Janice Johnson - A Message for Abby

“We all have dreams.” And she didn’t want to talk about ones that were doomed.

“Yeah, well, the point here is, he noticed the growl of the motorcycle because it triggered a brief fantasy of him eating up the miles on a hog. The one he heard wasn’t a Harley—something smaller, less powerful.”

“And easier to lift into and out of the bed of a pickup truck.”

“You got it.”

“So now what?”

“Unless forensic evidence shows us something—and I’m betting it won’t—we’re out of luck. You know that.”

“Until something else happens,” Abby said slowly.

“If it happens.”

“If,” she agreed.

“I don’t like it.” Shea was silent for a moment. For the first time he sounded human, even intimate. “I’m sorry, Abby. I wish there was more I could do.”

“No. No, that’s okay. I know there isn’t. I was just hoping...”

“Would you have dinner with me Friday?” he asked abruptly.

A rush of relief disconcerted her. She just didn’t like feeling rejected, Abby told herself.

Perversely, she didn’t say, “Yes. Please.” She didn’t tease or flirt. Oh, no. Those were ways to land the guy. She didn’t want to land this one.

“Last night wasn’t a great success,” she said instead. “I could tell that wasn’t your scene.”

“Friday night, it’ll be my choice.”

“Which is?” she asked, immediately suspicious.

“Haven’t decided yet. What do you say?”

Her eyes narrowed. “How about you decide first.”

“What, you’re a coward?” he mocked. “I won’t take you skydiving, if that’s what scares you.”

“I took skydiving lessons a couple of years ago. Not much scares me.”

“And here I thought you’d say, ‘nothing scares me.’”

Just like that, anger blossomed in her chest like a water balloon smacking down on the pavement. “You don’t think much of me, do you? Why did you ask me out in the first place?”

He was silent so long, she almost ended the call. The anger spread down to her fingertips, burning as it went.

When Shea did speak, the timbre of his voice had changed; the mockery was gone, leaving something quiet and too solemn in its place. “I think I would like you, if you’d let me get to know you.”

“What do you call last night?” Abby asked tartly.

“Did we exchange ten words?”

“We were supposed to be having fun.”

“My eardrums still hurt.”

“Like I said, I could tell it wasn’t your scene.” She sounded brittle, even to herself. “Which suggests we don’t have much in common.”

Anger to match hers sparked in his voice. “I’d say we have a hell of a lot in common. We do the same kind of job. We have to live with having seen things other people never do. We care about the same things. We both live alone, isolated partly by our jobs. We probably shop at the same goddamn grocery stores. We could exchange recipes.”

She was fighting a losing battle; she could feel it. But “stubborn” was Abby’s middle name. “That’s one more thing we don’t have in common. I’d have to tell you my favorite microwave dinners.”

“You don’t cook?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“I like to cook. See? We’re made for each other.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “All right, all right,” Abby conceded. “Just let me know whether to wear shorts or a strapless dress, okay?”

“I will.” Amusement played a bass note in his slow, deep voice. “As soon as I decide.”

“But tell me one thing, will you?” Get it out front, she decided.

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Shea echoed. Although he asked, “What do you mean?” he sounded wary, which meant he’d guessed.

“Why me? Why are you so determined? Is it just the challenge?”

Again he was silent for a long moment. Again his voice had changed, although this time she couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking. “No. I like a challenge. But...no.”

“What, then?”

“You’re beautiful.”

“No more so than plenty of other women. Most of whom are easier to get along with than I am.”

“You look lonely.”

“Lonely?” Abby gave a derisive laugh. “You’re seeing things.”

“I don’t think so.”

“And if I am? So what?”

“I thought we might...connect. That’s all. Do we have to analyze our relationship already?”

She let out a sigh he wouldn’t be able to hear. “No. I just wanted to find out whether it was my charm that had gotten to you.”

“That was it,” he agreed.

“Friday,” she said. “Call me before then.”

ABBY HAD A LATE DINNER: a spinach salad and microwave penne pasta. Afterward she tried to read, but found her attention wandering. TV seemed like an idea, but nothing on tonight grabbed her. Using the remote control, she turned the television off just as her telephone rang.

“Abby, Scott here,” Meg’s husband said. “I’m up at the ski area. Just leaving. I need you to look at something. Can you come?”

“Up to Juanita Butte?”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s late.” He sounded grim. “But I really think you need to see it”

A chill stirred the hair on her nape. “What is it?”

“I’d rather you see for yourself,” Scott repeated.

“Is this something like the fire?”

“Yeah. But uglier. Or maybe it just got to me personally, I’m not sure.”

“All right.” She was already slipping her feet into canvas sneakers. “Don’t move. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

The clock on the dashboard said 9:04. Here at midsummer, night was just settling, the first layer like purple gauze, the next denser and darker.

The mountain loop highway climbed fast, bare at this time of year. Abby rolled down her window and breathed in the distinctive scent of pine and earth ground from red lava. The air was cool, dry; it became cold as the elevation rose. In the shadow of the mountain, nightfall came more drastically. She switched on her bright lights, noting how little traffic she met.

The ski area parking lot opened before her, huge, bare and empty, a paved sea that looked alien in the middle of nowhere. She could just make out the bulk of the lodge and the first lift towers rearing above. Patches of snow still lay up there, where plows had formed towering banks during the winter. Her high beams spotlighted Scott McNeil’s Jeep Cherokee. parked in its usual spot behind the lodge. He was half sitting on the bumper.

She parked next to him and climbed out, flashlight in hand. “What is it?”

A big man with dark auburn hair, he nodded toward the driver’s side of his Jeep. “Over there.”

She circled the back bumper, then stopped, shock stealing her breath.

A child’s car seat sat beside the driver’s door, facing the parking lot and highway. Just as Emily’s car seat had, the freezing cold night when she had been abandoned.

A doll was buckled into this seat. Abby trained her flashlight beam on it, wanting to be mistaken about what she was seeing.

The doll was plastic, the kind with arms and legs and a head that attached to sockets in the hard body.

This one was missing its head. From the empty, blackened socket, trickles of red dripped down the pink dress.

CHAPTER FOUR

IN THE BRIGHT illumination from the headlights of his Bronco, Ben Shea squatted beside the child’s seat. Abby overheard his muttered profanity.

“I shouldn’t have called you,” she said to his back. “I know there won’t be any fingerprints, and there sure as heck aren’t any witnesses.” She glanced involuntarily around at the dark parking lot. “I didn’t think. I assume this is connected...”

“The doll’s neck socket is seared.” He sank back on his heels and shot her a look. “Why wouldn’t you call me?”