Sanders 01 - Silent Run (12 page)

Before he could question his behavior, he found himself pulling off the road at the next turnout.

Sarah was out the door before he could tell her that they were just going to take a quick look at the ocean and be on their way. By the time he joined her at the edge of the sand she already had her shoes off.

When he'd first met her he hadn't thought of her as impetuous or impulsive; she'd been guarded, quiet, almost as if she were in hibernation. But now she was blossoming, coming out of her shell, and letting him see another side of herself. There were no haunting shadows in her eyes today, nothing to make him wonder what or whom she was thinking about.

“Take off your shoes, Jake,” she said with a laugh. “Live a little."

“Sarah, we don't have time."

Her expression turned serious. “I know we don't, and we'll leave if you want to, but look -- the sun is setting and the sand is still warm beneath my toes. It won't last much longer. It will be dusk soon -- nighttime. The sea will turn dark and dangerous, but right now it's gorgeous."

Sarah didn't like the nighttime. She didn't like walking home from the movies to their apartment once the sun went down. She hated entering a dark house, and she had a terrible habit of flooding every room with light whether she was in that room or not. Whenever he'd asked her about it, she'd just laughed and said she'd always been a little scared of the dark. He could hear that tiny whisper of fear in her voice now, as if she were dreading the rise of the moon.

As he gazed at her, the breeze blew strands of her hair across her face. Sarah didn't seem to care. She was absorbed in the moment, her eyes closed as she lifted her face to the breeze and the sun. She was right. The sun wouldn't last long. It was already slipping over the horizon.

On impulse he took off his shoes, pulled off his socks, and joined her on the sand. She slipped her hand into his, her eyes still closed, and said, “I never want to forget this feeling. You and me together on a perfect sunny day."

“There are going to be a lot more perfect days,” he said, turning her around to face him.

Her eyes opened and she smiled at him, but her smile wasn't nearly as bright. “I hope so, but you never know what's around the corner."

“Good things -- that's what's around the corner.” He didn't know when he'd turned into an optimist, but there was something about Sarah that made him want to believe in the future in a way that he'd never felt before. He'd spent most of his life concentrating on building a career, making sure he could support himself and whoever else in the family might need his help. He hadn't thought much about making a life with a woman -- until he'd met Sarah.

“I hope so, Jake, but if not, we'll always have this moment. Sometimes that's all you have. I learned that a long time ago.” Sarah put her hands on his shoulders and leaned in for his kiss. Her mouth was warm, soft, inviting, and he couldn't stop kissing her until the sun went down, and she shivered as the cold ocean breezes kicked up off the ocean.

“We'd better go,” she whispered. She put her finger to his mouth and wiped off her lipstick. “Was it worth it?"

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Jake?"

He blinked, realizing Sarah's voice no longer had the dreamy quality of the past. He glanced over at her. “What?"

“Where were you?” she asked, her eyes curious.

“In a dream,” he said. “But it's over now. All over.”

Dylan pulled up in front of a small clapboard cottage perched on the edge of the sea at Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo. The house was white with blue shutters and a mix of colorful flowers in two long window boxes. As Dylan got out of his car, a blast of wind blew a chill through him. The sun was out, but the air was cold, and tall waves broke along the beach, the ocean still turbulent from the storm two days earlier.

He had mixed feelings about the sea. Some of his best memories were of his family's house on Orcas Island in the San Juan Island chain just off the coast of Washington state. But that house was also the last place he'd been with his mother. When they'd returned home his father had told him they were getting a divorce. The next day his mother was gone.

It was strange that Jake had once again suffered from a woman's quick and unexplained departure. Hadn't once been enough?

And Sarah hadn't just left; she'd taken Caitlyn. That baby was his brother's heart and soul. Dylan was going to get Caitlyn back for Jake if it was the last thing he did.

Walking up to the front of the cottage, he rapped sharply on the heavy wood door. He heard some dogs bark in the yard; then a moment later the door opened just a few inches, a gold chain in place. A woman peered out at him, but she remained in the shadows, and he couldn't get a good look at her.

“What do you want?” she asked warily.

“A little information. My friend was on the news last night. You called the police to say she looked familiar to you."

“The woman with amnesia?"

“That's right. We're trying desperately to figure out who she is."

“The deputy I spoke to didn't think there was a connection,” the woman replied. “And my friend's name is Jessica. He said this woman's name is Sarah."

“She does go by the name Sarah, but it's possible she used to go by another name. She doesn't remember who she is. She was in a serious car accident. And her baby is missing. I'd really like to talk to you more about your friend, just in case there's a chance they're the same person. Can I come in?"

“Who are you exactly? You're not a cop."

“No, I'm a friend of Sarah's. Actually, she's involved with my brother, and the missing child is my niece. My name is Dylan Sanders."

The woman hesitated, then released the chain and opened the door. Silhouetted by the sunlight, she appeared younger than he had assumed, late twenties, maybe early thirties. She wore light blue capri pants and a long-sleeved button-down man's shirt that was white but streaked with yellow paint. Her hair was reddish blond and pulled back in a ponytail. Her face was thin, freckles dotting the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were a dark, deep sapphire blue that reminded him of the sea. He swallowed hard, suddenly realizing he was still staring at her. When he'd heard “crazy psychic lady,” he'd pictured some odd-looking woman with a half dozen cats and maybe a bird on her shoulder, not this surprisingly pretty young woman.

“I'm Catherine Hilliard,” she said in a soft, lyrical voice.

He cleared his throat. “It's nice to meet you. Do you have a picture of your friend?” Maybe he could clear up the situation with one photograph.

“Of course I do,” she said.

“Could I see it?"

She stepped back and waved him farther into the room.

Dylan paused as he reached the center of the living room. He'd never seen so much junk in his life, a dozen or more glass figures dotting the tables, assorted wood boxes of every size imaginable, seashells, statues, books, magazines. Almost every available space was covered with something. Two cats slumbered on each end of the couch, and a bird chirped from a cage in the corner. Maybe his initial impression wasn't that far off.

He saw that Catherine had turned her dining room into an art studio. An easel was set up in front of a picture window that looked out at the sea.

“You're an artist,” he said, crossing the room. On the easel was a portrait of a young girl sitting in a meadow filled with yellow wildflowers. The painting was only half-done, but the girl's light blue eyes were wide and startled, and a little familiar. An uneasy feeling ran down his spine. Were those Sarah's eyes looking back at him? “Is this your friend?"

“Yes,” Catherine replied. “That's Jessica. I paint her all the time from memory. She's been gone eight years now -- well, ten since I last saw her, eight since she officially vanished."

“What do you mean, officially vanished?"

“Jessica disappeared when she was twenty years old.” Catherine traced one finger lovingly around the edge of the face in the portrait. “I miss her so much."

“Can you tell me what happened?” Dylan prodded, sensing that she was drifting away. For a moment he didn't think Catherine would answer. She seemed lost in a reverie. Finally she looked at him, her eyes filled with sadness and regret.

“Jessie called me about a week before she vanished. She said she was in trouble and that she'd made a horrible mistake. She was terribly afraid. That was the message she left on my answering machine. I was in New York at the time and away that weekend. By the time I got the message and called her back, Jessie was gone. I called her apartment nonstop for a couple of days, and then someone finally called me -- her neighbor. The woman told me that Jessica hadn't shown up for work for the past four nights, nor had she been home, and they were worried about her. They'd found my number written on a piece of paper in her bedroom."

“I assume there was a search?” he queried.

“A short one. The police couldn't find any evidence of foul play, so they said it was possible she'd simply gone elsewhere. Eventually her file was set aside."

Dylan felt his stomach turn over. The way Jessica had disappeared was almost exactly the same way Sarah had left his brother.

“I flew to Chicago to look for her,” Catherine continued.

“Why Chicago?” he interrupted.

“That's where Jessica was living at the time."

He shook his head, thinking this trip was going to be a waste of time, but then he reminded himself that no one knew where Sarah had been living before she arrived in San Francisco. Chicago was as good a town as any. “Never mind, go on,” he said.

“I went to Jessica's apartment and the law office where she worked as a receptionist. No one had seen her in days. And no one seemed to know anything about her personal life, if she had a boyfriend, what she did after work. Jessica hadn't confided in anyone, which wasn't all that unusual, but her innate sense of privacy didn't help when she went missing.” Catherine paused. “Jessica had told me a few weeks earlier that she'd met someone -- the kind of man she'd always dreamed about. In fact, that's why she stayed in Chicago. She was originally only going to be there a few days. Jessica and this other friend of ours, Teresa, were driving across country -- they were going to meet up with me in New York, but the car broke down. They didn't have any money, so they got jobs until they could fix the car. Then Jessica met someone and decided to stay."

“What happened to the other girl?” Dylan asked.

“Teresa didn't like Chicago all that much. She decided to go home to California. At least, that's the last I heard from Jessica. At any rate, I spent two weeks in Chicago, hoping Jessica would show up, but she never did. Eventually the police told me to go home. They said they'd contact me if anything came up. When I got back to New York, the dreams began to come every night. Jessie was calling to me, reaching for me, and she was so scared. I couldn't sleep for months. I kept thinking about how she hated the dark. I used to be the one she'd climb into bed with when she got scared, and that was a lot of the time. She didn't have it easy when she was a little girl."

“Why not?” he asked.

“Jessie's parents died when she was nine years old. She had no relatives willing to take care of her, so she went to foster care. I met her when she was eleven. We ended up in a home together in LA. We were there for almost four years, from the time Jessica was eleven and I was thirteen until we were fifteen and seventeen. Then the foster parents ran into hard times, and they split up all the kids in their care and sent us to different homes. I aged out of the system about six months later. We tried to keep in contact during the next year or two, but I had to work and Jessie was still in school. The next year I won a scholarship to an art school in New York, so I wound up moving across the country."

“And Jessica attempted to meet up with you a couple of years later, but got sidetracked in Chicago and disappeared,” Dylan said. “And you think she looks like my friend Sarah. Is that pretty much it?"

“Yes.” Catherine shrugged. “I might be wrong. Her hair color is different. Jessica's hair was blond. The woman on TV last night had dark hair."

“Sarah's hair used to be blond. Do you have any other pictures besides this painting?"

Catherine shook her head. “Sorry. No one takes pictures of foster kids, and even if they do, you usually don't get to keep them."

Her tone was matter-of-fact, but he could hear the edge of bitterness in her voice. “What happened to Jessica's parents?"

“They were killed in a car crash. It was a shock to her to suddenly wind up an orphan. She'd actually had a happy childhood until they died. She had a lot farther to fall than the rest of us when it came to expectations. I had to teach her a lot about survival. But I guess I didn't teach her enough."

Dylan frowned. Sarah had told Jake that her parents had died in a car crash. It was a small connection, but a connection nonetheless, and he had to admit the painting of Jessica bore a striking resemblance to Sarah.

“You're starting to think that your friend and mine are the same person,” Catherine said.

“I don't know that I'd go that far."

“Because you're very guarded. You like to unravel other people's secrets, not your own."

He didn't like the way Catherine was looking at him, as if she had some sort of second sight. “We're not talking about me or my secrets,” he said shortly.

“But you have some, don't you? Everyone does."

“Let's concentrate on whether or not the woman you saw on television last night is Jessica. You said the hair was different, but was there anything else that Sarah said or did that made you think she was Jessica?"