by Dianne Drake
Angela rushed forward to give Sarah a big hug. “You tell your Aunt Dinah that your mommy is just fine.” She gave her daughter a kiss then looked up at her sister. “Just fine.”
“Just fine, and all alone.” Dinah twisted her mouth into a half-smile then backed away. “If that’s what you want, what you really want, I won’t say another word about it. Except…” She patted her flat belly. “Wouldn’t you like to have another one of these some time?”
“What?”
Dinah arched her eyebrows, smiled fully. “You know what!”
It took a moment to sink in, but when it did Angela grabbed her sister into a hug so tight that Sarah protested. “When did you find out?”
“Did the home test this morning.”
“And Eric?”
“Walking a couple feet off the ground. We’re not telling the girls until much later, not really mentioning it to anyone outside immediate family because it’s nice, having this feeling between the two of us, something special. Of course, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Except that you got cheated the first time, Angela, going through it with, or as it turned out without, Brad. Because doing this with Eric is like…” She smiled again. “I don’t even know how to describe it. Except to say that I want this for you, too. You deserve it. You deserve to feel good for no other reason than some wonderful man adores you. And I think he does.”
Angela laid her hand on her sister’s belly. Kept it there for a moment. Felt the tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m happy for you. So happy…”
“I know you are. But I want you to be happy for you, too. Look, I’m late and I’m sure the twins are getting impatient.” She leaned over, kissed her sister on the cheek. “High tea’s at three. Stop by if you can.”
Angela gave Sarah one more kiss then shooed the duo out the door. But when she shut the door behind them, everything felt so lonely, so empty. And it wasn’t just the emptiness of the lodge suite bothering her. It was the emptiness inside her. Completely, totally inside her.
CHAPTER TEN
“WHO’S that?” Angela asked Emoline Putters. She was referring to the woman, who was pacing back and forth, like a nervous cat, through the lodge lobby.
“Her name’s Karen Landry. She’s asking for Dr. Anderson. More like demanding his presence.”
“Did she say what for?”
Emoline shook her head. “Said she needs him right away. Won’t talk to anybody else.”
Angela chuckled. “The word is stat.”
“I think the word is nuisance, but that’s just my opinion. Anyway, his cell phone is off. I think he’s in a session with one of the children right now, and I’m not inclined to interrupt him.”
“Then don’t. I’ll take care of her myself.”
“From the look of it, she’s not going to be happy about that.”
“What she’s not going to be is standing in the lobby much longer. Until this lodge opens for business, this is a private venue and I don’t want any unauthorized people here.” Bracing for what she feared wasn’t going to be pleasant, judging from the look on Karen Landry’s face, Angela marched straight up to the woman. “May I help you?”
Karen reared back, like she was preparing to leap and fight. “I told that woman I need to see Dr. Anderson.”
“Dr. Anderson isn’t available. And he won’t be for the rest of the morning.”
“It’s an emergency. He has to be the one. He’ll understand.”
Angela pulled her cell phone from her pocket and held it out to Karen. “If it’s a medical emergency, call the hospital. Someone there will understand, too. The number is—”
“I can’t!” she screamed. “Don’t you people understand? I have a…a situation that needs Dr Anderson, and I demand to see him. Now!”
Two of the camp children strolling though the lobby stopped to listen, and Emoline moved them away.
“What’s your situation?” Angela asked, not sure what to make of this. “Explain it to me, and I’ll see what I can do to get Dr. Anderson down here.”
Karen considered that option for a moment then gave in with an impatient huff. “It’s Aimee. My daughter. I…I dropped her off here last night. Told her to come in and sit down in the lobby and when someone asked her what she was doing to tell them she was waiting for Dr. Anderson. That’s all the child was supposed to do. Sit, wait and ask for Dr. Anderson.”
Angela’s stomach turned over. This wasn’t making any sense. “Emoline,” she called. “Get Mark.” She took a deep breath. “Your little girl…what time did you drop her off?”
“Around seven. And like I said, she knew what she was supposed to do. Which is why I can’t understand what happened.”
Dear God, no one had reported seeing the child. “Let me get this straight. You left her here. And I’m assuming you didn’t come back to get her, which is why you’re here now?”
Karen shook her head. “I wasn’t worried, because I knew she’d be safe here. Dr. Anderson told me this was a camp for children. But this morning, when no one had called me…” She frowned, shut her eyes for a moment, rubbed her forehead. “Did you lose her?”
“How old is your daughter?”
“Five.”
“She’s five and she’s been missing since seven last night?” That was fourteen hours! “And you’re only now starting to look for her?”
“Well, I don’t know if it was that long. After all, she was here, in the lodge. Surely somebody would have looked after her. That’s what you do here, isn’t it? Look after children?”
“What’s going on?” Mark demanded, running into the lobby.
“Dr. Anderson…” Karen started, practically falling into his arms. “My poor Aimee…that woman lost her.” She glared at Angela.
He moved Karen back firmly. Looked at Angela. “What the hell is she talking about?”
“This woman claims she dropped Aimee off here last night to see you. And she hasn’t heard from her since.”
“You what?” The ice in his voice sent chills down Angela’s spine.
Karen started to cry. “I knew you would call me to come get her. Or bring her home yourself. So I just thought…”
He turned his back on her. Focused on Angela. “Has anybody seen Aimee?”
“I’m making calls to everybody here,” Emoline cried out over the commotion. “So far nobody remembers seeing her anywhere.”
A lost child…five years old. It was all pounding in Angela’s brain. “Are you sure she’s here, Karen?” Angela managed to keep her voice calm. “Or are you making this up for attention?” She looked at Mark for clarification.
“I think she’d do it,” he said.
“Do what?” Karen screeched. “Intentionally harm my daughter?”
Angela and Mark ignored the still crying woman. “We don’t have enough people here to search the lodge, let alone start looking outside,” Mark said, “and we can’t leave the other children unattended while we look for Aimee.”
Angela held up her cell phone, nodded. “Dinah,” she said when her sister answered. “Tell Eric we have an emergency up at the lodge. We need all the search and rescue volunteers we can get. It’s a missing child.” No more was said. Angela clicked off. Swallowed hard. “So, in the meantime—”
“I’m going to start with the first floor,” Mark said. He looked around. Shut his eyes for a moment. Turned in a slow circle.
Angela was fascinated by what she was watching. Didn’t know what it was exactly. But Mark was in the moment, and she didn’t want to interrupt whatever process he was going through. So she stayed back, held her breath, and observed, while Karen Landry sat in one of the chairs weeping and Emoline was on the phone, calling in every available volunteer she could think of.
“She wouldn’t have gone beyond the first floor. Aimee’s shy. Very small for her age. Not outgoing,” Mark said. “She couldn’t have used the stairs because I don’t think she could have pushed the bar to open the stairwell doors unless
she had help, or someone accidentally left one of the doors ajar. And I’m not sure she could have reached the elevator button without something like a pen or pencil. And she’s not a devious little girl, so I don’t think she would have thought of those things.” He glared at Karen. “Unless instructed to.”
She looked up at him, started to speak, but he waved her off with an angry flick of the wrist.
“Then we’ll start down here. I’ll take the west wing, you take the east,” Angela said. “And when people start arriving, we’ll have them spread out and search the other floors if we haven’t found her by then.” On her way past the front desk, she stopped next to Emoline. “Make sure every child is watched. This is going to disrupt everything, and I don’t want them getting mixed up in it and wandering off or trying to join the search. When Eric gets here, call me. And…” She lowered her voice. “Go ahead and call the police. After we do find Aimee, we can’t let her go home with her mother. The authorities are going to have to straighten this out.”
Emoline nodded, sending a very wary glance in Karen’s direction. “You just do what you need to do.” She gave Angela’s arm a squeeze. “I’ll take care of things here.”
“I don’t divide my teams,” Mark said, grabbing Angela by the arm. “In any rescue effort, we go in pairs. Safety in numbers, even when we’re searching a lodge.”
Angela didn’t argue. She simply ran shoulder to shoulder alongside Mark to the farthest point in the east wing, which was still under construction and shut off by temporary construction doors. Locked. “She couldn’t have gotten in there,” Angela said, trying to open the doors, which wouldn’t budge. She tried jiggling the padlock, but it was locked tight.
“Never underestimate the determination of a child who’s either trying to hide or running away. I’ve found them hiding in places you’d never think to look, places that looked impossible to access. If Karen put her up to this, there’s no telling where she could be, or how she got there.”
“Do you think she did? I mean, do you think Karen actually came in here and hid her daughter somewhere? Or told her to hide?”
He stopped for a moment. “I’m not ruling it out. I see Aimee in the emergency room on a regular basis, and there’s never anything wrong with her, yet Karen keeps bringing her back.”
“Never anything wrong with her yet,” Angela stated. “I’ve read about Münchausen by proxy syndrome.” Where a care-giver made up symptoms or even created medical symptoms in the person for whom they cared, in order to seek attention.
Mark arched his eyebrows in surprise. “Very good. Karen doesn’t quite fit the profile, but she’s very close… Unfortunately, ethically, there was nothing I could do except watch, and note the behavior.” He fumbled with the key set until he found the master that let them through the construction doors then they stepped into the cavernous banquet room together. The room was chilly, several degrees cooler than the hallway outside. And even though sunlight was filtering in through the brown paper that was taped over all the windows while the walls were being painted, it was still dark. Eerie. Hollow.
“So, what happens to Aimee once we find her?” she whispered. “Because she can’t go back to her mother now that she’s done this.”
“It doesn’t always turn out that way,” he warned her.
“You’re talking about finding her?”
“We always go out expecting the best, but the reality is that sometimes the worst happens. And you’ve got to brace yourself for it, Angela.”
“Can you ever get used to it?”
“No. And to be good in rescue, you shouldn’t.”
“Well, I’m only going to think the best. We’re going to find Aimee, she’s going to be fine, and we’re going to ensure that she will be looked after properly in future.”
He put his arm around her shoulder then pulled her into a hug. “I love your optimism,” he whispered close to her ear. “And that’s just the first thing on my list.”
“You have a list?” she asked, reluctantly stepping out of his embrace.
“A very nice list that’s growing all the time.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Will you ever let me see that list?”
“Maybe.” He pulled his penlight from his pocket to take a good look around the room. Unfortunately, the small beam didn’t give much light. “Aimee,” he called, but not so loud it would frighten her. “It’s Dr. Mark. Are you in here, Aimee?”
They checked the room, found nothing, and moved on through the back hall to the main kitchen area, where again they found nothing. On the way back down toward the main lobby, Emoline appeared with a very frightened Scotty Baxter in tow. “He wanted to talk to you,” she said, then stepped away.
“Scotty?” Angela said, not sure what this was about.
“I can’t find her,” he said, on the verge of tears.
“Who?” Mark asked.
“That girl. The one everybody’s looking for. I wanted to help find her, but she’s not there now.”
“Where?”
“Hiding behind the chair. That’s where she was.”
“When, Scotty?” Angela knelt down beside him. “Her name is Aimee. When did you see her?”
“Last night. She was hungry, and I gave her some…some cookies. But I didn’t eat them. They were some my mom had in her office, but I only gave them to that girl. I didn’t eat any. Then I went back to my room.”
Angela made a mental note that while the lodge was a nice facility, it was too large. Too many places for the children to roam. They needed something more contained next time. If a next time happened. With one lost child in the balance, she wasn’t sure about anything. “Did you see her after you gave her the cookies?”
He nodded. “When I looked out my window.”
“This morning?”
“No. After I was suppose to be in bed. I was hungry, and I…” Tears slid down his cheek. “I didn’t eat anything bad. Just my raw veggies, like you told me to.”
Angela pulled him into her arms and hugged him. “You did a very good job, Scotty. I’m proud of you. So, do you know where she was going?”
“Home. She said she wanted to go home.”
Angela looked up at Mark. “Where would that be?”
“I think Karen lives around on the back of the Middle Sister.”
“Then let’s hope the Indian lore holds true and the Three Sisters are protecting everybody within their shadows, because that’s a long way, and I’m not sure a five-year-old would even know which direction to go.” She looked at Scotty. “You’ve done a very brave thing here, trying to help us, Scotty. Did you happen to see which way she went?”
“To the back parking lot, I think.”
“Good job. Now, we’re going to take you back to the other children, and I want you to stay with them. Don’t wander off again. Promise?”
His headed bobbed up and down, but he didn’t speak. The thing about Scotty was that he lived in this lodge. This was his home. He knew it like none of the other children did, and if he said he’d seen Aimee heading to the back parking lot, she believed him.
Mark took Scotty by the hand and led him back to Emoline, while Angela took a call from Eric, who reported that he had thirty volunteers on his way up to the lodge and that Neil was prepping the mountain team to go out. She let him know that Aimee had, most likely, left the lodge last night. After she’d hung up, all she could think about was Aimee… Was she dressed warmly enough? Was she scared to death out there all by herself? Was she still alive? That was the thought she didn’t want creeping in, but she couldn’t keep it out. Reality check. She was beginning to see this situation the way Mark did, beginning to realize all the various options for outcomes, good and bad. Beginning, truly, to understand his world and how the tragedies could break his heart.
Impulsively, she called Dinah. She needed that connection with Sarah, even if only over the phone.
“She’s right here in my lap,” Dinah said.
“Can I talk t
o her?” Angela waited for a moment then said, “Mama loves you, Sarah.” Feeling so much better knowing that Sarah was on the other end of the phone, and feeling sad that Mark didn’t have that kind of an anchor in his life, she made an exaggerated kissing sound. “That’s for your left cheek, and this one’s for your right…”
On his way back through the hall, Mark heard the kissing sounds. Listened to Angela talk to her daughter. It was an amazing thing to behold. More than that, Angela was amazing. A woman who deserved…everything. For a moment he felt guilty about accusing her of hiding behind her ambitions. She wasn’t hiding behind them. She was embracing them, living life to the fullest, taking everything she could take from it. While he was contented to…to what?
Actually, he wasn’t sure, because nothing contented him anymore. Nothing, except being with Angela. Another thing on his growing list of things he loved about her—the way he felt when he was with her. “I think we need to move on. Gear up to go outside.”
“I don’t do that…the mountain rescue,” she said. “I’m not part of the team, and I don’t want to get in the way. For the first time, Mark, I really do understand.”
“But I want you with me.” He smiled, held out his hand to her.
“Are you sure?”
Mark pulled Angela roughly to his chest. “I didn’t intend on meeting you in White Elk. Or anywhere else, for that matter. And it bothers the hell out of me that I did. But, yes, I do want you. So, ten minutes. We may be out there for a while, so dress appropriately.”
