Vanish in Plain Sight

by Marta Perry

  “What are you doing?” He reached her, grabbing the pad from her hand and giving the drawing an angry glance. “What right do you have invading my privacy? Well?”

  Panic clutched her throat at the angry voice. She forced it back, a millimeter at a time. She would not give in to it.

  “I’m sorry.” She found her voice. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I’m afraid I couldn’t resist the contrast between your work and your cat’s laziness.” She tried for a smile that felt stiff on her lips.

  “Not my cat.” He handed the pad back to her and made a visible effort to contain himself, strong mouth firming, lashes shielding piercing green eyes for an instant. He yanked a handkerchief from his jeans pocket and wiped away the perspiration that beaded his forehead in spite of the coolness of the October day. He ran the cloth back over short dark brown hair and along his neck. “Are you looking for directions, Ms…?”

  “Angelo. Marisa Angelo,” she said, and saw his face change when he heard the name. This must be the man who’d found the suitcase, then, the man who’d inherited the house from an uncle, according to the police chief.

  “Sorry.” His voice went softer, rougher. “I didn’t realize you were coming here. The person you want is Adam Byler, the township police chief. If you head back down the road—”

  “I’ve already talked to him. He’s meeting me here. Didn’t he let you know?” She couldn’t let him send her away, not when the only clue she’d ever had to her mother’s disappearance had been found here.

  “No.” The word was so blunt that for a moment she thought he’d still send her packing. Then he managed a smile that gentled the harsh lines of his face. “I’ve been outside most of the day. Not paying any attention to the phone. I’m Link Morgan, by the way. Sorry to meet you under such circumstances.”

  The words were conventional. Could Link Morgan begin to understand what this meant to her? Or was her arrival just an unwelcome interruption to his work?

  “Chief Byler said that you found my mother’s suitcase while you were renovating the house?” She made it a question, since he didn’t seem very forthcoming.

  “Right.” His jaw tightened. “I guess you want to see where?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  He sent a harassed glance toward the lane, as if willing the police car to appear. “Fine.” He brushed his hands on his jeans. “I guess I’d better get washed up.”

  She followed him to the back door. His gait was ever-so-slightly uneven, reminding her of how he’d ended his woodcutting. “Are you all right?”

  “What do you mean?” He turned on her, his lean, strong-featured face forbidding.

  “I just… You looked as if you’d hurt yourself when you were cutting wood.”

  “I’m fine. Just got a stitch in my side.” He held the door for her. “This leads into the addition to the house, where I’ve been working.”

  She went up the two steps into the house, steeling herself. No matter how much this affected her, she didn’t want to show her pain in front of this stranger.

  But it was just a room—long, running across the width of the farmhouse, with a fieldstone fireplace in the middle of the back wall. The walls were bare to the studs, with broken paneling stacked on the floor.

  “I’ll get washed up. Adam will probably be here by then.” He disappeared into a room that must be a kitchen, and she heard the sound of running water.

  She set her bag on a rough worktable and looked around. There was nothing to see. Just a virtually empty room, a shell waiting for renovation. If Link Morgan hadn’t decided to tear off the old paneling, he wouldn’t have found the suitcase. She’d have gone on for maybe the rest of her life knowing nothing more than that her mother had abandoned her.

  Morgan came back in, pulling a flannel shirt on over his T-shirt. He was thin, she realized, not just lean. Strongly muscled but underweight, as if he’d been sick. Maybe her question about being hurt hadn’t been too tactful.

  “It was there, next to the fireplace.” He indicated the spot with a nod. “When I saw what was inside—well, I had to call the police.”

  Delaying his renovation, obviously. “I guess you’re eager to get the work done so you can enjoy your house.”

  He shook his head sharply. “I’m renovating it to sell. I want to get it finished and put it on the market before winter.”

  His priorities were clear, it seemed.

  But so were hers. She’d governed her life by the knowledge that her mother hadn’t loved her enough to stay with her. Now she had a hint, the tiniest thread, which seemed to say that might not be true. No matter who it inconvenienced, she wouldn’t stop pulling at that thread until she knew the truth.

  LINK COULDN’T HELP but compare the woman in front of him with the child in the photograph who’d taken such a hold on his emotions. The adult Marisa had a slender, delicate build, like the little girl. Her brown hair, a bit darker than the shade in the picture, reached her shoulders, curling slightly.

  The eyes in her oval face were those of the child in the picture—golden brown, with a touch of vulnerability that seared him. He couldn’t let anyone lean on him, especially not this vulnerable stranger with the familiar eyes.

  “Is something wrong?” She brushed her hair back, flushing slightly. “A smudge on my face?”

  “No.” It was his turn to feel embarrassed. “You just… I guess I was comparing you with the photo in the suitcase.”

  “Photo?” She was clearly at sea.

  “Adam didn’t tell you? There was a picture of your mother and you in the suitcase. That’s how we were able to identify the owner so quickly. I’m surprised Adam didn’t mention it.”

  “Maybe he did. I guess I found the news all a bit hard to take in.”

  “You must have dropped everything to get here so quickly.” Was it odd, her showing up so fast? He wasn’t sure.

  “Once I heard, I couldn’t think of anything else.” She rubbed her arms, as if she felt a chill. “My work is freelance, so I just packed it up and brought it. I couldn’t not come, once I heard.”

  He considered how that must have felt. “That almost sounds as if you were expecting something of the kind.”

  “Of course I wasn’t.”

  There was a hint of something held back in her tone that bothered him.

  No getting involved. Stay out of it. But he had to ask. “Did your mother know my uncle?”

  “I have no idea.” The brown eyes flashed. She clearly resented the implication.

  Had he been implying anything? He just wanted to understand this, so he could put it behind him.

  Marisa turned away, seeming to glance around the room almost at random, as if searching for something to take them away from an awkward place. “It looks as if you’re making good progress in here.”

  “I wasn’t, but once the police got into the act, the paneling came down pretty fast.” Almost instantly he regretted the careless words, because she paled, obviously understanding why the police had gotten involved.

  “We didn’t find anything.”

  He rushed the words. It didn’t help. His hands curled into fists. The whole situation angered him. Talking to this woman was like walking through a minefield, where any step could end up maiming someone.

  Relief flooded through him at the sound of a car. “That’ll be Adam.” He went quickly to the door.

  Adam got out of the police car, alone this time, and pulled out the suitcase. So, he was going to show it to her. Well, Marisa had probably as much right to it as anyone.

  “Adam.” He could only hope the relief didn’t show in his voice. “Ms. Angelo, this is Adam Byler.” He made introductions as Adam walked in. “Adam, Marisa Angelo. But I guess you’ve spoken on the phone.”

  Adam nodded, shaking hands gravely before swinging the suitcase onto the worktable where it had lain the previous day. Link was glad to retreat into the background while Adam went over the circumstances of finding the case and identif
ying her mother from the photograph.

  “Yes, Mr. Morgan told me about it.” Marisa reached toward the case, her hands hesitant. “May I see?”

  “Of course. We’ve already run a few tests on it, just to be on the safe side.” Adam took a step back, as if giving her space.

  Marisa opened the case. The photograph now lay on top, faceup, so that it was the first thing she saw. Link could hear the way her breath choked at the sight. His throat tightened in response.

  She picked up the photograph, holding it for a long moment, her fingers caressing the pictured faces. Then she cradled it against her chest.

  “This is mine.” She looked at Adam, as if expecting an argument.

  “I suppose it is.” His voice was gentle. “Or maybe more accurately your father’s, but we haven’t been able to reach him.”

  He knew Adam well. Maybe that was how he detected the hint of suspicion underlying the words.

  Marisa didn’t seem to. “Dad won’t mind if I have the picture. I’m sorry you weren’t able to reach him, but since he retired, he takes off in that RV of his at a moment’s notice.”

  “Doesn’t he have a cell phone?” Adam asked the question lightly, as if intent on not alarming her.

  “He does, but half the time he doesn’t check it from one week to the next.” She didn’t seem to find that odd, which argued that father and daughter weren’t very close. “I’ve left a message for him to call me, and I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from him.”

  “That’ll be fine.” Adam glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late, and I know this is a lot to take in. If you don’t mind staying over in the area tonight, maybe we can meet in my office tomorrow to talk things over.”

  She looked at him, blinking a little. “Tonight? I’ll be here longer than that.”

  Adam seemed taken aback. “That’s really not necessary, you know. We’ll continue to look into the situation, and we’ll let you know if and when we learn anything. I’m sure you want to get back to your own life.”

  In other words, Adam didn’t want her here, dogging his every step. Link couldn’t agree more.

  Marisa’s shoulders stiffened. She looked very deliberately from him to Adam. “I can see why you feel that way, but I have no intention of going anywhere. I intend to stay in Springville until I know why my mother’s suitcase was inside the wall of this house.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MARISA COULD SEE HOW unwelcome that announcement was to both men. With her unfortunate knack for empathy, she could easily put herself in their places.

  The police chief was simplest to figure. He clearly wanted a free hand with his investigation, and he didn’t want to tell her anything he didn’t have to. Not that he suspected her—he could hardly believe that a five-year-old child would be involved in her mother’s disappearance.

  But her father was another matter. Didn’t the police automatically suspect the spouse when a woman disappeared?

  Or died. She forced herself to finish that thought.

  “Ms. Angelo, I hate to see you do that.” The police chief sounded as harassed at the thought of her staying as she expected him to. “You’ll just be kicking your heels around here to no purpose. It’s hardly likely that we can find anything else out about what happened after all these years.”

  “You found the suitcase,” she pointed out.

  “Link did.” Chief Byler shot a look at the other man. “If he hadn’t been renovating the house, we wouldn’t have known anything about it.”

  “But you have to investigate.” A thought struck her with the force of a blow. “You must have investigated then. Well, I mean not you personally.” He was far too young for that, probably not much more than in his early thirties. “But the police must have.”

  She’d never known. She could only wonder at herself. A child accepted what she was told by the authority figures in her life, of course. But later, when she’d wanted to understand, it hadn’t occurred to her to ask her father what the police had thought.

  “True, they did.” Adam Byler leaned against the rough table, seeming to resign himself to the questions. “I’ve looked into the reports, talked to officers who were working then.”

  “And what did they say?” Was she going to have to drag information from the man? Ordinarily she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to confront him, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances.

  She couldn’t read anything in his square, impassive face. She suspected he was trying to decide what and how much to tell her.

  As for Link Morgan—well, he’d backed away, as if trying to disassociate himself from the whole business. He probably regretted that he hadn’t thrown the suitcase on the trash heap without opening it.

  “People noticed that your mother wasn’t around any longer,” Byler said. “Your father said she’d left him. That she hadn’t been able to go on living English and she’d gone back to her people in Indiana. For the most part, the police accepted that.”

  Byler’s lips clamped shut on the words. Was the implication that he wouldn’t have?

  “You know that your mother was Amish?” Link Morgan asked the question with a kind of reluctant concern in his voice.

  She nodded. That she did know, but only because she’d pried it out of her grandmother, who was easier to talk to than her father. “I know. And my father said she’d gone back to her family because that was what he thought she’d done.”

  A shiver skittered along her nerves. She believed that. She had to.

  “My grandmother said my mother had talked about going back to her family,” she went on. “Grandma said my mother found it hard to give up her people and her faith the way she had.”

  But how could she leave me behind? The child who lived inside her asked the question she couldn’t.

  “You might want to see what else is in the suitcase,” Link suggested.

  She shot a look at him. That fine-drawn face, with the skin taut against the bones—she still had the urge to draw it every time she looked at him. What made him look that way? Illness? Grief? Guilt?

  Slowly she lifted out folded clothing. Her fingers hesitated when they touched the black garment. Then she lifted it, shook it out.

  “It’s the kind of apron an Amish woman wears. And there’s the prayer covering they always have on their heads.” He nodded toward the object in the bottom of the case, not moving.

  She picked it up, her fingers tingling a little. White organdy, a kind of small hat with long strings. She’d seen pictures of Amish women, looking almost like nuns in their dark dresses and identical hair styles, with the white covering on their heads. She’d taken a book out of the school library, she remembered, and hidden it under the mattress so Daddy wouldn’t see.

  “That would seem to confirm that she was planning to leave,” Chief Byler said. “As to how that suitcase ended up here, and where she went—we’re as much in the dark as we were twenty-three years ago.”

  For her father’s sake, she had to ask the question. “Is this a criminal investigation?”

  Byler’s expression didn’t change, but Link Morgan’s mouth tightened, as if in pain.

  “Not at this time,” Byler said. “For all we know, your mother did disappear back into an Amish community somewhere. That’s possible, even in this age of instant communication. If so, and if she doesn’t want to be found, the Amish would never give her up.”

  “I know.” Her thoughts flickered to her own futile effort to find out something from her mother’s relatives in Indiana. “So, if it’s not a criminal investigation, will you do anything?” She didn’t mean that to sound critical, but she had to understand.

  “We’ll pursue the leads we have.” That sounded final, and the police chief closed the suitcase and lifted it from the table. “If you’re intent on staying, please let my office know how to reach you. We’ll contact you if we find anything.”

  She nodded, watching him walk to the door. He hadn’t sounded particularly hopeful.

&n
bsp; He turned at the door, hand on the screen. “Don’t forget, Ms. Angelo. Let us know as soon as you hear from your father. We’d like to speak with him.” He didn’t wait for a response.

  Her stomach tightened in apprehension as she watched him walk toward the patrol car. The fact that the police would suspect her father hadn’t occurred to her when she’d rushed off in response to the phone call.

  “He thinks my father had something to do with this, doesn’t he?” The moment she asked the question, she regretted it. Link obviously didn’t want to be involved in her troubles, and she certainly had no reason to confide in him.

  “Adam is a fair-minded person. He wouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

  “But the husband is always a suspect. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not thinking anything.” His tone was cool and dismissive. “I’m sorry for your—” he hesitated, and she suspected he’d been about to say her loss “—your situation, but it’s nothing to do with me.”

  “You found the suitcase. It’s your uncle’s house. You have a responsibility—”

  “I don’t have any responsibility at all.” The words came quick and angry. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  He’d walk away, she thought, except that it was his house, which meant she was the one who had to walk away. Marisa took a deep breath and realized she was trembling. Confrontation definitely wasn’t her strong suit.

  “I see.” She managed to keep her voice calm. “Thank you for your trouble.”

  She turned and walked to the door. She’d come here looking for answers, but it seemed all she’d found were more questions.

  LINK SCOWLED AT THE high-school photos that still adorned the wall of the room that had been his as a kid and yanked open a drawer to find a clean shirt. Mom wouldn’t hear of his being on his own when they’d finally released him from the military hospital, of course, and he’d been too weak to argue the point. But looking at the remnants of the life he used to live wasn’t doing a thing for his morale.