Gone without a Trace

by Patricia Bradley

  “Biscuits or toast?”

  “Biscuits.” He glanced up and met her gaze. A blush spread across his face, and he looked away. “Uh, does anyone ever say anything about Samantha Jo?”

  The skin on her neck prickled. “Who’s Samantha Jo?”

  “She, uh, used to be a waitress here. Then she went to work at Molly’s Diner. And now she’s gone. I just wondered if anyone around here has heard from her.”

  “I haven’t heard her name, but I’ll ask.”

  She moved two tables over to deliver Bobby’s coffee and get his order. He didn’t surprise her, ordering his usual.

  “I heard Jason ask about Samantha Jo.”

  “Like I told him, I don’t know her, but I’ll ask.”

  “He was in love with her, you know, and I think she was kind of sweet on him. For a while there, he quit coming to the grill and ate at Molly’s Diner.” He chuckled. “Only when Samantha Jo was on duty, though.”

  Did Alex and Livy know Jason was in love with the missing waitress? She’d have to check and see. “I’ll get this out as soon as it comes up.” She started to walk away and turned back to Bobby. “Are you a truck driver?”

  “Used to be, but it got too hard on the old back.”

  A few minutes later, as she entered the orders, she felt the sensation that she was being watched again. She scanned the room. Everyone looked normal, and she felt a little foolish. Maybe her brain was playing tricks on her. Or maybe her awareness was just heightened.

  No, she believed with every fiber in her body that someone who frequented this restaurant was her kidnapper, and he was here today, watching her. Maybe not this minute, but he had been. She studied each man who had been a regular thirty months ago. Johnny B was working on his receipts. Jason and Bobby were doing something with their phones. Timothy had come in, and he was staring at her, but in a “wait on me please” sort of way. And there was Mayor Holloway. He was a semi-regular.

  She tried to remember how many of them drove tractor-trailers. But what if it was simply a truck driver who made Johnny B’s a regular stop and not someone who lived here? Tears of frustration burned her eyes. Unless one of them made a move on her, the game was at a dead end.

  Six women had received warnings and then were kidnapped. What did they all have in common? She tried to remember what she’d read in Alex’s reports. Children. They’d all had children. Did Samantha Jo have children? She’d have to ask Alex or Livy. But maybe that was something she should play up. That she had a child she could be with if she didn’t have to work.

  Should she wait until Alex was there? No. Might as well plant the thought now. She smoothed her apron. Time to try her theory out.

  16

  Livy glanced up as Alex slid into the pew beside her at Center Hill Church.

  “Did you hear about the car that went into the lake?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “I heard the driver was okay, but his passenger is missing. They’re dragging the lake.”

  “Do you know if it was anyone local?”

  “Someone said the car had a Tennessee tag.”

  Probably from Memphis. Even though she most likely didn’t know the people, the news weighed heavily on her. The organ began to play softly, and as she settled back in the pew, the blue envelope next to the hymnal reminded her she hadn’t written her check for the offering. She took out her checkbook and dashed one off and tucked it into the envelope like she did every week.

  Her pen hovered over the small boxes on the envelope that she always checked off. Present. Check. Bible brought. Check. Daily prayer time. Maybe a half check. Same for Bible reading. She needed to do better this coming week. As she stood for the first song, her mind wandered from the hymnal. When did she become so OCD about checking things off a list, especially when it came to God? The answer came in the next breath.

  Always.

  If she did her part—follow the rules—God would do his. Livy refocused on the music, but by the time the song ended and she was seated again, more questions intruded. So what happened in the alley? Why didn’t God let her know the Caine boy didn’t have a real gun? Why didn’t he do his part? Whoa. Livy squirmed in her pew. This was wrong. Blaming God was like inviting lightning to strike her. She tried to take the thoughts back, but thoughts were like words. Once out there, they couldn’t be called back but instead unleashed even more questions. Like where was God in the warehouse when she froze? And when she lost her job; although technically she hadn’t lost her job. Yet. She tugged at her scarf. Had someone turned the heat up?

  Alex leaned over. “You okay?”

  The congregation stood for another song, and she grabbed her coat. She didn’t know what was wrong, but the room was so stuffy she had to get out. “I’ll see you after church.”

  She squeezed past him and hurried out the door. Once outside, she stood with her hands on the small porch railing and inhaled the cold, fresh air as the February sun bathed her face. She had no explanation for the panic that had just happened. None. The door opened again and she sensed Alex beside her. “I’ll ask you again. Are you okay?”

  Livy shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She cut her gaze to him and again shook her head. How could she explain something she didn’t understand?

  He glanced down at her booted feet and took her hand. “Feel up to a walk?”

  She didn’t want to go back inside the church, so with her hand in his, she followed him down the steps to the sidewalk beside the street. They walked for five minutes in the fifty-degree weather with neither speaking. Livy measured her steps so she wouldn’t step on the cracks and then gave up. She caught a glimpse of a few buttercups that had pushed their green stems through the brown grass, and in a few yards, yellow crocuses brightened the landscape.

  “Eloise always said I was a good listener . . . if you want to talk,” Alex said.

  “Who’s Eloise?”

  “The cook at my grandfather’s house.”

  “You had a cook?”

  “And a maid and a yardman.”

  “Wow, your mom was a lucky lady.”

  They walked a few steps before he answered. “My mom didn’t like being waited on or someone working in her flowers. And then she left.”

  Stick your foot in your mouth, Livy. “I didn’t mean to bring up a painful time in your life.”

  He shook his head. “I’m past it now. Besides, life was a lot calmer after she left.”

  “It was that bad, huh?”

  “My first memories are of them yelling at each other. Arguments that rivaled the Fourth of July fireworks before she called it quits. And when they weren’t fighting, the tension was thick enough to slice.”

  They walked in silence for a minute, and then he sighed. “Propriety is everything to my father’s side of the family, especially Grandfather. He’s retiring as state senator, and my father is set to follow in his footsteps with the expectation that he’ll probably run for national office one day. Truthfully, in six years, Grandfather believes my dad will be elected the next United States senator from Texas.”

  “How about your mom? Is that what she wanted your dad to do?”

  “She hated the political life that was expected of her.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “Mom didn’t do the teas and luncheons or any of the social scenes in Dallas. She definitely didn’t fit Grandfather’s image of who Dad was supposed to marry. As for my mother, the Jenningses’ rules and regulations smothered her free spirit, and then there was her penchant for antiestablishment friends.”

  “Why did your dad marry her? Didn’t he know what she was like?”

  “I think they met during his rebellious period.”

  She laughed. “So the father is like the son?”

  “Hardly. And why would you say that?”

  “You don’t see refusing to take the bar as rebellion?”

  He sighed. “I never thought of my dad and me as
being alike. That’s scary.”

  “On the way to Bristol, you said you were nine when your mom left.”

  He nodded. “She wanted to take me with her, but my grandfather put his foot down. At the time I was angry. Thought she chose her freedom over me, but I realize now that the only way she could have kept me was to stay and accept their way of doing things, and she couldn’t do that. They would have killed her spirit, who she was. Sometimes I wish I were more like her.”

  She understood his dad and granddad’s penchant for rules. Rules grounded her. “But you’ve turned out okay, so what’s so wrong with rules? Or lists, for that matter.”

  “Nothing, as long as there’s room for exceptions. And I didn’t mention lists.” He cocked his head toward her. “Don’t tell me you’re a list maker.”

  “What’s wrong with marking things off a list?”

  “Did I say there was?”

  She focused on the cracks in the sidewalk. “No. I think it’s God who doesn’t approve of my lists.”

  “What?” He stopped walking and swung around in front of her.

  “Back in church I was marking those little squares, you know, things you did during the week like read your Bible and—”

  “Do you think God’s really interested in those things you ticked off?”

  “You . . . you don’t?”

  “I’ve always thought it was about a relationship, not about doing things or following rules.”

  “I believe that as well, but how do you know if you’re pleasing God if you don’t have some way of measuring it?” She lifted her gaze to his warm brown eyes and tried to ignore the tremor that raced through her body.

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Do you read your Bible because you want to or so you can mark it off a list?”

  When was the last time she’d read Scripture for the comfort it brought? Or for just learning more about who God was? Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Not since the shooting. “Have you ever gotten mad at God?”

  “A time or two, like when my mom left. But then, I was mad at everyone. What are you mad at God about?”

  Her fingers stung from the cold, and she shoved them into her coat pocket. “I’ve always been taught he’s all seeing, all powerful, so why did he put me in that alley with the Caine kid? Why didn’t he stop me from shooting him?”

  “So that’s what this is about.”

  She shifted her gaze past him and caught a glimpse of red against the side of a white house. Camellias. Her favorite winter flower. Where were you, God? “Why do you think he didn’t?”

  When Alex didn’t answer, she slipped her hands out of her pockets and rubbed them together while she blew on them. “Tough question, huh?”

  “Well, I’m not exactly a theologian, but it seems to me everyone is responsible for their own actions. You were doing your job, your duty if you will, and this kid was breaking the law. He robbed someone, and then he didn’t follow orders when you told him to put the gun down. He made the choice, not you, and because he did, that one decision impacted not only him but you and a lot of other people.”

  “But I should have known it was a pellet gun and not real.”

  “How were you supposed to know?”

  Livy opened her mouth to protest, but the words died on her lips. She couldn’t have known. “Why didn’t God stop it? I’ve always done my part. I’ve gone to church, I’ve helped the poor, I’ve given money—”

  “Has God been there for you before?”

  She looked away from his warm brown eyes, remembering when her mom died and how hurt she’d been. She searched for God then and found peace. And when she made detective, the joy she’d felt that her prayer had been answered. She turned her gaze back to Alex and nodded.

  “Then I think you have a choice to make. Either you trust God or you don’t.”

  “That’s easier said than done sometimes.” But Alex was right. Maybe she was asking the wrong question. Maybe she should ask herself why she felt so guilty about the shooting. She hadn’t chosen to be in that alley. She didn’t know it was a toy gun and not a real, lethal automatic. And it was Justin Caine who chose to disobey her command to put down the gun, real or not. He made those choices. Caine was the criminal, not her.

  If she continued to let what happened hold her hostage, she wouldn’t be any good to anyone. For the first time in months, a portion of the heaviness lifted from her heart. She knew it would return, but for right now, this moment, she felt free.

  “Thanks,” she said and blew on her hands again.

  “You’re cold.” He cupped her hands in his.

  A shiver that had nothing to do with being cold ran up her arms. She raised her gaze and almost got lost in his brown eyes. If he kept looking at her that way, she’d be toast.

  He put the bowl of soup where his mother could reach it. Sometimes it was so hard to be civil to her. Especially when he remembered the way she treated him. Locking him in a closet when she brought her friends home from whatever greasy spoon she worked at. He flinched, remembering her anger after they would leave. And the stripes on his back and legs from the belt.

  “Eat your lunch,” he said. “Or do you want me to feed you?”

  The last time he’d forced her to eat, she’d almost choked. Said he was cramming it down her throat. Nothing he did ever satisfied her. So why did he even try? The walls of the room closed in on him, making it hard to breathe. Let her starve if that’s what she wanted to do.

  He left the bowl on the table and closed the door behind him with a bang. In the kitchen he poured another bowl of soup and placed it on a tray with crackers he’d brought home from Johnny B’s. Maybe Samantha Jo would appreciate his efforts.

  His gaze rested on the square envelope on the kitchen table. He’d scribbled Sharon’s name on the front along with the address for Kate Adams’s bed and breakfast. He’d heard Johnny B say that was where she was staying, and that Kate wasn’t charging her anything.

  He’d come home from Johnny B’s and written the warning after he’d overheard Sharon talking about her daughter back in Virginia. That was where she should be—home with her child, not in Logan Point working as a waitress.

  He picked up the card with a napkin. No need to take a chance on leaving fingerprints. Mail or leave it at the restaurant? If he mailed it, it’d take two days to reach her. He shook his head and tucked the card inside his coat. That was too long. He’d leave it on a back table so one of the other waitresses could find it . . . or maybe even leave it in the employees’ break room. It was right across from the restrooms. A smile curved his lips upward. She would soon know that he knew where she was staying. That would freak her out.

  As he walked to the barn, he wondered if the passenger from the wreck had been found yet. He’d heard they were dragging the lake. What if . . . No, she would never be found. He’d dropped her body in the channel, right in the middle of the lake. If the river current had moved her body at all, it would be downriver and not in the lake.

  Heaviness stooped his shoulders. Why did she have to make him so angry that night? He never would have hurt her. At the barn door, he stopped and pulled the ski mask over his face. Maybe someday he could let Samantha Jo see his face. If she ever stopped resisting him.

  “Lunch,” he called in a soprano voice. That hurt his throat. Instead, maybe he’d just whisper, or maybe he’d get one of those voice synthesizers. He couldn’t take a chance on her recognizing his voice. Not yet, anyway. Not until he was certain she wanted to stay. Then he’d reveal who he was. He could almost imagine the admiration in her eyes when she learned his identity and how smart he was. A genius, actually. She’d never guess, not in a million years.

  He was encouraged that ever since he’d returned from Nashville, there’d been change for the better in Samantha Jo. She’d stopped screaming, for one thing. And he was pleased she’d put on the new clothes he’d bought her.

  “Did you hear me?” he whispered.

  “I’m not hungry.” Her voi
ce sounded listless. She was on the bed, sitting with her legs crossed.

  What was it with these women and not eating? First his mother, now Samantha Jo. He set the tray on the floor and slid it through the bars. “You need to eat.”

  “I don’t want to be drugged again.”

  “I promise there’s nothing in your food.” He’d only given her enough drugs to knock her out when she wouldn’t quit screaming. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want us to be friends.”

  She bit her lip. “Why should I believe you? You kidnapped me and keep me locked up.”

  “But it’s for your own good. And the good of your child. You’ve never told me if it’s a boy or a girl. I walked by the school twice last week when children were on the playground, thinking I might see if any of them looked like you.”

  “I told you, I don’t have a child.” Samantha Jo leaned her head back against the wall. “Why do you keep insisting that I do?”

  He couldn’t be wrong about that, the voices couldn’t be wrong. “Why are you lying to me?”

  She raised her head and stared straight at him. “Why is it so important that I have a child?”

  He blinked. “Be . . . because I’m saving the children.”

  “Saving them from what? Tell me about it.”

  She was just toying with him. Pretending to want to know. He stared through the bars. No, that was interest in her eyes. “If you’ll eat, I’ll tell you.”

  She leaned forward on the bed. “You promise there are no drugs in it?”

  He put his hand behind his back and crossed his fingers. There was only a little antianxiety medicine in the soup, nothing that would knock her out. “I promise.”

  She took the bowl and began eating. “So tell me. Why are you saving children?”

  “I don’t want them to go through what I did.”

  “You’ve said that before.” She paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth. “What happened to you?”

  He sat on the barn floor near the cage. If she could see the scars on his back, she wouldn’t have to ask. “My mom was a waitress, and sometimes she would bring her ‘customers’ home with her. That’s when she locked me in a closet, and sometimes it was two days before she remembered me.”