Max grabbed the phone before the second ring, hoping it wouldn’t wake Brooke. She’d been antsy that evening, and he’d let her stay up until past nine, her summer bedtime. She needed the sleep, but he gave in easily, happy for the extra time with her.
“Gerard here,” Barstow said. “Did I wake you?”
“Not a problem, Chief,” Max answered mid-yawn. “What’s up?”
“I thought I should bring you up to date, in case you see Clara Jefferies in the morning before we have a chance to chat.”
“Oh.” Hearing Clara’s name, Max became instantly apprehensive. He’d brought her back to Alber knowing not everyone would be happy to see her. The sheriff had been furious with him that afternoon, irate about how Clara was stirring up trouble. Max felt responsible, and he’d begun to regret that he’d called her. He’d been looking forward to seeing her again, but they weren’t the same people they’d been in high school. Everything was different, including that he had a daughter to care for, and to do that he needed to keep his job. After Miriam died, he’d failed Brooke. He couldn’t do that again. It wasn’t an option.
“Is everything all right? Did Clara cause any…”
“Trouble? No. I just wanted you to know that I found her trying to get into the trailer park tonight. She wanted me to unlock the gate. Said she wanted to talk to her family,” Gerard said, his voice friendly. “I told her she didn’t need to do that. I explained that her family didn’t want to see her, and that the matter of Delilah’s whereabouts was settled.”
Fully awake, Max focused on the phone call. He plopped the recliner’s footrest down and sat up straight. He’d never liked the way Gerard talked around things, not really getting to the important points first. Sometimes Max wondered if the police chief did it on purpose, to confuse matters. But then, Gerard was a vast improvement over Evan Barstow. That man had been cruel. Twisted. Gerard had his faults, but Max thought he cared about the town, that he did his best. “You got news about Delilah?”
“Yeah, good news,” Barstow said. “Like I explained to Clara, I found out everything’s fine. No reason to worry.”
“How do you know that?”
“I went back out to the trailer, like Sheriff Holmes asked me to. This time Ardeth was home and she opened the door. She says Delilah’s in Salt Lake. She’s staying with a family there while she does a mission.”
“Isn’t she awfully young for a mission?”
“Clara mentioned that, too, when I told her. A little, yeah, but Ardeth said the girl wanted to do it. She’s staying with a family friend.”
Max thought he remembered a couple of the boys who went on missions in junior high, thirteen-year-olds. It wasn’t unheard of. Maybe that was all there was to it? “Ardeth is sure nothing bad has happened to Delilah? She knows where the girl is? That she’s safe?”
“That’s what she says.”
Max digested the information, considered what to do. Something still needled at him about the note, about the circumstances. “Chief, I don’t want to make you do any extra work on this, but I’d feel better if you went back out to the Jefferies trailer in the morning. Ask Ardeth for a phone number for the folks Delilah is staying with in Salt Lake. Let’s confirm that the girl’s okay before we close the case.”
Max heard Barstow’s reluctant sigh over the phone, a long drawing-in of air expelled in a huff. “Listen, Max, I understand your concern. I know Clara’s worried, too. That’s understandable. But my pull with these families only goes so far. If I push too hard, they clam up. We both know how closed-off these folks are.”
“Sure. Of course,” Max conceded, but the sense of foreboding he’d felt since the note arrived hadn’t left him. Over his years as a cop, he’d learned to pay attention to the clues his intuition gave him. “I understand what you’re saying, Gerard, but I’d feel a whole lot better if one of us talked to Delilah or at least the family hosting her.”
“Max, why would Ardeth lie to me? She says the girl’s fine. If Delilah was missing, why wouldn’t Ardeth tell me? I can’t think of a single reason. Can you?” Gerard asked.
“No, but—”
“The sheriff asked me to look into the girl’s whereabouts and I did,” Gerard said.
“Yeah, but—”
“I’m sorry that note got everyone riled up. But this has obviously all been a mistake,” Gerard said. “Let’s face it: we’ve got no reason not to believe Delilah’s family. It makes no sense that they’d lie. I’m not going to bother them again. As far as I’m concerned, this investigation is over.”
Twelve
The room was cool, the summer’s heat not yet building, and Delilah lay on her side, as she had for a very long time, awake and trying to decide what to do. She needed to find a way to escape. She wondered where the man had taken her, how far from home. When she thought it through, it seemed most logical that they were in one of the houses perched on the edge of the valley, at the foot of the mountains. The night that he snatched her, the man carried her blindfolded and bound for what seemed like a long time. His breathing became ragged, and she thought she felt him walking up, as if scaling a slope.
Yet she knew nothing for sure. Everything that had happened in the past few days defied understanding. Delilah felt sure of only one thing—that the man had no plans to release her. When she begged him, his voice sounded gruff and unmoved.
Then she thought about the soft hands, the gentleness of the woman who helped her. Who was she? If Delilah attempted an escape,
