by Meg O'Brien
The tears in her eyes spilled down her cheeks as she pleaded with him. “Just find Rachel, Detective Duarte. Find her and bring her home to us…before it’s too late.”
Before it’s too late. Her words shook him, but after that he couldn’t get anything out of her. Roberta Evans—who, at first blush, had seemed wacky but brave, peculiar but intelligent—had become in a few short minutes a sad, frightened woman beyond her prime…someone whose power to “handle things” had been whittled down over the years, until there was nothing left now but a shell of a woman who trembled in fear.
God, what a gal! Duarte thought, shaking his head as he drove back to Seattle. What an act! When this was all over, he’d have to have a talk with Roberta Evans. With her chameleon skills, she’d make a splendid undercover cop.
The only downside, however, was that she’d been too good, even for him. He hadn’t gotten anything out of her that was useful.
Or had he? As he thought of the day’s events, there was something nagging at him, something that he’d put away in some corner of his mind to remember later. But then he’d been distracted. And now he didn’t know if he’d gotten it from Roberta—or Lacey.
The Bradleys went to bed early that night, knowing that the police and highway patrol were now looking for Rachel all over Washington. Duarte had also notified authorities in Oregon and California. Paul and Gina didn’t expect to sleep, but their nerves were wearing thin, and Al had warned them that if they didn’t get some rest it would be that much more difficult to handle what might come.
Paul didn’t want to think about “what might come”, but of course he knew what Duarte meant. Just the thought of it made him ill, filled him with dread. Still, he knew they had to be prepared. To let it blind-side them would almost assuredly break the few fragile bonds that remained between himself and his wife.
He’d seen it happen over and over. A couple’s child died, either from natural causes, accident or murder, and the marriage ended. As if the death of a child wasn’t enough to handle, the parents had to deal with media hounds, or well-meaning people who gathered around to lend support but who couldn’t keep the fear out of their eyes. What if this happens to me, they seemed to be thinking.
Paul knew this because, several times, he had been one of those people who stepped forward to support someone else in their grief. Annie, for instance, had lost her mother a few months ago. He remembered the flat, helpless words he had used when he hugged her and patted her back. It was the only thing he knew to do, but even as he did it he felt that it wasn’t enough. The instinct was to say “this will pass,” and “time heals all wounds,” and all the other platitudes he’d learned over the years in similar circumstances. But people didn’t want to hear that, he knew. When it came right down to it, the hug was enough, and a gentle “I’m sorry.” Why had he thought, in Annie’s case, that he’d had to do or say something more?
In bed that night, Gina tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Paul managed to drift off by midnight, only to have a nightmare. Rachel was there, dressed in a ghostly-white dress with a scarlet sash. She had fallen into a half-frozen lake and was trapped beneath the ice. Her hands beat against the ice as if to break it, to set herself free.
Why don’t you save me? she seemed to be crying, though her lips moved silently. Paul tried to reach her, but the ice broke under his feet and the cold dark waters sucked at him, dragging him over the edge. At the last minute he managed to grab Rachel’s hand, and he realized with a deep profusion of sadness that they would drown there together. He had been too late, just as he always was. Too late to keep the vows, too late to save anyone, ever.
Then, suddenly, Gina was behind him on the ice, grabbing for him, hanging on for dear life, much the same way she’d hung on to him when they first met and he would take her up into the mountains on his motorcycle.
He hadn’t thought of that motorcycle in years. Or of the time the back wheel had hit a patch of oil on a narrow road, and had begun to slide out from under them. With a hill on one side and a steep cliff on the other, Gina had screamed and tightened her grasp around his waist. A close call, but it had turned out all right. Shaking, they had both dismounted. Standing side by side, they looked down the cliff to its bottom, some three hundred feet below. Though he was white and shaky at what might have been, Paul had taken Gina into his arms and promised her that from that moment on he would never let her come to harm. He would take care of her. Always.
“Always?” she had asked, trembling like a small frightened bird in his arms.
“Always,” he had said. “I swear, Gina. I will never let you down.”
Paul woke with that promise on his lips. He lay on his back staring at the thin, fluttery shadows of a tree on the bedroom ceiling.
How many vows had he broken? Not just the big one, but all the little ones that a marriage is based on. The ones that you promise each other in the heat of nightly passion and then forget in the long, cold reality of endless passing days.
He didn’t know he had drifted off until he felt Gina shaking him, pulling at his arm. In the strange world of half sleep he was back in the nightmare—except that it wasn’t a nightmare now. Gina was saving him from falling through the ice. Not only him, but Rachel, too. And as he woke fully, he knew with a cold and certain finality that Gina was the only one who could save him from the mess he’d made of his life.
“Someone’s at the door,” she was saying. She slid from the bed and pulled on her bathrobe, the faded and worn red one that she wore every day until the last moment before dressing for work.
Paul sprang from the bed, pulling on his jeans and a sweater. The doorbell continued to ring.
“Let me get it,” Paul said. “It might be reporters.” They had turned the answering machine on while they slept, because ever since the APB had gone out on Rachel they’d been inundated by calls from reporters. Rachel had their cell phone numbers, and even though she had never answered their attempts to call her, they had kept their phones by the bed. Al had their numbers, too, and he had promised to let them know if there was any news about Rachel.
Paul hurried downstairs, cursing himself for not having a security eye put into the front door. Releasing the dead bolt, he held the door slightly ajar without taking off the chain and asked, “Who is it?”
“Duarte,” he heard. “I’ve got something for you.”
Paul slipped the chain off and opened the door farther. “Al?” For the first time he looked at his watch. It was 3:14 a.m. “Do you know what time it is?”
The question was never answered, and Paul felt shockwaves run through him as Rachel stepped into view.
15
“Hi, Dad,” Rachel said coolly. “You really didn’t have to send the gendarmes after me. I’m perfectly okay.”
Stunned, he reached for her, dragging her into his arms. “Rachel, thank God! We thought—we didn’t know what to think. We’ve been so worried!”
“Gina,” he called out, “it’s Rachel!” He held her back a bit to look at her. “Are you all right? Where have you been?”
Gina came running down the stairs. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” She ran forward, enveloping Rachel in her arms. “Never mind all that. Just tell us you’re okay.” Tears flowed down her face and into Rachel’s hair.
“I went to visit a friend in Spokane,” Rachel said, pulling away. “Geez, you guys. I left you a note.”
“You left a note?” Gina said, half laughing and half crying. She shook her head. “We never saw a note.”
“Spokane?” Paul said. “Who were you visiting there? I didn’t even know you had a friend in Spokane.”
He looked at Duarte, as if for an answer.
“The Spokane PD found her hanging around a convenience store. They recognized her from the APB, took her in to the precinct and called. I went and got her.”
“I don’t understand,” Paul said. “Why didn’t you let us know?”
“Because I told him not to!” Rachel snapped. “You
think I wanted Mommy and Daddy showing up at the police station like I was some little kid? I’m a grown woman, Dad—even if you and Mom don’t want to treat me that way!”
Duarte rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I talked to her on the phone from downtown. Told her I was gonna call her folks and let them know she was all right. Well, she said she’d take off again if I did that. The officers who picked her up said she didn’t have a car or any money, and I didn’t want her on the street, so I agreed to go and get her.”
“Some favor,” Rachel complained.
“Yeah, well, I said I’d come and get her, but only if she let me bring her here.”
“You didn’t want to come home?” Paul asked.
Rachel didn’t answer.
“Honey, I’m trying to understand. What were you doing hanging around a convenience store in Spokane?”
Rachel made an irritated noise. “You don’t have to make it sound like I was trying to rob the place, for heaven’s sake!” She had drawn away from Gina and planted her hands on her hips. “My car got stolen, and so did my money and my cell phone. I panhandled some quarters and tried to call you from a phone booth, but the coin slot was jammed. If the cops hadn’t shown up when they did, I’d have hitched a ride home.”
“Oh, thank God you didn’t have to do that!” Gina said, beginning to cry again. “We’ve been so worried since you disappeared.” She reached out to stroke Rachel’s hair, but Rachel pulled away.
“Mom, don’t be so dramatic! I didn’t disappear. I told you, I was just visiting someone. Then, when I got robbed, all I wanted to do was get home.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Paul said tightly. Now that the rush of relief from seeing her safe and sound was over, he was angry with her for frightening her mother.
“It’s all right,” Gina said, hugging her. “We’re just glad you’re back.”
“It’s not all right,” Paul said. “You’ve had us worried to death. Why didn’t you let us know you were going out of town? We didn’t know if…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Honestly, you both are being so silly.” Rachel laughed, shrugged out of her jacket and slung it over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs with a jaunty swing of her hips.
“Hold it,” Paul said. “Don’t you dare go up those stairs. You owe us an explanation, Rachel. Your mother has been worried sick.”
“And that would bother you?” she asked, turning around. “Since when do you worry about the way Mom feels?”
He heard Gina’s shocked intake of breath, and for a moment, Paul almost lost control. His gut reaction was to go after Rachel and shake her. But he had never struck her, had never even given her smacks with a wooden spoon, as was the “approved” punishment in the days when Rachel and Angela were toddlers. He believed that hitting a child only taught that child to hit.
“Rachel,” he said as calmly as possible, “please do not go upstairs. We need to talk.”
“Your father’s right,” Gina said. “Let’s go into the living room.”
Rachel cast a look at Duarte. “They can’t make me do anything, right?” she said. “I’m twenty-one. I can do whatever I want. Right?”
Duarte shrugged. “Sure. Anything you want. I gotta say, though, you looked pretty cold and unhappy back there in the Spokane precinct. So maybe you don’t do so well, sometimes, on your own. Hell, what’s it going to hurt if you do what your parents want? You’re in their house, after all.”
Rachel took a few steps up the stairs, then hesitated. Finally she shrugged and came back down. Throwing them all a hostile glance, she sauntered into the living room. Duarte, Paul and Gina followed. Rachel tossed her jacket onto the floor and slumped into a chair.
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” she said. “When I’m in California, you don’t know where I am and what I’m doing all the time.”
“That’s different,” Gina said. “When you’re here, it’s impossible not to worry. Rachel, we even agreed, all three of us, that we would tell each other where we were at all times.”
“That was a few days ago,” Rachel argued, studying the toe of her boot. “I thought I didn’t have to do that anymore.”
Gina looked at Paul, who was staring at Rachel as if he’d never seen her before. Meeting Gina’s eyes, he shook his head slightly and addressed Duarte.
“Al, can you fill us in on any of this?”
“Only thing I know—and this is just from talking to the cops at the station there—is that the manager of the store said your daughter’d been trying to hitch a ride back to Seattle with some customers. He didn’t feel comfortable with her hanging around that way, and he called 911. Like I said, the guys who answered the call recognized her from the APB. They gave her a little ride to the station and had her sit there while they called Seattle. The call came through when I was at the precinct cleaning up some things before I left on vacation, and I talked to them, and then her. You know the rest.”
Paul looked at Rachel, who still did not meet his eyes. He turned back to Al. “We have a lot to thank you for,” he said.
“He’s right,” Gina added, her eyes tearing up. “Thank you so much, Al.”
Duarte looked uneasy. “Yeah, well, I told you I’d do everything I could to find her for you.…” He shrugged.
Paul wondered what the detective was holding back.
“Al?”
But Duarte was getting up and heading for the door. “I gotta get home,” he said, yawning. “It’s been a long day, and Lazybones will make me pay for it.”
Paul followed him into the hallway. “You must have been up all night, to make that long drive over there and back, Al. Why would you do that?”
Duarte shrugged again. “I didn’t have much else to do. Besides, you’ve got a good kid there.”
“I know that, Al. But I’m not buying her story any more than you are. At least, I’m guessing you don’t buy it. There must be more to it. What aren’t you telling me? Was she with someone?”
“You mean, like Angela? I didn’t see her anywhere.”
“But you looked?”
“Sure, I looked. That was the first thing I thought of.”
“Did you ask the guy at the convenience store? Or the cops who picked her up? If they saw anyone else, I mean.”
“Hell, no,” Duarte said irritably. “I didn’t ask anybody that. What do you think I am, a detective or something?”
Paul had to smile.
“No one saw anybody else,” Al said. “Rachel was all alone.”
“What about this friend she said she was visiting?”
“Well, now, that’s a funny thing. I’m not sure there was a friend. Rachel wouldn’t say, and it’s not like she committed a crime, so we really couldn’t force her to talk.”
He opened the door and stepped outside. “Look, just be glad you’ve got her back. Don’t worry too much about what she was up to. Parents can get old real fast that way.”
Paul shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think I could feel any older than I do right now.”
Duarte nodded and gave him a pat on the back. “Hang in,” he said. “I’m sure it’ll turn out okay.”
“Are you?” Paul asked. “Al, do you really feel that way?”
Al hesitated. “Let’s just say it’ll turn out. That’s the only thing we can ever be certain of, Paul. It’ll turn out. Meanwhile, we sit in the question, as the Buddhists say.”
Paul nodded and murmured his thanks again.
“No problem,” the detective said. “Call me, okay? We still have a lot of loose ends to tie up.”
“Angela,” Paul said heavily.
“Or somebody,” Duarte answered, going down the walk.
Closing the door, Paul turned back to find Rachel standing right behind him.
“What about Angela?” she asked.
“Well, honey, some other things happened while you were gone. It’s nothing to worry about now. Let’s go back into the living room.”
/> “I’m tired,” Rachel said. She walked away and headed for the stairs again.
“We haven’t finished talking,” Paul said.
Rachel hesitated but didn’t face him. “I’m really tired, Dad.”
“I can understand that,” he said. “Even so, your mother and I deserve an explanation. You can’t just leave without telling us and not come home until you’re found by the police. Where in the name of God have you really been, Rachel? Why did you leave that way?”
When she turned back to him, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. Her face was contorted from the effort of holding them back.
“What do you care?” she said softly. “What did you ever care about me?”
16
It was nearly five in the morning, and Paul and Gina were exhausted. When they were certain that Rachel was settled in, they went back to bed. Paul held Gina close. She hadn’t broken down yet, but she was shaking. “I don’t even know her,” she said softly. “I don’t even know her.” Her voice, muffled against his shoulder, was thick with tears. Her face was burning up.
“Let me get you some aspirin and a cold cloth,” he said.
“No! Don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll be only a few steps away, in the bathroom. I’ll be back before you know it.”
But she dug her nails into his back and held him closer. “Don’t go.”
“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll stay right here. Try to sleep, Gina. Close your eyes.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I see terrible pictures. First there’s Angela, with a knife at Rachel’s throat. Then there’s blood.” Her fists tightened. “Paul, there’s blood all over the place.”
“It’s just the season,” he said reasonably, though his voice shook. “It’s natural that you’d remember what happened.”
“No! It’s not that Christmas. It’s now. It’s something that’s going to happen, Paul. I’ve felt it since Rachel walked through the door.”
“Shh. Honey, everything’s all right now. Rachel’s home, she’s okay…we’re okay.”