by Debra Webb
The ringing stopped.
Jo stared at the phone. Two minutes tops and it would start that fucking ringing again. She closed her eyes and exhaled a measure of the frustration always generated by calls from Ellen. Guilt immediately took its place. No matter the reason, whenever Ellen called Jo always wound up feeling guilty whether she answered the damned phone or not. A voice mail carried the same guilt-generating effect.
“Not my fault.” She paced the room like a freshly incarcerated criminal on the front end of a life sentence.
Ellen had chosen her own path. She’d made the decision to pretend to be normal. Dared to marry and to have children. Jo shook her head. How the hell could she do that after what they went through—what they did? Now the woman spent every minute of every day terrified that she would somehow disappoint her family or that something bad would happen to them because of her. Or, worse, that someone would discover her secret—their secret.
Deep breath. “Not my problem.”
Jo had made the smarter choice. She’d cut ties with her family and friends. No boyfriends much less husbands. No kids for damned sure. If she wanted sexual release she either took care of it herself or she picked up a soldier from one of the clubs in Killeen. She didn’t go to church; she didn’t live in the same town for more than a year. She never shared her history with anyone. Not that there was anything in her past that would give anyone reason to suspect the truth, but she hated the looks of sympathy, the questions.
The past was over and done. Dragging it into the present would not change what was done.
She had boundaries. Boundaries to protect herself. She never wasted time making small talk much less friends. Besides, she wasn’t in one place long enough for anyone to notice or to care. Since her employer was an online newspaper, she rarely had to interact face-to-face with anyone. In fact, she and the boss had never met in person and he was the closest thing to a friend she had.
Whatever that made her, Jo didn’t care.
Hysterical laughter bubbled into her throat. Even the IRS didn’t have her address. She used the newspaper’s address for anything permanent. Her boss faxed her whatever official-looking mail she received, and then shredded it. He never asked why. Jo supposed he understood somehow.
She recognized her behavior for what it was—paranoia. Plain and simple. Six years back she’d noticed one of those health fairs in the town where she’d lived. Probably not the most scientific or advanced technology since it was held in a school cafeteria. Still, she’d been desperate to ensure nothing had been implanted in her body—like some sort of tracking device—so she’d scraped up enough money to pay for a full-body scan. Actually she’d been short fifty bucks but the tech had accepted a quick fuck in exchange. After all that trouble he’d found nothing. Ultimately that was a good thing but it had pissed her off at the time.
A ring vibrated the air in the room.
Enough. Jo snatched up the phone. “What do you want, Ellen?”
The silence on the other end sent a surge of oily black uncertainty snaking around her heart. When she would have ended the call, words tumbled across the dead air.
“This is Ellen’s husband.”
A new level of doubt nudged at Jo. “Art?”
She had no idea how she remembered the man’s name. Personal details were something else she had obliterated from her life. Distance and anonymity were her only real friends now.
Now? She almost laughed out loud at her vast understatement. Eighteen years. She’d left any semblance of a normal life behind eighteen years ago. Jesus Christ, had it only been eighteen?
Felt like forever.
“Yours was the only name in Ellen’s phone I didn’t recognize.” He chuckled but the sound held no humor. “Her mom and dad’s number is there. Her little sister’s. The number for Alton’s school, my mom’s and the pediatrician. Mine, of course. But yours was the only other one.” He made a sound of surprise. “I never realized there was no one else. No friends. Not even any of the other mothers from Alton’s class or from our neighborhood are in her contacts. I just assumed she lunched and shopped with the other mothers. Set up playdates, but Alton said no playdates.” He sighed. “Doesn’t really matter now, I guess.”
That inky blackness spread through Jo’s chest like icy water rushing over a cliff. “Where’s Ellen?”
Another of those humorless chuckles. “I wish I could tell you she’s at home with Elle—that’s our three-year-old. But Elle’s with my mom. My wife isn’t here at the hospital with me and Alton either.”
Jo held back her questions through another long, weary sigh. A steady beep, beep, beep echoed in the background. He’d said he and Alton were in the hospital. “Is Ellen sick?”
Wait, he’d said Ellen wasn’t there. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Jo repeated those two words to herself during the silence that followed. Ellen’s problems weren’t hers.
Ellen made her own choices.
“No,” Art finally said, his voice cracking on the single syllable. He cleared his throat. “Alton is having his second surgery, by the way. They weren’t able to finish all the skin grafts with the first one. He’ll be okay. Maybe one more surgery after this.” Silence filled the air between them once more. “The fire wasn’t her fault, you know. She didn’t mean for any of this to happen. She tried. She really did. I should have given her more credit for trying.”
Fire? As hard as she tried to ignore it, worry gnawed at Jo.
“In case you didn’t know, Ellen had a serious problem.”
Had? More of that tension twisted in Jo’s gut.
Art drew in a shaky breath. “I tried to help her but nothing ever seemed to work. Don’t worry though, Alton will be okay. The burns on his hands and arms will heal. I tried to tell her he’d be fine, but I guess I was so angry I waited too long to reassure her. At first I was too upset to think rationally. Any father would have done the same. I was so scared and so damned furious. I told her she had to leave. That I couldn’t trust her to take care of the children anymore. So, you see, it’s really my fault. I shouldn’t have said so many hurtful things. I wasn’t thinking... I was so upset by what she’d done.” Pause. “I guess I should have called you sooner, but I—”
“Art,” Jo snapped, “where is Ellen?”
He cleared his throat. “Ellen killed herself three weeks ago today. Last night I finally worked up the courage to go through some of her things and I thought—since you were the only friend listed in her contacts—that you might want to know. And maybe you could tell me what she meant by the note she left. Three words and I don’t have a clue what they mean. She knows everything. Do you know what she meant by that?”
Jo ended the call.
Ellen had tried to call her three weeks ago and Jo had ignored the incessant ringing. No voice mail was left. If a caller didn’t leave a voice mail, you weren’t actually obligated to call back, right? It had been a Saturday. Must have been the day before...
Jo sank onto the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. She should have answered. She should have tried to be the friend Ellen’s husband thought she was. And Ellen was right. She did know everything—Jo had lived it with her. Now the only other person who knew what really happened eighteen years ago was dead.
Jo wondered why in all this time she’d never considered taking that avenue out of this pretend life she muddled through?
Maybe because she was a coward—or maybe because if she did then the bad guys won.
She looked around the place she called home for now. Her entire apartment was this one ten-by-twelve room. Even the bathroom was nothing more than a small corner hidden behind a makeshift partition wall. The wood floors were worn and creaked with every step she made. The plaster on the walls was cracked, the blue paint faded. The only window was covered with a cheap, nicotine-stained paper blind, the sort made for temporary
use. There was a tired sofa that served as a bed, along with a rickety metal and Formica table accompanied by two well-worn chairs. Along the shared wall between this room and the neighbor’s the kitchenette looked like something out of a 1950s Airstream.
Jo blinked. None of it really mattered. There was a roof over her head and four walls to protect her from the weather and whatever other threat showed up. No leaks in the roof and the plumbing worked most of the time. She pushed to her feet and shoved her cell into the back pocket of her jeans. Uncertainty and disappointment and all the other weaknesses she rarely allowed herself to feel suddenly assaulted her.
Memories from her former life poured through the emptiness inside her before she could stop them. She’d had a family. She’d had a scholarship. The future had been hers for the taking. Now, Jo turned all the way around in the middle of the room; she was thirty-six years old and this was her life—all because she’d made a terrible, terrible mistake eighteen years ago.
Poor Ellen had tried as best she could to salvage some semblance of a life and look how that turned out.
Bottom line, they had both allowed persons whose names they hadn’t known—whose faces they couldn’t be certain they had ever seen—to get away with destroying their lives.
Determination surged in Jo’s veins. Ellen was dead. The other girl was dead. Jo suspected the bastards who had orchestrated all of this were responsible for numerous other devastated lives and deaths, as well. Was she going to do nothing and allow them to never have to face responsibility for what they’d done?
Jo had been silent far too long.
Besides, what did she have to lose?
Not one damned thing that wasn’t already gone.
3
Lorton, Virginia
Tuesday, April 10, 11:16 a.m.
The god-awful sound wouldn’t go away. Like an earthquake shaking the whole damned townhouse, the noise splitting his skull.
Former Special Agent Anthony LeDoux cracked one eye open. Sunlight poured in through the slits in the blinds and he snapped his eyes shut once more. What idiot designed bedrooms facing east? Better question, what idiot rented a townhouse with a bedroom facing east?
A rusty groan growled out of him. You did, Tony. Special agent... Yeah right.
He should probably get up. Maybe eat something so he wouldn’t lose any more weight. Maybe even do something worthwhile like look for a job. His brain ached with the weight of the thought.
What the hell time was it? One hand tunneled from under the sheet and pawed across the bedside table until he found his cell phone. Once his fingers wrapped around it, he dared to raise his head from the pillow. Pain abruptly throbbed in his skull like a series of IED blasts.
“Shit.” Despite the agony, he forced his eyes open and peered at the cell phone—11:20 a.m. “Christ.”
Before he could drop the phone back onto the table it vibrated. So that was the infernal noise that had awakened him. Even with the phone in his hand the noise was like a blender full of rocks roaring on high speed. He stared at the screen until the caller’s identity came into focus.
Angie.
Oh hell. Tony cleared his throat and said hello aloud a couple of times just to make sure he sounded normal and not hungover before answering. “Hey, sis. What’s up?” Didn’t help. His voice sounded rusty and cracked twice.
“It’s Tiffany.”
He sat upright, the room rocking like a boat about to capsize. Plowing a hand through his hair, he prayed his head wouldn’t explode before he got through this conversation. “What’d she do? Drop out of school?”
His niece had been the perfect angel from the day she was born until high school. It was as if the day she turned sixteen she wanted to make up for lost time. The girl had given her conservative parents pure hell the past three years. As Angie’s only sibling, Tony had been the sounding board for the worst of the awful episodes. Thankfully things had been mostly quiet since Tiffany left for college. He’d hoped she had grown out of her wild stage.
A sob echoed in his ear and his heart reacted. “Ang, what’s going on?”
He stood. Swayed some more before he could steady himself. It wasn’t until then that he noticed the blonde in his bed. Her bare ass and rumpled mane were the only parts not covered by the tangled sheet. What the hell was her name? Chelsea? Chanel? Fuck! He couldn’t remember.
“She’s missing, Tony,” Ang said in his ear. “My girl is missing.”
A hint of fear roiled in his belly. He turned away from the blonde, who hadn’t moved. “Okay, sis. Take it from the top. Tell me what happened.”
As Angie spoke, he put her on speaker and left his phone on the table while he searched for his jeans and shirt. When the blonde still didn’t move, he leaned close and listened for any sign of breathing. She smelled of expensive perfume and high-octane vodka. Her soft purrs confirmed she had survived whatever the hell they’d done last night.
“We wanted her to come home for spring break,” his sister went on, “but she had other plans. She wouldn’t say what or with whom. Said it was none of our business and that we’d hear from her when she got back. So we thought maybe she had a boyfriend. Maybe a serious one. But ever since spring break she’s been distant. I called her every day last week and she never answered or called me back.” More of those heart-twisting sobs resonated in the room.
Tony hopped on one foot and then the other to tug on his jeans. “Is she showing up for class?”
“She was in class on Friday, but she didn’t show up for any of her classes yesterday or this morning.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” The room spun a little so Tony sat down on the bed. The blonde moaned but didn’t move. He picked up the phone and took it off speaker. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s not even noon, Ang. Maybe she’s just late. She could be on her way back from a weekend trip right now.” His niece had hardly been out of pocket long enough to overreact. Ang did that sometimes. She was particularly emotional when it came to her only child.
“No. No, I spoke to her roommate. Tiffany didn’t—”
“Ang, listen.” He rubbed at the back of his skull. Damn, his head hurt. The taste of bile and vodka climbed up his throat. He swallowed it back. “She’s nineteen and trying out her wings. Wait and see... She’ll show up sometime today. Just try to stay calm.”
“You don’t understand!”
His sister’s raised voice was like a bullet to his brain; he flinched. He needed something for this headache. Angie was older—only by fifteen months—and she never let Tony forget it. As calmly as he could, he said, “Explain it to me then.”
“None of her clothes are missing. Nothing. If she went on a weekend trip, wouldn’t she take something? A change of clothes? Her purse?”
That drop of fear he’d felt earlier widened into a distinct trickle. “She didn’t take her purse? What about her driver’s license and cell phone?”
“No. Nothing. Tony,” Ang said somberly, “she didn’t even take her makeup or her Jeep.”
A flood of uncertainty crowded into his chest now, making his next breath difficult. “Okay. Have you alerted campus security?”
His niece was a beautiful girl and certainly didn’t need cosmetics to enhance her natural beauty but she refused to step out the door without the works. If she didn’t take her makeup, she hadn’t left willingly. Not to mention her cell phone and driver’s license. If they possessed one or both, no teenager left without them.
“Yes, of course. We’re headed to Milledgeville now. I need you, Tony. I don’t care what’s going on with you and the Bureau—I need you. Tiffany needs you.”
With Ang and Steve in Dahlonega, the drive down to Milledgeville would take between two and three hours. They would arrive well ahead of Tony, which meant he had to get moving.
He leaned forward, fighting back the urge to vomit, and ga
thered his sneakers. “Call the Dean and ask him to put campus security on high alert. As soon as you get to Milledgeville, go straight to the security office. I’ll call the Milledgeville chief of police and explain our concerns so he’ll see the urgency in the situation.”
“Thank you.” His sister made a keening sound. “What if—”
“Ang, stop. Don’t even go there right now.” She started to cry and the sound was like daggers twisting in his chest. In the background her husband, Steve, offered quiet reassurances. When silence filled the air between them, Tony said, “Listen to me, sis, we’ll find her.”
“Promise me, Tony. Promise me you’ll find our baby.”
“I promise.”
The call dropped off. Tony blew out a heavy breath. Now sure as hell wasn’t the time to tell his sister that he wasn’t simply having trouble with the Bureau—he had resigned from his position at BAU-2. He’d been keeping that secret from his ex-wife and his sister for more than a month. He glanced back at the blonde. He’d filled his nights with booze and women whose names he couldn’t remember the next morning. Like a vampire, he spent his days sleeping.
He grabbed his shirt and headed for the bathroom. A better man would shave and shower before hitting the road, but Tony wasn’t a better man anymore. He’d stopped being that man more than a year ago.
Bitter bile rushed into his throat and he barely made it to the toilet. He heaved until there was nothing left to exorcise from his gut.
The path of self-destruction. His new boss had said those words to him in the final weeks before Tony gave the hard-nosed asshole and the Bureau the middle finger. He flushed the toilet and, with effort, pushed to his feet. He ducked his head under the faucet and rinsed his mouth. Swiping his face with his forearm, he stared at his reflection. He definitely needed to shave. Needed a haircut. Looked like death warmed over.
