Lynette Eason - Missing

“Such as?”

“I don’t know!” Lacey threw her hands up in frustration.

“But I think there was someone else with Kayla that night. I think her friend Georgia Boyles and—” she swallowed hard “—Bethany were in that car that night.”

Mason’s brows shot up. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Georgia’s mother came to my house to ask Bethany if Georgia had been with Kayla that night.”

“Why did she suspect that?”

“Because Georgia came home around three in morning, scratched up and with bruises she couldn’t explain. The police also found her cell phone in the car. When they returned it to her she said she’d left it in there earlier that day.”

“Could be.” Mason shrugged with his good shoulder. “Is that it?”

Frustrated at his apparent lack of concern, she clenched her fists. “Yes! That’s basically it! But come on, Mason, there’s got to be more. Bethany wouldn’t just disappear like this. I’m really afraid she’s in trouble, hurt…or worse.” Just saying the words nearly brought her to her knees. “And then, there was the thing taped to my door last night,” she whispered.

His eyes sharpened. “What thing?”

Rummaging in her purse, she pulled out the yearbook page. “This.”

He took it from her and his brows shot up as he studied it. “And it was taped to your door?”

She nodded. “I was up pacing and praying and just… I couldn’t sleep. Mom and Dad were upstairs sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb them so I went downstairs. I heard something at the door and thought it was Bethany. When I opened it, that was there.”

“This is a picture of us.”

“Along with twenty other students who were involved in building the homecoming float.”

“Still, you’re right. It’s kind of weird that someone would tape this to your door. I wish you hadn’t touched it. I doubt we’d be able to get any prints off of it now. We’ll take it in and see what the lab can find—after we convince someone to do some serious investigating.” He left for a minute and came back with the page in a brown paper bag.

“Might as well protect it as much as possible from here on out. They’ll need to take your prints to rule them out.”

“Fine. Whatever it takes. I just want to do something, have somebody doing something. Now.”

Mason studied her and sighed. “All right. I can see why you’re concerned, but I still want to know why you’ve come to me. Why ask me for help now after all these years with no contact?” He held up his hands, and for the first time since entering his house she thought she saw pain in his light blue eyes.

She had to tell him.

“Because, not only are you in that picture that was left on my door, Mason, you’re the man I promised Bethany she could meet. You’re her father.”

Mason’s knees nearly gave out. He fumbled for the chair behind him and sank onto it. Staring, he searched his mind for a response and came up blank.

A daughter? Him?

When she’d said she had a fifteen-year-old daughter, he’d immediately assumed his best friend from high school, Daniel Ackerman, was the father. But to hear her say that he was the father was almost more than he could process. In fact, the ringing in his ears made him wonder if he’d heard her right.

The expression on her face said he had.

“She’s my…” He couldn’t say the word.

Lacey blinked against the tears, but he noticed they just kept coming. He couldn’t even think to offer her another tissue. “Yeah, Mason. She’s your daughter.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?” he whispered. Did he even believe her? Searching her face, he could find no hint of deception or guile. Just desperation. And shame.

Then those emotions disappeared and anger made her voice hard as she ground out, “I tried to tell you sixteen years ago, but you wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say, remember?”

Mason clenched his fists as he remembered their final confrontation. Her tears, Daniel’s guilty flush. Mason’s unwillingness to look at her, much less listen to anything she had to say. Because she’d done what he’d expected all along. Betrayed him. Just like his mother had betrayed his father and her entire family.

“All right, look.” His brain struggled to adjust to all the information it had just been bombarded with. Life-changing information. “You said Bethany is missing. Let’s put the past aside and focus on her.”

A daughter, his mind echoed. He had a daughter.

Maybe.

If she was really his.

But what if she was?

He couldn’t help wondering what she looked like. What did she think about him? Why would Lacey tell him he was the father, if he wasn’t? Then again, this was the girl he’d caught in his best friend’s arms and she’d denied what was before his very eyes. He didn’t know what to believe, but if the possibility that their one-time intimate prom night encounter resulted in a child…

He had to know.

“I agree,” she said, interrupting the endless questions he suddenly had. Relief written clearly on her strained features, she also looked grateful. “Please.”

“But this issue is far from resolved.”

“I know,” she whispered and looked away.

Mason stood, rotated his healing shoulder, wincing at the pinch and slight stiffness, then realized his resolve to do whatever it took to get it back into tip-top shape before he returned to work just fell to second place on his priority list.

Finding his daughter had just careened its way to the top spot.

Running a hand through the hair he’d just washed before finding Lacey on his doorstep, he said, “All right, first things first. We need find out who saw her last. And if you think her disappearance has something to do with the car accident, then we need to revisit that, too.”

Lacey rubbed her nose. “I’m sure Georgia knows something. I’ve called her several times and she swears she doesn’t know where Bethany is, but I think she’s hiding something.” She clenched a fist and smacked her thigh. “I just can’t get her to tell me anything. And the police refuse—” She broke off again and Mason could tell she was having a hard time keeping it together. She was obviously exhausted.

He had a feeling a few sleepless nights were in his immediate future, too. “Grab your stuff. Let’s go talk to Georgia.”

Gathering her bag and the picture, she stood. “She’s probably in school.”

“Then let’s get her out of class.”

“What do we do after that?”

“Visit the police station and see what we can find out about the wreck.”

Stepping outside his home, headed for the car, Lacey did her best to shove the hurt down. Old memories threatened to overwhelm her. The fear of finding out she was pregnant. Mason’s rejection…

As Mason circled the car to open the passenger door, he paused.

The sudden tense set of his shoulders set off her internal alarms. “What is it?”

His arm reached across the windshield to pull something out from under the wiper blade. “This.” He held it by the very edge of one corner.

Stepping around him to look at the object in his hand, she gasped. “Another picture? Of us? That’s from the yearbook, too! What’s going on? How did someone know I’d be coming here?”

“Get in the car.”

Eyes peeled behind him for any movement or suspicious person, he opened the door and practically shoved her in. Then he bolted around to the driver’s side. He set the picture on the dash and got on the phone as he pulled out of the driveway.

Lacey listened to him bark orders and ask questions of an unidentified person as she watched the familiar scenery whiz by, but her brain didn’t process it. She was too busy begging God for her daughter’s life. And thanking Him that Mason had agreed to help her.