Vanish in Plain Sight

“I have no idea.” The brown eyes flashed. She clearly resented the implication.

Had he been implying anything? He just wanted to understand this, so he could put it behind him.

Marisa turned away, seeming to glance around the room almost at random, as if searching for something to take them away from an awkward place. “It looks as if you’re making good progress in here.”

“I wasn’t, but once the police got into the act, the paneling came down pretty fast.” Almost instantly he regretted the careless words, because she paled, obviously understanding why the police had gotten involved.

“We didn’t find anything.”

He rushed the words. It didn’t help. His hands curled into fists. The whole situation angered him. Talking to this woman was like walking through a minefield, where any step could end up maiming someone.

Relief flooded through him at the sound of a car. “That’ll be Adam.” He went quickly to the door.

Adam got out of the police car, alone this time, and pulled out the suitcase. So, he was going to show it to her. Well, Marisa had probably as much right to it as anyone.

“Adam.” He could only hope the relief didn’t show in his voice. “Ms. Angelo, this is Adam Byler.” He made introductions as Adam walked in. “Adam, Marisa Angelo. But I guess you’ve spoken on the phone.”

Adam nodded, shaking hands gravely before swinging the suitcase onto the worktable where it had lain the previous day. Link was glad to retreat into the background while Adam went over the circumstances of finding the case and identifying her mother from the photograph.

“Yes, Mr. Morgan told me about it.” Marisa reached toward the case, her hands hesitant. “May I see?”

“Of course. We’ve already run a few tests on it, just to be on the safe side.” Adam took a step back, as if giving her space.

Marisa opened the case. The photograph now lay on top, faceup, so that it was the first thing she saw. Link could hear the way her breath choked at the sight. His throat tightened in response.

She picked up the photograph, holding it for a long moment, her fingers caressing the pictured faces. Then she cradled it against her chest.

“This is mine.” She looked at Adam, as if expecting an argument.

“I suppose it is.” His voice was gentle. “Or maybe more accurately your father’s, but we haven’t been able to reach him.”

He knew Adam well. Maybe that was how he detected the hint of suspicion underlying the words.

Marisa didn’t seem to. “Dad won’t mind if I have the picture. I’m sorry you weren’t able to reach him, but since he retired, he takes off in that RV of his at a moment’s notice.”

“Doesn’t he have a cell phone?” Adam asked the question lightly, as if intent on not alarming her.

“He does, but half the time he doesn’t check it from one week to the next.” She didn’t seem to find that odd, which argued that father and daughter weren’t very close. “I’ve left a message for him to call me, and I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from him.”

“That’ll be fine.” Adam glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late, and I know this is a lot to take in. If you don’t mind staying over in the area tonight, maybe we can meet in my office tomorrow to talk things over.”

She looked at him, blinking a little. “Tonight? I’ll be here longer than that.”

Adam seemed taken aback. “That’s really not necessary, you know. We’ll continue to look into the situation, and we’ll let you know if and when we learn anything. I’m sure you want to get back to your own life.”

In other words, Adam didn’t want her here, dogging his every step. Link couldn’t agree more.

Marisa’s shoulders stiffened. She looked very deliberately from him to Adam. “I can see why you feel that way, but I have no intention of going anywhere. I intend to stay in Springville until I know why my mother’s suitcase was inside the wall of this house.”

CHAPTER TWO

MARISA COULD SEE HOW unwelcome that announcement was to both men. With her unfortunate knack for empathy, she could easily put herself in their places.

The police chief was simplest to figure. He clearly wanted a free hand with his investigation, and he didn’t want to tell her anything he didn’t have to. Not that he suspected her—he could hardly believe that a five-year-old child would be involved in her mother’s disappearance.

But her father was another matter. Didn’t the police automatically suspect the spouse when a woman disappeared?

Or died. She forced herself to finish that thought.

“Ms. Angelo, I hate to see you do that.” The police chief sounded as harassed at the thought of her staying as she expected him to. “You’ll just be kicking your heels around here to no purpose. It’s hardly likely that we can find anything else out about what happened after all these years.”

“You found the suitcase,” she pointed out.

“Link did.” Chief Byler shot a look at the other man. “If he hadn’t been renovating the house, we wouldn’t have known anything about it.”

“But you have to investigate.” A thought struck her with the force of a blow. “You must have investigated then. Well, I mean not you personally.” He was far too young for that, probably not much more than in his early thirties. “But the police must have.”

She’d never known. She could only wonder at herself. A child accepted what she was told by the authority figures in her life, of course. But later, when she’d wanted to understand, it hadn’t occurred to her to ask her father what the police had thought.

“True, they did.” Adam Byler leaned against the rough table, seeming to resign himself to the questions. “I’ve looked into the reports, talked to officers who were working then.”

“And what did they say?” Was she going to have to drag information from the man? Ordinarily she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to confront him, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances.

She couldn’t read anything in his square, impassive face. She suspected he was trying to decide what and how much to tell her.

As for Link Morgan—well, he’d backed away, as if trying to disassociate himself from the whole business. He probably regretted that he hadn’t thrown the suitcase on the trash heap without opening it.

“People noticed that your mother wasn’t around any longer,” Byler said. “Your father said she’d left him. That she hadn’t been able to go on living English and she’d gone back to her people in Indiana. For the most part, the police accepted that.”

Byler’s lips clamped shut on the words. Was the implication that he wouldn’t have?

“You know that your mother was Amish?” Link Morgan asked the question with a kind of reluctant concern in his voice.

She nodded. That she did know, but only because she’d pried it out of her grandmother, who was easier to talk to than her father. “I know. And my father said she’d gone back to her family because that was what he thought she’d done.”

A shiver skittered along her nerves. She believed that. She had to.

“My grandmother said my mother had talked about going back to her family,” she went on. “Grandma said my mother found it hard to give up her people and her faith the way she had.”

But how could she leave me behind? The child who lived inside her asked the question she couldn’t.

“You might want to see what else is in the suitcase,” Link suggested.

She shot a look at him. That fine-drawn face, with the skin taut against the bones—she still had the urge to draw it every time she looked at him. What made him look that way? Illness? Grief? Guilt?

Slowly she lifted out folded clothing. Her fingers hesitated when they touched the black garment. Then she lifted it, shook it out.

“It’s the kind of apron an Amish woman wears. And there’s the prayer covering they always have on their heads.” He nodded toward the object in the bottom of the case, not moving.