Janice Johnson - Making Her Way Home

Which would be childish and completely ridiculous. She should reassure him and send him on his way. Maybe even give up and go home, if that would allow him to go home, too.

His voice roared from up above, “Ms. Greenway? Beth?”

“Down here,” she called, but felt the night swallow up her too-small voice. She tried again, cupping her hands. “Down here.”

It took her some scrambling to get back to the beach proper. She’d had this image of Sicily having fallen down the bluff, bouncing off a driftwood log, ending up wedged behind it and hidden by some of the shrubby growth that had taken root in the red soil of the bluff. The whole time, she knew her search was futile. Of course, others had looked in the same places today. Probably over and over.

The sweep of a powerful beam of light and the crunch of beach pebbles heralded his arrival. “Beth?”

“Right here.” Suddenly exhausted, she wasn’t paying enough attention and her foot skidded on the last log as she scrambled over it. She teetered and fell, landing painfully on her hands and knees. Exactly, of course, at the moment the beam of light found her.

“Damn it,” he said, and reached her while she was still blinking back tears of pain. As angry as he sounded, his hands were gentle when he picked her up and set her down on the log. “You’ve hurt yourself.”

Determined to regain her dignity, Beth said, “Nothing permanent. I slipped, that’s all.” Blinded by his light, she couldn’t make out his face at all. Her own flashlight had fallen and gone out. She lifted an arm to protect her eyes. “Do you mind?”

The detective sighed and turned the light away from her. He found and picked up her flashlight, fiddled with it for a moment until it came back on and then switched it off before handing it to her.

She hurt, and was mad at herself. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted to say.

He sat down next to her and turned off his own flashlight. They sat quietly for a minute, the soft shush of small waves the only sound. It wasn’t really totally dark, either, not the way it might be on a cloudy night. The moon was only a quarter full, but the stars were bright. Beth found that to be comforting.

When I hid, I would have liked to be able to have seen the moon and stars.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said. “I’m all right.”

“You shouldn’t be here alone. Why didn’t you call someone if you were determined to come?”

She almost said, “Who?” But that sounded—and was—pathetic. And she did have friends, of a sort. It hadn’t occurred to her to call any of them. They weren’t those kinds of friends. If Rachel were still alive, if this were Beth’s daughter missing… No, she thought sadly, I wouldn’t have called Rachel, either. She’d failed her sister too devastatingly to expect her to feel any obligation.

“I met your parents.”

She was already tense; now she went rigid.

He waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he continued, “I was a little surprised when your mother said she hadn’t seen Sicily since your sister’s funeral.”

Beth shrugged, guessing he’d feel the movement even though they weren’t touching.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“I told you we don’t have a good relationship.”

“But she’s their granddaughter.” His tone sharpened. “Or is it not them? Did you refuse to let them spend time with Sicily?”

“The issue hasn’t arisen.”

“But if it did?” he persisted.

“I suppose I’d let them see her,” she said slowly, reluctantly. “But not stay with them.”

“Why?”

She turned toward him and exclaimed, “What does this have to do with anything? You don’t have to know everything about us!”

“Yeah, I do. I never know what’s going to turn out to matter.”

“You don’t seriously think they stole her,” she said incredulously.

“Not now that I’ve met them, no, I don’t.” He sounded thoughtful. “Clearly that never crossed your mind.”

“Of course it didn’t.”

“As your mother pointed out, if they’d wanted Sicily they could have contested for custody.”

“No.” She had never in her life been so tired. She was afraid she sounded it. “They wouldn’t have won.”

Of course, he asked, “Why not?”

Some things she didn’t have to tell him. “Why would they? Rachel named me as guardian. I’m an upstanding citizen, a business and home owner.” She’d managed to inject a note of indignation. “I’m the logical age to raise a child. I live in one of the best school districts in the state. What grounds could they have used to persuade a court they’d do better than I can?”

Beth ached from holding herself so rigid. She hoped he wouldn’t notice that she’d been evasive.

“All good points.” He still sounded reflective. His mind was working, poking and prodding at her words, suspecting…something.

Turn this back to him, she thought. “Why are you here? Surely you don’t work around the clock.”

“Actually, I sometimes do when a case first breaks. With a homicide or a kidnapping, it’s best not to let people’s memories fade.”

She swallowed. “You really think…”

To her astonishment, his big hand found hers and engulfed it rather gently. “I do think.”

Fear swooped over her like a bald eagle descending on a tiny, cowering field mouse, so swift and black she couldn’t have done anything to save her life. The fear was even greater than her terrible sense of guilt.

“Nothing to say?” Detective Ryan’s hand was still gentle, but his voice had turned cold. “If you know something…”

She wrenched her hand free and stood up. “I don’t know anything,” she said, and turned to march down the beach toward the trailhead.

He fell into step beside her. He turned on his flashlight to light the way up the trail. Even so, she stumbled a couple of times. Before they reached the parking lot, he had a firm hand under her elbow to steady her. He steered her to the passenger side of his SUV. She tried to pull away.

“No,” he said, “You’re in no shape to drive. I’m taking you home. I’ll pick you up in the morning and bring you back to the park.”

“There’s no reason…”

“There’s every reason.” Now he sounded impatient, and she clamped her mouth shut. It was true that her head was swimming and her knees wanted to buckle. She felt ashamed of how desperately she wanted to curl up in her own bed and close her eyes.

Beth didn’t last that long. They hadn’t been on their way five minutes when she listed sideways in the big bucket seat, thinking, It won’t hurt anything if I rest my head against the door frame.

The next thing she knew, he was shaking her awake.

CHAPTER FOUR

KNEES TO HER CHEST, SICILY LAY curled on her side. The mattress was on the floor of the small, mostly bare room, and she clutched the too-thin comforter around her. Positioned so that she was looking at the door, scared and miserable, she waited. There wasn’t anything else she could do.

Practically the minute he—whoever he was—had left her alone, she’d leaped to her feet, wanting desperately to throw herself at the door and hammer at it. She was bewildered and terrified and her head hurt and she wanted Aunt Beth.

Thinking about Aunt Beth was what had stopped her. She was so different from Mom. Aunt Beth was always dignified and careful. She was super organized and thoughtful. You could tell she wouldn’t do impulsive or dumb things. If she were here, she’d stay cool.

I can, too. Even if my head does hurt.

Sicily had already figured out that she was more like Aunt Beth than Mom. That comforted her a little. After all the stuff Mom had told her about Grandma, Sicily had always hated the idea that she might be anything like her. But it was okay to be like Aunt Beth.