Touching the Past (3 page)

“I didn’t know for certain.” Zac hadn’t. Not with the certainty that came from physical evidence. But instinct, knowledge of the girl she’d been, had been enough for him. “I watched you. That afternoon at Evie’s house.” He hadn’t been able to
not
watch Mallory. When she was anywhere near, his eyes went to her. He hadn’t been able to help it.

That afternoon he’d gone to join the search for Evie. Partly because his younger sisters sometimes played with the neighborhood girl and partly because it was an excuse to get out of doing work.

He’d seen Bill and Mallory Woods arrive. He worked his way through the crowd of volunteers to get closer to Mallory and watched her head for the tire swing.

It was the sense of purpose about her that made him follow her. It was as if she was looking for something. Something specific.

He would never forget the look on her face when she touched the swing. He’d never seen anything like it before or since. Her expression closed in on itself. Then her eyes opened. Zac was close enough to see the whites all the way around the eyes that suddenly seemed to be all pupil. A series of expressions crossed her face, too quickly for him to read or understand. But the thing that chilled him was that it didn’t look like Mallory’s face in that instant.

He didn’t want to look at her, but he couldn’t look away. He was frozen in place.

Mallory’s eyes closed, and she sagged against the swing. Zac took a step forward, her weakness freeing him from his paralysis. She moved before he could reach her and crossed the lawn toward the house. Her movements were halting. Heavy. She lifted and turned her head one way, then the other, as if she was scenting a trail. She stopped a foot or so from the porch where Evie’s family was standing and looked up. Zac saw her expression. His heart began to pound.

Mallory was looking at Evie’s grandmother. There was such a look of
hatred
on her face. Then she asked if anyone had looked under the porch.

Zac’s eyes were still on Evie’s grandmother. He was trying to understand why Mallory had looked at the older woman that way. He knew Theresa Martin. She played bingo with his grandmother and sometimes paid his younger brother Dom with cigarettes for running errands for her. She was like a hundred other people in the city. A thousand. Doing the minimum to get by, with no hope of doing anything else.

Mallory had to know that.
Did
know that. So why that look? Why the hatred? From Mallory, who wouldn’t hurt a fly?

Because Zac was watching Theresa Martin, he saw the flare of panic and anger on her face. Knew in that instant that she’d done something to Evie. Knew that somehow Mallory knew it, too.

It was circumstantial. Less than circumstantial. But he knew in his gut Mallory had found Evie. That she could help him find Beth Kennedy, Daniel Yeun, and Kim Gerson.

“I don’t know how you did it, but you
knew
where Evie Martin was.” He leaned across the desk, keeping his eyes fixed on Mallory’s. “I need you to do that again.”

She shifted her gaze, lowering her eyes. “I…can’t.” Her fingers were white, she was holding her coffee mug so tightly.

“You
have
to.” His voice was too loud, too demanding. He knew it as soon as he saw her draw back in her chair, but he couldn’t help himself. “Look!” He spread the photos across the desk and stabbed at them with his finger. “This is Beth Kennedy. She’s got two boys. We have no idea what’s happened to her.
They
don’t know.” He slid Kim’s picture toward her. “Kim Gerson. She just got engaged. Her fiancé and her parents are frantic. Her friends are calling the department all the time. ‘She’s the nicest person in the world,’ they say. ‘What’s happened to her?’ And I can’t give them an answer.” He stepped back from the desk. Ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t give them an answer.”

“I want—I can’t help you, Zac.” Mallory shook her head. Silky black strands of hair slapped against her face and clung to her cheek. She brushed them back automatically. “Can’t help them. I—I can’t.”

Frustration boiled up in Zac. He’d counted on Mallory’s help. He hadn’t realized until this moment how much he’d counted on her. He slammed his hand against the desktop, his palm connecting with a glossy picture. “You
can
help them! Give them—”

“That’s
your
job, Zac! Not mine!” Mallory jumped out of the chair. She leaned across the desk, her face close to his. “Do you have any idea of what it does to me, Zac? What it
did
to me to see what happened to Evie? To live through it with that scared little girl? To experience—” She went very still.

Her face was so close to his, Zac could feel her breath against his cheek. Smell the light floral fragrance of her perfume.

Suddenly he was back to that day. While Bill Woods talked with a detective and the officers dispersed the crowd, Zac followed Mallory to her father’s truck. Her steps were hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure where she was going. She swayed and started to collapse. Zac caught her. She leaned against him, her body a warm weight. Her skin was flushed. A light sheen of sweat covered it, though her arms felt cool against his. Her breathing was shallow, coming in quick pants.

Zac’s hand itched to touch the breasts pressing against his shirt and chest. He had a hard-on he was pretty sure could be seen from outer space. He licked his lips and rubbed his sweaty palm on his dirty jeans. He was just lifting his hand when he heard Bill Woods’ voice behind him. “Mallory, honey. Are you all right?”

Zac could laugh a little about it now. At the time, though, he’d reacted as if they’d been caught in the act with Bill holding a shotgun on him.

He shouldered Mallory away. As she was already starting to straighten, the movement caused her to stumble. Zac reached for her, then pulled back. It was her father who helped her steady herself.

“
No es
—” Zac bit back the flood of Spanish that threatened to erupt from his mouth. It was his first language, and he tended to fall back on it when excited or stressed. “She isn’t feeling well, Mr. Woods. I was trying to—but you’re here.” He backed away, keeping his hands in front of his jeans and hoping the older man didn’t notice his condition. “I’ll go now. See you.” He turned and ran before either Bill or Mallory could say anything.

It had taken all his courage to go to his next tutoring session. He’d been sure Bill would meet him at the door and toss him down the steps. But neither he nor Mallory mentioned it. Mallory was her usual aloof self. Zac wondered if she’d even noticed his teenaged horniness.

It’d certainly left an impression on him. More than one night afterwards he’d wondered what it would have felt like to touch her. Kiss her. Taste those soft lips.

And now those same lips were just as close to him again.

What would she do if he kissed her?

Zac blinked. What was he doing? He was here to get Mallory’s help. Not fulfill an adolescent fantasy.

He cleared his throat. Careful to avoid her gaze, he shuffled the pictures together. What had they been saying?

He looked down at the desk. Daniel Yeun’s high school graduation picture stared up at him. Solemn dark eyes looked out from beneath tri-colored bangs that were just a touch too long.

Guilt and anger stabbed at Zac. How could he have forgotten Yeun and the others? They needed him. Needed
Mallory
.

“Look at him.” He shook Yeun’s picture in front of Mallory’s face. His voice came out rough and harsh. “He’s not even twenty years old. His parents are old enough to be his grandparents. They’re worried sick. Their son just disappeared. They—”

“Stop it.” Mallory pushed the photo away, then turned and stepped away from the desk. Keeping her back toward him, she wrapped her arms around herself. Her hands ran up and down the sleeves of her sand-colored sweatshirt. “I’ll do it.” Her voice was a husky whisper.

“You—you’ll do it?” Her sudden capitulation caught Zac off guard. He eyed her stiff back uncertainly. He was caught between feeling relief and a sudden anxiety. She didn’t want to do this. What if she shouldn’t?
To live through it with that scared little girl? To experience—
Her words came back to him. What was he really asking of her?

“Mallory—”

“Do you—”

Zac waited for Mallory to continue.

After a moment of awkward silence, she said, her back still toward him, “Is there… Do you know where they disappeared?” Her voice was cool. Cold.

Zac came from around the desk. He wanted to see her face. He
needed
to see it. She was beyond being aloof. She was shutting him out, and for some reason he couldn’t name, it was infuriating him.

He moved behind her. “We have a general idea.” He reached out a hand, but let it fall before he touched her. He didn’t have the right.

“I’ll need to go there.”

“I can take you.”

Mallory’s shoulders tightened and lifted, then fell. Zac had the impression she was going to refuse. He was ready to argue. He wasn’t sure why it was so important for him to stay near her, but he was going to.

She surprised him again by saying, “All right.” She finally turned in his direction, but her eyes wouldn’t meet his. “Do you want to do this now? Or will tomorrow be soon enough?”

He wanted to do it now. Tonight. To get it over with.

To get it over with.

Why was he so anxious? Was it because he’d been working the case for two months and this was the closest thing to a lead he had? Or was it something to do with Mallory?

She was waiting for him, her head bowed. Again he had that urge to touch her. To lift her chin and look into her eyes. To see what she was thinking. To see if she knew why he felt so confused and uncertain.

“Tomorrow.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at—” He let the sentence hang.

“Ten?” Mallory answered after a pause. “I’ll need to make some calls first. Rearrange appointments.”

“That’s fine.”

There was another awkward pause. Zac knew he should say good night and leave. He’d finished his business. There was nothing else for him to do now.

He didn’t want to go.

Maybe it was seeing Mallory again. Maybe it was being in the house that had been the home he hadn’t had with his own family. But he didn’t want to leave just yet.

He shifted his weight. It seemed like there was something more he should say.

It was Mallory who broke the increasingly strained silence. “If you have something from each of the…the missing persons.” She stumbled over the phrase. “That’s important to them, that they might have touched before they disappeared. It would help.”

“I can do—get them for you.”

Mallory stood by the study doorway. It was obvious she was waiting for him to leave. That…
annoyed
Zac. And it irritated him that he was annoyed.

He grabbed the photos and stuffed them in the case. “I’ll pick you up at ten.” His tone brusque, he brushed past her, ashamed of letting his irritation show.

Mallory followed him to the door. She looked in his direction, then away. “Well…good night.”

Zac hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. It didn’t seem right to leave it like this. With this…awkwardness. There should be more.

He wanted to kiss her. Not good night. He wanted to
kiss
her. To see if what he’d felt when she took his hands at the door was real or just the leftover feelings of a boy with a crush.

Zac’s hand tightened on the knob. That wasn’t what he was here for. He turned the knob and pushed. “Good night.” He hunched his shoulders and headed outside.

In his car, he stared at the closed door of the house, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, and chewing the inside of his cheek.

Doubt,
real
doubt, gnawed at him. This wasn’t going to work.

It wasn’t Mallory’s abilities he distrusted. It was himself. The minute she’d opened the door and smiled at him, he’d been transformed into that awkward high school boy lusting after the unattainable golden girl.

Mallory hadn’t been exactly pretty in high school, but her features had been arresting. The blend of characteristics she’d received from her Japanese mother and Caucasian father had given her something of a fox-like look, with a pointed chin, sharp nose, and upwardly tilted eyes. Age and a different hairstyle had softened the points of her chin and nose and deepened the tilt of her eyes. She still wasn’t a classical or Hollywood-type beauty, but she had the kind of looks that would only grow more attractive as she grew older.

But there was more to her than looks. As a more experienced man, he was able to express to himself what he’d only sensed as a teenager. When she didn’t guard against it, there was a directness and warmth in Mallory’s gaze that made it seem as if she was totally invested and interested in him alone.

That look had seldom been turned his way when she’d tutored him. Or in the direction of anyone else. She saved it for Bill, her father. Zac had seen it pass between them more than once and hungered for her to look at him that way. It’d seemed to him as he was growing up, that no one cared about him at all. His brothers—both older and younger—used him primarily as a punching bag and errand boy. His older sisters ignored him, and his younger ones annoyed him. To have someone feel about him the way Mallory felt about her father seemed like an impossible dream.

He shook his head.

This wasn’t about him and what he’d wanted from Mallory back then. Or the attraction he felt for her now.

Zac slammed his hand against the steering wheel, then savagely turned the key in the ignition.

This had to stop. He needed Mallory’s help. Finding Beth, Kim, and Daniel was what was important. Not his feelings.