Читать книгу Wednesday's Child - Gayle Wilson - Страница 11

Seven Years Later

“MRS. KAISER?” The masculine voice on the other end of the phone sounded hesitant. Almost uncertain.

Wrong number, Susan Chandler thought as she considered how to respond. A telemarketer. Some kind of survey. Nothing to get excited about, despite how he’d addressed her.

“Who is this, please?”

“Wayne Adams with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, ma’am. I’m trying to get in touch with a Mrs. Richard Kaiser.”

Despite the fact that by now she had realized this might be the call she’d waited for for so long, Susan knew she still couldn’t afford to let down the emotional barriers she’d struggled so hard to put into place. Not yet. Not until she was sure this was somehow connected to Emma.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before she repeated, her voice sounding remarkably steady, “Johnson County? And where is that, please?”

“Mississippi. Johnson County, Mississippi. Sorry, ma’am. You get used to folks you’re calling knowing that, I guess.” A hint of amusement, clearly self-directed, colored the words.

Amusement. Then in all probability…

“What’s your call in relation to, Mr. Adams?”

“Sheriff Adams,” the caller corrected a little pompously. “You are Mrs. Kaiser, then? Mrs. Richard Kaiser?”

“That’s right.”

She didn’t bother to explain the divorce she had finally obtained four years ago, granted on the grounds of desertion. If she mentioned she was no longer Mrs. Kaiser, there was always the possibility he might hang up without giving her whatever information he had.

She needed to hear what he had to say, but she also needed to maintain a tight rein on her emotions until she had. Too many times in the past she’d anticipated being told something positive, only to be devastated when that didn’t occur.

“Then…I’m afraid I have some bad news, ma’am.”

“Bad news” wasn’t one of the phrases she’d been preparing for. Not after his previous tone. Her heart rate accelerated, its too-rapid beating filling her throat and sending blood rushing to her brain until she was almost light-headed.

“What kind of bad news?”

“There’s been an accident.”

When she had first walked into that eerily empty house seven years ago and gone from room to room, calling their names, that had been one of the first things she’d thought of. There’s been an accident. Something terrible has happened to them….

Even later, during the long, sleepless nights after they’d told her what Richard had done, she had paced the floor, trying to work out some other explanation. Something that would explain the nightmare she was living.

She licked her lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “What kind of accident?”

“It’s your husband, ma’am. We found his car submerged in the Escatawpa River. Looks like he must have run past the entrance to the bridge in the dark. It’s a tricky turn if you don’t know the road.”

“Richard?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. His body was in the car. I should have told you that at the first.”

“He’s dead.”

Her voice was too flat. Unemotional. She could imagine what the sheriff in Mississippi must be thinking. Even so, she was unable to summon up any regret that Richard’s life had ended. After all he’d put her through—

With that thought came another. A terrifying one.

“Was there anyone in the car with him?” Her heart now hesitated, refusing to beat again as she waited for the answer.

“No, ma’am, there wasn’t. There was no one else inside.”

He probably thought she was concerned about another woman. And at one time she might have been. Long before she understood there were anxieties far more compelling than those.

“As a courtesy, we asked the Atlanta PD to go to the address on his license,” the sheriff went on. “The folks living there now didn’t recognize the name, so we ran it through the national databases and found…Well, I expect you know what we found. I wasn’t sure this number would still be active after all these years. There hadn’t been any updates since the initial report was filed, but I figured it was worth a shot.”

She’d had to sell the house almost immediately, but due to the circumstances, the phone company had allowed her to keep this number. It wasn’t as if Emma had known it, but they told her it was customary with cases involving missing children.

Only then, in thinking back to those first terrible weeks, did she realize the significance of what the sheriff had just said. “Are you saying Richard had identification on him? That his driver’s license gave that name and address?”

She had long believed Richard was living somewhere under an assumed name. That’s why they hadn’t been able to locate him. How could he have escaped those countless inquiries if he’d kept his real name? Especially if he were still in the South?

“His wallet was in the car. Surprisingly, despite all the time it had been in the water, most of the things it contained were in pretty good shape. Of course, his license was the easiest to read since it was laminated.”

There was a disconnect between the sheriff’s words and what she’d been thinking. It wasn’t until she allowed them to replay in her mind that their import began to dawn.

“I don’t understand. You said it was an accident.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The uncertainty was back in his voice.

From what Adams had said, she’d been operating under the assumption that the accident he referred to had just occurred. Obviously, that assumption was wrong.

“Just how long do you believe my husband’s body has been in the water?”

There was a long beat of silence.

“Actually, the coroner can’t tell us that for sure—not yet. Given the condition of the car and the body…We’re guessing shortly after you notified law enforcement he was missing.”

Shortly after you notified law enforcement…

The words seemed to exist in some parallel universe. All the months she’d spent searching for him—and for Emma—Richard had already been dead, his car submerged, his body slowly decomposing.

Images of the black SUV sinking into the murky water of some Mississippi river were suddenly in her head, despite her near desperation to keep them out. Refusing to allow herself to entertain those kinds of thoughts was an art she had believed she’d perfected. She’d been wrong.

Despite the endless number of times she had attempted to imagine what Emma would look like now, it was always her daughter’s face the last time she’d seen her that was forever in her mind’s eye. A picture as clear as the August morning she’d left for the airport and the children’s literature conference. She’d had an appointment with an editor who had shown an interest in her illustrations—an appointment which had led to her first freelance assignment with the publisher she still worked for.

Emma had been fourteen months old then. Her hair slightly curling and dark blond. Her eyes, almost the same clear, dark blue as her father’s, were surrounded by impossibly long lashes that spiked, jeweled with tears, whenever she cried.

She had cried that morning. She had held up her arms to Susan, begging to be taken. Laughing, Richard had swooped her up and begun dancing her around the kitchen to allow Susan to escape. That was the last time she had seen either of them.

She had long ago accepted that unless something extraordinary happened or unless Richard decided to contact her, she would probably never see Emma again. And now…

“My daughter,” she managed, pushing the words past the constriction in her throat.

“Ma’am?”

“My daughter was with my husband when he disappeared. I was away for the weekend, and when I got back—” There was no need to give him those details. All she wanted was what he knew about Emma. “He took her with him when he disappeared.”

Unable to afford two, they had swapped the toddler seat between their cars. It had been in Richard’s SUV that morning. And when she’d returned…

“Her safety seat was in his car,” she finished. The images of the dark water closing over the top of the SUV were back in her head, no matter how hard she tried to block them.

The sheriff’s hesitation lasted so long this time her knees went weak. She sagged against the kitchen counter, closing her eyes against the burn of her tears.

“There was an infant seat in the car, ma’am, but there was no baby in it. I told you. There was nobody else inside your husband’s SUV when it was found. Are you sure she was—”

Her strangled sob interrupted his question. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been over this a dozen times with the police. Richard, the SUV, the infant seat and Emma had all been missing when she’d returned to Atlanta the following Monday.

“Is there someone there with you, Mrs. Kaiser? Or someone you could call?”

It was concern she heard in the deep voice this time. In spite of the emotional stoicism she’d adopted to deal with the law enforcement community through the years, his sympathy was her undoing. Still holding the phone, Susan slid down the side of the kitchen cabinets until she was on the floor. Sobs, finally unleashed again after all these years, shook her body.

Richard was dead. He had been dead for seven years, making a lie of all the times she had told herself that no matter what else he might be guilty of, Richard had genuinely loved Emma. Loved her enough to give up his life for her. The thought that, no matter what happened, he would take care of their baby was all that had kept her sane.

Now she knew that wherever Emma was, there was no one of her own to look after her. And there had been no one during all those long years she had prayed and longed for her daughter.

WHEN SUSAN MET Sheriff Adams the following day, she realized immediately that he was older than she had pictured him during their conversation. She estimated now that he must be in his mid or maybe even late forties.

His face bore the perpetual tan of someone who virtually lived outdoors, however, so her guess could be off by several years. His skin’s darkness was unrelieved except for the pale green eyes and the delicate web of small white lines radiating from their corners. Even now, despite the bright sunshine of the October afternoon, he wore neither hat nor sunglasses.

His features were angular, matching the rangy body. The slight paunch around his midsection gave additional evidence for her estimate of his age, although he wore his fading blond hair longer than she would have expected from the sheriff of such a rural community. Or maybe that was because it was still the style here rather than any attempt to appear younger.

As soon as she’d arrived in Linton, he had taken her in his squad car out to the site where the SUV had been found. The old two-lane bridge across the narrow river stood side by side with a wood-and-metal railroad trestle.

According to the sheriff, it had been a train derailment that had led to the discovery of Richard’s body. During their efforts to recover the railcars that had gone into the river, the salvage company had stumbled across the submerged SUV.

“Gave that crew a shock, I can tell you.” His eyes were focused on the cranes, still parked on the riverbank below. Since it was Friday afternoon, they were idle.

“And they’re the ones who pulled the car out?”

“Thought it was a junker. Some folks just as soon roll ’em into the river or push ’em over a ravine as take ’em to the junkyard. You know how people are.”

Apparently realizing how far off the subject of her husband’s death that had taken him, the sheriff turned from his contemplation of the equipment to look at her.

“Sorry. That ain’t got nothing to do with why we’re here.”

“And that’s when they discovered his body?” she asked, ignoring his attempted apology.

“They called the office, and we notified the coroner.”

“And no one found any evidence Emma had been in the car?”

“Nothing but that infant seat. Like I told you, there was no second body, Ms. Chandler.”

Almost without her conscious volition Susan’s eyes returned to the slowly moving water below. There were questions she didn’t want to ask right now because she was afraid of the answers. Since Adams’s phone call, she had managed to regain control of the emotions that had momentarily escaped the long restraint she’d forced on them. She didn’t want to do anything that might put that fragile containment into jeopardy.

“Were the windows rolled up when the car was found?”

“All I can tell you is they were when I got here. The driver’s-side door was open, however.”

The men would have had to open it to find the body, she supposed, but the information made her wonder if Richard might have tried to get out. He was a good swimmer, and the current didn’t look strong enough to keep him from reaching shore. Unless he’d been too badly injured to try.

“But was it open when they pulled it out of the river?”

Adams’s mouth pursed slightly as if he were thinking about that. After a moment he shook his head.

“Don’t know. Have to confess I didn’t ask. We all knew what had happened. If you live around these parts, you know all about this place. More cars than I can count have missed that turn in the dark. No guardrail. Nothing to keep you from driving right off into the river if you misjudge the entrance. State ain’t gonna do nothing about it since they built the new bridge up on 84. Now this road don’t get enough traffic to make fixing this worth their while. It could even have been raining that night. Slick pavement. Poor visibility. Your husband a drinker?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A lot of folks who miss that turn have had a few too many, if you know what I mean.”

“Richard didn’t drink. Not to excess.”

How confident she sounded. Almost smug. And how ironic that was coming from a woman who’d had no idea her husband was planning to disappear, taking everything they owned with him. Everything including their daughter.

“The current doesn’t look very powerful.” She was still thinking about the terrible possibilities of that opened door.

The sheriff’s lips pursed again as he looked over the water. “Can be. Depends on the rain upriver. And if you’re out in the middle of the channel, it runs a lot faster. Could have been what happened that night.”

“I’m sorry?” She turned, her eyes questioning as they focused on his weathered face.

“If the door was open, I mean. Maybe the current just took her out of his hands.”

Emma. He means Emma, she realized, sickness stirring the pit of her stomach.

But if Emma had been in the car when it had gone off the bridge, she knew Richard well enough to know Emma would have been strapped into her seat. Open door or not, there was no way the current could have washed her out of those restraints.

“She would have been strapped in.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Maybe when your husband realized what was happening, he tried to get her out. Maybe he had her free and the current just took her—”

“No,” Susan said.

The single syllable was loud in the afternoon stillness. The scenario he had just suggested wasn’t an idea she was willing to entertain. Not yet.

Adams had already admitted that he didn’t know if the door had been open when the car was pulled from the water. And if it had been, then why hadn’t Richard, an experienced swimmer, gotten out of the car and swum to safety.

Because he was trying to locate his baby in that dark, rushing water? Struggling to unfasten straps he couldn’t see? Trying desperately to get them both to safety?

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Ms. Chandler. I’ll be glad to find out about the doors and the windows. Did you ever think that maybe your husband left your daughter in the care of a relative or some friends? Maybe she wasn’t with him at all when he come down here.”

Did you ever think…

There was literally no one she hadn’t questioned about that possibility. No relative or mutual acquaintance that she had been aware of—and some she hadn’t been aware of until after Richard’s disappearance—that she hadn’t asked about Emma. And about Richard, of course.

None of them had professed any knowledge of their whereabouts. And despite her desperate need for information, there had not been one of them she’d doubted. Now she knew they’d been telling the truth. Richard had contacted no one in the weeks after his disappearance because he had been here, hidden by the waters of this narrow, marshy river.

“When will they be back?”

“Ma’am?”

“The people those belong to.” She tilted her chin toward the cranes on the bank below. “Will they be back out here on Monday?”

“I’m not sure what their schedule is. I can call the main office of Southern Georgia first thing Monday morning. See if I can talk to the men who were here that day. I’ll let you know what they say as soon as I find out. You do understand that nobody had any idea at the time that we ought to be looking for your daughter.”

There should have been a cross-reference to Emma in the national database of missing persons the sheriff had searched for Richard’s name. Apparently that had been another bureaucratic screwup. There had been plenty of those.

Emma had always been listed as an abducted child. Susan had been advised that was the best way to draw attention to her case. Not that she had ever been able to tell it had made any difference. After all, Emma was with her father. And Susan, unaware at that time of how the system worked, had admitted that Richard had no history of mistreating their daughter.

That was the truth, of course, as well as what had kept her sane through the years. But it had lowered the urgency with which the various agencies had responded to her pleas for help.

“I’d like to talk to those men myself, if you don’t mind,” she said, thinking of all the other “comforting” platitudes she’d listened to during those first few months.

There was too much at stake to trust that another set of law enforcement officials would do everything in their power to find her baby. She was no longer as naive as she had once been.

She had been given another chance to find Emma. A chance to right all the things she had done wrong seven years ago.

“In all honesty, ma’am, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Adams said. “First place, it’s bound to be upsetting. And those men might not tell you everything they’d be willing to say to somebody who’s not as…emotionally involved in this.”

“Is there a motel nearby?” she asked, ignoring his advice.

That was something else she had done the first time. Listened to all the people who were supposed to know the best thing to do. And look where it had gotten her.

“A motel?”

She couldn’t remember seeing any near the exit to Linton. It seemed there had been only miles and miles of trees along both sides of the interstate, their leaves just beginning to be tinged with color from the fall nights.

“Somewhere I can stay while I’m in town.”

The green eyes widened in surprise, exposing the network of lines at their corners. “Plenty of motels in Pascagoula.”

Which was more than sixty miles away. Despite the fact that most of the distance was state highway and interstate, she didn’t want to make that commute every day. And until she found out what had happened to Emma…

“I mean here. Somewhere I can stay in Linton.”

Somewhere close enough that she could talk to anyone who might have encountered Richard—and please, dear God, encountered Emma—while they were here.

“No motels around here. We had a hotel at one time, but—” The sheriff stopped abruptly, his lips still slightly parted.

“What is it?”

“I was gonna say that the hotel closed due to lack of business once the state highway opened up, but then I remembered Miz Lorena’s.”

“Miz Lorena?” The title the sheriff had used was the old-fashioned Southern one that had nothing to do with women’s rights and a great deal to do with age and respect.

“Miz Lorena Bedford. Got a big ole house a few miles outside the city limits. Tried to make it into one of those bed-and-breakfast places, aiming to get the Yankees heading to the Gulf and the casinos. Once that stretch of the four-lane opened, there wasn’t enough traffic on the Linton cutoff for her to make a go of it. Same thing that happened to the hotel. That’s what made me think of her place.”

“And you think she might rent me a room?”

The sheriff shrugged, looking back down on the river. “Got no idea how she’d take to the idea, but she’s got the space and the bathrooms. Had ’em put in special for all those guests that didn’t show up. It’s worth a try. I can tell you how to get out there. You tell Miz Lorena what you’re here for, and I doubt she’s gonna turn you down.”

Susan nodded, taking a last look at the sluggish current below. She wasn’t going to leave Linton until she had some answers. Maybe that determination was simply a recognition that this place represented her last chance of finding Emma, but in her heart—the one that had been frozen for the last seven years—there was again a delicate flame of hope.