Predator

by Linsey Lanier

  Concern in his eyes, Parker reached for her arm. “We’ve been over this before, Miranda. Only a very few people know the truth about that man.”

  That was true.

  Becker. Fanuzzi. Colby and Oliver. Mackenzie’s adopted parents had had an inkling about what had happened in Jasper County last September. One night at the Chathams during the holidays, after the kids had gone to sleep and she’d had too much Chianti, Miranda had broken down and told them the rest of it. It had really added to the festive spirit.

  And, of course, Chambers knew.

  She thought of the way her old buddy had stared at her on the bridge that morning.

  “Maybe Chambers told somebody.”

  “I don’t think he’d do that.”

  She sat up on the couch. “He made a report with my statement in it. Someone had to have read it.”

  “And that person would have marked it confidential and filed it.”

  “Yeah, I know you’re right about all of it.” She got to her feet and shuffled into the kitchen to pick at the leftovers.

  She had more of an appetite now and finished half the dish.

  Then she plodded upstairs and took a long soak in the sunken tub with Parker. After they’d made love in the water, he dried her off and carried her to bed. They made love again on the undulating mattress.

  She knew Parker was doing his best to keep her mind off her daughter. No one could do the job like he did.

  Completely sated, she put her arms around him and nuzzled her nose into his neck.

  She had a lot more to say to him, but at the moment she couldn’t think of the words.

  So instead, she fell asleep in her arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Miranda opened an eye and saw the sun was up. She wanted to sleep late. After yesterday, she wanted to sleep forever.

  But as her mind cleared she realized two things. First there had been no bad dreams. That was a nice surprise. The second—Parker’s phone was ringing.

  She rolled over as he answered it, and saw he was sitting on the side of the bed, listening intently to the caller. “Calm down, Colby. Say that again more slowly.”

  Miranda tensed. Why was Colby Chatham calling at—she peered at the clock—eight in the morning.

  Parker glanced at her. “Wait. Miranda’s awake now. Let me put you on speaker.”

  He did so and laid the phone on the mattress.

  The woman’s elegant voice echoed through the high-ceilinged room. “Oh Wade, Miranda. I’m beside myself. I don’t know what to do. It’s Mackenzie.”

  Miranda’s stomach twisted so hard she almost cried out in pain. “What are you talking about, Colby?”

  A flurry of words poured from the phone. “We usually sleep until seven-thirty on Sunday. I didn’t hear her in the shower, so I thought I’d give her to quarter of. She’d had such a hard day yesterday. Then it was ten of, and I still hadn’t heard her stirring, so I went to check on her. I was going to tell her she could stay home from church if she felt that bad.”

  “And?” Miranda couldn’t hold back a quiver in her voice.

  “And when I went to her room and knocked, she didn’t answer. I opened the door and—and—” Colby made an unintelligible sound.

  “And what?” Miranda demanded.

  “She wasn’t there. Her bed was made, but there was no sign of her.”

  Miranda’s fist tightened on the sheet. She could feel Parker’s body go taut. “What do you mean there was no sign of her?”

  “I mean Mackenzie’s gone. She left the house. Oliver and I don’t know where she went. Oh, Miranda, what are we going to do?”

  Suddenly unable to speak, Miranda stared at Parker.

  His handsome face was full of resolve.

  He picked up the phone. “We’ll be right there.”

  Miranda felt as if she were drowning. She couldn’t breathe.

  But she was vaguely aware that Parker had hung up the phone and gotten out of bed.

  The next thing she knew, he was dressed and laying clean clothes on the bed for her to put on. Miranda was too much in shock.

  She tried to get her jeans on, but she could hardly move. She couldn’t think. She was immobilized.

  “Pull yourself together, Miranda,” Parker said sternly as he pulled up her jeans as if she were a child.

  “I will. I can.” She slapped his hand away and zipped the pants herself.

  “That’s better.”

  Suddenly she was dressed, in a coat, and flying down the road in Parker’s Mazda to the Chatham estate. Panic clouded her mind again until she found herself following Colby and Oliver up the stairs and into Mackenzie’s girlish lilac-and-rose bedroom.

  Gone, she thought, as she took in the posters of current-day pop stars on the walls.

  As if she might find the girl hiding in a corner, she marched from the neatly made bed to the white desk to the closet.

  “Her favorite clothes are gone.” Colby said in a shaky voice. “So is her favorite gold-star backpack. Her toiletries and hair brush and toothpaste. Her cell phone’s gone, too.”

  Miranda went to the bathroom to confirm that, then shuffled through the remaining clothes on the rack in the closet. “Like she was packing for a trip.”

  Finally, she was snapping out of her motherly panic and acting like a detective.

  “So it would seem.” Parker moved to the window and ran a hand over the sash. “It’s locked from the inside.”

  “So she didn’t leave that way.” Miranda turned to Colby. “Did you see her after we left yesterday?”

  Colby nodded. “She came down for dinner. She didn’t eat much. She hardly spoke to either of us, then she came back up here.”

  “Did you say goodnight to her?”

  “Yes. She answered through the door.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About eleven. I read in bed for a while, and Oliver was working on his tablet. We were asleep before midnight, but we would have heard her if she’d left her room.”

  “How about after you were asleep?”

  Colby’s eyes grew round. “Are you saying she went out the front door?”

  “If she didn’t go out a window, she had to go out one of the doors.” Although they hadn’t checked all the windows yet.

  Oliver turned to his wife. “You turned the security alarm off this morning, didn’t you?”

  Like his tall elegant wife, Oliver Chatham, dressed in his Sunday best, was trying to stay calm, trying to be the voice of reason. But Miranda could see the situation was getting to him.

  Colby seemed bewildered by her husband’s question. “I thought you did.”

  With a nervous huff, Oliver pulled out his phone and looked something up. “The alarm was turned off at six twenty-one this morning.”

  “Before we were up.”

  “And you were up at seven-thirty,” Miranda said.

  “Yes.” Colby put a hand to her mouth.

  “So we have a timeframe.”

  “Let’s see if this can tell us anything.” Parker sat down at Mackenzie’s desk and turned on the laptop. It whirred and beeped, then a box appeared on the screen.

  “Password protected,” Miranda muttered.

  “We have the password,” Oliver reassured everyone.

  Parker typed in the letters Oliver gave him and clicked the icon.

  The box reappeared.

  Miranda was stunned. “It didn’t work.”

  Parker tried again. Same result. “She must have changed it.”

  “She isn’t allowed to do that,” Colby snapped.

  As if she could control the girl.

  “Why? Why did she leave? Oh, Miranda. You must think we’re terrible parents. Are we?”

  Surprised to hear that, Miranda eyed her styled hair and tasteful gold-and-tan outfit and jewelry. This perfect woman thought she was the cause of all this? Hardly.

  Then Miranda thought of something. “Did you tell her about her father?”

&n
bsp; Colby’s brown eyes flashed with shock. “No. Do you think she found out?”

  “I don’t see how she could have,” Oliver said with stern denial.

  Miranda pressed her palm to her forehead and tried to make herself think, but she felt shaky. “Maybe she went to Wendy’s. I’ll call her.”

  “A very likely scenario,” Parker told them as he reached into his pocket for his pen drive and slipped it into the computer’s port. The lights began to flash.

  “He’s got a password cracker,” Miranda explained to Colby before she could ask.

  “Will it work?”

  “It usually does.”

  Colby looked mystified.

  Not knowing what else to say to the woman, Miranda took out her phone and dialed Wendy’s number.

  “Hello? Who is this?” The girl sounded as if she’d been asleep.

  She didn’t recognize her voice. Miranda had succumbed to the teenage preference for text messaging, and they rarely spoke on the phone.

  “Hi, Wendy. It’s Miranda.”

  “Miranda? Is Ella okay?”

  “As far as I know.” Miranda had texted her after they left the Chathams yesterday to let her know Ella had survived her fall and would be fine. “Say, is Mackenzie with you?” She tried to sound casual.

  “Mackenzie? No. Why would she be here? It’s Sunday. She’s supposed to go to church with her folks.”

  Miranda took a breath to brace herself before she broke the news. “She’s gone, Wendy. Colby came to wake her up this morning, and she wasn’t in her room.”

  “What? No way.”

  “Way. I’m standing in her room now. So is Parker. Some of her clothes are gone. It looks like she packed her backpack and took off.”

  “Her dark blue backpack with the gold stars?”

  Sounded like it. “Yes.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she went to see Ella in the hospital.”

  “Why would she take her clothes?”

  Wendy had no reply.

  Miranda had no patience for kiddy games right now. “If you know where she is, you need to tell us, Wendy.

  “I don’t know,” she whined. “I swear it. Like, how would I?”

  “Like, you’re her best friend,” Miranda snapped.

  “Rachel’s her best friend now. Have you called her?”

  That was a good idea, but after their little chat yesterday, Miranda doubted Rachel Alex would be very forthcoming.

  “Can you call Rachel?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll text her and see what she says.”

  “Thanks. Get back to me right away, no matter what she says.”

  “Okay. I will.” And she hung up.

  Still holding the phone to her ear, Miranda stood staring at the bed in a daze. Her daughter had to be with a friend. Where else would she go?

  Colby squeezed her arm. “Miranda, I feel so silly that I didn’t think of it before. Why don’t we try calling her?”

  “Yeah. Great idea.” She should have thought of it herself.

  Her fingers were shaking as she speed dialed the number.

  Everything was going to be okay. Mackenzie was upset, so she went somewhere to blow off steam. Maybe she was at some coffee shop in the city trying to figure out how to get back home. But how had she gotten there? She wouldn’t have hitchhiked, would she?

  If she knew who her father was, there was no telling what sort of self-destructive impulses might be raging inside her daughter.

  The panic was closing in again. Miranda had to keep her head. She had to.

  Then she realized Mackenzie wasn’t answering her cell—and there was a buzzing sound coming from somewhere.

  The call went to voicemail. “Hi, it’s Mackenzie. Leave a message at the tone.”

  At the sound of her daughter’s bland greeting, Miranda nearly lost it.

  Parker’s command snapped her out of it. “Call it again,” he said.

  She pressed the number. The humming sound started up again.

  She watched in shock as Parker went to the closet, retrieved a hanger, then knelt down at the side of Mackenzie’s bed. Scraping the hanger over the carpet, he fished the buzzing thing out from under the bed.

  From where she was standing Miranda could see the screen.

  Her throat started to close up as she read the name of the caller flashing on the screen.

  “Mother.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Feeling as if she might hurl, Miranda hung up, rushed to a white wicker chair in the corner, and sank down into it, her heart hammering in her chest. She couldn’t breathe.

  Everything started to grow misty again.

  She had to stay alert. She had to think. She forced herself to stare out the window at the morning sun. It was warmer than yesterday. It should be raining to match this turn of events. It should be storming.

  Oliver came around the bed to stare at the device in Parker’s hand. “She left her cell phone behind? Why?”

  Parker’s grim gaze went from worried face to worried face. “Because she didn’t want to be traced.”

  Rocking herself in the chair, Miranda wrapped an arm around her stomach to quell the ache in it. This couldn’t be right. No teenage girl goes off and leaves her cell phone behind.

  “There has to be an explanation. There has to be.”

  Parker came around the bed and took her hand. “There is one, Miranda,” he said firmly. “And we’re going to find it.”

  She squeezed his hand, drawing comfort from his touch. She took the cell from him, stared at it a moment, then handed it back.

  Before she could think of what to do next, Colby’s phone rang, sending her nearly to the ceiling.

  “Is it Mackenzie?”

  Shaking her head, Colby answered the call. “Yes?” She listened a moment and frowned. “It’s Rachel,” Colby told her. “Rachel, I’m going to put you on speaker. I’d like Mr. Chatham to hear what you have to say.”

  Good move not to let the girl know she and Parker were listening, too.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Chatham, but Wendy called and told me Mackenzie’s missing. Have you found her yet?”

  “No, we haven’t. We thought she might be with you.”

  “I haven’t seen her since school on Friday.”

  The panic crept in on the edges of Miranda’s brain again. She fought it back.

  Enough with hiding in the background. She got to her feet and spoke into Colby’s phone. “Rachel, this is Ms. Steele.”

  “Oh. Hello, Ms. Steele.”

  Miranda could tell from her tone yesterday’s pleasant encounter was not forgotten.

  “Do have any idea where Mackenzie might have gone?”

  “No. I’ve been trying to think, but she doesn’t have a car.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t take her anywhere this morning?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. I wouldn’t do that.”

  Okay. Brow beating the kid wouldn’t do any good. Miranda took a breath and lightened her tone. “Did she mention going anywhere? Who else might she have gone to see?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly. Why don’t you call her? Isn’t she answering her cell?”

  “We just did. She left her cell phone behind.”

  Rachel almost laughed. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “We found it under her bed.”

  “That can’t be. There must be some mistake—oh.”

  Oh? Rachel knew something. “Oh, what?”

  “Never mind.”

  Frustration welled up in Miranda’s gut. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Rachel.”

  “I really don’t—”

  “Out with it.” Miranda steadied herself with another breath. “Mackenzie could be in trouble.”

  “Really? Well, I’m not sure, but—” She hesitated again.

  Miranda felt as if she were going mad. “But what?”

  “Let me remember. It was about t
wo weeks ago. Mackenzie wanted me to take her shopping. We went to Phipps Plaza and tried on clothes. I got a really cute outfit, but she didn’t buy anything. Not there, anyway.”

  Miranda resisted the urge to scream. “What are you trying to say, Rachel?”

  “Well, afterwards, Mackenzie wanted to go to a phone store. I didn’t really want to, but I did anyway. I wasn’t paying much attention to what she was doing. I picked out a new case to go with the outfit.”

  “And?”

  “And when we got back in the car, I asked Mackenzie what she’d bought. She said she got a prepaid phone. I asked her what she wanted that for, but she wouldn’t say.”

  A prepaid phone.

  Mackenzie had purchased a prepaid phone. The kind that couldn’t be traced. Why?

  “What was the store?”

  “What?”

  “Which store was it? Where did she buy the phone?”

  “Umm. Oh, that’s right. There wasn’t a phone store in the mall, so we drove around a while. I don’t remember. It might have been Target or maybe one of those smaller stores. I don’t know.”

  “Think, Rachel.”

  “I am, but I just can’t remember. It was two weeks ago. I’m not lying, Ms. Steele.”

  It wasn’t unreasonable that someone who went shopping as much as Rachel did couldn’t remember the store.

  Miranda closed her eyes. She hadn’t meant to bully the girl, but it took all she had to keep a level head right now. “Okay. I believe you, Rachel. Do you know why Mackenzie would leave her cell phone under her bed and take off somewhere?”

  “No, honestly. If I did, I’d tell you. I promise.”

  This was all she was getting from the girl. “All right. If you think of anything else, if you remember the store, or think of anything Mackenzie might have said or did in the last few days that would give us a clue about where she is, give us a call back.”

  “Yes, of course I will.”

  “Thanks for your help.” Miranda hung up and handed the phone back to Colby.

  “What do we do now?” The woman sounded as helpless as Miranda felt.

  Miranda put a hand to her head, trying to come up with an answer. “If we knew which store Mackenzie bought the prepaid from, we might be able to get a number for it.”

  Colby’s eyes flashed. “We just got the statement for her credit card. The charge might be on it. I’ll go down and get it.”