Pamela Tracy - Fugitive Family

Amber didn’t allow too much time for speculation. “Do you have a best friend?”

“I do, but she’s back in Arizona. I have lots of good friends, though, who live in Nebraska, over in Omaha. Here in Sherman, I’m starting to make friends with your teacher from last year. Miss Magee.”

“She’s nice. This is Mikey.” Another picture landed in Lisa’s lap. “He’s not nice.”

“I take it this is Mikey Maxwell? From school?”

“Yes, and he’s mean.”

For the rest of the drive, Amber pretty much introduced Lisa to all the students who’d be showing up in the first-grade classroom on Monday. Lisa managed to convince Amber that names were enough because Amber was clearly willing to divide Lisa’s future students into two categories—mean and nice.

By the time Lisa made it to her apartment, she was in the mood to buy colored pencils and a drawing tablet. She cheerfully accepted a hug from Amber and then said goodbye to Greg, who barely waved as he put his foot on the gas.

Since it hadn’t been a date, Lisa didn’t know why she was so annoyed at the way Greg had dropped her off. He didn’t see her to the door; he didn’t idle by the curb until she got inside.

Her sister Sheila was right. Men who acted uninterested were the most interesting men of all.

She was intrigued as she climbed the stairs to her attic apartment. It really was too cute for words, as was Greg Bond. In her native Tucson, Arizona, Lisa had never even seen an attic apartment. The attic in her childhood home had been a crawl space where her father stored Christmas decorations. None of her friends’ homes had boasted real attics or basements.

Nebraska had plenty of both.

Her landlady, Deborah Hawn, rented the basement apartment to a computer geek. He had shaggy hair and apparently seldom ventured out. Lisa had only seen him once. Her place—A-shaped and long, with a living room in the middle, a bedroom at one side, and the kitchen and restroom at the other—was a perfect starter home.

It came furnished. She’d only needed to buy bedding and a few odds and ends. What really sold her on the place, though, was the tiny balcony. Just big enough for a rocking chair and a little table; she could sit outside in the early evening and watch the park next to the library. There was always something going on.

Like tonight.

Lisa made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, poured a glass of milk and sat down outside. Whoever said it didn’t get hot in Nebraska had never been to Nebraska. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and relaxed.

Maybe this time next year, she’d be on one of the softball teams, practicing in the park in front of her. She’d played second base in high school. Or even better, maybe in a few years she’d be chasing a toddler, and instead of living in an attic apartment she’d be living in one of the Victorians just a short way from downtown.

The evening light was fading when she finally went inside and sat down to finish the work she’d brought home. She worked on smoothing the wrinkles. In the middle of working, she came across Greg’s phone number. He had straight up and down block handwriting, no cursive, and he used a clear stroke.

She’d gone through four years of college, dated more than her share, nothing even close to serious, and none of the guys had her studying their handwriting. What was it that drew her to him? This quickly and with no reason? So far, their two encounters had to do with an overeager father and a fender bender.

Was it the exuberant way his daughter greeted him? Amber’s eyes lit up and it was as if someone had switched on the light to her whole world.

He was also the type of man who called his babysitter by her proper name instead of her first name.

Her final thought before she drifted off to sleep was that she’d almost think of him as a gentleman, if only he’d walked her to her door.

Thursday morning, Lisa’s eyes opened at six. In the hazy morning sunrise, she stretched, looked in the mirror and quickly realized that, without a car, she wasn’t going to be driving to work.

She’d been a little remiss in getting all the phone numbers she needed yesterday. And last names, for that matter. She knew Greg’s information, but all she had for Vince was a first name, and it was really his brother who had her vehicle.

A quick call to Gillian garnered a ride to work, a quick shower solved the morning’s doldrums and a quick breakfast filled her stomach.

By seven she was outside and waiting for Gillian.

No doubt Gillian, who knew everybody and everything, would not only know Vince’s last name, but also what year he’d gone to high school, where he lived, whom he loved and where he went to church.

Church seemed like a staple of the Sherman community. Gillian had been more than surprised when Lisa not only turned down the invitation to church, but also admitted to not attending at all.

“What do you do when you’re lonely?” Gillian had asked.

Lisa didn’t have an answer. Until moving to Sherman, she had never felt lonely.

“Daddy, you’re on TV again!”

Greg looked up from the Internet. Since last night, and really all through the night, he’d read a hundred different reports on the discovery of his wife’s body. He’d watched a dozen videos. Yudan, Kansas, was a farm community of maybe two thousand souls—most quite wealthy. Still, as in most areas, there were pockets of poverty. A broken-down mobile home, a century-old unpainted barn, a few falling-down, deserted farmhouses.

Rachel’s body had been discovered by kids thinking that a deserted farm was the perfect place for a party. They’d been wrong. Oddly enough, the cops acknowledged that the farm was a common party destination and that the kids hadn’t stumbled upon the body because, until this particular party, the room had been locked.

The cops were pretty sure that more than twenty kids had trampled over the crime scene. Fifteen didn’t stick around to wait for the cops to arrive after an honors student with a conscience used her cell phone to call her mother.

Right now, cops were still working on the five teenagers who’d stuck around to face the music. They all had the same story. The room was always locked. No, they hadn’t noticed an odor or anything out of place. They had never seen any strange adults or cars near the place.

The nearest neighbor, and the owner of the farm, had purchased the property ten years ago, meaning to do something with it, and simply hadn’t got around to it. He didn’t know the teenagers were breaking and entering.

Greg had never been to Yudan. Until her death, he doubted that his wife had, either, even though it was only ninety miles from where they lived. Cops weren’t saying if she died before or after she’d arrived at the farmhouse.

They probably didn’t know yet.

One thing the cops did know, according to the news, was that Rachel Cooke’s husband, Alex Cooke, still on the run and suspected of snatching his then five-year-old daughter, remained the key suspect. The cops weren’t commenting on one item that the five teenagers had reported.

There were flowers in the room Rachel had been found in. Lots of flowers. Some dead and brittle. Some wilted and sad. And one bunch amazingly fresh.

Like the cops, Greg had his own suspicions. The cops thought Alex Cooke had been bringing flowers to his wife and had forgotten to lock the door.

Greg knew the key suspect was the same person who’d robbed the bank in Wellington, Kansas—his bank, the one he’d managed.

Greg also knew that the murderer was someone both he and Rachel knew. Because the flowers were the kind they’d used in their wedding. Rachel’s favorite: daisies.

“Daddy, come look. It’s you again!”