Chill Factor

“I didn’t ask.”

“But you deserve an explanation.”

She got up and walked to the window. The worst storm of the past hundred years had marked the end of winter. Spring had arrived and was edging toward summer. Twenty stories below, Atlanta’s streets were basking in the sunshine of a mild afternoon.

“You switched hospitals, Tierney. You instructed the FBI office in Charlotte not to give anyone, including me, any information on how to contact you. I got the message.”

“Obviously you didn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“You had to bury Dutch,” he said. “And I had to exhume Torrie.”

Her pique deflating, Lilly turned to face him. “Forgive me. I haven’t told you yet how sorry I am about her.”

“Thank you. Finding out what happened to her was both a relief and a finality. Good on the one hand. Terrible on the other.”

She almost went to him then, but she didn’t. “I’d like you to tell me about Torrie. If you feel like talking about it.”

“It’s not a pretty story,

but you need to hear it.”

She motioned for him to go ahead.

He took a deep breath. “Torrie was only a few months old when I went on an extended trip to Africa. I was under contract to cover the continent for a travel magazine. What was supposed to take a few weeks turned into months. Many months. I missed Thanksgiving. Christmas. Lots of things.

“In my absence, Paula—Torrie’s mother—met and fell in love with another man. When I finally came home, she slapped the divorce papers on me before I had unpacked. Paula and her husband-to-be wanted me to abdicate all parental rights to Torrie, saying that he’d spent more time with her than I had.

“At the time, I talked myself into believing that it was the right and decent thing to do. Lambert loved Paula. He treated Torrie as his own. I figured it would be better for my daughter if I simply bowed out and let them have their life without any interference from me.”

“ ‘At the time,’ ” Lilly said quietly. “That’s a crucial qualifying phrase.”

“Right.” He stood up and moved to a wall where some of the magazine’s more notable issues had been framed for display. He looked at them individually, but Lilly didn’t think he was actually reading the copy or taking in the cover photos.

“They never stopped me from seeing her. In fact, they encouraged it. But the visits were always awkward. We didn’t know each other. I was a stranger the poor kid was forced to see now and then. I would enter stage left, say an appropriate line or two, exit stage right, disappear into the wings for another year or so. This was my daughter’s life, and I played a walk-on role in it. As years went by, I didn’t do even that. The visits became more infrequent.”

He moved to another cover, studied it. “I was on the Amazon when word reached me that she was missing. She had disappeared without a trace and was believed to have been kidnapped. It took me two weeks to get back to civilization and return to the States.

“I hadn’t seen her for years. I’d been notified as a courtesy, nothing more. Paula was surprised when I showed up on their doorstep in Nashville, which in itself says a lot about me and my priorities, doesn’t it? But rather than comfort her and do whatever I could to make the situation easier for her and Lambert, I acted like a jackass.

“I had the gall to criticize them for not staying longer in Cleary and insisting that the search continue. Winter had set in. It wasn’t feasible that they keep hundreds of people combing that mountain. But I refused to accept that there was nothing more to be done than hope that Torrie would turn up somewhere, someday. I couldn’t settle for her picture on a milk carton and a plea for information.”

He turned around to face her. “Lambert tossed me out of his house, and I don’t blame him. I checked into a hotel. And in that impersonal room, where nothing except a duffel bag of clothes belonged to me, I suddenly realized that I was utterly alone.

“Paula and her husband had each other to lean on, cry with, cling to for support. I didn’t have anybody, and I was the reason why. It occurred to me that I had given away the only other person on the planet who shared my blood. That’s when I came face-to-face with what a selfish bastard I’d been.

“Giving up Torrie hadn’t been a sacrifice. That’s what I’d told myself, but it wasn’t true. It had been self-serving, not some grand gesture of self-denial for my child’s sake. I’d wanted to globe-trot. I’d wanted freedom to pack up and leave without having to take my family into consideration. In that empty hotel room, I saw myself for what I was. Or at least for what I’d been. It was time to make restitution.

“That night, I resolved to learn what happened to Torrie or die trying. That was one responsibility I would not shirk. It would be the last thing I ever did for my child. The only thing I ever did for her.” By the time he finished, his voice was rough with emotion.

“I saw it through to the end, Lilly. I had to crawl out of my hospital bed, but I was there when the forensic specialists conducted the exhumations. I was with Paula when our daughter’s remains were positively identified. We held a small memorial service and a proper burial for her in Nashville.”

He turned away from his inspection of the magazine covers and looked at her. His eyes were misty. “I had to put closure on all that before I could come to you. Do you understand?”