Gone

by Karen Fenech

  “Why was she in here?” Clare asked.

  “She came to me,” Potter went on, “and asked where I shelved the prophylactics.” His lips compressed briefly.

  “Go on, Clem,” Jake said.

  “Not much more to tell, really.” Potter’s posture straightened, bringing him to his full height. “Prophylactics are contrary to the teachings of the bible. I don’t carry that product and told her so.”

  “How did she react?” Clare asked.

  “I believe she found my response amusing. I told her that I was closing the store and directed her to the door. Her time here was very brief and that was the extent of my dealing with that young woman, I’m very pleased to say.”

  “Did she mention where she was going?” Jake asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you notice what direction she took, Clem?” Jake asked.

  “Absolutely not. I could not close the door behind her fast enough. I had no more time to waste on the likes of that young woman.”

  “I don’t suppose she mentioned who she was planning to use the condoms with, Mr. Potter?” Clare raised her brows.

  Potter glared at her. “Certainly not. As I said, my dealing with the woman was very brief. I was elated to see the last of her.”

  Clare leaned toward Potter. “You did hear that she went missing, didn’t you, Mr. Potter? That she’s been gone for four years? You’ve got family, a daughter.” Clare gestured to Roberta. “Doesn’t hearing that a young woman disappeared give your gut a little twist?”

  Flushing, Potter addressed Jake. “Your partner has no call to go talking to me like that. She’s trying to intimidate me.”

  “I’d think hearing of a young girl who’d been in your store going missing would unsettle you, Clem, no matter how you were told.” Jake slapped a business card on the counter. “If you recall any other details about your conversation with Sara, give us a call.”

  * * * * *

  The last person on their list was Joan Bass, a school teacher on summer vacation. The woman who answered Clare’s knock at the Bass residence was a trim forty-something who was wrapping a towel around her waist. Water trickled from her hair and sky blue bathing suit down a long, tanned body. She wore an assortment of jewel-toned rings, and a neck chain of ruby red stones.

  “Well, hello,” the woman said and greeted Clare, and then Jake, with a bright smile.

  “Good morning, we’d like to speak with Mrs. Bass.” Clare showed her ID.

  “FBI?” She widened her eyes and her smile. “I’m Joan Bass. I can’t imagine why the FBI would come calling, but it’s been a slow day. Why don’t you come on in and tell me?”

  Joan’s reaction to having the FBI at her door was a new one in Clare’s experience. It was unusual to receive an exuberant welcome once she introduced herself as a federal agent. Clare caught Jake’s eye. Maybe he was thinking the same thing. He looked amused. Though whether his amusement was at what Joan Bass had said or at Clare’s surprise at the comment, Clare wasn’t sure.

  Joan led them through a spacious hall, her bare feet slapping softly against the tile. The hall was in deep shadow, making the room cool. She went through the kitchen and to a sliding glass door that opened onto a cement patio. Two young boys wearing swimming trunks and life jackets sat on lounge chairs.

  “Okay, Trevor, Thomas, I’m back. You can go back in the water now,” Joan called out.

  The two boys, one a bright red head, the other dark-haired, jumped into the pool that took up most of the small yard, splashing water on the backs of Clare’s legs.

  Joan Bass narrowed her eyes at Clare in a sympathetic look, her gaze lingering on the crutch. “You might want to take a load off.” She pointed to the chairs the boys had vacated.

  When both Clare and Jake were seated, Jake explained to Joan why they wanted to speak with her. Clare offered Joan the photograph of Sara. Joan cradled it in her palm and took some time gazing at it. When she handed it back, she nodded slowly.

  “I remember her,” Joan said. “I talked with Sheriff Nobleton and two detectives down from Columbia about this girl. Since you’re here asking about her again, I guess she hasn’t ever been found?”

  “No,” Jake said.

  “Some of my students aren’t that much younger than this girl,” Joan went on. “A parent’s worst fear, I think, to have your child disappear. I’ll answer any questions you have.”

  Jake took Joan back to that day. “You saw Sara,” he said. “In the pharmacy?”

  Joan nodded. “That’s right.” She pitched her voice to be heard above the laughter and shouts of the children in the pool. “Both my boys were down with the measles. Maybe that’s why I remember it all so well. I went in to get some calamine lotion from Clem. I was supposed to be just in and out. Tom, my husband, was minding the boys while I dashed out to get the stuff, and I promised him I wouldn’t be too long.” She laughed and gave Clare a conspiratorial wink. “Darned if I didn’t end up having a flat tire on the way back and had to wait for roadside assistance from the Tucker boys service station.” Joan wiggled her fingers, the bright-colored stones in the rings glittering in the sunlight. “What I really had was a need to get out of the house after being cooped up with the boys for four days. So, I took myself off to get a manicure.”

  “Did you encounter Sara while having the manicure as well?” Clare asked.

  That hadn’t been in Joan’s statement and Clare’s heart thudded at the prospect of new information.

  Joan waved a hand and shook her head. “Mercy, no. I’ve gone off the topic. I saw her at the pharmacy and just at the pharmacy.” Joan tucked her tongue in her cheek for an instant. “She had Clem going, let me tell you. She asked him for condoms. If you know Clem, that’s akin to blasphemy.” Joan gave a hoot of laughter. “I tell you it would make life easier for Tom and me, and I suspect a lot of other folks here in Farley, if Clem would just stock them. He thinks people don’t use contraceptives because the only reason they’re having sex is to make babies.”

  “Did Sara mention her reason for being in town?” Clare asked, steering Joan Bass back to the subject at hand. “Did she mention that she was meeting anyone?”

  “Not to me.” Joan shook her head. “We didn’t talk at all. I just overheard her conversation with Clem. It was just me, Clem, and her in the pharmacy at that time. I wouldn’t have paid much attention if not for her getting Clem all bothered.”

  “Did you notice which way she went when she left the store?” Clare asked.

  “Sorry, I figured Tom was at about the end of his rope with the boys by that time and I was busy reading the labels of the different types of lotion to pay her any more mind. The only thing I really remember about the girl was that she was giving Clem a time and the ring she was wearing.”

  Clare nodded. She recalled that Joan had mentioned a ring in her statement to Brownley and Stokes.

  “I really like jewelry, as you can see for yourselves.” Joan waved her hands as she had when speaking of the manicure. Again, the many rings she wore reflected in the sunlight. “I might forget a face, but I never forget a piece of jewelry. The girl was wearing a thick silver band with a large octagonal-shaped lapis lazuli stone. It was likely a fake. I think a stone that size would cost the earth. But, fake or not, that ring was a stunner. I regretted later that I hadn’t asked her where she got it. Then I heard about her going missing.” Joan shook her head. “Something awful like that really puts things in perspective.”

  Clare thanked Joan and she and Jake left the house. They walked slowly over the sidewalk as they made their way back to Jake’s vehicle. The sharp tang of asphalt, baking in the sun, hung in the air.

  “That was a bust.” Clare released an impatient breath. “I hoped someone might remember something they hadn’t when they were first questioned.”

  A neighbor was in his driveway washing a van. Clare moved carefully through the soapy water flowing on the sidewalk.

  “It has been four years,” Jake sa
id. “Witness accounts are sketchy right after an incident.”

  They reached his SUV. He opened the door for Clare, gave her a hand up as she slid onto the seat, then closed the door for her and took his own seat.

  Jake drove to Main Street and pulled into the gas station there. While he filled the tank, Clare came to a decision. They’d gotten no new information from the interviews. They were no closer to determining who Sara’s mystery man was or what happened to her. They were no closer to finding Beth. Clare needed to smoke out the unsub.

  She dialed directory assistance and got the number for the television station in Columbia that produced the program, Rise and Shine Columbia. A few moments later, she had voice mail for the program’s host, Lauren Duval.

  “Ms. Duval, this is Clare Marshall. You called me requesting an interview on my efforts to locate my sister. If you’re still interested, I can be reached on my cell phone.” Clare recited the number then disconnected.

  Her phone rang again almost immediately. Caller ID showed Lauren Duval.

  Clare flipped open the phone. “Hello, Ms. Duval.”

  “To answer the question you left on my voice mail, Agent Marshall, I certainly am still interested in speaking with you on the air. Because of the timeliness of this story, I want to do a live show and right away. How soon can you come in?”

  “I’m on vacation, actually. Just let me know where and when.”

  “I’ll shift tomorrow’s show if you can be here at the studio tomorrow morning at seven a.m.” Duval recited the address.

  Clare wrote the information. “I’ll be there.”

  Duval said, “I’ll leave word at the gate of your arrival, since you’ll need a pass to be admitted.”

  Clare nodded. “See you then.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Clare arrived at the studio. After some time spent fitting a microphone to the lapel of her navy pin-striped suit, she was whisked onto the stage and sat on one of two deep tufted rose-colored chairs on the platform. A small footstool was brought out for Clare to rest her injured leg on. Mugs of coffee and frosted glasses of ice water were placed on the cherry wood table that sat in between the chairs. Then Lauren Duval burst onto the scene and flew to Clare.

  Duval’s shoulders and arms had an attractive pumped look that came from weight lifting and she wore a form-fitting dress that accentuated her excellent muscle tone.

  “I’m Lauren, Clare. A pleasure to meet you,” Duval said, then turned toward a woman bearing a compact who trailed her. After a pat to her nose with the powder puff, Lauren took her place beside Clare.

  Lights flashed on the stage, making the background completely black. A male voice belonging to someone in the darkness called out, “In ten, Lauren.”

  A countdown began.

  “No cause to be nervous, Clare,” Duval said. “I’ll steer you through this. Just follow my lead and it’ll all be over before you know it.”

  Clare didn’t respond. There wasn’t time before the man called out again and the green light on the camera in front turned to red, signaling that they were now live. She hadn’t planned to respond anyway. Doubtful Duval would have appreciated Clare telling her that she had no intention of being “steered.” Clare had an agenda of her own.

  “Rise and Shine, Columbia,” Duval said in her smooth tone.

  Duval’s accent was subtly southern, just enough to hear the south and make her hometown to her audience and to endear her to them, and yet not enough to label her a hick or backwoods girl.

  “Today we’re going to break from our usual programming to take a serious, hard look at something that is going on right around us,” Duval began. “A woman went missing a little over a week ago. Here to tell us about her is Agent Clare Marshall of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Not only is Clare here with us today in her official capacity, but more, she’s also the missing woman’s sister—a sister Clare hasn’t seen or heard from since they were separated following their own mother’s attempt to try to kill both girls.”

  Clare tuned Duval out as she elaborated on the sensational aspects of Jolene’s story. Clare hated this, hated having her past aired when all of her life she’d worked to keep it under wraps. But it was for the greater good to find Beth.

  Eventually, Duval turned to Clare.

  “Tell us, Clare, how do you feel after having finally located your sister to Farley and discovering that she is missing, and gone just one week before your arrival? One week.” Lauren shook her head carefully, tossing her blonde strands artfully so that they swung away and fell back into place.

  “Actually, Lauren, I am very close to finding my sister,” Clare said.

  Duval frowned slightly at the upbeat tone Clare infused into her words. Clare believed the other woman had hoped for despair in her voice, possibly tears as she responded to the question.

  “My sister’s disappearance from Farley is not an isolated incident,” Clare added. “Another woman disappeared from the town four years ago. That woman was Sara McCowan. I believe there is a link between my sister’s disappearance and Sara’s.”

  Lauren’s eyes had widened to full moons. She glanced at the list of questions she’d prepared and held loosely in her grasp, then back at Clare. She appeared to be at a loss, but recovered quickly.

  “Sara McCowan? I’m not familiar with her disappearance,” Duval said.

  Clare described the case briefly. “New evidence has shown that Sara did not disappear in Columbia, but actually went missing in Farley. The investigation has been reopened and is now directed at Farley. Anyone with information pertaining to the disappearances of Sara McCowan or Beth Ryder can contact me at the following number.” Clare recited her cell phone number. “I will not stop until I have found my sister. I will not stop until I have apprehended the one responsible for her disappearance.”

  Clare focused on the lens of the camera without blinking. “It’s come down to you and me. You’re nothing but a coward. A cockroach. You hide in the dark. Afraid of the light. Afraid to take me on.” She gave a feral smile. “You should be afraid.”

  The studio fell silent. Dead air reigned. Eventually, a gap-mouthed Duval turned away from Clare and back to the audience.

  “Thank you, ah, very much, ah, Agent Clare Marshall.” Duval stuttered. “For being with us this morning to share your heart-wrenching story.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Our thoughts and prayers are with you for the immediate and safe return of your sister.”

  Duval didn’t give Clare an opportunity to respond, perhaps fearing that Clare would again break with the programming and venture on her own topic.

  “Our next guest is diet guru Norman Plane,” Duval said. “Stay tuned.”

  The red light flicked off. Duval turned to Clare.

  “That wasn’t what we talked about,” Duval said. “You blindsided me, Agent Marshall. I don’t appreciate that. Don’t expect to be invited back.”

  Since hell would have to freeze over before Clare would ever agree to return to Duval’s stage again, the threat did not concern her.

  Her face a mask of outrage and anger, Duval picked up her glass and gulped water. The woman who held the powder puff scurried onto the set. It was a testimony to Duval’s anger that she sent the woman away with an impatient wave.

  A stage hand rushed to Clare. “We need to get you off stage,” he said. “Our next guest is waiting.”

  The solicitous treatment she’d received was over. Clare got up from the chair and limped off the set.

  After the interview, Clare drove to the motel where Sara and her friends had stayed. Brownley and Stokes had questioned the motel manager and staff, but Clare wanted to cover the ground again. She was hoping to trigger a memory that would lead to Sara’s mystery man. She learned nothing new.