Yesterday's Gone

But she reluctantly got into his department issue unmarked car and deposited a sizable handbag at her feet. He started the engine to get the air-conditioning going, reached for the gearshift, then let his hand drop. He sighed and looked at her.

“You know this isn’t going to be as simple as meeting and greeting the Lawsons, don’t you?”

She eyed him warily. “You mean they’re going to want more from me.”

“They are, but that isn’t what I’m talking about.” He hated to even raise this subject, given how obviously close to panic she already was, but felt he had to. “Your reappearance is going to be big news. The biggest. The press will flock to Stimson. You’ll be on the cover of People magazine. You will give hope to every parent who lost a child who has never been found. It won’t be a nine-day wonder, either. They’ll keep following up.” Seth knew he sounded brutal. “A week from now, a month from now, a year from now, they will want to hear how your family has healed. How you’ve moved on. They’ll dig for all the details. Paparazzi will try to catch you unawares. You will never live an unexamined life again.”

As he’d talked, horror had gradually overtaken her face. “Like Elizabeth Smart.”

“Yes. You, Bailey Smith, will be famous.”

“Oh, God.” She was shaking.

Unable to resist, he took one of her fine-boned hands. “Breathe.”

“I can’t do this.”

“I think you’ve come too far to turn back.”

Blue eyes fastened on his with a desperation that wrenched his heart. “If I go now—”

“Do I leave the Lawsons thinking you’re probably dead?”

“What if I meet them and we don’t tell anyone?” She didn’t seem to have noticed they were holding hands. That she was clutching him.

“I don’t think that would work.”

“Why not? You could make it part of the deal. Say I’ll talk to them only if they agree to keep it private.”

“You have grandparents. Aunts and uncles, cousins. Your parents have friends. Their adopted daughter. I know Karen Lawson. She’s incapable of lying to everyone. She won’t be able to hide her happiness.” He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “And then there’s your face, Bailey.”

The way she stared at him, stricken, told him she understood.

“The stranger that pointed you to the picture. Is this the only person who saw it and noticed the resemblance?”

Her shoulders sagged. “No. A couple of others have said something.”

“All it would take is someone getting excited and telling a reporter. Think what a coup it would be. Doing it this way, we have some control over the flow of information. You can give exclusives to reporters who will treat your experience with sensitivity, say ‘No comment’ to everyone else. We’ll hold a press conference, then ask everyone to give you and the Lawsons the privacy you need to come to terms with this new reality.”

He’d always thought the idea of drowning in someone’s eyes was idiotic. Unable to look away from her, he discovered different.

“But...my life,” she whispered.

He had to say this. “Will never be the same.”

“Oh, God,” she said again. Her struggle to regain her balance was visible. “I should never have told you my name. I could have made one up. Then I could dye my hair. Wear colored contacts. I could still do that,” she said on a rising note.

He didn’t say anything.

Defeat flattened her expression. It was a long moment before she nodded. She bowed her head and seemed to notice their linked hands for the first time.

He gently disengaged them, however reluctant he was to sever the connection.

“When you called her, why didn’t you tell Mrs. Lawson you’d found me?” she asked suddenly. “They probably think you’re bringing bad news.”

“Me finding your body wouldn’t have been bad news.” He frowned. “It would have hurt in one way, but been a relief in another. They’d have had closure, at least.”

“I can understand that,” she conceded.

“The answer to your question is, I don’t know.” He heard his own uncertainty. “Maybe I just want to see their faces.” And it could be that was the answer. He’d worked hard to effect this reunion. Usually his greatest reward was to make an arrest, then see the jury foreman step up and say, “Guilty as charged.” He hadn’t been able to wall out Karen Lawson’s pain as effectively as he usually did. Seeing her joy—he needed that.

“Okay.” She sat tensely as he backed out of the slot, then drove across town. The sheriff’s department headquarters was on the outskirts of Stimson, the county seat that still had a population of only thirty-five thousand or so. The Lawsons had never moved from the house they’d lived in when their daughter was snatched. He’d read and knew from experience that was usual. People believed they had to be there when their missing family member magically made his or her way home. There was probably a subconscious fear that, if they weren’t there, everything as much the same as possible, the lost one wouldn’t be able to find them.

He stole glances at Bailey Smith, sitting marble still and almost as pale, staring straight ahead through the windshield. Scared to death and refusing to show it, he diagnosed. She didn’t like giving away what she felt.

And him, he kept watching for every tiny giveaway. His heart had taken up an unnaturally fast rhythm from the minute she turned around and their eyes met. He’d felt as if he’d taken a blow to the chest. Attraction multiplied times a thousand, an unfamiliar hunger to know everything about her, to soothe her fears and heal her wounds, a breathtaking need to protect her—and pounding at him the whole time was terror that she’d walk away before... What?

I can find out whether she might feel the same. Even close to the same.

“Here we are,” he said quietly, pulling to a stop in front of a nice two-story white Colonial-style house with dark green shutters. He was willing to bet the Lawsons had never even considered changing so much as the shade of green on the trim when they repainted. Kirk Lawson’s pickup was in the driveway. Lawson’s Auto Body, it said on the door. So Karen had called him to come home, as Seth had suggested.

Bailey’s head had turned and she stared now at the house where she’d grown up. Her breathing had quickened. She might swear she didn’t remember the house at all, but he wondered.

Seth turned off the engine but sat there, ready to give her all the time she needed. A minute passed. Two. Mercifully, the front door didn’t open and he didn’t see anyone at the front window. Probably they hadn’t heard the car out in front.

“You okay?” he asked at last.

“I...yes.” She drew in a deep breath she probably meant to be steadying. “Yes,” she said again, sounding a little more sure.

“Ready?”

Bailey nodded and reached for the door handle.

He met her on the sidewalk and stayed close on the way to the front door. After ringing the bell, he laid a hand on her back. He’d have sworn she leaned into it, just the slightest bit.

After the deep gong, he heard nothing until the door swung open. It was Kirk who looked through the screen door at him before switching his gaze to Bailey. Utter shock transformed his rugged face. “Dear God in heaven,” he choked out.

“May we come in?” Seth asked.

He pushed open the screen, his gaze devouring Bailey. “Hope?” Then he gave his head a shake. “Come in. Karen!” he bellowed.

They stepped into the living room. His wife appeared from the direction of the kitchen. She was braced for bad news, Seth saw, in the instant before she set eyes on her daughter, resurrected, and came to a stop.

And yes, everything he’d hoped to see blazed forth on her face, making him realize that most lines on it had been formed by grief.

“Hope?” she said tremulously. She took a few steps forward then stopped as if disbelieving. Tears brimmed in her eyes and overflowed. “It is you. It is. Oh, Kirk! Hope is home.”

Seth laid a seemingly casual hand on Bailey’s shoulder. Despite his focus on the two Lawsons, he was attuned to her, not them. Aware of her shock as she saw her mother’s face, so much like her own. Felt when the waves of emotion hit her, as she absorbed the yearning in these strangers’ eyes.