Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series (49 page)

Last night, as I tried to fall asleep,
I thought of our wedding, when I laid eyes on her in the aisle.
There was something my mother used to say—that God saves a woman’s
beauty. She said,
He never allows it to be
fully realized until the day a woman marries
. I never
thought it was true until that moment. She was radiant, an
exceptional flower blooming just for me. I hold that picture in my
head, now, hanging on for dear life.

Lights are burning along the tree-lined
street. Out front, groups of people have gathered—throngs who don’t
know a thing about her standing shoulder to shoulder—holding
candles and signs, singing prayers. Stuffed animals and cards,
ribbons with balloons are clumped against the outer wall. Their
song turns to cheers as my car rolls up.

All they want is another piece of my
soul.

“We’ll find her.” Crew Cut says. This isn’t
the first time he’s spoken, but it’s the first time I look at him.
He presents a hand. “John Marshall.”

Every light in the house is burning. There’s
a bland beige rug covering the floor of the formal living room.
It’s plain and ugly. I want it back the way it was.

Lily’s on the sofa, holding herself. When
she sees me, she starts bawling. Cue run-and-hug sequence.

I knew she was upset. I talked to her, heard
her crying, but couldn’t picture it. Lily has only ever shown me
two temperaments. She’s Party Girl and Betty Bad Ass—joy and anger.
She’s in pieces. This is really bad. Grace would hate it.

“It’s alright,” I pet her hair. “We’ll find
her.”

“Eigh-teen ho-urs.” She halts with each
syllable, staccato.

“The kids?”

“Sleep-ing”

“Marcus?”

“Lands-two hours.” She takes a deep breath
and lets it out. “Ronnie, tomorrow—today. Later.”

My cell rings. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Matthews, could you come next
door?”

I grab Lily’s hand and take her along with
me through the kitchen, heading for the back door. It still looks
the same.

“Where’s the pot?” I point at the empty
shelf where the coffee flask should sit but don’t stop. Past the
patio, through the grass and back gate, into the adjacent garden.
“Maybe they’ve found something.”

John meets us in the doorway. Dress shirt,
tie, still no jacket. I wonder where he’s taken the time to set it
now and if it’s still pristinely folded. He herds us towards the
nearly empty three-car garage. My car, well, Marcus’ Range Rover,
is still there. The cover’s been removed, now sitting crumpled on
the bonnet. The driver and passenger doors are open. John points to
the opposite side at a shelf hinged to the wall. In front of it, a
pile of clothes sits on the floor.

“Ma’am, are these yours?”

“They belong to Marcus, like the car. But
they were in a trunk.”

John looks at two other men, clad in gloves,
firing questions while Lily describes a large green and brown
camouflage trunk.

“I know it, I gave it to Marcus.” The lock
was broken, so he didn’t take it back to England.

John’s hands go up—one to his earpiece and
the other becomes a barrier between him and his assistants. A
command to pause.

“Yes. Direction? When? Is that confirmed?”
He looks to me. “I’ll talk to him myself. Coordinate with locals
upon verification.” His raised hand drops and he starts talking to
us, rather than near us. “One of my guys picked up a possible lead
near Kings Canyon. A forest ranger reported a vehicle of matching
description heading into the Reserve just before nightfall. Does
she know anyone up there?”

Lily and I look to each other and give
identical answers. “No.” “Nobody.”

“Is there any reason you can think up that
might put her there?”

Utter stupidity. “She’s been put on bed
rest. I thought we all agreed? Someone had to take her!”

He nods. “Yes, sir, I know. I’m trying to
cover all the bases. When I take this information to law
enforcement, I want them to jump on it. No excuses.”

“Right. Sorry.” I let him ask as many
questions as he wants, then.

Lily has gone with
my driver to the airport to pick up Marcus and Eric. The boys
are still asleep, despite the shuffling of bodies through the
house. The garage, great room, and kitchen are off-limits. The
carpeted hall’s been covered in plastic.

Nigel’s curled up with Caleb. All three are
in Noah’s bed.

The house looks nearly the same, except for
the carpet and the French doors in the master suite that lead out
to the covered pool.

Her bed is made up with neat hospital
corners, fluffy pillows atop a black and white striped down
comforter. Her iPod’s on the nightstand beside a dried rose. I gave
it to her the night of our first date. I take up the music player
and put her earbuds in my ears.

The playlist doesn’t come up, but the last
song she listened to starts to play. A smoldering tenor croons
desperate poems of messages in bottles and songs on pages. It’s
Paper Tongues, the band she loves and missed that night I slipped
and fell for her.

She’s gone. Missing. And it’s my fault. I
don’t know how or why, but I know in time, it will lead back to
me.

Lying helpless on the bed, I roll to my
side, clinging to the vision of us in my head and the impression
she left on top of the covers. Gracie, that day in my hotel room.
We don’t fight. We talk and she doesn’t believe the lie.
Everything’s as it should be. She glows, making her
announcement—pregnant and lovely. I feel the would-be joy welling
in my chest, filling my throat. She would have touched me,
uncontrollably, the way she always did. I might have joked,
pretending to withdraw only to feel her chase, to sense her
desperation and measure it against my own. The night would have
come and gone before we noticed, too rapt in one another to care
about anything outside our bubble.

Supplications come naturally in times of
destitution. Even for us morally bereft. I beg God to make her come
back. I barter and bargain, offering up things that aren’t mine. My
heart—He knows it belongs to her. My soul—though I’m sure it was
lost long ago. I pledge eternity, offer eternal servitude,
anything, everything. My money, my future, my so-called
talents.

But what use has God for such things? If I
could give them up so quickly, why would He want them?

A soul is useless—pass. Eternity’s
just wasting time if it’s spent alone. I don’t want anything if I
can’t give it to her. I only ever wanted
for
her—to be a man she could be proud of, to
make her smile.

Her smile . . . it warms the air, lights the
room. I’ll give anything to see her smile again.

Evan
—

SMASH CUT.

The closest the plane can get us is a
farming community called Visalia. From there, it’s roughly an
hour’s drive to the park. Dispatch has video surveillance of her
car at the southern entrance of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon
National Park via Highway 198. It’s too grainy to identify the
driver, but it doesn’t look like her.

Everyone is on high alert since there was a
911 call placed from her home in early-afternoon. I’ve listened to
the recorded call a hundred times. The voices are barely audible,
like someone may have accidentally hit the auto-dial. Or she was in
distress and couldn’t talk. It seems the authorities were leaning
towards the former. In accordance with standard procedure, a unit
was dispatched to follow-up on what they thought was an accidental
call. Noah and Caleb were there alone, searching for Grace.

It’s a full-scale search and I’m pulling all
resources, calling in favours from everyone I’ve ever met and
everyone they’ve ever worked with. Eric’s got a publicist working
on another press release and they want something from me.

“I don’t care how big the space is. I’ll
move heaven and earth for the chance of finding her.” My hand
brushes through Caleb’s hair. He fell asleep in my lap on the plane
and I haven’t the heart to wake him, though my legs are going numb.
I can’t answer his questions. I don’t know where Mummy is.

The trunk. Her car. The garage opener I left
in the Rover’s gone from the visor. It might have gone unnoticed,
if not for the imprint left in the leather.

Sheri’s nowhere to be found, either. Not
that I’ve looked very hard.

I keep hearing Grace’s voice in my head, the
way she says my name like a prayer.

“What the bloody-hell was Sheri doing
talking with her?” Marcus is confounded.

“I don’t know what makes people do what they
do.” A ten-year character study couldn’t crack that nut. Apparently
she’s been a regular visitor these last months, though by my
reckoning, she never liked Grace much. Still, Lily said she’d
dropped by a few times, in the daytime, when Grace was alone.

Noah’s on the seat beside me, taking in
every bit of information from John, who sits in front of him in the
passenger van. He’s asking questions and answering as many as he
can about how Grace has been spending her time. He’s had the
brilliant idea of remotely activating the GPS in Sheri’s car. If
Sheri was with her yesterday at all, they want her input. Maybe she
saw someone in the area that didn’t belong. Once we go through the
proper channels to do that, we should have some idea of where she
is within a few minutes.

Grace placed that call. I know it in my gut.
Her phone records indicate it was only a few minutes after Marcus
spoke with her. Between those two phone calls, something happened.
And whatever that something is, it’s the reason we can’t find her.
Dread wells in my stomach, churning bile at an alarming rate. I
press her earbuds further into my ears, straining to listen to the
recording of her phone call. Over and over, I try to make out the
sounds, but there isn’t much to hear. Muffled, static-filled
voices. One’s definitely Grace, but the other’s too low to pick
up.

She wasn’t alone when she called.

My mind goes back to the young girl Grace
mentioned. The one who camped outside for days on end. She has a
deceptively sweet face. I used to see her at fan events. Not just
around LA, either. Then, she started showing up where I was
staying. No matter how many posters and shirts I signed, or how
much time I spent talking with her, she wouldn’t leave. The more
she got, the more she wanted. She used to leave letters for me with
the concierge. She’d threaten to hurt herself if I didn’t come
down. Hotel security made her leave each time they saw her. She did
go away for a bit, but resurfaced outside the house after I’d gone
off to shoot. I’ve thought of her as more weird than dangerous.
Still, I wonder if she was hanging around and try to recall the
sound of her voice as I rewind and listen.

Fresno and Tulare County Sheriffs, CHP,
dozens of park staffers, and rangers with ATVs are gathered in and
around the park’s main office when we arrive. Eric thanks everyone
for me and makes arrangements for a place to lay Caleb. Lily and
Noah will see after him.

Everyone’s talking and I’m gutted. People
without faces are trying to chat and I can’t make out their words.
All I see are the poorly placed smiles.

“Here, mate.” Marcus gives a paper cup of
coffee. “You’re knackered.” He leans in, speaking low. “Get your
head straight. They might be here for you, but they’re here, so
thank the volunteers or Grace’ll string you up.”

“She would, wouldn’t she?”

His shoulders draw up. “She will.”

Evan
—

Deadman’s Canyon has a body in it. The old
grave of a sheep herder—that’s how it got the name.

Near dawn, as I’m making my case against
being forced to stay behind to answer phones, a call comes over the
radio. Two hikers camping inside the eight-mile-wide canyon have
found something.

The room of bleeding hearts collectively
stops. Mine just breaks.

John takes my arm and makes for the helipad,
double-time. He points to a seat facing the back, instructs me to
buckle up, and keep quiet. I put on the huge headphones corded to a
box on the ceiling.

When the rotors start up, the wind is
enormous. Great evergreens sway and shrink as we sail up into the
sky.

Helicopters are bloody noisy. You have to
wear headphones to hear anything; and the others, John, a ranger
whose name I forget, the pilot, and co-pilot are having a
conversation I’m not allowed in on. Their lips exchange silent
words while I stare out at the snow-capped peaks not far off and
the groupings of trees below. Someone hands me binoculars.

“We’re nearing Elizabeth Pass,” says the
voice in my headset. “The canyon’s beyond that. When I set her
down, I need you to stay put, Mr. Matthews.”

John nods in agreement.

I can’t consider what I may or may not do.
Trying to think about anything beyond this second is like hitting a
wall. I resume my inspection of the forest floor and meadow. The
appropriately named canyon is probably something to look at in
spring, but right now it looks desperate, lonely, and
dangerous.

People—three women and two men—come out from
a patch of trees, waving their arms. Every bit of vegetation looks
as if it’s trying to bolt as we land. The canyon’s huge, surrounded
by steep granite walls and traversed by a stream. Patches of trees
sprinkle the edges of a line that I guess is a hiking trail. As the
noise of the blades dissipates, everyone unbuckles. Everyone except
John and me.

I guess he’s decided to make sure I do what
I’m told. Obedience has nothing to do with it. I’m scared
shitless.

“You should start on the other side. Keep’em
even.” John removes his headset.

“I hadn’t noticed,” I say, taking my fingers
from my brow.