Before He Takes

It was apparent that this was Delores Manning’s younger sister by about three or four years. She looked very similar to the photo of Delores that Mackenzie had seen on the back cover of Love Blocked.

“Oh, I see,” Ellington said. “Well, maybe it’s a good thing that you’re here too, Rita.”

“Why?” Tammy asked, plopping down next to her younger daughter. She plucked the cigarette from the ashtray and took a deep inhale.

“Delores Manning’s car was discovered abandoned with two flat tires on State Route 14 late last night. No one has seen her or heard from her since then. Not her agent, not any friends, no one. We were hoping you might know where she is.”

Before Ellington was done, Mackenzie had gotten the answer from the look of shock on Rita Manning’s face.

“Oh my God,” Rita said. “Are you sure it was her car?”

“We’re certain,” Ellington said. “It was complete with half a box of her latest book in the back. She had just come from a signing in Cedar Rapids.”

“Yeah,” Rita said. “She was…probably on the way here. That was the plan anyway. When she didn’t show up by midnight, I figured she just decided to stay at a motel somewhere.”

“Had you made plans for her to stay here?” Mackenzie asked. She was looking at Tammy when she asked it, but Tammy appeared to be more interested in enjoying her cigarette.

“Sort of,” Tammy said. “She called me last week and said she’d be in Cedar Rapids. Said she wanted to come by to visit, so I told her that was fine. I let Rita know and she got here yesterday right after lunch. Sort of a surprise.”

“I drove all the way up from Texas A and M,” Rita said.

“When was the last time you spoke with Delores?” Ellington asked Rita.

“About three weeks ago. We usually do an okay job of staying in touch.”

“What state of mind was she in the last time you spoke?” Mackenzie asked.

“Oh, she was on cloud nine. She had just signed on to do another three books with her publisher. We made plans to go out on the town drinking the next time she was in Texas.”

“You’re a student, I take it?” Ellington asked.

“Yes. A senior.”

“Mrs. Manning,” Mackenzie said, making sure the mother knew that she was being spoken to and not the daughter, “if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem too bothered by this.”

She shrugged, exhaled a mouthful of smoke, and then ground the butt out in the overflowing ashtray. “I guess someone from the FBI knows more about how I should feel about something like this than I do?”

“I wasn’t saying that, ma’am,” Mackenzie said.

“Look…we’re talking about Delores here. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. I’m sure she called Triple A or some shit when the tires went flat. She’s probably already halfway back to New York by now. Making money, traveling the country. If she was in some kind of trouble, she would have called.”

“So she wouldn’t have been embarrassed to call for your help?”

Tammy actually thought about this for a minute. “Probably not. She would have called for help and then raised hell if I asked even one question. It’s just how she is.”

The resentment in her voice was almost as thick as the smoke in the air throughout the tiny trailer.

“So you have no idea where she might be?” Ellington asked.

“None. Wherever she is, she didn’t bother calling me to tell me about it. But that’s not too big of a surprise. She never really tells me much of anything.”

“I see,” Ellington said. He looked around the room with a frown. Mackenzie could tell that he was thinking the same thing she was thinking: That was a wasted hour-and-ten-minute drive.

Mackenzie looked directly toward Rita, currently a little pissed at the lack of help from Tammy. “We’ve got Bent Creek PD on it, as well as agents from two different offices. From what we know, she’s been missing for roughly twenty-nine hours. We’ll be in touch the moment we find anything.”

Rita gave a nod and a soft “Thank you.”

Both Mackenzie and Ellington paused a beat to give Tammy a chance to add anything. When she did nothing more than light up another cigarette and reach for the TV remote on the coffee table, Mackenzie headed for the door.

When she was outside, she breathed the fresh air in deeply and walked straight for the car. She was already opening the passenger side door when Ellington finally made it down the steps.

“You okay?” he asked her as he approached the car.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just can’t stomach people that have no concern at all for the safety of their own flesh and blood.”

She was about to get into the car when the front door of Tammy Manning’s trailer opened. They both watched as Rita came down the stairs in a quick little jog. She came over to the car and let out a shaky sigh.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry about that,” she said. Mackenzie saw that Rita also seemed to be breathing much easier now that she was outside. “Things with Mom and Delores haven’t been the best ever since Dad died. And then when Delores became this well-to-do writer, something about it almost offended Mom.”

“You don’t have to explain personal problems,” Ellington said. “We see it from time to time.”

“Be honest with me…this thing with Delores…do you think she’ll be found? Do you think she might be dead somewhere?”

“It’s far too early to tell,” Mackenzie said.

“Was it…well, was there anything like foul play?”

Mackenzie recalled the spray-painted glass. She was pretty sure she still had some of the black flakes of the paint under her fingernails. But it was far too soon in the course of events to give such information to family members—not until more information could be obtained.

“Again, we just can’t know for sure yet,” she said.

Rita nodded. “Well, thanks for letting us know. When you do find out anything, just call me directly. Forget about Mom for now. I don’t know what her problem is. She’s just…I don’t know. An aging woman that let life beat the hell out of her and never bothered to pick herself back up.”

She gave them her number and then slowly walked back up the stairs. She gave them a quick wave goodbye as Ellington backed out of the parking spot and headed back through the trailer park.

“So what do you think?” Ellington asked. “Was this a wasted trip?”

“No. I think we now know enough about Delores to know that she would have called if her plans changed and she could have called.”

“How do you know that for sure?”

“I don’t know for sure. But from what I gathered from Tammy and Rita, Delores was trying to reconnect with her family. Rita said there was a strained relationship there. I don’t think Delores would have bothered calling to ask to come by for a visit if there was no hope for reconciliation. And if that’s the case, she surely would have called if plans changed.”

“Maybe she had a change of heart.”

“I doubt it. Daughters and mothers…when they get estranged…it’s tough. Delores would not have made the move of calling only to back out.”

“You’re analyzing this like a shrink,” Ellington said. “That’s impressive.”