Lawman Lover

by Saranne Dawson

  When her sister’s assistant answered, Amanda asked for Jesse and held her breath.

  “I’m sorry. She’s not here right now. May I help you?”

  “Vicki, it’s Amanda. Has Jesse been in today?”

  “Oh. I didn’t recognize your voice.” There was a brief pause. “No. She didn’t come in. She was supposed to open because I had a doctor’s appointment. But when I came in at ten-thirty, the place was still locked up. We’re having a sale, too. It was advertised in the paper.”

  “Did you call Steve?”

  “Yes. I called him right after I called Jesse at home and didn’t get an answer. He...seemed really upset.”

  Amanda thanked her, then put the phone away and hurried to her office, three floors up. Her secretary told her that Steve had called at 10:45 a.m., but there was no call from Jesse. She then called Steve’s office, but he hadn’t returned there. So she tried him at home, but got only the machine. Finally, she called police dispatch and asked them to page Michael. Then she paced around her office, the case completely forgotten as she worried about her sister.

  She pounced on the phone the second it rang. “Lieutenant Quinn is on line one,” her secretary informed her.

  “Michael,” she said without preamble. “Where is she?”

  “We don’t know. Steve and I are checking the bars right now. The shop was open late last night, and she didn’t come home after it closed, so Steve hasn’t seen her since yesterday morning. But we know she was at work all day yesterday.

  “Steve says she’d been having nightmares ever since we talked to her.” Michael paused briefly. “He thinks she does know something. But whatever it is, she won’t tell him.”

  “Michael, you’ve got to find her.”

  “I’m doing my best. Steve and I have divided up the most-likely places.”

  “I should be helping you.”

  “No, you should be trying your case. They’re trying to hang you out to dry, honey. Don’t let them do that.”

  His voice had dropped to an intimate tone that, even in her present frame of mind, sent little curls of heat through her. “I’m not prepared,” she told him.

  “You’re doing fine. Just keep at it and let Steve and I handle this. Page me when you recess.”

  She managed to force down some yogurt that her secretary pressed on her as she studied the witness statements. And somehow, she got through the afternoon. When they took a short recess, she had Michael paged, but he hadn’t answered by the time she had to return to court.

  After court recessed for the day, Amanda had to endure a lecture from the judge about her “foot-dragging” before she could get back to her office. There were no messages from Michael, but she hadn’t really expected any. He’d know that she wouldn’t want to have her secretary know what was going on. She had him paged again, and this time he got back to her quickly.

  “She was at the River House for a while last night, but she left early,” he reported. “I got hold of the bartender, and he said that she just suddenly walked out halfway through her second drink. He’s pretty sure that she left alone. He hadn’t seen her talking to anyone while she was there.

  “Steve called your father’s house, but the housekeeper said that she wasn’t there, and as far as she could tell, hadn’t stayed there. She said that your father’s in Boston.”

  “Yes,” Amanda confirmed. “Court’s in session.”

  “Steve was wondering if we should call him. Maybe he’s heard from her.”

  “I’ll try to reach him now. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going back to the office to take care of a few things. Then I’m going over to Steve’s. Why don’t you meet us there, and we can try to figure out what to do next.”

  Amanda managed to catch her father just as he was leaving his chambers. He hadn’t heard from Jesse. She told him that Michael had talked to her recently about the case of the dead girl on the island, and that necessitated telling him the rest of it: that they were fairly certain they knew who she was, and they suspected that Jesse might have some information she was unwilling to divulge.

  “Amanda, you should have stopped him from harassing her!” her father stated angrily when she had finished.

  Taken aback by his outburst, Amanda protested that she couldn’t interfere in a police investigation—even though, of course, she’d been doing just that.

  “Jesse can’t be expected to handle this. She doesn’t need to be reminded of her past problems.”

  Angry now, both at his unreasonable attitude and at his defense of Jesse, Amanda reminded him that Michael was investigating a possible homicide.

  “A ‘possible’ homicide that happened twenty years ago isn’t a good enough reason to destroy my daughter!”

  “She’s my sister, too!” Amanda protested. “And...”

  “I don’t want Jesse harmed just to find the killer of a little slut!”

  Amanda was shocked into silence. It wasn’t as though she didn’t already know what a snob her father was, but hearing it now was still a shock. And in the same moment, she knew that if the situation were reversed and it was she who might have such information, his attitude would be very different. Jesse was still his darling. Nothing had changed.

  “I’m sorry, Mandy. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s the pressure right now. I’ve just gotten word that Justice Robson is going to be announcing his retirement any time—maybe even this week. And I am worried about Jesse. She’s not strong, and she never will be. We both have to face up to that—and so does Steve.”

  They hung up after Amanda promised to keep him informed. She gathered up her papers and stuffed them into her briefcase, signed some other papers that her secretary brought to her, then left the office.

  Partway to Steve’s, it occurred to her that someone should check with Jesse’s therapist. It was certainly possible that Jesse had contacted her. She knew that confidentiality would preclude the therapist from telling them where Jesse was, but perhaps she would at least tell them if she’d spoken to her in the past day.

  But when she arrived, Steve told her that he’d already talked to the therapist and she hadn’t heard from Jesse for a week. He then asked if she’d contacted her father.

  Amanda nodded. “He hasn’t heard from her.”

  Steve stared at her, obviously hearing the pain and anger she couldn’t quite suppress. “What did he say?”

  “He’s angry with Michael for having questioned her, and angry with both of us for not protecting her.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me—maybe he’s right.”

  “What were we supposed do to—ignore a possible source of information just because we don’t want to upset her?” Amanda demanded, her voice rising.

  They were still standing in the foyer, and at that moment, the doorbell rang. Steve opened the door, and Michael joined them. After glancing quickly from Steve to her, he asked what had happened.

  “Nothing,” Steve said quickly.

  “Your father?” Michael asked, ignoring him and turning instead to her.

  Amanda was surprised that he’d guessed, and nodded before she could stop herself. Perhaps he’d overheard her. She’d been all but shouting.

  “He’s angry because we questioned Jesse, but he hasn’t heard from her.”

  She turned away, moving toward the living room, but Michael put a restraining hand on her arm. He said nothing, but when she turned to him, there was no mistaking the love and understanding in his eyes.

  But how could he understand? How could he possibly know how it felt to discover that nothing had changed, that Jesse was still the favored daughter, despite Amanda’s accomplishments?

  “For what it’s worth,” Steve said, breaking the silence as they all sat down, “I think Jesse does know something.”

  Then, seeing that he had their full attention, he went on. “She’s been having nightmares ever since we talked to her about it. But she won’t tell me what they’re about. In fact, she hasn’t
said more than a few words to me since then. It’s like she’s lost in some world of her own.

  “But she hasn’t been drinking—at least not that I know of. I tried to get her to go see her therapist, but she refused. She said it wouldn’t help, that she had to deal with it herself.”

  “‘It’?” Michael echoed.

  Steve shook his head. “She wouldn’t say what it was.”

  “Did you check the bank and her credit cards?” Michael asked.

  Steve nodded. “No withdrawals and no charges. The store account is in her name only, but I persuaded the bank to check it for me and she didn’t touch it, either. So she couldn’t have gone far.”

  “When can you begin an official search?” Amanda asked, not certain just what the law was in such matters, since she didn’t generally deal with missing persons.

  “Not for another two days—unless I want to put out an APB and call her a material witness to a crime. But I don’t think that’s a good idea, under the circumstances.”

  Then Michael stared solemnly at both of them. “Look, I don’t like having to bring this up, but is it possible that she could have committed suicide?”

  “No!” Amanda said quickly. “She’s never been suicidal!”

  “I’m not so sure,” Steve said reluctantly. “You haven’t seen her these past few days. She didn’t say anything, and I don’t think she would, but...”

  His voice trailed off into a silence that grew heavy as they all contemplated that terrible possibility. But Amanda continued to shake her head.

  “Whatever it is that she knows, it can’t be that bad,” she stated. “She couldn’t have killed Eve Lauden.”

  “But if she knows who did and failed to report it, she’d know that she’s in trouble,” Michael argued. “Or even if Eve’s death was accidental and she failed to report it, she’s still in trouble.”

  Amanda was still shaking her head. “Neither thing makes any sense. Whether she knew that Eve was murdered or she knew that it was an accident, she would have known where Eve was buried—right?”

  Steve and Michael both nodded, and Amanda hurried on. “But she was probably the only one who didn’t protest at all about Jan and Stacey building their cottage. In fact, she said more than once that the rest of us were being ridiculous about it.”

  She turned to Michael. “Remember when you first told me about Eve’s body being discovered? You asked me then who had protested about the cottage. All of us did, to one extent or another, though we eventually accepted it. But Jesse said from the beginning that we were all being ridiculous. And she knew, just as the rest of us did, exactly where the cottage would be built. So she couldn’t have had any knowledge that a body was buried there.”

  Amanda finished on a triumphant note and saw Steve nodding. “You’re right,” he said. “I’d forgotten about it, but Jesse did say that she thought everyone was being ridiculous about it.”

  Michael frowned thoughtfully, but said nothing, then abruptly changed the subject, asking Steve if Jesse had any friends she might have gone to stay with temporarily.

  “I’ve called everyone I can think of,” Steve replied, “And no one’s heard from her.”

  They seemed to be at a dead end. Michael finally said that it would be best for Steve to stay home, in case Jesse contacted him. Then he got up to leave, his eyes sending a silent message to Amanda to come with him.

  “Do you think we should check the bars again?” Amanda asked as they paused next to her car.

  Michael shook his head. “I’ve left word at the places she tends to frequent for them to contact me if she shows up.” He paused, then went on.

  “You know, it occurred to me in there that there’s one place we haven’t checked—the island.”

  Amanda shook her head. “Jesse wouldn’t go out there. She never goes there.”

  “I’ll follow you home so we can drop off your car. Then we’ll go check it.”

  Amanda opened her mouth to protest again, then closed it. She couldn’t see Jesse going out there, but...

  “I HAD SOMEONE GO OVER to the high school Eve attended and check her attendance records,” Michael said as they set off to the marina. “It took some time because they were buried in a storage place the school uses, but it might have been worth it.”

  He paused and slanted a quick glance her way before returning his attention to the road. “Believe it or not, she wasn’t absent all that much—even toward the end.”

  “That’s surprising, given what we’ve been told about her,” Amanda commented.

  “Yeah, it is. Her last day of school was April 8.”

  Amanda stared at him as a chill went through her. Michael nodded. “Your accident happened April 8.”

  “No! I mean it did, but...” She simply ran out of words as her mind slipped back to that terrible night.

  Michael took his hand from the gearshift and covered hers. Warmth seeped into her icy flesh. “It could be just a coincidence,” he said gently, “but my gut is telling me it isn’t.”

  “Cops always hate coincidences,” she stated angrily. “But they do happen.”

  He said nothing. Amanda stared out the window. It was April again, and the weather was much as it had been that night: a sudden spell of unnaturally warm weather, a hint of spring in the air. She wished they were going anywhere but to the island.

  But we won’t be going to the island she reminded herself. If Jesse is out there, her car would have to be at the marina—and it won’t be.

  The marina was mostly deserted. A few boats were missing from their slips, and she could see one sailboat out on the lake, tacking toward the dock.

  “Our boathouse is down there, at the far end,” she told him.

  “I know,” he replied as he drove along the docks.

  The land-side doors to the boathouse were closed. Michael heaved a sigh. “I guess you were right. Her car’s not here.”

  “We have a garage. It’s that building up there.” She pointed to a metal building that squatted near the fuel station.

  “I didn’t know that,” Michael said as he turned in that direction.

  “It’s because we’re usually out there for the weekend, not just for the day, like most boat owners. Father decided we should have one built after someone broke into his car one time.”

  Michael rolled to a stop in front of the row of doors, and Amanda took her keys from her purse, silently praying that the garage would be empty.

  But it wasn’t. Michael took the key from her and unlocked the door, then rolled it up. Jesse’s dark green BMW sat inside. Amanda turned away, her gaze going to the dark bulk of the island across the water. It was dusk, but no lights were on at the house, which was plainly visible from here because it sat on the highest point of the island.

  “Do you want to wait here?” Michael asked quietly.

  She shook her head, even though that was exactly what she wanted.

  He reached for her, drawing her gently into his arms. “It’s okay for you to be scared, honey. What’s not okay is for you to let your father pile a load of guilt on you.”

  She shook her head and moved away. “Let’s just check the boathouse first.”

  The old launch was gone. Now there could be no doubt that Jesse was on the island. Michael drove back to his own boat, and she waited while he pulled the cover off it. It was growing steadily darker, but still there were no lights at the house. The evening breeze was warm, but it did little to chase away the iciness that encased her.

  And it got worse as they left the dock behind and sped over the water. Michael’s boat was very similar to the one they’d borrowed that awful night. The memories inundated her, but there was nothing new.

  Halfway across, they could finally make out the outline of the old launch at the dock, half-hidden by a large, flat-bottomed boat piled with building materials. Amanda kept her eyes on the cottage, until they were too close to the island to see it through the trees. Still no lights, even though by now it was full dar
k.

  Michael managed to find berthing space between the launch and the construction company’s boat. He cut the motor, then turned to her.

  “Give me your keys. You’re going to wait here.”

  She shook her head. “I’m coming with you. If she’s... I’d have to identify her anyway—officially, I mean.”

  “No, you won’t. Steve can...”

  He stopped and they both stared at each other, realizing that they were both certain what they would find.

  “I’m coming with you,” Amanda said again, and climbed out of the boat.

  Michael brought his flashlight, and they walked along the path that led up the hill and through the woods—past the new cottage that was in the process of being framed. Neither of them said a word, but Michael held her hand in a firm grip.

  Amanda’s thoughts had moved beyond the moment, beyond what she was certain must be awaiting them. What could be so terrible that Jesse would choose to end her life rather than tell them? It made no sense to her, and she desperately needed for it to make sense.

  She walked on through the darkness with Michael’s hand the only anchor she had to the terrible present. Her mind had now turned away from the unanswerable questions to the past: both the dim, distant past and the more recent past. She acknowledged to herself now that she’d hated her beautiful older sister—hated her because their father had loved her more. And she’d envied her, too, of course, with all the jealousy of a gawky, metal-mouthed kid toward a girl who’d been everything she wasn’t.

  And recently—very recently—she’d been annoyed by Jesse’s problems intruding into her hectic life, making demands she didn’t want to meet.

  And none of it, of course, had been Jesse’s fault. She hadn’t set out to deny Amanda their father’s love, and neither had she deliberately chosen the mental illness mat bad plagued her. Even the drinking and the drugs had been nothing more than manifestations of that illness: “self-medicating,” Jesse’s therapist had called it—a way of trying to deal with her pain.