Mariah Stewart - Cry Mercy

“I just want to know the truth. If she is alive, let's find her. If she isn't, let's find out what happened.”

“I promise we'll do our best to find the truth.”

She acknowledged his “Thank you” with a nod, then continued. “So Belinda is your sister's daughter…”

Emme had read all the reports, but she wanted to hear what Nick Perone had to say about his relationship with his niece in his own words. Sometimes the depth of information depended on the manner in which the questions were asked, and she preferred to ask her own questions.

“My sister, Wendy, was her mother, yes.”

“And she's deceased.”

“Wendy died in a car accident five years ago.”

“I noticed there was no information in any of the reports about Belinda's father.” Emme flipped over her notebook as if she were reading.

“I have no idea who her father was.”

“You don't know who fathered your sister's child?” Emme raised an eyebrow as if learning this for the first time, too, though of course she was well aware of what he'd previously told the police.

“No. She never told me, and since it wasn't something she wanted to talk about, I never pressed her on it.”

“Did she ever marry?”

“Once, very briefly, right out of college. I think it lasted maybe three months. Once they were divorced, she never mentioned his name again.”

“But you weren't curious? Not even a little?”

“Sure. But when someone makes it clear that they don't want to discuss something, you leave it alone.”

“So no hints, no clues?”

“The only thing Wendy ever said about Belinda's father is that he would never be a factor in her life. Look, we weren't particularly close. And we were half-siblings. Same dad, different mothers. Wendy was twelve years older than me. I was eighteen, just starting college, when Belinda was born. My contact with Wendy was usually limited to Christmas and birthdays. Frankly, I was surprised when I got the call from Wendy's lawyer telling me that she'd been in an accident and wasn't expected to survive, and that I should come right away because I was soon to be the guardian of a fourteen-year-old girl.”

“She never told you she'd made you Belinda's guardian?”

“Nope.” He leaned back in his chair. “Not that I'm complaining. Belinda is a great kid. It wasn't always easy, not by a long shot. The first eighteen months she was with me were pretty rocky, frankly, but we've done okay these past few years. We managed to become a family in spite of ourselves.”

He handed her a framed photograph from his desk. In it, he had his arm over the shoulders of a tiny, confident-looking young woman in a cap and gown.

“Belinda's high school graduation. Just two years ago, almost to the day.”

“She's beautiful.” Emme had seen other photographs of the missing girl in the file. When Nick submitted his application, he'd sent several pictures in an attached file. Belinda Hudson had been petite and perfectly proportioned, with dark blond hair and a pretty smile. Had some unknown someone been dazzled by that smile, drawn to that beautiful face, with dark intentions? She'd seen all too many times what could happen to pretty young girls when they'd unwittingly attracted the attention of the wrong person.

“Let's go back to the weekend your niece went missing. You were out of town?”

He nodded. “I was in Los Angeles at a car show, had been there since Tuesday of that week. When I got home on Monday night, there was a call from her roommate on my answering machine, asking if Belinda had come home for the weekend. Said she'd left their sorority house on Saturday morning, that they had tickets for a concert on Sunday night, but Belinda never showed up. I called the police in Eastwind and when they tried to ignore me, I drove there and made them take a report. I'm sure you've seen the police reports. I sent in everything I had with my application.”

“Why did they ignore you?”

“They said she'd probably gone off for the weekend and forgot to tell anyone.”

“And you didn't think that was likely?”

“No. If she was going away for an entire weekend, she'd have told someone. Deb, maybe, or me, if she was going to be away for more than a day or two. She wouldn't just go and stay away and not let me or Deb know.”

“So you told the police this and they made a report. Then what?” She gestured for him to continue.

“Then they interviewed the girls in the house, and they looked around her room hoping to find something that might give them a clue, where she might have gone. But there wasn't anything.” He looked at the ground. “I looked too, when they were finished, in case they missed something.”

Emme tapped her pen on the top of her notebook. “I know it's been asked before, but can you think of any reason why Belinda would want to walk away from her life?”

“That's a nice way of saying run away,” he observed dryly. “No, no reason I know of. Her roommate told me she wasn't dating anyone in particular, that she hadn't mentioned anyone stalking her or paying undue attention to her, or following her. Deb-that's her roommate, Debra Newhouse-said Belinda was just enjoying her sophomore year. She was into all the activities at her sorority house, but she was also focusing a lot on her grades. She spent a lot of time in the library, Deb said. Beyond that, I don't know what else I can tell you.”

Emme pulled a folder from her bag and opened it. She removed a sheet of paper and slid it across the desk to him. “This is from the police file you sent us. It's a copy of the page from Belinda's datebook for Saturday, January twenty-fourth.”

“The day she disappeared,” he noted as he reached for the copy.

“She has initials circled there.” Emme pointed.

“D.S., yes. The police asked me if I knew whose initials they are.” He shook his head from side to side. “Like I told them, I have no idea. I'm afraid I really don't know any of her friends, except for Deb.”

“Maybe by now, she or one of the other girls in the sorority house has thought of someone.” Emme reached across the desk and dragged the sheet of paper back toward her with one finger. She slid it back into the folder.

“I'm guessing you'll be contacting her?”

“I'll be meeting with her this afternoon.”

“You'll let me know if there's anything new?” he asked.

“Of course. Is there anything you can add… maybe something that's occurred to you since you sent in the application?”

“No. I wish there were, but no. There's nothing. She's just… gone.”

“By the way, what happened to your niece's things from her room at school?”

“The housemother boxed everything up and sent it to me. It didn't occur to me to clean out her room when I was there, but when the semester ended and she wasn't there, they thought it was best to send it home.”

“Have you gone through her things? Maybe there's something there-a note, a letter, something that the police might have missed.”

“I didn't really go through the boxes. Like I said, I looked through her desk and all when I was there.” He paused. “Do you think there might be something there?”

Emme shrugged. “It's possible. Maybe you could take a little time over the weekend to find out.”

“I'll drive out to the house later and take a look. Would you want to come along?”

“I really would, but tonight's out. I'm pretty much tied up until Monday.” She and Chloe had some house hunting to do tomorrow and she wanted to get an early start.

Emme tucked the file back into her bag and stood. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

“You're kidding, right?” He stood as well. “This is my niece we're talking about here. I appreciate your organization taking on her case, more than I can say. I had hired a private investigation firm, but didn't feel overly confident in them. Plus, let's not talk about the expense. They told me up front it could take months. I'd have had to mortgage my business to have kept them on. After six weeks they had nothing for me except a whopping bill.”