she’d thought of. There’s been an accident. Something terrible has happened to them….
Even later, during the long, sleepless nights after they’d told her what Richard had done, she had paced the floor, trying to work out some other explanation. Something that would explain the nightmare she was living.
She licked her lips, which had suddenly gone dry. “What kind of accident?”
“It’s your husband, ma’am. We found his car submerged in the Escatawpa River. Looks like he must have run past the entrance to the bridge in the dark. It’s a tricky turn if you don’t know the road.”
“Richard?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. His body was in the car. I should have told you that at the first.”
“He’s dead.”
Her voice was too flat. Unemotional. She could imagine what the sheriff in Mississippi must be thinking. Even so, she was unable to summon up any regret that Richard’s life had ended. After all he’d put her through—
With that thought came another. A terrifying one.
“Was there anyone in the car with him?” Her heart now hesitated, refusing to beat again as she waited for the answer.
“No, ma’am, there wasn’t. There was no one else inside.”
He probably thought she was concerned about another woman. And at one time she might have been. Long before she understood there were anxieties far more compelling than those.
“As a courtesy, we asked the Atlanta PD to go to the address on his license,” the sheriff went on. “The folks living there now didn’t recognize the name, so we ran it through the national databases and found…Well, I expect you know what we found. I wasn’t sure this number would still be active after all these years. There hadn’t been any updates since the initial report was filed, but I figured it was worth a shot.”
She’d had to sell the house almost immediately, but due to the circumstances, the phone company had allowed her to keep this number. It wasn’t as if Emma had known it, but they told her it was customary with cases involving missing children.
Only then, in thinking back to those first terrible weeks, did she realize the significance of what the sheriff had just said. “Are you saying Richard had identification on him? That his driver’s license gave that name and address?”
She had long believed Richard was living somewhere under an assumed name. That’s why they hadn’t been able to locate him. How could he have escaped those countless inquiries if he’d kept his real name? Especially if he were still in the South?
“His wallet was in the car. Surprisingly, despite all the time it had been in the water, most of the things it contained were in pretty good shape. Of course, his license was the easiest to read since it was laminated.”
There was a disconnect between the sheriff’s words and what she’d been thinking. It wasn’t until she allowed them to replay in her mind that their import began to dawn.
“I don’t understand. You said it was an accident.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The uncertainty was back in his voice.
From what Adams had said, she’d been operating under the assumption that the accident he referred to had just occurred. Obviously, that assumption was wrong.
“Just how long do you believe my husband’s body has been in the water?”
There was a long beat of silence.
“Actually, the coroner can’t tell us that for sure—not yet. Given the condition of the car and the body…We’re guessing shortly after you notified law enforcement he was missing.”
Shortly after you notified law enforcement…
The words seemed to exist in some parallel universe. All the months she’d spent searching for him—and for Emma—Richard had already been dead, his car submerged, his body slowly decomposing.
Images of the black SUV sinking into the murky water of some Mississippi river were suddenly in her head, despite her near desperation to keep them out. Refusing to allow herself to entertain those kinds of thoughts was an art she had believed she’d perfected. She’d been wrong.
Despite the endless number of times she had attempted to imagine what Emma would look like now, it was always her daughter’s face the last time she’d seen her that was forever in her mind’s eye. A picture as clear as the August morning she’d left for the airport and the children’s literature conference. She’d had an appointment with an editor who had shown an interest in her illustrations—an appointment which had led to her first freelance assignment with the publisher she still worked for.
Emma had been fourteen months old then. Her hair slightly curling and dark blond. Her eyes, almost the same clear, dark blue as her father’s, were surrounded by impossibly long lashes that spiked, jeweled with tears, whenever she cried.
She had cried that morning. She had held up her arms to Susan, begging to be taken. Laughing, Richard had swooped her up and begun dancing her around the kitchen to allow Susan to escape. That was the last time she had seen either of them.
She had long ago accepted that unless something extraordinary happened or unless Richard decided to contact her, she would probably never see Emma again. And now…
“My daughter,” she managed, pushing the words past the constriction in her throat.
“Ma’am?”
“My daughter was with my husband when he disappeared. I was away for the weekend, and when I got back—” There was no need to give him those details. All she wanted was what he knew about Emma. “He took her with him when he disappeared.”
Unable to afford two, they had swapped the toddler seat between their cars. It had been in Richard’s SUV that morning. And when she’d returned…
“Her safety seat was in his car,” she finished. The images of the dark water closing over the top of the SUV were back in her head, no matter how hard she tried to block them.
The sheriff’s hesitation lasted so long this time her knees went weak. She sagged against the kitchen counter, closing her eyes against the burn of her tears.
“There was an infant seat in the car, ma’am, but there was no baby in it. I told you. There was nobody else inside your husband’s SUV when it was found. Are you sure she was—”
Her strangled sob interrupted his question. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been over this a dozen times with the police. Richard, the SUV, the infant seat and Emma had all been missing when she’d returned to Atlanta the following Monday.
“Is there someone there with you, Mrs. Kaiser? Or someone you could call?”
It was concern she heard in the deep voice this time. In spite of the emotional stoicism she’d adopted to deal with the law enforcement community through the years, his sympathy was her undoing. Still holding the phone, Susan slid down the side of the kitchen cabinets until she was on the floor. Sobs, finally unleashed again after all these years, shook her body.
Richard was dead. He had been dead for seven years, making a lie of all the times she had told herself that no matter what else he might be guilty of, Richard had genuinely loved Emma. Loved her enough to give up his life for her. The thought that, no matter what happened, he would take care of their baby was all that had kept her sane.
Now she knew that wherever Emma was, there was no one of her own to look after her. And there had been no one during all those long years she had prayed and longed for her daughter.
WHEN SUSAN MET Sheriff Adams the following day, she realized immediately that he was older than she had pictured him during their conversation. She estimated now that he must be in his mid or maybe even late forties.
His face bore the perpetual tan of someone who virtually lived outdoors,