Janice Johnson - Yesterday's Gone

She gave a funny, broken laugh that didn’t sound like her at all. “I did. I mean, I don’t know that, but I used to think about what my bedroom would look like if I ever had a home. You know. I’d change the wall color as I got older, but the bed was always there.” She sighed. “I hurt their feelings, didn’t I?”

“When you wouldn’t stay?”

And sleep in that canopy bed, the idea of which had freaked her out. As in, if she’d tried, she just knew she’d have run screaming into the night. More irrationality—it wasn’t as if she’d been snatched from her bedroom and therefore had trauma associated with it.

“Or even agree to stay for dinner. And when I didn’t fall into their arms.”

“Maybe,” he said, driving with relaxed competence. “But they’re so happy that you’re alive, they’ll get over it. My impression is they’re good people. They probably had fantasies. They’ll adjust to the reality, which is that you’re essentially strangers. Any sense of family or intimacy will have to be built from the ground up.”

Bailey bowed her head and stared at her hands. “I don’t know if I want to join the construction crew.”

He was quiet for a minute, a small frown furrowing his forehead. But he looked thoughtful, not irritated.

“Why did you come here?” he asked. “What changed your mind?”

Would he understand if she admitted she didn’t know? That she’d have sworn her original decision had been final, except that knowing she could find out who she’d been had nibbled at her until she’d finally decided to make this trip?

“Curiosity,” she said at last. All she was willing to admit to.

He made a sound in his throat she couldn’t interpret.

“You in school right now?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t sign up for summer semester. It gave me a chance to work a lot more hours and save for the tuition. Fall semester starts the last week of August.” Which was a month away. She added hastily, “I should get back to my job, though.”

“How long did you tell them you’d be gone?”

“I...left it sort of open-ended.”

He turned into the parking lot of the sheriff’s department. She scanned the lot for her rental car and was reassured to see it.

“Have you found a place to stay yet?” he asked.

God. She almost had to stay for a few days, didn’t she? She’d raised expectations, and she didn’t want to hurt those people who had looked at her with such hunger and happiness and puzzlement. And then there was the whole press conference thing, which really scared her.

Aghast, she suddenly wondered whether Canosa would even want her back. The food and atmosphere were supposed to be the focus, not one of the waitresses. What if people stared? Went there just to see her?

Maybe she could change her appearance. But would brown hair or glasses fool anyone who had once seen a good photo of her? Say, on the cover of People magazine?

Her stomach dipped. With an effort, she dragged her attention back to his last question.

“No. I assumed there’d be a hotel in town, or I could drive back to Mount Vernon.” It was a county away, but straddled the I-5 freeway, making it busier than off-the-beaten-track Stimson, which wasn’t on the way to anything but the Cascade Mountains.

“There’s a Quality Inn.”

She nodded; she’d seen it as she’d turned into town.

“Also a more rustic place just out of town called the River Inn. And a couple of bed-and-breakfasts.”

No B and Bs. She didn’t want to have nosy hosts or have to share a breakfast table with other guests. “If they have a vacancy, the Quality Inn will be fine.” The more anonymous the room, the better.

“Until the press arrives,” Seth said. “Then we’ll have to think of something else.”

She shuddered.

He gave her a quick look as he finished parking, then gripped her hand again.

“Will you have dinner with me, Bailey?”

“You can’t possibly want—” she began in panic.

He interrupted. “I want.” There was the smallest of pauses during which she tried to interpret his enigmatic tone. “It’ll give us time to talk this out. You can ask some of the questions that must be on your mind. We can plan our strategy.”

“You can ask questions,” she said with quick hostility.

He did the eyebrow lifting thing really well. “I won’t tonight, not if you’d rather I don’t. We will need to talk eventually about what you remember about your abductor. I’m a cop, Bailey. If he’s still out there grabbing little girls, he needs to be stopped if there’s any way in hell I can locate him.”

What could she do but nod? She hated the idea he might have another little girl right now, who called him Daddy. She had spent most of her life blocking out those images, except they crept into her dreams.

“But this evening—” Seth’s voice had softened “—we’ll set that aside. I think it would be better for you to talk out what you’re feeling than go hide in a hotel room.”

“I’m used to being alone.” It burst out of her before she could think twice. “I like being alone,” she said softly. Not answering to anyone.

He turned off the engine and sat waiting, just as he had in front of the Lawson home. A patient man, he knew when not to push. And that made him a dangerous man, too, she thought, at least to her.

“Fine,” she said, disgruntled but grateful all at the same time. She hadn’t been ready to stay at the Lawsons’ for dinner, but the idea of getting takeout and eating in a hotel room by herself held no appeal, either. At least, Detective Seth Chandler offered distraction.

“Okay,” he said, as if the outcome had never been in doubt. “I need to go in and check messages, make a few calls. Why don’t you check in at the Quality Inn, and I’ll pick you up there?”

“Fine,” she muttered again.

He smiled and took out his phone. “Give me your number so I can call when I’m on my way.”

She told him. Apparently not trusting her, he touched Send and waited until the phone in her bag rang. Then, satisfied, he put his away. His hand emerged from his pocket with a business card, which he handed her. “My number.”

He insisted on walking her to her car. Bailey had no doubt he memorized the license plate number, just in case she ran for it. Then he let her go, but kept watching until she turned onto the main street and she could no longer see him.

At which point she pulled to the curb, put the car into Park and bent forward, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. And then she did her best to breathe as she struggled with the kind of roiling emotions she hadn’t let herself feel in something like ten years.

Strangely, it was a picture of the man she’d just left that she fastened on. His physical strength, his relaxed, purely male walk, the big hand he’d touched her with whenever he sensed she needed support.

How did he know ?

Breathe.

He just did, she admitted. Somehow, those dark eyes saw deeper than she liked. Except today, she was grateful.

A new swirl of panic joined all her other fears. She couldn’t let herself depend on him. She shouldn’t have agreed to dinner. When he called, she’d make an excuse.

Bailey moaned, knowing she’d just lied to herself. Yes, she had to be careful where he was concerned, but right now, she needed him. She, who never let herself need anyone, wasn’t sure she’d get through these next few days without the man she’d met less than three hours ago.

* * *

EVE’S MOTHER—ADOPTIVE MOTHER—laid down her fork. “I keep thinking I dreamed it. But Hope really was here, wasn’t she?”

This was probably the tenth time she’d said something similar since they sat down for dinner. All she’d done was stir her food around.