“She disappeared on the eastbound trip,” Mike mused, “so she did cross over that morning and do something. Maybe only drive off and get in line to come back.”
At that point Beth seemed to forget she disliked him and became interested in the conversation. She frowned. “Wouldn’t somebody have noticed?”
He shook his head. “Too many cars. And remember, there are two ferries covering the route. She could have ridden over on one and come back on a different one.”
Beth nodded acknowledgment. “So she might really have had an errand. Or she might have chickened out on the way over.”
“If she did commit suicide, your sister might have planned all along to do it on the way back. Suicide,” he said, as gently as he could, “is essentially a selfish act.” When she didn’t protest as he’d expected, Mike continued. “That said, people who have decided to kill themselves sometimes do strangely considerate things. I saw one where the guy spread a tarp so his blood didn’t ruin the carpet when he shot himself. What it was going to do to his wife or his fifteen-year-old son when they found him dead apparently didn’t cross his mind. Instead, he wanted to make sure the clean-up was easy.”
Beth made what was likely an involuntary sound. “Which one found him?”
He focused on her. Damn. He should have edited the story. “The son,” he said reluctantly.
She shivered.
“What I’m saying is, your sister might have thought it would be easier if her car ended up on the home side of the Sound. When she planned, a detail like that might have mattered.”
He watched her struggle with that for a minute. Then she said, “No one even mentioned the possibility that she might have been pushed. It didn’t occur to me then, but now… What if the boyfriend suggested the kidnapping thing and Rachel refused? What if he killed her to get her out of the way?”
“The thought did cross my mind,” Mike told her, “but there’s no evidence to suggest it. She didn’t have a passenger in the car.”
“How do you know?”
“The ticket was on the seat when the car was found abandoned.”
“Oh.”
“A struggle would have been likelier to draw attention, too. If she was caught by surprise, wouldn’t you think she’d still have screamed as she went over the railing?”
He saw her swallow before nodding.
“It would be a high-risk place to kill someone anyway, because ferries are loaded with passengers, many of whom spend the ride looking at the view. It’s pretty likely someone would see her go over or see her struggling once she was in the water. Then she’d be rescued and name her assailant.”
Mike tried to steer her back to talking about Sicily, but the first thing she said was, “We rode over and back on the ferry. Edmonds-Kingston.”
“What?”
“Sicily asked if we could.” Beth seemed to be looking into the past. “I suppose that sounds macabre, doesn’t it? But the funeral didn’t seem to have anything to do with Rachel, not really. Riding the ferry was sort of a memorial service.”
“Did Sicily talk about her mom?”
“A little bit, but neither of us said much. We walked on—you know, there wasn’t any reason to take a car. I thought someday we might go back and have lunch in Kingston, try to take the horror out of crossing over on the ferry, but that day we walked off and walked right back on. Both directions we stood outside, up on the prow, and looked at the water and the seagulls. I tried to imagine how Rachel felt when she went in.”
Double damn. He imagined the two of them, this woman who was the loneliest person he’d ever met, and the kid with the solemn eyes who was trying to accept the fact that her mother had chosen to leave her. He wondered if they’d been invisible in the midst of more cheerful riders, or whether they’d generated some kind of force field that kept people away from them.
“Sounds grim,” he said.
She shook herself. “I suppose it was, but…” Her head tilted to one side. “It’s funny, but that day was also a breakthrough for the two of us. I didn’t realize it then, but I think she started to trust me after that. I could tell she thought I’d say no, and when I said, ‘If that’s what you need to do,’ she started to open up. So it didn’t turn out to be a bad thing.” She smiled, but it wobbled slightly. “We came home and baked. Cheap therapy. We baked bread from scratch, and pummeling dough is satisfying, you know. Then cookies, too. Ginger molasses. She told me she thought about becoming a chef because she really likes to cook.”
Mike let her keep talking, only adding a murmured question now and again when she slowed down. Despite how much she didn’t know about her niece, it turned out there was a lot she did know. She told him about a reserved, thoughtful girl who had a sly sense of humor and an adult way of looking at people.
“It doesn’t sound as if she ever had friends. They moved so much, and it’s hard when you’re new to start all over. But also…” Beth hesitated. “Mostly I think she was never really a kid. Her main goal was taking care of her mother. I think in her own mind Rachel was the focus, but there had to be an element of fear, too. What would happen to her if her mom overdosed, or if they got evicted, or had no money for groceries?”
Mike nodded with understanding.
“She doesn’t like to say anything bad about Rachel, but she didn’t understand why her mom kept bringing guys home. ‘Things were good when it was just us,’ she said once, and then, ‘I don’t think she even liked them.’”
“That’s a pretty mature observation for a ten-year-old.”
“Yes. She said…” Beth stopped suddenly, her eyes widening. “Tyler. His name was Tyler.”
Mike sat up straighter. “The most recent guy?”
“Yes. Oh, why didn’t I remember that? She said most of the guys hardly knew she existed, but she didn’t like the way Tyler looked at her.”
“Well, now,” Mike said softly. “Anything else?”
She shook her head. “I tried to get her to say how he looked at her, but she wouldn’t.”
“Or couldn’t,” he suggested. “She might not recognize a sexual appraisal.”
“I hope she wouldn’t.” Beth fastened those big brown eyes on him and said, “I’m scared.”
“Yeah, I know.”
* * *
“YOU SAID SOMETHING TO ME once.” Beth tried to remember his wording. “About losing someone important to you. A child.”
His withdrawal was visible. Still, after a minute he dipped his head. “Yes.”
“Who was it?” She wouldn’t blame him if he told her it was none of her business. But at this moment she desperately needed something—a connection to him. He had loomed so huge in her life since Sicily’s disappearance. Whether he was enemy or friend or both, she was having trouble imagining him gone from it.
Muscles in his jaw knotted. Finally, he said, “My son. He drowned when he was three years old.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice was drenched with compassion she hadn’t known she had in her. The pain in his eyes bounced off the fear and pain in her chest, intensifying them.
He nodded. She wanted to ask how it had happened, but knew she had no right.
“My wife…” He stopped, shoved back his chair and stood, standing with his back to Beth. He continued with obvious difficulty. “She’d taken him to a friend’s house. Ellen had put Nate down for a nap. She and the friend got talking, then Ellen took a phone call. It wasn’t until the friend looked out her kitchen window and thought she saw…” He sucked in a breath, bent his head and began kneading the back of his neck.
My wife. He was married? But right this second, it didn’t seem to matter. Without knowing she was doing it, Beth stood, too, and went to him. She didn’t even know where this instinct had come from. I don’t know how to do this. But he’d held her when she need
ed it. So, though it felt awkward, she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she murmured again, squeezed him hard and then tried to step back.
Clumsily for such a graceful man, he turned and his arms came around her with a kind of desperation.
* * *
MIKE WAS ASHAMED OF NEEDING her so much. It had been a long time since he’d felt this hunger to have one particular person in his arms. Since before his marriage had disintegrated, maybe even longer than that. He and Ellen had had a decent marriage. If someone asked, he’d have said he was happy. After the way he lashed out at her at the hospital, fueled by anger and grief, he had tried not to let her know he blamed her for Nate’s death. She was right, accidents happened. No parent could watch their child around the clock. With all the will and love in the world, you couldn’t guarantee another person’s safety.
But he hadn’t been able to shake the blame, and the strain of pretending got to him. It got to them both, he eventually acknowledged. She’d known. Blamed herself, of course. Their only hope would have been him offering her unconditional forgiveness and faith, and he couldn’t do that.
It took him time—long after they separated and then divorced—to understand that while he’d believed he loved Ellen, there were things about her he didn’t like. She had no ability to be self-sufficient. She hated being by herself. If she wasn’t with a friend, she was on the phone. She was desperate for him to get home and miserably unhappy when he didn’t make it when she expected him. His job hadn’t yet become a big issue between them, but he’d sensed that it would someday. When he did make it home, she wanted to go out, if not with him, with her friends. He knew she loved Nate, but sometimes he thought their child was an accessory for her, not a real person who deserved significant blocks of undivided attention. Probably, he had come to realize, she’d simply not been ready to become a mother. They’d been so damn young.
She might have been happier if she’d kept working after Nate was born, but the only job experience she had was as a salesclerk, which wouldn’t have paid enough to justify child care. Ellen was bright and bubbly and made him laugh in their early days, which kept him from noticing that she was shallow. She liked hearing funny stories from his job, but not the harrowing ones. Most of the time he wouldn’t have shared those anyway, so that was fine.
But now, with this woman holding him securely, he realized that once in a while he’d wanted his wife to see on his face that his day had been bad and hold out her arms to him.
He struggled to pull himself together and finally let her go. She did the same and stepped back.
They looked at each other self-consciously.
“I hope you have other children,” she said after a minute.
Mike shook his head. “Nate was our only. Ellen and I didn’t last another year.”
“I’m sorry. You must have been angry at her.”
“I was,” he admitted. “I knew it was irrational, but I couldn’t get past it. She was at a friend’s house, she was chattering on the phone, and it turned out the sliding door was open and the screen wasn’t latched even though they had a pool in the backyard. Ellen never sat—she tended to bop around while she was talking. I guess her back was turned when Nate pushed open the screen door.”
“That’s why you were angry at me,” Beth said suddenly. “Because I wasn’t paying attention, either.”
He gripped the back of his neck. “I hoped that wasn’t obvious.”
“I could feel it.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t blame you. I shouldn’t have…”
“No.” His voice came out too loud. “No, you were right. Sicily is ten, not three.” And Ellen was right, too. Could he swear Nate wouldn’t have been able to get by him if he and a buddy were watching a ball game on TV, talking? When he’d believed Nate to be fast asleep?
Beth sucked in a breath. “Are you…? Would you like a sandwich?”
Not smart. He should leave. Now.
“Yeah,” he said. “Please.”
They cleared the cups from the living room, which they hadn’t done earlier. Then Beth put together sandwiches with turkey, Havarti and a heap of vegetables on some kind of multigrain bread, and got them sodas.
As they had last night, they ate with very little conversation. She only had half her sandwich, though, before seeming to lose interest. She pushed that shiny brown hair behind her ear and fastened intense eyes on him. “Do you think it’s the boyfriend who has her?”
He hesitated, thought about all the scenarios including the ones in which she played a part, then told her the truth. “No. My best guess is still Sicily’s father. You’re right, there was something really personal in his voice. It’s hard to see why an enemy your father earned in business or politics would fasten on his granddaughter that way. Use her, sure. But whoever this is, he is angry at your parents and somehow Sicily is mixed up in that anger. The boyfriend hadn’t been around that long. He might have come up with this great scheme, but why would he be angry at your parents? Now Chad, that’s different. Could be he’s angry that Rachel getting pregnant pushed him into marrying her. Was there pressure from your parents?”
“We weren’t talking. But if I had to guess…no. She was only seventeen, remember. They were more likely to want her to fix everything by having an abortion. Their daughter getting pregnant at seventeen and marrying a rocker? That would be incomprehensible to them.”
“But we don’t know what Rachel told Chad,” Mike reminded her. “She might have put pressure on him by using her parents.”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
She got up and poured them more coffee, which seemed to help his thinking process. “Or maybe he thought the baby was his ticket to serious bucks. In his eyes, your parents were loaded. Why wouldn’t they help their precious daughter and granddaughter?” He used the word on purpose, and wasn’t surprised at how quickly she caught on.
“He wasn’t saying ‘your precious granddaughter’ bitterly. He was saying it sarcastically.”
“That wasn’t my first impression, but now… It could be. He was sarcastic, but there was an edge of anger, too.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Oh, God. If it was Chad, how did he find her? How did he know we were at the park?”
“He followed you. Your address is listed. Which is a mistake,” he added parenthetically. “Get it out of the next directory.” He looked her in the eyes. They were like melted caramel, he thought, warm and soft and rich.
“Did you take Sicily to school, or did she ride the bus?” He should have asked sooner.
“Bus. Right at the corner.”
“Was she alone waiting?”
“No, there are two other kids.”
“Then, unless by chance she was out there by herself one morning, getting her alone near your house was a no-go. He needs to reduce his chances of being seen. So he waits until the weekend and hopes she’ll go somewhere with friends, or the two of you will head somewhere he might have a better chance. Maybe a mall where you let her go get something to eat while you try on shoes. Anyplace that nobody will pay attention to him. The park is perfect. Sicily is by herself briefly, probably because she went up to the restroom alone. He could have been parked right next to the building, which would block him from sight of the parking lot and picnic area. She comes out on her own—did you notice the women’s restroom exits that way?—no one visible, he could have her in the trunk of his car in a matter of seconds.”
“Yes.” Face stricken, she pressed her hand to her stomach.
Oh, hell. He’d been talking to her as if she were another cop, not thinking how vivid this scenario would be to her. “I’m sorry.”
“You think I haven’t pictured it a million times? And worse things?”
He nodded, accepting. “I know you have.”
“At least she’s alive
.” She caught herself. “Probably alive.”
“Almost certainly. Who hasn’t seen enough movies to know the concept of providing proof of life?”
Her eyes were fastened desperately on his. “Yes, but what about after that?”
“The goal is to find her before the ransom drop takes place. Or, worst case, follow whoever picks up the money.”
“Will you be doing that?”
“Damn straight I plan to be in on it. I’m unlikely to be in charge, though. This is the FBI’s show now. What’s more, chances are good it’ll happen in Everett or Seattle, say. Somewhere more populated. The local P.D. will be brought in.”
“Oh.” She didn’t much like it, he saw, but accepted reality. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything you’ve done.”
“For hounding you, you mean?” He offered a crooked smile.
To his astonishment, she returned a genuine one. “Even that. You did it for Sicily. That was what was really important. That you thought about her first. I could tell you cared. That meant a lot to me.”
He was reeling from the smile. It lit her face to real beauty. He wondered what she’d look like when she was truly happy, when blue semicircles didn’t underlie her eyes, when her mouth wasn’t compressed with anguish or tension, when her posture wasn’t stiff. He bet she’d been gorgeous three days ago when she’d laid back on her blanket with the sun warm on her face and had closed her eyes, relaxing utterly.
He tuned back in to notice that awareness had flared in her eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She was almost whispering.
“Your smile…” He cleared his throat. “I was wondering what you look like when you’re happy.”
Some bleak knowledge stole most expression from her face. “I’m not very often. With Sicily, I’ve been feeling my way.” Even more softly, she added, “I want to be happy.”
He held out his hand and surprised himself by a naked truth he hadn’t known until this minute. “I want to be, too.”
Making Her Way Home Page 15