Authors: Karen Rose Smith
Shara, on the other hand, had
always had all of Clare's attention. What she didn't have was a father. She'd
been a precocious child, constantly testing her boundaries. Sometimes Clare
just got weary of being a watchdog. But yet wasn't that what parents were
supposed to do?
After taking a deep breath for
patience then putting her chin-length brown hair behind her ears, she reached
out and took the blouse from Shara's hands. It really wasn't a blouse, just a
stretch lace concoction that
her
daughter wasn't going to be caught dead
in. "If you wear this out on the street, you'll get arrested. What did
you buy to go with it?" She meant to keep her tone curious but it sounded
judgmental anyway.
Shara produced a pair of black
leather shorts that Clare suspected would fit too snugly.
"The outfit goes back. It's
not appropriate for school. It's not appropriate to wear to the mall. It's
not appropriate to be caught dusting the house in. What were you thinking?"
"I'm thinking there are a few
boys who would think I'm hot."
Counting to ten had never been a
strategy that worked well for Clare, especially when her daughter was
deliberately trying to push her buttons. But she tried it again, nonetheless,
not meeting with any more success than she'd achieved the last time. She
prayed for patience, or wisdom or anything that would help deal with her
daughter.
Finally, in a friendly tone she
asked, "Care to give me their names? Maybe I can do background
checks."
Shara studied her mother, trying to
decide if she was joking or serious. "Brad said he likes me in
black."
"Brad doesn't need to like you
in anything. He's a senior. You're a sophomore. We've talked about this,
Shara. He has a reputation and I don't want him giving
you
a
reputation."
"You are wound
so
tight," Shara mumbled.
Before Clare could deal with
that
assessment, the telephone rang. She glanced at it, thought about letting it
ring, letting the answering machine take over. But maybe both she and her
daughter needed a few minutes to cool down. She saw from the Caller ID that it
was her mom's home number. This would probably be a short conversation. They
never had much to say to each other.
Clare watched Shara take the new
outfit and her other bags to her room. "They go back," Clare called
after her.
Her daughter didn't bother to
reply.
Clare greeted her mom with a
chipper "hello," wondering what she was going to put together for
supper. As an X-ray technician at the hospital, she usually arrived home after
Shara. Today, however, Shara had asked her if she could stop at the mall for
an hour or so after school and Clare had agreed. It looked as if they'd both
be taking a trip after supper to return Shara's purchases. Maybe they should
just leave now and grab pizza there. The mall on an October Friday night would
be busy.
"Clare?"
The tiny crack in her mother's
voice made Clare pull in a breath. "What's wrong? Has something happened
to Dad?"
Although her father and mother had
divorced two years after Lynnie had disappeared, Clare had desperately tried to
hold onto bonds with both of them.
"I haven't heard from your
father in weeks. The last time I saw him was at the picnic you had Labor Day
weekend."
It was really strange. Her parents
had once had a good marriage until Lynnie was taken. Now they were awkward
together whenever they had to be in the same room. Clare always felt as if she
were the cause of that awkwardness, always felt as if she should do something
to make it all better, always felt as if she was the neutral territory in the
middle of a decades-old war.
After a short pause, her mother
explained, "Detective Grove called me. He already spoke to your
father."
Clare's heart skipped a beat.
"Detective Grove?" The picture of a tall lean man in a rumpled suit
flashed in her mind—the man who had taken over Lynnie's investigation after the
patrol officers' first visit.
"Do you remember him?"
her mother asked gently—too gently—and Clare had a shivery premonition of what
could be coming.
"Didn't he retire?" she
asked her mom, her heart racing now.
"Yes, he did. But he's not
really keen on retirement and he's been...working a few cold cases." Her
mother's voice was edgier than usual and a little wobbly, too.
"What are you trying to tell me,
Mom?" Clare's hands became sweaty as she thought about all the
possibilities. Lynnie's face at three and a half was still so vivid in her
mind—the face they'd used on posters...the face she'd envisioned floating in a
river...the face on the body in nightmares that had been buried in a ditch.
The
not
knowing had always been worse than knowing. The
not
knowing is what had torn them all apart. Clare really believed that if the
police had found Lynnie's body somewhere, maybe they could have gone on as a
family.
Maybe.
"He wants to meet with us
tomorrow morning. You, me and your dad. He thinks he has a lead."
Clare's throat went desert dry.
Even though she'd only been five, she remembered the hope that had filled her
parents' faces whenever a new lead had been phoned in, whenever the police had
gotten a tip from an informer on the street, whenever there was a chance that
Lynnie might have been spotted. She also remembered the expression on their
faces when all those hopes had been dashed and one day had turned into the next
without teaching them anything new.
Except that they were losing each
other, hour by hour, day by day, week by week.
"What kind of lead?"
Clare asked, trying to control the shakiness in her voice.
"He wouldn't tell me over the
phone. He's working out of his home, so I offered the use of my office at
Yesteryear
.
Can you be there tomorrow at ten?"
Her father wouldn't like meeting at
her mother's shop. Now and then he'd complained to Clare that her mother was
lost in the past. He didn't like the mustiness of the store or what the old
furniture represented—a history that couldn't be changed...a child who would
never come home. Her mother didn't see it that way at all. Her mother liked
to relive every memory she had. She wrapped herself in the reminiscence of
what she told Clare were the happiest years of her life. More than that,
Yesteryear
had given her a reason to get up each day, a reason to search for old furniture
if not for her daughter, though Clare suspected she still looked for Lynnie
everywhere she went.
Trying to prepare herself for the
meeting, she shored up her courage and asked, "Did Detective Grove say
whether this lead means Lynnie's alive or dead?"
A sharp intake of breath met her
question and then her mom answered, "He didn't say, and I didn't ask. I
still have hope, Clare. I always have."
Yes, her mother had held onto the
hope that Lynnie was still alive, that some misguided woman had taken her and
raised her for her own. But a misguided woman didn't steal a child from
someone's house in the middle of the night.
False hope was worse than no hope
at all. Clare and her dad understood each other on that one point, at least.
"I'll be there tomorrow, Mom,
but please don't—" She wasn't sure how to say it.
"Please don't believe in the
best rather than the worst? Oh, Clare. Maybe as you get older you'll learn
that believing in the best is the only way to get through some days. I'll see
you in the morning, honey."
Clare and her mother weren't on the
same wavelength...would never be on the same wavelength. Just like her and
Shara?
She said goodbye, hung up the phone
and went to her daughter's room. Arguing with Shara would postpone thinking
about the meeting tomorrow morning...a meeting that could shake up all of their
lives once more.
Excerpt
from
ALWAYS DEVOTED
Search
For Love
series, Book 3
Chapter
One
"What do you believe happened
to your sister?"
Emma Henderson felt her throat
tighten and she found swallowing difficult. She hated the glare of the
television lights and found her gaze swinging away from the camera to offstage
where Linc Granger stood. The successful TV producer, who garnered high
ratings with his specials, had convinced her this interview might help find
Paige. That was the only reason she'd agreed to do it.
"I don't know what happened to
Paige, Ms. Kahill. She left one afternoon to drive to San Francisco for the
weekend and I haven't seen her since." Emma's voice cracked.
She almost felt Linc Granger take a
step forward. To do what? Stop the interview with journalist, Tessa Kahill?
To comfort her? To tell her everything was going to be okay when she knew it
wasn't?
"Her car was found on the
shoulder of the highway and she was missing. Can you tell me what your
thoughts were when you found out?" the world-renown journalist asked.
"I was stunned. I couldn't
believe it. At first we all thought she might have been kidnapped. But there
was no call...no note for ransom...nothing."
"You were on the police list
of persons of interest for a while, weren't you?"
"Tessa!" Linc Granger's
deep voice rent the air with authority. He told the technicians to cut and
take five. Then he strode up beside the interviewer.
His gaze connected to Emma's for a
heart-stopping moment.
She tore her eyes from his and took
a deep breath. She shouldn't have this reaction to him. He'd been
compassionate toward her, protective even, and she was grateful. That's all
there was to it.
But as Linc and the beautiful,
curly-haired interviewer argued over the questions for the remainder of the
interview to be aired later in the week, Emma knew she felt a spark of
something with Linc Granger she'd never felt with her late husband Barrett.
After another minute or two of
discussion, Linc crossed over to her chair and towered over her. He raked his
hand through his dark brown hair, his green eyes turbulent. "Tessa
insists she has to go this route. She thinks it's better if everything is out
there in the public's face. I don't necessarily agree. I know you lost your
husband a year ago and this is hard. If you'd rather Tessa go in a different
direction—"
As Emma shook her head, her
honey-blond hair fell over her shoulder. "The family is always
questioned. The family is always of interest. It's okay, Mr. Granger."
"It's Linc," he said
gently. As cutting as his voice had been a few moments before, it was so
different now.
Ever since their first meeting,
she'd felt strangely out of breath. She was a mother with a four-year-old, and
her sister was missing. She couldn't think about anything else.
Squaring her shoulders, she assured
him, "I can handle Ms. Kahill's questions."
As Linc Granger studied her, she
felt almost all of the air get sucked out of the room. What was it about him
that made her so flustered? He was older, between thirty-five and forty she
guessed, and she felt young at twenty-six for the first time in years. She'd
taken on a lot of responsibility early.
After a few moments, he reassured
her again. "If anything makes you too uncomfortable, you can say so. I'm
sorry I wasn't here when the interview started. I would have laid down some
ground rules." He glared at Tessa as she was studying her notes.
"When you offered me the
opportunity to publicize Paige's disappearance again, you said Tessa Kahill was
the best. Maybe you should let her do her job. Before we started, she told me
she has to be on a plane out of L.A. tonight to Afghanistan."
"You like her," Linc
noted with a wry smile.
"We talked before the
interview. Yes, I do. And I respect her."
"Good." He sounded
relieved. "Then I'll let her continue and I won't interfere again. But I
would like to discuss something with you when this is over. Do you have
time?"
What could he want to discuss with
her? They'd spoken at length about what had happened to Paige, the little bit
she knew, and Emma's desire to stay out of the spotlight for her daughter's
sake. But he seemed to have something important to say and she did want to
hear it.
"My next door neighbor is
watching Becky. I'll have some time."
He was quiet for a few moments, but
the intensity of his expression suddenly gave her the knowledge that Linc
Granger was a very different man than Barrett Henderson had been.
It shouldn't matter.
But she found herself wanting to
listen to Linc, even though she suspected that simple conversation with him
could unsettle her life even more.
****
What a stupid thing to do!
Linc never interrupted the flow of
an interview. When he'd asked Tessa to do this, she'd told him she could fit
it in during a layover in L.A. She'd been in Mexico interviewing some
diplomat, and then she was gone again for Afghanistan to tape a special report.
So why had he jumped in?
Because Emma Trent Henderson
fascinated him. She and her four-year-old daughter had been through the cable
newsringer when her sister had disappeared three months ago. Yet she'd somehow
retained her dignity and poise. Still, the lost look in her expressive brown
eyes when she spoke about her sister, Paige, haunted him.
From her first press conference,
he'd been intrigued by her and her story. Maybe because he knew someone who
could help her if she wanted to be helped. Unorthodox means weren't for
everyone, but he had the feeling Emma had exhausted the usual channels.