And she couldn’t defend herself. Could no longer fight for Tiffany. Aunt Louise had died years ago. Ran her car into a tree and never woke up. Uncle Gavin had already lost a daughter and had to make the call to take his wife off life support. But they were over long before that. Emery remembered watching as time and pain ate away at both their souls. Turned them inside out and ripped them apart.
After Tiffany disappeared, Uncle Gavin stopped defending his wife. He no longer talked about her being funny and sweet. Emery suspected the mix of guilt and her father’s negative comments wore on Uncle Gavin.
Some said alcohol killed Aunt Louise. Others blamed Uncle Gavin’s indifference and the cold that moved between them and froze them both from the inside out. Still others thought she never recovered after losing Tiffany. She became an empty shell, shuffling around the house and circling the phone as if the call could come at any moment.
Emery believed her aunt died because she gave up. Uncle Gavin ran around, pushing the police and putting up posters. Aunt Louise withered. With both of them gone, that left her as the sole person to speak for, to fight for, her cousin. The idea of Tiffany being out there, needing help and for someone to storm in, had haunted Emery’s sleep for years.
With time, some memories had faded but she fought to hold onto mental snapshots, small pieces of her days with her free-spirited cousin and best friend. The hikes, the bike rides, the visits to the water park they loved. The debates they’d have over which movie star was cuter, and which one they’d marry. Stupid girl stuff that would double them over in laughter or have them communicating in code or sneaking behind their parents’ backs.
That sneaking had cost Tiffany everything.
Emery had tried to engage her dad about what he remembered since they’d lived a few doors apart for almost three decades. Right there on the tree-lined street in Bethesda, just three blocks from where Tiffany disappeared forever. He insisted there was nothing left to tell.
But Caroline supported her. Encouraged the investigation, and that made Emery’s life so much easier. “Your tough love is why I love it here.”
Caroline winked at her. “And your refusal to be bullied and pushed around is why I hired you.”
“I also volunteered as free labor while I went to college and then begged you to give me any position around here, no matter how low the pay.” She started by changing the printer’s toner cartridges and emptying trash cans.
The memory almost made Emery laugh. She’d been so eager, so happy to be close to the people who might find Tiffany one day, or at least be able to explain what happened. She carried that same hope today even after meeting Wren.
“Oh, I hired you for your willingness to work for pennies.” Caroline’s smile came back. “That, too.”
“I feel anxious and jumpy. Like I’m right on the edge of finding that one piece that will open this case up.” Emery said it because she knew Caroline would understand. The office found answers for so many families. That rush as the information started to fall into place never went away.
Caroline held up a hand. “You know I have to warn you—”
“Not to get too excited or wound up in the emotion of the hunt,” Emery said, finishing the sentence. “Follow the facts.”
“Do I say that a lot? If so, I’m brilliant.” This time when the person manning the phones called out Caroline’s name she responded. “I’ll be there in a second.”
“Thanks for letting me work on this.” Emery meant that. Not many jobs would let her pursue a lifelong vow.
“Our job is to bring them all home. The ones we know and the ones we don’t.” She winked. “Keep digging.”
Emery planned to do just that.
Wren eyed up the folders spread across his dining room table. He wasn’t one to entertain, so it was about time the room saw some action. Figured it was in the form of work and not actual food.
He picked up the takeout Chinese container and jabbed a shrimp with his fork. Mrs. Hayes would yell at him tomorrow. She came in most weekdays, straightened up, cleaned, organized even though nothing was ever out of order and made him dinner. Tonight he’d ignored whatever was on the plate and bribed Garrett into ordering at the office. Only Garrett, who was extremely well paid, would insist on a free dinner before he’d make a phone call and order.
Most days Wren wouldn’t have cared about getting home, but tonight something drove him. A strange sensation nagged at him ever since he left the senator’s office. He worked until after eight in the office, earlier than his usual workday end, then headed out because he wanted to close the door, block all distractions and dig into his new side project.
Tiffany Younger. She literally vanished off a Maryland sidewalk at age thirteen.
Tiffany was Emery’s cousin. Wren happened to know exactly what happened when a relative disappeared. How everything changed. How you never felt settled again.
He hated that Emery lived with that sensation every day.
He had Garrett throw together as much intel as he could find. Wren depended on his unauthorized back door access into the police department’s computer system to help with the rest. In this case he planned to search systems for both the Metropolitan Police Department, DC’s police force, and the police in Montgomery County, Maryland, where Tiffany lived. Sometimes his MPD contacts could provide an assist, but he didn’t know enough to ask the right questions yet.
Tomorrow he would gather more intel and keep gathering until he found whatever piece would make the entire case click together in his head. That’s how it worked for him. He studied and assessed, blocked out everything else and focused on the details.
Not that he or his office handled cold criminal cases on a regular basis, because he made sure that did not happen. He stayed away from work that hit on such a personal level. The FBI and police could handle those matters.
But it was more than that. The facts and emotions involved in missing-persons cases struck too close to the life that almost killed him years before. He could still hear the sirens and remember the police detectives’ questions. All that confusion. The betrayal.
That mixed-up kid was a long way from his current life. Even now he sat in his four-story town house on Embassy Row, on the stretch of Massachusetts Avenue in DC known as Millionaires Row. The property next door used to be the Georgian Embassy.
The existence of so many international powerbrokers and politicians meant the neighborhood remained under constant guard. The security presence never eased. He appreciated the safety, but he did crave more quiet, less street congestion.
But he could relax on this side of the house, away from the fray. He leaned back in his chair and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out into the small garden behind his house. An elaborate gate and strategically planted trees afforded him some privacy, but from this position on the second floor he could look straight across and see lights on in windows on other properties. He kind of hated that.
He shuffled the folders and brought one in particular back to the stack. The one not about Tiffany. This one contained the surveillance reports on Emery. He opened the cover and flipped through the pages. Saw photo after photo, all culled from public records and Garrett’s surveillance. They spelled out part of her history even as they failed to capture the life that burst into the room whenever she stepped inside.
“What really happened that night? What has you so obsessed all these years later?” He asked the questions in his quiet house, not expecting any real answers. The police had failed to find any for more than a decade. While he believed in the concept of fresh eyes and all that, he didn’t expect to solve anything.
What he really needed to know was how his name got bound up in this tragedy. He had enough of a troubled past to handle on his own and didn’t need to take on someone else’s.
The report blurred into a black ink streak on the page. Rubbing his eyes didn’t help. He flipped back to the photos—Emery then and now.
He’d gotten suc
ked in. None of that would have happened if he’d ignored her attempts to contact him and stayed the hell out of that coffee shop. Now he was exposed. Now he had to do something.
He could tolerate being thought of as dangerous and domineering, even lethal. He couldn’t tolerate the idea of being viewed as someone who would kidnap and hurt a woman. He refused to let anyone, whether they knew about his past or not, saddle him with “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” tag.
One thing was clear. His dealings with Emery Finn were far from over.
CHAPTER 8
“Dad?” Emery entered the front door of the brick split-level house she grew up in. Despite living there for eighteen years, she always felt like she should knock. It wasn’t as if she considered this her home. She hadn’t for years. If she were being honest she’d have to admit she never really felt welcome.
Before she took one step out of the entry, she took off her shoes. That qualified as the household’s number one rule. There were others. So many others. No eating in the bedrooms. No being in the kitchen after dinner was over, except to get water. No fumbling with the curtains to the big picture window in the living room at the front of the house. As soon as she’d conquered what she thought was the entire list, he’d come up with new ones. The man did like order.
He also liked women. An impressive series of girlfriends and wives had moved through the place over the years. Her mother had been dead for less than seven months when the first woman showed up with her suitcase. One bag with all her stuff, that was all her father had allowed.
Emery had almost no memory of that woman. She was probably very nice, just like the rest of them, but being a young girl barely out of second grade Emery hadn’t taken the idea of a new woman in the house particularly well. Her father threatened her with boarding school. She never went, but he blamed her for that breakup and the many that followed anyway.
The two stepmothers didn’t stick around long. They came in one after the other, and knowing her father they probably overlapped in some way. He was clear he found fidelity to be an outdated notion. With each new partner, the woman’s age dropped. The last one—Marilee—moved out about a month ago and had been exactly one year younger than Emery, almost to the day.
But that wasn’t her issue with her father. Emery long ago stopped judging or even attempting to understand the revolving door on her father’s bedroom. The women were of a type—blond, young and very pretty. Most tried to be friends with her. One or two tried to be more.
To his credit, he somehow managed to win over really charming women. Emery just didn’t know what they ever saw in him because they deserved better. Every one of them.
Her father wasn’t a nice man. Smart and highly respected, yes. Loving and warm—absolutely not. He was the demanding scholarly type. His expectation for Emery was that she’d model her life after his.
No thank you.
His requirements were very clear and drummed into her from an early age. Nothing that required her to beg for money or perform. Law was out because he found the career path beneath a member of the Finn family. He didn’t think she had the aptitude for medicine, and he was right. Nothing silly. Certainly nothing in the fine arts. When she tried out for the school play as a junior his head nearly shot off.
No, her charge was to find an appropriate academic field and excel. She did the opposite. Not much of a book learner and totally disinterested in the idea of pursuing the years of study needed to earn a PhD, Emery disappointed him. But then, that was nothing new. She’d had a lifetime of practice. She’d always worn the wrong clothes. Had the wrong friends. Had the nerve to act like a teenager.
And he focused much of his anger back then at Tiffany. He’d hated that she didn’t always listen when he told her to do something and how she frequently talked back. She acted like a normal teen in most ways, a little rebellious and maybe a bit more mouthy. She wasn’t impressed with him, and he couldn’t comprehend that.
She also had the nerve to be spontaneous and look just like her mom, the sister-in-law he despised. Little did he know Tiffany smoked and liked to sneak out of the house at night and head to the park to sit on the swings. Those things would have driven him to fury.
Maybe if he had eased up back then things would have ended differently. Emery winced at the thought as she hung her bag on the hook over the shelf that now held her shoes. She knew the logic was flawed and the accusation unfair, but that night years ago she’d been delayed in sneaking out to meet Tiffany because her dad had made her sit in his study and memorize an epic poem by Ezra Pound. Complete torture, in general, and almost the end of the world for a twelve-year-old. It was punishment for some mundane household failure and it meant she was not outside as planned when Tiffany disappeared.
She should probably be grateful that she wasn’t there when it happened. Instead, she blamed him for keeping her from possibly saving Tiffany that night.
She heard footsteps then he rounded the wall of the kitchen and looked at her. Studied her navy pantsuit with his usual look of disgust. “You’re late.”
“And hello to you, Dad.” She didn’t hug him because that never felt right. She settled for going up on tiptoe and kissing his check. Since he was well over six feet and not the type to lean down and make the process easier it took some stretching on her part. She backed away as soon as the task was over. “What are we having?”
“Roast chicken.” He delivered the answer then walked back into the galley-style kitchen, clearly intending for her to follow.
She did, not only because it was her daughterly duty, but because she loved food. The scent of garlic and rosemary filled the small space. In addition to having waiting lists for his class and articles published in journals, her father was an excellent cook. She had no idea what it was about his teaching style that had students lining up to hear him speak. Him lecturing qualified as her nightmare.
But she did know where the cooking skills came from. He took several classes, along with wine tasting seminars, because he hated not being an expert in all things culinary when he thought it paired well with his philosophical pursuits. Emery really didn’t get the logic of that either.
She leaned her back against the counter and watched him search for the proper utensil to lift the potatoes and carrots out of the roast pan. “Smells good.”
He shot her a quick glance. “Do not sit on the counter.”
As if she’d lose her mind and commit such a heinous household offense. “I’m resting.”
He frowned at her before going back to scooping. “You’re perfectly capable of standing up straight.”
“Right.” She sighed as she turned around and opened the cabinet door. Setting the table seemed innocent enough, so she got the dishes down and started that. “How’s everything at school?”
“The university is as challenging as always.”
She stifled a groan. Not facing him at that moment helped. Also allowed her to perform the perfect eye roll. Apparently it was going to be one of those nights. She decided if the mood stayed here at the just-above-squirming level she may as well plunge ahead and make it turn the energy toxic.
“May I ask you something?” She folded the napkins, careful to line up the edges and smooth the crease in a perfect line.
“Of course.” He started to carve the chicken. “I am always open to a robust discussion.”
He made her head hurt. “When Uncle Gavin died—”
“No.” The cabinet rattled from the force of him slamming the carving utensils against the counter. “Stop this.”
She spun around to face him. Took in the fury holding every muscle in his body tense and the jutting chin. He’d gone from his usual level of disappointment to enraged in less than a minute. “I didn’t ask anything yet.”
For a second he just stared at her. He held so still that the kitchen fell into obedient silence. “I see where this is going and we will not talk about Tiffany. This is our weekly family dinner, not an invitation to open
issues long settled.”
Settled? Her hands shook from the force of the anger surging through her. She had to put down the plates to keep them from clanking together. “She’s still missing.”
“I am aware of that, Emery.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
A nerve twitched in his cheek, likely from the way she phrased the question. Possibly from the fact she dared to ask one at all.
“It’s been thirteen years. You need to deal with the reality that she is not coming back.” He went back to carving the chicken. Gone was the smooth slide of the knife. His movements were jerky now. “Your job, this incessant need to pick at old wounds, it is all so unhealthy.”
She had nothing to grab on to or hold . . . or throw. She reached behind her and wrapped her fingers around the top of the chair. “It’s about closure. She deserves to have a real ending.”
“She has one.”
The cruelty of that statement shot through Emery. “Tiffany is your niece.”
“This holds you back.” He pointed at her with the knife. When a piece of chicken skin fell off the edge and onto the floor, he glared at it before glaring at her again. “You are unable to move on and find a career that suits you so long as you are searching after useless clues.”
Adrenaline pumped through her. All the words, all the arguments, lodged in her throat in a rush to come out. She had to fight the urge to pick up the chair and throw it. “I would hope someone—anyone—would look for me if I just vanished.”
He reached down and wiped up the floor. “You wouldn’t do that.”
She knew where he was headed with this. She’d heard this speech so many times that the idea of a replay had her ready to jump out the sliding glass door by the head of the table. First, he would refer to Tiffany’s smart mouth and how he’d always thought she’d run into trouble. Then he’d move on to his theory about her running away. Truth was, part of him blamed Tiffany and what he viewed as her out-of-control personality for being taken, and Emery had never been able to forgive him for that.
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