A Message for Abby

“She told you that?” Meg sounded surprised.

“I pried it out of her.”

“That’s not like you.”

Stung, Abby asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You usually avoid any emotional issues,” her sister said bluntly. “I’d have expected you to make an excuse to avoid having that kind of conversation with Renee. Not push for it.”

“She was crying!” Damn it, why feel hurt? Meg was right; Abby usually did evade sticky, weepy situations. There was nothing wrong with that. She just wasn’t good at them.

“You mean, you walked in on her crying?”

“No, we talked about you, and then I suggested that maybe she wasn’t worried about twins, she was scared of losing you, and—” Abby stopped. Swallowed. “I care.”

Her sister’s voice softened. “I know you do.”

“Anyway, you might talk to her.”

“Okay. Sure.” Meg paused. “Why don’t I call Ben, too?”

Quickly—too quickly—Abby said, “No, I’ll do that. You’re on maternity leave. The case is mine, anyway. I’ll let you know if he’s learned anything.”

Feeling grumpy, she had to get in the car and hunt through her leather folder to find Ben Shea’s card. Why hadn’t he gotten in touch with her? Why was she having to beg for information?

His cell phone was either turned off or he was out of the area, a mechanical voice informed her. Voice mail told her Ben Shea wasn’t available. “But leave a message!” the chirpy canned voice encouraged her.

Abby did, short and to the point. “Call me,” she said tersely.

He did. An hour later. She was back in her office, writing up a report on the mom-and-pop grocery incendiary fire.

“Shea, here. Don’t have much to report,” he said.

“Sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.”

Considering they had dated the night before, she thought that was pretty brisk. How are you? Hope you had fun last night, would have been nice. This was not the way to get the girl, Abby thought derogatorily.

Of course, maybe he didn’t want to get the girl.

Which was fine with her.

“Nobody paid any attention to the traffic?”

“One guy heard a motorcycle pass about the right time. He was shoveling manure behind the barn, couldn’t see the road, but he admitted that his dream is to buy a Harley-Davidson when he retires. He figures he and his wife can see the country on it.”

For no good reason, Abby was diverted from the point. “What’s she think of that?”

“Not much, from the rolled eyes I saw in the background.”

She snorted. “Why would he expect anything different? Who wants to stare at a man’s back for hours every day?”

“You’d want to be the one gripping the handlebars, wouldn’t you?” An odd tone infused his voice.

“Darn tootin’ I would.” Abby wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Why should men get all the fun while women went along for the ride?

After a brief pause Ben mused, “Seems a shame. The guy looked so wistful.”

“We all have dreams.” And she didn’t want to talk about ones that were doomed.

“Yeah, well, the point here is, he noticed the growl of the motorcycle because it triggered a brief fantasy of him eating up the miles on a hog. The one he heard wasn’t a Harley—something smaller, less powerful.”

“And easier to lift into and out of the bed of a pickup truck.”

“You got it.”

“So now what?”

“Unless forensic evidence shows us something—and I’m betting it won’t—we’re out of luck. You know that.”

“Until something else happens,” Abby said slowly.

“If it happens.”

“If,” she agreed.

“I don’t like it.” Shea was silent for a moment. For the first time he sounded human, even intimate. “I’m sorry, Abby. I wish there was more I could do.”

“No. No, that’s okay. I know there isn’t. I was just hoping...”

“Would you have dinner with me Friday?” he asked abruptly.

A rush of relief disconcerted her. She just didn’t like feeling rejected, Abby told herself.

Perversely, she didn’t say, “Yes. Please.” She didn’t tease or flirt. Oh, no. Those were ways to land the guy. She didn’t want to land this one.

“Last night wasn’t a great success,” she said instead. “I could tell that wasn’t your scene.”

“Friday night, it’ll be my choice.”

“Which is?” she asked, immediately suspicious.

“Haven’t decided yet. What do you say?”

Her eyes narrowed. “How about you decide first.”

“What, you’re a coward?” he mocked. “I won’t take you skydiving, if that’s what scares you.”

“I took skydiving lessons a couple of years ago. Not much scares me.”

“And here I thought you’d say, ‘nothing scares me.’”

Just like that, anger blossomed in her chest like a water balloon smacking down on the pavement. “You don’t think much of me, do you? Why did you ask me out in the first place?”

He was silent so long, she almost ended the call. The anger spread down to her fingertips, burning as it went.

When Shea did speak, the timbre of his voice had changed; the mockery was gone, leaving something quiet and too solemn in its place. “I think I would like you, if you’d let me get to know you.”

“What do you call last night?” Abby asked tartly.

“Did we exchange ten words?”

“We were supposed to be having fun.”

“My eardrums still hurt.”

“Like I said, I could tell it wasn’t your scene.” She sounded brittle, even to herself. “Which suggests we don’t have much in common.”

Anger to match hers sparked in his voice. “I’d say we have a hell of a lot in common. We do the same kind of job. We have to live with having seen things other people never do. We care about the same things. We both live alone, isolated partly by our jobs. We probably shop at the same goddamn grocery stores. We could exchange recipes.”

She was fighting a losing battle; she could feel it. But “stubborn” was Abby’s middle name. “That’s one more thing we don’t have in common. I’d have to tell you my favorite microwave dinners.”

“You don’t cook?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“I like to cook. See? We’re made for each other.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “All right, all right,” Abby conceded. “Just let me know whether to wear shorts or a strapless dress, okay?”

“I will.” Amusement played a bass note in his slow, deep voice. “As soon as I decide.”

“But tell me one thing, will you?” Get it out front, she decided.

“Sure.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Shea echoed. Although he asked, “What do you mean?” he sounded wary, which meant he’d guessed.

“Why me? Why are you so determined? Is it just the challenge?”

Again he was silent for a long moment. Again his voice had changed, although this time she couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking. “No. I like a challenge. But...no.”

“What, then?”

“You’re beautiful.”

“No more so than plenty of other women. Most of whom are easier to get along with than I am.”

“You look lonely.”

“Lonely?” Abby gave a derisive laugh. “You’re seeing things.”

“I don’t think so.”

“And if I am? So what?”

“I thought we might...connect. That’s all. Do we have to analyze our relationship already?”

She let out a sigh he wouldn’t be able to hear. “No. I just wanted to find out whether it was my charm that had gotten to you.”

“That was it,” he agreed.

“Friday,” she said. “Call me before then.”

ABBY HAD A LATE DINNER: a spinach salad and microwave penne pasta. Afterward she tried to read, but found her attention wandering. TV seemed like an idea, but nothing on tonight grabbed her. Using the remote control, she turned the television off just as her telephone rang.

“Abby, Scott here,” Meg’s husband said. “I’m up at the ski area. Just leaving. I need you to look at something. Can you come?”

“Up to Juanita Butte?”

“I’m sorry. I know it’s late.” He sounded grim. “But I really think you need to see it”

A chill stirred the hair on her nape. “What is it?”

“I’d rather you see for yourself,” Scott repeated.

“Is this something like the fire?”

“Yeah. But uglier. Or maybe it just got to me personally, I’m not sure.”

“All right.” She was already slipping her feet into canvas sneakers. “Don’t move. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

The clock on the dashboard said 9:04. Here at midsummer, night was just settling, the first layer like purple gauze, the next denser and darker.

The mountain loop highway climbed fast, bare at this time of year. Abby rolled down her window and breathed in the distinctive scent of pine and earth ground from red lava. The air was cool, dry; it became cold as the elevation rose. In the shadow of the mountain, nightfall came more drastically. She switched on her bright lights, noting how little traffic she met.

The ski area parking lot opened before her, huge, bare and empty, a paved sea that looked alien in the middle of nowhere. She could just make out the bulk of the lodge and the first lift towers rearing above. Patches of snow still lay up there, where plows had formed towering banks during the winter. Her high beams spotlighted Scott McNeil’s Jeep Cherokee. parked in its usual spot behind the lodge. He was half sitting on the bumper.

She parked next to him and climbed out, flashlight in hand. “What is it?”

A big man with dark auburn hair, he nodded toward the driver’s side of his Jeep. “Over there.”

She circled the back bumper, then stopped, shock stealing her breath.

A child’s car seat sat beside the driver’s door, facing the parking lot and highway. Just as Emily’s car seat had, the freezing cold night when she had been abandoned.

A doll was buckled into this seat. Abby trained her flashlight beam on it, wanting to be mistaken about what she was seeing.

The doll was plastic, the kind with arms and legs and a head that attached to sockets in the hard body.

This one was missing its head. From the empty, blackened socket, trickles of red dripped down the pink dress.

CHAPTER FOUR

IN THE BRIGHT illumination from the headlights of his Bronco, Ben Shea squatted beside the child’s seat. Abby overheard his muttered profanity.

“I shouldn’t have called you,” she said to his back. “I know there won’t be any fingerprints, and there sure as heck aren’t any witnesses.” She glanced involuntarily around at the dark parking lot. “I didn’t think. I assume this is connected...”

“The doll’s neck socket is seared.” He sank back on his heels and shot her a look. “Why wouldn’t you call me?”

“You were home...”

“Staring at the boob tube. Trust me, you didn’t interrupt anything.” Ben stood in a lithe movement. “This is some scary bastard. You’re probably right. We won’t find fingerprints. But I needed to see this. I’d have been fried if you hadn’t phoned.”

Abby could hardly look at the mutilated doll. How must Scott feel, having found this obscene echo of the past?

Emily had been abandoned here in her car seat two and a half years ago. Scott and Meg had found Emily’s mother, murdered, the next day. Somehow she must have persuaded her killer to leave the baby where Scott would find her. But he had admitted once to Abby that he still had nightmares about having bunked down at the lodge, as he used to do sometimes. In his dreams he came out to his car at dawn to find the little girl dead. Frozen, eerily pink in the morning light. He’d shuddered when he described the nightmare.

Abby stole a look at Scott now, standing behind the Jeep, staring at the night. Was he, like Abby, wondering whether somebody sick enough to create such a macabre tableau was capable of carrying through on the implicit threat? Was Emily in danger? Will? Or Meg, too pregnant to defend herself from attack?

Were they all?

“Okay,” Ben said, startling her from her dark thoughts. “Scott, I wasn’t here the night you found Emily. Tell me about it. What did this guy get right? What did he get wrong?”

They discussed positioning; both times, the child’s seat had faced the parking lot and highway, so that Scott had been looking at the back as he approached.

“Which may have been chance, with Emily,” Abby pointed out, “but tonight you know dam well this SOB did it so Scott couldn’t see what was in the seat until he got here. Suspense and shock value.”

Scott grunted. “Otherwise, this is a different kind of car seat. It’s been around the block. Look at the tears. They didn’t make ones like this anymore even when...” his hesitation was barely perceptible “... when my ex-wife and I had our little boy. I think these were designed for babies up to six months old or so. Most of the seats nowadays are convertible.”

Ben made a note. “We’ll check secondhand stores. We can talk to people that had garage sales this past week or so, too.”

“The...doll isn’t dressed anything like Emily was that night.” Scott rubbed his chin. “Maybe he didn’t feel the need to bother with details. God knows, the general message has plenty of punch.”

“You could say that,” Ben agreed dryly. “On the other hand, maybe our friend was dependent on what was printed in the newspaper. Anybody remember how much was written about Emily?”

“Not that much,” Scott said. “Remember, we didn’t find Shelly’s body until the next day. By the time reporters heard about Emily’s abandonment and made the connection, nobody was asking what Emily had been wearing. The focus was on Shelly’s murder and her heroism in saving her daughter. Somebody might have mentioned that Emily was warmly dressed. I don’t remember.”

None of them could help looking at the doll, her bare plastic legs sticking out from beneath the skirt of the pink dress. Socks on both feet, one shoe.

No head.

Ben seemed to shake himself. “Let me get some pictures, and then I’ll take the seat. We’ll let the crime lab go over it. The guy had to have touched the doll. Maybe he was careless.”

Abby doubted it.

The flash created bursts of brilliant light as Ben worked. After he was done, he put on latex gloves and lifted the whole child seat into the rear of his Ford Bronco. When Scott wasn’t watching, Abby saw Ben lift the doll’s skirt. Earlier, before he came, she had done the same. Thank God the creep who’d wrenched the doll’s head from the socket, who’d dripped fake—or real?—blood from her neck, hadn’t committed any outrage with a sexual connotation on the realistic plastic body. She was equally grateful that Scott, who didn’t spend his days dealing with the scumbags of the universe, hadn’t even considered such a possibility.

Or else he’d checked before Abby’s arrival.

Ben peeled off the gloves and held out a hand to Scott. “I’ll let you know what we find. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to keep an extra close eye on Emily.”

“Have Will be careful, too,” Abby added. “Make sure Meg locks the doors even during the day.”

A muscle jumped in Scott’s cheek. “You can be sure of that.”

“Has anyone told Murray what’s going on?” Ben asked. “I assume Will spends time with him.”

“There’s more than that.” Ashamed to be responsible for excluding Jack Murray—who was, after all, Will’s father as well as the sheriff—Abby admitted, “He’s pretty closely connected to us. As much as Daniel’s mother.”

“Because of Will?”

“Because he dated Meg.” She added deliberately, “And me. If...if this is someone who knew us back when...”

“Does Meg know...” Scott hesitated, giving a brief cough. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“No. She doesn’t know I dated Jack.” Abby heard the bite in her voice. “Why would she care?”

Looking stiff, Scott said, “I spoke out of turn.”

“Tell her.” Abby gave an elaborate shrug and turned away. “Suit yourself. It’s more Patton history. We know how to write it.”

“You can tell her,” Scott said quietly. “If you choose to.” He touched her shoulder. “Thanks for coming, Abby.”

She watched him climb into his Jeep Cherokee and slam the door. A moment later, he backed out.

Aware of Ben, a silent witness to her admission, Abby said, “Well? What do you think?”

“That you’re pretty steamed at your sister. Care to tell me why?”

“Why’s a good word.” She hugged herself, the chill of a mountain night penetrating her bones. “As in, why would I? Like I said, it’s ancient history. Which means it’s none of your business.”

Sounding brusque—which she deserved—Ben said, “Unless it has something to do with these cute little messages you guys are getting. Or with the fact that you’re mad at me for no reason I can see.”

“I’m not mad...” Abby bit her lip. She hated having to apologize. Hated knowing she had behaved so gracelessly. “I’m sorry. This scares me. I don’t like feeling scared. I’m taking it out on you.”

“Tell me straight.” Ben hadn’t moved; his voice hadn’t softened. “Do you think the fact that you and your sister both dated Murray has anything to do with these threats?”

She walked a few steps, closed her eyes. Sighed. “No. Who knows what set this guy off? Not some guy my big sister and I both saw.”

“Just don’t hold back on me.”

Abby whirled around. “I haven’t yet! I wouldn’t. It’s not me I’m scared for.”

He moved then, taking a step toward her, lifting a hand as though to touch her but stopping short of doing so. “This was symbolic. We have no reason to think this guy intends to hurt Emily.”

“Maybe not,” Abby said tautly, “but there’s a pretty strong suggestion of violence here, wouldn’t you say?”

“We’ll find him.”

“Will we?” She didn’t let him answer. “It’s late. I really do appreciate you coming, Ben. Call me.”

“I will.” He watched her get into her car. Just before she backed out, he knocked on the window. Abby rolled it down a few inches. “By the way, forget the strapless dress. Wear a bathing suit and shorts. We’re going rafting. I’ll bring a picnic.”

“Rafting.” It was almost a physical wrench, this transition her mind had to make from the bloodied headless doll, from the man she and her sister had shared. Blankly, Abby said, “You mean, Friday.”

“As early as you can get off work.”

“White-water rafting?” Maybe he was a man after her own heart, after all. The physicality, the adrenaline rush, of battling the river sounded like just the panacea she needed.

“Nope. We’re going to drift Listen to the birds and the breeze, soak in some sun. Maybe swim. Spend a lazy couple of hours.”

Die of boredom.

He smiled as if he’d read her thoughts. “Trust me. It’ll be fun,” he said with gentle mockery.

Abby’s heart lurched. No, she doubted if she’d be bored. Not with Ben Shea. Irritated, maybe. Defensive, uncomfortable, maybe sexually aroused. But definitely not bored.

“Right,” she said, and rolled up her car window.

He slapped it with his palm, and walked away.

His headlights were in her rearview mirror all the way down the mountain. She could hardly wait to turn off the main road and escape him.

Why, oh, why, had she agreed to go out with a man who made her feel so edgy?

RENEE ASKED MEG and Abby to meet her the next day for lunch. Abby had a suspicion she knew why.

Meg was the last to arrive, waddling into the café on the main floor of the antique mall. They often had lunch there. The minestrone soup and berry cobblers were unbeatable. Abby, for one, rather enjoyed the irony in the old police station where Daddy had reigned. His office now held shelves and nineteenth-century armoires overflowing with quilts and antique lace. He wouldn’t have minded old guns. Lace he would have hated.

Today the three sisters talked about the doll in the car seat and what it meant until the waitress brought their orders.

Renee didn’t even look at hers, waiting only until they were alone again. “I’m pregnant,” she announced.

Meg lumbered to her feet. “Oh, Renee! Congratulations!”

They hugged and squealed a couple of more times. Abby felt like a fifth wheel.

But when they stepped back from each other and she saw their wet cheeks, she found her own eyes were stinging. Rising to her feet, she said quietly, “You’ll be a great mother.”

Renee sniffed. “Thank you.”

“Funny, isn’t it,” Meg mused as they resumed their seats. “The idea of us as mothers.”

“I wouldn’t know how to begin,” Abby heard herself say. “Being a mother, I mean. You’re so patient, Meg.”

“I guess I’m lucky,” she said. “I remember Mom the best. She was gentle, always willing to listen or to admire the latest artwork or whatever. I can still hear her giggle, as if she was a kid at heart. She loved us.”

“I can’t even picture her face.” Again Abby was startled to discover she was the one speaking. She often chose to tune out these conversations. “I mean, now I have pictures,” thanks to Meg, “but they’re all I see when I close my eyes and try to envision her. Sometimes I have this feeling...” She frowned. “Feeling” wasn’t quite the right word. Fleeting impressions: a brush of a soft hand, a scent, a murmured voice telling stories, a warmth and sense of security. Even such amorphous memories always ended up swallowed by emptiness and loss, as if her later hurt had acted as WiteOut, obliterating her mother’s existence. In frustration and anger at herself, Abby blurted, “I was old enough when she left. I should remember.”

Meg touched her hand. “Maybe the memories will come back. After I had Will, I found myself thinking about Mom all the time.”

“But you’d just seen her,” Renee argued.

“Yes, but...” Meg shook her head. “It’s as if she’s two different people for me. The mom from our childhood, and the one I watched die. I... never linked them, not really. Does that make sense?”

Her sisters nodded. Sandwiches sat untouched.

“The one I remember is Mom. Our childhood mother. I say something to Emily, and I think—Mom said that, too. Or I have little ways of doing things, and I realize that I’m imitating her. Have you seen that poster that says, ‘I looked in the mirror and saw my mother?’ Sometimes that’s how I feel. As if she’s part of me.”

Renee nodded solemnly. “We’re imprinted. Like goslings.”

“Right.” Meg leaned forward, elbows on the table, silverware clinking. Her face was alight with enthusiasm. “And you are, too, Abby. You were old enough. Your conscious mind can block some things out, but I’ll bet motherhood will trigger your subconscious. Through your own words and behavior, you’ll recover her.”

A sharp slice of pain tightened Abby’s voice. “Do I want to?”

Meg’s eyes held warmth and understanding. “She loved us.”

“She left us.”

“Yes, she did, and I’ve never forgiven her.” Meg looked inward for a moment and then laid her hands on her belly, which shifted and bulged briefly. Voice soft, she asked, “But does one betrayal, however huge, discount everything that came before it?”

Once Abby would have said yes without hesitation. Once she would have been certain she didn’t want to remember her mother’s touch, her mother’s face. Daddy hadn’t been perfect, but he’d been there. The first rule of parenting: you must be present in your children’s lives.

But perhaps Daddy had been there for the wrong reasons, and their mother gone for the right ones. Or at least for ones that a grown-up Abby could understand. Even forgive. She wasn’t sure yet, but she was coming around.

“I don’t know,” she said now, to her sisters. “I don’t remember what came before.”

“You will.” Meg smiled comfortably. She touched her swollen belly with clear meaning, the tenderness she felt for her unborn child expressed in the small gesture. “I know you will.”

Abby swallowed a lump in her throat and gave a brief nod. Then she turned to Renee. “What did Daniel say to your news?”

“Hallelujah.” Renee grinned and at last reached for her sandwich. Around a big bite, she said, “You know I’m the one who wanted to wait to have children. He’d have been happy if I’d been pregnant the day after our wedding.”

“Or the day before,” Meg murmured, devouring her lunch, too.