrest record, Beth heard for the first time, although a glance at Mike told her he wasn’t surprised. Mostly petty theft, shoplifting a couple of times—wine in both cases—and he had been identified on a security tape holding up a liquor store but dropped from sight afterward and wasn’t arrested.

  “You say you went to one of his concerts and yet you can’t identify his voice.” They all looked at her. Explain that.

  “It could be him.” Unfortunately, she didn’t remember him having an especially distinctive voice, which might be one of the reasons the band hadn’t hit it big. “I can’t say it isn’t.” She held up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “It was only the once, and mostly he was singing. You know what it’s like when it’s amplified, and the crowd is noisy, and honestly it sounded more like yelling than singing. And a lot of the time there were two of them singing.” She had a thought. “Can’t you find someone who knew him better? One of his bandmates? And didn’t my parents meet him?”

  “Yes, but neither of them seemed quite certain of his voice, either. They said the same thing you did. It could be him, but it could just as well not be.”

  On impulse she asked, “Did you notice the way he said ‘your precious grandkid?’ Didn’t it seem…angry?”

  Mike’s hand spasmed again, his fingers curling into a fist. Beth pulled her gaze from it to see the two FBI agents studying her. She saw interest in their expressions.

  “We did notice.” This time it was the younger one who spoke. “Would Chad Marks have any reason to resent your parents?”

  “I don’t know why he would.”

  Mike cleared his throat.

  Feeling blood heating her cheeks, Beth looked down at her lap. There seemed to be a grease stain on her jeans, she noticed, as if two parts of her brain were operating entirely independently. The silence was absolute; everyone was waiting. For her. Dear God. Had he already told them?

  I can do this.

  “If he cared about Rachel…” Her throat seemed to thicken. She gave herself a moment so that she could continue unemotionally. “Our mother was abusive, our father indifferent. Rachel likely told Chad about her childhood. At the time, that would have given him reason to dislike my parents. That was a lot of years ago, though, and why would he sound so sharp about Sicily, his own daughter? They have never been interested in her. I can’t imagine Rachel ever saying anything to him that would make him believe Sicily was especially precious to them.”

  Mike spoke up for the first time. “Most of the message sounded by rote, as if he’d written it down for himself. But he slipped there. That was personal. He hates your parents. He blames them for something.”

  Beth laughed, and saw she’d taken the newcomers by surprise. Perhaps it was the corrosive quality of that laugh. “I suspect there are a great number of people who hate my father.”

  Agent Trenor’s interest sharpened. “Can you name anyone?”

  “No, but he’s made a lot of money. It’s hard not to make enemies along the way. And I’m sure you’re aware how deeply he’s involved in state politics. Again, I imagine there are people he initially supported then dropped, or went out of his way to see defeated. I can’t tell you. I’ve never been involved in his public life.”

  “What about your mother?” asked the woman agent.

  “I…don’t know.” Beth tried to think about it objectively. “I guess I’d be surprised. You’ve met her, haven’t you? She’s attractive and charming, a perfect hostess for my father. She has a wide circle of friends who aren’t close enough to know what she’s really like.”

  “What is she like?”

  She supposed they couldn’t help their curiosity, even though at this point they had no reason to suspect either of her parents of having anything to do with Sicily’s abduction. Unless Mike had shared his conspiracy theory? But she doubted it, because she thought they’d been surprised when she told them she and Rachel were abused. So he hadn’t already told them. Small comfort.

  “On the outside, very controlled, very conscious of appearances,” she said finally. “She’s witty, elegant. But I think she feels a great deal of rage. It comes out in…bursts. I’ve wondered…”

  Now she was looking at Mike. His hand, no longer curled in a fist, had somehow moved closer to hers.

  “You’ve wondered?” As if from a distance, Beth realized it was the woman agent who’d prompted her.

  “Whether she was abused by her own parents. They lived on the East Coast. Supposedly that’s why we never knew them. But she didn’t talk about them. They…didn’t exist.”

  The agents left twenty minutes later, thanking her for her cooperation and promising to be in touch. Beth felt less battered than she had expected. Either they hadn’t been as aggressive as Mike, or she was becoming inured to being under suspicion. Or it might simply be that they had his notes and didn’t need to ask all the same questions.

  Mike had risen and walked with them to the door, but he made no move to leave. She closed it. “I suppose you have more questions.”

  “Not the way you mean.”

  The way she meant? What way did he mean? Anger at the way he blew hot to cold and back again kept her spine straight and her chin high.

  “You must want something.”

  “I do. I want you to talk to me more about Sicily.”

  She stared at him. “You plan to ask nine million more questions I can only answer by saying ‘I don’t know’?” No, she hadn’t been looking forward to regaining her solitude, but exposing herself to a cruel display of her inadequacies as a guardian sounded way worse.

  He had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Nothing like that. The two of you must have talked. Done things together. It’s possible she’s said things you’ve forgotten.”

  “Like?”

  “About her mother. Her mother’s friends. Boyfriends. Anything that would give me some insight. I spent a good part of yesterday talking to neighbors and the few of Rachel’s friends I could find.”

  “I don’t understand.” And she wasn’t convinced he was admitting to his real agenda.

  “I suspect the FBI will be pursuing the possibility that the kidnapper is someone who hates your father. They’re better equipped for that than I am. I’m not convinced anyway. How many people that your parents deal with on a business or social level even know they have a granddaughter? They certainly didn’t have her on display. And to a lot of those people, a million dollars isn’t much. From what I’ve learned, your sister had some sleazy friends, and to them, a mill
ion bucks is a fortune. They knew Sicily. Rachel might have talked about how rich and stingy her parents were. How they didn’t even care about their own granddaughter.”

  “Their ‘precious granddaughter’,” Beth murmured.

  “Exactly. A guy who’d lived with Rachel and Sicily would know about you, maybe made a note of your address. Did you know the last boyfriend stayed on in her apartment until the rent ran out?”

  Startled, Beth said, “No. I went to pack and clean, but that was on the last day of the month.”

  “Nobody remembers his name. That’s one of the things I’m hoping Sicily told you. He had plenty of time to hunt through your sister’s things. All I do know about him is that he wasn’t working and Rachel was about to toss him because he was sponging off her.”

  “You’re saying he might have thought of a way to keep sponging off her.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “All right,” she said, sighing. She wasn’t trusting Mike the way she had, but she’d talk to him. She would do anything to get Sicily back.

  “Can I have another cup of coffee?” he asked hopefully.

  She narrowed her eyes, tempted to tell him not to push his luck, but, damn it, she wanted another cup, too.

  * * *

  BY UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT, THEY sat at the dining room table, facing each other across a width of gleaming maple wood that provided both separation and barrier. It was safer for him this way, Mike thought, and he suspected she had no desire to be close to him right now, either. He hadn’t been giving her much reason to like him.

  Things were stilted when they started. No, Sicily hadn’t had much to say when Beth first brought her home. No, she didn’t even cry. She seemed to be in shock.

  “She was in school, you know. She didn’t know why her mother was on the ferry. Sicily said maybe she’d gone to see a friend.”