Читать книгу Confessions Bundle - Jo Leigh - Страница 23

“I HAVE TO GO to her.” Juliet’s voice was the barest thread of sound.

He couldn’t allow it. Too many opportunities had already been lost to him. “I’ll do it.”

“Blake, no.” He was surprised when she stepped forward.

“I have a lot of time to make up for.” Another stab of pain. “And possibly few chances to do so.” For the first time, insidious bitterness entered his heart. He’d managed to hold it at bay, but now…

He felt a nudge against his hand. Cold. Wet. Reassuring. Freedom. He’d actually forgotten the dog was there.

Thank God for Freedom.

“I’m not leaving,” Blake said. He meant the words and would act on them, though the authorities would probably just haul him away for trespassing and zap more charges at him. Threaten more time locked away in a cell, waiting while life passed, taking with it all the opportunities he’d been born to find.

He was not going to die incomplete.

“I will see her.”

“Okay.”

Her compliance shocked him. With hair falling out of her ponytail, no makeup on her colorless face and droplets of sweat running down between her breasts, Juliet didn’t look any better than he felt.

“Just let me go to her first,” she said. And when he moved to argue, she held up her hand. “You can stay right here. I won’t ask you to leave. But she’s only a child, Blake. You have to think of her. She’s going to need a minute to hurl hatred at me, if nothing else. And then, hopefully, she’ll be able to listen. We have to make this as easy on her as we can.”

That note of authoritative love he’d heard in Juliet’s voice earlier came crashing back. It had been the voice of a parent.

He was a parent.

And as such, his daughter’s needs came before his own.

“I’ll wait,” he said. And without another look in her direction, he turned, dropped down to the beach and stared out at one of his oldest and dearest friends—the ocean.

He might not understand it, but he could count on it to always be there. Steadfast. Unchanging. Living by its routine day in and day out, tide in and tide out, whether he was there or not.

Even after years away, the ocean had welcomed him home, same as always. Her shorelines might change. The boats upon her waters might change. But she did not. Ever.

And neither would he. For as long as it took, he was going to sit there.

“Freedom, come.”

The dog came. Lay beside his master. Put his head down. And waited.

“JULES?” Marcie came running through the kitchen just as Juliet came in the sliding glass door from the beach.

“She’s gone!”

“What?” Juliet, dreading the minutes ahead, deathly afraid that life would never be good again, stared at her twin.

“Mary Jane’s gone!”

“Gone?” As fear tore into her, Juliet ran through the cottage. “She can’t be gone. She just came in with you.”

There was no sign of the girl in the living room.

“Mary Jane McNeil, you come out here right now!” Juliet screamed so loudly her throat stung. “I mean it, young lady. Come out here, now!”

Before this morning she’d never spoken to her daughter like that. Now it was twice in one day.

“She went to her room,” Marcie was saying, running behind Juliet. “She shut the door and said she wanted to be alone.”

That wasn’t unheard of. Mary Jane didn’t usually pout in public.

“I had to go to the bathroom and when I came out, her door was open and she was gone!”

Juliet burst into Mary Jane’s room. “Mary Jane? If you’re hiding under that bed, you’d better give it up. Now!”

The space under the bed was empty. And the room looked surprisingly normal. As though this was any other ordinary Saturday and they’d be leaving for the grocery store any minute now.

Until she noticed a bend in the blinds over the window.

And once she lifted them, the open window was obvious. So was a truth Juliet didn’t think she was strong enough to withstand.

Mary Jane had run away.

HEARING FOOTSTEPS running in the sand behind him, Blake jumped up. He could hardly breathe as he turned around, ready to take his little girl into his arms for the first time.

He was thinking about how furious she’d been when he’d introduced himself, almost as though she’d recognized the name and had known who he was. It didn’t make sense. But he was sure there’d be a logical explanation.

In the meantime…

He turned. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Juliet running toward him, alone, with a face so pinched it was almost unrecognizable.

By the time she reached him, the blood was pumping painfully through his veins.

“She’s run away!” Juliet’s terror was a horrible thing to see. And contagious.

A little girl out in the world alone. He shivered with cold and fury against all the unknown evils that could befall his child. And he was shocked at his own reaction—as though he’d been a parent far longer than this mere half hour.

“Call the police,” he barked out.

“Marcie already is. And calling some neighbors and friends, too, to start a search.”

He nodded. “Fine, but it’ll take too long for them to get here. We can’t wait that long.”

“I know.” Juliet swallowed. “I think she climbed out her window.”

She pointed to the side of the cottage blocked from view by a little patch of trees.

He nodded and pushed aside any feelings he might at one time have had for her. “I’ll take the beach. This direction.” He pointed up the beach, where the child would have come out through the trees. “You and Marcie take the street. You go one way and tell her to take the other.”

Looking like a lost little girl instead of the powerful defense attorney he knew her to be, Juliet nodded. “I’ll take my cell phone. Marcie’ll have hers, too.”

“Mine’s back in my car,” Blake said. But he wasn’t losing a second to go back for it. “Honk a car horn three times if someone finds her and I’ll know to come back. Depending on how long I’m gone, you might have to drive up the road a bit for me to hear.”

She glanced at him once more, and nodded. Blake refused to take the comfort she was offering. Or to give her what she needed, either.

He just didn’t have it.

“Can Freedom stay inside?”

“Of course.”

“Go, boy,” Blake said, grabbing the dog’s collar and handing him over to Juliet.

They hadn’t even turned around before he was hiking up the beach.

SHE JUST WANTED to spit. And…and…anything else that would hurt her mother’s feelings. Tromping along in the sand, making huge big footprints because she was so mad and stepping so hard, she stared at the ground. She wouldn’t look at the water at all.

Mom always told her to look at the water. And to know that there was no end to what she could do with her life. And no end to hope. Or to love, either.

Mom was a stupid liar.

She almost stepped on a pretty, perfect shell. It was pink and all shiny with different colors in the sun. Mom’s favorite kind. They always picked up and saved those ones. Mary Jane thought about stomping on it, but she didn’t want some kid in bare feet to come later and step on it and get cut. She hated that.

Instead, she picked it up and threw it as hard as she could, far out into the water where Mom could never ever find it, even if she wanted it badly enough.

And then she trudged on, way farther than she was allowed to go—and after a while, farther than she’d ever been, even with Mom and Aunt Marcie.

So what? They said it wasn’t safe for her here alone, but who cared? They were both liars.

She turned some corners and walked really fast. She sweated a lot, too.

If she got too hot, she’d go in the water. Mom didn’t want her to do that, either. She was just going to do everything Mom didn’t want her to do. Mom deserved it.

Sometime after she’d passed some people on a blanket—a man, a woman and some boy—Mary Jane thought about how tired her legs were. She’d forgotten how tired the sand could make her feet when she walked in it a long time.

So she moved closer to the water, letting the waves come up over her new white tennis shoes.

She loved them most when they were brand-new white. Mom did, too. And she’d be really sorry when she saw them all dirty.

Not that she was going to see them. Mary Jane wasn’t ever going home again. Who could live with people who lied to you?

She heard a dog bark and jumped back, kind of scared. Mom said stray dogs were dangerous sometimes and they could bite and give you rabies, which could make you have some pretty bad shots or die. She’d never been alone around a stray dog.

But when she looked around, there wasn’t one too close. She was kind of thirsty, though. And the ocean water was bad for drinking because of salt making you even thirstier. She shoulda brought her thermos from school. And a sandwich, too. Because it was going to be dinnertime and she hadn’t figured out where she was going to live yet.

Still, she was away from the liars. And that was all that mattered.

A man was by himself, up ahead by the water. Mary Jane slowed down. She wasn’t scared or anything, but everyone knew men were sometimes bad and she didn’t want to have to run away fast. She just wanted to be left alone. And quit being lied to.

Just then she heard the dog bark again. It ran to the man. And then a lady was there, too, and Mary Jane said hi as she walked past. They said hi and smiled. She probably could ask them for water if she had to. And if they fed a dog, they might feed her. A lot of adults thought dogs and kids were a lot alike. And besides, she wasn’t a picky eater and didn’t eat much either.

So she’d be okay.

But she was tired. And she needed to find out where she was going to live before it got dark and she had to go to bed.

Mary Jane ran into a wave, laughing as the water came up to get her shorts wet. And then she did it again.

Pretty soon she was all wet. It wasn’t really funny when you were all alone and no one could see.

She wasn’t going to be scared of the dark. She just wanted to get her bed made before she couldn’t see what she was doing. Lumps in beds made her kind of grumpy.

Mom had teased her about that one time when they’d camped out in a sleeping bag on the beach. Mary Jane kept punching at the lumps in the sand and finally Mom got a sand shovel from the house and dug Mary Jane a perfect oval to sleep in.

She could dig her own oval, though. She knew how. She’d use her new white tennis shoe and get it even dirtier.

When she stubbed her toe and fell down, Mary Jane didn’t really care. Her knee was scraped, but only babies cried over stuff like that. And she wasn’t a baby. She was big and strong and didn’t need any father.

Slopping along at the water’s edge, she thought about Blake Ramsden’s dog. He’d licked her. And his tongue was rough and kind of tickled. And was gross wet.

She’d always wanted a dog but Mom said they couldn’t have one because they weren’t home enough and who would feed it and train it to go potty outside and clean up on the beach when it made a mess.

Mary Jane said she would, but Mom still said no.

But so what? Mom was a liar.

And then she thought of Blake Ramsden. He’d smiled at her before she knew who he was. She’d liked him then. She’d felt all warm inside when he’d smiled, like she could have run to him if the house was on fire and he’d climb a ladder and save her mom and her dog.

Even when he’d asked her name, she’d liked him. He probably made good sand villages, and maybe would’ve let her play Frisbee with his dog on the beach. If she had a Frisbee. She’d lost hers.

Then he’d said his name. Mary Jane hated his name. And she hated him, too. Because Mom didn’t want him to be her dad—or he didn’t really want to be her dad. How did she know which it was?

She stumbled again. And fell on the very same knee. And got wet sand in with the skin.

It stung a lot. But that wasn’t why there were tears in her eyes. She just felt like crying. That was all.

Pretty soon, she felt like crying a lot. And it was going to get dark. She wasn’t afraid of the dark but bad men came out more at night. The ocean meant dreams come true, though, so she’d stay close to that.

Wondering what she was going to do next, Mary Jane wandered farther up the beach.

BLAKE DIDN’T KNOWhow to have an eight-year-old daughter. He’d never been a father.

Striding up the beach, eyes straining to see every movement, focused on any movement, he revised his last thought. He’d been a father. He just hadn’t known about it.

He couldn’t walk fast enough, look carefully enough. He couldn’t do enough. Ever. He wasn’t going to recapture eight lost years. And he might not have eight more weeks to get to know the child who was flesh of his flesh. His family.

The only family still alive.

As he passed a man and woman on a blanket with their little boy, asking if they’d seen a little girl, and moving on as they shook their heads, he wondered if he even wanted his own child to get to know him. Did he want his daughter to meet a man on trial for more crimes than she had years on earth? Did he want her to learn that her father might be spending the rest of his life in jail?

He wanted her to know he wasn’t guilty of those crimes. He wanted her to know that if she had nothing else but her integrity, it would be enough.

He wanted her to understand that he loved her without even knowing her. That he’d give his life for her.

About her mother, he thought not at all. He couldn’t afford to.

The beach was relatively deserted. Blake wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. With fewer people out, the percentages were less that a twisted jerk would find a little girl strolling alone on the beach. And yet, with fewer people around, a twisted jerk would find that girl easy prey.

Sick to his stomach, he walked on, moving rapidly, missing nothing. There were indentations in the sand, but too many to be distinguishable as a little girl’s footprints.

Or there were no footprints, which was why he was only seeing footprint-like indentations. She might not have come this way. She might be somewhere in the village of Mission Beach, wandering streets where all kinds of weirdos could be watching her—a beautiful little curly-headed angel all alone.

No. He couldn’t think that way. She was out here on the beach, pouting, drawing shapes in the sand somewhere with a twig, maybe even on the verge of running back home.

Was she smart enough to walk on the edge of the waves so her prints would be washed away? Or smart enough to stay away from the water so that she wasn’t unexpectedly sucked under?

The familiar dull stabbing in his chest struck again as he considered that he knew nothing at all about his own child. Was she good in school or did she struggle? Did she laugh at cartoons?

Could she keep herself safe?

Blake had thought, when he’d been face-to-face with the reality of possibly losing his freedom for the rest of his life, that the emotions consuming him were the absolute worst he could ever experience.

He’d been wrong.

He walked. He searched. Under every bit of brush, in every cranny of every cliff bank, in yards. He talked to the few people he passed on the beach. He knocked on cottage doors, asking if anyone had seen an eight-year-old girl with dark curly hair and sweet chubby cheeks. He could hold up a hand to show them how tall she was. But he didn’t have the actual statistic.

He didn’t even know the color of her eyes.

And when people shook their heads, again and again, he resolved not to lose hope. He’d find her.

He had to find her. To know she was safe. To get to know her.

And when he did find her, he was going to spend every waking moment with the child, listening to everything she had to say, telling her about her grandparents. Showing her his home. He was taking no chances. If he went to prison, his daughter was at least going to have these weeks. She was going to know that she came from good, hardworking, honest people.

He had a lot to do in very little time.

The sun was starting to sink and Blake had covered more than a couple of miles of beach, with still no horn sounding from the road above. Worry was starting to override every positive effort he made. If they didn’t find her by nightfall, the entire situation changed. His daughter would no longer be an upset little girl pretending to run away. She’d be an endangered female child.

A young couple with a dog had seen a little girl pass by, although they couldn’t really describe her. A couple of teenage boys with new surfboards and no idea what they were doing were sure they’d seen her. But they didn’t even know the color of her hair.

He should turn back. The police would be there, and a search party would have gathered by now. Maybe Marcie or Juliet had found her and sounded a horn and he just hadn’t heard it.

She’d probably run back home as quickly as she’d left.

But still he plunged on. That little girl had been furious with her mother. She thought she’d been lied to.

He stopped himself just short of determining that her running was justified.

Did he seriously want his little girl sacrificing her life because of a lie?

God, no.

Truth wasn’t worth that.

He almost missed the sound as he walked. A quiet, animal-like moan coming from between a boulder and a cliff in a spot where the beach narrowed to almost nothing.

Heart pounding, Blake focused on calm as he slowly rounded the boulder, not sure what he’d find. An injured squirrel? A dog?

A child.

Sitting hunched over, knees pulled up to her chest, her head buried in her thighs. He’d only seen her once, but one glance at the curly brown head and Blake knew he’d found his daughter.

There was dried blood all over her.

The sound came again. A tiny moan followed by a dry sob, as though she was still hurting but was all cried out.

Keeping his emotions in check, when he wanted to grab up that tiny body and run for the nearest phone, Blake kneeled down a few feet away. He didn’t want to scare her, but he had to know how badly she was hurt.

“Mary Jane?”

She jumped, her eyes wide and glazed with fright. And then, seeing him, she hid her swollen, tear-and-sand-stained face.

“Honey, are you hurt?”

Dumb, Ramsden. Really dumb. Of course she was hurt. It hurt to bleed. And it hurt to think that the one person in the world you could trust had been lying to you.

When she continued to ignore him, Blake tried again. “Mary Jane, I understand that you need to be alone, but you’re bleeding. At least let me make sure you don’t need a doctor.”

“I don’t.” The voice was surprisingly strong.

“Can I please see where you’re hurt, just to be sure?”

A skinny little leg popped out, showing him a severely scraped shin and knee. While the cuts weren’t deep, there wasn’t much skin intact.

“Is that all?”

While she kept her head lowered, the other leg came forth. And then two palms and an elbow. From what he could tell, she was right. She probably didn’t need a doctor. But she would if those scrapes weren’t cleaned up.

“What happened?”

“I fell.” She was talking to her chest, but the words were full of energy. And anger.

“Where?”

She glanced up at him then, her little face puckered with irritation. “On the beach and here.” She pointed to the cliff.

Blake glanced up. And swallowed. “You tried to climb up there?”

“I saw a cave.”

She saw a cave. The kid had walked for miles. Been gone for hours. Missed at least one meal. And she hadn’t been planning on coming home.

And suddenly his years of not being a father were extremely evident. He had no idea what to do next.