too dark, too rainy, too isolated. She couldn’t wait to see the lights of town, to get to the house, to see that her father had returned so that all her worry had been for nothing.
The rainforest grew in a dark, wet canopy over the top of the narrow, winding highway. Rain splattered down through the vegetation, striking the windshield like pebbles as mist rose ghostlike up from the pavement.
A few miles down the highway, the trees opened a little, and she dug out her cell phone, saw that she had service and called 9-1-1. She related briefly what she’d seen at Lost Creek Falls to the dispatcher and left her cell phone number for the sheriff to call her back.
When the lights of Timber Falls appeared out of the rain and mist, Roz felt such a surge of relief she almost wept. Home—the feeling surprised her given why she’d left here. This hadn’t been home for ten years. Nor would it ever be again. But right now, she was overjoyed to finally be here, the one place she’d once felt safe and happy.
She drove down Main Street past the city offices, the Duck Inn bar, the Timber Falls Courier and the Busy Bee. The No Vacancy sign glowed red at the Ho Hum Motel and Betty’s Café was packed, a half dozen cars parked out front. That was odd. She frowned, wondering why everything was so busy given the time of year—and the weather. Something must be going on.
As she turned down the once familiar tree-lined lane, she felt as if time had stood still here as well. Anxiously she awaited her first glimpse of the large old house where she’d been raised.
She’d never understood why her father had hung on to the house given the painful memories. He alone had come here over the years, paying to see that the empty house didn’t fall into disrepair.
But as the structure came into view in her headlights, she was overwhelmed with emotion and thankful that he hadn’t been able to part with it. The house stood fighting back the rainforest, the towering roofline etched black against the night sky. She caught her breath at the sight of it. As a child she thought it a castle. Even now it seemed larger than life.
This had been home for her first seventeen years. It had been a fun, rambling place with lots of space to play and great hiding places. Her mother always had flowers growing in large pots on the porch and brightly colored curtains at the windows.
But Roz saw that the pots of flowers were gone—just as the brightly colored curtains were, just as her mother was.
Roz looked away, fighting the same sorrow she had for the past ten years, and hoped to see her father’s truck and camper parked next to the other cars in the open carport beside the house.
There were three cars. The new Cadillac her father had bought Emily as a wedding present and two new sports cars, a bright yellow one and a shiny black one. The yellow one belonged to Emily’s twenty-four-year-old daughter, Suzanne, the black one to her twenty-six-year-old son, Drew.
Roz felt a sliver of apprehension to see that the whole family was here. Her father obviously hadn’t returned. Was that what had brought Suzanne and Drew all the way in from Portland? Had something happened since Roz had talked to Emily?
Even more worried, Roz parked in front of the house and made a run through the rain to the porch. She stood waiting for her father’s new family to answer the bell. It felt so strange not to be able to just open the door and walk in. But the people who lived here now were virtual strangers. She’d only been around the new family on a few awkward occasions. Even her father had become a stranger the last six months since his quickie marriage in Las Vegas.
“Give Emily a chance,” her dad had asked after the wedding. “I know this happened pretty fast.” She should say so! “But please try. For me.”
And she was trying. Really.
She rang the bell and managed a smile, relieved to see the door opened by her newly acquired stepbrother Drew, the least objectionable member of her father’s new family.
“Hey, you made it. I was starting to worry about you,” he said, flashing her a big smile. Drew was blond, blue-eyed and drop-dead handsome if you went for that type. Roz didn’t. She found his classically featured face devoid of character with no sign that he’d experienced life, although he was only two years her junior.
Drew’s saving grace was the fact that he was the only member of his family who seemed to care one way or another about her. His interest in her definitely wasn’t romantic. Roz suspected he paid attention to her because it annoyed his mother.
He hugged Roz, then stepped back in surprise. “You’re freezing.” He ushered her inside out of the cold and dampness. “What happened?”
She knew she must look like a drowned cocker spaniel, her strawberry-blond hair a tousle of damp curls. “I had a…flat.” She really didn’t want to get into her “detour” or what she’d seen at the waterfall.
“Has anyone heard from my father?” she asked as she stepped in.
Drew shook his head. “Sorry.”
She glanced past him, trying hard not to cry. She hadn’t realized how scared she was, how worried that something had happened to him. If only she hadn’t missed his call the other day.
What little of the house she could see had changed more than she could have imagined. When Roz’s mother, Anna, had been alive, the house had smelled of baked bread and brownies. This house smelled of cleaner, new carpet and fresh paint.
Her father had warned her a few months ago that Emily was doing a little redecorating, but it still came as a shock to see everything of her mother gone. Through the French doors, she could see the living room. All of the beautiful old things her mother had collected had been replaced with new, modern furniture.
That wasn’t the only shock. While Roz’s mother, Anna, had loved vibrant colors, it seemed Emily was partial to indistinguishable shades of off-white. The furnishings didn’t fit the house any more than Emily did, she thought uncharitably.
“Don’t worry, all of your mother’s things have been moved up to the attic,” Drew said, following her gaze. “Your father insisted everything be saved.”
The attic. How appropriate.
Emily came breezing out of the dining room looking harried. “Rozalyn,” the woman gushed, rushing over to give her a quick air kiss.
Emily Lane Sawyer was blond with blue eyes like her two grown children. She was a tall, statuesque woman, far different from Roz’s mother, who’d been petite with soft brown eyes and strawberry-blond hair that curled in the humidity just like her daughter’s. Everyone had always said Roz was the spitting image of her mother, something that Emily had remarked on more than one occasion.
In her late forties, Emily was a good fifteen years younger than her new husband. Intellectually, Roz could understand what her father had seen in the woman. She had a great body for her age and she was quite attractive.
What worried Roz was what Emily had seen in Liam Sawyer.
“You made it in time for dinner,” Emily said.
Roz heard the “just barely” in her tone. Dinner was the last thing Roz wanted but it would be rude to try to get out of dining with the family. “Drew says you haven’t heard from my father.” She couldn’t bring herself to call him dad with these people.
“No, but like I told you on the phone, Liam said he didn’t know when he’d be back and not to worry about him. I hope that isn’t the only reason you drove all the way up here.”
What other reason than to see her father? “It isn’t like him to be gone this long without any word,” Roz said, not mentioning the other reason she was so concerned. The strange message on her answering machine. He’d sounded upset, said little, asking her to call as soon as possible.
That had been two days ago. Emily said she hadn’t heard from Liam for more than two weeks.
Also he’d left his cell phone number. Not the number at the house. And when Roz had tried to reach him