Before He Vanished

by Debra Webb

  But he couldn’t be. If he was that would mean his entire life since age seven was a lie. He would not allow her or anyone else to take that from him. He loved his father. Missed him so much. He loved Penelope and Claire. He would not permit anyone to tell him that they weren’t really his family.

  He couldn’t.

  His cell vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it from his jacket. Claire. He walked to the kitchen area, his back to Halle and the delivery guy and answered. “Hey. Everything okay?”

  He had sent his sister a text message today and told her he’d decided to stay a few more days but there hadn’t been time to call and discuss his reasons. Now, he supposed, was as good a time as any.

  “So why are you not coming home before Monday?”

  She sounded curious but he heard no alarm in her voice. Good. “The woman who sent me the article was murdered last night.”

  “Oh my God, are you kidding?”

  “Afraid not. The chief of police wants me to stay a couple days. He thinks she was murdered because I showed up.”

  “Are you a suspect?”

  The alarm was loud and clear now. “No. No. I am not a suspect.” He opted not to mention that he’d been cleared of suspicion.

  Halle had placed the food on the counter and was looking at him as if she feared there was more bad news.

  He turned the phone away and said, “It’s Claire, my sister.”

  Halle nodded.

  “Are you with her?” Claire asked.

  Gone was the alarm and in its place was something like defensiveness or a protectiveness. Was his little sister worried about the big bad reporter? Liam had to smile.

  “She’s standing right in front of me,” he said. “Would you like to speak to her?”

  “No! Why would I want to speak to her?”

  As his sister ranted on, he whispered to Halle. “She’s a little shy.”

  Halle smiled and he relaxed. Her smile did that to him more often than not. Another of those strange connections between them.

  “I called Mom.”

  Liam stilled. “Why did you do that? She’s in Paris on vacation. This will just upset her and she doesn’t need that in her life.” His frustration spiked again. He had no interest in hurting or worrying Penelope. Not until he knew more, and the path was clearer.

  “Because we need answers. She’s the only one who might have some. Especially since you said that woman was murdered. Oh my God. This is just awful.”

  “What did you say to her?” Just how big a deal this was going to turn into with Penelope was what Liam needed to know.

  The scents of ginger and sesame and garlic were prodding his appetite. He’d been certain he wasn’t hungry until those sweet and spicy smells invaded his olfactory senses.

  “I told her about the newspaper article and that you were in Winchester looking into it.”

  He knew his sister. She’d just given him the condensed version. “And what did she say?”

  “Not a lot really. She did a lot of listening and about the time she started to respond, the connection went haywire. All staticky and breaking up. She promised she would call me back but she hasn’t yet.”

  He could only imagine what his stepmother was thinking. She had been a great mom to him, still was. From her perspective she might think he was casting her off in search of a new mother.

  “I wish you hadn’t done that, Claire.” He pressed his forehead to the nearest cabinet door and closed his eyes. “I didn’t want her upset by this.”

  “She didn’t sound upset.”

  He dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “You just said the connection was broken and staticky. How do you know she wasn’t upset?”

  “Because what I did hear sounded brisk and commanding. Her usual tone.”

  “Okay—” he shook his head “—so she wasn’t upset. She’s angry. That’s so much better.” Why did little sisters—even after they were adults—have to be such a pain in the butt?

  “Trust me, Liam, she is not upset or angry. She’s just considering. You know, processing the information.”

  “Fine. Fine. Fine.” He would hear from Penelope by tomorrow. He was certain of it. Maybe that was good, though. He could explain why he felt compelled to do this.

  “When are you coming home? I mean, really.”

  He loved that her voice told him that she missed him, was worried about him. “Monday.”

  “Good. Don’t delay your flight again. It sounds as if all this trip has done is create more questions than provide answers. I’m sorry I urged you to go.”

  “You have my word that I will not delay unless I have no other choice.”

  He frowned at his own words. He almost sounded as if he expected to have to postpone leaving again.

  Ridiculous.

  “Okay, if I hear from Mom, I’ll let you know.”

  “Don’t worry, Claire Bear, everything is under control.”

  “I always know when you’re lying,” she warned.

  “Good night, Claire.”

  “Love you!”

  “Love you, too.” He ended the call and took a deep breath. He liked his life. Which was why he didn’t like thinking of it not being real.

  His gaze shifted to the woman opening Chinese takeout boxes. But some part of him wanted her in it. How screwed up was that? He barely knew her.

  She turned to him as if he’d said the words out loud. “You call your sister Claire Bear?”

  He smiled at the memory of his little sister as a baby. “She growled when she was a baby. I started calling her a bear and it stuck.”

  Halle’s eyes were bright as if she were about to cry. Had he said something wrong? Reminded her of some memory that made her sad? Oh wait, just looking at him made her sad because he looked exactly like her long-lost childhood friend. How could he forget?

  “That’s what I called Andy. Andy Bear. Because he was like a life-size, cuddly teddy bear.”

  Liam pressed his hand to his gut and went for a subject change. “Man, I’m hungry.”

  She blinked and turned away. “Well, let’s eat, then. When we’re done, we have a lot of talking to do. Details to go over.”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You’re the boss.”

  She looked at him and he realized his mistake.

  Andy always let her be the boss.

  THEN

  August 1

  Twenty-six years, eight months ago...

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE school starts in two weeks.” Halle wasn’t ready for second grade. She really, really wasn’t. Her mom had bought her all those new clothes and shoes and still she was really freaked out about second grade.

  “It’s no big deal,” Andy assured her. “It’ll be just like first grade except we already know how to read. We’ll learn lots of new stuff. Harder math and junk like that. It’ll be easy as pie, as my dad says.”

  Halle groaned and rolled to her side to look at her best friend in the whole world. “I don’t know about that harder math stuff. I’m not so good at it. Remember in first grade how I had a bumpy start. Ms. Gardner said so.”

  He stopped counting stars in the sky and turned his face to hers. “I’ll help you. Just like in first grade. Don’t worry.”

  She smiled. He was right. He had helped her past that bumpy start. “’Kay.”

  She relaxed onto her back and stared up at the dark sky and tried to find where she’d left off counting. Not possible. Ugh. They were lying on a quilt in her backyard. It was nearly bedtime. Would be bedtime already if school had started. But their moms let them stay up a little later in the summer to do fun stuff after dark. Like catching lightning bugs and counting stars.

  “What if we’re not in the same room together,” Halle dared to whisper. She had crossed her fingers every night as she went to slee
p, hoping and praying that she and Andy would be in the same room again this year.

  “My mom said we will be in the same room,” Andy assured her. “She spoke to the principal or something.” He rolled his head to the side and grinned at her. “She said your mom did, too.”

  Halle made a pretend mad face. “She didn’t tell me. All this time she’s been saying, we’ll see. We’ll see.” She said her mom’s words in a silly-stern voice.

  Andy laughed. “Even if we weren’t in the same room we would still be best friends. Right?”

  “Right.” She turned back to the stars and silently repeated the words she’d said every night all summer:

  Star light, star bright,

  The first star I see tonight;

  I wish I may, I wish I might,

  Have the wish I wish tonight.

  I wish to always be with Andy.

  Chapter Nine

  NOW

  Saturday, March 14

  Liam was surprised that he didn’t hear from Penelope. Maybe she was too angry or hurt at his actions to call. He didn’t blame her. She had gone above and beyond to treat him as much like her own child as she did Claire. He didn’t want her to see this as some sort of betrayal to her or to his father.

  He sat in his rental car across the street from the Lane and Clark homes.

  Halle had asked him to be here by nine. It was eight forty-five now. He’d arrived a few minutes early just to think.

  Two news vans still loitered on the street but the chief of police had warned them not to park in front of the Clark or Lane homes. A police cruiser went past every couple of hours. Liam had seen it go through five or so minutes after he had arrived.

  Most of last night had been spent tossing and turning. His dreams had thrown him back and forth between this life—the one Halle had told him about—and the one he’d always believed to be his.

  He studied the house where Andy Clark had lived. He imagined the boy playing in the yard, chasing after his dog named Sparky. Climbing that big oak. Liam shook his head. How was this possible? Instincts he wanted to deny hummed, warning that there was more to this than he wanted to see. Halle Lane felt as familiar to him as anyone he had known his whole life and yet they had only met the day before yesterday.

  Before he could stop himself he was climbing out of the rental car. He strode across the street to the Clark home. Yellow crime scene tape flapped in the breeze, slapping against the front porch railing. He walked all the way around to the back porch and sat down on the steps. He stared out over the lawn, then closed his eyes. In his mind he could see the basketball hoop that used to be attached to the side of the garage. He opened his eyes. It wasn’t there but he somehow knew it once was.

  He shook his head at the foolishness of playing this game with himself. Yet, he closed his eyes again and looked backward. Back to a different time. He saw his dog Sparky, his tongue hanging out as he bounded around, wanting to play chase or ball. A memory of Sparky digging ferociously in one of the flower beds had his eyes opening again.

  He walked back to the flower bed he’d seen in the memory, real or imagined, beneath the dogwood tree and considered it for a time. He needed a shovel.

  Before second thoughts could stop him, he strode to the picket fence that separated the yards, hopped over it and kept walking until he reached the Lanes’ garage. Halle exited her door and looked down at him from the landing.

  “I was about to come looking for you.”

  He frowned. “Is it nine already?”

  “Ten after.” She started down the stairs, her bag slung over her shoulder, one of those thermal cups likely filled with water or coffee in her hand.

  He ignored the idea that he’d been daydreaming in that backyard for nearly half an hour. “I need a shovel.” He said this before his brain could catch up with his emotions.

  He shouldn’t be doing this...shouldn’t encourage her delusions.

  Except that he was the one having delusions now.

  “Okay.” She descended the final step. “My dad has all sorts of garden tools in there.” She gestured to the walk-through door that led into the garage at the bottom of the stairs.

  He went inside, turned on a light and located a small shovel. He didn’t want to damage the flowers, so small would work best.

  Shovel in hand, he turned off the light, pulled the door shut and walked back to the fence, hung a leg over and then the other one. At the dogwood tree, he walked around it once, then selected a spot and started to dig. Halle moved up beside him and watched while he nudged around between the roots. This was a really old, really big—for a dogwood—tree.

  He found nothing. He moved over a foot or so, spread apart the daffodils sprouting from the soil and mulch and started to dig once more.

  “Can I ask what you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know.” The tip of the shovel hit something hard.

  He scraped back more of the dirt with the shovel, careful not to damage whatever he was about to unearth. Something metal and shiny glinted as he scratched against it.

  “It’s the time capsule!” Halle crouched down. “Andy never told me where he buried it. He was supposed to, but then...”

  “He didn’t come back.”

  Liam stared at the metal object. It was shaped like a thermos, silver or stainless steel, something along those lines.

  He squatted next to Halle as she pulled the time capsule from the ground. She swiped the dirt from it and gave the top a twist.

  She grunted. “I can’t budge it.”

  She offered it to Liam and he stared at it for a long while before taking it into his hands. The canister felt cold against his palms. He gripped the length of it with his left and grasped the top with his right. It took a couple of tries but the lid twisted open.

  He couldn’t look inside. His heart was pounding and a cold sweat had formed on his skin. He gave the thermos-like object back to Halle.

  She placed the lid on the ground at her feet and used two fingers to reach inside. The first item she withdrew was a photo. Andy and Halle with their bicycles, his was blue, hers was red.

  She laughed. “I wanted a big bicycle so badly. I warned my mother that when she bought me one it better not be pink. Pink was for sissies.”

  Liam stared at the photo and in his mind it seemed to come to life, like those live photos he took with his cell. This was what he saw: he could hear Halle laughing. Watched his big grin as he burst into laughter, too.

  “What were you laughing about?”

  She stared at him—he didn’t need to look, he felt her eyes on him. Then he realized what he’d done.

  “We,” she said pointedly, “were laughing at the idea that since we had big kid bikes we could see the world.”

  He passed the photo back to her. His gut clenched hard and more sweat oozed onto his skin.

  She reached into the capsule again and this time she pulled out a folded page and something else fell out with it. He picked up the dried four-leaf clover that had fallen to the cold ground. Instantly images of the two of them on their hands and knees, combing through the grass, whispered through his mind. He blinked them away. This—all of this—was putting ideas in his head. The memory couldn’t be his. It was hers...and Andy’s.

  She held the piece of paper and tears slid down her cheeks.

  He closed his eyes and banished the feelings that surged. Not real. Not me. Not possible.

  “Dear Halle, we’re probably old now,” she recited. “But whatever we are and wherever we are, we’ll still be friends. Your best friend, Andy. PS: my mom helped me spell all the words right.”

  She swiped her eyes and tucked the letter and the photo back into the tube. Liam dropped the four-leaf clover inside.

  “We should—” she cleared her throat “—straighten this up and head out to Tullahoma. That PI
called me back. He said we could come by his house. Let me go wash my hands.”

  Liam grabbed the shovel and pushed the dirt into the now empty hole as Halle went back to her apartment, taking the time capsule with her. By the time he’d stowed the shovel back into the garage and washed up at the sink there, she’d descended the stairs. Hands empty and clean.

  She nodded and led the way to her car. They climbed in and she put the car in Reverse and started to roll down the drive. Her mom waved from the kitchen window. Halle waved back and Liam did, as well. Mrs. Lane’s face was suddenly replaced by the young face of Nancy Clark. She waved and smiled and his heart thumped.

  Liam closed his eyes, shook his head to clear the image.

  “Did you have breakfast?”

  “Yeah.” When she had backed onto the street he dared to open his eyes again. “You?”

  “Are you kidding? My mother insists I come to her kitchen and have breakfast with her and Dad every morning. Then I hurry back to my place and brush away the smell of bacon and grits and seriously strong coffee.”

  No matter that his brain felt bruised from all the bouncing back and forth from the past to the present, he laughed. “That sounds way better than my extra dry muffin and fake OJ.”

  “You should have breakfast with us tomorrow,” she suggested. “Mom and Dad would love it. Plus, if you’re leaving on Monday it will be an opportunity to say goodbye.”

  “I am leaving on Monday.” That pounding started in his chest again. He took a deeper breath and ordered himself to calm.

  “How did you know about the time capsule?”

  For about three seconds he considered not answering. He’d had enough questions. The answers were even worse than the questions. He didn’t want to do this.

  “I didn’t know. I just felt the need to dig around those flowers. It was...”

  He didn’t know what it was.

  When she didn’t respond he added, “I remembered Sparky digging at those same kinds of flowers. Maybe that’s why I did. We have flowers like that back home.”