As dusk descended, Tess stayed inside her house using only a flashlight to get around even when strangers knocked on her door, rang the front bell or called her name.
Unfortunately, her posters in town worked against her when word got out that her phone number was on them. Hoping it would be Gabe on the phone, she answered her cell only to hear it was a reporter from Live at Five News from as far away as Cincinnati. She hung up without a word.
She ate a cold dinner and drank cider—nothing tasted good—and sat with the curtains closed, huddled on the floor in a corner of the living room with her knees pulled up to her chin, ignoring the knocks on her front and back doors, her name being shouted by reporters. Then finally—finally—a voice she wanted to hear came from outside.
“Tess, it’s Gabe! You in there? I’ve got everyone off your property. They went back into town! You’re not answering your phone. Tess?”
She ran to the back door but peered out before opening it.
She undid the bolt, the locks, and swung the door wide, only to have to unlock the storm door too.
“Did you find her?” she asked as he came up the steps and entered. He closed and locked the door behind him. She leaned against the kitchen counter. She had almost done the unthinkable, throwing herself into his arms and holding on tight like a kid.
“Wish I could say yes. The search and dragging part of the creek turned up nothing. Same story. Girl vanishes into thin air.”
“Like me and Jill Stillwell—Amanda Bell too.”
“Yeah. In broad daylight, without a cornfield, with her mother in the next room and while you and I were talking on Main Street.”
“You...you don’t think it was some sort of challenge or message to you or me. That someone else was taken so close to when I was?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t mean that. I’ve been comforting her family and getting the personnel we need here to find her fast. And it must have been someone she knew because she didn’t make a peep, even if she was—is—a friendly kid. Tess,” he said, stepping closer and taking her hands in his big, warm ones, “I gotta level with you. The fact that you came back home after being away for almost eight months, even if it was years ago, gives me a bit of hope for Sandy Kenton—Jill Stillwell too. There’s a thing called a golden window, a very short period of time—usually three hours, I’m afraid—when young children are kidnapped that they are likely to be kept alive, but you came back after a long time away.”
“Which is why people don’t want to believe me that I can’t recall anything to help. I wish I could, really, Gabe!”
“I believe you. Maybe we should finally let it out that you had needle marks in your arms, that you were probably drugged, maybe with some sort of amnesiac drug.”
Her nostrils flared, and she sniffed hard. She was shocked. Why had she not been told that? In a way, it helped. She snatched her hands from his grasp and moved out into the living room, where she had all the curtains drawn. With Gabe here she felt safe enough to snap on a light, and then she collapsed, weak-kneed, into one of the rocking chairs.
“I should have been told about the drugs!” she said when he followed her and sank wearily into the other rocker. Their feet almost touched, but neither of them moved their chairs except to tilt them closer together.
“The decision was made, with your mother’s approval,” he explained, “to keep the drug thing quiet.”
“And he was never caught, was he?” she shouted when she hadn’t meant to raise her voice. If you raised your voice, people got upset and you could be punished; she’d learned that from her father—or was it from someone else?
“No, he was never caught,” he said, tipping even farther forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees. “It’s the great regret of my father’s life. He started having heart trouble about then. But the failure to find you and then Jill—and the kidnapper—now may be my fault as well as my father’s.”
“I said before I don’t blame you.”
He nodded. “I want you to know, I told Marian Bell to steer clear of you. If she so much as glares your way, let me know. And I admit it would help if you could recall anything, anything at all.”
“About back then, nothing but being dragged off through the cornfield—and yes, maybe that something stuck me in the neck. Maybe drugged, right away.” She rubbed her arms through her sweater as if she could feel other needle marks there. She did remember tiny train tracks on her arms, that’s what she used to call them, but Mom never explained, even when she could have taken the truth.
In a sudden surge of need to help this man and the lost girl, Tess said, “I can tell you at least that Marva Thompson Green was home shortly after the abduction today, and Dane wasn’t. He was out in his van making Lake Azure house calls, according to her.”
Gabe sat up straight. His rocking chair jerked.
“How do you know that? Did you phone or see her? Did you see him or his van in town?”
“No, I stopped to talk to Marva at their place before I drove the back roads. I told her I was just returning her earlier visit and gave her some donuts since she’d brought me some baked goods.”
“Right when you came back Marva came to visit? To kind of feel out what you remembered?”
“Maybe. At least my mother did tell me where I was found wandering around the day I was recovered—and I’ve never really recovered,” she said. She stood so fast her chair rocked and bumped the back of her legs. “But I went there today.”
“Look,” Gabe said, rising too and stopping her with a strong grip on her elbow, “I don’t want you on deserted roads or around Dane’s place or letting him or Marva in here. You do know he was the prime suspect for a long time, don’t you?”
“Yes, at least someone saw fit to tell me that.”
“Tess, about the fact that you were drugged. It’s common police procedure to hold back some vital evidence, some piece of insider information that will be valuable when questioning a person of interest or preparing a trial after an indictment.”
“Don’t you—didn’t my mother—realize it would have helped me to know? If I was drugged, maybe that’s why I can’t remember, can’t help Marian Bell, the Stillwells and Sandy’s mother!”
“I didn’t—and don’t—want you to use that as an excuse. There can still be things you can recall, anything at all.”
“So you’re saying your offer to help and protect me was just a cover so you could hang close and see what you could shake out of me? Even before this poor girl was taken today?”
“I didn’t say that. No, that’s not true.”
“Well, see, Sheriff McCord, here’s my problem, one at least. I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t about my nightmares. I have them, sometimes at night, but flashes of things when I’m awake too.”
“What’s in the nightmares and flashes?”
“Feeling lost. A horrible feeling of dread. Like I have to flee something, but I don’t know what. Some kind of big machine, sometimes maybe a dinosaur, I think, and what sense does that make? Nothing I can clearly recall, and that’s worse than if there was some bogeyman I could face and try to fight or conquer!”
To her amazement, though she wanted to strike out at him, hit him, instead she threw herself into his arms. Breathing hard, he held her close for a moment. Her belly pressed against his gun belt, her thighs against his. He felt strong and steady, but he must be using her. She pushed back so hard against his rock-solid chest that she almost fell.
“Tess, honestly,” he said, grabbing for her arm again, though she shook him off. “Besides getting rid of the media mavens outside, I just stopped by to tell you that, even though I’m going to be working this new case day and night, you are not forgotten. Anyone bothers you, you let me know. Or if you recall anything in a bad dream or broad daylight. If you can’t get right through to me, call Ann or Peggy on the desk. If you call 911, you’ll get them too, and they’ll get me. Got that? Promise?”