Yesterday's Gone

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SETH STEPPED BACK into the small staging room where all four Lawsons huddled like a herd of deer unsure which way to leap. Kirk looked his usual stoic self, if uncomfortable in a white shirt and tie, Karen excited and terrified all at once, Bailey resigned and Eve... He couldn’t quite tell.

He’d call her tonight. Or even take her aside after the circus was over, if he had a chance.

“We’re set up,” he told them. “There are a lot of cameras out there. Ignore them. Look people in the eyes when you talk. Along with reporters, we have some curiosity seekers.” His mouth quirked. “I saw the Stimson police chief himself standing at the back.”

Over lunch, eaten at a relatively deserted riverside park, Bailey had finally thought to ask why a detective with the county sheriff’s department was investigating, given that the Lawsons lived in Stimson. The high school, she’d learned, was outside city limits. Since that’s where the crime had occurred, the original and any continuing investigation had been the responsibility of the sheriff’s department.

The sheriff himself had shaken all their hands and been briefed to do the initial talking. Usually detectives stayed in the background, but under the circumstances he’d warned Seth to expect to have to answer questions.

“All right,” he said quietly. “Let’s do this.”

He ushered them all onto the stage. Flashes momentarily blinded him. He blinked as they continued. The forest of big-ass cameras was intimidating as hell. He’d ended up by design with a hand on Bailey’s back. He felt her stiffen, but a sidelong glance reassured him that she and Eve looked remarkably poised. The parents...well, everyone would expect out-of-control emotions.

An experienced, folksy speaker, Sheriff Jaccard had his audience bespelled from the moment he began.

“Twenty-three years ago, a little girl who’d been born and grown up in Stimson vanished into thin air. The community was shaken when news of the abduction spread. Even then, we had our share of crime, but having a child snatched by a stranger under the noses of a whole lot of other parents scared the daylights out of everyone. How was it that not a soul, adult or child, had seen anything at all? This department’s best efforts never produced a fruitful lead. The FBI had no more success. Six-year-old Hope Lawson was gone, for all intents and purposes, from the face of the earth. Her parents were left to grieve and yet cling to their belief that she would someday come home. The rest of us...well, we came to assume she was dead.” He swept the audience with a gaze that commanded attention. “We were wrong.”

Exclamations and shouted questions filled the auditorium.

When they died down briefly, he raised his voice. “We’ll take questions eventually, but first let me finish. Hope Lawson is with us today because of Detective Seth Chandler, who has a special interest in pursuing cold cases. He moved to Stimson only three years ago and had never heard of Hope until someone mentioned her disappearance to him. He’s had some success in tracing missing people, in part because law enforcement agencies are getting a lot better at communicating with each other. But Hope didn’t appear in any of those databases, either. He took the extra step of having an artist create an age-progressed picture.” The sheriff used his laptop, open on the podium, to project a picture on the white screen behind him. He turned to look at it, as everyone in the audience did the same. “This is that picture.”

The flashes dazzled Seth’s eyes again. Photographers, crouching, got as close to the stage as they could, probably trying to get Bailey and the picture in the same frame.

The sheriff explained how Seth had created interest in the case and how the picture had spread across social media sites until someone had said to a young woman, “Your picture is online.” He smiled and stepped aside, motioning Bailey to join him. “Meet Hope Lawson.”

Again questions flew before she could open her mouth. Again he waited for quiet and said, “She’s prepared a statement.”

Poised had been a good word to use for her, Seth thought. Given her background, it was hard to understand where she’d come by so much strength and confidence. Confidence that hid a whole lot of damage and a mess of insecurities, he suspected, but the beautiful woman who gazed calmly at the roomful of people and cameras had one fine facade.

“I do not remember the abduction itself,” she began. “I spent the next five years with a man I do remember. I presume he was the one to take me, although he might have acquired me from someone else. Eventually, he abandoned me in a motel room in Bakersfield, California.” Head high, she looked around. “By then, I no longer remembered my name or family. He had taught me to call him Daddy. Authorities were unable to locate him, but assumed he was my father. I was placed in the foster care system, where I was fortunate enough to have some fine people to help me heal.” She talked about graduating from high school and working a variety of jobs before deciding to get a college degree. “A part of me was afraid to walk into the sheriff’s department and say, ‘I think I’m Hope Lawson.’ I wasn’t at all sure I really was, and also...acknowledging it forces me to face a great deal from my past. I know you have questions, and I will answer some, but not all. I ask you to respect my right to privacy.”

The questions flew. She did answer some. Seth answered others. Yes, he told them, Bailey had that day submitted a sample for a DNA test, but along with the obvious family resemblance and Bailey’s memory of her background, a birthmark had solidified their certainty that she was Hope. Karen did most of the talking for the Lawsons, but Eve told everyone there how thrilled she was to have Hope home.

“After I came to live with the Lawsons, I felt incredibly lucky. But I was always conscious of a hole in our family. Hope was missing. Somewhere, I had a sister out there. Now—” she aimed a shy but warm smile at Hope “—she’s home.”

Truth, Seth thought, but not all of it.

Tears ran down Karen’s face. Kirk swiped some from his own cheeks. Cameras caught it all.

At last the sheriff stepped up to the podium again and made a plea for everyone to respect the Lawsons’ need for privacy and space to move ahead with their lives. Trying for unobtrusive, Seth opened the door at the back of the stage and signaled for the family to fade back.

The moment he’d closed the door, Karen burst into sobs. Looking helpless, Kirk put his arms around her. Eve hovered close, murmuring comforting words, while Bailey stood apart looking helpless and awkward.

“I’m so happy!” Karen wailed, and Seth sort of understood. Twenty-three years’ worth of agony, despair, guilt and hope—yeah, hope—had all been released today to fly free.

Whether she liked it or not, Bailey Smith now had a family, with all the complications that entailed.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_cadea668-e278-5cef-a194-47ed85002cff)

“MOM TOLD ME you need a place to stay,” Eve said in a low voice her parents wouldn’t hear. “That Seth insists you move out of the hotel.”

They had been ushered into a conference room in the public safety building to wait for the tumult to die down so they could all slip away.

“He thinks some members of the press might be staying there,” Bailey agreed. “That they’re all going to try to get me by myself. I packed and checked out earlier.”

“You can stay with me if you want.” Eve sounded offhanded, even abrupt. “I don’t have a spare bedroom, but I do have a pullout couch.”

Bailey tilted her head, assessing the sincerity of this woman whom she’d barely met. Eve was trying to hide it, but, if Bailey read her right, she fairly bristled with dislike and resentment. It seemed ludicrous they had to pretend to have a sisterly relationship.

Was there any chance she actually did want them to get better acquainted? But all Bailey had to do was meet that expressionless gaze to know the answer. No. Her parents had thought it would be wonderful if Bailey stayed with her. She’d just about had to make the offer. But she wanted Bailey in her apartment about as much as Bailey wanted to be there.

Of course, there was the little problem of where she would go. One of those freeway exit hotels back in Mount Vernon, she thought, even as she studied Eve.

Her adopted sister was beautiful. Bailey knew when she was outshone. The other thing that stood out was how very different they looked, making her wonder if the Lawsons had asked for a foster daughter who bore no resemblance to their lost child. Had that occurred to Eve? Something else that might sting.

Masses of dark, curly hair fell to the middle of Eve’s back and framed a delicate, heart-shaped face. She had huge, brown eyes accentuated by long, dark lashes. She didn’t have to plaster on mascara to make her eyelashes visible, or use a pencil to color in pale eyebrows. Her complexion was dark enough to suggest she might be half Latina or Italian or—who knew?—Philippine or Arabic. Arabian nights, was what Bailey had thought, seeing her. Eve’s looks were somehow exotic, although she didn’t have the lush body that would make her a fortune at belly dancing. She was slimmer than Eve, almost slight, and small-breasted.

“Thank you for offering,” she said pleasantly, “but I already have something arranged.”

Eve’s nostrils flared. “I suppose Seth has taken care of you.”

Bailey refused to give anything away. “He’s been thoughtful.”

“Oh, he can be that.” Her lip curled the tiniest amount. “Until he’s not.” Eve turned her back, excluding Bailey. “Mom, Dad, if we go out the side door we ought to be able to make our getaway.”

Karen gazed beseechingly at Bailey. “Oh, but... Hope.”

“She has someplace else to stay.” Eve didn’t so much as glance over her shoulder.

Bailey took a deep breath, centered herself and smiled at Karen. My mother. “Could we have lunch tomorrow?”

“Oh!” Her cheeks pink, she turned her head as if it was a given she’d consult her husband. “Kirk, can you make it?”

He patted her back. “I think Bailey was inviting just you. It might be easier for her to get to know us one-on-one.”

“You don’t mind?”

He shook his head. “Of course I don’t. Bailey and I, well, we’ll have a chance.”

For some reason, the idea of spending time with him caused jolts of anxiety. Not fear—she didn’t think she’d ever been afraid of him, but...there was something.

Karen smiled. “Then I would love to have lunch with you, Hope.”

“I’ll call you in the morning, if that’s all right,” Bailey suggested.

“Perfect.”