Pretty Girls Dancing(8)
Still plotting strategy, he reentered his office, shoving his shirttails into his unzipped pants and then started. “Jesus, Claire!”
His wife rose from the edge of the couch she’d been perched on. “Did I startle you? Traci showed me in. Why didn’t you call me back?”
“I just got into the office myself.” He zipped up and grabbed his suit jacket from the chair he’d draped it over. Donning it, he added, “I had my cell turned off during my meetings today, so I missed your calls. But I’m afraid I’ve got to meet with Kurt in a few minutes. What do you need?” He stopped, a sudden stab of concern piercing his impatience. “Is Janie okay?”
“Yes, of course.” She made a face. “Still insisting on Stanford after she’s already been offered a full ride at OSU, and quite vocal about it. She actually made a list of her reasons for attending a university halfway across the country. I swear, under different circumstances she’d make an excellent trial lawyer. One conversation with her, and I feel like I’ve gone three rounds in the ring.”
He felt a flash of relief. “She’s a teenager. She’s supposed to be argumentative.” That behavior, at least, was normal, a description that didn’t always fit their youngest.
“Yes, but she’s particularly good at it.”
They shared a rueful smile, and he looked, really looked at his wife for the first time . . . in a while, he realized. She was impeccably dressed, still a damn fine-looking woman. But she could no longer completely hide the shadows beneath her eyes, and despite the subtle plastic surgery she’d had last year, there were stress lines that creased her mouth when she was worried, like she clearly was now.
“There’s a girl missing. And David, she lives just a few miles away. Do you think . . . could it be . . .”
His gut knotted. Skirting her gaze, he strode to the briefcase he’d laid on his desk and opened it, reexamining the contents to make sure he’d have everything he needed for the upcoming meeting. “Claire.” His voice was as soft as he could manage. “Don’t do this.”
“I know the girl’s grandmother. We both attended Trinity Baptist in Saxon Falls. How can that happen here again? You don’t think Kelsey’s kidnapper . . . that he’s back?”
The last two words had his shoulders slumping. God, he was tired of this. Tired of being the strong one, tired of replaying this scene every damn time some girl forgot to tell her parents where she was going for a few hours. “No, I don’t.” Snapping the briefcase shut, he turned to face her.
“But what if it is?” His wife’s voice was getting that strident tone he recognized. And damn it, he didn’t have time for a scene.
“Claire!” His tone was sharper than he meant it to be. “This has nothing to do with Kelsey. Every bad thing that happens to a child in this country isn’t connected to her.” He had to draw a breath, difficult to do when his chest felt hollowed out. “It was seven years ago. You have to get some . . . distance.” God knew it was the only thing that had kept him sane. He’d spent months after his daughter’s disappearance on the edge of a yawning black and roiling precipice before he’d made a conscious decision to move away from it. With every passing year, he took another step back.
Claire remained teetering on the brink, arms wheeling. One wrong move would have her free-falling into that darkness. He’d given up thinking he could save her from it. Some days he thought she wanted to leap into the abyss.
Because he wasn’t willing to provide that push, he crossed to her, and she flung herself at him. His arms, stiff and wooden, were slow to slip around her.
Helplessness rose up inside him as he felt the shudder shake her frame. Every time he touched her, he was reminded of his failures. A better man would have found a way to help her heal from the trauma of losing their daughter. Instead, somehow he’d managed to lose both his daughter and his wife. He was a louse of a husband and not much better than a part-time father to Janie. But those weren’t the character flaws that kept him awake at night.
It was the spectacular way he’d failed Kelsey seven years earlier.
Special Agent Mark Foster
November 2
4:02 p.m.
Sleet pinged off the window behind Mark as he shifted awkwardly in the front of the interview room. As miserable as the weather had become outside, given the chance, he’d switch locations in a heartbeat. The crowd of journalists danced and bobbed before him as the reporters jockeyed for position.
“We’re here at the request of Saxon Falls Chief of Police Don Masterson to assist in the investigation in any way we can.” The booming voice of Ben Craw, senior agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, required no amplification to carry across the conference room inside the police headquarters. “Our first concern is to see that Whitney DeVries returns home safely.”
“Is this in any way tied to Halloween?”
“Will there be an Amber Alert?”
“Does she have a history as a runaway?”
“Did the girl have a boyfriend?”
Mark stood stoically at Craw’s side, grateful he wasn’t the one having to answer the questions lobbed at them like live verbal grenades. He did his best work in the field. Thrusting a microphone in his face was an open invitation for him to say something stupid, one he usually obliged. Craw was an old hand at this. He’d been with the state’s top investigative agency for nearly thirty years. Every day of it showed on his face.