“THE MORE INFORMATION you’re able to give me, the better chance I have of tracking down whoever did this.”
This time Adams hadn’t downplayed the seriousness of the attack. Nor had he mentioned the teens from the neighboring county. Like Jeb, however, he had immediately homed in on the lack of detail in her description of her assailant.
“I told you. It was dark. It all happened in a matter of seconds. I couldn’t see the person well enough to tell you anything about their appearance.”
“How about another vehicle? Any parked near the school?”
Had there been? If so, she hadn’t been aware of them. But then, she’d been anxious when she arrived and terrified when she left.
“I didn’t notice any. That isn’t to say there wasn’t a car nearby, just that at the time, I wasn’t looking for one.”
Even Jeb, as supportive as he’d been, thought she’d made a mistake going there alone. But since she’d been determined to meet with the caller she should at least have been conscious of everything in her surroundings. The sheriff’s questions were making her feel even more stupid than Jeb’s had.
“You should have called me as soon as you got away. We could have had a cruiser on the scene in a matter of minutes.”
Although she’d made a point of taking her cell phone, she hadn’t even thought about dialing 911. Not even after she’d gotten away from the school. She’d been terrified, but still, the logical thing would have been to call and report the attack. Instead, she’d driven back to Lorena’s.
She wouldn’t have done that in Atlanta. Of course, a police car would have been on every corner there. And they didn’t seem to doubt everything you told them.
Even after she’d reached the Bedford house, she had debated waiting until morning to report the incident. Jeb had insisted she talk to Adams tonight, and the dispatcher had put her through at once. Buck Jemison, who’d been on duty, had taken down the information, and Adams had called her right back.
“I didn’t even think about 911,” she confessed. “I just wanted to get away from there. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll send someone over to the school to take a look. You can’t ever tell what’s gonna show up at a crime scene, especially if it’s dark. People drop things or leave something behind that can lead back to them without their realizing it.”
“Believe me, it was dark enough that could have happened. The person was hiding in the shadows of the building. The side by the playground. You might tell the officers to start there.”
“And I’d like for you to come down to the department first thing in the morning to file a report. We like people to do that while things are still fresh in their minds.”
She was unlikely to forget anything that had happened, but there was no reason not to agree to his request. Not only was it reasonable, Adams actually sounded concerned.
“I’ll be glad to. I also wondered if you’d set up the interview with the coroner in Randolph County.”
“Two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. This afternoon,” Adams corrected. “He’s expecting you.”
“Thank you. We’ll come by your office on the way.”
“We?”
She glanced at Jeb, who was still propped against the table in the hall. His head was down, so that he appeared to be studying his hands while she talked.
He hadn’t even looked up at her use of the plural pronoun. Nor did he seem to notice the pause as she wondered how he would feel about her committing him to appointments tomorrow.
Although she’d told Charlotte she had a friend who would go with her to talk to the Randolph County coroner, she hadn’t had a chance to ask Jeb whether he would or not.
“Mrs. Chandler? You said ‘we.’ Who would that be?”
“Jeb Bedford and I.”
Jeb looked up when she said his name, meeting her eyes across the hall. She raised her eyebrows in question. His lips flattened momentarily, but he nodded, the movement abrupt.
“I see,” Adams said.
“About ten?”
“That’s fine. There’s just one more thing before you go, Ms. Chandler.”
“Yes?”
“You think there might be any significance to the fact they asked you to come to the playground tonight?”
It was the question she’d dreaded hearing from him earlier today. And coming on top of what had happened tonight…
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve received a couple of complaints about you hanging around the school. I wasn’t going to say anything ’cause I figured I knew why you were there, but…people get real nervous when strangers watch their children.”
“I’m trying to find my daughter, Sheriff Adams. And despite what you told me this afternoon, I believe she’s alive. And here in Linton.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know you do, but…I’m just wondering if that’s the case, if what you’re doing is the smartest thing. Under the circumstances, I mean.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If she is here, Ms. Chandler, then it seems to me that asking all these questions and watching the children…If you really believe she’s here, then it occurred to me that might be the very thing that would scare off whoever had her.”
“Scare them off?”
“Yes, ma’am. Scare them so they would pick up and leave. Take her somewhere else so you wouldn’t ever find her. It just seems to me you might be going about this the wrong way.”
“I’m going about it the only way I know how, Sheriff Adams. I’m trying to find my daughter. And I’ll do whatever I think is necessary to accomplish that.”
“I was just offering a word to the wise. I wouldn’t want any of those parents to file a formal complaint. I thought I’d give you an opportunity to think about what I said before that happened. I’ll see you folks tomorrow.”
He broke the connection before she had a chance to say anything more. Susan closed her phone, realizing as she did how exhausted she was, both physically and emotionally. Since Adams’s original phone call, she’d been on a roller-coaster ride between hope and despair. Tonight, sheer, unadulterated terror had been added to the mix. Who could know what tomorrow’s journey would bring?
“I promised my sister I wouldn’t go to Randolph County alone,” she said to Jeb, whose eyes were still on her face.
“Is that what you were telling Adams?”
“I understand if you feel you can’t—”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then…?”
“You definitely need somebody with you. Maybe from now on. Twenty-four hours a day. But I’m not the person for the job.”
“I don’t understand.”
She didn’t. Neither his comment that she needed someone with her, or if that were so, why he wouldn’t be the right person. Maybe throwing herself into his arms tonight had made him wary of further involvement. After all, despite her abject plea for his help the other night, he hadn’t formally agreed.
“Someone tried to kill you tonight,” Jeb said. “This may have been their second attempt, except we were slow to realize what the incident out on the highway was all about.”
“You think whoever ran me off the road intended to kill me?”
Jeb hesitated before he shook his head. “Even in light of what happened tonight, I can’t see how they could have hoped for that result. That was an attempt to run you out of town. Maybe they thought if they frightened you enough, you’d just pack up and go home and stop asking questions.”
“That’s essentially what the sheriff suggested I do. And if Emma’s body had been in the car with Richard’s, that’s exactly what I would have done. I didn’t know then that there was the remotest possibility his death could have been anything other than the result of an accident.”
“According to the sheriff, you still don’t.”
“Except someone obviously doesn’t want me asking questions about it.”
“I didn’t think you’d been asking them about your husband’s death.” The blue eyes were opaque. Unreadable.
“I haven’t,” she said, suddenly realizing where he was going with this. “I’ve been asking about Emma.”
“And visiting the playground.”
Again, she considered what he was implying, reaching the conclusion he already had. “They’re afraid I’ll find out what happened to Emma.”
“It seems that way.”
“But…if she’s dead, they shouldn’t care how many questions I ask. Or how long I search.” Her excitement at that realization was reflected in her voice. “After all, the punishment’s the same for one murder or two.”
“Probably not. Not anymore. And for someone who killed a baby…” He shook his head. “Trust me, Mississippi juries wouldn’t take kindly to that, and they haven’t abolished the death penalty down here. But…I don’t think it’s your questions that caused tonight’s reaction. You’ve been asking questions since you got into town.”
“Then…?” He waited, again allowing her to arrive at the conclusion herself. “You think this was because I went to the playground. I thought that’s probably why they asked me to meet them there.”
He nodded. “Some kind of psychological ‘gotcha’ maybe. You go looking for your daughter there, so that’s where they came to answer you.”
“By killing me?” The phrase—the very idea—seemed foreign to who and what she was, despite the reality of tonight’s attack.
“If you’re dead, you can’t keep asking questions about Emma. And they’re betting that if you’re dead, no one else will.”
Once she might have argued that point, but she’d learned seven years ago that the wheels of bureaucracy, like those of justice, grind exceedingly slow. And not very fine at all. Wayne Adams didn’t believe Emma was alive. He wouldn’t look for her. He’d be relieved not to have to.
And judging by the efforts of the various governmental agencies she’d encountered through the years, especially those responsible for recovering children taken by their own parents, they wouldn’t pursue this new information either. They would delete her husband’s file from the databases, but that didn’t mean they’d be any more vigorous in searching for his daughter.
“Promise me that won’t happen,” she said.
Jeb’s head tilted as if questioning the request. “That you won’t die? I’ve already told you I’m the wrong person to try to protect you.”
“I didn’t mean that. Promise me that if whoever this is succeeds, someone will keep looking for Emma. Promise me, Jeb.”
“Look, if Emma is alive—”
“Then whoever tried to fracture my skull with a bat tonight is connected to her in some way. And more than likely connected to the murder of her father. I want your word that if anything happens to me, you won’t abandon my baby to that person.”
She was well aware of what she was asking of him. And that she had no right to make this request of a virtual stranger.
“I’m not asking you to do it yourself,” she went on. “I have some money saved. Now that we have somewhere to start, you could hire an investigator to do what I’ve tried to do here. To find someone who might remember Emma. Who might have seen her.”
“You don’t need me to do that. Call the private investigator who worked for you before. Tell him to keep looking. Or hire someone else. And if you’ve really got the money to do that, then get the hell out of here before they try some other way to keep you from finding her.”
“You know I can’t do that. And you also know that no matter who I hire, if I’m not around, they’ll take the money, but they won’t keep looking for Emma. All I’m asking is that if something happens to me, you won’t do what everyone else will and turn a blind eye to what happened here.”
“Why me? You must have friends or family who would make that promise.”
It seemed disloyal to David and Charlotte, but with a new baby, she really wasn’t sure how much time Dave would devote to the search. Even Charlotte, with all her dreams finally coming true, would listen to the explanations of people like Adams and believe them because that was far easier than the other. And because she hadn’t been down that empty path before.
“Why you? Because you’re the only person I know who’s bullheaded enough to stick with this no matter what.”
He laughed, the sound mocking. “You’re basing that on our long acquaintance, I suppose. You don’t know anything about me, Susan. Certainly not enough to make that kind of judgment.”
“I know that no matter how much they discouraged you, you kept trying to rejoin your unit.”
His mouth closed, lips flat. His expression was set and hard, but he didn’t argue with her assessment.
“All I want is to know she’s safe.” She tried to remove the passion that had crept into her voice. “And that someone will see to it she stays that way if something happens to me.”
“Nothing in life comes with a guarantee,” Jeb said. “You of all people should know that.”
Just as he did. Despite that, he hadn’t given up. Neither would she. Not as long as she had breath in her body.
“There’s no one else I can ask to do this.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
The words were dismissive. Not contemptuous, perhaps, but seeming to belittle the scenario he himself had painted for her only a few minutes ago.
“You are willing to guarantee that?”
His lips tightened again. “I’ll go with you tomorrow. After that…Why don’t we wait and see.”
What he meant was why don’t we wait and see if the baby they’d buried in Randolph County was her daughter. Still, he’d agreed to accompany her to the meeting with the coroner. It was more than she had any right to expect.
She should never have asked him about the other. It was just that tonight she had finally recognized the truth. She had no one else. And if anything happened to her, neither did Emma.
“ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?” Jeb asked as the Avalanche bumped along the dirt road behind the rural church they’d been directed to.
The hour they’d spent with the Randolph County coroner had been almost anticlimactic. He had confirmed the measurements Susan had found in one of the articles, but he didn’t seem impressed with the information that they were different from those taken at Emma’s last checkup. After all, he’d told them, they were dealing with incomplete skeletal remains. The slight variation in length could be attributed to the loss of cartilage and connective tissue.
He had taken a cheek swab from Susan, promising to get the state lab to run a match with the samples they had stored from Baby Doe. He wouldn’t even try to estimate how long that might take, given the current lack of funding. Almost as an afterthought, he’d suggested that they might want to drive out to the baby’s grave, which is where they were headed now.
“It isn’t Emma,” Susan said, turning to look at him.
“Then why come out here?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. When she did, her voice was low. “Because whoever she was, she belonged to someone.”
There hadn’t been a florist in the small county seat, but she’d asked him to stop on the way out of town to pick up an arrangement of flowers at one of the supermarkets. Jeb hadn’t recognized any of the blooms, but thankfully they didn’t look like a funeral. At least none he’d ever attended. The flowers were in all the colors of autumn—oranges, golds and reds.
As soon as he pulled the truck up behind the church, Susan opened the passenger door. He stayed in the cab as she walked across the browning grass, carrying the simple bouquet.
Scattered across the cemetery were perhaps a hundred monuments, most of them timeworn, covered with lichen and darkened with age. The coroner had given them directions to the baby’s grave, but they wouldn’t have needed them. The gleam of its white marble and the statue of the cherub on top would have quickly distinguished it from the others.
Taking a deep breath, he climbed down from the cab, feeling the strain of the last couple of days as he put weight on the damaged leg. It was always worse after the military sawbones got through with their prodding and poking. And the outcome was always the same.
By the time he had rounded the front of the truck, Susan had bent to lay the flowers she’d brought against the base of the marker. Then she stepped back, looking down on the grave.
As he limped nearer, he read the incised letters on the stone, their clarity undimmed by time like those on the other markers.
Baby Doe
Rest in Peace, Sweet Angel
Below that, in much smaller script, was a Bible verse.
“Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do also unto Me.”
He stood beside her a moment, looking down on the tiny plot, still slightly rounded above the flatness of the surrounding ground.
“Nice stone.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, and her continued stillness made him uneasy.
Susan had said repeatedly this wasn’t Emma, but there was no way she could be certain of that until the DNA results came back. The possibility that she was standing beside her daughter’s grave had to be in her mind right now. Despite the fact that he didn’t want it there, it was certainly in his.
“One of the articles said the people of the community collected money for it. They thought she shouldn’t be buried without some kind of monument.”
He nodded, his eyes again tracing the words on the marble. There were no dates, not even the day she’d been buried. Under the circumstances, there was no way they could have known when this baby had been born or when she’d died.
“How could anyone do that?”
He turned at the question, but Susan wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were still directed at the contours of the small grave.
“Kill a baby?”
“And leave it…that way.”
She stooped down beside the stone, reaching out, so that Jeb thought she was going to rearrange the flowers. Instead, she put her palm flat against the ground over the center of the grave plot. She let it rest there a few seconds, and then she straightened, getting to her feet in one smooth motion.
“We can go.” This time she did look at him. Her face was colorless, but her eyes were defiantly dry.
He nodded, but he didn’t move.
“If this were Emma, don’t you think I’d know?” she asked. “Don’t you think I’d feel some connection?”
There was nothing he could say to that. He didn’t believe she could put her hand on some dirt and tell whether or not her daughter was buried under it, but if it comforted her to think she could, what was the harm?
He looked down one last time on the marker with its Bible verse and conventional platitude. He’d watched a lot of men die through the years, and none of those deaths had been peaceful.
But at least they had chosen to be where they were. And they had had a fighting chance. Something this baby had never had. Maybe not in her entire short life.
Aware of the sudden burn at the back of his eyes, he lifted them, blinking against the unexpected tears. As he did, he was conscious that Susan had moved closer.
He looked down, seeing in her eyes the same sheen of moisture he fought in his own. Without stopping to think about what he was doing, or how she might interpret it, he moved his arm away from his body, inviting her to step into his embrace.
She closed the distance between them to lean against his side, slipping her arm around his waist. He hugged her, knowing that the emotion he felt was only a fraction of what she must be feeling.
Maybe this wasn’t Emma, but until they discovered what had happened to her, they couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t somewhere in a grave just like this. Or, even worse, somewhere without even this simple stone or those comforting words.
Rest in Peace. Susan wouldn’t, and now, neither would he. Not until they knew.
“I promise,” he said, putting his lips against the fragrance of her hair.
The faint, now-familiar sweetness filled his senses. He closed his eyes, fighting the sharp tightening in his groin. An unexpected sexual response that had no place in what was happening here.
“What?”
“I won’t stop looking for Emma. Nothing’s going to happen to you, but…I wanted you to know that isn’t something you have to worry about.”
She nodded, her head moving against his shoulder. For a long time neither of them said anything else. They stood together over that small grave, their arms around one another as if they both had some link to the child whose body rested inside its tiny, donated casket.
Except the link wasn’t to this child, Jeb thought, but to another. Another little girl who had also had no choice about what had happened to her.