I'd been thirteen the summer she'd decided we were old enough to take the train to the CNE, back in the days when it made a special stop at the big Toronto fair. My father thought we were too young. My uncle had laughed and slapped him between the shoulders.
"Nadia will keep them out of trouble. She always does."
Dad had resisted, but I'd begged, and everyone told him he was being silly, my
mother finally snapping in annoyance.
"Stop coddling the girl, Bill. How do you expect her to grow up when you're always hovering over her? Are you going to drive her on dates, too?"
"Nah, he'll order one of the new recruits to do it. In full uniform, with a squad car." Uncle Eddie slapped my dad again. "Come on, Bill, let the girls have their fun."
So we went. And we had fun. Innocent fun. Amy flirted with the carnies too much, but I managed to drag her attention elsewhere before they could ask for her phone number. I was interested in boys, too, but with me, the operative word was boy. Amy's tastes ran dangerously close to men, though none of her boyfriends yet had been more than a high school senior.
Afterward, when we got to the train station, Amy's father wasn't there yet. My dad had wanted to pick us up, but he'd been called last night to switch shifts.
Still riding high from the day of freedom, Amy wanted to start walking. It was dark, but the road was lit, so I said okay. We'd gone about a kilometer when Drew Aldrich pulled over in his pickup, and asked if we needed a ride.
Aldrich lived down the road from Amy. He was twenty-four, with dark hair, a leather jacket, and bushy brows over eyes that always seemed to be laughing at you. Amy swore he was the spitting image of Matt Dillon in The Outsiders, and swooned every time he stopped to talk to her... which he did often enough to make me nervous. I'd wanted to tell my dad. She'd blown up when I suggested it - one of the few real fights we'd ever had. After a week of not talking, I'd promised to mind my own business when it came to Drew Aldrich.
But he made me nervous. So when he offered us a ride that night, my answer was no. Amy cajoled. Amy pleaded. I stood my ground, anxiously scanning the road, praying to see Uncle Eddie's big white car. It was only when Amy threatened to go alone that I got into the truck.
I had to keep her safe.
It was my job.
I spent the next few hours walking Sammi's route. Like most roads up here, this one was heavily wooded on both sides, with endless twists and hills and valleys. Stand at any point and you couldn't see more than a hundred feet in either direction.
Every few steps, I'd look around and ask myself "If I found a mark here, could I make a safe hit?" In every case, the answer was yes. The few times that I heard a car coming, it took at least three minutes for it to come into view, more than enough time to pull a body - and a stroller - into the ditch and hide.
Yet if someone had attacked Sammi, I was sure it would have been a sexual predator. That meant he wouldn't have a corpse to dispose of. He'd have a live teenager and baby to deal with. Sammi would put up a fight and it would take more than three minutes to get her into the woods.
There were no signs of struggle in the gravel, no broken bushes to suggest that anyone had been dragged into the forest.
The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that Meredith, and everyone else, was right. Sammi had run off. There was only one thing I needed to do to set my mind at rest. Break into Janie's place and search for proof that Sammi had packed and left.
Chapter Six
I returned to the lodge ten minutes late for a scheduled shooting lesson. That wouldn't do. While the disappearance of a teen and a baby might seem more important than explaining basic gun safety to four guys who just wanted to shoot something, I made my living by my reputation, and my reputation was that of a conscientious hostess who put her guests first.
After the lesson and some target practice, I sent the men in to dinner while I stayed behind, ostensibly to lock up. In my experience, putting guns in the hands of new-bies has a strange effect on hormones. I'd warded off more wandering hands postshooting than after the most beer-drenched bonfires.
I took the shortcut back to the lodge, avoiding the men, and slipped in the kitchen door. The wail of an electric carving knife greeted me. Emma looked up from her chicken and motioned to the message pad by the phone. On the top sheet was a note that my aunt Evie had called.
Aunt Evie?
It had to be Evelyn. She'd never contacted me here before because Jack forbade it. The only excuse she'd have was if Jack wasn't around to pass along a message.
I told Emma to start serving dinner without me, then I hurried upstairs.
"It's about Jack," Evelyn said, skipping any pleasantries. As I lowered myself to the edge of the bed, she bitched about his rule against calling me. I could picture her, in her designer shirt and slacks, white hair cut in a sleek bob, cussing like a sailor as she chewed out her favorite student. Evelyn was probably closing in on seventy, if not past it, and was supposed to be retired, but she still lived and breathed the business, pulling strings, manipulating players, delighting in watching them dance.
"Is he okay?" I asked finally, cutting her rant short.
"He's an idiot, that's what he is. Acts like he's still twenty, like he can still do the things he did at twenty, then gets himself hurt - "
"Hurt?" My fingers clenched the plastic tighter. I should have called. Goddamn it, I should have called when that first month passed without any word -
"He broke his ankle."