Crimson Rain

by Meg O'Brien

  And why had she seemed so different since she’d come home this time? Could Roberta be right? Had Rachel decided to teach them a lesson, to make them sit up and take notice?

  Duarte had said he’d contact Berkeley and find out if anyone had seen her down there. She would have gone back in a few days, anyway. Had she decided to go back early and not tell them? Make them worry for a while?

  But if that were so, where was her car? Duarte had said there was no sign of it at the airport. But surely she wouldn’t have driven all the way from Seattle to Berkeley, which was across the bay from San Francisco. That would take days, and the Mustang was not in shape for a drive like that.

  He realized, suddenly, that they had been focusing on Angela too much. If Rachel had indeed decided to drive to Berkeley, the old Mustang could have broken down along the way. She could be stuck along the road in an area where her cell phone didn’t work. Worse, she could have gone off the road and become trapped beneath her car. Or…someone could have stopped to “help” her.

  And done something to her instead.

  Paul dried himself quickly, dressed and placed a call to Duarte. He got the detective’s voice mail and said, “I need to talk to you as soon as possible. I think we need to look into the possibility that Rachel tried to drive back to school and had an accident or a breakdown on the road. Could you contact the authorities between here and Berkeley? Please call me on my cell phone, or leave a message at my office or home.”

  Leaving all three numbers in case the detective called in for his messages and didn’t have them handy, Paul set the receiver back down on its cradle. Turning in his chair, he stared out the window. Not far from the bottom of Queen Anne Hill was Lacey’s apartment. He had put off calling her, feeling separated from her now by so many degrees that it hardly seemed as if she were still in his life at all.

  How could things change so much in just a matter of days? He supposed he felt that Lacey couldn’t possibly understand what he and Gina were going through. And aside from that, he didn’t want to lay his burdens on her. Lacey was young, with her whole life ahead of her. She didn’t need his problems to deal with.

  All the same, Paul thought, he should talk with her. He punched in her number, which he’d never put on speed dial in case Gina were to use his phone and accidentally dial it. Lacey answered with her usual perky “Hi, it’s me, whoever you are!” and he couldn’t help smiling. It was the first time he’d felt a genuine lift of spirit in two days.

  “How do you know there’s not some pervert at the other end of the line?” he had asked her once. “Why are you so damned friendly to everyone?”

  “And who says I can’t be friendly to a pervert?” she had countered. “I might just say, ‘Hey, how’s it goin’? I’ve been waitin’ my whole life for you!’ Golly, Molly, it’d probably blow his mind and he’d hang right up!”

  That was one of the things he liked most about Lacey. She always saw the funny, if odd, side of things.

  “It’s me,” he said now. “I’d like to come over. Just to talk.”

  “Well, you sure know the way,” she said. “You want coffee? And I’ve got apple pie.”

  “Pie is probably not a good idea this morning,” he said, groaning. “But coffee sounds great. Make it strong.”

  Lacey had a small glass table beside the window in her living room. They sat there on the zebra-striped 1930s chairs Paul had brought over from Soleil and drank coffee, while Paul brought her up-to-date on what was going on.

  “God, Paul, I can’t believe it! And I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. You and Gina. To have a child missing…” She reached for his hand. “Even at Rachel’s age, it has to be the worst thing in the world.”

  “It has been pretty bad,” he said. “I’m glad you understand why I may not be around as much for a while.”

  “Well, of course not.” She reached for his hand, and her long blond hair fell over one shoulder. “Paul, you’ll need to put every ounce of energy into finding Rachel. I understand that perfectly. And you’re not to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you,” he said, deeply grateful she was taking it this way.

  “And if there’s anything I can do, please just let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Geez. I just wish I’d known sooner. Not that I could probably do anything except send you good thoughts. Was it awful in Minnesota?”

  “Awful to hear about Dr. Chase’s murder,” he said, “and to think that Angela could have done it. It makes Rachel’s disappearance all the more frightening.”

  “Oh, Paul. She wouldn’t really do something that terrible to her own twin sister, would she? I mean, you said it was years ago that she tried that, and now that’s she’s grown…”

  Paul shook his head. “I don’t know what she’d do at this point. I just don’t know enough about her.”

  Lacey brushed back her hair and said, “Okay, look, maybe I can help you with that. All I do is sit around here most of the day, anyway. Let me try to track her down for you. You and the police need to focus on looking for Rachel, in case she did just take off on her own. I’ll track down Angela. And I promise you, I’ll find her.”

  He looked into Lacey’s sea-green eyes and wondered what he was going to do about her. Every time his guilt rose up and he thought of leaving her, of just letting her go, she did something that touched his heart.

  “It’s wonderful of you to offer,” he said with a hesitant smile, “but I don’t know…”

  “No buts. Just give me someplace to start. In fact, don’t bother. You said the police are checking out Berkeley? Well, I’ll go on the Net and see what I can find. It’s pretty easy to locate people these days, you know. I might even be able to turn up an address for Angela that way. Paul, this could go more quickly than you think.”

  “That would be great,” he said, feeling a weight lift from his heart.

  “Well, I know the police will do a good job. But Paul, there are all kinds of ways of tracing people on the Net, and sometimes you can find someone on your own, in a way the police don’t have time or the resources to think about.”

  He smiled. “I didn’t realize you knew so much about computers.”

  She grinned. “Well, sure. What do you think I do here all day—watch tv and eat bonbons?” Making a face, she admitted, “Well, I guess I do a little bit of that. But not all day.” Gesturing to the computer he had given her when she moved in, she said, “Most of the time I’m ‘Surfin’ USA.’”

  Paul smiled again. How could he ever think of leaving this woman? And how could he ever have thought of her only as solace for his grief? The longer he knew her, the more he saw the many different sides of her, and the more he cared about her.

  He sighed and braced himself to say, “I have to go now.” Gina needed him, and he needed to be with her, too. Feeling more torn than ever, he gave Lacey a long hug at the door and kissed her forehead. “I don’t know how to thank you for this.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Lacey said, stroking him on the cheek. “Let’s just find Rachel—before it’s too late.”

  Paul made a stop at Soleil to check his messages. Gina often left them on his machine, as his cell phone didn’t always work when he was in various parts of the warehouse. There was nothing from her, however. And nothing from Duarte.

  The warehouse was nearly empty. It was usually slow over the noon hour, and his assistant, Janice, and two of his four clerks had gone out for lunch. His floor manager and another clerk were in different rooms, either taking inventory or arranging new pieces of furniture that had recently arrived. Except for them and Annie, his receptionist in the front lobby, Paul was alone.

  Taking this opportunity, he went through the Japanese room and into the Crystal Cave. He’d had a comfortable chair brought in years ago, and on particularly bad days he would sit there in quiet meditation. In recent years it had helped to give him enough balance to keep going.

  It had been a long time si
nce he’d done that, however. Life had a way of moving in on one. Business, phone calls, other obligations…

  It was impossible to clear his mind today. Fear overrode everything, with images of Rachel at the hands of a crazed Angela, or lost on a back road somewhere between here and L.A.

  Alive? Oh, God, let her be alive.

  He tried to think the way a detective would. If Rachel really had just decided to take off, where would she go, if not back to school? Paul tried to recall everything she had said since coming home. Was there a clue in her conversations with them? Anything at all?

  She had seemed happy the day they cut down the Christmas tree and went to tea. But that was before the accident, and the note.

  Vicky. Rachel had been seeing Vicky, and so far as he knew, no one had informed her of Rachel’s disappearance yet. Had Rachel told Victoria anything in their sessions that might help?

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called her office, remembering the number from so many calls over the years. Her voice mail was on, and he left a message that he’d like to see her as soon as she returned from lunch, that it was urgent—about Rachel—and could she please make time for him?

  Paul sighed. It seemed impossible, the way life went on. Impossible that Rachel could be gone, either in peril or worse, while people were having lunch in the usual way. Talking with friends, drinking wine, perhaps, tasting foods that Rachel might never taste again.

  He shook himself and stood. I’ve got to get out of here, do something productive.

  His floor manager, Daniel Britt, tapped lightly on the cherry-wood frame of the door. Paul turned. The young man was tall but slight, with warm brown eyes and thick, wavy brown hair. Creases in his forehead seemed to indicate that life had taken a toll on Daniel, though he was only twenty-three. He had been with Paul four months, and in that time he hadn’t spoken to anyone about his personal life, so far as Paul could tell.

  He saw a great deal of potential in Daniel, however, who had walked in one day and asked Paul to take him on as an intern. His résumé listed excellent skills and experience in other jobs, but his love was antiques. He would work without pay, he had said, for the opportunity to learn the antique business.

  As it turned out, Daniel had learned so quickly, and had been such a hard worker, it wasn’t long before Paul had taken him on as a full-time salaried employee. He even dared to dream that Daniel might turn out to be like the son he would never have, someone who might take over the business one day.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Daniel said softly, “but we don’t know what to do with this lap desk.”

  He was holding a beautiful old travel desk, or lap desk, the kind that people in the horse-drawn carriage era would take with them on trips. It looked like a simple box, but when opened its slanted top provided a writing table, and inside were drawers for paper, pens and ink.

  “Where did it come from?” Paul asked. He took the travel desk from Daniel and set it on a small table next to the chair, looking it over.

  “We, uh…we don’t know. It was on Annie’s desk when she opened this morning.”

  Most mornings, Annie arrived before anyone else. Though it wasn’t expected of her, she made a pot of coffee for everyone and often brought in doughnuts or Danishes, as well. The other clerks teased the receptionist about “mothering” them, but no one, so far, had complained.

  “I should say,” Daniel went on, “she found it there when she went back out to her desk after she made the coffee. Someone apparently came in and just dropped it off.”

  Paul’s trained eye told him that it was a valuable piece. There were other lap desks from the 1800s era still around, but this one was especially well crafted and made of fine rosewood with an inlaid satinwood design. It had many small drawers inside, where people would hide their private letters and jewelry, in the event bandits stopped them along the way.

  He opened the two largest drawers, thinking he might find the owner’s name and phone number in one, but both were empty.

  “No note or anything?” he asked.

  “No…” Daniel shook his head and hesitated, but said no more.

  “Well, put it on my desk for now. We’ll probably hear from the owner later on.” Soleil Antiques had been in this neighborhood for so many years, it wasn’t unreasonable to think that someone in a hurry, perhaps on his way to work this morning, had trusted him to take care of the piece until he could call about it later.

  Daniel nodded and took the travel desk. “I’ll try to find room in your office. Things are kind of piling up in there.” He hesitated again. “Uh, Paul? You haven’t been around much since Christmas. Is anything wrong?”

  Paul hesitated for only a moment. “My daughter is missing,” he said.

  Daniel looked confused. “Daughter…you mean Rachel?” he said after a moment. “She’s missing?”

  “We haven’t seen or heard from her in three days.”

  “That’s terrible,” Daniel said. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “The police are looking for her,” Paul said. “We’ve been trying to keep it quiet, in case…well, you know, in case she just decided to get away for a day or two. She could turn up anytime, and we wouldn’t want to embarrass her by having it all over the papers that she’d been kidnapped, or—” Paul squeezed his eyes shut, and felt Daniel’s hand on his arm.

  “If there’s anything I can do…” Daniel said. “Anything at all.”

  “Thanks.” Paul managed a slight smile. “Just help keep things running here for me.”

  “Of course. Would you like me to go through the paperwork on your desk, see how much of it I can clear up?”

  “That would be great.”

  Daniel left quietly, shutting the door behind him. Paul shoved his hands into his pockets and looked around the Crystal Cave. Walking over to a Lalique vase, he stared into it as if it were a crystal ball. “Where is my little girl?” he whispered. “Where are both my little girls?”

  The vase was not a crystal ball, and it had no answer for him. For just another moment he soaked in the quiet brilliance of this room that had always given him so much rest. When he left this time, however, he was more confused—and more afraid—than he had ever been before.

  From Soleil, Paul stopped at the police station, hoping to find Duarte there. The detective was at his desk, working on a pile of papers.

  “Reports I’ve been putting off too long,” he said, looking up briefly as he wrote on one with a black pen. “Have a seat. Be with you in a minute.”

  Paul took a seat, and for the first time he noticed a photograph in a silver frame on the detective’s desk—a young Duarte, it seemed, with a woman and a small child. When Duarte looked up, putting the papers into a box labeled Out, Paul said, “Family?” nodding in the direction of the photograph.

  “Was,” Duarte replied. “That’s Laura, the one who left. Brad, there, he’s my boy. Thirty-five, now. He went with his mom, and I’d take him to Mariner’s games, Little League, that sort of thing on the weekends. I don’t see him much anymore.”

  The detective’s voice held a hint of sadness, and Paul could empathize. “It’s hard to connect with grown kids these days. From what some of my friends tell me, they’re all pretty busy with their careers.”

  “True,” Duarte said. He leaned back in his chair and studied Paul. “What about you and Rachel? Have you always gotten along?”

  Paul realized that, despite the detective’s seemingly casual air, there was more behind the question than simple curiosity.

  “Well, with all that’s gone on in our family—you know, with Angela and everything—it’s been difficult. Nothing’s ever been exactly ‘normal,’ if you know what I mean.”

  “I know from what you’ve said that Rachel’s been in therapy a lot,” Duarte said. “Is that just because she lost her twin?”

  They still hadn’t told Duarte about Angela’s attack on Rachel at the age of five. With Rachel missing now, however, and with Angela poss
ibly being responsible for whatever had happened to her, Paul felt he could no longer hold back that information.

  “No. There’s more,” he said. He told Duarte the entire story. “I’m not sure why we didn’t mention this before, except that we lied about the incident when we took Rachel to the hospital. We loved Angela, despite what she’d done, and we felt it wasn’t her fault that she’d grown up with that streak, as we thought of it then. And we didn’t want what she did to become a matter of public record. It seemed enough to take her back to Saint Sympatica’s, where she’d get good care.”

  Duarte surprised him by agreeing. “That makes sense, I guess, kid that age. Five, right?”

  Paul nodded. “Now that Rachel’s missing, of course…”

  “Now that Rachel’s missing,” Duarte said, “it’s even more important to find Angela. Especially after what you told me about that shrink at the orphanage being murdered, and Angela disappearing right after that.” He took a large gulp from the coffee cup on his desk. “I’ve been talking to the lab guys about the photograph.” He pulled it out of a file folder and handed it to Paul. “I’m afraid I may have given you false hope. They say the quality isn’t good enough to do much with it. Too fuzzy, and when it’s enlarged it just gets worse.”

  “I was hoping they could enhance it somehow,” Paul said. “Bring out more features? Then age it?”

  “Well, it’s not as easy as it looks on TV. With a decent original, we can do all kinds of things now. Change the hair color and style, and even age her face to tell us how she might look at the age of twenty-one.”

  Duarte leaned over and tapped his pencil at the tall girl in the back row. “You see how her hair is half covering her face? With a decent original we could reconstruct that side of her face by computer, using the other side as a model. You say you burned Angela’s photographs from when she lived with you?”