Sunshine and the Shadowmaster (3 page)

“Right.”

“I was going to call my boss to say I'd have to be late. So I could wait for you to come get Mark, I mean. I was just lying there thinking about that.”

“Calling your boss?”

“Yes. Exactly. But now you're here.”

He looked amused, but in a nice way—a gentle,
shy
way. “Yes. Now I'm here.”

“So I won't have to call.”

“Right.” He was silent, still smiling. And then something occurred to him. “Listen. About the way I acted on the phone. I'm sorry. I was pretty frantic about Mark and I took it out on you.”

“Oh.” His apology warmed her. “Well, it's all right. It's Mark that matters.”

“Yes.”

She felt so strange, standing here talking to him. She hardly knew him, really. He had moved away when she was very young.

And yet, this morning, he did seem different,
nicer
than usual, somehow. And since he seemed nicer, she dared to suggest, “Something really is bothering Mark, Lucas. He said he feels that you don't
listen
to him.”

She watched his face change, watched the gentle humor and shyness vanish. “Oh, really?” The words were cold.

Heather remembered the way she had let Mark down last night. She didn't want to do that again. She made herself go on, “Yes, he really
misses
you, I think, because you're so busy all the time. He feels that you neglect him and—”

“Is this the beginning of a lecture on parenting, Heather?” His silky-rough voice chilled her. His smile was as icy as an Arctic wind.

Heather wanted to hunch her shoulders and slink away. But she didn't. It didn't matter if he disliked hearing this, or if she shook in her slippers when he gave her that freezing look. She had to say these things, for the sake of a wonderful kid who'd been so unhappy he was willing to hitchhike alone from Monterey in search of someone to listen to him.

“This isn't a lecture,” Heather said. “It's just what Mark told me. That you don't listen to him. That you're too busy for him. You might think about that when you...do whatever you're going to do, about his running away.”

“All right, Heather. I'll think about it.”

She matched his condescending tone. “Thank you.”

He regarded her for a moment. She had absolutely no idea what might be in his mind, but she refused to drop her eyes.

She thought about Jason Lee again. How very different this man was from Jason Lee. Lucas was dark, tall and lean-muscled, where Jason Lee had been blond and husky. Lucas's eyes were hooded, unreadable, his face all hard planes and angles. In Jason Lee's face, there had still been the softness of youth. He'd smiled so easily, been in love with life and everything about it...

“Now where is Mark?” Lucas spoke harshly.

Heather put away her thoughts of her dead husband. “Still in bed. Come on. We'll wake him up.”

She turned and went through the arch to the dining room, not stopping to see if Lucas followed. She didn't need to look, really. Though he moved as quietly as a stalking panther, she could
feel
the reality of him, filling the space right behind her.

At the door to the bedroom, she knocked, then waited, poignantly aware of Lucas beside her.

“Mark?” She knocked again.

When he didn't answer that time, Heather gently turned the handle and swung the door inward.

It took her several seconds to register what she saw. The bed was neatly made, the T-shirt she'd given Mark to sleep in had been folded and laid on the chair in the corner. Mark himself was nowhere to be seen.

“W
here is he?” Lucas turned on her. “What the hell is going on?”

Heather just stared at him, her mind still unwilling to believe the evidence of her eyes.

“Where is my son?” Lucas demanded.

Heather gulped. “I...I don't know. This is where I left him. In that bed. Last night.”

“Well, he damn sure isn't there now.” Lucas strode into the room and threw back the closet door. Inside, there were spare blankets on a shelf, some winter jackets and four empty plastic hangers—but no Mark.

Heather cast about frantically for some other place he might be. “The bathroom?”

The house had once belonged to Lucas's stepfather and Lucas had lived there himself for several years. He knew where the downstairs bathroom was and wasted no time in getting there, with Heather close on his heels.

It was empty.

Lucas took charge then. “Go upstairs,” he commanded. “Check all the rooms, the closets, everything. I'll look around outside.”

Heather didn't argue. Before he'd finished giving the orders, she was headed for the stairs in the dining room. She searched the rooms upstairs thoroughly, calling Mark's name as she looked, but she got no answer. With dread weighting each step, she returned to the first floor. She found Lucas in the bedroom where Mark had slept.

“Nothing?” he asked flatly, when he saw the look on her face.

She shook her head and tried to swallow down the lump that had lodged in her throat. “How about outside?”

“The same.” Lucas ran a hand through his black hair. “I was just looking around. Seeing if he left anything that would tell us what's happening here.”

“And?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He stared down at the neatly made bed. “I guess we can rule out kidnapping as a possibility, though.”

Heather hadn't even considered such a thing. “You thought maybe he was
kidnapped?
”

“Not really, no. But it does happen.”

“But not here. Not in North Magdalene.”

He gave her a very patient look. “It happens everywhere. But the fact that the bed is made seems to indicate otherwise.”

Heather tried her best to keep up with him. “Why?”

“Mark's a very neat boy. And making the bed before he ran away again is something he would do. On the other hand, if someone had taken him out of here by force, it's highly doubtful they'd have stopped to straighten up the room first.”

That made sense to Heather. And something else came to mind. “His clothes.”

“What?”

“Last night. I wanted to wash his clothes for him. But he wouldn't let me. Now that I think about it, it was like he didn't want me to take those clothes out of the room.”

“Because he was planning to put them on again as soon as he thought you were asleep?”

“Yes, I'll bet that was it.”

“So it's pretty damn likely that he did run away again.”

Heather had thought exactly that from the first. But Lucas was fighting it. And she supposed she could understand why. He'd driven all night, probably furious with Mark, but certain that he had the situation under control.

But now Mark was gone again. The situation was not under control. Not in the least.

“He
has
run away again, hasn't he?” Lucas demanded.

“Yes, I think so,” Heather answered gently.

Lucas sank to the edge of the bed, leaned his elbows on his knees and looked at his black shoes. “Where would he have gone next?”

Heather thought about that. “Maybe to my uncle Patrick's.”

Lucas looked up. “Why there?”

“I have a cousin, Marnie, who's Mark's age. She and Mark made friends last winter.”

“Marnie,” he said. “Yes. I remember Mark mentioning her. Anywhere else?”

“He might go to Kenny Riggins's, Marnie's friend. The three of them hung out together most of the time. And maybe to my Grandpa Oggie.”

“Oggie Jones?”
Lucas uttered the name as if it tasted bad. “Why would my son go to Oggie Jones?”

Though Heather adored her grandfather, she didn't waste time defending him. Grandpa Oggie was a very outspoken old fellow. He often rubbed people the wrong way.

She explained, “Mark and my grandfather seemed to hit it off. Mark was always stopping by my aunt Delilah's, where Grandpa lives now, to visit with him.”

“Who else?”

“That's all I can think of offhand.”

“Call them, then. Now. Your uncle's house first.”

Heather went to the kitchen where, with Lucas looking impatiently on, she called her uncle Patrick's house. Her aunt Regina answered. Heather quickly explained the problem and Regina said that she hadn't seen Mark since last January. She left the phone to ask Marnie, but Marnie said she hadn't seen Mark, either. Before she hung up, Regina promised to call Heather right away if Mark showed up at her house.

“Well?” Lucas said when Heather hung up.

“They haven't seen him.”

“Call your grandfather.”

Heather dialed her aunt Delilah's house and spoke with her grandfather.

“What did he say?” Lucas demanded almost before Heather could disconnect the line.

“He says he hasn't seen Mark, and he'll call if he does see him.”

“Fine. Call the Riggins kid.”

The results of that call were the same as the previous two.

“They haven't seen him?” Lucas asked when Heather had hung up.

Heather shook her head.

“Think. There must be somewhere else he might go.”

Heather pulled out a chair for herself and sank into it. “I'm sorry. Mark only stayed with me once—and then only for a couple of weeks. As far as I know, when he wasn't with me, he was with Marnie and Kenny—or my grandfather. No one else comes to mind.”

Lucas seemed to be studying her. “Let me ask you this. If Mark acted so strangely last night, why didn't you keep a closer watch on him?”

Heather sat very still. She knew exactly what was happening here. Lucas wasn't ready to deal with his own responsibility in this. So he was setting her up to take the blame for Mark's second disappearance.

“Did you hear my question, Heather?” he asked, prodding her.

She looked him straight in the eye. “Yes. I did.”

“Well?”

Very slowly and deliberately she explained, “The way he acted didn't seem so strange while it was happening. It was only looking back on it, after I saw that he was gone this morning, that it seemed odd to me.”

“So what you're saying then, is that he behaved strangely, but you ignored it—until now, when it's too late to do anything.”

Heather decided she'd had enough of his sideways remarks. She cut to the point. “Are you accusing me of not watching out for Mark?”

He lifted a black eyebrow at her and looked at her as if he wanted to burn a hole in her with his eyes. “
Did
you watch out for Mark?”

Though the power and intensity of the man intimidated her, Heather steadfastly refused to cower before him. She remembered the first rule of dealing with an overbearing male: never let him see you sweat. She'd learned that rule early on, having grown up in the rowdy family known locally as the Jones Gang.

She told Lucas, “Yes, I did watch out for Mark. And I'll do everything I can now to find out where he went. In fact, I think I'm doing pretty well here, all things considered. If anyone's guilty of ignoring Mark, it certainly isn't me.” She paused, just a moment, to let that sink in.

Then she continued, “Besides, as far as I can see it, our job right now is to find out where Mark went, not sit around discussing who's to blame that he's run away again.” Heather put both hands on the table and pushed herself to her feet. “And now what I'd like is a cup of coffee. I'll make some for you, too, if you'll stop acting like a jerk.”

Lucas looked up at her for a moment, his gaze watchful and measuring. Then he said, very gently, “I'd like that.”

She nodded. “Good, then.” She carefully pushed her chair beneath the table and went to the counter. She was scooping coffee grinds into a filter when Lucas spoke from behind her.

“I apologize. You're right. You're not the one to blame here.”

Heather kept scooping coffee. Otherwise she surely would have cried. If she'd ever wondered how much Lucas Drury really cared for his son, she never would again. The raw truth had been there in his voice just now.

“Apology accepted,” Heather said without turning, because she sensed he didn't want her to see him right then. She poured cold water into the reservoir, slipped the filter basket in place and switched on the coffeemaker before she faced Lucas again. By then, he looked as composed and aloof as ever.

“Though it's a slim bet, I should call my housekeeper in Monterey, see if maybe Mark has been in touch with them there.”

“Yes, of course. Go right ahead.”

Heather waited while he made the call, then looked at him questioningly after he hung up.

“Nothing,” he answered bleakly. “Any ideas about what to do now?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I'm listening.”

Heather hesitated. What she had in mind was the next logical step, but it wasn't an easy one to take. “I think we're going to have to call the sheriff's station.”

Lucas rubbed his temples, then he turned and walked over to the window that opened onto the backyard. He stuck his hands into his pockets, planted his legs slightly apart and stared out at the new day.

Heather tried to soften the seriousness of it all a little. “Actually I can just call my uncle Jack at home. He's a deputy at the station now.”

Lucas didn't turn. “Who the hell's your uncle Jack?”

“He's my father's half brother. Grandpa Oggie is his dad. Didn't you meet him last winter?”

“If I did, I don't remember him. And I never heard of Oggie Jones having a son named Jack.”

“Neither did we. Until last fall. It's a long story, but now Uncle Jack lives here in town. He's head of our local volunteer search and rescue team and he's a sheriff's deputy, too.”

“I see,” Lucas said. And then he was silent. He went on staring out the back window.

Behind Heather, the coffeemaker gurgled and sputtered as it finished filling the pot. Heather waited—for the coffee to be ready and for Lucas to give her the go-ahead to make the call.

But apparently, Lucas wasn't quite ready yet to accept what had to be done. When he spoke, it wasn't about Mark at all.

“The walnut tree looks the same,” he said of the old tree in the middle of the back lawn. He turned his hooded gaze on her. “Did you know I built a fort in that tree, years ago?”

Heather nodded. “Don't you remember? It was still there when Jason Lee and I came along. We played in it, too.”

“You and Jason Lee.” He gave a low chuckle. She could hear affection in that chuckle—and she could hear pain. “Joined at the hip from the first day of kindergarten, right?”

She smiled a little herself, feeling close to this strange man at that moment, connected to him through their mutual love for another man who was with them no more. “We were best friends. Always.”

“My brother was a happy kid.”

“Yes.”

“And a happy man.”

Heather tasted tears at the back of her throat. She swallowed them, then carefully said, “I need to call my boss and tell her I'll be late this morning. And then after that, we really should report Mark missing.”

Lucas just looked at her.

She held up her hands, palms out. “I don't know who else to call, Lucas.”

Lucas's shoulders lifted in a shrug. He turned back to the window and his contemplation of the old walnut tree. “Yeah. I know. Call your boss. And then your uncle. Go ahead.”