Making Her Way Home

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I did.”

  “Did you ask her why we’re estranged?”

  “No, but I will.”

  She nodded and sat with her back straight and her hands folded on her lap.

  He contemplated her. “You’re a tough nut to crack, Ms. Greenway.”

  “I have nothing to do with Sicily’s disappearance. I would do anything to get her back. Please don’t waste time trying to figure me out.”

  “But you know I have to.”

  He asked more questions. Was it a surprise that Rachel asked her to take custody of Sicily? Yes. When had she taken Sicily home? As soon as the police called; her phone number had been in Rachel’s address book. Was Sicily surprised that an aunt she didn’t know had come to take her home? No.

  “Her mother had told Sicily that if anything ever happened, she would go live with me.”

  How long had Rachel been back in the Seattle area? Two years. Where had she and Sicily lived? Beth knew only the address of the apartment where she’d picked Sicily up; she didn’t remember the exact number but told him close enough.

  “Tell me about her drug use.”

  Beth shared as much as she knew, which was very little.

  It went on and on. He kept working his way back to her parents, but now she was prepared.

  They, or at least her mother, had seemed miffed that Rachel had named Beth guardian of Sicily rather than them.

  “Given the estrangement, why are you so sure they won’t contest for custody?”

  “They don’t want her.”

  She wondered if that were entirely true. The very idea that her mother might want to have a vulnerable girl in her care once again sent shivers of horror through Beth. For herself, she had never been brave. But she would do anything to keep Sicily away from them.

  Safe.

  She shuddered, and the detective’s eyes sharpened.

  Too late.

  He wanted to know more about school—whether Sicily had gone home with any kids, mentioned any parents or other adults. No, no, no. Had Beth taken Sicily to work with her? No.

  He asked questions until she had gone numb. She felt like she had on the freeway last night, as if she were being pulled along in the slipstream of something—someone—more powerful than her. As if the will to change lanes, to pull to the shoulder and say, “No more,” was beyond her.

  And then he said, “Would you permit a search of your home?”

  Her stomach cramped. She hadn’t felt a pain so intense since she was a child, living in a state of constant fear. She couldn’t stop herself from hunching forward slightly. “Yes.”

  “I’ll leave you alone now, then. Did you intend to go to work tomorrow?”

  She looked at him incredulously. “You’re kidding.”

  “I want to be sure you’re here in the morning.”

  “No. I don’t plan to go to work. I’ll be here.”

  She didn’t stand. Couldn’t. After a moment he nodded, rose to his feet and let himself out. Beth curled forward, hoping to ease the pain. She’d looked at the clock a minute ago. It was after nine. Sicily had disappeared almost thirty-four hours ago.

  * * *

  THE MAN BROUGHT HER A cheeseburger and French fries again. Once again, his arrival surprised her. “Stay where you are,” he said sharply when she started to stand.

  She sank back down. “Can I use the bathroom?”

  “That’s what the bucket’s for.”

  This time she thought he looked kind of familiar. She didn’t think she’d met him, but maybe she had a long time ago. Mom had lots of friends. Sicily might have seen him back when they used to live here in Seattle.

  “Can’t I please use the bathroom?” she begged.

  He hesitated, then said, “All right. It doesn’t have a window, so don’t think you can get away. Then you gotta do something for me.”

  Sicily nodded meekly even though the last thing he’d said scared her a lot. This time when she stood up he only backed away, leaving the door standing open.

  “That way,” he told her, jerking his head.

  It was a basement apartment, just like she’d thought. She entered the living room, with a small window that allowed only a glint of lights that must be in another building or the house up above them. It was nighttime, she could see that much. Some strange music was coming from outside…well, probably upstairs. Sort of tinkling, but without much melody.

  There was a TV, a futon with a really grungy cover and an upholstered chair that looked like a cat had been tearing at it. They were gross; Sicily wouldn’t have wanted to sit on either. Trash was heaped everywhere, mostly from fast food, but also dirty dishes and some magazines with naked women on them. It took her a second to tear her fascinated gaze from the cover of one that lay open on the floor. What was the woman doing…?

  The tiny kitchen was really disgusting. Sicily wondered if he’d let her out of the bedroom if she offered to clean, but ew. She bet he didn’t have any rubber gloves and she wasn’t touching anything without them.

  The outside door was at the end of a small hall. Kitchen and bathroom were on one side, a second bedroom on the other. Pretending she was Nancy Drew, Sicily paid careful attention. If it was night now, she’d been here a whole twenty-four hours. Aunt Beth might be looking for her, but that didn’t mean she’d find her.

  It’s up to me. Somehow, I have to escape.

  She turned her head enough to see into the bedroom, with dirty clothes all over the floor and filthy sheets on the bed.

  “There’s the bathroom,” he said, in a voice that told her not to take one more step toward the outside door. Which was big and also had a dead bolt.

  Sicily braced herself and went into the bathroom. She shut the door and gazed in dismay at the toilet. The seat was up and he obviously missed a lot. Plus the toilet bowl and sink both were scummy with brown rings. The shower was really little, like one of those in an RV, and of course it was scuzzy and the curtain was cracked.

  She hesitated, then grabbed a wad of toilet paper and used it to let the seat down. There was a bar of soap beside the sink, so she wet the toilet paper and got it soapy, then scrubbed the seat and finally dried it before she sat down. This was better than using the bucket, and anyway now she knew the layout of the apartment. She could go even faster when she did make her break.

  He knocked on the door. “What are you doing in there?”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” she yelled back.

  She wiped and flushed, washed her hands and then tried to turn the fan on, but it was broken. She let herself out of the bathroom and immediately started toward her bedroom. Which was clean. And she was so hungry, she didn’t mind eating the same thing again. She tried to think about that, and not what he’d said. Then you gotta do something for me. He wouldn’t have brought her food if… She couldn’t finish the thought.

  “All right, kid, hold on a minute.”

  He went out and closed the door, but she didn’t hear the lock. She didn’t have time to even think about dashing for it, though, because he came back with something in his hand. It looked kind of like a smart phone, but not quite.

  “I’m going to record you. You’re going to say what I tell you to say and nothing else. All right?”

  Her voice shook a little when she said, “All right.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE TEETERED ON THE EDGE OF THE kidney-shaped swimming pool, frantically searching the water, which a part of him knew ought to be clear and sparkling blue. It wasn’t. The pool was deep: so deep, he couldn’t see the bottom. So deep, he couldn’t tell how far down he was looking. Finally, desperate, he dove in, swimming down, down, down, his eyes open and his head turning.

  It seemed like forever before he saw anything. Despairing, he knew he’d ha
ve to go back up for a breath, and then… Oh, God. There. The shape was dark, unmoving, hanging in the water like submerged garbage. But he could see—God!—pale hair floating around the head. His lungs screamed for air, but his hands closed on the small child and he kicked hard to drive them upward. Light began to penetrate the water and he could almost see the face. He didn’t have to—it was Nate, of course it was Nate.

  I’m too late. I should have been here.

  His entire body was in agony now. Bubbles trailed behind him as he released his last remaining air. With a final kick, he burst through the surface and dragged in a breath, then another. He lifted the child, turning him onto his back, and saw the still, white face.

  It was Sicily’s dead face, not his son’s. Not Nate’s.

  Mike couldn’t fall back asleep after waking from the nightmare. He hadn’t had it in a long time. Months. And now there was a new twist, though he supposed it shouldn’t be a surprise.

  Hell, he’d wanted to get up early anyway, he thought wearily, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head hanging. A couple of Edmonds P.D. officers had knocked on doors in Beth’s neighborhood yesterday, but as usual hadn’t found anyone home at a few houses. Mike hoped to catch people before they left for work this morning.

  At 5:00 a.m., it was still dark as he heated frozen waffles in his toaster and sipped coffee. The sky was beginning to lighten when he backed out of his garage. Drizzle on the windshield told him the weekend’s nice weather had passed. Disgruntled, he thought about going back for a rain slicker, but it wasn’t coming down that hard. The prospect of getting wet didn’t make the morning sound any worse than it already was.

  He hated knowing exactly what the expression on Beth’s face would be as she let them in. They’d been lucky she’d agreed to the search. Lucky she hadn’t yet lawyered up. As heavily as he was leaning on her, she likely would soon. It was a point in her favor that she hadn’t yet, that she was being more than cooperative.

  He parked in front of her house, and avoided looking toward the light in the front window. He wondered if she’d slept any better than he had last night. Was she having nightmares, too?

  Shoulders hunched against the rain, he walked four doors down to the first of three homes where no one had answered the door yesterday. The sky was fully light now, and the drizzle had picked up, chilling him. It was—he glanced at his watch—six-thirty in the morning now. There were lights on in about half the houses on the block.

  Still no answer at the first place.

  At the second house a balding man answered the door. The collar of his shirt was turned up and an unknotted tie hung loose. He looked irritated. “Yeah?”

  Mike showed his badge and explained who he was and what he wanted.

  “Which house?”

  “The green one across the street and two doors down. Number 6134.”

  He looked. “Don’t know the people there.”

  “Have you seen anyone coming or going recently?”

  “I wouldn’t have paid attention if I had,” he said brusquely.

  Mike showed him Sicily’s school photo. “You’re certain you haven’t seen this child?”

  “If a kid lives there, I’ve never seen her.”

  Mike thanked him, turned the collar of his thin jacket up and crossed the street to the last house. Someone was home here, too, unless a light was on a timer.

  But no one came to the door; he didn’t hear the faintest stir inside. So maybe the home owner was away and the light was indeed on a timer.

  So—one down, two still to go. He’d keep an eye on the two places, try them both later. But any hope of calling off the search was dead in the water.

  Walking back toward Beth’s house, he pulled out his cell phone and called in to find out whether he’d gotten the warrant to place a tracking device on her car.

  * * *

  HAVING YOUR HOUSE SEARCHED WAS unspeakably awful. Degrading.

  When Beth answered the door and stared stonily at Mike, he nodded and said, “Morning.”

  She simply stood back to let him in, as she’d done too many times already. This time was different; she came close to hating him. What hope was there that he’d find Sicily when he was focused so intensely on her?

  “I’m heading out,” she said abruptly, reaching for her purse. “Call me when you’re done.”

  “I need to ask you to stay, Ms. Greenway.”

  She went still and her fingers flexed into a fist. “Ask, or order?”

  “At this point, it’s a request.” Expressionless as his voice was, there was no mistaking the message. He expected soon to have grounds to compel her to answer his questions and open any part of her life that he chose. It was a warning, a threat. Cooperate or else.

  “Why do I need to be here?” She turned to face him, chin high. “So you can achieve maximum humiliation?”

  “You know that’s not what I want.” The pity—if that’s what it was—in his eyes enraged her.

  That rage gave her the backbone to say, “Then what possible purpose will be served by making me sit here while strangers paw through my closets and my underwear drawer and dig up my new flower bed? Answer me that.”

  “We might have questions for you. The process might go easier and faster with your cooperation.”

  Oh, God. She didn’t know if she could bear any of this.

  The doorbell rang.

  Burning with that hate, Beth walked away, going straight through the house to the back patio. She left the French door open and stood outside beneath the cover of the green-striped awning. She clasped her arms as tightly as she could against the cold and stared at the gray drizzle. She needed the cold, to cool fury and mortification that radiated from her belly and chest, which seemed to have become a furnace with the thermostat cranked lethally high.

  There were voices, footsteps. More voices. She refused to look. She assumed there was something like a CSI van in her driveway now. Perhaps a couple of them. Other police cars. How the neighbors would stare. Beth wondered how long it would take for someone to tip off a reporter, for a news truck or two to roll up to the curb. What a nice addition to tonight’s TV news: footage of her house being searched. Search for missing child suspended, aunt now under suspicion. She could hear it as a lead-in to the six o’clock news.

  He came out to ask if she’d mind if they backed her car out of the garage. How courteous.

  “You know where my purse is,” she said tonelessly, not looking at him. “The keys are in the outside pocket.”

  “Beth…”

  She dug her fingernails into the flesh of her arms. I will not feel.

  It didn’t work any more than it had Saturday at the beach. She felt frighteningly like she had Sunday, when she’d come so near to imploding. She wanted to hit him, scratch him, hurt him. Beth had never known a feeling could be so corrosive. Oh, Sicily.

  It had been forty-five hours since Sicily had disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Eventually, when she didn’t answer, he went away.

  * * *

  “HERE’S YOUR FOOD, KID.”

  Sicily looked without enthusiasm at the Burger King bag he tossed toward her. She used to like cheeseburgers and French fries. Now she didn’t know if she’d ever want them again.

  “Don’t you ever eat anything different?” she asked.

  “You complaining, kid?” He sounded offended.

  Um…yeah?

  “Usually I have cereal for breakfast,” she muttered, thinking maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to say anything.

  He grunted. “I guess I could get you an egg sandwich tomorrow morning.”

  Okay, that was good. He planned to keep feeding her. Of course, he might keep feeding her even if he’d cut off her little finger to mail to her grandparents. Si
cily hoped he didn’t see her shiver. She didn’t like the way he kept leaning there in the doorway, watching her.

  “Why are you doing this?” she blurted out.

  “They owe me.”

  “They?” she asked cautiously.

  “They’re filthy rich, you know. Did they ever share any of that money with you and your mommy?”

  She didn’t like the way he said mommy. It was creepy.

  He knew Mom. He must have. And…hated her?

  She almost said, “I should remember you, shouldn’t I,” but stopped herself in time. She was already freaked by the way he looked at her sometimes. She couldn’t figure it out. It was as though he was supercurious about her and maybe bothered because he didn’t want to be. Or something. It was a good sign that he wanted to hang out talking to her, wasn’t it? It might mean he’d become lots less careful. She was waiting for her moment.

  “No,” she admitted. “Mom didn’t like them. I barely even met them.”

  He snorted. “All your mother had to do was be nice to them and they’d have bought you pretty dresses and shit. Anything you wanted. Anything she asked for.”

  A huge, really awful thought came to Sicily. This man could be her father. That could be why he stared at her the way he did. He hadn’t seen her since she was, like, a baby. That could explain why he was sort of curious.

  She squinted at him, trying to match him up to her remembrance of the too-tiny figures in the photograph of her dad’s band. She couldn’t. But…he did look familiar. People had actual memories from when they were really little, didn’t they? Could she remember him from when she was two? Or maybe she’d seen him after that. Mom said he’d walked out on them, but she didn’t say she’d never seen him again. He might have come by sometimes for a while. Or…maybe Mom had had pictures around. They could’ve gotten left behind during one of their moves. Sometimes when they were evicted they couldn’t get all their stuff.

  Oh…yuck! was all she could think.

  “Mom really hated them,” she told him, although that wasn’t quite right. Mom talked like they’d been horrible to her, but sometimes she called home and sounded…sort of soft and pleading. And then she’d cry after she’d hung up. Hearing her voice like that had always made Sicily feel hollow inside. She’d known for a long time that her mother wasn’t very strong. That she had to be strong for them both. But she didn’t understand even a little bit why, if they’d treated Mom as badly as she said they did, she’d want to talk to them. Sicily wondered if Aunt Beth called home, too. If she had since Sicily came to live with her, it was when she wasn’t around.