Marcia Talley - Through the Darkness

“What? How did you…?” Only my mother and I had known how much I’d coveted that ring.

Montana smiled enigmatically before being swallowed up by the sea of reporters.

As I closed the door behind her, I heard Georgina say, “We’d be better off getting a Ouija board.”

“How could Montana Martin possibly know about Mom’s ring?” I asked Paul later that night as I lay in bed, my head resting comfortably on his chest.

Paul aimed the remote at the television and shut it off. “Maybe she knew your mother.”

“That’s possible, I suppose.”

“Otherwise, it was just a lucky guess, Hannah.”

“But Mom’s ring is an emerald,” I insisted.

“As I said before, a lucky guess. If she’d said ‘sapphire,’ you would have gone, ‘Oh, yeah, sure,’ and promptly forgotten about it. But since she guessed correctly, the woman’s got you believing she’s Karnack the Magnificent or something.”

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ ” I quoted.

Paul dropped the remote to the carpet, turned and buried his lips in my hair. “Hannah?”

“Ummm?”

“Do shut up.”

For that small moment in time my whole world consisted of that room, that queen-size bed, that incredible man, his arms wrapped protectively around me. Warm and secure, I wanted desperately to believe that nothing bad could ever happen to me or to anyone I loved.

“You want me to stop babbling?” I whispered.

“Uh huh.”

“And you’ll make it worth my while?”

“I promise.”

And he did.

I arrived at Emily and Dante’s house at nine thefollowing morning to find Georgina gone and Erika in charge of the kitchen, making a fresh pot of coffee.

I was relieved to see that Emily was up, dressed in a clean T-shirt and blue jeans. She’d even taken the time to wash her hair. While it dried, she wore it in a loose ponytail that hung down her back, leaking water in a damp semicircle around the collar of her shirt. She sat at a square table in the breakfast alcove and, with surprising energy, was tapping something into the family computer

Erika stood near the sink, grinding coffee beans.

“’Morning.” I called out, depositing a box of doughnuts from Carlson’s Bakery on the counter. “Any news?”

Special Agent Crisp appeared in the doorway from the dining room, yawning and stretching. “I’m afraid not.”

Emily lifted her hands from the keyboard and rested them in her lap, giving me her full attention for the first time in several days. “It’s been quiet so far, Mom, but everytime the phone rings, I practically have a heart attack.”

“Where is everyone?” I asked, looking around.

Erika twisted the tap and started to fill the coffeepot with water. “Connie sacked out in the guest room about five this morning. Dante’s gone to the spa to meet with somebody-or-other. I took the call.” She wrinkled her brow thoughtfully. “A Mrs. Strothers, I think.”

Hoo -boy . I wondered what was so important that Phyllis felt it necessary to pull Dante away from his family at such a critical time. It could have been good news, I supposed, like she was reaching into the commodious Strothers Family pockets to post a generous reward for Timmy’s safe return, but I wasn’t placing any bets on it.

“Dad and Ruth went out to Kinkos to get posters duplicated,” Emily told me. “Then they’ll start distributing them. Connie made up a list.”

“Posters?”

Emily pushed her chair back, rose, and stood behind it, optimism lighting her face. “Erika’s incredible. She put us in touch with BeyondMissing.com. They have online software that makes it easy to create a missing child poster and print it out. Come see what we’ve done.”

Erika smiled modestly. “BeyondMissing was founded by the father of Polly Klaas, and partially funded by DOJ. They’re only one of more than a dozen organizations that do an amazing job of getting the word out about lost children.”

I stayed anchored to my spot by the refrigerator, not the least bit interested in seeing the poster Emily had made. Just imagining Timmy’s cherubic face smiling out at me from a missing child poster in the post office or from the side of a milk carton made me hyperventilate. Get a grip, Hannah! If Paul and Ruth were out canvassing the town, I knew it wouldn’t be long before Timmy would be staring out at me from the bulletin boards of every fast food restaurant, gas station, and shopping mall in the state of Maryland.

Agent Crisp lifted the top of the Carlson’s box and considered the options before selecting a chocolate-covered doughnut for herself. “We put in a request to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, too. NCMEC faxed Timmy’s picture and vital statistics to their network of more than 26,000 law enforcement agencies, FBI field offices, state missing children’s clearinghouses, the Border Patrol, and med-” She stopped in mid-sentence and took a bite of her doughnut, then chewed thoughtfully.

I knew what she’d been about to say: medical examiners. I stole a glance at Emily to see if she’d noticed, but she’d resumed work on the computer, seemingly oblivious.

I wondered how long it would be before Crisp began asking Emily for DNA samples. Medical examiners .

Suddenly, I needed something stronger than coffee.

“NCMEC’s already contacted America’s Most Wanted ,” Agent Crisp added. “Are you familiar with the program?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s hosted by John Walsh, Adam Walsh’s father.” I filled a glass with cold water from the tap in the refrigerator door and took a stabilizing sip. Adam Walsh. Polly Klaas. Murdered children with foundations named after them. I shivered.

Crisp licked the chocolate off her fingers. “They’ll be running a public service announcement about Timmy on their program this Saturday night. Fox network, at nine.”

“You’ve mentioned NCMEC several times, Agent Crisp. What’s NCMEC?” I asked.

“Timmy’s picture is already up on the NCMEC website,” Erika cut in.

“And we’ve got it up on FBI dot gov, too,” Agent Crisp was quick to add, with a sideways glance at me.

In the next few minutes I learned that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had a network so extensive that less than forty-eight hours after his disappearance, Timmy’s picture was already appearing on the websites of Nation’s Missing Children Organization, Child Quest International, Laura Recovery Center, the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction, the Maryland Center for Missing Children, and similar organizations throughout the United States and abroad. His face and vital statistics would pop up on tens of thousands of computer screens, courtesy of websites that linked to BeyondMissing’s banner alerts, which rotated from missing child to missing child every ten seconds. It seemed to me that the FBI was on top of things, and I wondered how Crisp felt about Erika, who wasn’t even a family member, now that she’d entered the picture, seemingly intent on treading all over Crisp’s highly polished government shoes.

“Don’t you have to work today, Erika?” I asked.

“I requested the rest of the week off.” Using a paper towel, Erika scrubbed vigorously at the countertop surrounding the coffeepot. “Emily told me you could use an extra pair of hands.” She shrugged. “My firm is used to my going off pro bono like this.”

Connie chose that moment to stagger in, kneading her tired eyes with her fingers. “I smelled coffee,” she said. “Nature’s alarm clock.” She poured herself a mug, selected a cinnamon doughnut, then wandered over to the refrigerator, rummaged in it until she found the orange juice. “Anybody?”