Her Sister (Search For Love series) Read online

  Her Sister

  by

  Karen Rose Smith

  Search For Love series, Book 7

  Published for Kindle by Karen Rose Smith

  Copyright 2013 Karen Rose Smith

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  http://www.karenrosesmith.com

  http://www.karenrosesmithmysteries.com

  *****

  Prologue

  Where is Lynnie? Where did she go?

  In her mind, five-year-old Clare Thaddeus called to her little sister—Come back, Lynnie. Please come back.

  The huge policeman crouched down in front of Clare's mother at the sofa and said in a deep, slow voice, "Mrs. Thaddeus, I know you're terribly upset. But I need details. We've got an hour before daylight. If your daughter wandered outside—"

  Clare's father, who'd been talking to another man in blue, glanced at her, and Clare huddled down deeper into the big green armchair. Her dad didn't come to her but rather went to her mom, sank down beside her and wrapped his arm around her. Then he spoke to the officer. "Our daughter, Lynnie, is three. She would never go outside into the dark on her own."

  "Tell us again where you were last night," the policeman demanded in a not-so-nice voice.

  "I worked late, preparing a brief."

  "Until five a.m.?"

  "Yes, until five a.m. As I told you, I always check the girls' rooms before turning in. Lynnie wasn't in her bed. I woke my wife. We looked through the whole house and then we called you."

  Clare had been sleeping in her brand new room. They'd moved in here—she studied her hand and counted her fingers—five days ago. Boxes were still stacked down here and upstairs. The house was okay. There were more rooms for her and Lynnie to play hide and seek. But she didn't like being alone in her own room at night. She'd liked it better when she and Lynnie had slept in the same room.

  Earlier she'd thought she'd heard Lynnie's door open...thought her sister was going to the bathroom and might come in and crawl into bed with her. But she'd been so sleepy. She and Lynnie had been running through the hose sprayer all afternoon in the backyard while Mommy unpacked. She was supposed to watch her sister. She was always supposed to look out for Lynnie. That's what big sisters did.

  Where had Lynnie gone?

  Then Clare remembered the blue car that had driven down the alley in back of the yard lots of times. The man had stopped once and watched them. But she'd thought he might be one of their new neighbors who just wanted to say hi.

  Should she tell the policeman?

  He was so big, and he looked mad. Her dad looked mad, too, as he asked, "Why do you want to question me and my wife separately?"

  "That's just the way we do it, Mr. Thaddeus."

  Although she was scared of the two big men in blue uniforms, she knew her mommy and daddy wouldn't let them hurt her. Policemen helped, didn't they? They were going to help find Lynnie.

  She slipped off of the chair, went over to the sofa and tugged on her mother's arm. "Mommy, when I was playing—"

  The doorbell rang.

  "Are you expecting someone?" the policeman asked, his brows arched.

  Not sounding at all like herself, her mother answered, "I called a friend."

  "Before or after you called us?"

  Her mother's face turned red. "After, of course."

  "Mommy." She tugged on her mother's arm again while one of the policemen went to the door.

  Her mother took Clare's hand. "Not now, honey. Natalie's going to take care of you for a little while so we can talk to the officers."

  "But, Mommy—"

  Her mom's best friend, Natalie Barlow, rushed into the living room looking as upset as her mom and dad. "What can I do?"

  Her father answered quickly. "Can you take Clare upstairs? And can you call our old neighbors? Maybe they'll help search. I've got to get out there looking, but I have to finish answering questions first."

  Natalie gave Clare a weak smile and took her hand. "Come on, honey. Let's go upstairs for a while."

  Her mom kissed her.

  Her dad gave her a nod.

  She tried again. "When I was playing with Lynnie—"

  Tears fell down her mom's cheeks. Her dad said, "Not now. Go upstairs with Natalie."

  What she had to say wasn't important. The man in the blue car didn't matter. Only Lynnie mattered.

  As Clare followed Natalie upstairs, she got very afraid. What if the policemen couldn't find Lynnie? Is that why her mommy was crying? Because she didn't think they could? Was that why her dad was mad?

  Natalie bent down to her. "I don't want you to worry. Everything's going to be all right."

  But Clare knew better. If Lynnie didn't come home, nothing would ever be right again.

  ****

  Chapter One

  "I'm not taking it back. I bought it with my own money." Shara Thaddeus stared at her mother defiantly, standing her ground. At sixteen, she was Clare's payback for the trouble Clare had given her parents when she was sixteen, though certainly not for the same reason.

  At thirty-two and a single parent, Clare didn't know what to do with Shara any more than her parents had known what to do with her. She'd rebelled because she'd wanted their attention. Any of their attention. All of their attention. When Lynnie had been around, Clare had loved her and protected her and been her big sister. But after she'd disappeared, it was as if Clare hadn't existed. Everything was always about Lynnie. And Clare had just wanted her parents to realize that although her sister was gone, she was still there.

  Shara, on the other hand, had always had all of Clare's attention. What she didn't have was a father. She'd been a precocious child, constantly testing her boundaries. Sometimes Clare just got weary of being a watchdog. But yet wasn't that what parents were supposed to do?

  After taking a deep breath for patience then putting her chin-length brown hair behind her ears, she reached out and took the blouse from Shara's hands. It really wasn't a blouse, just a stretch lace concoction that her daughter wasn't going to be caught dead in. "If you wear this out on the street, you'll get arrested. What did you buy to go with it?" She meant to keep her tone curious but it sounded judgmental anyway.

  Shara produced a pair of black leather shorts that Clare suspected would fit too snugly.

  "The outfit goes back. It's not appropriate for school. It's not appropriate to wear to the mall. It's not appropriate to be caught dusting the house in. What were you thinking?"

  "I'm thinking there are a few boys who would think I'm hot."

  Counting to ten had never been a strategy that worked well for Clare, especially when her daughter was deliberately trying to push her buttons. But she tried it again, nonetheless, not meeting with any more success than she'd achieved the last time. She prayed for patience, or wisdom or anything that would help deal with her daughter.

  Finally, in a friendly tone she asked, "Care to give me their names? Maybe I can do background checks."

  Shara studied her mother, trying to decide if she was joking or serious. "Brad said he likes me in black."

  "Brad doesn't need to like you in anything. He's a senior. You're a sophomore. We've talked about this, Shara. He has a reputation and I don't want him giving you a reputation."

  "You are wound so tight," Shara mumbled.

  Before Clare could d
eal with that assessment, the telephone rang. She glanced at it, thought about letting it ring, letting the answering machine take over. But maybe both she and her daughter needed a few minutes to cool down. She saw from the Caller ID that it was her mom's home number. This would probably be a short conversation. They never had much to say to each other.

  Clare watched Shara take the new outfit and her other bags to her room. "They go back," Clare called after her.

  Her daughter didn't bother to reply.

  Clare greeted her mom with a chipper "hello," wondering what she was going to put together for supper. As an X-ray technician at the hospital, she usually arrived home after Shara. Today, however, Shara had asked her if she could stop at the mall for an hour or so after school and Clare had agreed. It looked as if they'd both be taking a trip after supper to return Shara's purchases. Maybe they should just leave now and grab pizza there. The mall on an October Friday night would be busy.

  "Clare?"

  The tiny crack in her mother's voice made Clare pull in a breath. "What's wrong? Has something happened to Dad?"

  Although her father and mother had divorced two years after Lynnie had disappeared, Clare had desperately tried to hold onto bonds with both of them.

  "I haven't heard from your father in weeks. The last time I saw him was at the picnic you had Labor Day weekend."

  It was really strange. Her parents had once had a good marriage until Lynnie was taken. Now they were awkward together whenever they had to be in the same room. Clare always felt as if she were the cause of that awkwardness, always felt as if she should do something to make it all better, always felt as if she was the neutral territory in the middle of a decades-old war.

  After a short pause, her mother explained, "Detective Grove called me. He already spoke to your father."

  Clare's heart skipped a beat. "Detective Grove?" The picture of a tall lean man in a rumpled suit flashed in her mind—the man who had taken over Lynnie's investigation after the patrol officers' first visit.

  "Do you remember him?" her mother asked gently—too gently—and Clare had a shivery premonition of what could be coming.

  "Didn't he retire?" she asked her mom, her heart racing now.

  "Yes, he did. But he's not really keen on retirement and he's been...working a few cold cases." Her mother's voice was edgier than usual and a little wobbly, too.

  "What are you trying to tell me, Mom?" Clare's hands became sweaty as she thought about all the possibilities. Lynnie's face at three and a half was still so vivid in her mind—the face they'd used on posters...the face she'd envisioned floating in a river...the face on the body in nightmares that had been buried in a ditch. The not knowing had always been worse than knowing. The not knowing is what had torn them all apart. Clare really believed that if the police had found Lynnie's body somewhere, maybe they could have gone on as a family.

  Maybe.

  "He wants to meet with us tomorrow morning. You, me and your dad. He thinks he has a lead."

  Clare's throat went desert dry. Even though she'd only been five, she remembered the hope that had filled her parents' faces whenever a new lead had been phoned in, whenever the police had gotten a tip from an informer on the street, whenever there was a chance that Lynnie might have been spotted. She also remembered the expression on their faces when all those hopes had been dashed and one day had turned into the next without teaching them anything new.

  Except that they were losing each other, hour by hour, day by day, week by week.

  "What kind of lead?" Clare asked, trying to control the shakiness in her voice.

  "He wouldn't tell me over the phone. He's working out of his home, so I offered the use of my office at Yesteryear. Can you be there tomorrow at ten?"

  Her father wouldn't like meeting at her mother's shop. Now and then he'd complained to Clare that her mother was lost in the past. He didn't like the mustiness of the store or what the old furniture represented—a history that couldn't be changed...a child who would never come home. Her mother didn't see it that way at all. Her mother liked to relive every memory she had. She wrapped herself in the reminiscence of what she told Clare were the happiest years of her life. More than that, Yesteryear had given her a reason to get up each day, a reason to search for old furniture if not for her daughter, though Clare suspected she still looked for Lynnie everywhere she went.

  Trying to prepare herself for the meeting, she shored up her courage and asked, "Did Detective Grove say whether this lead means Lynnie's alive or dead?"

  A sharp intake of breath met her question and then her mom answered, "He didn't say, and I didn't ask. I still have hope, Clare. I always have."

  Yes, her mother had held onto the hope that Lynnie was still alive, that some misguided woman had taken her and raised her for her own. But a misguided woman didn't steal a child from someone's house in the middle of the night.

  False hope was worse than no hope at all. Clare and her dad understood each other on that one point, at least.

  "I'll be there tomorrow, Mom, but please don't—" She wasn't sure how to say it.

  "Please don't believe in the best rather than the worst? Oh, Clare. Maybe as you get older you'll learn that believing in the best is the only way to get through some days. I'll see you in the morning, honey."

  Clare and her mother weren't on the same wavelength...would never be on the same wavelength. Just like her and Shara?

  She said goodbye, hung up the phone and went to her daughter's room. Arguing with Shara would postpone thinking about the meeting tomorrow morning...a meeting that could shake up all of their lives once more.

  ****

  Amanda Thaddeus stood before the 1930's hutch, staring through the glass door, barely noticing the ornate gridwork, hardly aware of the Belleek cup and saucer inside. Turning away from the hutch and the 1930's collection—the maple rocker, the oak desk, the European armoire—Amanda understood her search for antiques to fill her shop had been an ongoing quest to find Lynnie. Not that it made any sense. But she'd always looked everywhere, no matter where she went.

  Couldn't her little girl be around that street corner? Hidden in a doorway? In the backseat of that car? She'd practically driven herself and Max crazy...until he'd spent less and less time with her...until they'd searched separately...until he'd started drinking.

  Until he'd stopped drinking and found a cause.

  Her cause had been a little different—to make a life for her and Clare without Lynnie, and then without Max. Oh, he was there for Clare when he wasn't working on an important case. He never shirked his financial responsibilities. But Amanda had found purpose in succeeding on her own.

  The search for Lynnie had almost bankrupted them. Fortunately her own mother's legacy, a farmhouse filled with antiques, had given her the chance to make a living.

  Yesteryear mattered.

  When the door to her shop opened and Detective Grove stepped inside, she felt almost dizzy with anticipation, both dreading and craving whatever news he'd brought. Her hands became clammy and that piece of toast in her stomach felt like it was jumping around. Trying to hold onto her composure, she concentrated on the detective, seeing immediately the evidence of the passage of years around his eyes, his mouth, his thick jowls, his receding hairline.

  "Detective Grove," she said in what she hoped was a composed, even tone.

  "Mrs. Thaddeus." His gaze appraised her, probably noticing the difference the years had made in her, too, particularly her strawberry-blond hair. As a young mother she had worn it long. Now it framed her face in the natural waves she'd once despised with gray mixed into the strawberry blond. At fifty-six she'd come to terms with how her appearance had changed, how her body had changed and how her life had changed.

  Before she could voice even one of her many questions, the ding of the bell sounded again and her ex-husband stepped over the threshold. She couldn't look at Max without remembering everything—the good, the bad and the ugly. Still, when she looked into those
intense brown eyes—Clare's eyes and Lynnie's eyes—she couldn't quell a stirring deep inside of her that remembered intimacy with this man. His thick brows once as dark brown as his hair were laced with silver now. His angular face had an almost gaunt look this morning and she knew that was probably because he hadn't slept all night, just as she hadn't, thinking about what Detective Grove was going to tell them. In jeans, running shoes and a red windbreaker, Max looked less like the juvenile law attorney he was than a man ready for a weekend of whatever might come his way. But then, Max had always been prepared for anything.

  Except for losing a daughter.

  "Clare was pulling in as I came in." His deep voice resonated in the room.

  No—It's nice to see you, Amanda. No—How are you, Amanda? No hug just to let her know he knew what she was feeling. But then she wasn't rushing toward him with an embrace, either.

  The bell over the door tinkled again as Clare came into Yesteryear, hugged Max and didn't let go for a long time.

  Amanda could feel all of her daughter's anxiety, as well as her own. Clare didn't confide in her. That hadn't changed from when she was a teenager. But the deep down sadness and the fear that had been with Clare ever since Lynnie was taken from them, Amanda could feel, too. She'd been so lost in the search for Lynnie, in the absence of Lynnie, that she hadn't realized for a long time how deep that fear was in Clare—the fear that she'd not only lose her sister, but her mother and her father, too.

  After Max released his daughter, Clare came to her. When Amanda put her arm around Clare's shoulders, her daughter stiffened and Amanda wished, as with so many other things, that this would be different, too.

  "Do you want to do this in your office?" Detective Grove asked gruffly.

  Leading the way, taking a deep breath of the past as well as potpourri, Amanda motioned to the open door at the back of the store. The space was small—a hutch with a computer, file cabinets, a set of bookshelves for all her reference books on antiques. Her swivel desk chair and the captain's chair always resided there, but she'd tugged in two ladder back chairs from the shop, so they'd all have someplace to sit.