Flashback

by Gayle Wilson

  Eden stopped again, and Jake waited through the silence, knowing now where this was leading. Even to the quilt and the doll.

  And then, after a long time, she went on, hurrying now, as if she just wanted the telling to be over. “But she wasn’t downstairs. Mama and Daddy were still asleep. Just worn out, he always said. And none of us had heard a thing. I was in the same room with her, and I never heard a sound.

  “Somebody had taken my sister. They wrapped her in the quilt my grandmother had made for her christening. And they put that baby doll in her place. And we never saw her again.”

  The painful narrative seemed to have ground to a halt. Jake wasn’t sure what to say. Or what to ask.

  She had wanted to tell him this, so he could offer a rational explanation for why, during another kidnapping years later, motifs from her sister’s kidnapping were being repeated. But he had no explanation. Not one that made any kind of sense.

  “Are you saying that was your sister’s quilt? The one in the truck?”

  “It wasn’t. It was machine-made. New. But…it looked almost the same. And I don’t understand how anyone could have known that.”

  “How it looked?”

  “That there even was a quilt. Or a kidnapping. My daddy never talked about her. I didn’t. When we left Ohio, we came here to get away from those memories. We never told anybody here what had happened.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.” She’d been a child. She wouldn’t have been privy to everything her parents did or said. “What about your mother? Women find comfort in talking about tragedies.”

  He sounded like some psychology text. Where did he get off telling her what women found comfort in?

  “My mother didn’t. Maybe if she had… She never got over losing Christie. She kept thinking that one day she’d come home. They wrapped her in her quilt, she’d say, so she wouldn’t be cold. Surely that means they’re taking good care of her. Everybody commented on the fact that she was being so brave. That she never lost hope. And then one night she took my father’s service revolver and put it to her temple and pulled the trigger.”

  The quiet words were more chilling somehow because there was so little emotion in them. First she had lost her sister. And then her mother. How did someone survive something like that and emerge on the other side sane and whole?

  “Daddy blamed himself for that, too,” she added softly.

  “Too?”

  “He blamed himself for losing Christie. He was her father. He was supposed to protect her. I knew exactly what Ray Nolan was feeling Monday morning. I could see it in his eyes. The same look that was in my father’s until the day he died.”

  Jake couldn’t think of anything to say to that, but the silence that followed became unbearable, so that he asked the question he’d wondered about since he’d met Eden Reddick. “Is that why you went into law enforcement? To keep that from happening to another family?”

  She looked up from her concentration on the rim of her cup to answer him. “If it was, it doesn’t seem as if my career path has been particularly successful.”

  “I told you. I don’t know what else you could be doing. Or what else anyone could do.”

  “Forgive me, but right now—and as long as Raine’s missing—that’s cold comfort.”

  “You think her disappearance is connected to your sister’s?”

  She shook her head. “Another kidnapping twenty years later? I wouldn’t think so.”

  “What’s to say he hasn’t done this a dozen times since he took your sister? In a dozen other places.”

  “You ask if my sister was the reason I went into law enforcement. She wasn’t. But…I think that was my father’s motivation. He saw it as a way to get information. To see if there were similar cases out there. Although he tried to find those from the first time he pinned on his badge, that kind of search has gotten a lot easier for law enforcement in the last ten or fifteen years. Before my father died, he had access to most of the national crime databases. The public search engines. The files of every major newspaper. And believe me, he took advantage of all of them.”

  “Are you saying he didn’t find any other kidnapping like your sister’s?” Jake found it hard to believe that. He could think of a couple that had gotten coverage on the major networks that were enough alike to make anyone suspicious.

  “A few with enough elements in common to make him contact the agencies in charge. But there was always something about each of them that made him believe it couldn’t be the same guy who’d taken Christie. And if there was a suspect in custody, he’d go through channels to get permission to speak to them. Most of the time, departments will arrange that as a courtesy to officers with open cases if they can. The fact that his daughter was the victim may have made them more accommodating. But no matter how hopeful he was going into those situations, he’d always come home and say the same thing. “‘Not this time, Edie. But he’s out there. I know he’s out there.’”

  “You think he really believed that?”

  “That her kidnapper was still alive somewhere?”

  “That none of the others were the work of the same guy.”

  “I think…” Her finger began its slow journey again. “I think he never gave up hope of finding her. All those other cases…” Her voice rose on the last word. “None of those little girls survived. Not for more than a few days.” She looked up to meet his eyes once more. “To my father, that meant their kidnapper couldn’t have been the same person who took Christie, because that meant Christie was no longer alive.”

  “And you don’t believe her kidnapper took Raine, either. Then why the quilt and the doll?”

  “I think those were directed at me.”

  “Why?”

  “Some kind of sadistic mind game. Maybe to bring it all back. To interfere with the investigation. I don’t know.”

  “How would they know to do that? You said your father never talked about what happened to your sister.”

  “Not here. Not in town. But he did talk. To the FBI. To cold-case divisions all over the country. To law-enforcement agencies that were involved in any case that had something in common with Christie’s.”

  “And you think one of those people is pulling these Halloween pranks?”

  “Is that what you think they are? Pranks?”

  “There aren’t all that many options.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Somebody’s trying to rattle you, using objects associated with your sister’s disappearance. What are your choices as to who’s doing it? Her kidnapper? Raine’s kidnapper? Someone connected to neither? Or someone connected to both?”

  “I don’t understand. Who could be connected to both?”

  “You for one.”

  Her eyes widened. “I didn’t—”

  “I know. I didn’t mean that you had anything to do with what’s going on. But the possibility exists that you aren’t the only one with ties to both cases. The possibility also exists that someone is using your sister’s disappearance to interfere with your investigation of Raine’s. Maybe they’re trying to make you believe there’s a connection when there isn’t.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Just what I said. To interfere with what you’re trying to do.”

  “I’m trying to find Raine,” she said softly. “And the only person who should want to interfere with that—”

  “Would be whoever has taken her,” he finished for her.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I never got around to making you that sandwich I promised.”

  Eden had walked him to the front door, although she seemed almost reluctant for him to leave. Remembering that she’d carried her weapon when she let him in, Jake wondered if she was nervous about being in the house alone.

  Not that he was going to volunteer to spend the night. It had been temptation enough sitting across the table from her the past hour.

  “You want me to check the house before I leave?�
� he offered.

  “Whoever was here is long gone. I’ll be fine.”

  He started to tell her to call him if she was afraid, but that was another bad idea. Despite the anger he’d felt toward Eden this afternoon, she was the first woman he’d been attracted to in a very long time. Hell, she was the first woman he’d been around in a long time.

  Maybe the strongly sexual pull he felt right now had something to do with the vulnerability that talking about her sister’s kidnapping had revealed, but there was no denying Eden Reddick was a very beautiful woman. And the fact that she seemed determined not to let the home invasion spook her only increased his admiration.

  “Even so,” he said, “lock up when I leave.”

  “Unlike most of Waverly, I always do,” she assured him, as she opened the door to see him out.

  A car was turning into her drive, its headlights illuminating the back of Jake’s truck, parked out on the street. They watched together as Eden’s deputy chief got out from behind the wheel and started up the sidewalk.

  “What’s wrong?” Eden called.

  Jake could feel her tension. Apparently, her second-in-command didn’t customarily come calling at night. A situation in which Jake took an unwarranted satisfaction.

  “One of the teams found something you’ll want to see,” Partlow said, as he climbed the steps. He nodded to Jake, his eyes full of speculation, before he turned back to Eden. “Everything all right here?”

  “It’s not Raine, is it?” Eden asked, instead of answering his question. “Is she dead?”

  “I’d have told you if she was. This is…” Partlow looked at Jake again. “We think it may be where he kept her.”

  “Underground,” Jake guessed, knowing that it would pain the deputy to be forced to admit that. “Some kind of bunker.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t gloat too much about being right,” Partlow warned. “Folks around here are already convinced you know a little too much about all this.”

  “Where?” Eden demanded, cutting through the exchange.

  “Out on Diggstown Road. Some of Gulf State Paper’s property.”

  “What does that mean?” Jake asked.

  “Paper companies own a lot of the land down here. Some they grant public access to for hunting or fishing. Some they don’t,” the deputy explained. “That doesn’t mean people don’t do those things on the property.”

  “It isn’t guarded,” Eden added. “Most of the time there aren’t even gates on the roads through it, although they’re marked private.”

  “So you’re saying that anybody could have gotten out there?” Jake asked.

  “Anybody who was aware of all those things,” Partlow agreed.

  “And that would be almost everybody who’d ever lived around here.”

  The flatness of Eden’s voice verified what Jake had already figured out. This bunker, or whatever it was, wasn’t going to be the breakthrough they’d been hoping for. Nothing that would narrow down their search for the Nolan child’s kidnapper beyond the few thousand or so residents of the town.

  “I’d like to see it.” Jake looked to Eden for permission. Despite the deputy’s description, he wasn’t sure if this was the place he’d seen in that first flashback, or whether it was what to him had seemed a more permanent structure in the later one.

  “Crime scene,” Partlow declared. “We’re keeping the public away, so as not to contaminate whatever evidence might be out there.”

  Ignoring that authoritative directive, Jake made his appeal to Eden. “I can tell you if this is the place he took her first. That might be helpful information to have further into the investigation.”

  “Chief, we don’t have time for this right now. We got a crime scene and the possibility of finding something that might lead us to whoever took that little girl.”

  “I think I’d like to know.” Eden’s voice was decisive. Despite her bathrobe and bare feet, she, at least, seemed to have no doubt who was in charge. “Major Underwood’s right. It might be helpful at some point to know which this is.”

  “Information based on his visions. Is that what you’re saying, Chief?”

  “I’m saying that I think it’s a good idea if Major Underwood rides along. I’d like to have his impressions of what they found out there. It won’t take me a minute to throw some clothes on. We’ll take my car and follow you.”

  It was as neat a dismissal as Jake had ever seen. She denied the deputy’s arguments without ignoring his concerns. And Partlow’s resentment of her exertion of authority was apparent in every step he took on the way back to the police cruiser.

  “Thanks,” Jake said, when Dean was out of earshot. “I don’t think your deputy was happy with your decision.”

  “Dean?” Eden seemed surprised. “I don’t know why he should care if you come. Once the evidence techs get through out there, everybody and his brother is going to show up to sightsee. And by morning, when the media finds out, it’ll be nothing short of a sideshow.”

  JAKE HADN’T SAID much since they’d arrived at the scene. Intent on examining every part of the hole that had been tunneled out of the Mississippi clay, Eden hadn’t even noticed when he’d disappeared back up the primitive wooden ladder that allowed access to the earthen cavity. When she had asked Dean where he’d gone, the deputy had shrugged, but the grin on his face had told her he had his own ideas about that.

  As soon as she emerged from the bunker, she spotted Jake standing apart from the crowd of deputies and agents who had gathered, despite the lateness of the hour. Fielding questions and comments as she walked, Eden approached him, aware that their meeting would be watched with interest by the assembly.

  “What do you think?”

  “She was here.”

  “You’re sure.”

  He nodded, the gray eyes bleak.

  “Is this where he brought her first?” There wasn’t much doubt in her mind of that, based on the description he’d given of exposed roots and dripping water. Anyone who had listened to Jake that first day couldn’t fail to see the similarities.

  Something about his stillness bothered her. Was he again sensing the child’s terror? Or was there something else going on? Something Jake felt, but didn’t want to articulate?

  “What’s wrong?” She deliberately kept her voice low, so it wouldn’t carry to those who were pretending not to listen.

  “He had to have spent a lot of time out here. Getting that ready.”

  She nodded, unsure where he was going with this.

  “Yet I haven’t seen him in any of the flashbacks. I think she heard him in the second one, but…” He shook his head, his eyes still empty.

  “You’ve thought from the first that your connection was with her.”

  “A time and place.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what a flashback is. A particular time and place. So why isn’t he ever here?”

  She had no answer for that. She wasn’t even sure she understood what he was getting at.

  Before she had time to formulate a response, out of the corner of her eye she caught someone moving purposefully through the crowd gathered around the entrance to the bunker. Someone not wearing a uniform.

  As she turned to identify that person, Ray Nolan was approaching Dean. Although Eden was too far away to hear what they said, there was no doubt from his downward gesture what Raine’s father wanted. Dean seemed to argue briefly, but eventually Ray got his way, disappearing into the bunker where, at least briefly, his daughter had apparently been hidden.

  “I probably need to be over there when he comes up,” she said to Jake.

  Although he nodded agreement, she was still bothered enough by his uncharacteristic behavior to ask, “Is there something else you think we ought to be doing about this?”

  “You? No.”

  There wasn’t time for anything else, because Ray was emerging from the bunker. He made a beeline for where she and Jake were standing. Eden walked forward to meet him,
unsure how he would react to Underwood being here.

  “Is this it?” Ray asked, as he approached. “Is this the place he described to you?”

  It was obvious he was upset, but she still wasn’t sure whether that was from seeing where the kidnapper had held Raine, or because they’d allowed Jake to be present at the scene. Just to be sure it wasn’t the latter, she tried to step between Ray and the ex-soldier, but Nolan pushed her aside.

  “They may be gullible enough to believe you knew about this from some kind of vision, but I’m not. Where the hell is my daughter, you bastard?”

  Anger overcoming his control, Ray lunged at Jake. Eden attempted to step between them again. Once more, Raine’s father shoved her, hard enough this time to slam her into a nearby pine.

  Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, she tried to get her hand around Ray’s arm to restrain him. Jake’s move was more effective. He took Nolan’s outstretched wrist and used it to spin the man around, pinning his arm high behind his back.

  Then, the movement almost faster than she could follow, Jake’s other forearm snaked around Ray’s neck, forcing the smaller man’s head back against his shoulder. Nolan struggled briefly against the hold, but the ex-soldier jacked his arm higher, easily controlling him with the very real threat of a dislocated shoulder.

  “You ever hit a woman again, and I’ll come after you,” Jake ground out. “You hear me?”

  When the man he held refused to answer, he tightened the pressure until Raine’s father cried out. “You understand?” Jake demanded again.

  Ray nodded, unable to prevent an accompanying whimper of pain. Taking that for agreement, apparently, Jake released him, pushing him forward so violently that he almost fell.

  “I don’t give a damn whether you believe me or not. I saw a little girl in one of my flashbacks. She was in a place that looked like that hole down there. That’s what I told the police. And that’s the sum total of what I know about your daughter.”