Ghost on the Case (Bailey Ruth #8)(3)

I knew when the call ended. Her hand, still shaking hard, came away from her face. She stared down at the cell phone, touched the screen, touched again, likely calling a Favorite number. Her trembling hand held the phone close. She listened, then her shoulders slumped. Clearly her call had not been answered and she was being invited to leave a message. Her voice frantic, she cried, “Sylvie, call me. Tell me you’re all right. Please.” A tap. She stared down at the phone, as if willing her message to be heard. She rose, slipped the phone into the pocket of her slacks. She stood indecisively for a moment, then hurried across the room. She stepped into a narrow hall, passed one room. She stopped at a closed door to a second room. She turned the knob, reached for the light switch.

I blinked as the light revealed a strikingly different milieu. Nothing shabby and worn here, though the furnishings were inexpensive: bright white furniture, a dresser, a chest, a bed with a red satin coverlet. A lop-eared teddy bear with a missing eye sat in an angular metal chair on a fluorescent-bright orange cushion. On the dresser every inch of space was crowded with bottles of perfume and lotions. Heaps of clothes dotted the floor. I had a feeling that the room’s inhabitant arrived with armloads of clean laundry and carelessly deposited them wherever, a mound of jeans here, a tangle of panties and bras there, cotton tees loosely strewn on a fuzzy throw rug. It might have been just a messy bedroom except for the watercolors tacked to every bit of free wall space. The work was amateurish, but oh, what a feast of color, magenta, cobalt, royal blue. The paintings weren’t simply splashes of color but almost childlike evocations of sunrises, parrots, maple leaves, a football jersey, a yellow brick road rising to the sky, and a huge red question mark surrounded by happy faces.

Happy faces, a happy room. I didn’t know the occupant, but the casual disorderliness and vibrant watercolors suggested warmth and originality and unquenchable eagerness.

“Sylvie. Oh, Silly, Silly.” The words were a cry of heartbreak from the woman who clung to the doorframe. Her gaze swept the careless, chaotic room. Then she drew in a sharp breath. She darted to the dresser, reached out among the bottles of lotions and sprays and jars of cream to pick up a bright red cell phone. It took only a moment, and the message she’d left on this phone played and she listened to her own voice, shaking with stress, “Sylvie, call me. Tell me you’re all right. Please.” Woodenly, she replaced the phone on the dresser.

I was at her shoulder when she picked up a note written in bright red crayon: Will have lots (underlined three times) to tell you tomorrow!!!!

Sylvie’s cell phone was here. Today’s youth clings to devices. What prompted her to leave the cell phone behind? Yet she’d left a cheery note. Apparently when she left the light-filled room, she’d been eager and happy. Where was she now?

A muffled peal.

Susan yanked out her own cell phone, swiped, lifted it to listen. “I haven’t left yet. . . . I’ll go now.” She looked down at the phone, its screen now dark. She used a thumbnail to turn off the ringer, shoved the phone in her pocket as she rushed across the room, into the hall, turned to another door.

As she flipped the light switch, I took an instant to look at her. Her narrow face was devoid of color, her brown eyes pools of desperation, a woman laboring under intense emotion.

I popped into the living room, gazed about. I hurried to a side table and picked up a shoulder bag. It took only an instant to open the purse and fish out a brown leather billfold. I flipped it open and there was a driver’s license, Susan Mary Gilbert. The photo showed a much happier face, but instantly familiar with the striking dark brows and narrow nose and decided chin. She was smiling. I glanced at the birth date. She was twenty-four. When the shutter clicked to record her image, she’d been twenty-four and confident, not crushed by fear. I wouldn’t forget her stricken plea, Please, you won’t hurt her?

I joined Susan in a very different bedroom. I never doubted the room was hers, a simple maple bed and dresser and chest, pale blue walls, white dimity curtains at the windows. A serene room. No clutter. Susan pulled off her pretty wool sweater and yanked a black sweater from the chest. Atop the chest were two studio photographs in silver frames. I found both faces intriguing. One was a woman in her late forties or early fifties, a mass of blonde hair, huge blue eyes, crimson lips, almost a smile, not quite. The heart-shaped face had a haunting quality, as if there could be laughter but tears were not far behind. The second was young, perhaps not more than seventeen. Blonde curls framed the same heart-shaped face, but this one was bright and eager and the wide blue eyes brimmed with delight.

Susan tugged at the neck of the sweater, slid her cell phone into a pocket. She moved jerkily, hurrying, hurrying.

Wiggins had feared I might be too late to help Susan. I was in a quandary. What would a wise emissary do? Clearly, she was distraught, but I knew too little to be of help now, though I yearned to slip a comforting arm around her taut shoulders. But I must be patient. I had to know more. What was the content of the call she’d received? Obviously she feared for someone’s safety. She’d hurried to a bedroom, said raggedly, “Sylvie. Oh, Silly, Silly.” The love was clear in her stricken voice when she called out, “Silly, Silly.” I was sure this was a big sister’s nickname for the girl who had the happy bedroom, the girl she begged the caller not to harm.

Susan was dressed now in dark clothing, dark sneakers as well. She wound a black scarf around her head. At the dresser, she opened the top drawer, pulled out supple black leather gloves, shoved them in a pocket. She hurried out of the bedroom, up the hallway, into the small living room. She paused only long enough to take the billfold from her purse and slide it into a pocket. She plucked car keys from a ceramic bowl and ran into an old-fashioned kitchen, think 1950s, skirted a white wooden table. At the back door, she turned the knob, looked out into the night.