by Edie Claire
He did want to get to know her better. He wanted to know what had been going through her head when she stood out on that rock, and why she was so wrongly convinced she wasn’t a thrill seeker. He wanted to see the sheer, ecstatic joy on her face when he finally got her up on a surfboard — and she realized that he’d been right.
He smiled to himself. He couldn’t wait for her to see the ocean in the daylight tomorrow. As far as he could tell, the woman had always lived inland and hadn’t traveled much of anywhere. There was so much he wanted to show her, help her experience for the first time. Those amazing blue eyes of hers would really light up once he—
“Dude, you must really love accounting.”
Jason looked up to find Ben smirking at him.
He flicked a piece of popcorn at his houseguest’s head and told him to shut up.
Chapter 15
Peck, Missouri, Five Days Ago
Laney had no idea how long she’d lain on the kitchen floor. How long she’d cried. Or even what she’d been thinking. At some point, she simply got up. Her mind felt drained and empty. She walked upstairs to the bathroom and took another hot shower. She emerged and got dressed, her actions mechanical and unplanned. She returned to the kitchen and ate something, despite having no appetite. Then she grabbed her sewing supplies and stitched closed the seam on Jimbo Bear’s bottom. She took the negatives and stuffed them between the pages of the photo album where they should have been all along. Then she returned to the kitchen table, sat down, and stared at the purse and keys she’d set out a lifetime ago.
Gran. She had promised to see Gran this afternoon. She needed to go.
Her limbs didn’t move. That surprised her.
She had always been driven by obligation, by a clear sense of duty, by a strong compulsion to do what was practical, what was right.
She didn’t know what right was anymore.
She felt deceived, and she was angry. She was angry that the people she loved most had knowingly put her in this hellish limbo. Yet at the same time, she couldn’t blame any of them. She knew her mother well, and she understood her. Christi had only wanted to love her; she hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. She would never have taken a child from living parents, of that Laney was sure. And whatever repercussions might be had, in this life or the next, Christi had been determined to bear that burden alone. No deathbed confessions to soothe her soul… not if it would hurt Laney. Gran and Grandpa must have made a similar calculation. They couldn’t have told the truth without putting both Christi and Laney at risk. And what purpose would the truth serve, once the damage had been done?
It was a victimless crime. Except for Laney herself.
Or was it? She inhaled sharply. It was true that the other parents were dead, that they would never miss their daughter, never mourn her. But Jessica Macdonald had other family, did she not? Other relatives who knew and loved her?
She turned with a jerk towards her laptop. She booted it up. As it slowly flickered to life, she cursed herself for not copying the information she’d dug up earlier. There had been grandparents… three of them. And an uncle, too.
Were they all still alive? Had the grandparents been close to their grown son and daughter? Spent time with their baby granddaughter? Had Jessica had little cousins to play with?
The computer started up, but for Laney it could not move fast enough. These people… they were the victims. Maybe they didn’t care. Maybe they never had. Perhaps it would be better for everyone if they didn’t. The past could stay buried, nothing would change, and Laney could go on with her life.
She found the Canadian obituary she’d located before. Sarah Alvin, of Ottawa. Jessica’s grandmother — Carl’s mother. Carl’s father had died before he did. Laney took the woman’s name from the obituary and ran a search. It took only seconds before an unexpected stab of grief pierced her.
Died June 7th, 2015.
Laney bit her lip, hard. The obituary mentioned Sarah’s predeceased son. But where such articles normally mentioned surviving relatives, this one said nothing. Nor was there any mention of a spouse, current or former, living or dead.
Laney swallowed her sadness and closed the reference. Whatever Sarah might have felt when she lost her granddaughter, she wasn’t hurting anymore.
Was anyone? Laney switched to Jessica’s mother’s side of the family. Gordon and Joan Tremblay, of Toronto. Her heart began to race as the hits on Gordon stacked up. He was mentioned in a variety of Canadian news articles, all having to do with his banking job. She skimmed through the details. Was the man alive or wasn’t he?
He had retired. No surprise there. He was on the board of something or other. Laney didn’t care about his business career; she kept scrolling. There was no obituary. The last mention of him came from a Toronto paper a little over three years ago. She started a new search on Joan Tremblay, holding her breath as she did so. What exactly was she hoping for?
Again, no obituary.
Laney released the breath with a surge of relief. Jessica’s mother Elizabeth’s parents were still alive. Both of them. But where? She dove into the sites that mined street addresses and came up with several in Toronto. But when she searched on the most recent one, she pulled up real estate listings. The house had been sold less than a year ago.
Undaunted, Laney kept digging until she located one site with a different address. It was on the other side of the country, in the city of Ucluelet, British Columbia. She ran an additional check on related real estate listings, but could find none.
Gordon had retired, Laney told herself. Perhaps they’d moved to a better climate? She ran a new search on Ucluelet and determined that it was indeed a tourist town. People in the middle of Canada probably retired to their western coast like Chicagoans retired to Florida.
She ran one more search, this time on Jessica’s uncle, and found him likely still living in Toronto. A newspaper article mentioned his name, Richard Tremblay, in conjunction with an art gallery, but gave no personal details. Another article from a regional magazine described him as a “visual artist,” and referred to a husband whose work was on display in the same gallery.
Laney stared at the picture of a slim, unassuming-looking man in his late fifties, but felt no particular emotion. His coloring was dark, his features unfamiliar. From what she could tell, Jessica’s uncle had no children.
She clicked back to a map of Ucluelet. It was right on the ocean. On Vancouver Island. It appeared to be a long way from the city of Victoria, where most of the island’s population was concentrated. Why had Gordon and Joan moved so far from the beaten path after a lifetime in the city? Did they appreciate the quiet? Did they own a boat, maybe? Did they like to fish?
The wheels in her brain chugged to a slow, grinding halt.
Did they miss their granddaughter?
Jessica Macdonald was the only grandchild the couple had ever had. Barring a late-in-life adoption on their son Richard’s part, she was the only one they ever would have.
But did they miss her?
Laney’s eyes could produce no further tears. But the new emotion inside her made them burn with dry heat. What if she were in their position? They had raised a boy and a girl, watched them grow up and get married. Their little girl had had a baby girl of her own. And then — the worst possible tragedy. Their daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were all dead. Gone forever in the blink of an eye. Decades later the couple is facing old age with one middle-aged son and a son-in-law. No grandchildren to spoil; no great-grandchildren to even hope for. But if the granddaughter they’d thought they lost was actually a healthy twenty-seven-year-old woman… would they want to know? Would Laney want to know if she were them?
Of course she would.
A wrong had been done to these people. Was it not her responsibility to right it?
Still, she hesitated. Their Jessica had died twenty-five years ago… their emotional wounds should have healed. What if hearing the truth now caused them more pain than it spared? They
could never get their toddler back, after all. That little girl didn’t exist anymore.
No, she didn’t, Laney confirmed to herself. Besides which, there could be harm in exposing the truth. Before she did anything, that harm had to be weighed against the good.
She took a moment to consider what the harm might be.
Christi’s name would be besmirched forever, for starters. If the full truth were known, she would be labeled a kidnapper. If she were alive, she could face criminal charges. Even if Laney did her best to keep the details quiet, she might not be successful. Any journalist running across such facts would see an irresistible human interest story. The sensational headline would be everywhere. Toddlers Switched in Funnel Cloud; Surviving Mother Steals Dead Mother’s Child.
No. That couldn’t happen. The publicity would devastate June and her family, whether they had known of Christi’s crime back then or not. And if Gran were to hear one word of it, she’d go right back to obsessing over hell and damnation.
No, Laney repeated to herself. If she admitted the truth to anyone in authority, there could be problems beyond her understanding. If the child Laney Miller was officially declared deceased, what would happen to her social security number? Her birth certificate? Her whole legal identity? Would she still be Christi’s beneficiary? Could she access the money to care for Gran? Would she even still be Gran’s legal guardian?
She closed her eyes and dropped her head in her hands. Without her identity, she had nothing. The legal mess she’d be left in was so monumental it would take an army of lawyers to untangle it — lawyers she could not afford. Could she even go back to school? Reclaim the fellowship she’d won under false pretenses?
A sudden thought struck her with horror. Carl and Elizabeth had been Canadian citizens. Their daughter had been born while they were still living in Toronto.
Jessica Macdonald was not even an American citizen!
Forget school. Forget absolutely everything you’d ever planned for yourself.
Laney felt numb.
Exposing the truth was completely unthinkable.
So where did that leave her?
She sat at the kitchen table, staring at nothing, for a long time. Very gradually, her thoughts began to coalesce. The best thing to do, almost certainly, was nothing at all. If she said nothing, no one would ever know. Her Gran’s babbling would not be taken seriously, even by June — assuming June didn’t know already, which Laney strongly suspected she did not. If the photo negatives were destroyed for good, everyone’s life could proceed as normal. Except for one thing.
Laney would feel guilty. She might not bear any culpability for the crime already committed; but from this point on she would. She would be knowingly keeping grandparents from their granddaughter, an uncle from his niece. They could be nice people. They could care very much. For her to assume how they would feel, what they would want… how could she, when she didn’t even know them?
You have to know. You have to be sure they’re all right the way they are. That it’s better this way. For everybody. Not just you.
Laney gave her chin a sharp nod. Her silence could be justified, and her conscience cleared, only after she obtained all the necessary information. She had to meet these people, figure out who they were and how they felt about family. How she would accomplish this while concealing her true purpose, she had no idea. But she would make no final decision until it was done.
She copied the most recent addresses of Jessica’s grandparents and uncle into a file and saved it. Then she pulled up a map program. The uncle in Toronto was closer, but Jessica’s grandparents were a higher priority. She typed in her location and the destination in Ucluelet, then looked at the suggested path with a grimace. Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho… she’d have to drive 2500 miles through the Northern Plains in the dead of winter!
Well, so be it, she thought with determination. Flying wasn’t an affordable solution, not when neither Peck nor Ucluelet were anywhere near a real airport and she’d wind up having to rent a car, too. She had enough financial woes without blowing another grand. She’d just have to prepare herself for blizzard conditions and hope to hell her car was up to the task.
She would leave first thing tomorrow.
She shut down her computer and grabbed her keys. She would have to research her route carefully, find cheap places to stay. And she’d need to pack like it was a freakin’ polar expedition… food, emergency blankets, warm clothes. But she could do all that later tonight. Right now she was overdue for her promised visit to Gran.
And Laney Miller always kept her promises.
Chapter 16
Tofino, British Columbia, Present Day
Laney donned her knit cap, mittens, and the five dollar sunglasses she’d bought at the co-op and headed out the door of the common room. She’d awakened after nearly twelve hours of sleep with a dull ache pounding in her head, but some acetaminophen and a quick bowl of granola had coaxed it mostly into submission. With blue sky showing through the skylight in the ceiling and the sound of chirping birds and crashing waves echoing through the walls, she was going outside regardless.
She smiled as the cool, clean air washed over her cheeks and filled her lungs. Beautiful. Everything was beautiful! She pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, willing to endure a little pain for the sake of full color. The trees around the building were tall and deeply green, their graceful boughs trailing with feathery, light-green moss. The steps she descended carried her through a wonderland carpeted with billowing bushes, hardy ferns, and tumbled gray stone, and as she looked up into the treetops, she saw a mix of evergreen and bare deciduous trees, the latter of which had added a colorful layer of red-brown leaves to the forest floor.
“Hallow,” a friendly voice called from the deck as she passed. Laney smiled in greeting and waved back, but didn’t attempt conversation. The half-dozen lodgers enjoying a late breakfast al fresco had been speaking in a foreign language she had no hope of identifying; she could barely understand the heavily accented greeting. She finished her descent of the stairs, stepped off onto the sandy ground, and moved toward the water.
A yellow and white signpost caught her attention. Caution it said in bold print. You Are in Wolf Country. Laney stepped closer. An outline of a wolf, straight out of Little Red Riding Hood, was placed in a yellow warning triangle. Below it was a list of instructions, each ominously illustrated with unfortunate stick figures. Group Together. Scare Don’t Stare. Don’t Run! Back Away Slowly. Fight Back!
Laney swallowed. They had to be kidding. This wasn’t some backcountry wilderness… it was a tourist beach! On a freakin’ island!
Keep Dogs on Leash.
The sign had to be a joke. Scaring gullible international tourists must give Jason some kind of thrill. Wolves, indeed!
She moved on, drawing another invigorating breath of the cool, moist air. She knew, intellectually, that an oceanic climate, even in the far north, could be warmer in January than inland plains farther south. Still, when she thought of how she’d nearly gotten frostbite just walking around Peck…
Her steps halted abruptly, and her body swayed. Peck. The horrible thing. A swell of new memories dumped into her brain with a whoosh. She was wandering around town, and she was cold. She saw her preschool and remembered the obnoxious kid. She’d seen Nan… Nan had been sick and missed the funeral… she wanted Nan to help her but the teacher had only made her feel worse. She’d walked across the fields — why on earth would she do that? She’d been thinking about the tornado—
Stop! Laney gave her limbs a shake; inhaled and exhaled deeply. She wanted to remember everything… but not right now. Right now, this morning, she had more pleasurable things to do. Would it be so wrong if she dealt with the horrible thing this afternoon?
She faced the water, doubled her pace, and filled her senses with the glorious present. An arc of soft brown sand spread out before her feet, angling wide in either direction. At its near edge lay grassy slopes, t
umbled logs, and rocky ledges from which tall green trees sprang. A few houses were visible on the higher ridges, peeking out between the trees to display their oversized windows, just like the lodge behind her. But the most amazing view lay straight ahead, where the mighty Pacific finished its tumultuous journey from the far beyond by coalescing into powerful, wide swells that moved like an advancing army — only to turn to frothy whitewater as they smashed upon the shallows. Some were forced to divert around the low, rocky islands that dotted portions of her view. But in the center of the arc, nothing stood in their way. She could look straight up from her own two feet and draw a line to the horizon that crossed nothing but endless, moving water.
Breathe. Even the magnificence of the ocean couldn’t completely shake the sense of foreboding brought on by the rush of memories. But she would keep trying.
She turned her attention to the humans in the equation. She counted nearly a dozen surfers, either out on the water or resting with their boards on the beach. Other visitors walked along the shore, and several dogs chased both sticks and each other in and out of the water, making wide circles of tracks in the sand. She walked to a convenient log, sat down, and pulled her sunglasses back down over her eyes.
Okay. So which one was he? Her brow furrowed as she surveyed the surfers, all of which looked nearly identical in their dark, full-body wetsuits. Even their hair was covered by their hoods, and most of the time, all she could see out on the water were bobbing torsos. But each time one of them stood up to catch a wave, their skin-tight suits showed off their physiques. Laney’s gaze quickly narrowed on two likely suspects, and after a few moments, one of them waved at her.
She smiled broadly. Jason. She was sure of it. He and Ben were similarly well-proportioned, but Ben was slightly taller and lankier. After a gesture passed between the men, the second surfer also waved, then made a show of pointing up at the trees. Laney looked up, saw a large, brown and white mottled bird perched at the top of a nearby pine, and laughed. Ben. Definitely. He had promised to show her a bald eagle before he left. The hunched-over lump didn’t look like an eagle to her, but whatever. She would take the naturalist’s word for it. She returned a thumbs up.
