Disappearing Nine Patch (A Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 9) (16 page)

“Come on, Scooter,” Harriet called.”Aunt Connie is coming, and you need to walk before that.”

Scooter stretched as he crawled out of his bed. Harriet had been stitching for four hours straight, and neither of her pets was amused. Fred had woven through her legs and meowed, but when the only action he could get was an ear scratch, he went off in a huff and flopped down in the wing-back chair closest to the window. She’d finally put a dog DVD on her computer for Scooter to distract him from taking up Fred’s post at her feet. After thirty minutes of whining and barking along to his show, he retreated to his bed under her desk.

They’d just returned to the house when Connie pulled into the circular driveway.

“How was the trip to the homeless camp?” she asked when Connie was out of her car.

“It’s always nice to visit with Joyce, but that’s about as far as it went. They didn’t really know anything. It seems the newspapers made more of their involvement than was actually supported by facts. Molly was dropped in the woods near one of the main trails. Max was the one who found her, but anyone could have been the one. Joyce said she and Max had just come back from a walk into town, so she’d been with him for the three or four hours before he found Molly, and he was only out of her sight for a few minutes before he came back to get her help. They said she was right in plain sight, so the park security guard would have found her at closing time if one of them hadn’t come across her earlier.”

Harriet led the way back inside to get Scooter settled. She refreshed his water and fluffed his bed.

“You behave while I’m gone,” she said and turned to Connie. “Does Sandra know we’re coming?”

“I called and asked her if we could come by. She agreed, but she didn’t seem very enthused.”

“I’ll be curious to hear what the police told her back then. They must have had some idea as to what happened, even if they couldn’t prove it.”

Connie pulled her keys from her purse.

“I’ll drive,” she volunteered.

A laurel hedge partially blocked the view of the Price house from the street. It was untrimmed and had big sections missing, probably from past storm damage. Moss crusted the roof of the house, and a large tree leaned ominously in the direction of the second-story gable. Someone had made a half-hearted attempt at painting the house but had failed to sand the peeling previous coating.

Connie parked on the street.

“Are you sure this is it?” Harriet asked her.

She looked at the address she’d written on a piece of paper.

“This is the address she gave me when I called.” She looped her purse strap over her arm. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Sandra Price met them at the door and ushered them into the kitchen eating area. She was a small, thin woman with blond hair and the kind of tan that made you think tanning bed, not sunny beaches.

“I’m Sandra,” she said to Harriet. “Connie tells me you’re Beth Carlson’s niece. Would you like some coffee?” She pulled out a chair for Connie.

“No, thank you,” Connie said as she sat down in the offered chair.

Harriet held her hand in front of her.

“None for me either, thanks.”

Sandra nodded toward the chair opposite Connie, and Harriet circled the table and sat down as well. Sandra sat at the end of the table between them. Before sitting, she pulled a small box of mints from her pocket, opened the lid and held it out.

“None for me, thanks,” Harriet told her.

Connie declined, too, then clasped her hands on the edge of the table.

“How are you doing? I’m sure this business with Molly Baker has stirred up some bad memories for you.”

While Connie was sympathizing with Sandra, Harriet took the opportunity to look around the house. The counters were clean, if dated. The linoleum was worn but shiny with wax. A bowl of fresh fruit sat in the center of the table. Pictures covered the front of the refrigerator, all of recent vintage. The beige carpet in the living room was free of stain or wear patterns, and the brocade drapes free of dust. Not at all what she’d expected when they’d pulled up.

“I’m sure you all didn’t come by just to see how I was doing,” Sandra said. She reached over and patted Connie’s hand. “I do appreciate your sympathy, but how can I help you?”

Harriet cleared her throat.

“Molly is, or was, the half-sister of one of the women in our quilt group. When she came back to town in advance of a benefit her organization is putting on, she stopped by and talked to us about helping her figure out what happened to her all those years ago.”

Sandra looked down and shook her head.

“I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but that girl has plagued my life for the last ten years or more. As soon as she reached her teens, she started coming around here, asking if we could tell her anything about the time when she was kidnapped. Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen in this life, and then having to relive it year after year has been almost unbearable. At one point, I even talked to the police. I didn’t want to have to take a restraining order out on her, but she was upsetting my other kids.”

“Did she come here in the last couple of weeks?” Connie asked.

“She did. She’d left us alone for probably six months, but she came back…” She thought for a moment. “…Tuesday of last week, maybe. It might have been Monday. She wanted to know if I’d remembered anything new. Seriously, my daughter disappeared twenty years ago. I’ve wracked my brain for anything the police could use to help figure out what happened to Amber. If I knew anything I’d have told them then.”

She blew her breath out. “If I’d known she was going to be taken, maybe I’d have been able to remember better, but honestly, it was just a day like any other. I remember I was doing laundry, but I did laundry every day. I was in the basement folding clothes. Amber and Molly had been watching a cartoon on TV. I didn’t let my kids watch a lot of TV, so I’d set the timer and she would stay right there until the bell went off.

“Anyway, as I said, I was working downstairs, and I guess I didn’t realize that Amber hadn’t come down—when her timer would go off, she’d usually come to wherever I was and try to talk me into another show. I figured she and Molly were playing.”

Sandra got up and got a tissue from a box in a crocheted cover. She dabbed at her eyes then returned to her seat.

“I don’t know how long I was down there before I noticed she hadn’t come. I feel so guilty. If I’d just gone upstairs and checked on them, Amber might still be here.”

“I’m sorry we’re bringing this all back up again,” Connie said and looked at Harriet.

“Molly had asked us to try to figure out what happened to her back then, and now she’s dead, so we’re hoping to find some answers for her sister. What we wondered is if you could tell us what the police thought happened twenty years ago. I know lots of times the police have an idea what happened in a crime, but they can’t get enough evidence to prosecute anyone.”

“Honestly, they told us they thought she had been taken by a man who took several children in the Puget Sound area in that same time period. A man named Joe Kondro. They never found Amber.” She sobbed a little. “They put him in jail for killing a couple of other children. He died in prison in twenty-twelve. I have to tell you—for me and my sons, it’s over. I’ll always feel guilty about leaving Amber and Molly upstairs alone, but I believe that man killed her, and now he’s dead.”

“Did they say back then what they thought happened to Molly?” Harriet asked her.

Sandra shook her head.

“They said she was a lucky girl, that she somehow escaped whoever took them. Or maybe the killer had a plan that involved only one girl. Molly didn’t fit his pattern. God works in mysterious ways. Apparently, though, he wasn’t done with her.” She shook her head. “I tried to tell her she was the lucky one, but she didn’t believe me. My therapist said she had survivor’s guilt.”

“
Diós mio
. That poor girl suffered her whole life because she was the one who lived.” Connie pressed her lips together and shook her head, unconsciously mimicking Sandra.

Harriet stood up.

“Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. We’ll pass on what you told us to Molly’s family. I think it’ll help them.”

“I hope so. It’s time for all of us to stop living in the past.”

“Thanks again,” Harriet said.

She and Connie didn’t speak until they were in the car and driving away.

“So, what did you think?” she asked.

“I feel so sorry for that woman and her family. I can’t imagine losing a child.”

“That’s what I was thinking. And then to have Molly wanting to talk about it all the time must have made it worse than it already was.”

“Funny, Molly never mentioned the serial killer explanation.”

Harriet looked down at her hands.

“It’s terrible to say, but if Molly accepted it was a serial killer that would mean it was random, and she’d have to move on with her life. She wasn’t ready to do that.”

“It makes you wonder what happened in her head that she got stuck at that time and place in her life.”

“What it makes me wonder is who killed Molly if it wasn’t related to what happened when she was five.”

“We still have the abusive ex to track down, and we’ve got to see what Lauren’s found in her search of Molly’s past work situations.”

“Do you have time to drive us to Molly’s office? That’s our first stop in tracking Josh Phillips.”

“This is more important; what I need to do can wait,” Connie said. She turned left at the next corner and headed them toward the offices of the local missing children’s organization.

Harriet’s heart made an involuntary lurch when she saw a familiar vintage black Bronco in the parking lot of The Carey Bates Missing and Exploited Children Organization. Connie looked at her and reached a hand out to pat hers as she drove in and parked.

“Honey, it’s not Aiden.”

Harriet stiffened at the touch.

“I didn’t think it was.”

“Aiden asked Carla to drive each of the cars in the garage once in a while.”

A closer looked showed Wendy’s car seat in the back.

Connie turned to Harriet.

“I know this has been hard on you, but it’s been hard on Aiden, too. He’s still trying to figure out what it all means.”

“Avanell was your friend, and I understand that you and Aunt Beth and Mavis feel like you have to rally around Aiden in his time of trouble. The part I’m having trouble with is being cut out of the whole process. He’s all but stopped calling me, and when he does, we don’t have anything to talk about. There hasn’t been the slightest suggestion about the future. He talks about his work in Africa and how exciting it is and how it helps him forget what happened here. There hasn’t been any talk about us. None.”

Harriet had spent more than a few sleepless nights trying to convince herself that Aiden’s escape to Africa and his lack of communication since was understandable, given his mother’s death and then his sister’s betrayal. But even with all of the tragedy he’d had to deal with, if he loved her the way he’d said he did, why did he insist on shutting her out? More important, did they have a future as a couple if he wasn’t willing to talk?

A tear slid down Harriet’s face and dripped down onto her folded hands.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You didn’t do anything to deserve this, and we care about and support you, too. None of us is enjoying seeing you hurting.”

She handed Harriet a tissue from a box on the car’s center console.

Another tear followed the first down Harriet’s cheek, and she dabbed at it with the now wadded-up tissue.

“What if he never comes home?” she said her voice bleak.

“You will be just fine. You have me and your aunt and the rest of the Threads. Besides, I think you need to think more about what you’re going to do when he
does
come home.”

Harriet looked stricken.

Connie handed her another tissue.

“Come on, dry your eyes. This isn’t the time for this discussion. We can talk it out later when your aunt and Mavis are there. We need to find out about Josh and see what Carla has learned.”