He answered after a few moments. “Hey, Sadie. How ya doing?” His voice was soft, compassionate.
“Fine.” She swallowed, trying to steady her voice. “Cade, I thought you’d want to know that … I found my sister’s room.”
There was a slight pause. “What?”
“Her motel room. They checked in two days ago at the Flagstaff on Mimosa. I went in. Her stuff is still here.”
She could hear the controlled excitement in his voice. “Sadie, don’t touch anything.”
“Hurry, Cade. Maybe there’s a clue here.”
“We’ll be right over.”
She hugged her knees and waited right outside the door until she heard the sound of the sirens. Her phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Blair.
“Hello?”
“Sadie, Cade just called me and told me you found Amelia’s room. Are you sure it’s hers?”
“Absolutely. I even saw her birth certificate. They intended to come back, Blair. The television is still on, and all their clothes are here. She even left her purse and cell phone.”
“You went in? Sadie, are you crazy? How did you manage that?”
“I told them I was Amelia and that I’d lost my key.”
Blair huffed out a huge sigh. “Look, I’m coming over. Don’t leave, okay?”
“I won’t. But, Blair, before you come, can you go back to the office and do a quick search? I need to know who belongs to the number 555-1289.”
She knew Blair had jotted it down. “Why?”
“Because it was on her cell phone’s call history. It’s a local number and it might be a clue.”
“Sadie, you know better than to touch her things before the police can go through them!”
“Please, Blair. Just tell me whose number it is.”
Blair hung up, and she heard the sirens getting closer. The men loitering in the parking lot vanished, and she heard doors closing.
Her phone rang, and she clicked it on. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Blair said. “I found out whose it was.”
“That fast?”
“I know somebody at the phone company. You’ll never guess who that number belongs to.”
Sadie closed her eyes. “Tell me it’s not Marcus Gibson.”
“Bingo.”
Sadie thought she might throw up. She clicked off the phone and managed to hold herself together as Cade’s car and the others filled the parking lot. She got up and went to the rail. Scott Crown was there, and he started up the stairs behind Cade and McCormick.
“I have a key,” she told Cade as he approached.
“How did you get—?”
“I lied. Told the clerk I was Amelia.”
Cade sighed. “Sadie, you shouldn’t have gone in.”
“I didn’t touch anything except her cell phone. She tried to call Hanover House and Marcus Gibson. But the calls were short. Maybe she hung up when they answered. I left everything else just as it was.”
Cade clearly wasn’t happy about her detective work. “We’ll talk about this later. But I think you knew better than to do that.” He opened the door, and McCormick went in and started his perimeter search.
Scott lingered back. “You okay, Sadie?”
She nodded, distracted as she watched. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Don’t let him bother you. He jumps down my throat all the time. Even when I found Emily Lawrence the other night, you would have thought I’d destroyed any chance of solving the crime. He gets all bent out of shape, but I guess he means well.”
Sadie didn’t need reassurances. She didn’t much care what Cade or anyone thought of her right now. She just wanted them to find her sister.
CHAPTER 28
Sadie called the Roarkes and let them know of her discovery while the police searched Amelia’s room. They arrived there moments later, pulling their car haphazardly into the parking lot and running toward the stairs that would take them to the room where police were clustered. Several officers stopped them, refusing to let them pass.
Sadie crossed the parking lot and headed toward them.
“She’s our daughter!” Bob shouted. “We need to see what’s in there.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you go in. I’m sure the detective will fill you in when he’s finished searching the room. You need to wait here until they’re finished.”
Sadie touched their shoulders, and Bob and Lana swung around, their faces wild with panic. “Sadie!” Bob grabbed her arms and looked into her eyes. “Did you go in? Did you see anything?”
“Yes. I went in before I called the police. I didn’t see any sign that anything had happened in that room. Their suitcases and clothes are still there, and the television was on.” She decided not to tell them about the cell phone.
“Were there notepads that they might have written their plans on? Her laptop?” Lana demanded. “Amelia’s a note taker. She writes everything down, and she keeps a detailed journal.”
“Yes, the laptop was there, but I didn’t touch it. I didn’t see any notes, but if there’s anything the police will find it. They’ve already found the car. It’s over there, but the police won’t let anybody near it.”
Lana turned and peered at the activity centering around the Focus. “Could you tell how long it’s been since they were in the room?”
Sadie shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. We just have to wait for the police to finish, and I’m sure they’ll be able to tell a lot of things that I missed.”
“Sadie!”
She turned and saw her mother trotting toward them, her eyes swollen and red. Sadie ran into her mother’s arms.
“You shouldn’t have come here!” Sheila cried. “What’s the matter with you? You could have been walking into danger. I couldn’t take it if something happened to you too!”
“I’m okay, Mom. And I did the right thing, because I found what I was looking for.” She filled her mother in until she saw Scott Crown coming down the steps. “Wait, Mom.” She met him at the bottom of the stairs. “Have they found anything?”
“Can’t say. But I can tell you they just picked up Gibson.”
“Was there any sign of Amelia?”
“Didn’t sound like it. I’m just telling you what I heard on the radio.”
Bob stepped up. “Where are they taking him?”
“The GBI are taking him to our station to question him again.”
Bob spun around and grabbed Lana’s hand. “Come on. We’re going over there.”
“Can I have a ride?” Sadie asked. “I want to go too.”
“Sure. You can come too, Sheila.”
Sheila looked back up at the open door of the girls’ room, as if she could imagine her daughter alive there better than at the police station. Sadie understood. Amelia did seem alive there, with her clothes scattered on the floor and her makeup containers left open. Death—or news of death—seemed to wait at that police department. But they might not get any answers here, and Sadie felt certain Gibson knew where her sister was.
“All right. I’ll come too.” Sheila slid behind Sadie into the backseat.
Bob sped out of the parking lot, and headed across town. “I’ll get that man to tell me where my daughter is,” he said through gritted teeth.
Lana turned her pleading face to his. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to choke it out of him.”
Sadie knew they wouldn’t be able to get near Gibson, but she didn’t say so. Bob seemed determined. Maybe by the sheer force of his will, he would be able to get some results.
They reached the police station and hurried inside. Bruce Baker met them at the door.
“Has Gibson been brought in yet?” Bob demanded.
“No, sir. They’re on their way here now. You can have a seat if you’d like.”
None of them could sit. Instead, they all stood at the glass front of the building, pacing and watching for the car to arrive.
When they fin
ally saw the car turning in, Sadie thought Bob might explode. But instead of bolting out as she expected, he stood inside, seething until they brought the writer into the building.
Maybe he wouldn’t erupt. Maybe he just talked big.
But the moment they brought Gibson over the threshold, Bob flew at the man. Three officers grabbed him and wrestled him back.
“Tell me what you did with my daughter! Where is she? Where is she?”
Gibson only croaked out, “I don’t know!”
Bob struggled to break free of the officers holding him. “Tell me where she is! Is she dead or alive? Did you kill her?”
Gibson’s gray hair frizzed and stuck out from his head, giving him the look of a mad scientist. He caught sight of Sheila then, and his expression changed. “You!” He pointed a skinny finger. “You’re responsible for all of this. You were snooping in my house, weren’t you? You told lies about me, started rumors. I’ll sue you when this is all done.”
“You can’t sue me,” she screamed back. “Because you’ll be sitting on death row!”
“I didn’t kill anybody!” His wild hair flopped into his sweaty face. “I write about murders, I don’t commit them!”
The police dragged Gibson into the interview room, but he kept yelling. “I’ve never even seen those girls! Not even once!”
“Just tell us where she is!” Lana sobbed so hard she could barely speak. “Please, she’s precious to us.”
Everyone was screaming at once—Bob threatening, Lana begging, Sheila accusing, the police warning. In the chaos, one of the GBI agents shouted for someone to get them out of the building.
Bruce tried to herd them out. “Please, you’ll have to leave.”
Bob began to weep. “You’ve got to find her! Time could be running out. She’s just a little thing. She’s in trouble, and she needs us.”
Lana pulled away from Bruce’s outstretched hand. “We’ll be quiet. Please let us stay.”
Bruce softened then and led them to some chairs. “You can sit here if you’ll be quiet. I’ll update you as soon as I get information.”
“He knows.” Bob wept more quietly, and Lana put her arms around him. “He knows where she is. I don’t care about protocol or legalities or whether he has some hot-shot attorney. They can get that information out of him if they want to. Beat it out of him if they have to. If they can’t do it, they should let me.”
Lana shook her head. “They can’t do it. You know that.”
Sadie’s chest was so tight she could hardly breathe, so she stumbled to the door and stepped out into the heat. Sheila followed her. “Baby, you okay?”
Sadie leaned back against the glass and slid down to the concrete. “I had to get out of there. I feel sick.”
Sheila lowered to the pavement next to her and stroked Sadie’s hair.
Sadie drew in a deep breath and looked up at her mom. “I’m okay. I’ll get through this.”
Sheila nodded and leaned her head back on the glass.
“I’ve been praying so hard,” she whispered. “But I don’t know if God listens to my prayers.”
Sadie wiped her eyes and sucked in a sob. “Of course He does, Mom. He hears everyone’s prayers.”
“No, He doesn’t. I’ve been reading the Bible. I found places … reasons why He won’t hear. Things that I’ve done.”
Sadie looked at her mother. “Like what?”
“Like not forgiving. Mark 11:25 says it real clear. If I forgive, God can forgive me. If I don’t, He won’t. But I haven’t forgiven, Sadie.”
“Forgiven who?”
“Lots of people. The ones who turned me in and got me arrested. All the men who did me wrong. Your daddy. My parents.”
So much hurt in her mother’s life. There was bitterness deep within her, for good reason.
“And Psalm 66:18 has haunted me ever since Morgan showed it to me. ‘If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.’ Well, sometimes I cherish sin, baby. Sometimes I just ache for the old days. A shot of vodka, a snort of coke … the dope that made me feel better about all the things I’ve done, all that I’ve been through. Until I hate those sins, I can’t truly repent. So God won’t hear me. I hope you’re praying, baby. I know God will hear you.”
Sadie felt soul-weary, and her mother’s self-image gave her new cause for concern. She drew in a long, cleansing breath and wiped her eyes. “You can repent now, Mom. You can get right with God so He’ll hear you.”
Sheila drew in a shaky sob and shook her head. “There’s so much to repent of. All the stuff I’ve done … It didn’t just hurt me. It hurt you and Caleb … and now Amelia. She was supposed to get the best end of the deal. A decent home, good parents who fight for her.”
She looked over her shoulder, through the glass. Bob still wept into his hands. “But I’m her mother, and the Bible says the children will be cursed by the sins of their parents. So she comes looking for me, and this happens. All because of me. All because of my own sin.”
“What sin, Mom? You didn’t do this.”
“Didn’t I? Didn’t I get pregnant with some guy who didn’t care anything at all about me? Not once, but twice, like some fool who begged to be abused. I gave my baby up because I didn’t want the responsibility, but then I went and did it again.” She pushed herself up and got to her feet, turned around, and looked down at Sadie. “Things could have been so different. Every wrong I did, I did another wrong to undo it, and things just got worse. My sins piled up so high they were like a mountain I couldn’t climb. I was a terrible mother to you, baby. I would have been a terrible mother to her too. Even now, when I haven’t seen her in nineteen years, I’m still hurting her. And I can’t even pray for her.”
Sadie stared up at her mother. If only she didn’t feel so spent. Her mother needed her, but she had little to give. “Mom, I think you’re where God wants you. It sounds like you do hate your sins. You can repent. God will hear that.”
A car pulled into the parking lot. Joe McCormick and Scott Crown got out, saw Sheila and Sadie, and came toward them.
“You okay?” McCormick asked.
Sheila didn’t answer his soft question. “Did you find anything?”
“Not in my initial scan of the place. The GBI agents took over.”
“Do you think she’s dead?”
At her mother’s question, the detective’s eyes softened. He looked at her for a moment. “I didn’t see anything to indicate that, Sheila. She could very well be alive.”
She crumpled under her grief, and Joe took her into his arms and held her. Sadie saw the man with new eyes. Always before, he’d just been a cop, on the hunt for whatever piece of evidence he needed. Now she saw him as a man—a kind man, who cared that her mother was broken.
Scott came and stooped down next to Sadie. In a low voice, he said, “You okay, Sadie?”
She wiped her eyes and wished people would stop asking her that. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“We’ll find her, Sadie. I feel like we’re close to it already. Now that we have pictures, names, people will start coming forward. We’ll fill in the timeline of where they were and what they did and who they were with.”
She didn’t want to cry in front of Scott, but the tears wouldn’t stop. He put his arm around her and pulled her against him, kissed the top of her head.
“It’ll be all right, Sadie. You’ll see.”
His touch calmed her fears and gave her hope—and for a moment, she almost believed he was right.
CHAPTER 29
Sheila knew the questioning of Marcus Gibson would prove to be as unproductive as his first interview had been.
After a couple of hours, police convinced the Roarkes to go back to their hotel room and wait for an update. Blair came to pick Sadie up to take her back to the newspaper office, and Joe offered to take Sheila home.
As they walked out to his car, Sheila let her mind revisit the thought of death. She’d been suicidal many times in her life, but lately
things had been going well. She’d had a better self-image, felt she could accomplish some things with discipline and hard work.
But now she wanted to walk to the Tybee Bridge and take a dive over the side.
McCormick seemed to read her thoughts. “You’ve got to have faith, Sheila. You can’t think the worst.”
She stopped before getting into his car. “Joe, do you believe in God?”
He nodded. “Yes, I do. I don’t know as much about the Bible as Cade and Jonathan do, but I do know God is watching over us. He’s watching over Amelia too, Sheila. Just like He’s watched over Sadie and Caleb.” As he spoke, he set his elbow on Cade’s truck bed.
“What are the statistics? Of finding missing people alive, I mean?”
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we find her.”
She propped her own elbows on Cade’s truck bed and dropped her face into her hands. “But what are the chances? From your experience, when a friend winds up dead …”
“I’ve never been through this before.” He put his arm around her and rubbed her arm. “I could make something up, Sheila, tell you what you need to hear …”
She looked up at him. “I don’t want that.”
His blue eyes were soft, sad. “I didn’t think you did.”
He looked down into Cade’s truck, as if searching there for the right thing to say. His eyes locked onto something there, and he frowned and straightened. “What is that?”
She followed his gaze. It was a girl’s sandal, pink with a yellow daisy on top. He climbed into the truck, stared down at it. “I don’t believe it.”
“What is it?”
He just shook his head, but urgency filled his voice. “Go back inside and get them to call Cade. Tell them it’s an emergency.”
Whatever was going on, she knew not to stall. “Okay.” Sheila started into the building. What was the big deal about a sandal? Maybe Blair left it there, though it didn’t look like something she’d wear. She had the officer inside radio Cade at the motel and heard him say he was already on his way back in his squad car and would be there in a couple of minutes.