Out of Reach: A Novel (2 page)

Erin sighed, the mistakes of her past a burden she couldn’t ignore. Any more than she could walk away from the responsibilities of her present.

Standing, she headed for the showers, stripping off the Farm-issued sweats as she went.

She’d returned to the States for the funeral and never left again. With her mother gone, there was Janie to care for. And Claire. Always Claire.

Now Erin was stuck.

The CIA didn’t know what to do with her. She wasn’t an analyst or a techie, so they’d placed her at Georgetown while they tried to figure it out. Armed with a Ph.D. in International Studies, which she’d earned before joining the Agency, she taught Ethics and International Relations to twenty-year-olds, while keeping her eyes open for potentially violent anti-American sentiments among the foreign student population. And she worked the embassy circuit, attending parties two or three times a week.

Not that she minded teaching. She enjoyed it and found hope in the bright young minds, but it wasn’t what she’d spent her entire adult life training for. As for her unofficial assignments—watching foreign students and embassies—on the surface they seemed similar to what she’d done overseas. But it was different on American soil, where she had strict orders to take no action and only report what she saw.

Meanwhile, her bosses seemed to have forgotten her.

So, yeah, she was angry. But, as she’d told Cassidy, sometimes life sucked.

A few minutes later, she left the locker room wearing army fatigues, the standard dress code for CTs and their trainers, with her one-day temporary ID clipped to the breast pocket.

Bill was waiting for her. “Still mad?” he asked.

She started toward the exit. “Should I be?”

“Look, Erin, I’m sorry if I upset you.”

“Who do you think you’re kidding? You meant to piss me off.”

He threw her a glance, obviously gauging her mood, then smiled. “Well, yeah, but . . . Okay, hell, I’m not the least bit sorry. But hey, what are friends for, if not to meddle in each other’s lives?”

They stepped outside, the bright fall sunlight cool and crisp. She turned toward him. “Is that what we are?”

“I thought so.”

They fell silent, the memory of that one night awkward and strained between them. Erin retreated to a safe subject. “So, do I come back for your new class next month?”

He laughed shortly and nodded, obviously deciding he’d said enough on the subject of her anger. “Yeah, I want you.” It was the wrong thing to say. “I mean—”

She held up a hand. “It’s okay. I know what you meant.” She gestured toward the visitors’ lot—a half mile on the other side of the complex. “I better be going.”

“I’ll be done here in about half an hour. Join me for a drink?”

She shook her head. “I can’t . . .”

“Just a drink, Erin.”

“It’s Friday, Marta’s night out, and Janie and I do the pizza thing. Plus, I have a long drive home.”

“Invite me along.”

That surprised her, and she was half tempted. Despite the family that occupied her every free thought, she’d been lonely this last year. Still . . . “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Janie had suffered too much loss already. Erin wouldn’t parade men through her life as well.

“Okay, then what about tomorrow? I’ll drive up and we’ll make it dinner. I’ll treat you both.”

“I can’t.”

He hesitated, then said, “You know, you don’t have to handle this all alone, Erin.”

She knew what he meant. “Yes, I do. They’re my family, my responsibility.”

“Erin . . .” He started to say something more, then obviously thought better of it and backed off. “Okay, but if you ever need anyone.”

She reached out and touched his hand. “You’re a good friend, Bill.”

“I’d like to be more.”

“There’s no more of me to give.”

He looked about to argue further, but dropped her hand and stepped back instead. “Okay, go on and get out of here. You got a kid waiting for you.”

Smiling tightly, she turned away and started across the grounds to the parking lot. She suspected she was throwing away her chance at a good man, a man who understood her, maybe better than she understood herself. But besides her job, there was no room for anything or any “one” besides Janie and Claire. That was a reality she’d just have to live with.

II

T
WO HOURS LATER
, Erin pulled into her driveway. It was a small, two-story redbrick house in Arlington, one of the quiet suburban neighborhoods servicing the metropolitan D.C. area. She’d bought it ten months earlier, before moving Janie and Marta north from Miami.

She’d never pictured herself as a home owner, and certainly not a resident of the suburbs. But with her mother’s death, everything in her life had changed. Even this. Janie needed a place to be a child, a family area where she could grow up. Even if the only family she had was an unconventional aunt, an aging family friend, and a mother who’d spent most of the last seven years in and out of various mental institutions.

As Erin pushed through the back door, Janie looked up from the kitchen table and grinned. “Come see what I made, Aunt Erin.”

Erin’s mood lifted. No matter how frustrated she’d become with her job, she loved having this little girl in her life. The realization had come to her gradually these last few months and had surprised her. She’d never thought of herself as the maternal type, but her niece had crept into her heart and taken hold.

Closing the door, she went to see Janie’s latest creation.

“You like it?” Janie asked, eyes wide. “It’s for Mommy. I want her to know what my new school looks like.”

“It’s great.”

Janie’s talent was unmistakable. Even Erin, who had no experience with children, could see the child had a special gift. She’d used colored pencils to draw her school, an older, three-story brick monstrosity, flag in front, children’s drawings in the windows. On the sidewalk in front of the building walked a little girl with curly blond hair, two women at her side.

Erin recognized herself on Janie’s right: an angular woman of medium height, thick dark hair—her one good feature—cut short because she didn’t have the patience to mess with it, and a little wild looking because even short it took too much time to style. Marta walked on Janie’s left: smaller, older, and rounder, with a noticeably maternal air.

Erin had taught Janie to pay attention, to notice her surroundings, the small details in everyday things. And people. But her talent for putting what she saw onto paper was all her own.

“It’s the first day of school,” Janie explained. “Remember? When you went with us?”

“I do.” Janie’s eye for detail translated into a realism Erin found difficult to believe came from seven-year-old hands. “And I knew exactly what day it was.” She ruffled Janie’s hair.

Just then, Marta entered the kitchen, a basket of laundry in her arms. “You’re home early.”

“I got lucky. No students pounding on my door today. Here”—Erin started toward the older woman—“let me help.”

“Don’t be silly.” Marta sidestepped her and crossed to the basement door. “I may not be as young as some people, but I’m still capable of carrying a basket of dirty clothes.”

“Erin likes my drawing, Marta.” Janie had returned to her colored pencils, adding a few straggly flowers along the edge of the building.

“Of course she does, dear,” Marta said, and disappeared down the stairs.

“Your flowers look sad,” Erin said, referring again to Janie’s drawing.

“That’s because they know summer is over, and soon it will be cold outside.”

“Do you miss Florida, sweetie?” Erin asked, trying to keep the concern from her voice. “Because remember, you and Marta are going down for a visit next week when your school closes.”

“I know.” Janie went back to her picture. “I miss Grandma. But it’s nice here, too. I can’t wait to see the trees change colors.”

“Aren’t you excited about the trip?” None of them had been back to Miami since moving north, but with two teacher work days coming up, Marta had thought it would be a good opportunity to take Janie home for a visit.

Janie shrugged.

Erin stroked her fingers through Janie’s bright curls, wondering if she should say more. Ask questions. Her niece had experienced more than her share of upheaval. She’d never met her father, and Claire . . . Well, Claire had never been well enough to be a real mother to Janie. That role had been left to others, to her grandmother and Marta. Then, after Erin’s mother’s death, Erin had moved Janie away from the only home she’d ever known.

Although Janie showed no outward signs, Erin knew all about burying one’s pain. So she worried. Was she doing enough? Could she fill the void the other two women had left in this child’s life?

“Are we having pizza tonight?” Janie asked, obviously unaware of her aunt’s concerns.

Erin smiled. “I promised, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” Janie pumped her arm in the air, a new gesture straight from her peers. “I love pizza.”

“Give your aunt a few minutes to catch her breath,” Marta said, reentering the kitchen. “She just walked through the door.”

Erin smiled at Janie, rolling her eyes a bit, making Janie giggle.

Marta ignored their antics. “Are you done with your drawing, sweetie?”

“Almost,” Janie said, picking up a pencil and adding touches of yellow to the trees. “See, even the trees know winter is coming.”

Erin laughed at the first creative license Janie had taken with the drawing. The leaves would turn, but not for a few weeks, not until mid to late October.

“Well then,” Marta said, “put it away. You need to get cleaned up before going out.”

Janie pursed her lips, looking ready to argue, but stopped as Erin shook her head and took Marta’s side. “Go on, honey. It’s pizza night. You’ll have time later, or maybe tomorrow, to finish your drawing.”

“O . . . kay.” The word came out in two long syllables as Janie carefully put away her pencils and slid her drawing into her pad. “Can I at least leave it down here so I can draw when we get home?”

“Sure,” Erin said, bending the rules a bit and leaning down to give her niece a quick kiss on top of her head. “Now go on, I’m hungry.”

Janie scurried out of the room, bouncing her way up the stairs to her bedroom.

“Slow down,” Marta called, to no avail.

Stairs, Erin remembered, were another thing the seven-year-old loved about living here. And climbing them, up or down, at various paces—none of which resembled a walk.

“Such energy,” Erin said, once Janie was out of earshot. “Sometimes I wonder how I’ll ever keep up with her.”

“You’ll manage.” Marta busied herself with putting away the remains of Janie’s after-school snack. “You always have.”

“Yeah, well”—Erin dropped onto one of the counter stools—“that was before a certain seven-year-old came into my life.”

In truth, Erin didn’t know what she’d do without Marta. The older woman supplied a sense of stability and normalcy in Janie’s life that Erin couldn’t manage alone. Although her current assignment with the CIA kept her in the D.C. area, she worked odd and unpredictable hours. And making the rounds on the embassy circuit required that she attend parties and receptions as often as three times a week. Then there were the occasional last-minute calls from Langley, when she’d have to drop everything and go in. Plus the possibility that the Company would send her somewhere without notice always existed and wasn’t particularly conducive to raising a child. So, Erin was eternally grateful for Marta.

Besides, Marta had been part of Janie’s life from the day Claire had brought the new infant home. Erin had been away at school, having just started her doctoral program, and her mother had been too preoccupied with Claire to pay much attention to the baby. So Marta had stepped in, taking care and loving Janie as if she were her own.

Marta had been Elizabeth’s closest friend since she’d moved to Miami’s Little Havana with Erin’s father. A blond, blue-eyed Lauderdale girl, Elizabeth had been an outsider in the largely Cuban community. Marta had taken the younger woman under her wing, helping her navigate a culture more distant than the thirty miles that separated their two communities.

Together, they’d weathered Elizabeth’s two pregnancies and births, her divorce from Erin’s father and short-lived second marriage to Claire’s. Then Claire had disappeared, and Elizabeth leaned even more heavily on Marta, who’d always managed to bear the weight.

Marta had been there for Elizabeth and her children. Now she was here for Janie as well.

Erin smiled at the other woman. “You’re so good for her.”

“And you’re not?”

Erin shrugged. “Not like you.”

Marta walked over and flipped open the drawing pad Janie had left on the table. “Do you see the look on that child’s face?” She pointed to Janie on her first day of school. “She adores you.”

In the picture, Janie had eyes only for her aunt, for Erin. She’d completely missed it before, skimmed right past it when looking at the drawing with Janie. Maybe she’d wanted to miss it, because she hadn’t wanted to see how much Janie had come to depend on her. Claire had depended on Erin once, and it had cost her dearly.

“Children are smarter than you think,” Marta added. “She knows you will always be there for her.”

“She knows I’m all she’s got.” Just the thought frightened her. She’d failed Claire. What if she failed Claire’s child as well?

Marta folded her arms. “And that’s such a bad thing? You are her mother’s sister. Her blood. You give her time, and you give her love. It is all she needs.”

“You make it sound so easy.” When Erin knew from experience it was anything but.

“Easy? No. Simple? Yes.”

Erin didn’t know how to answer that, what to say. For ten months she’d been worried that she wasn’t enough for Janie, that the little girl needed someone else. A real mother. And here Marta was telling Erin that none of that mattered, that what Erin gave Janie was enough.

She pushed off the stool, deciding it was best to leave this conversation while she could. She didn’t want to delve too deeply into her role as surrogate mother to Janie, not even with Marta. Because despite the older woman’s kind words, Erin was afraid she’d come up short. “I better go change or Janie will be down here . . .”

Then she spotted the newspaper on the counter.

48 HOURS AND COUNTING
CODY SANDERS STILL MISSING
POLICE AND FBI NOT GIVING UP

A wave of nausea rolled through her. She’d heard those exact words herself, standing next to her mother, nineteen years ago. “We’re not giving up, Mrs. Baker.”

But of course, they’d had to. Eventually.

As for this little boy, this Cody Sanders . . . Forty-eight hours. Too long. By now there was a good chance the boy was dead. And if not . . . Well, that wasn’t something she wanted to think about.

“Why do you torture yourself?” Marta asked.

Erin looked up, saw the concern on the older woman’s face, and struggled to control her own features. “Should I avoid the news because it’s unpleasant?”

Marta snorted. “You are not kidding anyone, Erin. It is time to stop blaming yourself for what happened to Claire.”

“Who should I blame, then?”

“The madman who took her.”

“I was supposed to be watching her.” Erin wrapped her arms around her waist. “She was my responsibility.”

“You were twelve years old. A child.”

“Old enough—”

“No.” Marta moved from behind the counter, planting two round fists on her hips. “Now you listen to me, Erin Elizabeth. I loved your mother. She was more of a sister to me than my own. But I never,
never,
agreed with how she left you to watch Claire while she worked.”

“She didn’t have a choice.”

“There are always choices.” Marta tossed her hands into the air. “Your mother just refused to consider hers. And watching the two of you afterward, the way you blamed yourself and each other . . .” She shook her head. “Well, it hurt my heart.”

“It hurt all of us.” Erin went cold inside, rigid. “Claire most of all.”

For a moment, Marta seemed at a loss for words, searching Erin’s face. When she finally spoke, she kept her voice low. “Let it go. It is over. Done. The monster who took your sister is in jail.”

“And what about Claire?”

“Claire is exactly where she needs to be. You have seen to that. And someday, she will be well. But even if she never gets well, you’re doing everything you can.”

Erin didn’t answer. She knew she couldn’t win this argument. Marta only saw the good in those she loved, never the failures. So Erin lied. “You’re right.” She gave the other woman a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry. And I’ll try to remember that.”

Marta eyed her, possibly detecting the truth, but didn’t challenge her. “Okay, then. Now go get ready before Janie goes crazy waiting for her pizza.”

Erin headed upstairs.

Despite what Marta said, Erin knew she’d been at fault. She’d lost Claire that summer day nineteen years ago. And they’d all been paying for that mistake ever since.