Finding Christmas Page 8

  He’d selected a Michael W. Smith CD. The instrumental music drifted through the doorway, filled with faith and the power of God’s love. Benjamin knew what she needed.

  “Here,” she said, handing him a mug. She settled near him in the same chairs they’d used on his previous visit.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  “I told you about the calls today—the hang-ups.”

  “And you suspect they’re her again.”

  “Yes, but—” She hesitated to tell him, but she knew she must.

  “But? There’s more?”

  “I opened another e-mail today. The same sender as last time.”

  His expression knitted to a scowl. “What did this one say?”

  She repeated the message. “What do you think?”

  He shook his head. “That’s threatening, Joanne. The two e-mails and the hang-ups could be connected. I don’t think we should fool around with this. I’ll call the station and see if Hank’s in. If not, I’ll talk with someone else.” He rose and headed for the telephone.

  A shudder shook Joanne. Threats, but why? She sat riveted to the chair, waiting and wondering. The night sky loomed outside the window, and for the first time, Joanne felt truly frightened.

  “Did you print a copy of the message?” Benjamin asked as he came into the room. “He wants to see both of them.”

  “I think I deleted them. I’ll have to check tomorrow.”

  “Go to the mail drop-down menu and see if you can recover them. The e-mails might have been sent in error, but that seems too coincidental to me.”

  “Okay,” she said, wanting to change the subject. She sipped her tea, letting the music fill her ears.

  Benjamin’s eyes seemed focused on the window. He sat deep in thought with his hands folded, his elbows braced on his knees.

  Joanne finally stirred. “I’ve been thinking about Christmas.”

  He looked surprised, probably having expected her to talk more about the situation.

  “You mean, because of all the decorations at the mall? I noticed the city has the streets trimmed already.”

  “True. The wreaths, the garland, the music all make me nostalgic.” She longed to admit her feelings. “But this year is different.”

  “Different? In what way?” He lifted a brow as if he didn’t understand.

  “I’m looking forward to the holidays for the first time since the accident.” She wished she hadn’t mentioned it. Benjamin gave her a curious look, and she feared he would misunderstand what she wanted to say.

  “That’s good. Time makes a difference. You’ll never forget, but time wears away the rough edges. Instead of the sands of time, it’s the sandpaper of time.” He gave her a tender smile.

  She grinned back, appreciating his attempt to lighten the mood.

  “It’s you that’s made the difference,” she said, deciding to open up.

  “Me? Mr. Scrooge?”

  The glint in his eye played games with her pulse. “You’d never be a Scrooge. You’re too kind, and yes, it is because of you. I’ve lived behind these walls without thinking about me for a long time. Now you’re here and I can remember what life used to be like before…before the accident. We used to have so much fun.”

  “We did. Greg was a great friend.”

  “And I was your great friend’s wife?”

  His gaze left a soft feeling in her stomach.

  “No. I considered you a special friend. I’ve always admired you, Joanne. I’m not sure you realized how much. I never told you.”

  “Admired me? Why? I can’t even imagine.”

  “You’d get a swelled head if I told you.” He looked into the mug as if searching for tea leaves. “It’s because you’re you. Charming, warm, talented and beautiful.”

  Her focus lingered on his generous mouth. She forced her gaze away. “Maybe you need glasses.”

  “Me? Have you ever looked in a mirror?”

  She recalled looking at herself after one of the phone calls and seeing a death-white face gaping back at her. “Thanks for the flattery. I’m not used to it anymore.”

  “It’s the truth, not just flattery.” He leaned back, stretching his shoulders and looking a little tense. “So what are you planning for the holidays? Anything special?”

  “I thought I might have a tree this year.”

  His eyes widened. “You mean you haven’t had a Christmas tree since—”

  She nodded. “I will this year if you promise to come over to admire it.”

  “I’ll do more than that. I’ll help you buy it and decorate—”

  The telephone’s ring jarred them. Joanne gasped, and Benjamin reached across to calm her.

  “Don’t panic. Answer it,” he said.

  She rose, her legs already like gelatin. Benjamin followed her into the kitchen. She glanced at the caller ID.

  “It’s my folks’ number,” she said.

  He backed away as she lifted the receiver.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said, after hearing her mother’s greeting.

  “Are you coming home for Christmas?” her mom asked.

  Her parents’ house hadn’t been her home for years. This was her home, where she and her husband and daughter had lived, where her life had been filled with joy. “Not this year,” she said.

  “Is something wrong, Joanne?”

  A blast of air shot from her lungs. “No, I have company.”

  “Really? Is it…?” Her voice faded.

  “It’s Greg’s old friend Benjamin. You remember him.”

  “Not really.”

  Joanne stared at the receiver, wondering what to say next. “I have some things going on here, so I’m staying home for the holidays. Sorry if I disappointed you.”

  “Your sister and her family are coming. I thought maybe…Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The strained conversation lasted a few more sentences before they said goodbye. Joanne heard the click and lowered the telephone. When she turned, Benjamin was watching her from across the room, his shoulder resting against the door jamb.

  “She asked me about Christmas. I’m staying home.”

  He only looked at her, then took a step closer. “You’ll never heal without opening your heart.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know what it means.”

  “I don’t have it in me, Benjamin. I—”

  The telephone rang again, and Benjamin darted forward and pointed to the caller ID. She followed the direction of his finger, already knowing what he’d seen. Blocked. He stood nearby as she picked up the receiver.

  Joanne said hello, then held her breath.

  The line remained silent, and Joanne had to harness the impulse to scream, to threaten, but she clamped her jaw and waited. Her instinct was to hang up, but she couldn’t. The woman would talk. She sensed it, and best of all, the police would be able to locate her.

  Finally, Joanne heard an intake of breath.

  “Did your daughter have a birthmark?”

  The whisper slithered down Joanne’s spine. Control. She needed control. “Yes,” she murmured as she looked at Benjamin for help.

  “What?” he whispered, grasping her arm.

  Joanne held up her hand.

  “A small heart shape on her upper thigh?” The woman’s voice was so faint Joanne barely heard her.

  She couldn’t breathe, and her control shattered into shards of anguish. “I don’t believe you,” she screamed into the phone. “You can’t know that. Who are you?”

  The telephone went dead and Joanne crumpled to the floor.

  Chapter Eight

  Benjamin crouched, clutching her against him. He trembled, knowing something horrible had happened yet not knowing what. He waited for her sobs to subside before helping her to her feet and guiding her back into the living room. He eased her onto the sofa and sat beside her, steadying her against his shoulder.

  “She knows about Mandy�
��s birthmark,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  Mandy’s birthmark. “I didn’t know she had one.” He grasped for an explanation. Who would know that? Friends? Even he hadn’t realized Mandy had a birthmark. A doctor? Nurse? His mind spun with empty responses.

  A tremor rolled through her as she drew fresh air into her lungs. “She described it perfectly—a small heart-shaped mark on her upper thigh. How could she know that unless—?”

  “Think logically, Joanne. Relatives, Mandy’s doctor, a nurse, a baby-sitter, a friend—”

  “You’re my friend, one of the best, and even you didn’t know. She’s alive, Benjamin. Somehow Mandy’s alive.”

  The panic in Joanne’s face wrenched his heart. She had hopes that seemed far-fetched, unbelievable. “I’ll call Hank back. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Now they can trace the number.”

  Greater hope shone in her eyes, but logic told him Joanne had set herself up for deeper wounds, greater sorrow than she already had experienced. The calls and e-mails could lead to nothing but a warped mind.

  “This could be it, Joanne. We’ll have the answer soon.”

  Donna filled the bowl with cereal. She slipped the box back into the cabinet before heading for the refrigerator for milk. “Connie, are you ready?” she called over her shoulder. She glanced at the clock, then walked to the kitchen doorway. “You’ll be late for school if you don’t hurry.”

  “I’m coming.”

  She heard the thump-thump of Connie’s footsteps along the bare wood hallway, and poured the milk into the bowl, then added some to a tumbler. “Want some raisins in your cereal?”

  Connie came through the doorway looking grumpy. “No.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Connie gave Donna a nod. “No, thank you,” she repeated, and slipped onto the chair. She dug her spoon into the bowl and lifted it to her mouth. When she pulled it away, milk dripped from the edge of her lip to her chin.

  Donna grabbed a napkin to catch it. “You’ll be a mess before you get to school.” She patted Connie’s head. “Are you feeling okay?” The child usually came to the kitchen with a bounce in her step.

  The child gave a faint shrug. “I had bad dreams.”

  “I’m sorry,” Donna said, squeezing her shoulder. More and more, Connie complained of nightmares and Donna feared it was because of Carl’s booming voice when he came home angry, which happened too often lately.

  Then again, Donna wondered if the child sensed her stepmother’s confusion and rising fear. She sat across the table and looked at the six-year-old, morphing her image back three years. She couldn’t believe it could be true, but since she’d seen the newspaper photo of Mandy Fuller, Donna had been driven to learn if Connie was in fact Mandy. Now she was sure.

  Donna had become a sleuth on her own. Yesterday, she’d dropped Connie off at school, then driven across town to the Fuller house. She’d seen Joanne Fuller and had been overcome by the resemblance of Connie to her birth mother. Later, when Connie visited with a school friend, Donna had followed Joanne home.

  She’d longed to speak to Joanne, to tell her about Connie—how sweet she was and how much she loved the child, to prove she’s been a good mother, but reality swept over Donna. She’d been rash coming here. Contact with Joanne would foil her escape plan. Connie might not be her birth daughter, but she was the daughter of her heart. Donna would never give her up.

  Realizing the truth, that Carl had abducted the Fuller child before her father’s accident, another thought blasted through her mind. Had Carl been responsible for Greg Fuller’s death?

  Carl’s raging moods made no sense to Donna. She had done all she could for the past week to keep him calm. Ever since the night he’d found her in the basement, he hadn’t trusted her. He popped into the house at unexpected times, as if checking. For the past month, Donna felt relieved when he didn’t come home at night.

  Something horrible had happened in Carl’s life. His hatred for women seemed delusional and he’d begun to rant about his mother. Donna didn’t want to imagine what had happened in his life to create such a monster.

  Donna slipped beside Connie and knelt. “What’s bothering you, sweetheart?”

  The child didn’t answer, but stared at her cereal and stirred it with her spoon. Her face pulled with emotion, and Donna’s heart ached.

  “Are you afraid of something?” Donna asked.

  Connie nodded without lifting her head.

  “What are you afraid of, sweetie?”

  Her slender shoulder lifted in a shrug, and then Donna noticed tears rolling down her cheeks. “Are you afraid of your daddy?”

  Her downcast eyes closed until finally she gave a slight nod.

  “What has he done, Connie?” Donna’s chest tightened with fear.

  “He comes in my room at night when he thinks I’m sleeping and says mean things.”

  Donna could only imagine the horrible words Carl uttered to the child. He hated them both, and he’d become a madman as a result of whatever problems and pressures had pressed on his life.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun if you and I could go away?”

  “Just me and you?” A hopeful look spread across Connie’s face.

  “Just me and you. Would you like that?”

  “On vacation? We could go to Florida and—”

  “Longer than a vacation. Would that be better?”

  Connie let the spoon fall against the bowl, then reached up to curl her arms around Donna’s neck. Tears welled in Donna’s eyes, and she knew she needed to make a move now to save them from Carl’s violence before…The possibilities stunned her, and she held Connie closer.

  She needed to act before it was too late.

  The next afternoon, Joanne sat in a wooden chair, watching Hank Cortezi thumb through a manila folder. Benjamin sat beside her, his hands folded in his lap as if he’d sat through many sessions like this one. Outside the private office, which she suspected was used for a variety of purposes, Joanne could hear the buzz of conversation and the ring of telephones.

  “I have to make this fast,” Hank said, finally lifting his head to look at them. “I have bad news.”

  Joanne’s hopes dwindled. “What do you mean bad news?”

  Benjamin shifted his hand to the arm of her chair and rested his fingers over hers.

  “The call was from a pay phone outside a pharmacy in Dearborn.”

  “A pay phone?” The last fragments of hope took a nosedive.

  Cortezi tapped his knuckles against the file folder. “She’s smart enough to cover her tracks.”

  “But why the blocked call, then?” Joanne asked.

  “If you’d noticed the exchange, you could pinpoint the location from which the call was made. Like I said, she’s using her head, covering her tracks.”

  Hank looked at her with tired eyes, and at that moment, Joanne felt as exhausted as he looked. Benjamin gave her fingers a squeeze and shifted his hands back to his lap.

  “What now?” Benjamin asked Cortezi.

  Hank shrugged. “We can keep the trace on another week and see if she slips up and calls from home. We can’t do much more about those, but we have the e-mail now, and we can check on that. Let’s see if she does this again.” He glanced at his watch as if he had someplace to go.

  “What about the phone booth?” Joanne asked, dismayed that he sounded so uninterested. “Can’t someone keep an eye on that location. Maybe—”

  “Ma’am, I realize you think your daughter might be alive, but let’s get practical. It’s been three years since the accident. You have no evidence except some crackpot phone calls, an e-mail, and a feeling in your gut. We don’t even know if the calls and e-mails are connected.”

  He stopped and ran his fingers through his hair. Joanne felt her frustration mounting. She could barely keep from running from the room.

  Hank continued. “The Detroit area has hundreds of crimes a day—robbery, shootings, murders, muggings, car-jackings. You name it, we g
ot it. We’re working with Dearborn on a stolen car racket right now. We don’t have enough officers to do surveillance on a telephone booth for a crime we’re not even sure was committed.”

  “But—”

  “We’ve taken up enough of your time,” Benjamin said, rising. He extended his hand toward Hank. “Thanks. We appreciate all you’ve done.”

  Cortezi accepted his handshake, then closed the file folder with the flip of his fingers. “Sorry, but if we get something solid on the calls, I can have an officer look into it. As of now, speculation isn’t evidence. I take the e-mails seriously. That sounds like a threat. The birthmark comment—I don’t know what it means.”

  “Thank you,” Joanne said, trying to look appreciative when she actually felt naive, stupid and overcome with disappointment.

  Benjamin grasped her arm as they headed for the station door. The wind gusted as they exited, and she gulped in the cold air to cool her fiery thoughts.

  “They don’t care,” she said to Benjamin as they trudged down the sidewalk to the parking lot. “How will we ever know anything now?”

  He didn’t respond.

  When they reached the car, he opened the door and she settled inside, then he rounded the front and climbed into the driver side. The keys jingled in his hand, but he hesitated. “I know you’re disappointed,” he said finally.

  His words opened a floodgate to her welling tears. She lowered her face to her hands and wept, feeling overwhelmed with discouragement and humiliation.

  Benjamin reached over the space between the bucket seats and drew her closer. “I wish I could do something for you. I’d do anything, Joanne, but I’m lost. We need to think. We’re missing something.”

  Missing something. She lifted her head, then brushed her tears away with her gloves. “I don’t know what we’re missing. I’ve gone over and over each nuance of her voice and her meaning. I’m lost, and I’m so depressed. So sad.”

  “I know. I know.” He tilted her chin upward and brushed his cheek against hers.

  Joanne felt the beginning stubble after his early morning shave. She drew in the faint aroma of after-shave blended with his familiar masculine scent. She hadn’t touched a man’s face like this since Greg died and an impulse rose in her. She raised her hand and drew it along his jaw, feeling the hint of prickles.