A Father's Quest (4 page)

The thought made a chill run down his spine. “But you do find people. You found me.”

Her green eyes narrowed with anger or frustration, he couldn’t tell which. Whatever emotion it was, she felt it passionately. A memory of kissing her jumped into his brain and wouldn’t leave. They’d come within a single layer of silk panties from consummating their feelings for each other. And they’d set the date for that, too. Until her mother intervened.

“So everybody says,” she snapped. “But the only person who really knows for sure what happened that day at the beauty parlor is dead.”

Her mother. Marlene Bouchard, the woman he considered the Machiavelli of Baylorville. He’d read the obit online.

“And like I said, I don’t have a direct line to the great beyond.” She paused and gave him a serious look, her lips pressed together. “Is that why you’re here? To talk to someone who has crossed over? Oh, my God, your mother—”

“No. Mom’s still with us…more or less.”

She put a hand to her breast. She looked relieved. This was more like the Remy he remembered. Kind and concerned about people. Nice. Jessie was the fly-off-the-handle kind of person. Touchy.

“So, why are you here?”

A reasonable question.

“My daughter is missing. I need your help to find her.”

There. A reasonable answer. Simple. A small favor for an old friend.

Remy took a step back. Could she read the desperation and fear he tried his level best to keep pushed way, way down below the surface? She’d been good at reading him. Did she guess how close he was to losing it?

“I’m sorry to hear that, Jonas. Really, I am. But I can’t help you. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

No. That was not the truthful answer. She
could
help but was choosing not to. Was this a way to pay him back for running away when her mother sabotaged their lives?

“She’s only seven. She’s in trouble. I can feel it. Please, Remy, don’t punish Birdie because you hate me.”

“Hate?” she repeated softly.

She turned, as if preparing to run or call for help. He didn’t blame her. He probably sounded crazy. Desperate. He was both. He stepped in her path to block her escape and grabbed both her arms. Partly to steady himself. Partly to beg for her help.

“Jonas, let go of me. Stop. What—”

He pulled her to him, hard. As though she was the last person standing in a fight to the death. To let go would mean giving up everything he’d fought so hard to hold on to. He couldn’t…not now.

He put his mouth close to her ear and whispered, “My little girl is missing. Something bad is going to happen. I know it. You’re the one person in the world I didn’t think I’d have to explain that to. Please, Rem, please. Help me.”

“Holy moly,” a voice exclaimed. “Jonas, let her go. Did you forget something? Like the fact you guys are related?”

Remy put the brakes on, glancing over her shoulder at Jonas. He looked so lost, shell-shocked and helpless. Her heart twisted in a way she hadn’t felt since she watched her mother pass away.

“No. We didn’t. He didn’t.” She brushed off her sister’s hand. “I’m okay, Jess. Really. It’s Jonas who is in trouble.”

His back was to her but she could tell he was struggling to regain control over his emotions. She’d never known him to lose control—ever. Even that night when her mother delivered the most gut-wrenching news of their young lives—that she’d had an affair with Jonas’s father nine months before Jessie and Remy were born—Jonas had been a pillar. No tears. No ranting. He’d held Remy’s hand as they walked to his car. He’d told her they should sleep on it, maybe look into some kind of test or something. Of course, his
or something
turned out to be a trip to Europe with his mother.

“Everybody has their unique way of mourning,” Jessie had said facetiously when they found out he was gone.

Remy had taken his leaving as proof that he didn’t love her as much as she’d loved him. Or worse, that he considered her to be her mother’s daughter.

But that was old news. Water long under the bridge.

The pain she heard in his voice now told her how much he loved his daughter and feared for her safety.

“Jonas’s daughter is missing,” she told her sister. “He wants me to help find her.”

“Because of your gift.” But her tone was softer, less defensive. Remy knew her sister wasn’t as tough as she liked people to think. And Jessie had a real soft spot in her heart for kids.

“Because she found me,” Jonas said, facing them. His shoulders were straight, his posture erect. She could almost see the invisible outline of his military uniform. She didn’t know what branch he belonged to, but she had seen his photo displayed on his mother’s dresser at the nursing home where she used to work.

“Everyone in Baylorville knows the story,” he went on. “Remy fell asleep then woke up, crying and carrying on about a little boy in a well. Me.” He hooked his thumb toward his chest. “My mother repeated the story a million times or more. You snapped out of your trance and told the police exactly where to find me.”

“I never went into a trance.” But she couldn’t bring herself to repeat her doubts as she had earlier with Jessie. She knew how much Jonas hated her mother. The very last words they’d said to each other before he drove away had been about Marlene.

“I can’t believe that whore is your mother, Rem. I’m sorry. That’s a crappy word, but it’s the truth. Everybody knows she sleeps around. And to get pregnant by her friend’s husband when her friend was also pregnant…that’s too much, man. Too much.” Then he’d left.

And, now, he was back, asking her to be the very person she didn’t want to be.

“That happened a long time ago, Jonas. I was a child.”

“The same age my daughter is,” Jonas said, meaningfully. “She’s lost, like I was. Afraid. If someone like me—an ordinary dad—can sense this, so can you, because you’re special. You are, Rem. You always have been. Please, please say you’ll help.”

She pressed her fingertips to her temples. No one had ever begged her to find a missing child. Her mother’s friends had always asked for signs, some sort of super natural permission to make choices they probably would have made anyway. This was different. Dangerous. The risk of failure was far too great.

“Jonas, you don’t understand. Sometimes I have dreams that I can remember when I wake up. And some times the images in my dreams make sense to people who want them to mean something. I’ve never, ever claimed otherwise. And if I told you I saw something in a dream that you thought pertained to your daughter and it turned out to be wrong or it led you on a wild goose chase in the opposite direction, you’d blame me. You’d hate me more than you already do.”

He stepped closer, ignoring Jessie completely. “I never hated you, Rem. I couldn’t if I wanted to. Your mother? Yes. I’m not sorry Marlene is dead. My only regret is I never told her exactly what I thought of her. But none of what happened between us was your fault.”

“He’s right, you know,” Jessie said. “And, not to detract from the seriousness of Jonas’s situation, but you two do realize that technology has made certain advances, right? A DNA test would prove once and for all whether Mom was telling the truth that night.”

Jonas’s eyebrows came together. “Is there some reason you think Marlene lied?”

Jessie threw Remy a look. Funny, this was yet another subject they’d talked about earlier.

“Jessie and I have come to the conclusion that Mama had—how do the politicians put it?—a questionable association with the truth.”

Jonas continued to frown but after a few seconds he shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t care about the past. I know I probably should, but my only focus at the moment is finding my daughter. If you can’t help me, then…I’ll keep looking.”

He started to leave but paused to pull something from his pocket. “I know this is a long shot, but…well…this is Birdie,” he said, holding out a photograph.

Remy’s hand started to shake even before she touched it. Nerves, anticipation, empathy…she didn’t know. But the moment she saw the picture, her vision blurred and her heart jolted.

Red hair. She had red hair.

Remy pressed her lips together as hard as she could to keep from crying out.

She very rarely recalled color in her dreams. Images, yes. Movement. Structures. Voices. Dialogue. But never hair color.

Until recently.

“Uh-oh,” Jessie put an arm around Remy’s shoulders in support.

“What?” Jonas asked, his gaze never leaving Remy.

Jessie let her chin drop so her head touched Remy’s.

“I don’t know for sure,” she told Jonas, “but I’m guessing Remy has seen this little girl in her dreams. Right, Rem?”

Remy kept her gaze on the photo. “Two nights ago.”

Jessie patted her back. “I’m sorry, Remy. I know you wanted to put this dream thing behind you, but, well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans.”

Jonas didn’t appreciate being bossed around by Jessie Bouchard, but he wasn’t a fool. He needed Remy’s help, and if that meant going through her twin, so be it. He’d dealt with Jessie in the past and he could do it again.

“So? What now? How do we do this?”

Jessie looked at her sister. “Rem?”

“I need to sit down.”

She dashed inside as though she might be sick. Did thinking about her dreams make her sick? Or had she seen something too horrible to recall? He was terrified to ask. He wished he could remember more from high school, but Remy always had downplayed her supposed gift. “It’s a scam,” she once told him. “A parlor trick that Mama dreamed up to increase her business. You don’t believe any of this, do you?”

He hadn’t then, but here he was, fifteen years later, asking for help from the one person who had every right to hate him. He’d treated her badly because of something that wasn’t her fault. Too bad he’d been so damn confused and hurt he’d lashed out at the wrong person. Unfortunately, the one person he should have lashed out at—his father—was dead and buried.

“Are you going in?” Jessie asked.

Did he have any choice? He wished like hell he could walk away. He didn’t know if seeing Remy was causing his head to ache or the fact he hadn’t a good night’s sleep in weeks. It probably didn’t help that he’d been living on coffee and fast food. He was a mess, and that meant he wasn’t going to be on top of his game when Birdie needed him most.

“She has your picture,” Jessie prompted.

“What’s your agenda? One minute you’re accusing me of incestuous intentions, the next you’re encouraging me to follow your sister into the house.”

She looked chagrined. “Honestly? I don’t know what to think. But I’m sick of not knowing the truth about anything. And, despite what Remy says, I do think you broke her heart and she’s never completely gotten over you. So maybe helping you reunite with your daughter—and, presumably, your wife—she’ll be able to close that door for good.”

His wife. Cheryl was his
ex
-wife, and he didn’t give a damn what happened to her once he had Birdie back.

“Jessie,” a girl in her early teens called out from the corner of the house near the garage, “are we taking your bike? Or is this Remy’s?”

“That one is Rem’s, Shiloh. But mine is somewhere in the garage. Hold on. I’ll be right there.” She turned and looked at him. “The next move is up to you, Jonas. A part of me wants to tell you to take a hike and leave my sister alone, but you probably won’t do that, so…” She glanced toward the open door. “Tell her not to do anything I wouldn’t do—at least until the DNA results are in.”

She grinned and hopped down the steps, the same way she’d come up.

Jonas knew he didn’t have a choice. He’d come here for a reason, and a good insurance investigator followed every lead—not just the convenient ones.

He stepped into the foyer of the home he’d last visited fifteen years earlier and looked around. The place had a completely different feel to it. Bigger. More open. Normal, he decided. The last time he’d been there, the rooms had been dwarfed by an abundance of furniture. Huge dark pieces that didn’t match each other.

He turned toward the parlor. The spot where Marlene Bouchard had changed his life forever.

Remy was standing beside the simple, white brick fireplace, her gaze still focused on the picture in her hand.

“Okay, Remy, tell me what’s going on. First you say you don’t have dreams and I’d be risking my daughter’s life to believe you if you did tell me anything. Then you turn white as a sheet and look like you’re going to faint the minute you see Birdie’s picture. So, yes or no? Have you seen my daughter in your dreams?”

“I don’t know.”

His headache spiked and he gave in to fatigue and dropped into the room’s lone chair, an overstuffed leather armchair. “That’s not exactly the answer I was looking for.”

“I can’t help it. I’ve been actively trying not to remember my dreams, Jonas. After Mama passed away, I decided she was the only person who actually believed all that dream-girl nonsense and I needed to move on, find out who I really am.”

He bit back a swearword that seemed appropriate.

She held up the photo, waving it slightly. “But a few nights ago, I had a tiny, fleeting glimpse of a little girl with bright red hair. Nothing of any significance happened. She sort of popped in and popped out in the background, like a…spirit,” she said, obviously choosing the word with care. “I didn’t even remember seeing her until you showed me this picture.”

He believed her. “Then, you can’t say for sure it was Birdie?”

“No. I can’t.”

Damn. He shouldn’t have come here, wasted his time. All because a Christmas card somehow got mixed in with the file he was compiling about Cheryl and her stupid church. The shiny photo greeting featured a dozen or so doctors, nurses and staff members at Shadybrook, the assisted-living center where his mother resided. A familiar face with a sweet smile and long blond hair had stirred up memories and, unfortunately, a worthless hunch.

“Are you still working at Shadybrook?” he asked.

She looked surprised by the question. “No. I’m going to start job hunting on Monday. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe that explains why you saw a kid with red hair in your dream. Mom has a bunch of pictures of Birdie around her room.”

She seemed to contemplate that possibility. “That makes sense. Except for the fact I haven’t spoken with your mother since they moved her to the full-care wing last fall. You came back for that, didn’t you?”

He nodded. A quick, cheerless trip that involved more time on an airplane than on the ground, a flurry of paperwork and an all-too-brief, tearful reunion with Birdie.

“But,” she said, obviously forcing a smile, “I suppose it’s possible. The subconscious is full of trivia that can pop to the surface for no apparent reason.”

He had the distinct impression she didn’t believe a word she was saying. He knew it was time to leave, but he couldn’t make himself move. He felt mired in a web of dread. Similar to how he felt the entire time he was in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was responsible for every man in his unit. He didn’t always know where they were or if they were in trouble, caught in a firefight, trusting the wrong person, ambushed or wounded. The knot in his gut never lessened, and now it was back.

He pressed on a tender spot just above his belt line to ease the discomfort as he looked around, searching for any sort of distraction. “What happened to all the furniture that used to be in here? Were you robbed? I hope you put in a claim with your insurance company.”

She smiled. “The chair you’re sitting on is the only one I kept.”

Was it the same one her mother sat in that night? No, he didn’t think so. He could picture Remy sitting beside him on the red velvet, tufted settee. And he’d nearly broken his neck stumbling over an ugly, lumpy footstool with frayed gold tassels around the bottom in his haste to get away after Marlene made that announcement. He’d kicked it violently, sending it flying into a big wooden hutch of some sort.

Despite the depth of his negative feelings later on, when he’d been dating Remy, he’d secretly admired Marlene’s style. He’d found the eclectic and slightly bohemian tone a welcome change from the stifling formality of his mother’s rigidly proper decor.

Remy walked into the adjoining dining room and returned a moment later with a simple, straight-back chair—more Ikea than estate sale—and placed it a few feet to his left. “When Mama passed, she left Jessie and me this house with all its contents. I decided to let my sisters take whatever they wanted.”

“The Bullies? Do you still call them that?”

She seemed surprised that he remembered the nickname she and Jessie had for their three older sisters. Since he was an only child, he’d had a hard time understanding how her siblings could be so mean and spiteful to the much younger twins. But apparently both Jessie and Remy had felt uniformly picked on—hence the descriptive appellation.

“Actually, they call themselves that now. I think they consider it a badge of honor or something. Their children think that’s the funniest thing ever.”

He smiled. Birdie would have laughed, too. “Do they live around here?”

“Close enough to be a nuisance,” she said, but since this was Remy, he was pretty sure she didn’t mean it.

Or maybe she’d changed. How the hell would he know? He’d made a rational, logical decision to never see Remy again—for both their sakes, he’d told himself at the time. Young kids thought they had all the answers, right?

“May I ask you a question?” Remy asked.

Jonas nodded.

“How missing is she?”

That question.

“Missing enough to make me qualify for the Worst Father of the Year award,” he said, softly. He’d spent his whole life swearing he wouldn’t be like his dad, and he wasn’t. He was worse.