“Restores people’s faith in humanity,” Anna adds.
“I’m glad y’all think so,” she says, “’cause I want y’all to help me with it.”
“Absolutely,” I say. “In any way we can.”
“We’d be honored,” Anna says. “Thank you for asking.”
“Could I make one suggestion?” I say.
“Thought you said it was perfect?”
“Guess I meant it was almost perfect.”
“How can I make it more perfecter?” she asks with a smile.
“Include Mother Earth in the memorial.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth falls open. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. You’re right. She has to be a part of it. We’ll have to create something that honors her down by the river.”
“Perfect,” I say.
Heather is about to say something else when the doorbell rings again.
“I’ll get it,” I say.
But Anna’s already moving toward it. “Save your hops,” she says. “I got it.”
Ignoring her, I climb up on my crutches and hop along after her, just in case it’s Chris or Randa or some other possible threat.
And I’m glad I do.
Because when she opens the door, Daniel Davis falls onto the floor inside.
Anna screams and dives onto the floor beside him.
Lying awkwardly after a straight fall and hard landing, he’s not moving, doesn’t even appear to be breathing.
“Is he alive?” I ask.
Dropping my crutches, I hop on one leg the rest of the way. Pulling my weapon, I look through the open door, searching the area outside.
“Daniel?” Anna is saying. “Daniel?”
I turn toward Heather. “Call an ambulance.”
Anna looks up at me, her face a mask of sadness, pain, and confusion.
“Is he breathing?” I say. “Anna? Anna? Is he breathing?”
Separation Anxiety
a Sam Michaels, Daniels Davis, Remington James Crossover
Revised edition Copyright © 2017 by Michael Lister
Original edition Copyright © 2013 by Michael Lister
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
* * *
ISBN: 978-1-888146-35-6 Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-888146--36-3 Paperback
* * *
Edited by Aaron Bearden
Design by Tim Flanagan
* * *
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Dedication
For Adam Ake
an amazing designer
an even better friend
Thank you
Dawn, Jill, Adam, Amy, Jeff, Micah,
Meleah, Travis, Mike, Judi, Jason, Lynn,
Michael, Emily, Tony, Tim
* * *
And a very special Thank You to
Aaron Bearden
Author’s note
I see this work as a sort of spiritual sequel to Double Exposure. (The actual sequel to Double Exposure is Blood Shot.) Separation Anxiety is also, in a way, the second in the Sam Michaels and Daniel Davis series, following Burnt Offerings.
—Where is Shelby?
—I told you. I don’t know.
—You’re lying.
—I’m not. I swear.
—What’d you do with her?
—Please. God. Please.
—Is that what she said?
—What? No. You’ve got to believe me. I wouldn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t––I could never hurt her.
1
Missing.
* * *
On the day sixteen-year-old Shelby Emma Summers disappears, the late-August air is thick and humid and hard to breathe. Still. Stifling.
Beneath the unrelenting sun of the unending North Florida day, the parched planet is unmoving, the withering grass drained, desolate, dying. That which isn’t sun-faded and desaturated is overexposed, every squinting element muted, bleached out, achromatic.
Out in the Gulf, Hurricane Christine churns over the warm waters.
Building.
Intensifying.
Expanding.
Soon, the dry, hot stillness will give way to savage winds, flash floods, and the tornadic toppling of trees and buildings and lives, leaving a swath of catastrophic destruction so devastating as to appear apocalyptic.
For now though, in the unsuspecting small town of Tupelo, sunlight refracts off the glass-smooth surface of the Apalachicola River, and fall feels far, far away. No hint of autumnal hope, no promise of respite and refreshment, no reprieve from the long, hot Sheol summer.
But every horrific, heartbreaking act committed on this singular, sun-drenched day was brought into being long before it began.
Before daybreak.
Before dawn.
Before Shelby Summers was even born.
2
—Did you hear Shelby this morning? Taylor says.
* * *
Jerking up, Marc spins around, groggy, disoriented.
When working on a novel, Marc Hayden Faulk finally surrenders to sleep when many people are beginning their mornings.
When the writing’s going well, as it is just now, the world outside the world of his novel becomes dim and desultory, and he works until he loses consciousness each night, often sleeping on the couch in what Taylor calls his scriptorium.
—She’s not in her room, Taylor adds.
He glances over at the clock on the wall. It’s still almost an hour before school starts.
—Is her car here? he asks, picturing the lime-green bug that so fits Shelby’s personality parked in the driveway.
Taylor disappears, returning to the room a few moments later shaking her head.
—You worried?
She gives him a wide-eyed of course expression as she lets out a harsh, humorless laugh.
Stupid question. She’s always worried. Her life has taught her to expect the worst. Like Taylor, Shelby is a single, surviving twin. Taylor has lost a sister and a daughter. In fact, she’s lost everything and everyone except for Shelby.
—Trying not to be, she says. Did she mention having to leave early for any reason?
He shakes his head.
At thirty-two, Taylor, who had Shelby and Savannah when she was just sixteen, is often more like a big sister than a mother, and lately her complex relationship with Shelby has been far more difficult for both women than usual. One of the recent strategies they had employed had been to communicate through Marc—something he didn’t particularly relish, but never really resisted.
—Call her cell, he says.
She digs her phone out of the pocket of her robe and taps it a couple of times.
—Hey baby. It’s your overprotective freak of a mom. Where are you? What’re you doing? Did you forget to tell me you had to be at school early or did I forget you told me? Either way, it’s too bad. Marc’s cooking steak for breakfast. Call me back. Soon. Before I send out the National Guard.
She clicks off and returns the phone to the pocket of her robe.
—That was good, he says. You sounded good. Concerned, but not frantic.
—I’m doing better with that, don’t you think?
—I do.
—Thanks for that, she says.
—For what?
—Teaching me to trust.
>
She had trusted one untrustworthy man after another until finally giving up completely. When he came along she wasn’t looking, wasn’t even open—or so she thought. Somehow, she claims miraculously, he had scaled her fortress wall and captured her.
Emotionally erratic as anyone he’s ever been involved with, he doesn’t know from one moment to the next if she’s going to mention marriage or him moving out. And though it’s hard to imagine anyone having a more traumatic childhood, he suspects it’s her adult experiences with men that most negatively affect their relationship.
—My pleasure. I’ll call Julian. You keep trying Shelby. Finish getting ready. If he doesn’t know where she is or she still doesn’t answer, we’ll call the National Guard and go out and ride around and look for her.
She takes the plate and gives him a soft smile.
—How the hell’d I get along without you so long? she says.
—Not very well.
—Too true, Mr. Faulk. Too, too true.
3
—Shelby Summers didn’t show up for school today, Sheriff Keith McFarland says. Go out to Lithonia Lodge, talk to her mom, find out what’s going on. Then go to the school and talk to her friends, her boyfriend. Let me know if she’s really missing.
—On it, boss, Will Jeffers says.
—Chances are, kid her age, she’s laying out with her boyfriend somewhere, but if you think there’s even a chance she might really be missing, I wanna move fast.
—Yes, sir. Understood.
And it really is.
Will’s dad had been sheriff when Savannah Summers went missing. Failing to find her cost him a hell of a lot more than just his job. Will had been a deputy then, involved in the case, experienced firsthand everything that happened, witnessed what it did to his dad in a way no one else had, and Keith knew it.
—It’s part of the reason I’m sending you.
When Bill Jeffers, Sr. resigned midterm, the governor had appointed Keith to fill the position. Two years later, Will had run against Keith and lost—and was shocked when, instead of firing him, he promoted him to lead detective. The two men, now in their early forties, had been classmates, in competition for everything—quarterback, point guard, girls, homecoming king, and though they’d never been friends exactly, they had always shared a certain admiration and respect.
—What’s the other part?
—You’re the best investigator I got.
4
—I never blamed your dad for not finding Savannah, Taylor says. What happened wasn’t his fault.
Eight years ago, on a warm spring day laced with the sweet scent of wild wisteria and confederate jasmine, just two weeks after their eighth birthday, Shelby and Savannah Summers disembarked the Blue Bird All-American school bus at the end of the dirt road leading to their house and the paint-flecked and fawning mother awaiting them there. Somewhere along the quarter-mile walk between the bus stop and the front door, Savannah vanished.
—He did the best he could, Will says. We all did. He’s never gotten over it. None of us have, but it’s different with him. He feels responsible. More responsible.
—I don’t know what happened to her, she says.
—I’m so sorry for that, he says. That’s got to be the worst . . . the not knowing.
—I don’t know who took her. I don’t know why. But I have a connection with my girls. It’s like the one I had with my sister. She paused, then said, What?
—Ma’am?
—You’re looking at me like I should be in a mental institution.
—No ma’am, I’m not.
—Lots of people have special connections. Marc and me for instance.
She takes Marc’s hand at this, an act he’s sure she’s unconscious of.
From the moment they met, they’ve felt like twins. Every time they learn something new about the other, they discover yet another similarity, likeness, or preference they have in common.
—But there’s a oneness twins have . . . It’s . . . Well, I won’t try to explain it. I can’t. But it’s real. I had it with Trevor, my sister. Shelby had it with Savannah. But I have it with both of them too. It’s so powerful and profound I can’t even tell you. And being a twin and the mother of twins . . . I’m . . . It’s like I’m doubly connected.
To lose a sister, to lose parents, to lose a child—any one of them would cause irreparable damage, would cause unimaginable harm, but to have experienced them all, to have lost all . . . Little wonder Taylor is the way she is. To lose Shelby too would be unbearable.
—I understand, ma’am. I do. And I’m gonna—
—There’s a reason I’m telling you this, she says. And it’s not just that I love my daughters.
—Okay.
—I know Shelby’s missing. I mean really missing, not just skipping school or . . . I knew the same thing about Savannah. Knew it long before anyone else did—teachers, cops, anyone.
—But—
—Do you know why I stopped looking for Savannah?
—I didn’t know you had.
—You’re right. I haven’t exactly. But remember how intense my search was, how much I bugged your dad and the state cop—
—Sam Michaels?
She nods.
—Why’d I stop? she asks. Do you know?
—No, ma’am. I . . .
—You think I got weary? Just wore myself out? Gave up ’cause I was exhausted?
He shakes his head, but something in his look makes Marc wonder if he’d heard she had a breakdown.
—The reason I searched for her the way I did that first year she was missing was because I knew she was still alive. I’m not saying I thought it or believed it. I’m saying I knew it. I stopped looking for her when she died. When I knew she was dead. Not thought it or believed it, but knew it. We’re connected, okay? I knew she was still alive long after the search had been called off. I knew she was not being abused, that she never stopped missing me and Shelby, that she never lost her intense instinct to return home, but that she was safe and cared for, and even eventually felt something akin to affection for whoever had her. I knew all this—and . . . knew . . . when she . . . died. Can tell you the exact moment on the exact day. I’m telling you this because I’m connected to Shelby the same way, and she’s missing. She’s in trouble and needs our help. We’ve got to find her fast. Do you understand?
—Yes, ma’am, I do.
—Good.
—But her car. She took her car. She left willingly, not forcibly. Had you guys been arguing over anything? She mad about Mr. Faulk living here now? You tell her to stop seeing her boyfriend?
—You haven’t heard a goddamn thing I’ve said.
—I have, but she’s a teenager and I know how—
—Yes. All that’s true. We’re fighting over all those things and more—and they’re irrelevant. They have nothing to do with where she is and who has her.
—Okay. Then let me do my job. I need to see her room, take a look around your place, and I need you two to tell me if there’s anyone you suspect. Boyfriend? Biological dad?
—Both possibilities, she says.
—About a week ago we had someone out to repair the refrigerator, Marc says.
—That’s right, Taylor says.
—Shelby said he was creepy.
—What’d you think? Will asks Marc.
—Seemed pretty harmless to me.
—I should’ve just bought a new one, Taylor says.
—Then someone would have delivered it, Marc says. We can’t keep her away from everyone.
—Anyone else? Neighbor? Housekeeper? Yardman?
—They wouldn’t be around if I thought they were a threat.
—Anyone else you can think of?
—Taylor has a couple of obsessive fans we should at least take a look at. We’ll make a list, Marc says.
5
Will is distractedly driving through the small town of Tupelo when the call from the sheriff comes.
It�
�s midafternoon and Main Street is empty beneath the stroke-inducing heat of the slanting sun. As if drained of all energy, a few brave pedestrians and glare-ridden vehicles creep along, seemingly in slow motion.
—Chief, he says, taking the call.
—Whatta we lookin’ at?
—Don’t know yet, but it doesn’t look like she was kidnapped. Looks like she left on her own, in her own car. Probably with her boyfriend. He’s gone too.
Nestled near the Apalachicola River and the Gulf of Mexico, Tupelo is an Old Florida town in limbo—tourism and trade, Southern oligarchy and snowbirds, rich retirees and redneck farmers, fishermen and pulpwooders, all trapped in a briny brackish tidal pool.
Small gift shops selling specialty items for small fortunes and tourist traps selling tasteless trinkets and Florida kitsch stand awkwardly next to faded tin-building dollar stores and auto parts places, like uneasy relatives at a reunion. Beside upscale restaurants with New York names, small-town no-name cafés and trough-like buffets occupy the same block.
—I’ve talked to her friends—well, her classmates. She’s a very private person. Sort of a loner. Haven’t found anyone she would confide in. Nobody seems to know much of anything—and I don’t think they’re lying. The only teacher she’s close to is the new biology teacher, but he’s out today. Principal’s supposed to have him call me in a few.
—I know I’m puttin’ you in a tough position, Keith says, but if there’s any chance she’s been taken—
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