The Tempted. Amanda Stevens

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ had liked Abby at once, and she wanted to believe her now. Wanted to take solace in Abby’s assurances. She was a good cop. With the help of an ex-FBI profiler, she’d cracked the Sara Beth Brodie case. She was working on Emily’s case now, and Tess wished that she was in charge instead of Dave Conyers. Abby had found Sara Beth. Maybe she could find Emily, too.

      But in ten years, not even Abby Cross had been able to locate Sadie, her own niece, and Naomi had been forced to endure that slow death, to exist in the terrible purgatory of never knowing what had happened to her child.

      One by one, Tess studied the faces around her, and she knew that the same thought was paramount on everyone’s mind. In the last ten years, three of Eden’s children had gone missing. Only one of them had returned. If they didn’t find Emily, if they never determined what had happened to Sadie, how many more children would be taken? How many more parents would have to suffer?

      “TESS, WAIT A MINUTE!”

      Tess had been heading across the parking lot to her car, but she paused now as someone called out her name. Turning, she saw Naomi Cross hurry across the asphalt toward her. Even from a distance, even in her despair, Tess marveled at the woman’s extraordinary beauty. She was tall and thin, with a flawless complexion and large brown eyes rimmed with thick lashes. She looked like a model as she hurried across the parking lot toward Tess.

      By comparison, Tess knew her own looks had suffered since her daughter’s disappearance, so much so she hardly recognized herself in the mirror these days. She’d lost weight, and her face, thin to begin with, now appeared pale and gaunt. Her blue eyes were shadowed with grief and exhaustion, and her hair hung in a limp ponytail down her back. For Tess, makeup and hair appointments had become a thing of the past. It was all she could do to drag herself out of bed each morning and get dressed.

      But it was more than Naomi Cross’s looks that provided a stark contrast. She exuded a strength and quiet dignity, garnered from her tragedy, that Tess knew she would never be able to muster.

      Naomi stopped beside Tess and placed a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

      Tess let out a ragged breath. “No. How could I be, after what they just told me in there?”

      “I know what you’re feeling,” Naomi said gently. “When it first happens, you think nothing could be worse than learning your child has disappeared. But then comes the day when the police stop actively searching for her. When the volunteers all go home, the command center is shut down, and your daughter becomes just another face on a milk carton. Life returns to normal for everyone but you.” Naomi paused. “That’s when your faith is most sorely tested.”

      Tess wrapped her arms around her middle. “I’m not sure I have any faith left.” She searched the early-morning sky. White clouds scattered across an intense, blinding blue, and the sun hovered in the east. It was late August, still hot and humid, the temperature marching steadily upward to the nineties. But in spite of the heat, Tess thought she could detect a hint of fall in the air. Or maybe it was her mood. Maybe it was a portent. The seasons would be changing soon. Would her daughter still be missing?

      “I want her to come home. I want to hold her in my arms again. She’s just a baby. She didn’t deserve this. How could something like this happen?” she asked angrily.

      When Naomi reached a hand to touch her arm, Tess flinched away. Immediately remorse set in. Naomi had been nothing but kindness. “I’m sorry,” Tess whispered, putting a trembling hand to her face. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you like that. I don’t do that. I don’t—”

      “Lose control? Fall to pieces? Maybe it would help if you did.”

      Tess wished she could fall apart. She wished she could scream at the injustice and cruelty of a world that would allow this to happen to an innocent child. She wished she could just let go, beat her fists against her chest, tear her hair, do something, anything, to give rein to her rage. But losing control wouldn’t help Emily, and control was about all Tess had left.

      She glanced at Naomi and the hollowness inside her deepened. “How do you do it? After all these years, how do you keep going?”

      Naomi glanced away. “Sometimes it might be easier to just give up, to lose all hope. To accept what fate has doled out to me. But then I think about Sadie out there somewhere, wondering if I’m still looking for her, and I make one more phone call. I follow up on that last lead. I do the next interview because if she is still alive, I want her to know that I haven’t given up. That I’ll never give up.”

      “I won’t give up, either,” Tess said fiercely. “But the police have.”

      Naomi squeezed her hand. “I know it seems that way now, but the case will remain open. Leads will be followed. My sister has put a major career change on hold until they find Emily.”

      Tess lifted her head. “Career change?”

      “Abby’s applied for acceptance at the FBI Academy, but no matter if she’s accepted or not, she’s not going anywhere until Emily is found. That’s how committed she is.” Naomi glanced over her shoulder at the sheriff’s station. “They all are, Tess. You have to remain committed, too. There are things you can do on your own to find your daughter, and the Children’s Rescue Network can help you.”

      “I’ll do anything,” Tess said brokenly. “You know that.”

      Naomi nodded. “The first thing is to stay connected with as many of the missing-children’s networks and foundations around the country as you can.”

      There were so many of them, Tess had discovered. Most of them founded in memory of someone’s missing child, just like the Children’s Rescue Network had been founded in Sadie Cross’s memory. A year from now, ten years from now, would such a foundation be Tess’s only consolation, her only connection to a daughter she loved more that life itself?

      “You’ll want to keep Emily’s story in the news and her picture in front of the public as much as you can,” Naomi said. “And you’ll have to find creative ways of doing that now that media interest is waning. You might also want to think about starting a Web site. We can help you with that.”

      Tess wasn’t as proficient on a computer as she should be in this day and age, but she knew about the Internet’s power, its ability to reach millions of people in the space of a heartbeat. The rest she would learn.

      “What else?”

      Naomi paused. “You can go proactive.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “If the note I found is genuine, then the kidnapper has already made contact once, and he was willing to risk detection to do so. You could do another round of television and radio interviews, asking for your daughter’s safe return. It’s possible the kidnapper will respond to your pleas.”

      Tess seized on her words. “Then you think the note was genuine. You don’t think it was a hoax as the police seem to.”

      “I’m not an expert,” Naomi cautioned. “But I can tell you this. For a split second after I found that message, it crossed my mind that it was from Sadie. I know that sounds crazy. She’s fifteen years old now, almost a young woman, but I guess a part of me still thinks of her exactly as she was the last time I saw her.” A shadow darkened her expression, but her eyes were bright and dry. “The point I’m trying to make is that the note touched СКАЧАТЬ