Little Girl Lost

by Adrianne Lee

  The moment of truth had arrived and again tears threatened. Fighting them, Jane glanced toward the kitchen window. The miniblinds were closed against the night. Ellensburg was home to Central Washington University, and several students resided in this building. The shrieks of laughter drifting up from two stories below indicated that a group of them were out enjoying the fresh snowfall.

  Jane drew a bracing breath and faced her friend. “Those two women in the paper. I believe they’re my mother and sister.”

  “What?” Edie’s eyes widened and she reached for her hand.

  “No.” Jane pulled back. “Don’t give me any sympathy right now, Edie. I’ve got to tell you this or I’ll burst, and any compassion will undo me.”

  Edie nodded. “I understand. Just tell it the way you have to.”

  Jane clasped her hands together as if she could keep a tight grip on her grief just by stilling them. She started with the sudden flash of memory and where it had led her. She saw Edie struggle to control both her shock and compassion, struggle to listen without reply.

  “I had to go to their cabin. It was the only thing I could think of that might jar loose more memories.” Jane told her everything, including her narrow escape from the man in the locked cellar and her treacherous drive home through the blinding storm. “Mrs. Ferguson was frantic when I arrived. I probably looked a fright. Anyway, it took nearly fifteen minutes to convince her I was okay before she’d go home to her own apartment.”

  “Are you sure you are okay?” Edie’s eyes were huge.

  Jane braced herself for questions about her mother and sister. But Edie kept her promise. “The guy had a gun?”

  “Well, he said he had a gun. I didn’t see one.” Or feel one. Jane took a drink of coffee and pondered the handsome devil who’d scared ten years off her life—who’d disturbed her on levels she didn’t understand. “It could have been a bluff.

  “The truth is, he could have hurt me when he took the scissors away, but he’d seemed genuinely more concerned about saving himself from injury—about keeping our presence unknown to whoever had entered the house.”

  “Why?” Edie tore open a package of artificial sweetener and shook it into her mug.

  “Well…there’s the obvious.” Jane pulled a face, feeling heat spiral into her cheeks. “We entered the cabin illegally. The police had it sealed.”

  Edie arched a perfect brow. “You risked being arrested?”

  “I had to. Wouldn’t you have.in my place?”

  “Perhaps.” Edie didn’t seem convinced. “But, my God, Jane, the man might’ve been the murderer.”

  As if she hadn’t thought of that. “I know. But I don’t think he was.”

  Edie threw her hands up. “How can you know that?”

  “I can’t.” It was totally illogical and yet she felt so certain about this. Why? She thought again of his kissthere had been nothing threatening about it. Was that her only reason for this conviction? Or did she know the man?

  Edie broke into her musing. “Did he give you any explanation for what he was doing there?”

  “No, but—” Jane broke off. She couldn’t look Edie in the eye. “Our encounter wasn’t the kind where talking was a priority.”

  “What - aren’t you telling me?” Edie studied her thoughtfully. “Do you think you know him?”

  That question again. Jane took a drink of her coffee and glanced around at the cozy home she’d created for Missy and herself over the past five years. Inexplicably, she felt on the brink of losing this safe haven.

  “Jane,” Edie said again. “Do you think you know this man?”

  “He said we’d never met.”

  “But you can’t be certain?”

  “No,” she admitted, pressing her fingers gingerly to her temple. “Every time I try remembering, my head feels like it will explode.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I hate this. It’s like struggling with a thousand-piece jigsaw and having no idea what the whole picture looks like.”

  “You can’t push a river upstream, Jane.” Edie’s expression softened and her generous mouth tilted up at the corners. “And if it’s giving you such headaches, perhaps you shouldn’t try.”

  But how could she not try? “Oh, I nearly forgot—I found something today.” Jane hopped off the stool, went to her parka and dug into the pocket, her fingers curling around the gold locket. It felt singularly familiar in her palm. Tears stung her eyes. Blinking them back, she returned to the counter and handed the open locket to Edie.

  “I remember it. It belonged to my mother.” Tremulously, she pointed to the pictures inside. “That’s Kayleen, and that’s me.”

  Edie studied the photographs. “Missy takes after your sister, doesn’t she?”

  Jane peered closely at the tiny photo, seeing what she hadn’t seen at the cabin. Why, the picture could have been of Missy. Something indefinable slid through her, knotting itself around her chest, giving her a sense that she’d finally found a tangible link with a past she could not recall. “Yes, she does.”

  Why hadn’t she remembered while Kayleen and Mom were still alive? Heartache threatened to overwhelm her. She took several deep breaths, fighting off the tears, fighting her fears of the unknown.

  Through watery eyes, she gazed at Edie. “I didn’t realize when I visited the funeral home, but driving back from Cle Elum, I remembered something about my m-m-mother.”

  Jane shuddered and reached for her cup. Edie waited patiently while she swallowed several sips of coffee and could finally continue in a steadier voice. “Mom was very vain about her hair color. Always dyed the gray as fast as it came in. She kept it about the color of mine. Whereas Kayleen had natural honey blond hair. Look at these photographs.”

  She poked the newspaper. “Mom’s hair is completely gray, and Kayleen’s, although you can’t tell from this black-and-white picture, was dyed a shade Lucille Ball would have loved.”

  Edie’s eyebrows shot up. “My, you really are starting to remember.”

  “Just enough to scare me.” She thought about Scarface, about his search for “kiddy stuff.” What had his boss really been looking for? She drained her mug and another face filled her mind. “Edie, why can’t I remember Missy’s father?”

  Edie plowed her hand through her hair again. “You’ll remember…when you’re ready to.”

  “Maybe I divorced the jerk. Or maybe we were never married.” Jane felt an uncontrollable urge to move. She snatched both coffee mugs and lurched off the barstool, hurrying around and into the kitchen where the coffeemaker stood.

  The noisy students outside were quieting, but it gave her no peace. “Maybe we were running away from him. Maybe he’s the reason we left our old life-style behind. Maybe my mother and sister were afraid of him. Maybe he’s the reason they never came looking for Missy and me. Maybe they were scared if they found us, he might, too.”

  “Or maybe,” Edie interjected, “they were told that you’d both died in the accident. It was such a horrendous pileup of cars and buses and semitrailers. Nothing like it before or since in the state of Washington. So many lives were lost, so many bodies burned beyond recognition. Some only identified by dental records, others by jewelry or bits of surviving clothing. And unlike a plane crash, there was no passenger list, no way to be absolutely certain how many were killed.”

  Jane shuddered at the images that sprang into her head, the brutal stench of burning twisted metal and seared flesh that forever lingered in her subconscious—the one memory she wished she could forget. “Maybe I should have handled this differently.”

  “Maybe.” Edie sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have listened when you begged me not to advise the police or newspapers of your amnesia. But you were so upset, so…terrified.”

  “I was. I still am, but I don’t know what I’m terrified of. Or who.”

  “I’ve often wondered if I did the right thing by giving in to my sympathy for you, but I’d just miscarried my first baby and I took one look at you and little
Missy, and my heart went out to you. Somehow I identified with your fear. But it was wrong not to have reported the facts straightaway to my supervisor. If I had, you might have been reunited immediately with your mother and sister.”

  “No.” Jane reached out to her friend. “Don’t think that.”

  Edie nodded grimly. “On the other hand, in light of what happened to your mother and sister, I think your fears were justified.that perhaps we did do the right thing in not pursuing your true identity.”

  “But what now?” Fear, as black as the coffee in the glass carafe, swam through her, prodding the ache in her temples. The hand holding her coffee mug trembled. “What if someone from our past murdered Kayleen and Mom? Someone who would kill Missy and me—if he knew we were still alive?”

  HE WOULD BE LUCKY to make it to Cle Elum alive, Chad thought, as he pulled out of the parking lot of The Last Resort, a restaurant and bar located less than half a mile from the Dickersons’ cabin. Snow blanketed Salmon/LaSac Road and swirled against his car’s windshield with a hypnotic brilliance, making driving a slow, hazardous process.

  All through dinner, he’d pondered the afternoon’s events at the cabin. Who was the wildcat with the glorious mahogany mane and decidedly kissable lips? Who’d come into the cabin forcing him to silence her in that most unprecedented way? And who was the guy looking for “kiddy stuff”? Not that he didn’t have his suspicions. Too bad he hadn’t been able to steal a glance at him. Had the brunette? Maybe. She was one gutsy lady.

  He decelerated as he drove the half mile through the town of Ronald, famous for the Old No. 3 Bar, then picked up speed slightly, only to slow again minutes later as he entered Roslyn, known to television viewers everywhere as Cicely, Alaska, the town where “Northern Exposure” had been filmed.

  It was like driving through a Christmas card, Chad thought, as he wove through the picturesque little town. Home and shop and street lights twinkled in the frosty night, reflecting off the snow, casting old and new building alike with a lacy beauty that might have been brushstroked by Currier and Ives.

  A laughing couple darted into the street. Cursing, Chad hit the brake. His car lurched. Skidded. Stopped. The woman had long brown hair like the woman at the cabin. His pulse quickened. She turned to face him. It wasn’t her.

  Chad sighed. The couple reached the other side of the street, and he lifted his foot from the brake and set the car moving again. He conjured the image of the mysterious brunette, taking a lengthy mental look at her. She’d worn a bright ski jacket, tight jeans and cowboy boots.

  Her long, dark mahogany hair fell about her heart-shaped face, natural and lush and silken looking, the kind of hair a man could get lost in; but only now did it occur to him that her deep-set aqua eyes were somehow familiar. Was it possible? Could she be.?

  He reached the city limits and pressed his foot harder on the gas pedal. Lights from the town dimmed in his rearview mirror. The darkness gave the heavy snow a blinding quality. He squinted as if against a glare, concentrating to keep the car on the road. He hadn’t expected when he’d set out from Seattle this morning that his investigation would lead to a double murder.

  That it would lead back to his own past.

  The wipers clicked back and forth as fast as his thoughts, as ineffective against the heavy snow as his reasoning power was against emotions he’d thought long buried. “Don’t let this investigation get personal,” his editor had warned. Vic would have a snit fit if he knew how personal it had gotten in the last few hours.

  Chad laughed without humor. “Yeah, it’s way too personal now, Vic, old man.” The cellular phone in his briefcase chose that moment to ring, startling him out of his reverie. He glared at the briefcase. Probably the paper. Probably Vic. Screw it. He was on his own time. His own expense.

  Chad reached inside the briefcase and shut the phone off. He was in no mood to talk to anyone. Especially Vic, who thought the sun rose and set on Dr. Marshall J. Emerson. The doctor had everyone fooled. An old enmity churned in Chad’s gut, snaking out of some ancient corner of him, lifting like a vile odor he couldn’t shed.

  The tires skidded on the compacting snow and Chad automatically let up on the gas. The car came quickly under control. He wished he could regain his own control as easily. But he couldn’t. That required a stiff drink and a good night’s sleep—not a lecture from his boss.

  The lights of Cle Elum loomed out of the snowy darkness and sent his mind in another direction. The bodies were at the local funeral home, which was where he would be first thing tomorrow. And all day—if it took that long. He expected someone would show up to claim the bodies of the two women. He suspected he knew who that someone was.

  If he was right, his story would rock this state like the second coming of Mount St. Helens.

  THE PHONE WOKE JANE. With her eyes closed, she fumbled for the receiver, then balanced it near her ear. “‘Llo.”

  “Have you heard the news?”

  “Edie?” Cobwebs crisscrossed Jane’s mind. She struggled to open her eyes and discovered she possessed all the symptoms of a major hangover: headache, gritty eyes, achy limbs, unsettled stomach. Impossible. She hadn’t imbibed anything stronger than coffee last night. “What news?”

  “It’s on the radio already.”

  She managed to lift one eyelid. The room blurred. No light peeked from behind the miniblinds at the window. She shook her head and lifted herself on one elbow. She glanced at the clock radio. Five in the morning. Damn. She yawned. “I have to close the bar tonight This news of yours had better be—”

  “Not my news. Your news. The police have arrested someone.” There was a delicate pause. “You know.for the murders.”

  Jane jerked to a full sitting position, the need for more sleep fleeing with the rapid acceleration of her heart. Her scalp felt too tight for her skull.

  “Who?” She tensed, bracing to hear the name—a name that might demolish the walls around her memory.

  “A Dean Ray Staples.”

  Jane repeated the name in her head again and again, but it rang no bells. “It’s not a name I recall.”

  “He grew up in Vantage, drifted from job to job in the Tri-Cities area. Landed in jail for burglary a few years ago and decided to get back into the profession when he was released last month. He’s ripped off several of the cabins in the Salmon/LaSac area. Apparently, your mother and sister were unlucky enough to surprise him in the act.”

  Unlucky. The word slammed into Jane, and she choked down a sob as she pushed her hair up out of her damp eyes. “H-how do you know all this?”

  “As soon as I heard someone had been arrested, I called Zoe who works the night shift at the jail. Zoe and I were best friends all through high school.”

  “H-how can they be sure he’s the one?”

  “His fingerprints were all over the cabin and the gun they found on him is the one that—”

  Edie broke off, but not before she’d given Jane an unwanted visual. Tears streamed unchecked down her face. Impotent rage pinged through her brain. Nothing. They’d died for nothing. The waste. The man had shot them for a cabinful of junk. Her throat clogged and she barely managed to say, “Thanks, Edie.for calling.”

  “I didn’t want you to hear it on the radio.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “I thought it would ease your mind. You know, from thinking that someone from your past had killed them.”

  Jane was too consumed with grief to absorb this at the moment. She thanked Edie again, and hung up, then buried her head in her pillow and sobbed herself to sleep.

  TWO HOURS LATER, Missy woke her. “Mommy, I can’t reach the cereal.”

  Jane pried her swollen eyes open. Missy had donned pink leggings and a yellow-and-blue sweater. “No cereal for you this morning, sweetie bug. It’s cocoa and waffles.”

  “Mickey Mouse ones?”

  “You betcha.” She threw back the covers and climbed into her sweats, feeling more energetic than she expected she wou
ld. Knowing her mother and sister’s murderer was under lock and key, surprisingly did help. Knowing he wasn’t someone from their past, someone she couldn’t recall, had taken the edge off the startling memories, and lessened her fears of the past.

  But only time could ease her heartache at losing her mother and sister before she had found them again.

  Trying to hide her distress from Missy, she explained to the child that her outfit didn’t match, then let her decide whether she wanted to wear the pink leggings with the coordinating pink-and-black sweater, or the yellow-andblue sweater with the matching yellow-and-blue leggings. Missy decided on the pink set.

  Jane hugged her. “Good choice. The waffles will be ready by the time you’re dressed.”

  In the kitchen, Jane turned on the radio. The morning news affirmed Edie’s report about the arrest of Dean Ray Staples—without the details of his past or the facts about the gun and fingerprints. While Missy ate, Jane sipped coffee, thinking. With the murderer under arrest, she could make private arrangements for her mother and sister’s funeral.

  CHAD PARKED HIS CAR on Harris across the street from the entrance to the funeral home. He shut off the motor and settled in for a long wait. Reaching for the double mocha espresso he’d purchased minutes ago, he glanced at the sky.

  Fat, fluffy flakes of snow were starting to fall, fluttering to the ground like a billion paper airplanes gliding on the shifting breeze.

  The phone in his briefcase rang. Hoping it was Billy Bonze, his researcher, with the information he’d requested, he snatched it up. “Ryker, here.”

  “Got it,” Billy answered. Billy, an eager cub reporter and computer whiz kid, boasted he could find anyone anywhere. Chad hadn’t yet known him to fail.

  “Whew. Half hour. You’re setting records, Bonze.” Chad placed his coffee container in the car’s drink holder and started writing. “So, tell me. Kayleen Emerson’s sister is a sexy brunette, right?”

  Bonze laughed “No way. I’m looking at her photo right now. Taken at the UW campus. She has a head-huggin’ buzz cut of ice blond hair like that ‘Stop the Insanity’ freak. And no makeup—like some kind of hippie. Brutal, man.”