Loe raamatut: «The Tempted»

Chapter One

Eden, Mississippi

Tess Campbell sat in the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and tried very hard not to scream. Her nails dug into her palms as she listened in despair to the explanation of why the search for her five-year-old daughter, who had been missing for almost three weeks, was being scaled back.

The small office was crowded with law enforcement personnel and others involved in the search, but the only one who seemed capable of making eye contact with Tess at the moment was Naomi Cross, who worked for the Children’s Rescue Network, an organization founded to help parents of missing and exploited children.

Of all the people in the room, Naomi was the only one who truly understood Tess’s agony because Naomi’s own daughter had vanished ten years ago, the victim of an abduction with bizarre similarities to Emily’s.

Naomi had been a lifeline to Tess during the days following Emily’s disappearance. She’d provided the kind of emotional support and common-sense advice that only someone who had been through the same kind of hell could offer. But there was nothing Naomi could say or do now to ease Tess’s torment. Her only child was still missing, and the police were giving up. They’d written her off. Emily would now become another statistic.

Tess’s stomach knotted with tension. Each step of the investigation had brought its own special agony—the terror and panic during the initial, frenzied canvassing of the area around the school when her daughter had first gone missing, the pity Tess had seen in the eyes of the other parents as they’d try to reassure her that Emily would be found, safe and sound.

The second day had brought another parade of horrors as the ground search had been widened into the countryside. Bloodhounds had been brought in and divers had gone into the lake while Tess had waited helplessly by the phone.

But, then, the next step had brought renewed hope. Volunteers from all over the state began pouring in to help in the search, and a command center was set up to process incoming and outgoing information. The National Crime Information Center was alerted so that every law enforcement body in the country would have an accurate description of Emily in the event that someone might spot her.

Then came more waiting. More praying.

The national registries for missing and exploited children were notified.

And as the search progressed, a new reality had slowly settled over Tess. The terror and panic of those first few hours, the disbelief and lingering hope of the next several days eventually metastasized into a deep, seeping dread. Emily might not be coming back. Ever.

Tess had once heard someone on TV, another grieving mother, describe the disappearance of her child as a slow, torturous death. But it was worse than death to Tess because there was no finality, no acceptance. No goodbye. Just a nagging hole inside her heart that grew larger and larger with each passing day.

And now the next step had arrived. The search and investigation were being cut back.

“Don’t misunderstand me, Tess,” Sheriff Mooney was saying. “There’s not a man or woman in this department who won’t remain dedicated to finding Emily. But we have to be realistic. The volunteers have families and jobs they have to get back to, and we have other cases. We just don’t have the manpower or the resources to continue an all-out search.”

Tess closed her eyes, mustering her courage, clinging with every ounce of her strength to the belief that her daughter was still alive. “You can’t give up,” she said hoarsely. “She’s still alive! I know she is. I can feel it.” Her gaze shot to the photographs of Sheriff Mooney’s grandchildren mounted on the wall behind his desk. “What if it was one of them? Would you give up then?”

The sheriff flinched, as if her words cut a little too close to the quick. “We’re not giving up, Tess. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“It sure sounds like it to me,” she said bitterly. “What about the FBI?”

“They’ll continue to advise and offer technical support on the case, just as they have been. That won’t change.”

“But they won’t be a presence in the investigation, will they? They won’t leave an agent in Eden, because they’re giving up, too.” Tess leaned forward, her fists clenched so tightly her nails cut into her skin. But she welcomed the pain. It kept her focused. It kept her angry, and that was exactly what she needed at the moment.

She couldn’t afford to give in to her grief, to the bone-chilling terror that had racked her since Emily disappeared from that playground ten years to the day Naomi Cross’s child had gone missing from the same schoolyard.

No trace of Sadie Cross had ever been found, and the date of the abductions, along with the physical resemblance of the two girls and the similarities in their backgrounds, had prompted the police to theorize that the same kidnapper had taken both children.

But then two days after Tess’s daughter disappeared, Sara Beth Brodie, one of Emily’s kindergarten classmates, had been abducted from a nearby drugstore. She’d been found safe and sound a few days later, and as it turned out, her kidnapping was unrelated to the other two. But her rescue had buoyed Tess’s hopes just the same. Didn’t the police understand that Sara Beth’s safe return meant that Emily could still be found, too?

Or were they more convinced than ever that Emily had met the same fate as Sadie Cross? That ten years from now, no trace of Tess’s daughter would have turned up, either?

But there was a difference in the two cases. A week after Emily’s disappearance, a note had been discovered on the windshield of a vehicle parked in Tess’s driveway. The message, apparently written by a child, read: I come home soon mama.

Those words tore at Tess’s heart, gave her yet another faint ray of hope to cling to. Emily was still alive. She was still out there somewhere. The police couldn’t stop looking for her now. They couldn’t.

“What about the note?” She forced herself to speak in a rational tone, even though her mind raged against the terrible images of her daughter, alone and hurt, crying out for her mother. “It has to mean something.”

Lieutenant Dave Conyers, the lead detective on Emily’s case had been standing across the room staring out the window ever since Tess arrived. He was a tall man, thin, good-looking, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He turned now and faced her.

Like everyone else present, he looked exhausted, haggard and guilt-ridden, his face revealing all too plainly that he wished he were anywhere in the world but here in the same room with Tess. “I told you what the results were from the crime lab. They ran all kinds of tests on the paper, including electrostatic detection. A partial fingerprint was detected under ultraviolet, but when we scanned the print and ran it through the database, we didn’t get a hit. Nor was it Emily’s.”

Emily had been fingerprinted and issued a photo ID containing all her vital statistics her first year in pre-school. The program had been conducted by Naomi Cross’s group, the Children’s Rescue Network, to aid the police in just such a contingency. Tess had readily agreed to participate in the effort, but she’d never thought she would actually need the card. No parent did.

“We also had a handwriting expert compare the note with some of Emily’s school papers,” Lieutenant Conyers continued. “But his analysis was inconclusive. I hate like hell to say this, but the note could be a hoax.”

“No!” Tess said stubbornly. “I don’t believe that. It was from Emily. I know it was.”

“That’s what you want to believe. That’s what we all want to believe, but the expert couldn’t make that determination. Evidently, printing, especially by a child as young as Emily, is a lot harder to analyze than cursive writing.” He glanced at Tess. “You’re Emily’s mother, and you weren’t so certain at first the note was from her.”

“I know, but maybe that’s because she had to write it under duress. She was scared. Even an adult’s handwriting would be affected under similar circumstances.”

“That’s true enough,” Conyers agreed. “But the note itself doesn’t make much sense when you think about it. A message from a kidnapper is usually either a ransom demand or a taunt to the police or to the child’s parents. Why would the kidnapper allow Emily to write such a note, and then risk being caught by delivering it?”

“I don’t know,” Tess said numbly. “To let me know that she’s alive?”

No one said anything, but Tess could sense their doubt. And on some level, she knew Lieutenant Conyers was right. The note didn’t make sense. For one thing, it had been placed on the windshield of Naomi Cross’s Jeep Cherokee instead of Tess’s Ford Explorer. Naomi had been to see Tess that day, and her vehicle had been the only one in the driveway because Tess’s was parked in the garage. The SUVs were so similar in color that the initial assumption was that the kidnapper had mistaken Naomi’s vehicle for Tess’s, even though Tess’s was a much older model.

But maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe someone had deliberately put the note on Naomi’s car to torment her as well as Tess.

Could anyone really be that cruel or that sick?

A day ago, Tess wouldn’t have believed it possible to plunge any deeper into despair. But now that the search for Emily was being scaled down, now that everyone else was going back to their normal lives, she knew what it felt like to be truly alone and helpless. This, the final step, was perhaps the most agonizing of all.

Something of her anguish must have shown on her face because Sergeant Abby Cross, a detective in the Criminal Investigations Unit and Naomi’s sister, said gently, “I know how all this must sound to you, Tess, but in spite of the setbacks, the search will continue. Calls are still trickling in on the hotline, and we’ll follow them up. We won’t give up on Emily. We won’t forget about her.”

Abby shoved back a lock of dark, glossy hair as she stared at Tess. She wasn’t as beautiful as her sister, Naomi, nor as tall and willowy, but there was compassion in her brown eyes. A softness in her smile in spite of her years in law enforcement.

Tess had liked Abby at once, and she wanted to believe her now. Wanted to take solace in Abby’s assurances. She was a good cop. With the help of an ex-FBI profiler, she’d cracked the Sara Beth Brodie case. She was working on Emily’s case now, and Tess wished that she was in charge instead of Dave Conyers. Abby had found Sara Beth. Maybe she could find Emily, too.

But in ten years, not even Abby Cross had been able to locate Sadie, her own niece, and Naomi had been forced to endure that slow death, to exist in the terrible purgatory of never knowing what had happened to her child.

One by one, Tess studied the faces around her, and she knew that the same thought was paramount on everyone’s mind. In the last ten years, three of Eden’s children had gone missing. Only one of them had returned. If they didn’t find Emily, if they never determined what had happened to Sadie, how many more children would be taken? How many more parents would have to suffer?

“TESS, WAIT A MINUTE!”

Tess had been heading across the parking lot to her car, but she paused now as someone called out her name. Turning, she saw Naomi Cross hurry across the asphalt toward her. Even from a distance, even in her despair, Tess marveled at the woman’s extraordinary beauty. She was tall and thin, with a flawless complexion and large brown eyes rimmed with thick lashes. She looked like a model as she hurried across the parking lot toward Tess.

By comparison, Tess knew her own looks had suffered since her daughter’s disappearance, so much so she hardly recognized herself in the mirror these days. She’d lost weight, and her face, thin to begin with, now appeared pale and gaunt. Her blue eyes were shadowed with grief and exhaustion, and her hair hung in a limp ponytail down her back. For Tess, makeup and hair appointments had become a thing of the past. It was all she could do to drag herself out of bed each morning and get dressed.

But it was more than Naomi Cross’s looks that provided a stark contrast. She exuded a strength and quiet dignity, garnered from her tragedy, that Tess knew she would never be able to muster.

Naomi stopped beside Tess and placed a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

Tess let out a ragged breath. “No. How could I be, after what they just told me in there?”

“I know what you’re feeling,” Naomi said gently. “When it first happens, you think nothing could be worse than learning your child has disappeared. But then comes the day when the police stop actively searching for her. When the volunteers all go home, the command center is shut down, and your daughter becomes just another face on a milk carton. Life returns to normal for everyone but you.” Naomi paused. “That’s when your faith is most sorely tested.”

Tess wrapped her arms around her middle. “I’m not sure I have any faith left.” She searched the early-morning sky. White clouds scattered across an intense, blinding blue, and the sun hovered in the east. It was late August, still hot and humid, the temperature marching steadily upward to the nineties. But in spite of the heat, Tess thought she could detect a hint of fall in the air. Or maybe it was her mood. Maybe it was a portent. The seasons would be changing soon. Would her daughter still be missing?

“I want her to come home. I want to hold her in my arms again. She’s just a baby. She didn’t deserve this. How could something like this happen?” she asked angrily.

When Naomi reached a hand to touch her arm, Tess flinched away. Immediately remorse set in. Naomi had been nothing but kindness. “I’m sorry,” Tess whispered, putting a trembling hand to her face. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you like that. I don’t do that. I don’t—”

“Lose control? Fall to pieces? Maybe it would help if you did.”

Tess wished she could fall apart. She wished she could scream at the injustice and cruelty of a world that would allow this to happen to an innocent child. She wished she could just let go, beat her fists against her chest, tear her hair, do something, anything, to give rein to her rage. But losing control wouldn’t help Emily, and control was about all Tess had left.

She glanced at Naomi and the hollowness inside her deepened. “How do you do it? After all these years, how do you keep going?”

Naomi glanced away. “Sometimes it might be easier to just give up, to lose all hope. To accept what fate has doled out to me. But then I think about Sadie out there somewhere, wondering if I’m still looking for her, and I make one more phone call. I follow up on that last lead. I do the next interview because if she is still alive, I want her to know that I haven’t given up. That I’ll never give up.”

“I won’t give up, either,” Tess said fiercely. “But the police have.”

Naomi squeezed her hand. “I know it seems that way now, but the case will remain open. Leads will be followed. My sister has put a major career change on hold until they find Emily.”

Tess lifted her head. “Career change?”

“Abby’s applied for acceptance at the FBI Academy, but no matter if she’s accepted or not, she’s not going anywhere until Emily is found. That’s how committed she is.” Naomi glanced over her shoulder at the sheriff’s station. “They all are, Tess. You have to remain committed, too. There are things you can do on your own to find your daughter, and the Children’s Rescue Network can help you.”

“I’ll do anything,” Tess said brokenly. “You know that.”

Naomi nodded. “The first thing is to stay connected with as many of the missing-children’s networks and foundations around the country as you can.”

There were so many of them, Tess had discovered. Most of them founded in memory of someone’s missing child, just like the Children’s Rescue Network had been founded in Sadie Cross’s memory. A year from now, ten years from now, would such a foundation be Tess’s only consolation, her only connection to a daughter she loved more that life itself?

“You’ll want to keep Emily’s story in the news and her picture in front of the public as much as you can,” Naomi said. “And you’ll have to find creative ways of doing that now that media interest is waning. You might also want to think about starting a Web site. We can help you with that.”

Tess wasn’t as proficient on a computer as she should be in this day and age, but she knew about the Internet’s power, its ability to reach millions of people in the space of a heartbeat. The rest she would learn.

“What else?”

Naomi paused. “You can go proactive.”

“What do you mean?”

“If the note I found is genuine, then the kidnapper has already made contact once, and he was willing to risk detection to do so. You could do another round of television and radio interviews, asking for your daughter’s safe return. It’s possible the kidnapper will respond to your pleas.”

Tess seized on her words. “Then you think the note was genuine. You don’t think it was a hoax as the police seem to.”

“I’m not an expert,” Naomi cautioned. “But I can tell you this. For a split second after I found that message, it crossed my mind that it was from Sadie. I know that sounds crazy. She’s fifteen years old now, almost a young woman, but I guess a part of me still thinks of her exactly as she was the last time I saw her.” A shadow darkened her expression, but her eyes were bright and dry. “The point I’m trying to make is that the note touched me in some way. I think a child wrote it.”

Relief welled inside Tess. “I think so, too. I think that child was Emily.”

“If she did write it, then we have to assume she’s still alive. And if she’s alive, someone may have seen her. A neighbor or a family member of the kidnapper may have suspicions, but for whatever reason, hasn’t come forward. You may have to increase the reward offer, and you may also want to consider hiring a private-detective firm to look at the investigation in a different way.”

Tess’s heart sank. Immediately after Emily’s disappearance, she’d drained her savings to set up a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information pertaining to the kidnapping. That was all the money she had in the world, and her cleaning service had suffered a major financial setback, primarily because she wasn’t around to supervise and coordinate the work.

For the last three weeks, she’d haunted the sheriff’s station every day, looking for any scrap of information, any bit of news that would give her hope, that would give her confidence the police were doing everything that could be done to find her daughter. She’d worked with the volunteers, stuffing envelopes, answering phones, passing out pictures locally and to the organizations that could distribute them state-and nationwide. No job was too tedious or too overwhelming for her to tackle. She would do anything in her power to bring her daughter home, but Naomi was asking her to do the one thing she could not do. She couldn’t raise the reward offer. Not alone.

As if reading her mind, Naomi said sympathetically, “The CRN can set up a fund to help you out financially, but it’ll still be expensive. And it could take a while for the donations to mount up. Is there anyone who can help you out immediately?”

Tess shook her head. “Emily and I have no family except for my mother, and she’s certainly not a wealthy woman.”

“What about Emily’s father?”

Tess grew instantly defensive. “What about him?”

“I know he’s dead, but what about his family? Could they help?”

“Uh, no,” Tess said awkwardly, realizing her initial response must have seemed a little strange. “They’re on a fixed income, too. They wouldn’t be able to help.” Not that his mother would if she could, Tess thought. Mildred Campbell had been dead set against her son’s marriage to Tess, and her attitude hadn’t softened even when Tess had nursed Alan through the worst of his illness, when she’d kept vigil night and day at his deathbed. The child Tess had been carrying had only served to remind the grief-stricken woman that as one life began another was ending.

And now it was Emily’s life on the line.

What about her father?

A shudder racked Tess at the mere thought of her secret being revealed after all these years. Emily was in grave danger at the hands of her kidnapper, but the note proved she was still alive. She could still be found and rescued.

But if the truth came out now, there might be nothing Tess could do to save her daughter.