Making Her Way Home. Janice Johnson Kay

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Beth shrugged, guessing he’d feel the movement even though they weren’t touching.

      “Why is that?” he asked.

      “I told you we don’t have a good relationship.”

      “But she’s their granddaughter.” His tone sharpened. “Or is it not them? Did you refuse to let them spend time with Sicily?”

      “The issue hasn’t arisen.”

      “But if it did?” he persisted.

      “I suppose I’d let them see her,” she said slowly, reluctantly. “But not stay with them.”

      “Why?”

      She turned toward him and exclaimed, “What does this have to do with anything? You don’t have to know everything about us!”

      “Yeah, I do. I never know what’s going to turn out to matter.”

      “You don’t seriously think they stole her,” she said incredulously.

      “Not now that I’ve met them, no, I don’t.” He sounded thoughtful. “Clearly that never crossed your mind.”

      “Of course it didn’t.”

      “As your mother pointed out, if they’d wanted Sicily they could have contested for custody.”

      “No.” She had never in her life been so tired. She was afraid she sounded it. “They wouldn’t have won.”

      Of course, he asked, “Why not?”

      Some things she didn’t have to tell him. “Why would they? Rachel named me as guardian. I’m an upstanding citizen, a business and home owner.” She’d managed to inject a note of indignation. “I’m the logical age to raise a child. I live in one of the best school districts in the state. What grounds could they have used to persuade a court they’d do better than I can?”

      Beth ached from holding herself so rigid. She hoped he wouldn’t notice that she’d been evasive.

      “All good points.” He still sounded reflective. His mind was working, poking and prodding at her words, suspecting…something.

      Turn this back to him, she thought. “Why are you here? Surely you don’t work around the clock.”

      “Actually, I sometimes do when a case first breaks. With a homicide or a kidnapping, it’s best not to let people’s memories fade.”

      She swallowed. “You really think…”

      To her astonishment, his big hand found hers and engulfed it rather gently. “I do think.”

      Fear swooped over her like a bald eagle descending on a tiny, cowering field mouse, so swift and black she couldn’t have done anything to save her life. The fear was even greater than her terrible sense of guilt.

      “Nothing to say?” Detective Ryan’s hand was still gentle, but his voice had turned cold. “If you know something…”

      She wrenched her hand free and stood up. “I don’t know anything,” she said, and turned to march down the beach toward the trailhead.

      He fell into step beside her. He turned on his flashlight to light the way up the trail. Even so, she stumbled a couple of times. Before they reached the parking lot, he had a firm hand under her elbow to steady her. He steered her to the passenger side of his SUV. She tried to pull away.

      “No,” he said, “You’re in no shape to drive. I’m taking you home. I’ll pick you up in the morning and bring you back to the park.”

      “There’s no reason…”

      “There’s every reason.” Now he sounded impatient, and she clamped her mouth shut. It was true that her head was swimming and her knees wanted to buckle. She felt ashamed of how desperately she wanted to curl up in her own bed and close her eyes.

      Beth didn’t last that long. They hadn’t been on their way five minutes when she listed sideways in the big bucket seat, thinking, It won’t hurt anything if I rest my head against the door frame.

      The next thing she knew, he was shaking her awake.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      KNEES TO HER CHEST, SICILY LAY curled on her side. The mattress was on the floor of the small, mostly bare room, and she clutched the too-thin comforter around her. Positioned so that she was looking at the door, scared and miserable, she waited. There wasn’t anything else she could do.

      Practically the minute he—whoever he was—had left her alone, she’d leaped to her feet, wanting desperately to throw herself at the door and hammer at it. She was bewildered and terrified and her head hurt and she wanted Aunt Beth.

      Thinking about Aunt Beth was what had stopped her. She was so different from Mom. Aunt Beth was always dignified and careful. She was super organized and thoughtful. You could tell she wouldn’t do impulsive or dumb things. If she were here, she’d stay cool.

      I can, too. Even if my head does hurt.

      Sicily had already figured out that she was more like Aunt Beth than Mom. That comforted her a little. After all the stuff Mom had told her about Grandma, Sicily had always hated the idea that she might be anything like her. But it was okay to be like Aunt Beth.

      So instead of sobbing or screaming or anything useless like that, she inched carefully off the mattress and explored, shuffling her feet forward and holding her hands out in front of her. She’d never been anywhere that was utterly black. That was one of the scariest parts of all.

      She hadn’t encountered anything until her hands flattened on a wall. It was just a regular wall, she thought at first, until she felt downward and came to a shelf that was really rough, and discovered that the bottom half of the wall was cold and rough, too. Concrete. Okay, that made sense, if she was in a basement. She and Mom had lived in a basement apartment in Portland for a year. It was dank and mold kept growing in the shower and it had only little tiny windows high on the wall. Sicily had hated it.

      She groped her way around the room, hoping she didn’t touch anything really gross, like a big spider or a cockroach. She hated cockroaches. She reached a corner and discovered that this wall didn’t have the concrete part. So it must be an inside wall. Partway along it, she came to the door. It was cold to the touch and felt different from the way her bedroom doors had always felt. That was because it was metal, she realized, and fear stabbed at her. Why would somebody put this kind of door on a bedroom unless it was to keep someone prisoner? She stood there for a minute, breathing hard, trying to picture her aunt’s face, always calm, no matter what.

      Aunt Beth would be looking for her. Of course she would be. Even though Sicily wasn’t sure she’d actually wanted a kid.

      But that doesn’t matter. She’ll still look. Because…because I saw the look on her face at the funeral when she put her arm around me, stared hard at Grandma and said, “Sicily will be living with me.” Just like that. No question. As if saying, “Don’t argue with me, because there’s no point.”

      Reassured, СКАЧАТЬ