Bringing Bella Back

by Jean Brashear

  But he didn’t smile back. “This might not work, Jane. Don’t get your hopes up. I don’t want you hurt.”

  Too late, she thought. But to him, she only nodded. “I have to try.”

  His sigh was long and low. “I understand.” He lifted his camera and snapped one shot before she was ready.

  “Hey!”

  He grinned. “That one’s for me.” He pointed to the flower bed she’d worked on all day yesterday. “How about there?”

  I could fall for this man, she mused. As she settled in place before the hollyhocks and chrysanthemums, a sudden shiver shook her, and she nearly backed out. What if the image that had come to her was a movie or a dream? How could she know what she would be walking into? What she had here was safe and fine. Maybe she should just wait—

  No. She steeled herself and faced the camera.

  However safe, this was not her life.

  That night, the silent house rebuked him.

  Not that James was accustomed to coming home before dark the past several months, and Bella had worked many nights herself. He tried to remember the last time they’d shared an evening meal. She’d had clients to meet and houses to show. He’d had endless spreadsheets and financial reports to comb through, seeking a miracle. His assistant, Julie, had put in long hours, too, working by his side. They’d been a good team, and he’d appreciated having someone to share his worries with, someone who knew the company inside out. Someone who didn’t depend on him to put on a brave face.

  It had begun with a neck rub. How trite. How unbelievably stupid.

  He opened the refrigerator and stared inside, attempting to conjure up an appetite.

  But thinking about his one fall from grace had curdled his stomach. That it had been only one occasion was cold comfort. That he’d felt like slime immediately after made his crime no less. He hadn’t intended it; no, hadn’t encouraged Julie. Hadn’t, if the truth be told, even realized she had a crush on him.

  He’d just been so damn lonely—and scared.

  And that might be his greatest sin—that he hadn’t sought Bella out, hadn’t bared his soul to her. Had entrusted secrets to a virtual stranger instead of the woman who’d been his life.

  Do you see who we’ve become, James? We’re your parents. I’m the Stepford Wife, and you’re the bastard who cheats on her.

  I don’t know which is harder to forgive.

  Once they’d been so close they practically shared breath. Back in the days when they’d struggled to scrape together enough pennies to buy a cheap bottle of wine or splurge on a fast-food meal.

  They’d made it through the dark times, three miscarriages in four years, and the heartache of hopes lifted, only to be dashed soon after. The evenings he’d witness her struggle to smile past her grief while he’d battle back his own despair to comfort her. Days, weeks, months of pain…but they’d endured. Never lost touch.

  He closed the refrigerator door, his mind adrift in the past.

  Bella lay curled in the center of the bed, the shades drawn, casting the space into gloom. He didn’t even have to ask what had happened; after three miscarriages and countless monthly disappointments, he knew.

  For a second, he0020prayed for strength—

  And the right words, though in truth, there were none.

  “James?” She sat up hastily, threw off the afghan she’d knitted in cloud-soft pastels, the one meant for the first baby, back when they were full of innocence and faith. “I didn’t realize what time—”

  He settled onto the mattress beside her. “Come here.” He drew her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured into her hair.

  “It doesn’t matter.” A shudder went through her, and she gripped his suit coat in both hands.

  “It does, sweetheart. It hurts you, every time.”

  “You think I should quit trying.” Her voice was muffled by his shoulder.

  Yes. No. His eyes burned. He’d wanted to make babies with Bella, to mingle their blood as they’d united their hearts and lives. To raise a big family in a house filled with their love.

  They conceived babies, one after another. He and Bella were very fertile, the bounty of their bond expressing itself in creation again and again.

  But the tiny lives could never hold on.

  And Bella refused to give up on bearing him the heirs she knew he wanted. That she wanted just as much, for different reasons.

  Because Bella was all about creation. She gardened, she sewed, she knitted. Painted and played guitar and cooked like a dream. She was the perfect homemaker, in the best sense of that word. Wherever Bella was became a nest, a refuge, a world of color and light and joy.

  It was the cruelest of ironies that a woman so clearly meant to have a family and share her abundant love would be denied the chance to do exactly that. There had never been a more natural mother born, he was convinced.

  So, heartache after heartache, she continued. And because he could deny her nothing, he went along, each time summoning the strength to help her through at the end.

  Because he loved her more than life. Because he would concede her anything.

  But maybe love required something different from him now.

  “Yes,” he said, though the pain of that finality was a sword slicing through his chest. Eyes closed, he held her more tightly. “We don’t have to have children for our life to be good, sweetheart. Or—” He watched the dream die, admitting to himself just how much a child of his blood and hers had mattered. How deep in the bone that urge was bred. “We could adopt.”

  She recoiled, her eyes dark and haunted. “That’s not what you want.”

  He could lie to her, but she’d know. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you mean more.”

  “But—”

  He pressed his fingers over her lips and shook his head. “No buts, honey. This is killing you, and if I lose you, I lose everything.”

  Her eyes flooded with tears. “James, I’m so sorry. I don’t understand why I can’t—”

  He hushed her with a kiss. “Neither do I, love, but I won’t let you torture yourself over it anymore.” For a moment, he embraced her, inhaling the scents that clung to her, rosemary and sunshine, honeysuckle and the tang of tomatoes…aromas of earth and sky and this bounteous woman who deserved so much better than he could ever provide her.

  She clung to him just as fiercely. “What would I do without you?” she whispered.

  “You’ll never have to find out.” He gripped her, then forced himself to let go. He leaned away and tipped her face to his. “The world is full of children who would bloom under the hands of the best gardener I know. Where shall we start looking?”

  The hope that flared was all the answer he needed to be certain he was doing the right thing.

  Her fingers stroked the afghan. The sorrow hadn’t completely fled her gaze, but her face began to light with the excitement that was, always and ever, the essence of Bella.

  Beneath it was a trace of fear. “The agencies will see that we’d make some child happy, won’t they, James?”

  He defied anyone to do otherwise. He’d fight to his last breath to make certain. “How could they not? No one—” His voice was rough and fierce as he embraced her again. “No one who meets you could possibly doubt that you have enough love in you for the whole world.”

  “You, too,” she murmured into his ear. “You’ve loved me so well and been so patient with me, even through—”

  He shook his head and silenced her with a kiss. “I’ve done nothing but try to deserve you.” His eyes grew moist. “You are everything, Bella. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

  “I love you so much, James. Oceans deep. Wide as the sky.”

  “We’ll be okay, sweetheart. I promise.”

  So young and so brash, to believe that he could make the vow, that merely speaking it was enough.

  To hold such riches in his hand and man
age to lose them and never even notice they were gone—

  Until the love of his life walked out the door.

  The phone rang, and he leaped for it. His shoulders sagged as he saw his son’s number displayed. Bella was so real in his mind that he’d expected it to be her.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Dad. I got my instrument rating today.”

  Cameron’s excitement zipped through the lines. “That’s great, son. That’s absolutely terrific. Your mother—” He pinched the bridge of his nose and forced himself to continue. “She’ll be proud, Cam. Really proud.”

  “Does that mean—”

  James realized his mistake. “No.” He let out his breath in a sigh. “I don’t know anything.” Damn it.

  “Why can’t the police do something?” For an instant, Cam was a boy, frightened and angry.

  “Because she left on her own. For all they know, she’s sitting on a beach somewhere.”

  “What about you, Dad? Where do you think she is?” A pause. “Why did she go, Dad? This isn’t like her.”

  He didn’t want to have this conversation. “Cam—”

  Just then, the doorbell rang. “Hang on a second, son.” He descended the stairs and saw a man in a suit and a uniformed officer waiting. “Cam, I’ll have to call you back. Someone’s at the door.”

  “Who?”

  His heart sped as he registered the grim expressions on the two men’s faces. Whatever this was, he would spare his children as long as possible. “Just a neighbor. I’ll talk to you in a little while, okay?” He gripped the knob, reluctant to open it until Cam was safely away.

  “All right, Dad. Bye.”

  “Goodbye, son.” But he didn’t click off until after Cameron was gone, feeling an odd need for the connection.

  Then he opened the door.

  “James Parker?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Gordon, and this is Officer Hunt. May we come inside?”

  His chest filled with a sense of doom. “Is this about my wife? Is she all right?” He squeezed his eyes shut for second, steeling himself for the response.

  “Let’s sit down, Mr. Parker.”

  “No.” He met the man’s gaze. “Tell me now. Don’t string it out. Is she—” He could not say the words.

  “We don’t know where your wife is, Mr. Parker.”

  “Then why—”

  “Her car was discovered in Idaho during a raid on a chop shop.”

  “Chop shop?” He shook his head. “Idaho?”

  “A chop shop is where stolen cars, especially luxury cars like your wife’s BMW, are transported to be disassembled for parts.”

  “But where’s Bella? And how did her car get to Idaho?” He confronted the detective. “Now will someone take me seriously when I say that something has happened to her?”

  “We have to, after what else was found.”

  “What?” His throat was tight with fear.

  “Bloodstains on the upholstery.”

  “Blood—” he repeated dully. “No. Oh, no—” He grabbed the man’s arm. “I’m going to Idaho.” He glanced around, frantically. “I’ll book a flight and—”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Parker.”

  “Why not? I have to go to her. I have to help—”

  “We need you to hang around and answer some questions, sir.”

  Something in the man’s tone wrenched James from his feverish planning. “Hang around?”

  “If the bloodstains match your wife’s type, the FBI will be called in, and we’re working with the authorities in Idaho right now. There is no point in you going up there.”

  “Are you saying I can’t go? Will you keep me from leaving?”

  “I don’t think it will come to that, sir.”

  “Are you—” He couldn’t wrap his mind around the notion slowly stirring. “I love my wife. She’s everything to me. Are you implying that I’m somehow involved in this? Am I a—” He could barely voice the word. “A suspect?”

  The man’s eyes remained carefully blank. “If you could just answer some questions, Mr. Parker, that would be very helpful.”

  “You answer me first. You cannot seriously imagine—”

  “I try to avoid imagination. In my job, the facts are all that matter. Now, do you know your wife’s blood type? And would you happen to have a hairbrush of hers, for DNA matching?”

  “On cop shows, they say those closest are always prime suspects when there’s foul play.” Foul play. Bella…bleeding. Hurt. “This can’t be happening.” No matter how worried he’d been before, nothing compared with how terrified he was now. Abruptly, he had to sit down. “Bella…” His head sagged into his hands.

  “That’s television, Mr. Parker. Take a minute to clear your mind.”

  James raised haunted eyes to the man who sat across from him. “I’d hoped that she was just still mad at me. I never truly believed—” He couldn’t finish.

  “You had a fight?” Gordon’s gaze sharpened. “What about?”

  “I should be calling a lawyer, shouldn’t I?”

  Gordon shrugged. “Your decision. No one’s charging you with anything yet.”

  “Yet.” James uttered a rusty chuckle. He sank into the cushions. “Unbelievable.”

  Then the image hit him again, of Bella hurt. Bleeding. “I’m not going to waste any time with a lawyer. My wife is out there, possibly injured or—” He shook his head violently. “No. She has to be all right. She has to be.” He stared at the man before him. “To hell with what the implications are for me. She’s been gone for two and half weeks, and you people are finally paying attention.” He stood. “Her blood type is B positive. Her hairbrush is gone, but I’ll look around. The housekeeper is here twice a week, so I don’t know—what else could serve the same purpose?”

  He whirled to race up the stairs, but Gordon’s hand on his arm halted him.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Parker, we can do the search.”

  “But—” Once again, comprehension arose. “Right. You haven’t charged me, but that doesn’t mean you trust me.”

  “Can’t afford to just yet, sir. So are you giving us permission to search your house?”

  This was a nightmare. But what did he know about criminal lawyers? He was innocent, and meanwhile, the clock was ticking. If there was a chance in the world that Bella could be found—

  He swallowed hard. She had to be. He could not live with the knowledge that their last words had been spoken in anger and despair.

  “Yes,” he said. “You have my permission.” Then a thought occurred. “She hasn’t been in my car lately, but we always joked about how she left hairs everywhere—long, black curly—”

  Fear robbed him of voice. He hardly registered Gordon’s instructions to the officer, words about bringing in a forensics team. After a moment, he regained possession of himself and faced the detective. “My car is in the garage, unlocked.”

  “Thank you.” Gordon paused. “If you have a photograph of your wife, that would be helpful.”

  “Of course.” James crossed the room, retrieved a photo album from the shelves. Halted as fear jolted through him. Please. Let her be safe. Even if she doesn’t want me, her children need her.

  I need her, too. For a second, he was overcome by a longing for her, for the life with her he’d loved so much—a yearning so visceral and sharp it flayed him to the bone.

  “Mr. Parker?”

  James squeezed his eyes to shut out the vision of the wasteland he would inhabit if Bella were taken from him. Then with painful slowness, he opened the book.

  The very first page nearly undid him. Bella, soaking wet, dancing in the mud with a young Cele and toddler Cameron.

  He held out the album with shaking hands. “Study this and tell me I could ever have any desire to kill my wife.” He shoved it at the detective. “I was stupid, all right? I lost sight of what was important. Bella and I, we were everything to each other, and then somehow
… I don’t know what the hell happened, but I screwed up, big-time, and Bella went away to think. That’s all—she just wanted some time to decide if—” His voice cracked, and he stopped, but he didn’t care anymore if he was embarrassing himself. “You’ve got to find her. I have to tell her I remember everything. That I’m a jerk, and I deserve to be punished, but not by—” He was afraid to say the words, in case doing so gave them power to make his fears come true.

  Then he faced the impassive cop before him, forcing eye contact. “I love my wife, detective. She is everything to me.”

  The policeman turned away. Pulled out his cell phone.

  “Detective—”

  Gordon halted.

  “What do I tell my children? My son is expecting me to call back.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Twenty-three and nineteen.”

  “For my money, the truth is always the best place to start, sir.”

  “So what is the truth? Is their father a suspect in their mother’s disappearance? Is their mother still—” He faltered on the word. “Alive?” He held up a hand. “She has to be. I’d know it if she wasn’t. I’d—” He tapped his heart. “I’d feel it, in here.”

  Gordon’s smile was all pity. “People often think that.”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  “I hope you’re right, Mr. Parker. Honestly, I do.”

  “So what about the first question? Am I under suspicion?”

  “Everyone’s under suspicion in the beginning, sir. It’s my job to weed that number down.”

  “Are you good at your job, Detective?”

  “I am.”

  “I damn sure hope so. That woman is my world.”

  “Understood.” Grim-faced, Gordon took out his phone and left the room.

  Chapter Eight

  After a sleepless night, James was in the kitchen, eyes pinned on the coffeepot, wondering how he would make it through the day. Cele was upstairs asleep in her old room, while he’d barely convinced Cameron not to cut classes today.