Blood will tell, p.11
Blood Will Tell, page 11
I felt my brow furrow. That didn’t seem like that big of a deal, especially given what Marina and the other kids at the camp were going through. Anne must’ve recognized my skepticism, because she added, “They might also have borrowed a volunteer’s car.”
That would do it.
Anne continued, “Then she set fire to the lanterns.”
“So they sent her home?”
Now it was Anne whose brow wrinkled. “Oh. No. Leaving was Marina’s decision. Jenny Hauser would never kick a kid out. She knows what hell these kids are going through.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Marina was told she could stay, but not as a junior counselor. After all the work she put in, that devastated her. Marina doesn’t have many friends.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” She sighed, sending a tremor through her entire body. “It didn’t help that she had that falling-out with the other counselor.”
I sat still despite the sudden fluttering in my chest. “Oh?” To me, even that one syllable, carefully spoken, sounded suspicious.
She waved off my interest. “It was time for Marina to leave anyway. She’d outgrown that place.”
“Any chance she ran away?”
I sat very still as I awaited the answer I very much hoped was yes.
She shook her head. “Marina was taken.” There was no doubt in her.
Still, I pushed. “Are you sure? It was late. Probably happened quickly?”
She shook her head again, more violently. “I had a second glass of wine right before bed, so I was up an hour later to use the bathroom. That’s always the way it is with me. You’d think I’d learn.” She massaged her wrists in a nervous gesture, but she spoke carefully, as if making sure the details were remembered exactly right. “So I was in the hallway, and I noticed the light was on in Marina’s room. I knocked. When she didn’t answer, I tried the knob. She locks her door at night. Makes her feel safe, she says. But it wasn’t locked. I poked my head in, but she wasn’t there.” This part of the story seemed difficult for her, and I waited while she steadied herself.
After a minute’s thought, she went on. “I crossed her room to look out the window. I’m not sure why. It was more logical that she’d gone downstairs to get a snack, or that she hadn’t gone to bed yet but had forgotten to turn out her light. Like I said, she doesn’t have many friends. No one she would sneak out to meet in the middle of the night.”
She paused again, and I nudged. “What did you see?” Expectant, I leaned forward, hoping whatever she said next would give me reason to doubt what she thought she saw.
“A white Ford truck. Someone in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. And my Marina. Her abductor had his hands around her wrists, and she was struggling. Trying to beat her fists against his chest. I think she might’ve been crying. I ran down the stairs, out the door, but the truck was pulling out by then, and too far away to see more than a few numbers on the plate.”
My only comfort was in her choice of that one word—his. It didn’t prove anything, of course. Most violence against women is perpetrated by men, so it could’ve been an assumption on her part. I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to put the idea in her head that the abductor might have been a woman. Like my sister.
“Anyone else see anything?”
“No. A couple of my neighbors have those doorbell cameras, and the police checked those too. None of them caught anything.”
I stood, knees weak but still managing to keep me upright. “I should go.”
“No, wait.” She reached out, but her hand froze halfway to me. It trembled. “Those kids at the camp, maybe you can ask around? See if they know anything about Marina, stuff they might not share with the police?”
I balked at giving this woman false hope. Then I studied her face and thought maybe she needed it.
“I will,” I promised.
Once the words were out of my mouth, they felt less like deception. I had already vowed to myself to find Marina, just not in the way her mom suggested.
Anne tried to smile, but her grief wouldn’t hold it. “You’ll need my number—” Her brow wrinkled. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
I bit my tongue, the tang of blood instant, and I swallowed the grimace that threatened to give me away. My name. Should I give Marina’s mom a fake name, knowing she would distrust me if I contacted her later? Or give her my real one, hoping she hadn’t already heard it from Detective Pratt?
“Frankie.”
I waited for the flash of recognition, but, thankfully, my name seemed to mean nothing to her.
“What’s your number, and I’ll text you mine?” she asked. A moment after I gave it to her, my phone pinged. I felt like such a fraud. “You’ll tell me as soon as you hear anything?”
Before I could answer, she shot up from her chair, her hands forming fists. I tensed.
Was this it—the moment she recognized my name?
But then she relaxed her hands, and I realized she had only been holding her tension there, as if she were squeezing an invisible stress ball.
“Do you have a few minutes?” Her expression turned expectant. “My neighbor, he’s helping look for Marina too.” Hope energized her, and she didn’t wait for my response before unlocking her phone to text. Her neighbor, presumably. “We can talk. Make a plan.”
The situation felt close to spiraling. I moved closer to the door. “I can’t stay. I need to—” Just in time, I stopped myself before I could finish that sentence: I need to pick up my son. I could think of nothing crueler to say to a mother who’d lost two children. “I need to get to work.”
She stilled, the spasm of hope-fueled energy sapped. “Oh.”
Her desperation was so thick in the room that I nearly relented and offered to call in sick to my nonexistent shift. But the best thing I could do to find Marina was find my sister.
“You can take his phone number, at least?” she asked. “In case you can’t reach me? He’s wonderful. He even lived with us for a while after his dad died. He’s the one who told us about the camp.”
The way she clenched the phone, I doubted I would need to make use of his number. Still, I told her to text it to me. My phone pinged again. When I saw the number, my pulse quickened.
That can’t be right.
I must’ve remembered the number incorrectly. The number of the Wagners’ helpful neighbor only seemed familiar. But I had always been good with numbers, and had memorized this one instantly. It wasn’t one I would forget.
Tears finally breached her eyelids, and she swatted at them, as if aggravated by her own grief. “If you can’t reach me, you can always try Ben.”
17
The boxes stacked in the room seemed to sway, threatening to topple and bury me beneath them. But it wasn’t the boxes. It was me, suddenly unsteady on my feet. Anne Wagner knew Ben, the man who had thrown the party the night of Izzy’s hit-and-run, and he was helping search for Marina. Desperate people didn’t always make smart decisions. After all, here she was talking to me.
The room grew tighter, the walls moving toward me like a horror-movie trap. If I didn’t get out of this home and away from the responsibility of this mother’s grief, I might be crushed. I nodded a goodbye, abandoning my clipboard. I didn’t want her to notice my suddenly shaking hands. She deserved more than that, but it was all I could offer. My head felt as if it had been piped full of helium.
When I tried the door, it seemed stuck, but it was only my sweaty palms unable to gain traction. On my second try, I got it open, aware of Anne staring. Even through her grief, her attention was a laser. I didn’t want that attention. I raced toward the steps, tripping on the first one.
Then a man stepped in front of me. He offered his hand to keep me from falling. I stepped back to be farther from it.
“Ben Wesley,” he said.
His brown hair was slightly long, his brows and lashes thick. His manicured stubble shadowed a too-sharp jaw. I might’ve described him as beautiful except for that jaw and his eyes, at once both warm and predatory, like a dog that might bite. Though his clothes and hair were dry, he wore the brackish scent of the bay.
So this was Ben, the man Izzy spoke of with both awe and dread, before she stopped talking about him altogether. Apparently, though, she hadn’t stopped talking to him. What did it mean that she had called him in the weeks before Marina disappeared?
I wasn’t about to introduce myself to this man, but I didn’t need to. My sister and I shared the same nose and jawline, and even if we hadn’t, Anne Wagner had just texted him my name. Only my first name, but I was pretty sure Izzy would’ve mentioned me at some point in the past five years, and taken with the resemblance, it would be enough for him to make the connection. How was he going to play this?
I got my answer a second later. “So you’re Izzy’s sister.”
He smiled broadly, exposing lower teeth that overlapped slightly. Intentional, I thought. This seemed a man who owned his flaws. At least the physical ones. I was certain that most people found that smile charming. Despite my aversion to him, even I felt an unwelcome tingle at his attention.
Anne had joined us on the steps. She moved behind Ben, holding his arm to steady herself.
“And you’re Ben.” Manipulator. Drug dealer. A co-conspirator in Marina’s abduction?
“Izzy told you about me, then.”
I fought to keep my expression neutral. “I know who you are.” What you are.
“So, Frankie Barrera, what brings you here? It’s quite a drive from Cloverdale.”
I ignored the question, eager to be out of there. “It was nice to meet you, Ben,” I lied, “but I was on my way out.”
Before I could take a step, he shifted in front of me. Little more than a repositioning of his body, it was subtle but as calculated as that smile.
“No, really, what are you doing here?” Since he had his back to Anne, she couldn’t see the shift in his expression. The smile remained in place, but it was pulled taut now, his eyes half-hooded.
“I’m going to help Anne find her daughter.”
He raised an eyebrow in either amusement or recognition of the hidden threat in what I’d said. Hard to tell which. “I wasn’t aware you knew Marina.”
From behind him, Anne spoke. “She knows Marina from that camp.”
“Oh? I know Izzy volunteers there, but I didn’t know you did too.”
Rather than double down on my lie to Marina’s mom, I went on the offense. “Anne says you’re also looking for Marina.” My voice artificially friendly. “Do you have any ideas where she might be?”
“Not yet. But we’re hopeful we’ll find her.”
I wanted to ask him if he sold drugs to my sister, and to warn him away from her, but more than that, I wanted to leave. “Do you mind?” I gestured for him to move.
“Of course,” he said, but he didn’t move. “While you’re here, we have some beautiful trails. You should check them out. One warning, though: There are mountain lions out there. Coyotes, too, and rattlesnakes.”
“You’re quite the tour guide.”
“Just want you to be careful.”
“Thanks, but you don’t need to worry about me.” My composure started to splinter, and I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “And, Ben? A warning for you too: stay away from Izzy.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that her decision?”
“I’m surprised you’d want to stay in touch. After what happened the night you met.”
Ben’s lips thinned. A blink later, the faked half smile snapped back into place. But I had seen the shift. My own half smile was genuine. But the satisfaction I got from unnerving him lasted only a few breaths. Too late, I realized Ben had a weapon—Anne—standing behind him, and he immediately pointed her in my direction.
“I passed your truck on the way in. White Ford, right?”
Anne stepped forward, her pallor gone, her cheeks flushed a deep pink. She spun to face him.
“White Ford? What are you talking about?” Her voice cracked. I tried to push past them, but she turned on me and planted her legs wide, using her body as a barrier. “What is he talking about?”
I could’ve answered that thousands of Californians drove a similar truck, but she would’ve seen through that. The other drivers hadn’t come to her house fishing for information about her missing daughter.
When I made another move to get by, she grabbed my arm. “Who are you?” When I didn’t respond, she dug her nails into my skin. “Who the hell are you?” My skin was pinched between her fingers, and I twisted free, as gently as I could. I didn’t want to hurt her more than I already had.
“I haven’t lied about who I am or my purpose, only about having met your daughter.”
She wasn’t letting me off the hook. Here was someone she could blame for this unthinkable thing that had happened. “Where is she?” Her pitch was fevered. “Where did you take her?”
The only way out was to point Anne at another target. “You should ask Ben.”
She swiveled, more confused than suspicious, and I took advantage of her distraction. I ran down the steps, missing one, nearly stumbling. Anne followed, the sound of her footsteps swallowed by the slight wind. But I heard her breathing, ragged and quick.
“Wait.” The agony in her plea stopped me. Winded, I turned to find her less than ten feet away. I didn’t think she had yet dialed the police, but she clenched her phone in her right hand. “Are you a mom?”
Not wanting to lie again, I said nothing.
“She’s a good girl, Marina.” Her voice taut, near the point of snapping. “She treats her floor like it’s a hamper, she’s a terrible driver, and she’s moody as hell sometimes. But she’s also artistic. Kind. Funny. And she’s everything to us.”
A shock went through me when I realized what she was doing: she was humanizing Marina, as if I were a person who could hurt her.
“I would never—” My voice broke.
“I can’t lose another child. If you’re a mom—”
I thought of the daughter she’d lost to cancer and wondered how Anne Wagner remained upright. Judging by the way her body trembled, that could change at any moment.
“I just want her back. I won’t call the police. If you bring her back to us safely, I won’t ask questions. Please.”
I saw in Anne Wagner’s face my own memories—Izzy hospitalized with meningitis as a child, Julian jumping off the couch and breaking his wrist the year before. Witnessing their suffering had always been far worse than experiencing my own. I knew Marina’s mom had lied about not calling the police, but my desire to reassure her was abruptly stronger than my fear of arrest.
“I don’t have your daughter,” I said. “But if there’s anything I can do to bring her to you, I’ll do it.”
Anne Wagner’s expression faltered, and I thought I might’ve convinced her. Then she started lifting her phone.
Out of time.
Pulse quickening, I sprinted back to my truck, determined to find Izzy before either of us could be arrested.
18
Back in the quiet of my truck, the memory of Anne Wagner’s words echoed.
I can’t lose another child . . . I just want her back.
But there wasn’t time to replay that conversation. I drove quickly away from the complex. Too quickly. At the entrance, I hit the speed bump at least ten miles an hour faster than I should have. The tires lifted, the front of the truck finding air before landing hard. Metal scraped. I gritted my teeth and slowed.
Still, I hit Highway 101 in minutes. While I headed north, checking my mirrors often for police cruisers, I risked a quick call to my parents. Assured by them that Julian was fine, I turned my attention back to Izzy.
I had been going about this all wrong. I had been retracing Izzy’s steps as if a cold trail might lead to her. It was time to stop reviewing GPS data and start looking at what I knew about my sister.
Who was Izzy? Where might she go?
My first mistake had been believing Izzy might go anywhere. She wouldn’t. She didn’t own a car. She could’ve rented one, but if she became a suspect, the police could easily track her through the rental company. Plus, she wasn’t yet twenty-five. That might make it harder to rent a car. As far as borrowing a vehicle, she often used my truck and our parents’ sedan, but I could think of no one else she might approach. So her mobility would likely be limited to ride shares, public transportation, and places she could go on foot.
Another factor to consider: Izzy didn’t trust easily. As far as I knew, she trusted only six people: Our parents, Julian, Piper, Mark, and me. And the last couple of days had proved that she kept secrets even from us. Piper seemed the most logical choice for a confidante, but she had seemed genuinely anxious when she called me. If her concern wasn’t feigned, that left no one on my list.
Unless she trusted Ben. He didn’t seem like someone who could offer Izzy the kind of support she needed, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be there with the wrong kind of help. Especially if they were both involved in this.
Then there was her friend in San Francisco who had lied about the desk. Kent. I didn’t think she would’ve trusted him with a secret like this, but maybe he would give her a place to stay for a few days while she figured things out? But with rents what they were in San Francisco, Kent probably had roommates, and I doubted he would cover for her if he knew the police were involved.
Next, I considered work friends, or someone from Camp Sarah. That didn’t feel right either. Casual friends, even the well-meaning kind, weren’t likely to risk their own livelihoods, their lives, for a potential criminal.
She might have a trusted friend I didn’t know about, or her relationship with Ben might run deeper than I suspected, but without leads into those theories, considering them was wasted energy.
I shook my head to clear it. My instincts were telling me Izzy was most likely alone, or with the girl she had taken. So . . . with no car, no friends, where might Izzy go?
A hotel was out. Easily tracked, unless she paid cash, and Izzy was broke. Would she stay at someplace questionable, that maybe didn’t care so much about ID?
