The Face of the Earth

by Deborah Raney

  He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Oh, honey––”

  “And pictures. I’ve been looking through the picture albums we have, and there are hardly any pictures of Mom. She’s always the one taking the pictures.” She started to cry. “Why didn’t any of us ever take any pictures of her?”

  Mitch wanted to weep with her. He rose and pulled her into a hug. “I’ll find some of Mom’s things for you, sweetie. I know she’d love that you asked, that you wanted them. And I’m sure we have some pictures––somewhere. I bet there are some at Mom’s school, too. I’ll talk to Carol.”

  “And what about Grandma? She has tons of pictures.”

  “You’re right. You know, I wouldn’t mind seeing some of those myself. I’ll give her a call.”

  He’d mostly avoided looking at photos of Jill––although the one that had circulated in the media after she first went missing was emblazoned on his brain. But he thought he could handle it now.

  And maybe it would do him some good.

  Thursday, January 6

  A box was waiting on the front porch when Mitch got home from work on Wednesday. Jill’s mother had sent it second-day air via UPS. He brought the package in and put it on the dining room table. He dreaded opening that box almost as much as he dreaded going into the empty house. The kids were out with their friends one last night before heading back to school tomorrow morning, and he knew the house was going to feel like a mausoleum.

  He let TP out and changed clothes. The box taunted him as he walked through the kitchen to find something for supper. Maybe he wouldn’t open it. He didn’t know if he was up for the task, up for the onslaught of memories the pictures were sure to bring. Maybe he’d just let Katie take it back with her.

  But he wasn’t sure what all Miriam might have sent, and he wanted to find out exactly what was in the package before he let Katie look through it. And besides, he’d promised her.

  He went for the scissors and cut through the layers of brown paper and tape Miriam had swaddled it in. He removed the lid, summoning the courage to take this unwanted walk down memory lane.

  The first packet of photos opened the floodgates. Their wedding photos––Jill, so young and beautiful, looking up at him with a radiant smile. He turned the small stack of photos over on his desk. This was too hard.

  The next rubber-banded stack contained snapshots of Jill in the hospital with a wailing baby Evan. And then, just fourteen months later, precious Katie, looking as serene and unflappable in her infancy as Evan was wild. It was a miracle they’d had a second baby after all those colicky nights with Evan. Mitch shook his head, thinking how true to their earliest personality traits their son and daughter had remained.

  He picked up another photo, disturbed that no matter how he tried, even as he grieved Jill, he couldn’t seem to get Shelley out of his mind. He’d started to allow himself to consider what he would do if they’d still had no news about Jill a year from now. Or two years from now. Or three. If no clues turned up, if they never found anything, how long would it be before they could say definitively that Jill wasn’t coming back?

  And if by some miracle, they did find her, could the two of them find their way with each other again after everything that had happened in her absence? He closed his eyes. He’d already begun to forget what she looked like first thing in the morning. What it felt like to hold her in his arms. To kiss her.

  And thoughts like that only made him think more of Shelley. Because he could imagine what it would feel like to kiss her. The thought startled him. He hadn’t dared to admit, even to himself, the attraction he’d begun to feel for Shelley Austin. He scrubbed his face with his palms as if he could wash away the faithless thoughts.

  He put the baby pictures back in the box and picked up the next batch of photos. Jill’s senior class pictures, and high school events. Before he’d met her. He turned the stack upside down after looking at just a few. But something niggled at the back of his mind.

  He went back to the last photo and looked at it again. It was a close-up of Jill dressed in an evening gown––probably prom night. Her hair was pinned up in big curls on her head––a little like she’d worn it for their wedding.

  He held the photo at arm’s length and studied it. He’d seen another picture of her in the same pose. He rummaged through the stack and found what he was looking for. Jill and Greg Hamaker standing in front of a crepe paper arch. Another prom night, or some school dance. He looked at the close-up again. Jill looked so young. That sparkle in her eyes––those mesmerizing blue eyes of hers . . . But there was something else.

  He looked again. The earrings. He knew hope was a great deceiver. He’d imagined clues before that never materialized. But of this, he was almost certain.

  He scrambled off the couch and hurried into the den. The manila envelope Simonides had returned to him was where he’d left it in the bottom drawer of his desk. Heart pounding, he spilled the contents onto the desktop.

  He picked up one of the dangly silver and black earrings. There was no doubt––it was an exact match. Why would Jill have left those earrings at the hotel? Had they been some sort of . . . message for Greg Hamaker? Did she hope he would see the earrings she’d worn that night and remember a romantic prom date they’d shared?

  No. That idea was almost laughable. If being married to Mitchell Brannon had taught Jill anything, it was that men rarely noticed things like earrings or hairstyles or shoes.

  Still, this wasn’t a coincidence. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was certain of it.

  Your mother had a boyfriend who used to give her little trinkets . . .

  The conversation Miriam and Katie had at Thanksgiving played in his mind as if it had been recorded in stereo. Katie had chattered about her new boyfriend and Miriam had been all grandmotherly excitement. But she’d turned cool when Katie showed her the necklace that boy—Brandon––had given her. Miriam had said that Greg was always giving Jill “costume jewelry and baubles . . .”

  Had the earrings in the photo been a gift from Greg? The same ones she’d left at the hotel more than twenty years later? Mitch looked at the other jewelry Simonides had returned. Was there a connection? He began to rifle through the photos, inspecting the jewelry Jill wore in each picture.

  Ten minutes later, he found another possible match. A photo with Jill pinning a boutonniere on the lapel of Greg Hamaker’s tux, showed her wearing a sparkly bracelet. He couldn’t be sure it was the same bracelet she’d left at the hotel, but it was close enough to make him suspect.

  He placed the two photos of Jill wearing the jewelry into the manila envelope with the jewelry and went back to the kitchen where he’d left his cell phone. He dialed Miriam in Colorado. Remaining as casual as he could, he explained to Miriam about seeing the photo of the jewelry that matched what Jill had left behind. “Do you remember if Greg Hamaker gave those pieces to Jill?” He described the jewelry briefly.

  “The police asked us about those back in the beginning, when she first went missing. I couldn’t remember any specific pieces he gave her. It was never anything of value. Mostly dime-store costume jewelry. If it’d been expensive we would have made her give it back when they broke up. But the boy was too cheap to give her anything really nice.”

  “Do you remember a pair of silver and black earrings she wore to her prom with a bright pink gown? The earrings are sort of a teardrop shape––the dangly kind.”

  “I can’t say that I remember those. I wish I could, Mitchell. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they were from Greg. You know Jill. She rarely spent money on herself. If she had any jewelry back then, it probably came from him. What . . . what do you think this means? Did that boy have something to do with Jill’s disappearance?”

  He hesitated. He didn’t want to worry Jill’s mother––or worse, get her hopes up. “I don’t think so. He has a solid alibi. He may be a jerk, but I honestly don’t think he would do anything sinister.” He’d believed that af
ter his first confrontation with Greg Hamaker, but now he couldn’t say it with the same conviction.

  “No,” Miriam agreed. “But I’m glad she didn’t marry him, Mitchell. I’m glad she waited for you.”

  He had to swallow a huge lump in his throat before he could reply. “I’m glad, too, Miriam.”

  Chapter 17

  Friday, January 7

  Mitch parked in front of the office on a Kansas City street and tried to wrap his mind around the fact that, after all these months of nothing, suddenly there seemed to be a break, the first real glimmer of a clue.

  “Lord,” he whispered, “don’t let me do anything foolish today.” Maybe it was too late for that. He’d dressed for work this morning, pretending it was any normal day, and helped Evan and Katie pack up the car and head off to Lawrence. But once the kids were safely on the road, he’d called in to work and arranged to take yet another personal day. The district had been very lenient with him, allowing him extra days they probably couldn’t afford for him to take off at this point in the school year. Still, this was too important.

  Simonides had seemed dubious when Mitch called him last night and told him about finding the photo with the earrings and bracelet. The detective reminded Mitch that Greg Hamaker had witnesses on record who could testify he’d been in meetings at a hotel three blocks from Jill’s hotel from the time she’d left her message on the answering machine at home, until late into the evening the day she disappeared.

  But Simonides agreed to send Cody Fredriks to take a look at the photos. And probably not until Monday. The fact that Simonides was sending Fredriks instead of going himself told Mitch just how skeptical the detective was.

  Well, he wasn’t going to wait on them anymore. This was something he could do on his own. And no one had a bigger stake in the outcome than he did.

  Mitch had taken a risk calling Hamaker for an appointment––and to be honest, he wouldn’t be totally shocked if the guy had ducked out by the time he got there. But he would take his chances. He had to find out if Greg Hamaker was hiding something.

  Mitch lifted the ziplock bag that held the jewelry Jill had left behind in the hotel. “Do you recognize this? Is this jewelry you gave my wife?”

  “What are you talking about?” Greg Hamaker’s voice was steady, but his stance bordered on combative––feet planted on the carpet in front of his massive mahogany desk, his torso pitched forward as if he’d like to take a swing at Mitch. “I haven’t given your wife anything.”

  “I’m talking about when you were in high school.”

  “You think I’m going to remember what I gave some girl in high school?” But Hamaker took the bag from him, turned it over, inspecting, then handed it back. “I don’t recognize any of this. That doesn’t mean I didn’t give it to her, but do you remember what you gave your girlfriends twenty years ago?”

  He had a point.

  “Listen, man. I swear to you I don’t know anything about Jill. I’m sorry I ever invited her. It was just supposed to be lunch with an old friend. She turned it into a federal offense and it’s gone downhill from there.”

  “What do you mean she turned it into a federal offense.”

  “Just what I’ve been saying. She called it off. Acted like I had ulterior motives.”

  “No. No one is accusing you of anything. I just need to know if you remember anything—anything at all––that might help us figure out what happened. Where she went after she left the hotel. We need as much information as possible.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’ve already told the authorities everything I know. I’m done with this.” Hamaker turned and went back behind his desk, bracing his knuckles against the shiny surface.

  “You only talked to her once, right? When she called to say she couldn’t do lunch? Did she say why she was canceling?”

  Hamaker puffed out his cheeks and scuffed the toe of a polished shoe on the carpet. “What do you want from me?”

  Mitch sensed Hamaker softening, and he didn’t want to blow it. “Please, Greg.” He forced his voice down a few decibels. “Is there anything else you can think of? Anything at all––even if it seems insignificant . . .”

  Hamaker blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Okay, listen . . . I’m going to tell you––and I’ll probably regret it . . . I saw Jill at the hotel.”

  “Your hotel?” He didn’t dare breathe.

  “No. Her hotel. For about five minutes. Literally.”

  “Where at the hotel?”

  “In the lobby. I was in meetings not three blocks from the Royale Suites, so I went there, just to say hello.”

  Mitch tensed. “So . . . you talked to her?”

  “I tried. She wasn’t very happy about me showing up.”

  “You told the police that?”

  “I happened to be walking by the hotel on a break and thought it was ridiculous to be that close and not get a chance to just say hello . . . for old times’ sake. She told me she backed out on lunch because she didn’t think you’d be very happy about it. And yeah, I––gave her a hard time about it. Asked her if she was a kept woman. I was just joking, but that hacked her off. She launched into a lecture about what it took to have a happy marriage––whatever that has to do with anything.”

  Mitch could almost imagine that conversation. A band of long-held tension loosened inside him. Still, the man had lied to him. Lied to the police apparently. He had seen Jill.

  Mitch forced a calmness he didn’t feel into his voice. “Do you remember what time it was when you saw her?”

  “I don’t know. I . . . had the concierge call her room, and she came down to the lobby. She had her luggage with her. Said she was just checking out.”

  “What time was that? Approximately. This could be important.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know at the time that I was going to have to account for every second of that day.” He shrugged, sarcasm thick in his voice. “It must have been around one thirty, one forty-five.” He thought for a minute. “Yeah, that’s probably about right because I went and grabbed something to eat at my hotel after she called to cancel on me. It was after lunch when the concierge called, and I went to see her right after that. Like I said, I was there––in the lobby––five minutes tops. And I went directly back to my meetings from there. My alibi checks out. You can ask the––”

  “But why you didn’t tell the police all of this in the beginning? You held back evidence!” He clenched his fists at his sides, itching to strangle the man. “We needed everything we could get to––”

  “Would you have told them?” Hamaker hissed. “If you were the last person to see someone alive? Listen, I did nothing wrong. I have enough problems with my wife as it is. The last thing I needed was being put under a microscope.” He swore and strode from behind his desk toward the door. “I don’t owe you or the police or anybody else anything! I did nothing wrong. And this conversation is over.” He jerked open the door to the reception area and held it.

  Mitch walked through the door, but turned before closing it behind him. “We’ll see about that.”

  His disgust for the man swelled. How Jill could have dated someone like him for as long as she did? Maybe a younger Greg Hamaker had been a better man. But what made a man so centered on himself, so completely unmindful of another man’s––another family’s––suffering that he would withhold simple information that might have helped them before the trail went cold?

  Mitch walked to his car, his breath forming wisps of steam in the frigid January air. He sat behind the wheel, shivering––as much from nerves as from the cold––too shook up to drive.

  If Hamaker was remembering accurately, if he was telling the truth this time, Jill had encountered him in the lobby shortly after she’d left the message for Mitch at home. Did that explain why Jill sounded so happy, so . . . herself on the phone? Because she’d decided not to meet with Greg Hamaker? Because she’d told him off?

  Maybe it even
explained why she’d dropped her cell phone in the parking garage . . . He could picture it––Jill hurrying to her car, juggling her luggage, upset after encountering Greg. Flustered and in a hurry to get out of there, not realizing until she was well on the road that she’d dropped her phone.

  Maybe Hamaker had even followed Jill to her car, harassing her. He’d lied before––or at least withheld part of the truth. Why should Mitch believe him now?

  But if witnesses swore he’d been back in his meetings shortly after encountering Jill, how could he have done her harm without someone seeing something? Hearing her screams? Or . . . discovering her body?

  He couldn’t linger too long on that image. And he didn’t want to believe that Greg Hamaker was capable of murder. Still, something didn’t seem right.

  Mitch put the key in the ignition and turned it. Four long months and finally he had a sliver of information. One new piece to a puzzle that was barely a frame. But was it possible that after all this time he might have found the piece that could finally lead him to Jill?

  Chapter 18

  Saturday, January 8

  According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Jill Brannon was listed as missing in the small south-central Missouri town of Sylvia after she failed to return from a conference in Kansas City, Kansas four months ago. The popular third grade teacher was last seen by fellow teachers in the lobby of a Kansas City, Kansas, hotel last September, and a message she left for her husband on their home answering machine gave no indication that Brannon was in danger or under duress.

  Last September. Mitch put down the newspaper and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The phrase made it seem a lifetime ago. The calendar said a brand-new year was underway, but Mitch still felt like he was living in the fog of last year’s events. He didn’t want to start a new year. Not without Jill.