Winter Storm (18 page)

She was freezing. The shoes she put on were not fitting for the weather. Of course, after a few minutes, she’d just go back to her car and drive home. Sometimes it sucked to have people depending on you. She’d apologize. She’d go around in circles once more.

Rebecca turned around when she heard the sound of footsteps in the wet snow. Who else was crazy enough… Then she saw Callie, David with her, and her heart started to race. She wished she could simply faint, like it would happen in the movies, but she remained painfully aware instead. Rebecca had no doubt that something terrible had happened.

* * * *

“Rebecca, I need to tell you something.”

“No.” Rebecca shook her head. “I can’t! I can’t hear it. Please.”

At that moment, Callie irrationally hated David, for planting that thought on Rebecca’s mind, and for embracing her, like it was still appropriate. Maybe it was, maybe she was overreacting, but she didn’t like him acting as if they were still a couple.

“Craig picked up Maggie after the book club,” she said. “Jenny thought it was okay, since…he’s her uncle, and he was the sheriff in town after all.”

Rebecca looked at her like she hadn’t understood what Callie just said.

“Craig? Why?”

David spoke, though not without glaring at Callie first. “We don’t know. He hasn’t called yet and I can’t reach him. When we talked, he gave no indication that he even wanted to talk to the girls. I just don’t know.”

“Then find out! He’s your brother!” There was a tinge of hysteria to Rebecca’s voice. Callie stepped closer, touching her arm.

“Let’s go home first.”

“My baby,” Rebecca whispered.

“Don’t do that,” David said. “He might have been a jerk, but he’d never hurt her.”

Maybe it wasn’t his intention,
Callie thought.
If he was drinking though and getting in the car with the girl…
Her stomach clenched painfully at the thought.

“He’d better not,” Rebecca said. “I’d kill him.”

* * * *

Jenny had been waiting for them in her car. She was in tears.

“I’m so sorry, Rebecca! I didn’t know! I thought it was okay with you!”

Rebecca swallowed the answer she wanted to give her. When Beckett and Weller had played a cruel prank, killing the girls’ beloved guinea pig, she’d hurt for Maggie. She wasn’t sure whether the current situation wasn’t worse than the threat the sons of businessman Weller and former mayor Beckett had presented.

David might be right that Craig wouldn’t want to hurt Maggie in the first place, but he hated Rebecca. If he’d wanted to torture her, he was doing a pretty good job. She couldn’t hold on to one clear thought, her mind clouded with fear. Something like this had probably been his intention in the first place.

“Did you call Bev?” she asked. Craig had once been the one to call when you needed the police.

David looked uncomfortable. “I was trying to reach him first. Rebecca, he’s still my brother.”

“I called her,” Callie said, all eyes on her in an instant.

“What? How do you…it’s not your daughter. This is not your family, as much as you’d like to pretend it is!”

“David.”

“Don’t defend her. Just don’t, Rebecca. You know things would be very different now if it wasn’t for her.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s not Callie’s fault that he lost it. I just want my daughter back.”

“Bev worked with him before. She’ll know how to handle this,” Callie suggested.

“How would you know?” he asked acidly.

“Leave her alone, David.” Her words lacked the anger to back them up though. She was so very tired, like all her energy was being drained from her.

“It’s okay, Rebecca,” Callie said, and she sounded just as exhausted as she got up to leave. “I can speak for myself. Call me if you need me.”

* * * *

She knew she should have stayed, been there for Rebecca, but Callie couldn’t stand to be in the room for one more minute. It was remarkable what tragedy could drag to the light. David had been polite most of the time she’d known him even after he’d learned about her and Rebecca. That didn’t mean some very different feelings were still simmering under the surface. She couldn’t blame him.

There was a soft knock on the door, and without waiting for an answer, Rebecca stepped inside. She sat next to Callie on the bed.

Callie was searching for something, anything comforting to say, but she found she couldn’t come up with a thing, feeling like a failure. Craig Lowman always made her uncomfortable. She was just as scared as anyone else about what he might be up to, but she was not surprised that he had snapped. Rebecca pulled her close, and Callie held on. It was hard to distinguish who needed the comfort and reassurance more.

“I know it’s not my place. I’m never going to be her parent.” She wanted to slap herself. The last thing Rebecca needed was to have someone else to console.

“Maggie knows you love her and care about her.
I
know that.”

“Look,” Callie said, hoping her tears wouldn’t be audible in her voice. “I’m sure he just wants to scare you. Which is bad enough, but at least we know who he is. He’ll return her safely.”

“Once upon a time I would have believed that. I don’t know what to believe anymore. How could he? She’s a little girl, and she had nothing to do with any of this!”

Callie just held on tighter, wishing she could ease Rebecca’s pain. It was everything she could do at the moment.

When they returned, Beverly Wilkins, the town’s sheriff, was talking to Jenny. Her calm and professional manners did a lot to ease the tension in the room. She suggested a trace on Craig Lowman’s cell phone, then went to make a few calls for the necessary arrangements.

They settled in to wait.

* * * *

Craig called David around midnight. Rebecca wanted to tear the phone out of his hands and yell at her former brother-in-law. She wanted to threaten him with everything possible. Most of all, she wanted to hear Maggie’s voice and know that she was okay.

“Craig, what the hell are you doing?” David said. “Why drag Maggie into this mess?” He listened for a while, shaking his head. “You know I’ll try to help you, whatever. Mom will, too, but you must return Maggie immediately. Yes, she’s here. Wait a minute.”

Rebecca clutched the phone in a white-knuckled grip. She wanted to be calm, talk to him the way Bev had suggested.

“The last time someone threatened my family, I almost shot him. Remember that!” were the words that came tumbling out instead.

“Rebecca!” David hissed.

Callie gave her a half-smile.

“Just shut your mouth. You have no idea what family means,” Craig returned.

“You think you do, kidnapping your niece. I get it. Must feel so good to terrorize others.”

“You destroyed my life! Everything,” he accused. “If it wasn’t for you and your whoring around, I’d still have a job. Maria would still be alive.”

There was something in the tone of his voice that terrified her.

“Put Maggie on the phone right now. I want to hear that she’s okay.”

“Oh really? You have no idea what you put me through. Are you feeling pain now, Rebecca?”

“Please.” She didn’t care what he or anyone else thought about her. She needed to hear Maggie’s voice, right now.

“She’s a decent kid,” Craig said. “It’s a miracle considering the mother she has.”

“We can talk about this, right? Just bring her back home.”

“Whore,” he spat. “You had it coming.”

“Craig, wait, I…”

He had hung up on her.

Bev had told them that while successful, the trace hadn’t been 100 percent conclusive. She asked David if he had any idea about friends or relatives Craig could have gone to.

David shook his head. By now, he looked scared too. Rebecca had the fantasy of just ignoring him and everyone else, and falling apart like she’d wanted to ever since David and Callie had appeared at Maria’s grave. She couldn’t. She couldn’t let her little girl down.

“He didn’t make a lot of friends lately. Why the hell did Maria stay with him?”

Rebecca’s accusatory tone didn’t sit well with David. “Maybe she didn’t think that a difference in opinion was reason enough to throw away her marriage! You’re really concerned about that now?”

“No, I’m not. I’m concerned about the well-being of my daughter.”

“Our daughter,” David said with a pointed look to Callie.

Callie ignored the jibe. “In the area, are there any hotels, bed-and-breakfasts? It seems to me like he doesn’t have that many places to go, and he has to stay somewhere.”

Rebecca shuddered at the thought, her ex-brother-in-law, out of control, mindlessly driving around with Maggie. How far gone was he, and how long had this been going on? Maria had confided in her that the marriage was more of an arrangement, that they both went their separate ways in almost everything.

Craig Lowman hadn’t had a lot of bad luck all of a sudden. He was rude, bad at his job, and his career-wise problems had been a long time coming. He wasn’t to blame for the death of his wife, or the grief that resulted, but now he was looking to make someone responsible for all of it. He had decided that Rebecca was that person.

“We have to go look for them,” she said, locking eyes with Callie. “The storm is getting worse. They had to stay somewhere.”

Rebecca wanted to believe that Craig would have that shred of responsibility.

“
We
will,” Bev stressed. “I need you to stay here, be available.”

“Is that so? How many folks do you have working tonight, and how long until you can get backup from out of town?” Rebecca shook her head. “No way. I can’t wait for that.”

“Rebecca, I really recommend—”

“If it was your kid, Bev? No, don’t try to tell me to sit here and do nothing.”

Callie stood up wordlessly.

“Didn’t you hear?” David said. “Well, of course you would support this nonsense. We’ll all stay here and wait to hear from Bev.”

Callie shrugged. “You can stay here if you want. There’s tea and coffee. We’ll see you later.”

* * * *

She caught up with Rebecca at her car, turning her around by her shoulders. “Rebecca, wait. Let me drive.”

Rebecca handed her the car keys without protest, obviously aware that she wasn’t in any condition to drive.

“Where are we going anyway?” she asked once they had both fastened their seat belts. “It’s a pretty big area Bev was talking about.”

“Yes, but a lot of that is woods and the highway. There are motels and cabins.”

“Do you have a picture of Maggie?”

Rebecca bit her lip. Her yes was barely audible.

“Okay, let’s get her home.”

Callie still wasn’t sure about the exact direction they were going in, but she drove on. Rebecca seemed lost in thought, or maybe she was just praying. It made Callie almost jealous, the way she had found a never-failing safe place. Callie had a hard time imagining that such a place existed. Still, she felt relieved that a bigoted church official could not take that space from Rebecca.

“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said after a while. “I needed to get out of there. David…I had no idea he’d be so hostile.”

“This is tough on both of you. People tend to lash out when they’re scared.”

Rebecca sighed. She was on the verge of tears.

“Seems like I do that a lot. I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve that. It turns out I’m not any better than—”

“No,” Callie interrupted her. “We argue sometimes, okay. You never scared me like she did.”
Except when you make me think that this is all too much for you and some day you’ll leave me anyway
. She didn’t say that out loud though.

“I don’t know what to do. If he…” Rebecca let her words trail off, leaving the rest up to every worst case scenario in Callie’s imagination.

“Maggie will be all right. She might be wondering what’s going on, but she will be okay.”

Rebecca gave her a small smile. “Thank you.”

At a red light, Callie took her hand, squeezing it. She just hoped she wasn’t making any premature promises. Craig Lowman wouldn’t go as far as actually hurting his niece just because he wanted to get back at Rebecca—would he?

At the first motel, there was a bored twenty-something girl who said she hadn’t seen any children tonight. She kept chewing gum while she talked, conveying without a doubt that she didn’t care for the conversation. Callie thanked her and steered Rebecca out of the lobby.

“It’s all right. We’ll find her.”

After four more unsuccessful stops, Rebecca called David to learn there was no news from either Bev or Craig. She then called Dina who was crying on the phone.

“Why would Uncle Craig do that?”

They had no answer for her, but when Rebecca hung up the phone, she was crying, too. Callie held her close until she’d gained her composure back. There was the sign of a diner in the near distance. She suggested they get a coffee and something to eat. It was going to be a long night.