Bringing Maddie Home. Janice Kay Johnson
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