by Sarah Wynde
Gently, Natalya said, “You can stay where you are if you want or you can come back and finish your granola.” She pushed herself up, off the floor, tugging her robe back around her. “Or maybe have something else to eat, some fruit? Or eggs if you like eggs?”
Kenzi stayed motionless in the corner, so Natalya added, “All right, I’m going to get my breakfast. You come whenever you’re ready.”
As she headed back to the kitchen, she frowned with worry. She didn’t feel qualified to analyze a troubled child. But why was Kenzi so frightened? Grace hadn’t scared her. She’d been eating breakfast quite peacefully. Could it have been the crash of the glass? But why had she come back and then run away again?
Grace was almost finished cleaning the floor, wiping a damp paper towel across it in wide swathes. “Everything okay?”
Natalya grabbed her mug of coffee and took a cautious sip, then a larger swallow. “I wish I knew.”
Grace tossed the towel into the trash and sat down at the table. “Talk,” she ordered. “What’s going on?”
Kenzi’s bowl was in front of the chair Natalya usually sat in, so with a sigh, Natalya slipped into the corner seat, back to the window. “Last night was the night I found Colin.”
Grace looked blank for a moment and then understanding and immediate sympathy darkened her eyes. She started to rise, reaching out to her sister, saying, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry—”
Natalya waved her off before Grace could finish. “No, no, it didn’t—he didn’t—it went wrong. Or right. Or—I don’t know. I’m so confused.”
Grace sank back down in her seat. “You saved him?”
“No.” Natalya shook her head. She stared down at the black surface of her coffee. “No,” she repeated more quietly.
“Well, Nat, damn it, you should have called. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.” Grace was on her feet again. She reached across the table to put a hand on Natalya’s shoulder. “We would all have come, you know that. Did you let Lucas know? He’ll want to fly back from North Carolina today.”
“No, no,” Natalya protested again, putting her hand up and over her sister’s. “I’m sorry. I’m not explaining this right. Colin’s fine. He’s alive and well and based on the scan I did, in perfect health. Likely to live for years.”
Grace put her hands on her hips. “Okay, you’re not making any sense at all,” she said bluntly. “Was last night the night Colin died or wasn’t it?”
“Sit.” Natalya waved at Grace’s chair. “Let me tell it my way.”
Obediently, Grace took her seat as Natalya gathered her thoughts. Grace knew about her premonition, of course. The whole family did and probably half the town. Natalya and Colin’s break-up had been the hot topic of gossip in Tassamara for a solid six months, only diminishing with Natalya’s unexpected departure for medical school. So she started with the drive. “It was exactly like I’d seen it.”
She told Grace almost the whole story, skipping only a few details. Like that heated kiss by the side of the road. The rush of desire that filled her in the exam room. The question he’d asked and her angry response. The unimportant stuff.
“Why do I have the feeling you’re not telling me everything?” Grace mused when she’d almost finished.
Natalya could feel a prickle of heat along her cheekbones but she ignored the question. “And my vision is gone.”
“The vision of Colin?” Grace asked, puzzled.
“No, I mean my foresight. It’s gone.”
“Gone, how? Gone like you can’t see anything about Colin any more or gone like—”
“Like I’m blind,” Natalya interrupted her.
“Future blind.” Grace seemed to be turning the idea over in her head and not liking it.
“Actually, it feels more like I’d imagine amnesia feels. There are things I should know, things I used to know, that are just… gone. And I keep reaching for them. Trying to remember. But there’s nothing there.”
“That sounds unpleasant.” Grace’s eyes were worried, her brows drawn down.
“It’s different, anyway.” Natalya forced a chuckle. How many times in her life had she asked for just this? Knowing the future had never felt like a gift to her. She’d become practiced at not thinking about it, at living in the present moment and appreciating where she was while accepting that the future was not hers to control. She hadn’t realized how much she took her foreknowledge for granted. Serenity, it turned out, came easier when you knew exactly how your day would flow.
“So you don’t know anything about the little girl?”
Natalya glanced at the clock on her microwave. Almost ten. “Colin said they’d start a real search at daylight. They’re trying to track her path back through the forest, and the rangers are driving all the back roads, looking for an accident.”
“It’s a big forest.”
“Yeah, but she’s a little girl. She couldn’t have gone too far.”
“And she won’t talk.” Grace’s voice was thoughtful. “Did you see if she could write? What does she do with a pen and paper?”
Natalya felt stupid.
“It was late,” she said. The excuse sounded weak. But the girl had been sleepy and hungry, had needed her scrapes bandaged, a hot shower, clean clothes—Natalya had been so focused on the priorities of the moment that she hadn’t even thought about other methods of communication. Still, given that they knew the girl could talk and wouldn’t, how likely was it she’d be willing to write?
She gulped down the rest of her coffee and stood. Grace had shoved another mug under the dripping filter. It was half-full, so she switched mugs, and took a sip from the fresh one. “Oh, sorry,” she said, realizing she was being rude. “Do you want coffee?”
“Not the way you make it,” Grace answered.
“Snob,” Natalya retorted mildly. “Lighter roast has more caffeine.”
“And less taste. Stop stalling. Do you want to try this or what?”
Natalya leaned against the sink. They should leave the questions to the psychologist Kenzi would surely see within a few hours. But asking if she’d write her name—how could that hurt?
“All right,” she said. Automatically, without even thinking about it, she tried to look into the future, to see the outcome of this choice. Not knowing felt uncomfortable, like an itch she couldn’t reach to scratch. “If she’s willing.”
Setting her coffee cup down on the counter, she crossed to the living room. “Kenzi? Will you come here, please?”
“Kenzi?” Grace asked from behind her.
Natalya shrugged, watching the door to her studio. “I needed something to call her.”
“Isn’t Bo the lost one?”
“Matter of opinion, I guess.” Natalya looked over her shoulder at her sister with a smile until a shuffle of noise drew her attention back to the front rooms. Kenzi stood in the doorway of the studio, looking at her warily.
Natalya’s smile didn’t change. She tilted her head toward the kitchen to let Kenzi know she wanted her to join them, then turned and went back to the kitchen table. Kenzi would either come or not. The choice was up to her. But it was only a few seconds before the little girl appeared at the door.
“Cool,” Grace said cheerfully. She hopped up and rummaged in the junk drawer by Natalya’s phone, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. Crossing to the little girl, she set the pad down on the countertop next to her. “Here,” she said, handing her the pen. “Can you write your name for us?”
Kenzi didn’t refuse to take the pen and she wasn’t running, but she didn’t look eager to cooperate, either. Her eyes flickered from one of them to the other as if she were trapped.
“Hmm.” Grace crossed her arms, looking down on Kenzi speculatively.
“Gently, Grace,” Natalya cautioned her sister softly. They had no idea what sort of trauma this child had experienced. She didn’t want to push.
“How about we negotiate?” Grace said to Kenzi.
A flicker of
doubt creased Kenzi’s forehead.
“A deal,” Grace said. “We’ll make a deal.”
Kenzi licked her lips. Natalya’s curved up in reluctant appreciation. Grace was CEO of the family company. Trust her to think of problems in terms of business.
“Which do you like better, clothes or toys?” Grace asked.
Kenzi blinked at her, her uncertainty obvious.
“Hang on.” Grace stepped past Kenzi and disappeared into the living room. Kenzi glanced at Natalya and Natalya shrugged as Grace returned, smart phone already in hand, head down. “No, not that one,” Grace muttered. “No, no, ick, no. Ah… okay, that’ll do.” She turned the phone around and showed Kenzi the screen. “What do you think?”
Kenzi’s eyes widened. She looked up at Grace.
“You write your name on this piece of paper,” Grace said, pushing the pad closer to the edge of the counter. “And I’ll buy you that doll. I’ll even pay for overnight shipping so you get it tomorrow.”
Kenzi looked torn. Her fingers tightened on the pen in her hand. But she didn’t make any move to write.
“Tough bargainer, eh?” Grace said. “All right, I’ll also buy you a new dress. Pink. With ruffles. And lace. And glitter.” She left a pause between each new addition to the dress’s description.
“What next, wings?” Natalya murmured.
Both Grace and Kenzi glanced toward her, Kenzi’s eyes wide.
“And wings,” Grace said promptly, before adding with what sounded like regret, “although not ones that would let you fly, that’s a bit beyond me. But I’m sure I could find ones that sparkle.”
Kenzi lifted the pen and set its tip on the paper, but she didn’t write.
“Come on, sweetie.” Grace’s voice was gentle. “We need to know your name to help you get home.”
The little girl’s chin went up. Natalya’s eyes narrowed. And then the girl pulled the pad closer to her and with short, sharp, strokes, wrote a few quick letters.
“Ha,” said Grace, watching her write. “Very funny.”
The little girl’s mouth twitched as if she were trying not to smile. Or was it trying not to cry?
Grace’s expression was unreadable, before she looked back at the girl. “That’s what you want to say?”
The girl nodded.
“Nothing else?”
The girl shook her head.
“All right.” Grace looked down at the paper and her shoulders lifted, part shrug, part chuckle. “I’ll buy you the doll anyway.”
“What did she write?” Natalya asked. She’d already guessed it wasn’t a name, but was it something horrifying? Words an abusive parent might have called a stubborn child? Or something milder but resistant, like ‘none of your business’? Only in fewer letters, because she couldn’t have written a whole sentence.
Grace didn’t answer for a moment as she tapped on her phone. Finished, she reached out and placed a gentle hand on the girl’s blonde hair, before saying calmly, “Welcome to the family.”
“Wait, what?” Natalya stood. “That’s not—she’s not—she’s only here for the night, Grace. I have to bring her to the sheriff’s office this morning.”
Grace laughed. Picking up the pad, she turned and tossed it in Natalya’s direction. As it fluttered down to the kitchen table, Grace said, “You obviously can’t come shopping with me because of your little friend here, but I assume you’ll be needing some girl’s clothes? I’d guess a size six, maybe seven? I can take care of that for you.”
“Hang on, what are you—” Natalya reached for the pad as she started to protest. What was Grace talking about? And then she saw what the girl had written on the pad.
KENZI.
Chapter Five
Colin dropped into his office chair, exhaling with relief. Ten minutes alone, that was all he needed. He pulled open his desk drawer and grabbed a candy bar. He should eat a real meal, not sugar, but he didn’t have time. Nat and the girl would be arriving for a handover to the DCF caseworker any minute and he needed a chance to organize his thoughts.
He’d rousted two deputies and a bloodhound out of bed before dawn to trace the girl’s path through the woods. The dog had quickly made it clear that Colin was an idiot. He knew exactly where the girl’s trail ended: at the road where she’d been found. What Colin needed wasn’t a search-and-rescue dog, but the kind of fabled Native American tracker who could follow a broken path through the woods, spotting every indentation or broken leaf. Unfortunately, he didn’t have one.
He and the deputies tramped around for several hours, looking for any evidence of the girl’s passage through the forest, following paths until they disappeared, and then circling around to try again. He’d thought at one point they’d managed to get lost in the pine scrub themselves and wouldn’t that have been embarrassing? The thought of having to call a ranger for help made him cringe. Fortunately, they’d found their way out. But it had been a gigantic waste of time.
Or it would have been if not for the pure pleasure of being out in the forest. The air felt crisper today, colors brighter, smells more intense. Colin had thought it was a weather change, maybe a cold front moving in. But even here, sitting in his barren office, the sensation remained.
As he bit into the chocolate, he found himself admiring the green of the truly ugly office chair on the other side of his desk. How had he never noticed before how closely it matched the olive shades of swamp water? And the coffee that had been sitting on the burner since he’d gotten back here at 4AM smelled nutty and rich and deep, if a little burned.
Life was good. No, life was amazing.
Finishing his candy in two quick bites, he tossed the wrapper into the wastepaper basket and clicked open his pen to start making notes.
Missing person reports? Check. They’d looked at local records, the FBI’s database, and the national NamUS Missing Persons system without finding any cases matching the child’s description. Still, maybe he should have someone start checking neighboring states, just in case. A recent report might not have made it into the national systems yet.
Rangers? Check. He’d had an early morning phone call from Shelby, the deputy district ranger stationed at the nearby springs. She hadn’t found any sign of an accident after a slow drive down the closest back roads, but she would be checking with the campgrounds to see if any campers hadn’t returned to their sites. He hadn’t heard back from her yet, but he was sure she’d call as soon as she knew anything.
Media? No check. But it was an obvious next step. Tassamara was much too small to have any local news outlets, but maybe they could get the word out in nearby towns. If one of the television stations in Orlando or Gainesville put her picture out, surely someone, somewhere, would recognize her. Maybe it would even get picked up nationally.
DNA? Maybe. Would there be any point in testing the girl’s DNA? The lab they used for testing would be backed up over the holiday, because of vacations. If he wanted to get a sample in, he should do so as soon as possible. Did he need to, though?
State police? He hadn’t contacted the highway patrol yet. Should he?
With a sigh, he set down his pen, carefully lining it up on top of his notepad. He was taking the wrong approach, he realized. He needed to look at the facts and see what they added up to, what the possibilities were, before he determined on his own course of action.
Fact number one: a seven-year-old child was found alone, at night, on a road near a national park. The obvious answer was that she’d wandered away from her parents and gotten lost. Simple enough.
But fact number two was that no one had reported her gone. That detail made the situation darker. He hadn't wanted to think about it last night. But as he watched her limping toward Nat's car and saw her clearly in the headlights—the tangled hair, the dirt, the bruises, the bloody feet, the disheveled clothes—he'd known she'd been in the forest for longer than an hour or two. She’d been lost for a while. And if anyone in the vicinity had reported a child missing, he would have
heard about it. Hell, he would have been out searching.
Yes, her condition was fact number three. The surface damage was bad enough but not the whole of it. Maybe she was naturally thin, but maybe the pinched look around her face meant she’d gone hungry for more than a missed meal or two. Maybe her quiet was exhaustion and fear, but maybe it told a deeper story.
He sighed, rubbing a hand across his chin. So… a missing child not reported missing. What did that give him?
Picking up his pen, he wrote:
Parents failed to report
Parents unable to report
Parents don’t know? (Not with her parents?)
As he stared at the paper, wondering what he wasn’t seeing, the phone rang. Leaning forward, he picked it up. “Sheriff’s office.”
“We got nothing.” The skipped greeting revealed Shelby’s concern, though her tone was as laconic as always.
“Nothing?” He could hear his own dismay. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been counting on the rangers to find the girl’s family. His favorite scenario had been a dad on a trail with a sprained ankle, a frantic mom at a campsite with a dead cell phone.
“Nada. Zip. Zilch.”
“How far have you looked?”
“As far as we could, but you know the problem. We’ve got over 200 miles of off-road trails, hundreds of lakes and ponds and springs, fourteen major campgrounds, numerous recreation sites. Even assuming the girl couldn’t have walked any long distance from where you found her, it’s a lot of ground to cover.”
Colin snorted in agreement. He felt as if he’d covered quite a bit of it this morning, but they’d only explored a small area.
“But everyone’s accounted for at the nearest campground,” Shelby continued. “No missing kids have been reported. And no accidents have been found on the closest roads and trails.”
Colin rubbed his chin again. He needed to shave. And he needed to sleep. But neither of those things would happen any time soon. “What about the water?” he asked. “Anyone rent a kayak and not return it?”
