by Donna Ball
He came around the counter, his muscles tense. “Listen, I don't think you should give this thing more weight than it deserves. You know how it is in the news business, you make enemies, you get threats, but none of it ever amounts to much. The only reason I told you was because—”
Carol turned, her expression composed, but her eyes still dark with turmoil. “Last night,” she said, “someone called—a girl. She was crying. She called me 'Mama', and she asked me to help her and—then we were cut off.”
The words hit Guy like a blow to the stomach, because his first instinct was to believe—of course, he believed, just as Carol did—it was Kelly. But it was an instant, just long enough to leave him feeling hooked and sore, a sailfish crashing onto the deck, and then his reporter's rationality reasserted itself.
He said, “Son of a bitch.”
Surprise looked out of place on Carol's face. Clearly this was not the reaction she had expected from him. “What?”
Guy paced back to the counter, absently rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to put order to his thoughts. “This is—damn it, this psychopath, whoever he is, obviously has some kind of plan. Why the hell he would want to torment you—”
Carol said, confusion still heavy in her voice, “It was a girl who called. I told you, she—”
Guy gave a sharp shake of his head, turning back to her. “No, it's a setup. The same guy has got to be responsible for both phone calls. For some reason he hates us enough to use the one thing against us we're most vulnerable about. Carol, don't you have any idea who it could be? Think!”
Carol stared at him as though he were a creature she was seeing for the first time and she could not imagine how he had suddenly materialized in her kitchen. She said nothing for the longest moment; she just stared at him while the coffeemaker hissed and gurgled and the room slowly filled with the aroma of Jamaican brew.
Then she said, clearly and coolly, “Isn't there any room in your scenario at all for the possibility—just the possibility—that it might have been Kelly? That it might have been your daughter who was calling for help and that the man who called you today might know why? That he might even be responsible for whatever trouble she's in?”
Guy drew in a breath and for a moment he had absolutely no idea of what to say. In that moment the doors of time had somehow opened and he had stepped over the threshold and two and a half years into the past; same kitchen, same pain and accusation in Carol's eyes, same helplessness churning in his stomach.
The only way he could react was with frustration. “For God's sake, Carol, you can't be serious! Kelly's been gone two and a half years without a word. Now, suddenly, for no reason at all, she picks up the phone in the middle of the night and calls home—”
“It wasn't for no reason!” she cried. “She was asking for help, she was in trouble—”
“And this phone call just happens to coincide with one I get from somebody singing nursery rhymes and making veiled threats against my family—”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Her voice was shrill. “Do you hear what you're saying? Of course, the two calls are connected, and of course, the man who called you knows where Kelly is or maybe he even has her, maybe he's holding her against her will—and that's why she called me! Damn you, Guy, I can't believe you're taking this so lightly! Why didn't you call the police?”
He stared at her incredulously, his head reeling. It was two and a half years ago. He had stepped back in time. And he was just as horrified, just as miserable and helpless and enraged as he had been then. God, how long could she keep doing this to him? How long was he going to keep letting her?
He spoke coolly and deliberately to mask his anger. “I am not responsible for this, Carol.”
“Oh, no, of course not! You're not responsible for anything are you?”
They stood with stormy eyes and tight lips, and the wall of hurt and anger between them was so thick it practically colored the air. He thought, this isn't right. They both were grieving, they both were scared, and instead of turning to one another, they were turning on each other, just as they had always done. Suddenly he was very tired.
His tone was subdued as he said, “You're probably right. We should talk to the police—separately. I'll have Sheriff Case call you tomorrow. Meanwhile ...” He turned for the door. “Just be careful, okay?”
She said, “You think she's dead, don't you?”
He felt the words like sharpened knives strike between his shoulder blades. He stiffened his muscles against the pain, but did not turn around. He said, “I've thought about it, yes. After all these years with no word ... life is rough for a kid on the streets and, yeah, I've thought about it.”
“You bastard.”
Guy drew in another sharp breath but stopped himself from answering. He left the house without another word.
Carol stood there in the kitchen after he was gone, flushed with emotion and cold with fear, hating herself for the way she had behaved and hating him because he hadn't been able to stop her ... or because he couldn't keep the hurt away or he didn't know how to comfort her or simply because she was scared and he was there.
“Damn,” she muttered softly and pressed her fingers briefly against her eyes to stop the sudden sting of tears.
She squared her shoulders and took one cleansing breath, then turned to pour a cup of coffee. That was when she noticed the blink of the answering machine light from the desk across the room.
She had never been able to ignore that blinking light, not in the deepest depression or most urgent moment, and she certainly couldn't ignore it now. She crossed the room and pushed the button. The tape rewound, beeped, and began to play.
The husky, desperately familiar voice took her breath away.
“Mama? Mama, I was outside today and I could see you. I could see our house. It was still there, just like it's always been. You've got to come get me, Mama. I can't get out of here by myself. Why don't you come get me?”
Carol could hear her heart beat, the air rushing in and out of her lungs, the last sputtering drip of the coffeemaker, the distant thunder of wind and surf outside. What she could not hear was anything else on the message tape, even though the reel continued to spin and she could tell by the blinking light that another message was now playing. The only voice she could hear was that voice, the same voice, over and over again. Kelly's voice. And those words, You've got to come get me, Mama... . Why don't you come get me?
Carol ran to the door and flung it open. “Guy!” she cried into the wind. “Guy!”
~
Chapter Six
Spring Break Comes to St. Theresa-by-the-Sea
St. Theresa-by-the-Sea was discovered by the Spanish in 1716, forgotten for another hundred fifty years, then rediscovered by railroad magnate Henry Morrison Flagler. It has since remained the private paradise of a select few who call this part of the world home. But St. T. is now in the process of being discovered all over again—this time by the thousands of college students destined to descend on St. T next week.
According to the St. Theresa County Chamber of Commerce, St. T. has been playing host to more and more of these sun-and-fun-seeking youngsters since the toll gate on the F. W. Jackson bridge was eliminated in 2009. Last year, an estimated eight hundred young people crowded the streets, shops, and restaurants of St. T. at the height of spring break.
The students are attracted by St. T.'s pristine beaches and casual lifestyle, as well as the abundance of beachfront homes available for rent at off season prices during the month of March.
Although some residents express concern about the traffic problems, property damage, and general disorder attributed to raucous spring breakers, few merchants have been heard to complain. Ed Williams of Earth Treasures Book and Gift Shop reported an increased profit of almost one hundred percent in March of last year as opposed to the previous month. Earth Treasures features inexpensive jewelry, crystals, and semiprecious stones which have special appeal to young adults. Pizza-to-Go and Beach
Combers reported a similar surge in business during spring break, as did most of the fast food and casual dining establishments in the city.
Sheriff John Case estimates a possible three thousand students will visit St. T. this year during the middle two weeks of March. Although the vast majority of students will be day tourists ...
He had to stop then, and reread that last paragraph. A possible three thousand students. Three thousand. The streets would be crowded with lithe, tan bodies, the music of laughter, the flash of flirtatious smiles, the air redolent with the scent of sweat and coconut oil and sweet young sexuality ... three thousand. Three thousand baby dolls, his for the choosing. His for the taking, his for the cherishing. His for the keeping.
His breath was coming fast and he felt a fine film of perspiration begin to form on his upper lip. He closed his eyes, took a few deep, cleansing breaths, and found his center. It was important to stay centered. Balance was at the core of all things. Those without balance were doomed to failure, for nature itself abhorred inequity.
Balance. It was a concept worth meditating upon.
He was startled out of his reverie by a beeping sound coming from the vicinity of his briefcase. Startled, yes, but he refused to be annoyed. He opened the case and took out his cell phone, which was emitting a high-pitched rhythmic alarm warning of low batteries.
Now he was close to becoming annoyed. The battery charger was on the boat, which meant he would have to do without his phone all day and two or three hours tonight while it recharged. This was particularly irritating, since he had charged it fully only two days ago and the battery was supposed to last for over forty-eight hours of continuous use. He hadn't used it at all.
He liked his phone; he didn't need it, but he liked it. And he wasn't at all pleased at the thought that it might be defective.
And then he noticed something odd. The power switch was on, which was why the battery was low. He must have left it on the last time he had used it. But no. He had recharged it since then. He couldn't possibly have left the telephone on.
Which could only mean that someone else had.
Hesitantly, hardly daring to believe what must have happened, he pushed the redial button.
A connection was made, and an answering machine picked up. He listened to the message in its entirety, and disconnected.
Breathing slowly and deeply, he put the phone aside. He focused on the blue, blue water, sand and shore, clean salt breeze. This was unexpected. But sometimes the unexpected was good. It forced one to reexamine, regroup to meet the challenge and sometimes, to allow wonderful surprises into one's life.
He could deal with this. He certainly could. In a moment, he opened the phone again and made another call.
***
Sheriff John Case estimates a possible three thousand students will visit St. T. this year during the middle two weeks of March. Although the vast majority of students will be day tourists, the sheriff's department points out that, under present innkeeping laws, the possibility exists for a serious overcrowding of the county's overnight facilities. Municipal agencies, points out Case, are unprepared to deal with those kinds of numbers. “St. Theresa County welcomes all visitors,” said Case, “as long as they abide by the law.”
Sheriff John Case pushed the newspaper away with a barely suppressed sigh and reached for his coffee cup. It was his fifth cup of the morning, but the morning had already lasted six hours too long.
He had worked an accident until midnight—a gruesome thing, with two dead—and had returned to the office to find the report filed by the Dennisons waiting on his desk. It had been too late to interview them last night, but he hadn't slept too well, thinking about it. Then at four a.m., he had been called back to the office with the report of a missing resident from Shady Homes Retirement Center. A three-hour manhunt had yielded the ninety-two-year-old man, perfectly safe and extremely confused, trying to break into an empty trailer a mile and a half away.
Case wasn't able to get both Dennisons in until nine o'clock, and he didn't like the story they told. He didn't like it because it opened up too many doors, left too many possibilities, presented too little evidence of anything at all. And because all of the possibilities were bad.
“So,” said Derrick Long, the investigator he had assigned to the case, “you want to assume the incidents are related—the phone call to Mr. Dennison from the male, and the one to Mrs. Dennison from a female she believes to be her daughter?”
“Until you get some evidence to prove otherwise,” said Case, “that's exactly what we have to assume.”
Long flipped back through his notes. Long had only been with the department for a year, and he was a meticulous, deadly serious young man—an attitude, Case suspected, that was born out of a determination to prove himself worthy of the title “investigator” with the St. Theresa County Sheriff's Department. He needn't have worried. John Case had found him to be not only competent, but one of the brightest men under his command—otherwise, he would never have assigned him the Dennison case.
“Not much to go on,” Long admitted after a moment. “I'll have wiretaps put on both their phones and do some checking into Dennison's background—who he might have pissed off bad enough to play this kind of practical joke—but my guess is we're not going to find much. Most of the time these things just wear themselves out.”
Case glanced absently at the newspaper again. Focusing for a moment or two on unrelated matters was a way of keeping his mind clear for the task at hand. It was a trick he had used for years.
He said, “What about the girl?”
“That is disturbing,” said Long, glancing back at his notes. “If it is Kelly Dennison—and what I've heard so far gives me no reason to believe it is—then we could have a real mess on our hands.”
Case seized on his first statement. “What you mean, you have no reason to believe it's her?”
Long shrugged. “You heard the tape. She doesn't give her name. The father didn't even pretend to recognize her voice, and I think the mother would have started to back down if we'd questioned her a little longer.”
Case frowned. “You an only child, Long?”
The detective looked a little taken aback by the change of subject. “Well, no, as a matter of fact. Two brothers.”
Case grunted. “Me, I'm an only child. And I'll tell you what. I never, for as long as she lived, God rest her soul, called up my mother and said, 'Mama, this is John.' Who the hell else was going to be calling her 'Mama,' huh? Kelly Dennison was an only child. She wouldn't have given her name to her own mother.”
“But somebody trying to make Carol Dennison think it was her daughter might have,” Long observed slowly.
Case shrugged. Possibilities. They could drive a person crazy.
Long hesitated. “I've looked at the old case file, when Kelly Dennison was first listed as a runaway.”
“She wasn't the first,” Case said, “and God knows not the last. You grow up in a place like St. T., your opportunities are limited, if you know what I mean. The boys can look forward to a lifetime standing knee deep in fish guts and the girls to having a baby every year and getting knocked around no more than twice a year if they're lucky. They live on an island, for God's sake, and all they can see is life passing them by everywhere they turn. They best we can hope for is that they stay ‘til they finish high school, but that doesn't happen very often either.”
“Kelly Dennison didn't really fit that profile,” Long pointed out cautiously. “She lived on the beach. Her folks were rich. She had pretty good grades, would have gone to college. She had it made.”
“Yeah, well it might have looked a little different from the point of view of a fourteen-year-old. Her parents had just gotten a divorce, her grades were dropping, her friends were dropping her....”
“Drugs?”
“Could be. It doesn't make a lot of difference, though. She was messed up. A good kid deep down, but she just let everything get the best of her. Maybe she thoug
ht she could run away from her problems, maybe she was just trying to get some attention. But she had enough money to get her just about as far as she wanted to go, and there's nobody harder to find than a kid who's made up her mind she's not going to be found. You know that yourself. Anyway, after her mama got that second letter from her, postmarked Tallahassee, saying she was off to California to become a movie star or some such, it seemed pretty cut and dried to us. Another one bites the dust.”
“Yeah.” Long was frowning thoughtfully. “Except this one has a change of heart two and a half years later and calls her mama for help.”
“Maybe.”
“Begs her to come get her, only forgets to tell her where to come.”
“Looks that way.”
“What are the chances it is Kelly Dennison calling her mother and she's in collusion with this other dude somehow—hitting her daddy up for ransom or something?”
Case shrugged. Possibilities.
“Because she's going to a certain amount of trouble for a plausible story here. She says she can see the house. That means she's somewhere on the island, but she can't get to her mama.”
“Fishy,” said Case. “That's how the whole thing smells. Real fishy.”
Long nodded in agreement. “I sure would hate for the kid to be involved in this. Those poor folks have been through enough.”
“I won't argue with you there.”
“My gut tells me we've got a hoaxster and a paid accomplice. But I'll check out all the possibilities.” Long hesitated, then said, “I noticed that when the girl first disappeared, you investigated it as a possible kidnapping.”
“Not for long. Her mother was hysterical, and you can't take chances. We had to follow up on every possibility, and I tell you, there were a few rough days and nights there before we got that second note.”
Long looked down at his notebook, although it was clear he wasn't reading anything, just buying time. When he looked up again, his expression was reluctant and unhappy. He said, “I also noticed, during the first part of the investigation, Guy Dennison was a suspect.”
