Sugar Creek (28 page)

She was a little afraid to open the last door now. Because she almost knew what she would find. She just didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to believe that Mike’s parents, and Mike now, too, had left Anna’s room untouched.
Please don’t let that be the case.
It had been over twenty years. But after seeing Lucky’s room, it seemed inevitable.

Turning off the light in Lucky’s bedroom, Rachel closed the door, then moved to the one across the hall, turning the knob and easing it open. She easily located the wall switch, illuminating a perfect little girl’s room—decorated from top to bottom in a pink ballerina theme. A fluffy pink canopy covered the white bed. Stuffed an
imals and brightly colored pillows rested beneath it. A wallpaper border featuring ballet shoes circled the room, at just about the right height for a five-year-old girl to enjoy. And—oh Lord—a little pair of black patent leather shoes still sat on the floor next to a toy box.

Rachel almost couldn’t breathe looking at it all. It was too much. And she knew that if she started opening drawers or the closet, she’d likely find little Anna Romo’s dresses and play clothes and little socks and underwear. God, no wonder Mike’s parents had had to leave—they’d…refused to let their daughter die. And they’d refused to accept Lucky’s departure, too, apparently.

What she couldn’t imagine, though, was being Mike. What had it been like for Mike and Lucky to live up here next to Anna’s untouched room—to come home to it every day after school, to wake up to it every morning. And what had it been like for Mike after Lucky had finally left, too—to live up here alone…with the ghosts of his brother and sister? No wonder he was haunted by the loss.

As Rachel quietly walked back down the steps and turned out the upstairs light, she remained a little stunned. What she’d seen up there was so…horribly sad. It made her feel Mike’s loss in a way that…possibly nothing else could have.

Catching her breath and feeling glad to be back downstairs, she walked over to a bookshelf and picked up one of the pictures there—this one of Anna and Mike. An adolescent Mike stooped down, putting his arm around her; she wore a Smurfs party hat and held up four fingers, apparently celebrating her birthday.
God, they couldn’t have known what was coming. They couldn’t have imagined there was anything but good times ahead.
Somehow, having just seen her room made her feel so much more real to Rachel than when she’d looked at the pictures a few minutes ago.

“Hey, Farris—get back here. I’m not done with you yet.”

Rachel lifted her head to see Mike, rumpled and sexy as ever, coming from the bedroom, wearing nothing but a playful grin.

But when she looked up—maybe it was something in her eyes—he dropped his gaze to what she held in her hand.

She didn’t know what to say. They’d only barely, briefly discussed Anna. And yet here she was, all around them.

All the humor left Mike’s expression—suddenly he looked sad, almost childlike, and a little lost. Rachel’s heart felt like it would burst as she whispered his name. “Mike…” And as she let her gaze sweep over all the many pictures around them. She hadn’t quite meant to do that—but it seemed impossible to avoid at this moment.

Mike hadn’t thought of this when he’d decided to bring Rachel here—the way his past, Anna, was plastered all over the house. Usually, no one came here except Logan, his parents when they were in town, or occasionally Grandma Romo. It made him feel painfully vulnerable, raw, for her to see just how open his wounds still were after all this time. And there was no way to hide it now, no way to put the lid back on the box that was his life.

“You still miss her,” Rachel said.

He nodded. “Yeah.” Yet all the pictures—somehow they required he say more. “But it’s worse than that.”

“Tell me,” Rachel whispered, setting the frame she held back on the shelf. And she spoke in such a calm, sure, quiet way that he almost
wanted
to tell her. Everything. The whole story.

Only…he never had. He’d never told anyone. Except Logan. And that had been right when it had happened, when it was fresh, when everything was falling apart around him.

No one else had ever asked him for the story. No one else dared, he supposed. There were perks to being a gruff cop no one wanted to piss off.

But when he thought of telling her, his throat began to close up. It became difficult to swallow. Shit. What had he been thinking, bringing her here? He’d just done it…naturally. It had seemed easy, and right. He’d forgotten that Anna wallpapered his house almost as much as she wallpapered his heart.

“I…” he swallowed again, hard. “I can’t, Rachel. I…can’t get it out.” Damn it. He hated how weak he sounded. Like the twelve-year-old kid who’d lost his little sister in the first place.

He realized he was looking down, at the Steelers logo on her shirt, so he made himself meet her gaze. And what he saw there was…compassion. True, deep compassion. Something he couldn’t have imagined ever getting from Rachel Farris when they’d first met—but things had changed. Her voice came out warm, gentle, as she reached to take his hand. “I want to know the things that hurt you,” she whispered.

“Why?” he asked, then found a little room for humor, albeit dark, as he leaned over, letting his forehead touch hers. “To torture us
both
?”

She returned the small smile he’d given her. Then bit her lip and said, “No, because…I care. About you. And it’s probably good to…you know, get things off your chest once in a while.”

It was sorely tempting to point out that the things she’d just said completely contradicted all her claims that this was only casual sex. Yet so had
a lot of things
that had happened tonight, and…well, he didn’t want to argue with her right now, so he let it go. He let it go and he…soaked it up. Rachel Farris cared about him. Hearing that made something in his muscles, in his bones, feel stronger somehow.

And he still didn’t know if he could get the whole damn story out, but to his surprise, again, he almost…wanted to. He didn’t want to have to remember it, to relive it in all
its painful details, but he…wanted her to know. What had happened to him.

“Come lie down with me,” he said, low, then took her hand and led her back to bed. Together, they crawled under the sheets, pulled them up to their chests. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain. Rachel reached out beneath the covers, pressing her palm to his stomach—like silent encouragement. Or comfort. It gave him both.

“We used to camp a lot when I was a kid. The whole family.” He glanced over at her—then stopped, swallowed, letting his mind go back there,
really
back there, to the day Anna disappeared. “We…we were camping at Bear Lake. It was just far enough from home to feel like we were someplace else, but not even an hour away. That day, after we set up the tents”—another tough swallow; shit, it was hard to talk about this—“Mom and Dad took the car to go get some ice and other stuff we needed, and they left me there with Lucky and Anna. I was the oldest, twelve—I was in charge of keeping an eye on them.”

“Lucky was…ten, I guess?”

He nodded.

“And Anna?”

His heart wrenched, the same as if this had happened yesterday. “She’d just turned five.”

Rachel propped on her elbow to peer down at him, and he tried to go on. But here was where it got…grim.

“We were camping in the woods, right next to a little cove, just off the road that circled the lake. It was hot out, and we were gonna go swimming—we were supposed to change into our bathing suits while Mom and Dad were gone and then wait until they came back before we got in the water.”

He tried to glance up at Rachel, but he couldn’t meet her eyes now—his chest felt like it was being crushed by some invisible weight. Yet he went on, trying to think
how to say this, trying to explain how it had happened so fast, before he even knew it.

“After we all changed, Anna was playing around the edge of the lake, wanting to go in. But I kept telling her Mom and Dad had said to wait. And then…” He had to stop, take a breath—breathing was challenging right now. “Then I heard Lucky, off in the brush, away from the campsite, excited about something, and calling me and Anna over. So I said, ‘Come on, Anna,’ and then I went into the bushes. Lucky had found a turtle.”

This was it. Right now. Crucial seconds passing. While he looked at a fucking turtle.

His breath grew labored when he opened his mouth to continue—and he finally summoned the courage to meet Rachel’s eyes. “That’s when I lost her, that’s when she disappeared. When I was in the trees looking at a goddamn turtle.”

And after that, he talked a little faster, to get it out, get through it. “When she didn’t follow us, we both yelled for her—I remember thinking she’d either love the turtle or be scared of it, but I was surprised she wasn’t answering. So I told Lucky we’d better go get her, and I had that feeling of ‘I know everything’s fine, but I better check just to be sure.’ And I thought I would walk back into the campsite and see her still sitting at the edge of the lake throwing pebbles in the water. But she wasn’t there.”

He shook his head against the pillow, and his heart raced, just like that day. “She wasn’t there. But we weren’t scared yet—we just figured she’d found somewhere else to play. So we’re calling her name and we’re both walking around the campsite, looking around, looking in the tent. And soon I’m saying, ‘This isn’t funny, Anna—you better come out from wherever you are.’”

He stopped then, remembering the moment—the first real hints of fear, the first real sense that something was hideously wrong. “But she didn’t come out. We looked
everywhere—all around the edge of the lake and in the trees and bushes. Lucky and I both got all scratched up by thorns because we were only wearing swim trunks and tennis shoes. But no matter where we looked or how many times we called her name, she never came. Ever. She was just…gone.

“We never heard a sound, we never saw anything—not a ripple in the water or footsteps in the dirt or any scrap of her bathing suit. It was like she literally vanished,
that fast
.” He snapped his fingers.

Above him, Rachel just sighed, looking nearly as lost as he’d felt at the time.

And then he started to feel that angry-at-himself guilt that had been eating him alive all these years. “You know, your parents give you one simple job—watch the other kids for half an hour. But could I do that? Could I actually keep an eye on ’em?”

“It’s not your fault,” she said, leaning nearer, touching his face with her soft hand. “You were a little boy, and even most
parents
don’t watch their kids
that
closely.”

“Next to a lake?” he asked skeptically. “I think they do.” He’d heard the it’s-not-your-fault thing before, and it was nice of people to say—but it
was
his fault.

“That’s what you think happened?” she whispered. “You think she wandered into the lake?”

Mike drew in a deep breath. It was the question that haunted him. “It makes sense,” he said. “It’s the only thing that really does.”

“But the water wasn’t moving at all when you came back? And it had only been a few minutes, right?”

He nodded. “Believe me, honey—I’ve thought through this, probably thousands of times now. Hell—maybe
hundreds
of thousands. The water wasn’t moving. It didn’t even occur to me until later that she might have gone in. Because she was a good little girl. She might complain, but she didn’t do things she wasn’t supposed to. It was
only when Mom and Dad came back, and then later, with the police, that it came up. And it seemed like the most logical answer.”

Rachel looked troubled as she asked, “Did they…look? In the water?”

He nodded once more. “They dragged the lake the next day. They didn’t find anything—but they came across deep pockets of water just beyond our shallow swimming area, and a lot of debris under the surface—chunks of trees and other stuff the rescue workers felt her body could have gotten trapped under. So most people still figured it was likely she drowned.”

“I guess,” Rachel offered, “if she’d just roamed away, someone would have found her.”

“Yeah—and she’d have heard us calling.”

“Were there any other theories?”

Mike shrugged against his pillow. “A few minutes after she disappeared, Lucky and I heard a loud, fast car racing by on the road just above the campsite. We never saw it through the woods, and we weren’t paying much attention because we were freaking out by then—but I remember thinking, ‘What if she wandered up onto the road and that speeding car hit her?’ I told the cops that, so they checked the whole area. In fact, people searched the woods all night and into the next day. A lot of people from Destiny even came over to help when they heard.

“Another theory was that somebody snatched her. A lot of that was going on back then—kids being taken from amusement parks and shopping malls. But”—he gave his head another shake—“I never really believed that could’ve happened, because we were so close. And we never heard
anything
. If somebody took her, they were silent as death and fast as lightning.”

“So then, you…you personally think she drowned.”

Mike stayed quiet. Like he’d told her, he’d turned it all over in his head until he almost couldn’t make sense of it
anymore. And it never got any easier, or more conclusive. “I don’t know
what
I think. Because I was twelve. I’m not sure how good my judgment was, you know?” He glanced up at her. Most people didn’t make what turned out to be critical life-or-death decisions at twelve. “So there’s a part of me that thinks anything could have happened. She could have walked away and gotten lost. She could have been kidnapped. She could have drowned.” He took another deep breath—and then he told Rachel what he’d never told anybody, not even Logan. “But sometimes I…take some
peace
in thinking she drowned. Sometimes I hope that’s what happened.”

Rachel flinched at the words, and he understood—they required explanation.

“Because it’s a fairly quick, painless death,” he said softly. “If somebody took her…” Shit, he
hated
thinking about that, hated the idea that it was even a possibility. “If somebody took her, it was probably much worse.” Quick, awful visions flashed through his mind: rape, torture, mutilation. A child’s body being dumped somewhere. Mike had to shut his eyes and take a deep, slow breath in order to banish the images. “But if she drowned, it was over fast, and maybe she never even knew it was coming.”