Bringing Maddie Home(5)
Author: Janice Kay Johnson

“Madeline Dubeau.” He paused. “Madeline Noelle Dubeau. Maddie.”

Maddie. Oh, God, oh, God. She had called herself Mary in Portland. And she’d liked the name Eleanor, when she found it, because Nell sounded right to her. Like somebody she could be.

“My name is Eleanor Smith. I don’t know a Maddie…what did you say the last name is? Dew…?”

“Dubeau.”

Nell shook her head. “I’ve heard we all have twins.”

“I don’t believe it. I’ve searched for you for what seems half my life. I know you.”

Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt. She should say, I’m not this person you want me to be. Please leave me alone. She would say it, but first…she had to know.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why have you been hunting for her?”

He lifted a hand, and she flinched, but he was only reaching to squeeze the back of his own neck. “I was the responding officer when somebody heard your—her—scream. I found the mountain bike, the blood. Your wallet with a driver’s permit. I was new on the job then, and maybe that’s why I let myself care so much.” His hand lowered to his side, slowly, and she thought he was being careful not to alarm her again. “Last night when I saw you on the news—” he cleared his throat as if to give himself a second “—I thought it was a miracle.”

She had to get rid of him. Had to convince him he was wrong.

“I’m not your miracle,” Nell heard herself say so harshly, she didn’t know her own voice. “I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, but I’m not this Madeline person. You truly are mistaken, Mr….?”

He only looked at her, but she knew, knew, he saw her terror. “I’m Colin McAllister. Captain.”

“I’m not even from this area,” she said.

“Neither am I. Neither is Maddie.” He waited a moment, then asked softly, “Where are you from, Ms. Smith?”

“Where are you from, Captain McAllister?”

“Central Oregon.”

“I’m from the Midwest,” she said. Eleanor Theodora Smith had been born in Eugene, Oregon, but she couldn’t tell him that. He was a cop. If he looked hard enough, he’d find that same Eleanor Theodora Smith was also buried in Eugene, beneath a bronze plaque expressing her parents’ grief.

“I’ve upset you,” he observed. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“What was your intention?” She could combat this fear only with aggression. “Did you imagine that I don’t know who I am and would be thrilled when you told me?”

“No.” He was frowning now. “No. I thought…”

“What?”

“I thought perhaps Smith was a married name. And that Nell is a shortened version of your middle name.”

“It’s not. I’m Eleanor.”

“Or,” he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken, “that you were using a false name to hide.”

She flung her hands up, as though at the ridiculousness of that notion. “I won’t even ask,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Officer…no, Captain. I really need to be going.”

He didn’t move. “Ms. Smith. May I give you a business card? Just in case there’s ever anything you want to tell me?”

She should refuse. Eleanor Smith wouldn’t have any reason to accept, would she? But Nell couldn’t seem to think. And his card would tell her where he came from. Where Maddie Dubeau was from. No, that was silly—she could find articles online, if he were telling the truth. But what if she couldn’t find anything? Couldn’t figure out how the name was spelled? The card would give her a way to reach him, if she dared. If she chose. Nell was appalled to discover how tempted she was to learn about the part of her life she hadn’t wanted to remember.

The keys were biting into her palm, imprinting themselves. She managed a shrug. “I can’t imagine why I’d have any reason to call you, but if it will make you feel better I can take your card.”

“It would make me feel better.” He took one from the pocket of his slacks and held it out without actually moving closer. She was the one who had to take a step, feeling like a small animal hungry enough to creep up and steal a scrap of meat from a mountain lion’s meal, even though he crouched over it. She snatched it from his hand and retreated immediately, poking the card deep into her purse.

“I’d like to hear from you,” he said quietly. “I swear to you that I’ll keep anything you tell me confidential. We can just talk. I won’t tell anyone who you are or where. I swear,” he said again, his voice deep and serious.

Nell scrutinized that hard, unrevealing face for a long moment, trying to see whether he was telling the truth, but how could she ever know? The risk was too great. And he was probably wrong anyway, about who he thought she was. Her shock of recognition might be false. He hadn’t even said how long ago this Maddie had disappeared. She wasn’t going to ask.

She only nodded. After a moment he backed up a couple of steps, his eyes still holding hers, and then he turned and strode away.

With a whimper Nell crouched, scooped up her books and hurried around her car. Even once she was inside with the engine running and the doors locked, she didn’t feel safe. She had to get away from here.

She’d intended to get a deli sandwich somewhere and then go to the shelter. As shaken as she was, she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. All she wanted was to go home, to lock herself in the sanctuary of her apartment.

But what if he followed her?

She drove, taking a circuitous route, gradually calming herself as she took one random turn after another and no other car stayed behind her.

Of course, he could have stuck some kind of locator on her car. She’d read about things like that.

If he were really a cop, though, he wouldn’t have to. He’d be able to find her.

Finally she made it back to her own street and the parking slot that she was lucky enough to have beneath the building. She scurried into the elevator, grateful to have it to herself, relieved it didn’t stop at the lobby level. Inside her apartment, she turned the dead bolt and put on the chain, shocked to see that her hand was still shaking.

Then she simply stood there, waiting for the sense of security to wrap around her. It never came.

She wasn’t safe. Somebody had recognized her. If this Captain McAllister were determined enough, he could find a way, legally or not, to get her fingerprints. The life she’d built so carefully could collapse, like a house carried down the crumbling bluff by a mudslide.

A terrible sound escaped her, a shuddering cry.

I have to run. I can’t be here when he comes looking for me again. I can’t.

She sank down, right there inside the door, her back to it, and let her purse and the books fall. Her breathing was loud in the silent apartment.

What if he meant it? What if she could trust him?

What if she couldn’t?

Nell drew her knees up, hugged herself tight and rocked.

The most insistent voice in her head was the one that whispered, Am I Maddie?

CHAPTER THREE

COLIN DIDN’T SLEEP well, and made his morning start early enough to be home in Angel Butte by midafternoon. I-5 south to Salem, then east through the Willamette National Forest to Santiam Pass. Not the easiest or quickest route home, but the most scenic. He didn’t know why he’d bothered, since he wasn’t in the mood for scenery. Every so often, though, he couldn’t help being pulled from his brooding by a glimpse of one or another of the ancient or newer volcanoes, the forests of lush Douglas fir and cedar, the clear waters of the North Santiam River. This pass would have been even more spectacular earlier in the fall. Somewhere he’d read that right here was the highest concentration of snow-capped volcanoes in the lower forty-eight states, and it was easy to believe.

Once he crossed over the pass to the drier eastern side, lodgepole and ponderosa pines replaced the fir and cedar. The six-thousand-foot-plus cone of Black Butte rose on the left, and he was swinging south. Through Bend, and he’d reached the home stretch.

Not once had his cell phone rang, although he’d laid it on the seat next to him and kept glancing at it. Once he even checked to be sure he hadn’t somehow reset it to vibrate without noticing.

It was too soon. He knew it was, but doubt about how he’d handled her and hope were both eating at him. The iPhone had changed from being an irritant to a beacon. He grunted with rueful amusement—there were cops who wouldn’t go to the john without their weapon; he wouldn’t go without his phone.

Even though he was starved when he reached Angel Butte, he still decided to stop by River Park before going home.

The scene wasn’t quite a replay from a few weeks ago. The heavy yellow equipment had been moved. The contractor had been relieved, Colin knew, for permission to go ahead with the job before weather made it impossible. He could see the bulldozer through the trees and hear the roar. Black smoke rose from a burn pile near the river.

Where the bones had been found, four officers were still combing through the heap of dirt. They were all bundled up against the below-freezing temperature. The pile of mixed dirt and brush was in the process of being shifted inch by inch. At least they were getting somewhere, he saw; he hadn’t come down here in over a week.

Jane Vahalik had a paintbrush in her hand and was gently whisking dirt from an object.

He strolled over. “How’s it going?”

She gave him a nasty look. “I’m freezing my ass off, that’s how it’s going.”

Her trainee radiated alarm at the disrespect his FTO was showing their captain. Colin only grinned, then studied the knob of bone Vahalik had unearthed. “Still finding bones, I see.”

“This is the biggest one in days.” She sighed. “Did you have a good trip?”

“In a way,” he said. “Glad to get over the mountains ahead of the storm they say is moving in.”

Sinking back on her heels, she mumbled something highly profane. Colin sympathized. It was early season yet, but if the forecasts were to be believed this crime scene could well disappear under a foot of snow by tomorrow. The ground was already crunchy; if it froze hard enough, the search would be over for who knew how long. Although recovering the bones was important, at this point they were all more interested in finding something, anything, that might have been buried with the kid. Even scraps of clothing could help with identification.

“Brewer come by today?” he asked.

“Yeah, I saw him not half an hour ago.” Vahalik turned her head and then nodded. “Right over there.”

Duane was coming toward them from where the heavy equipment was working. When he stepped over the sagging yellow crime scene tape, his mood looked as piss-poor as his detective’s. Colin walked to meet him.

“You know what?” Duane took off his gloves and shoved them into the pockets of his parka. He must have had a hat on earlier; his graying hair was spiking every which way. “I’d like to dig up the whole goddamn park! You know there are other bodies buried here. There have to be.”

Colin couldn’t argue. He’d also wondered if the red cinder of Angel Butte didn’t cover more bones.

Feeling the cold, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. Damn, the change in temperature from rainy Seattle to the eastern side of the mountains was dramatic.

“You know we can’t log and tear up this section of woods just because.”

His lieutenant glared at him. “What do you want to bet Maddie’s here, if we just knew where to look?”

Emotion swelled in Colin’s chest until his ribs ached. The force of his desire to tell Duane that she was alive was like a punch. To say that he’d seen her, with his own eyes. Talked to her. Somehow, sad-eyed Maddie had survived whatever happened that night. Done more than survive, had found a way to touch the lives of other kids whose eyes were sad, too.

But he couldn’t. He’d promised her. He’d known, watching her press herself back against her car while fighting abject terror, that the only way he could ever learn her story, ever bring her home, was to walk away and let her make the choice herself. If he’d tried to compel her, she would flee. She would hate him, and he didn’t want Maddie Dubeau to hate him.

And also…seeing how afraid she was, Colin had to ask himself why. Twelve years later, and she was petrified because someone from her past had recognized her? Did she have a good reason? Would he be endangering her if he brought her into the open?

A part of him was thinking he should do just that. His conscience was scraped raw. What if he came face-to-face with her father? It was bad enough not telling Duane. Colin didn’t think he could look Marc Dubeau in the eye, knowing what he did.

No, he thought. He had to keep his promise. He’d leave Maddie’s photo where it hung in his office and hope that someday his cell phone rang and he would hear her voice.

“I’ve always believed she’s alive,” he said abruptly. “Don’t ask me why, but I still do.”

The older man stared hard at him. “You’ve never said that before.”

“Are you going to tell me I’m dreaming?”

Duane gave a short bark of laughter, then rubbed a hand over his face. “No. You’ve got good instincts. You always did. I hope you’re right, Colin. I hope you’re right.”

Colin waved at the scene around them. “Bring me up-to-date.”

* * *

NELL GAVE SERIOUS thought to disappearing again. She went so far as to pack a couple of her suitcases so they were ready for her to grab at a minute’s notice.

A voice of reason tried to quiet her panic. What had been dangerous to her teenage self might not be a threat to the adult she was now. It might even be that she’d spent all these years afraid of the wrong thing. This Captain McAllister said there was blood, a bike lying on its side. Someone had heard a scream. Maybe she’d had a perfectly good life before she was attacked. A family she loved.