The One That Got Away (15 page)

“I thought she was sleeping in,” he said.

“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye to her?”

“Of course not. I just didn’t want to wake her. I figured I’d hang around until she got up.”

Hang around where?
Ginger wanted to demand.
In your car with the engine on?
But she bit her tongue.

She was the one who’d asked him to leave, after all.

“She’s not in her room. I just looked.”

“Where is she then?” he asked.

“I was hoping you’d know. It looks like she left in a hurry.”

“What about Lulu?”

“She’s gone, too. Maybe Izzy took her for a walk, but Lulu’s bag is missing, and I’ve got a bad feeling….”

“Her bag is missing?” He was a few steps behind Ginger in putting the facts together.

Already her hands were shaking, and she wanted desperately to pick up the phone and call the police—run out the front door and launch a search party. She needed to do something, anything, to make sure Izzy was safe.

“She wouldn’t run away, would she?” Marcus sounded confused, as if he couldn’t imagine a distraught, angry teenager ever thinking of doing such a thing.

“Why not?” Ginger nearly screeched, her voice rising. “Why would she want to stick around here?”

“She loves it here.” He paused, seeming to consider the possibilities. “She said she wanted to stay here with you.”

“Maybe she changed her mind.”

Marcus expelled a ragged breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, so let’s start looking. I’ll go down to the lake, where she likes to walk. You check around here?”

Ginger nodded, relieved to have a course of action. “I’ll also check with Ruby to see if she’s seen or heard anything. And I’ll call Nina, too.”

Marcus nodded. “If I don’t find her by the lake, I’ll circle back through the woods and look for her there.”

“Bring your cell phone and call me if you find her. I’ll do the same.” Ginger headed back to Izzy’s room to look for clues.

She had a strict policy against nosing around, and even now, under potentially dire circumstances, something in her rebelled against violating the girl’s privacy. But necessity propelled her farther into the room, which was flooded with morning light.

The east-facing window stood partway open, but Ginger knew Izzy kept it like that to cool the room at night, since the house had no air-conditioning. The screen was still in place, so if she’d left in the night, she had to have gone through one of the doors.

The bed was unmade, its white sheets and flower-print quilt a tangled mess. That, too, was normal. Izzy didn’t make the bed unless asked to do so.

Ginger went to the desk and rummaged around, finding nothing amiss. Then she looked in the closet and noticed that Izzy’s jacket wasn’t there. Also missing were several outfits, and the girl’s purse, which she normally kept on top of the chest of drawers.

Ginger would have to check the laundry to confirm that the clothes were really missing, though, so she went down the hallway to the bathroom and searched the near-empty hamper, then went to the hall closet that housed the washer and dryer. Nothing in either place belonged to Izzy, except for one sweatshirt she’d spilled wood stain on while working with Marcus.

Back in the bathroom, Ginger checked for Izzy’s toothbrush, but it was gone, along with the small pink bag of cosmetics she usually kept on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet.

Ginger’s stomach felt hollowed out. Where would the girl have gone? And how had she intended to get there? As far as Ginger knew, Izzy had no money and no friends who drove.

Oh, God.

What if…

What if she intended to hitchhike?

Or what if she wasn’t headed anywhere at all? What if she was suicidal?

The moment the thought formed in her head, Ginger tried to banish it. But she pictured the wide, cold expanse of Promise Lake. Maybe the idea of swimming until she grew tired might seem better than the other options Izzy faced. Ginger pictured the deep, dark sadness she’d seen more than once in Izzy’s eyes, and cold fear shot through her.

She wouldn’t, would she?

Ginger went to the phone and dialed Ruby. It was just after nine in the morning, and her neighbor normally rose with the dawn light. If anyone had seen anything fishy, it would be her. She answered on the third ring with a friendly “Hello?” Ginger explained the situation, but Ruby hadn’t seen Izzy.

Another phone call confirmed that Nina hadn’t heard from Izzy, either. Her worried tone reminded Ginger that it was her fault—hers and Marcus’s—that Izzy was missing now. Nina promised to let Ginger know first thing if she heard from Izzy, and she said she’d call around to alert any of Izzy’s friends that she might run to for shelter.

After hanging up the phone, Ginger went out onto the front porch to watch for Marcus. He hadn’t called, which meant he hadn’t found anything. Maybe she’d be better off searching the woods, too….

Or was it time to call the Promise Police Department? Her throat tightened at the thought. God, what if…

No, she had to stop with the what-ifs. They weren’t helping. Now was the time to remain calm and clear headed.

Wherever Izzy was, they would find her. Ginger had to believe that.

His whole life had turned into a surreal nightmare.

And the hours continued to tick by without any word from Izzy. No news of what had happened to her.

Ginger had been frantic to find Izzy, but she hadn’t been willing to let Marcus stay. She’d insisted he had to leave, though she’d already called several times to check in and insist again that he phone her the moment he heard anything.

Marcus stood in front of the color copy machine at the Promise Quick Copy shop and watched as flyer after flyer spat out.

This was what his stint as a father had been reduced to—making copies of a Missing Person flyer for his daughter.

He’d failed in an even bigger way than he could have imagined, and finally, he understood that this wasn’t about him.

This wasn’t about him.

It was about Izzy.

Too late he realized that parenting wasn’t an interesting experience for him to partake in, to further round out his life and achieve personal growth. It was about raising a child as best he could, strictly for that child’s sake, so that she might grow up and have something positive to contribute to the world.

Why couldn’t he have understood that from the start? If he had, this might never have happened. Izzy would be safe, and Ginger wouldn’t hate him for the selfish bastard he was. And he wouldn’t hate himself.

He picked up the stack of five hundred copies, then went to the counter to ask if he could post one in the store window.

He almost couldn’t look at the flyers, but forced himself to read a copy one last time to make sure the phone numbers and contact information were correct.

Izzy’s pretty, vaguely petulant face stared back at him. The photo was maybe a year old; it was the one she’d e-mailed to him before they met.

Isabel Grayson, aka Izzy, thirteen years old, missing from Promise Lake, California…

Tears welled up in his eyes, and he wanted to smash something, anything—smash everything into a million little pieces.

He loved that girl. He loved her, and if he got another chance, he’d do anything he could to make her happy.

The woman at the counter stared at the flyer.

“This your girl?” she asked.

He nodded, unable to speak.

“I’ll be happy to post it for you, hon. And if you give me a little stack I’ll make sure the rest of the businesses around here do the same, okay?”

“Thanks,” he managed to croak.

“Such a shame,” she said. “Poor thing.”

He turned and left with the stack of flyers before he shouted at the woman. His daughter wasn’t a shame. She wasn’t a poor thing. She wasn’t going to end up as a statistic, a face on the side of a milk carton.

He would find her, and she would be safe, and that’s all he could allow himself to believe right now.

And she still wasn’t convinced. She needed to hug Izzy close, look into her eyes and sense with her gut whether there was any hidden damage, anything the girl might be afraid to tell them.

Ginger hurried out the front door and raced down the steps and across the grass. As soon as Izzy, looking tired and bedraggled, opened the door and got out, Ginger swept her into a big hug that went on and on.

“Thank God,” she whispered into Izzy’s hair. “Thank God you’re okay.”

Then she pulled back to look her in the eyes. “
Are
you really okay?”

Izzy, her expression self-conscious now, shrugged and stared at the ground. “Yeah, I’m fine. And I’m sorry for running away and worrying you so much.”

“Is that what your dad told you to say?”

“I told her she owed you a year’s worth of free carpentry work,” he said.

Ginger looked up, almost shocked to find him there.

He looked tired, too, more tired than she’d ever seen him. As if he hadn’t slept in days.

And if he hadn’t, good for him. He deserved some sleepless nights.

Okay, maybe she was being a bit unfair, but she wasn’t about to make any more excuses for Marcus.

“I’ll be able to…I mean, I could keep helping with the house if you want me to, because we’re going to stay in Promise,” Izzy said, smiling tentatively.

“You are?” Ginger looked from her to Marcus for confirmation.

We?
Did that mean both Izzy and Marcus?

“I canceled the book tour. Told my publisher I have more important things going on in my life right now that need me to stay put.”

Ginger blinked. She knew better than to take such an about-face as the final word on the matter. Surely he’d change his mind once the reality of having to live the small-town life as a single father caught up with him. The glamour of the literary world would tug at him, and he’d find a way to escape.

“He really did cancel his tour,” Izzy insisted.

Ginger saw the girl’s hopeful expression, and knew she had to banish her cynicism for Izzy’s sake. The girl needed something to hope for.

Ginger looked at Marcus then, really looked at him. His face was so familiar, yet unfathomable now.

“Why don’t we go inside and drum up a celebratory lunch?” she suggested. “I’ve been missing your avocado sandwiches.”

There’d be time for questions and explanations later.

“Um, actually, I’m kind of tired,” Izzy said. “I haven’t slept in two nights. I was hoping I could lie down for a bit and take a nap.” She glanced at Marcus as if to get his approval.

But her words had the feel of rehearsed lines, and Ginger’s instincts went on alert.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get you settled then.”

She picked up the carrier that held Lulu, and they went inside to Izzy’s bedroom.

What she’d come to think of as Izzy’s bedroom.

But now she would live somewhere else with Marcus. Ginger had allowed herself to hope that Izzy really would be hers. Whatever that meant. She’d let herself believe she would finally have the child she’d always wanted.

When she watched Izzy climb into bed and settle under the covers, her heart ached.

Marcus bent and gave Izzy a kiss on the forehead, then picked up the dog and left the room.

Ginger went to the side of the bed and sat down on the edge. She met Izzy’s gaze with a gentle smile.

“Wherever you go, I want you to know you can always come back here, okay? This is your room, and this is a place you can always call home.”

Izzy nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “I promise I won’t run away again.”

“I love you.” Ginger bent to give the girl a hug. “Now get some rest.”

She left the room and found Marcus in the kitchen, looking tense and nervous. Lulu was on the floor devouring a bowl of dog food. When Marcus saw Ginger, he sighed.

She raised her eyebrows in a silent question.

“Can we go for a walk?” he asked.

He looked as if he hadn’t slept in years, not days. And some lingering bit of tender feeling caused her to want to reach out and smooth the tension from his brow, but no. She knew better now.

“Sure,” she said.

At least they had Izzy back. That was probably what he wanted to talk about. Far enough away that Izzy couldn’t overhear.

He’d learned his lesson.

They went outside and walked along the path toward the lake. It was a clear, warm day with a soft breeze sweeping over the water. Sandal weather, Ruby called it.

And Ginger was wearing sandals, a pair of brown beaded flip-flops that didn’t do well on the uneven gravel path. Her yellow sundress blew in the breeze, and as she walked, she tried not to be so conscious of Marcus’s presence.

He was here, and she had to be okay with that for now. For Izzy’s sake.

“So she was picked up for shoplifting?” Ginger asked, unable to control her curiosity any longer.

“Yeah. But I told the police her story, about losing her mom and just having met me, and they let her off with a dire warning. The owner of the 7-Eleven she tried to steal from agreed not to press charges.”

“Sounds like she got lucky.”

“Very. She was a wreck when I got there, crying and scared half to death.”

“But…Bakersfield?” Ginger asked as they scrambled down the drop-off that led to the beach. “What was she doing there? How did she get there?”

“She hitchhiked with some trucker who was headed that way.”

“Oh my God.”

“By the time I got to her, she’d already had the life scared out of her by the cops about all the bad things that could have happened to her while hitchhiking.”

Ginger paused once she reached the beach, and tried to get her equilibrium back. “The thought of her climbing into a truck…with some strange guy…”

“I know. I can’t even think about it right now.”

Marcus took Ginger’s hand in his, and she resisted the urge to pull away. He led her toward the water’s edge, where the sand was flat and wet. They took off their shoes and walked toward the wide stretch of beach that headed east around the lake.

“Where did she plan to go?”

Marcus told her everything he knew about Izzy’s ill-thought-out scheme. The driver of the semi who took her to Bakersfield warned her not to do any more hitchhiking when he let her out at the bus station. Paralyzed with fear, she’d spent what little money she had on the cheapest ticket to L.A., but the bus didn’t leave until the next day. She wandered around Bakersfield and spent the night in a park. By the following day she’d gotten hungry enough to steal, which had led to her getting busted in a convenience store for trying to shoplift a bottle of apple juice and a box of cereal.

“Wow,” Ginger murmured when he finished talking.

Her anxiety over the girl’s ordeal hardened into a solid knot in the pit of her stomach.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, until a piece of driftwood blocked their path. Rather than going around it, Marcus stopped walking.

“I couldn’t go,” he said. “I couldn’t go on the book tour now. I mean, I won’t go.”

“Good,” she said quietly. “Izzy needs you after what happened. She needs things not to change.”

“You were right about me.” He looked into Ginger’s eyes, and she saw a depth of pain that had never been there before.

The water lapping at their feet was cool and brought with it the sensation of washing their troubles away, or their past, or both.

“What do you mean I was right?”

“I need to grow up. Needed to grow up.”

“Needed?”

“I’ve made a few vows to myself. I’m going to be a good father to Izzy. And I’m going to make sure the people who matter to me know how I feel.”

Ginger said nothing.

“That means you,” he continued.

“Marcus, please…” She tried to turn away.

She didn’t want to hear that he needed her because Izzy needed a mother. Much as she wanted to fill that role, she knew it wasn’t a solid foundation for a relationship.

“I love you, Ginger. I’ve always loved you.”

“That’s not enough, Marcus. You know it isn’t.”

“I don’t mean I love you as a friend. That’s how I used to feel, but everything’s changed. You’re not the girl I used to be friends with. I’ve fallen in love with the woman you’ve become.”

She wanted to brush off his words, but they rang true. Because it was exactly how she felt about him. He wasn’t the man he used to be.

He wasn’t running away now. He was here, trying to be a father to Izzy. He’d faced some of the most challenging circumstances a parent could imagine, and he hadn’t buckled. He’d stuck with the job.

And he was telling Ginger he loved her.

He loved her.

Unlike other times in her life when she’d heard those words, now they resonated deep down in a part of her that hadn’t been touched in too long.

“I love you, too,” she heard herself say, before reason could jump in to stop her.

But she didn’t want to stop herself. The words felt right on her lips. She knew she meant what she’d just said.

She loved him. It was true. And it wasn’t the silly, unrequited love of her college days. This was something more.

Something real.

“You do?” he said, his eyes sparking with the slightest bit of hope.

“I do.”

In his eyes she could see something she’d never seen before.

Humility. It was what grief had left behind—the evidence of his trial by fire.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he said.

She smiled. “I’ll bet you will.”