by Gayle Wilson
“How did she know?”
“The other one.”
Her mind busy piecing together the message in that cryptic sentence, Blythe almost missed the following whisper.
“Somewhere safe. Gotta get somewhere safe. Both of ’em.” Tewanda’s speech had slipped back into the patois of the region.
Holding her breath, Blythe waited for the psychic to reveal the location of “somewhere safe.” Instead, Tewanda raised her hands from their position in front of her breasts and lowered her forehead into them. After a moment she exhaled, blowing out the breath as if she were exhausted. Only then did she look up.
“She’s gone. She won’t talk to me any more. She’s afraid he’ll find out where she is if she tells anyone.”
…she’s afraid he’ll find out where she is…
“Are you saying…she isn’t with him?”
Tewanda shook her head. “She was running from him.”
Hope moved again in Blythe’s chest. “You mean…when she left Ruth’s?”
“Yes, ma’am. He doesn’t have her, Ms. Wyndham, but she knows he’s looking for her. She’ll stay hidden.”
“Where?”
“She wouldn’t tell me that. She was too afraid.”
What had only seconds ago seemed a message of hope was worthless. Somewhere safe. And he’s closer than anyone knew. Meaningless phrases in terms of actually locating Maddie, but exactly what any mother would want to hear about her missing child.
Tewanda Hardy had given her what she wanted. Just as Cade had said she would.
“She knows he’s after her because Sarah told her he was?” Blythe could hear the growing emotion in her own voice.
Tewanda’s eyes widened. “If you don’t want to believe me, it’s all right. A lot of people want to discount what I say, but…I swear I’ve told you everything I know. All she was willing to tell me. I’m gonna pray for your girl, Ms. Wyndham. I’m gonna pray that the Lord will take good care of her until you can find her.”
“You’re telling me that you just communicated with my daughter, but you can’t say where she is.”
“I told you. She wouldn’t tell me because she’s afraid that if she tells anybody—”
Blythe stood, pushing her chair into the wall behind her. “Sheriff Jackson was right.”
“Sheriff Jackson?”
“This is just a source of income to you. A way to prey on the gullible. If I put some money on the table, would I get some more information? Of course, no matter how solid you’d have made that information seem, I doubt it would have told me any more than I know right now.”
“That’s enough, Miz Blythe. You’ve said enough.”
She looked up to find her grandmother’s housekeeper jostling the now-calm baby on her narrow hip, her little finger in his mouth. Delores’s voice had held a warning, but Blythe was long past heeding it.
“You have any cash on you, Delores? Put some down on the table. Let’s see how much better she can communicate with Maddie if I’m willing to pay.”
“There’s no call for that kind of talk,” Delores scolded. She walked across the room and handed the little boy back to his mother. “I’m sorry. You try to forgive her, you hear. You think how you’d feel if it was yours that was missing.”
Tewanda took the baby and cradled him against her chest, before she looked up at the housekeeper. “It doesn’t matter, Miz Simmons. Sometimes when she can listen, you tell her I would have helped if I could. That’s all I ever wanted to do.”
Delores nodded. Then she walked over and took Blythe’s arm, leading her like someone who was blind out of the room and then out of the house.
She never said another word to her, not even when the sobs that started before they’d left the driveway racked Blythe’s body.
27
C ade had just gotten off the phone with the FBI office in Birmingham when Jerrod stuck his head inside his office.
“The kid’s mother’s outside. She’s asking for you. You want to talk to her?”
Cade took a breath, thinking about what little information he had to tell Blythe. And none of it positive. That was something he wasn’t looking forward to.
“Give me a minute.”
“I’ll tell her you’re on the phone.” The deputy disappeared.
Except Cade wasn’t willing to lie to Blythe. Not even a small lie. Not in a situation like this. As Maddie’s mother, she deserved the truth, no matter how unpalatable it might be.
“Jerrod,” he called. After a second the kid stuck his head into the door again. “Go ahead and bring her back.”
“Looks like she’s been crying.” Although the boy waited, as if he expected that to change Cade’s mind, eventually he disappeared again.
Cade looked down at the map and the sheets filled with notes spread over his desk. He tried to think of anything he hadn’t done, any avenue he hadn’t investigated. If there was one, neither he nor Hoyt had been able to come up with it.
He raised his eyes from the clutter to find Blythe standing in the doorway. Jerrod was right. She’d been crying. The reality she had been trying to keep at bay earlier this morning had obviously set in.
“Any word?”
He shook his head, wishing he had something—anything—to tell her. “They’ve put out the alert. Maybe we’ll get something useful from that.”
“You think he’d take her out of the area?”
He didn’t. And he could tell by her tone she didn’t either. Still, the pattern they were all going by had been established twenty-five years ago and in circumstances that were totally different. What was to say the killer would do things the same way he had back then?
“I don’t know. All I know is the more eyes we have looking for her, the better.”
“It’s so cold out there.” Blythe had wrapped her arms across her body, despite the navy wool jacket she still wore.
There was nothing comforting Cade could say to that. What Maddie had been wearing was one of the first things they’d established, once they resigned themselves to the fact that she wasn’t in the house.
The jacket Blythe had bought her after the fire had still been hanging in the closet. The only item of clothing missing was the pink sweatsuit they’d put her to bed in.
“We’ll find her.”
So much for telling her the truth.
He brushed the thought from his mind. There was a difference between lying and giving someone hope. And if Blythe couldn’t find some reason to hope pretty soon…
He stepped out from behind his desk, drawn by the suffering in her eyes. He grasped her elbow, pulling her farther into the room. With his other hand, he closed the door, turning the lock. Almost in the same motion, he took her in his arms.
He expected resistance. Instead she leaned against him like a tired child, laying her head on his shoulder. With his hand, he soothed up and down her back.
After a moment she pulled away, looking up at him. “If we don’t find her soon—”
“It doesn’t do any good to think like that. We’ll find her. There are too many people out there looking for her for us not to.”
“Even if he didn’t take her, Cade, it’s too cold out there. So cold.”
“Kids are more resilient than you think.”
The same thing he’d told her the night of the fire, he realized. It had been evident she hadn’t believed him then. Why should she now?
“Have you thought of anything else?” It was better to redirect her focus onto the search rather than its possible outcome. “Anything she said last night. Anything—” He broke the question because she’d begun to shake her head.
“I’ve gone over everything. Other than going down to the basement to look for my dolls, nothing out of the ordinary happened yesterday afternoon. She wasn’t agitated or upset. She seemed perfectly normal.”
“If she left the house on her own—”
Another side-to-side motion of her head. “She’s never done anything like that before.
Going down into the basement maybe. I could see that because she’d been down there earlier in the day. But to unlock the door and go out into the dark? No.” She shook her head again, more emphatically this time. “Maddie would have known that wasn’t something she should do.”
“Maybe she was going to the store.”
“Without money? She understands you have to pay for things. She’s a very bright little girl.”
Blythe seemed more convinced than she had been last night that her daughter hadn’t walked out that back door on her own. The only other option…
“Blythe, if he took her, then…You said the doors were locked. That there was no doubt in your mind. If he took her, then she had to unlock one of those two doors for him. You do understand that, don’t you? She would have had to let him into the house. Why would she do something like that?”
If Maddie was as smart as her mother thought, why open the door to a stranger?
“Maybe…for the same reason Sarah did.”
Abel had told Blythe that whoever killed Sarah had been someone she trusted. For Maddie, who’d been in town only a few weeks, Cade couldn’t imagine who that could be.
“You think she knows him?”
For a long time Blythe said nothing, looking down at her hands. Finally she shook her head. “You asked me if there was anything else.”
His gut tightened as he tried to imagine what she was about to tell him. Judging by her voice, it was nothing he wanted to hear.
“I went to see her, Cade. I thought maybe…if no one else could find her, she could.”
“Who?”
“Tewanda Hardy. I thought maybe she could see where Maddie is.”
“Blythe—”
“I know. I know now how stupid it was. You were right. She tells you whatever you want to hear.”
“So…what did she tell you?”
He was careful to keep his question neutral. It was obvious that, whatever the psychic had said to her, she hadn’t produced the results Blythe had been hoping for.
“She told me Maddie’s safe, but that she was afraid to tell her where she is because if she did, he might find her.” She laughed, the sound bitter.
“Then…I don’t understand. What does that have to do with Maddie unlocking the door to someone?”
“It’s not that. It’s what the Hardy woman said before. At my grandmother’s house. She said that Maddie had seen him, but only through Sarah’s eyes. I thought…I thought maybe Sarah told her to open the door.”
“To the man who killed her?” Despite his outward rejection of what Blythe was saying, even the thought made his blood run cold.
“Maybe for some reason she’s repeating the pattern. Maybe she’s in control. That’s why I went there. I thought if Tewanda couldn’t contact Maddie, maybe…”
“Sarah? You thought Sarah could tell us where she is?”
“If he took her, Maddie may not know where she is. Tewanda said that. And there’s a kind of twisted logic to it. I thought maybe Sarah…” She shook her head again. “I know that’s insane. But then, so is someone kidnapping a little girl because Ada Pringle said I was going to write a book. Nothing about this makes sense. It hasn’t from the first.” She stopped, closing her mouth and turning away from him.
“I’m going to get somebody to take you home.”
“I don’t have a home. I don’t have anything anymore. Without Maddie—” Her voice caught on a sob.
“Is your grandmother still at home?”
“What?” The blue eyes came up, awash with tears.
“You said she was going with Doc to Montgomery today.”
“Doc called and canceled the trip. He said he was going to join one of the teams.”
Cade hadn’t seen the old man, but that didn’t mean anything. There were probably dozens of people out looking on their own. If he knew where Doc was, he would ask him to give Blythe something. It was time to start numbing the pain she was in. To deaden the emotions that were tearing her up inside.
“Everybody’s out there. We’ll find her.”
Her eyes called him a liar, but she nodded. “I know.” She said it because she couldn’t say anything else. They both knew it.
“You go home now and get some rest. No more running around. I need to be able to get in touch with you as soon as we find her. You’re going to be the one she needs most.”
She nodded again, a glimmer of hope he’d had no right to offer in her eyes. She sniffed, using her fingers to wipe from her cheek the single tear that had escaped.
“Here.” He took his handkerchief from the back pocket of his pants and handed it to her.
While she used it, he walked back to the desk and pressed the intercom. When Jerrod answered, he said, “I need someone to drive Ms. Wyndham home.”
“Delores is here,” Blythe said. “She’s waiting outside. She drove me—” She hesitated, allowing him to fill in the blank.
Delores had been the one who’d taken her to see the Hardy woman, of course. She was the one who had brought the woman to the house the day of the funeral. He doubted Miz Ruth would have put up with anything that smacked of the occult.
“She’ll take me home,” Blythe finished.
“You stay there. Stay where I can find you. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
“You swear you’ll call? No matter what?” Her eyes clung to his, demanding his oath.
“I swear. As soon as I know anything.”
Her grandmother had insisted she lie down before she fell down. Plied with a strong whiskey and three aspirin, Blythe had finally given in. Eyes closed, she had listened as the two old women lowered the shades and then pulled the drapes across the windows in the bedroom Ruth had occupied since her marriage.
They wanted to tend to her, and it no longer mattered to Blythe where she waited. There was a phone on the bedside table. If Cade called—
She closed her mind to that possibility, trying to concentrate on something other than the two-edged sword hanging over her. No matter what happened, Cade had promised to let her know as soon as he knew anything.
No matter what…
She opened her eyes again, looking at the clock on the table beside the phone. Almost eleven. How many hours, she wondered, trying to add them up in her head, despite the slight buzz caused by the drink Delores had pressed on her.
More than eight. Eight endless hours.
How long had it taken him to do what he’d done to Sarah? No one knew, because no one had known when he’d abducted her. Just as no one knew how long Maddie had been gone when they’d discovered she was missing.
While she was kissing Cade in the kitchen? Had someone come into the front of the house while they’d been back there? Maybe she hadn’t relocked that door when she’d let Cade in. Maybe—
She forced her mind away from the fruitless merry-go-round of speculation. Cade had told her there was nothing to indicate anyone had entered the house last night. No evidence on the basement window. Or on the outside of the back door.
It was possible Maddie had done exactly what he’d suggested. Unlocked that door herself and walked out into the night.
Except Blythe didn’t believe that. It made no sense. Why in the world would she leave the warmth and safety—
Somewhere safe. Gotta get somewhere safe. Both of ’em.
She turned her head on the pillow, closing her eyes to shut out the memory of Tewanda’s words. There was a hot corner in hell for people who took advantage of those gullible enough to believe—
In ghosts? In restless spirits trying to communicate with the living?
Wasn’t that what she’d begun to believe about the things that had happened since they’d moved back here? The night terrors. The tapping on the window—
She sat up straight in bed, her mouth opening and then closing as the memories swirled through her brain.
Rachel was her sister. They slept in the same bed, but Rachel slept so hard she never heard him when he came.
She used to sleep in my room. A long time ago.
He scares me.
He scared Sarah, Maddie. He isn’t here now.
He was. He was in the backyard. She told me.
What did she tell you?
She told me to hide.
She loved to go to her grandmamma’s. He couldn’t find her when she was there.
Somewhere safe. Gotta get somewhere safe. Both of ’em.
She threw off the quilt her grandmother had spread over her legs, almost falling in her haste to get out of bed. Someone would have checked. She had told Cade yesterday what Maddie had said. He would have sent someone over to the Wright place. Surely he would have sent someone.
Even as she tried to reason with her excitement, she was pulling on her shoes, her hands trembling over the laces. There were literally hundreds of people out there searching. Surely someone—
Her hand closed around the receiver. She brought it up to her ear as her fingers hesitated over the numbers.
Finally she gave up trying to remember Cade’s and punched in 911. It took half a dozen rings for the dispatcher to pick up, long enough that Blythe had had to fight the urge to slam the phone back down in its cradle.
“Davis County 911. What’s your emergency, please?”
“I need to talk to Sheriff Jackson.”
“Is this an emergency, ma’am?”
“This is Blythe Wyndham. My daughter is the little girl—”
“Yes, ma’am, I know about your daughter. Is she there?”
“What?”
“I thought maybe that’s what you wanted to tell the sheriff. That you’d found her.”
“No. Look, please, I just need to talk to him. Can you connect me? Or just give me the number?”
“To the Sheriff’s Department?”
Dear God, Blythe thought, closing her eyes. “Yes, please. To Sheriff Jackson.”
“I can connect you.”
After a moment Blythe heard a phone ringing. She waited again, counting the rings.
“Davis County Sheriff’s Department.”
It was the kid who had taken her back to Cade’s office. She recognized his voice.