Authors: Mariah Stewart
Tags: #Romance, #Mystery, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Thriller
Channing paid for his purchases and headed back through the door. A couple in their mid-fifties nodded and held the door for him as he went to the car. He got behind the wheel and took the map out, trying to get his bearings.
It was almost impossible to figure out exactly where he was.
A few minutes later, the couple he’d passed in the doorway emerged from the store.
Seeing Channing studying the map, the man called to him, “Where you headed? Need some help there?”
Hesitating to broadcast his destination, lest there be cause in the days to come for them to recall having met him, Channing glanced at the map and gave the name of a town that appeared to be several miles beyond Little Falls.
“Oh, you want to go through Darien and Little Falls, then about eight miles north on Route 231.”
“I’m just not sure how to get there from here,” Channing said.
“Let me see that map.” The man walked to the car and peered in. “Oh, that’s not right.” He shook his head. “This must be an old map. Look, what you want to do is to go up here“—he pointed past the general store—”till you come to a fork in the road. Take the left fork and just go straight till you come to Little Falls. It’s not marked well. You blink and you’ll miss it.”
Channing’s head was beginning to ache. How to find the road mentioned on the tax bill without coming right out and asking for directions specifically to that spot? He knew how this could play out. Sooner or later, the police would start to believe Mulholland’s story. After that, they’d call in a compositor who’d do a sketch, and if it was good enough, there were people who would recognize him. People he worked with. People in the rooming house.
Maybe even this couple right here could remember him, might recall that he’d asked for directions to Mara’s road.
He needed to be careful, but he needed directions if he was ever to find Mara’s cabin.
“I was here once before,” he said casually. “Seems to me I went out on a road called Poor House Road or something like that.”
“You mean Poor Farm Road? No, no, that road dead-ends about a mile or so back into the woods, and there are only one or two houses back there.” The man shook his head. “No, you want to take Little Falls Road straight on through—”
“Oh, right. Right. I remember now. Straight through Little Falls . . .” Channing nodded.
“You ever seen the falls out there?” the man asked.
“No, I’ve only passed through,” Channing told him, anxious to be on his way, knowing that the more time he spent in conversation with them, the more likely they were to remember him.
“You get a chance, you don’t want to miss those falls. There’s a clearing right after the turn for Poor Farm Road. You park there and walk on back maybe three-quarters of a mile or so. Real pretty this time of year.”
“Thanks. I might just do that.” Channing put the car into reverse, but the man didn’t take the hint.
“Think nothing of it. Now, you do any hiking, you take care of the bears. Lots of caves out there, might be cubs in some of them. Mountain lions been sighted out there too this past week.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Channing waved and backed the car out of the small parking lot.
Too much chatter, he berated himself. Way too much chatter. Chances were they would remember him if the newscasts carried his picture at some time in the coming week or so. Would they broadcast that story way up here? he wondered.
Why would they? Who would think to look up here for him? No one knew he’d be coming this way. Oh, sure, the story might make the evening news, but probably not the sketch, if they did one. Wouldn’t they only show the sketch in the general area where they would expect him to be? That’s what the police had done in Wyoming last year, where he’d been for a few months.
He smiled at the memory. He’d enjoyed Wyoming. Nothing like those wide open spaces to make a man feel free.
Well, he wasn’t going to waste time worrying about it.
He’d gambled that Mara—he still couldn’t get over the name, still wanted to think of her as Mary—had taken refuge up here at this mountain cabin, and figured that this was his best bet to find her. And if she wasn’t here, well, at least he had a place to hide out for a time while he collected his thoughts. He wanted to finish what he’d started, wanted to hold true to his word, do Giordano’s deeds, but not at the expense of his own neck. He’d do what he could—do his best—but he didn’t want to be stupid about it. He couldn’t be anywhere near Lyndon—anywhere near the Philadelphia area, for that matter—when the police started to catch on.
Poor Farm Road was easy enough to find, and he turned onto the narrow dirt road and followed it slowly. He passed one small cabin that sat half an acre off the road. It looked to be no more than a four-room shack, though he noted that electric lines did extend off the main road to it. He stopped the car and studied the tiny structure for a time. It just didn’t feel right for some reason. He kept going until he was almost to the dead end. A contemporary two-story log home rose off to his left. Steps rose from the ground level to the second-story deck that wrapped around two sides of the house and gave a view out over the hills that rose gently beyond a slight ridge. There were lots of windows, lots of glass.
This is it. This is her place.
He turned the car around, looking for some sign of life, but there was none. He cut the engine and opened the door, stepped out of the car and stood stock still, listening. Nothing but the occasional birdsong from the thicket across the road. Not another sound.
Tentatively he walked across the road to the house and studied it. The ground level appeared to be mostly garage. He rubbed at the dusty glass of one windowpane with the sleeve of his shirt and peered inside. Sleds, a toboggan, and several pairs of skis and snowshoes were hanging on the walls. A workbench ran along the inner wall, and he noted a variety of garden tools—pruning shears, a few shovels, a wheelbarrow. But no car.
He turned back to the road and checked the dirt for tire marks. He found none but his own.
If she was coming here, she’s yet to arrive,
he thought.
He went up the steps, taking care to make as little noise as possible, just in case. He tried to look through the windows, but the drapes inside had been closed. He tried the door, but of course it was locked. Dead bolt. He could pop it, but if she showed up later, it would be a dead giveaway that someone had been here. He went back to the garage and looked for a way in.
He found it. A small door in the back wall was locked, but not securely enough to keep out someone with his talents. It was embarrassingly easy for him to gain entry to the garage and, from there, easier still to pick the lock on the door that led into the house.
A flight of stairs took him into a service area that held a washer and dryer and a small pantry. A hall led into a galley-type kitchen that opened onto a great room where a sectional sofa wrapped in front of a stone fireplace that took up all of one wall. A farmhouse-style table with six chairs stood along the windows across the back, and he stood there for a moment and gazed out at the spectacular view.
Nice,
he thought, nodding to himself.
Very, very nice.
Another hall led to bedrooms—he counted three, one of which had its own bath—and several large closets that held linens—bedding and towels and such—packed in clear plastic bags. Missy Mara was apparently quite organized. But her house in Lyndon hadn’t appeared to be quite as neat as this place, he thought as he looked around, and he wondered for the first time if possibly he’d made a mistake. He began to look for something that had a name on it. In a basket of magazines near the fireplace, he found a year-old issue of
Psychology Today
. The name on the label was Anne Marie McCall.
Shit. It wasn’t her place after all. Damn. Hers must have been that tiny place closer to the main road. Funny, that place just hadn’t looked right, but there you go. That’s what happened when you made assumptions. Well, he’d go down there and scope it out, but he’d come back here to sleep the night. Those beds looked pretty comfortable, and he doubted anyone would be coming along anytime soon. Maybe she was on her way; maybe she wasn’t coming here at all. But he had a nice place—a really nice place—to stay in for a while, and that was okay, too.
He continued to look around the house, and downstairs found behind the garage another room, a den with an old leather chair and a worn leather sofa and lots of bookshelves on the walls. He turned on the overhead light, then whistled long and low.
“Holy shit, would you look at that?”
Gun racks covered one whole wall, from roughly shoulder height to the ceiling. He went straight to them, his eyes glancing from one shelf to the other. Mostly rifles, some old. Some very old, he realized. He lifted one with a fancy handle and held it, sighted it.
“Damn, you’re a beauty, aren’t you? Bet you’re worth a pretty penny, too, with all that fancy carving. . . .”
He returned it respectfully to the brackets that held it and inspected each firearm on the racks until he’d seen them all.
He knew one thing. However long he stayed, he’d be taking as many of those guns with him as he could fit in his car.
His stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in hours. He’d bring in his groceries and make himself a sandwich. He started to the door, but a book on the shelf nearest him caught his eye.
An Encyclopedia of Firearms: 1800–1899.
He took it with him and snapped off the light, pulling the door closed tightly behind him.
He flipped through the pages of the book as he ate at the table in the great room, then took it with him to the sofa, where he sat and read for an hour or so. He began to feel sleepy and just a little chilled, now that the day had begun to cloud up. He’d seen a stack of firewood outside but was afraid that smoke from the chimney might be noticed. He’d have to make do. One of the closets had several shelves of blankets, and he sorted through them until he found a knitted afghan. He took it and a pillow from one of the beds and made himself cozy on the sofa. He leaned back against the pillow and decided he didn’t care if he was in the wrong house. He was relaxed and comfortable and warm. He had this nice book about guns to read, and he could probably stay right here for a while.
He liked this place. He liked it a lot. He hoped Anne Marie McCall wouldn’t be coming around anytime soon. He’d hate to have to hurt her, after she’d provided him with such perfect shelter.
He felt his eyes closing, but he forced himself to sit up, remembering the car. He’d have to move it. Just in case someone came along and stopped to investigate. He got up and unlocked the front door, stepped out onto the deck. He took in a deep breath of mountain air and exhaled slowly.
Oh, yes, this was the life.
He drove back down Poor Farm Road, looking for a place to leave the car where it wouldn’t be seen, but found nothing that suited. He turned the car around, thinking perhaps he should just leave it in the garage, when he drove past the little log cabin. He stepped on the brake, pausing, then pulled in front of the cabin and stopped again. Getting out, he walked up to the cabin and looked around. No one was there, and from all appearances, no one had been there in quite some time. He drove the car to the rear of the cabin and parked it there, then picked the lock on the back door and went inside. Several pieces of old mail on the wooden mantel in the large front room were addressed to Roger Keppler. He looked through the drawers in the kitchen, found a hunting license in the same name.
Was Roger Keppler somehow related to Mara Douglas?
Or was Mara Douglas maybe related to the McCall woman?
Maybe he had gotten the house right the first time.
Well, perhaps time would tell. He went out the way he came in, then walked back around front. Satisfied that his car was well hidden from view, he hiked back up the road to his temporary lodgings. He climbed the stairs to the deck, then leaned against the railing, admiring the view, pretending that this place was his. For now, it was.
Tomorrow, he’d take a walk. He’d explore his newfound paradise, see if he could find those falls. He’d take it day by day. He still believed that Mara Douglas would show up. After all, isn’t that what a woman would do, if she knew someone was after her? Wouldn’t she go someplace where she felt safe, where she wouldn’t be found? He figured if it were him, and he needed a safe haven for a time, this is where he’d come, if he had such a place. He felt strongly that sooner or later, Mara would, too.
He’d be here waiting for her.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
M
ARA AWOKE IN A SWEAT, HER KNEES PULLED UP TO
her chest, her heart pounding, her fingers clutched around the little fabric bunny puppet she’d snatched from her daughter’s room on her way out of the house two days ago. In the hour before dawn, the room was still in darkness, the first thin threads of light not yet on the horizon. Long minutes ticked away on the clock on the small table to the right of the narrow bed in the strange room. One hand flew to the space next to the pillow, searching for the telephone, and not finding it, she panicked.
What if Julianne had tried to call her—to call home—and she hadn’t been there to get the call?
She turned onto her back, the fabric bunny held close under her chin in both hands, and fought against the panic by taking deep breaths and pushing it away, pushing it down, down through her body, and out through the soles of her feet, the way her psychiatrist had taught her.
It was better, once she could feel the fear leave and her heart rate return to normal. Better, but not good. Mornings were never very good. Another night without her child, another night when the phone had not rung. Despite the fact that Julianne knew the number, in seven years, the call had never come.
Before she turned four, Julianne could recite her full name, address, and telephone number, just as the nursery school teacher had suggested. On that terrible day when Mara arrived at kindergarten to find that Jules had picked Julianne up early, Mara had waited for her daughter to call, as she always did when she was with her father, to tell her when she’d be home. The hours had passed slowly that night, Mara jumping every time the phone rang. Finally, Mara began calling Jules’s home phone and his car phone, even his office phone, all night. Listening to each of those phones ring and ring, leaving message after message.
“Jules, this isn’t funny. Please call me and let me know where you are and when you’ll be bringing her home. Please call me. . . .”
Her emotions going from anger to fear. Had there been an accident? Were both her child and her exhusband lying unconscious in a hospital someplace? At ten p.m. she’d started calling all the hospitals in the area. Then she called Jules’s neighbors. His coworkers. His friends.
And finally, she called Annie, who, seeing the situation more clearly than Mara had, told Mara to call the police.
Annie called the local FBI field office and started a statewide search for Jules. His car was found in the parking garage at Philadelphia International Airport the following afternoon, but there was no trace of Jules or their daughter.
Annie had kept the search active longer than usual through her contacts, but to no avail. Father and daughter had disappeared literally into thin air. Mara had held together for the first long, agonizing weeks, dealing with the tangled issues of betrayal and loss and abject terror at not knowing where her child was and when she’d see her again, but firm in her belief that the FBI would pull through, if not for her, then for Annie.
After a month had passed, however—every day beginning with hope that today would be the day, and every night ending with prayers and sobbing attempts to bargain with God for the safe return of her daughter—the sickening fear that she might never again see Julianne filled her completely, and Mara’s strength began to crumble. Annie had called on a friend, a classmate and colleague, to talk to Mara, to help see her through the terrible days and terrible nights. It had taken almost a year before Mara had begun to accept the truth that Julianne was gone and might not be coming back, and another year before she could begin to get her life in order again.
After her daughter’s disappearance, Mara had taken a leave from her job with a large plaintiff-oriented law firm in the city. When she was finally ready to face working every day again, she found she needed to refocus her career. Personal injury cases just didn’t seem as important to her anymore. She applied for a job as a child advocate with the courts in several of the outlying counties and accepted the first position that was offered to her. The pay cut was significant, but in speaking to the court for those who could not speak for themselves, she found an outlet for her pain. To every child she interviewed, every case she reviewed, she offered her single-minded desire to realize what was best for that child and to bring that recommendation before the court. In her heart, Mara understood that it was her way of honoring her daughter, her way of making right for someone else what she could not make right for herself. It was the only thing that kept her going.
In the seven years since Julianne had been taken, there had been only a handful of nights when Mara had not fallen asleep with the telephone next to her pillow. If her daughter reached out for her, she wanted to be there. Those few nights when she had not slept at home had been difficult. Her intellect knew that after all this time, Julianne was not likely to call in the middle of the night. Her heart, however, would not give up the hope that some night the phone might ring.
She lay awake now, in this lakeside cabin, wondering if the phone at home had rung during the night. Knowing that it hadn’t, but wondering all the same. It had been a long time since she’d spent more than two nights away from home. If they went to the mountain cabin from here, that would be another night or two—maybe more, if they didn’t find the killer soon. The thought of staying away—staying out of her daughter’s reach for days on end—caused her pulse to begin pounding again.
She sat up and looked out the window. The sun was up now, though just barely, the first glow warming the lake and waking the birds that nested in the trees that lined the banks on the opposite side. Already the ducks had left their nests and taken to the water, keeping their babies close and near to the shore, warily watching the great blue heron that at this early hour was fishing for his breakfast, no doubt watching with one eye the momma duck and her tiny ducklings and hoping that one might stray.
Plumping the pillow behind her, Mara settled back, the bunny resting on her abdomen. The small house had its creaks and groans, but otherwise all was quiet in spite of the activity of the new day outside. It was strange being here, in this strange house, two strangers sleeping downstairs. Well, one of them not so much a stranger. Not anymore, anyway.
She’d begun to recognize Aidan as a man whose strength lay in many levels, a man who understood kindness and who understood pain. A man who understood what it was like to live with ghosts, because he lived with his own.
Of course, there had been a time when she believed that Jules was a man worthy of trust, of respect, too. A man who embodied only the finest qualities. Until she walked into his office one night and found him in a compromising situation with one of the assistant professors in his department, a woman who had dined at their home just the weekend before.
Despite Jules’s assurances that his affair didn’t really mean anything, Mara consulted an attorney by the end of the week. For Julianne’s sake, she agreed to joint custody. For Julianne’s sake, she’d remained friendly with Jules and never—never—let their daughter know what had happened to cause the split. And Jules had repaid her by stealing her child.
She’d never seen it coming. She believed that whatever else Jules Douglas might be, his love for their daughter was genuine. She’d believed him when he’d agreed that it was Julianne’s right to grow up strong and secure in the love of both parents. She’d spent the last seven years paying for that error in judgment.
Mara sighed and looked over the edge of the bed for Spike.
“Spike?” she whispered. “Spike?”
No dog.
The door to her room was slightly ajar, the way she’d left it the night before to allow a little bit of light into the room. She got out of bed, tiptoed to the door, and opened it just enough to step out into the open loft area that overlooked the living room of Chief Tanner’s cabin. She crept to the rail and looked down.
Aidan was stretched out on the sofa below, his hands behind his head, a small bundle of brown and white fur alongside him.
“That little traitor,” Mara muttered.
“What was that?” Aidan asked.
“I said Spike is a little traitor. He’s supposed to be up here keeping me company.”
“I could come up there and keep you company,” he said, his eyes still closed, a smile crossing his face.
“Thanks. I think I’ll get dressed and come down there.”
“Spoilsport.” He pretended to frown.
Mara changed quickly into jeans and looked through her bag for a sweatshirt, since the air drifting in through the window was cool, and realized she was still smiling.
This new Aidan was worth smiling about.
It seemed clear to her that he grew more at ease with her as he grew more at ease with himself. Having his job back had gone a long way to bringing that about, she suspected. He was clearly a man who loved his work, and from what she had seen, he was good at it.
It had been a long time since any man had gotten close enough to kiss her. But Aidan, she recognized, wasn’t just any man. She had known that the night he’d come to her house with an offer to stay. She remembered him pushing himself to keep up with her and Spike on their nightly walk, in spite of the pain the exertion had caused.
Galahad with a bum hip and a pound of metal in his leg and no grip in his sword hand. But he’d come and stayed with her, all the same. And when she’d called him, he’d come for her to keep her from harm’s way.
There’d never been a hero in her life before. It was something to think about.
She pulled the sweatshirt over her head, recalling that Annie had once said that Dylan had swept her off her feet the first time she met him. Mara had teased her sister, never having understood the whole swept-off-the-feet thing. Now she was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t something to it after all.
Aidan stopped the Explorer in front of the neat ranch home with the wide front lawn and the trimmed hedge across the front. Bright yellow daffodils grew around the base of the mailbox that announced the street number of the house—459—and the name of the occupant—Channing. Aidan knew from Chief Tanner that Mr. Channing had died several years earlier, and that the missus now lived there alone.
“Do you think she’ll talk to you?” Mara asked.
“Don’t know. She might feel intimidated if I go in alone. Having a woman with me might make her more comfortable. Feel like risking a federal prison term by impersonating an FBI agent?”
“My sister’s with the FBI. Does that make me a Fed by blood?”
“Close enough.” Aidan nodded. “Let’s go.”
A long brick walk led from the mailbox to a small covered front porch where a newspaper wrapped in a clear tube of plastic lay on the top step. Aidan picked it up and tucked it under his arm. He rang the doorbell, and they waited until they heard the door unlatch from the inside.
A small woman who appeared to be in her early seventies opened the inner door slowly. Glancing from Aidan to Mara, she frowned slightly.
“Yes?” she asked tentatively.
“Mrs. Channing?” Aidan asked. “My name is Aidan Shields. I’m with the FBI—”
“The FBI? Oh, my . . .” She appeared taken aback.
“—and this is Ms. Douglas,” he continued, not identifying Mara other than by name. “May we speak with you for a moment?”
“What is this about?”
“It’s about a foster child whom we believe once lived with you,” Aidan told her as he handed her the newspaper.
“Oh. Curtis? You have news of Curtis?” Her eyes lit up, and she smiled just briefly, before the smile froze. “If you’re from the FBI, then it can’t be good, can it? Has something terrible happened to Curtis?”
“May we come in, please?” Aidan showed her his credentials. He hoped she would be focused enough on those to not realize Mara had offered neither ID nor badge.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen him.” Mrs. Channing motioned for them to come inside. “Please. Sit down.”
“Do you hear from him often?” Aidan asked as he and Mara took seats on the sofa.
“No, not in years. He just . . . he just disappeared out of our lives. I didn’t even know how to contact him when my husband died, and I think Curtis would have liked to have known about that.” She shook her head and drew her cardigan sweater around her as if to warm herself. “I just didn’t have any way to get in touch to let him know.”
“Mrs. Channing, what can you tell us about Curtis?” Aidan asked softly.
“Well, I don’t know what all you want to know.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning, when you first took him in as a foster child?” Aidan suggested.
“Oh, that was a time.” She shook her head. “Marshall and I had tried for so long to have children and we just finally gave up. We started going through the adoption process here in the county, met with the social workers and all. We told them we would take any child, any child who needed us. Well, no sooner than we’d met with them that we got a call. Not to adopt, but to take in this boy. They wanted to place him right away, immediately, didn’t want him to go into a group home.”