A Scarlet Cord (35 page)

Thirty

A smudged sheet of ruled paper rested against the pillows, one side ragged where it had been ripped from a spiral notebook. Melanie picked it up and slumped onto the bed at the sight of the childish scrawl. She read her daughter’s sweet misspelled words. As their meaning soaked in, her hands began to tremble violently.

Der Mommy
,
   
I am ging to fine Jole for you
.
     
Love
,
     
Jerica

Melanie’s breath caught in her throat.
Where
in heaven’s name would Jerica have imagined Joel might be found? Her thoughts raced as she tried to think of the conversations she’d had with her daughter. Had Jerica overheard her or Karly say something this morning, before they’d realized she was standing on the deck? What had they said that would make Jerica think she could find Joel? Desperately she replayed her conversation with Karly, trying in vain to imagine how her own brain might have processed things when she was Jerica’s age.

How far could a determined little girl get in two hours? What if someone had picked her up? The thought sent a blade of ice through
Melanie’s heart: What was she doing sitting here? Every second was critical now. Clutching the note, she stumbled blindly down the hall and into the kitchen where Karly was on the phone calling the neighbors.

She thrust the paper into her friend’s hands.

“Oh dear God!” Karly whispered as she read her niece’s scribbled words. “Let me call you back, Ann. We just found … a note from Jerica.” Karly pressed the End key and set the phone on the counter, inspecting Jerica’s note more carefully.

“We need to call the police, Mel,” Karly said in a hushed voice.

Her palms clammy, Melanie nodded numbly and grabbed for the phone.

Karly took it from her. “Let me call.” She punched in the emergency number.

Melanie stood nearby, the blood draining from her face, her hands trembling. She threw up a desperate prayer while Karly told the dispatcher what had happened and gave a description of Jerica. “No, ma’am, we’ve already checked all the nearby neighbors. Like I said, she left a note. We’re pretty sure she’s run off. Yes, that’s right. She’s six. Jerica.” Karly spelled the name into the phone. There was a long pause while she listened, then, covering the receiver with one hand, she looked at Mel. “What was Jerica wearing today?”

Melanie’s memory came up utterly blank, and she felt herself edging over the brink of panic. Shaking uncontrollably, she racked her brain trying to picture what Jerica had looked like as she’d stood on the deck just hours ago. What kind of mother couldn’t remember what her child had dressed in that morning? “I … I can’t remember! Karly, I can’t remember!” By the sound of her own voice, she knew she was losing it.

“Hang on just a minute,” Karly said into the phone. She put a warm hand on Melanie’s arm. “It’s okay, Mel. I can’t remember either. We’ll think of it. It’ll come. Just stay calm. Was it … was it that little pink corduroy set?”

“No. No, I just put that in the washer last night. Oh, Karly, I can’t remember. What’s wrong with me?” She put her head in her hands, trying to block a barrage of terrifying thoughts. She willed herself to be calm. And there it was: She remembered tying ribbons in Jerica’s pigtails last night. Bright orange ribbons. Jerica had been so taken with the new hairstyle that she’d insisted on leaving them in when she went to bed. This morning she’d put on the outfit that matched the ribbons.

“It was her orange overalls,” she told Karly now. “Remember? The ones Jace teased her about? He told her she looked like a pumpkin. Remember? And she probably had that little orange-and-yellow striped T-shirt on with it. It has
Oshkosh
embroidered on it. So do the overalls. That’s what she usually wears with them anyway.” She knew she was rambling, but thankfully Karly was already relaying the information into the telephone.

“And she had ribbons in her hair. Orange ones. Bright orange ones. Be sure and tell them that. Pigtails.”

“That’s right,” Karly confirmed, her head bobbing. “Oh, good. That’ll make her easy to spot.” Karly finished describing the outfit to the dispatcher, and answered a few more questions. She hung up and put an arm around Melanie. “It’s going to be all right, Mel. The police are sending a car out right away. We’ll find her. Don’t worry.”

“I want to go look,” she said.

“Okay. Maybe … maybe one of us should stay here. In case the police call back. I know the neighborhood, Mel. I know where the kids play. I’ll take the boys with me, and we’ll drive around for a while … You can stay here with the baby and answer the phone. And … talk to the police.”

The reality of the words felled her:
The police
. They’d had to call the police to search for her daughter. She crumpled into a chair and slumped over the kitchen table.

“We’ll find her, Mel,” Karly assured her, rubbing gentle circles on Melanie’s back. “I promise you, we’ll find her.”

Karly went to check on the baby, then herded the boys out to the car. Melanie dragged herself up and followed them out to the driveway, the cordless phone clutched in one hand.

As they drove off, she felt as though they’d left her behind in a shark-infested ocean. In a daze, she went into the house and walked back to the guest room again.

A sob rose in her throat. “Oh, dear Jesus,” she prayed, her voice rising in hysterics. “Help us, Lord. You have to help us find her. Please, God. Please.”

A dozen grizzly newspaper accounts swirled through her mind—stories of lost children that had ended in unspeakable tragedy.

Keep her safe, Father. Oh, please, God. Please. Don’t let me lose her, too
.

Darlene Anthony had just taken off her coat when Pastor Steele called her into his office.

She hung her coat on the back of the door and went into the adjoining office. “Did you have a nice lunch, Pastor?”

“Hello, Darlene. I have some rather bad news, I’m afraid. I just got a call from Jerry LaSalle. Melanie and Jerica are out in New Jersey visiting Mel’s brother, and Melanie just called him to say that Jerica is missing. Apparently she ran away.”

Darlene gasped. “Oh no! How awful!” She forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat and blurted out, “Why would she run away? How long has she been missing?”

Don Steele took off his glasses and wiped them on the sleeve of his oxford shirt. “Jerry didn’t really have any details, but apparently, Jerica … well, she went looking for Joel.”

“Joel Ellington? Oh, my goodness!”

“Yes. They had a neighborhood search organized when I talked to Jerry a little while ago, but so far … nothing. Naturally they’re all pretty scared.”

Darlene put a thin hand to her mouth as the seriousness of the situation registered. “Oh, that poor little girl. Melanie must be worried sick.”

“Jerry said they’d call back here as soon as they have any news. But they wanted to get it on the prayer chain right away this morning. Would you get those calls started, please, Darlene?”

“Of course. Of course …” Flustered by such dreadful news, she went over the information again with Pastor Steele to make sure she had the details right. She tried to jot down some notes, but her fingers wouldn’t seem to cooperate. Finally, she gave up and went to the phone in her own office. Trembling, she managed to dial the first number on the prayer chain.

By noon people all over Silver Creek and beyond were praying for Jerica’s safe return. As the day wore on, the phone in Darlene’s office rang repeatedly. She could only tell the callers that Jerica was still missing and that they would let the prayer warriors know the minute they had something new to report.

At 1:30 that afternoon the phone rang again. “Cornerstone Church. This is Darlene.”

“Darlene? Jerry LaSalle here.” Darlene hardly recognized the elder’s voice. He sounded terrible.

“Jerry. Oh, we’ve all been praying for you. Do you have any news?”

“I’m afraid not. They’ve been searching for two hours now, and … nothing. Is Don there?”

“Of course. Just a minute, I’ll get him.”

Pastor Steele seemed anxious and upset after talking to Jerry. Darlene watched him pace the hallway in front of his office. He was short with her, and he jumped a foot in the air every time the phone rang.

As concerned as Darlene was about Jerica, the grim news was overshadowed by the thing that had weighed heavily on her mind long before she’d walked into the office this morning—the thing that had weighed her down for months on end.

Today had been the day that she was finally going to talk to Don. This situation with little Jerica changed things. Maybe this made it even more crucial that she tell Don what she should have told him months ago. She knew he was preoccupied with concern for the LaSalles. But she wasn’t sure she could bear the weight of her burden another minute.

With knees threatening to buckle beneath her, she rose from the desk and went to knock softly on the door that separated her office from Pastor Steele’s.

The strobing lights of the patrol car parked outside the Masons’ home strafed the family room walls in rhythmic revolutions, piercing Melanie with a stark reminder that Jerica was gone. She and Karly and the boys had answered the two young policemen’s questions until she didn’t think the officers could possibly come up with one more question to ask.

Matthew had received Karly’s frantic message and had taken the first bus home. Now he sat in his big leather recliner by the fireplace and patiently answered Sergeant Riordan’s questions even when Riordan and his partner, Officer Marcus Pilsen, interrogated him as though they suspected he had kidnapped Jerica himself.

Finally Pilsen stood and shook Matthew’s hand. “I think that’s all I need right now.”

“Thank you, officer. Will it be okay if my wife and I go join in the search around the neighborhood?” People from all over their housing development had been looking for Jerica since before the police arrived.

“Sure, that would be good. Do you have a cell phone where we can reach you if we need to?”

Matt patted his breast pocket. “Yes. Melanie has the number.”

“No!” Melanie jumped up from the edge of the chair she’d been
perched on. “I want to go too, Matt. I want to help look for her. Maybe she’ll answer my voice.” Melanie kept her eyes on the officer.

Marcus Pilsen shook his head. “I think it would be best if you stay. Your daughter may come back home, and if she does it would be best if you were here. And someone needs to stay and field any phone calls. If the girl calls here, it needs to be a familiar voice that answers that phone.”

It had now been more than five hours since anyone had seen Jerica, and with each passing second Melanie’s fears ballooned. She knew everyone’s chief concern was finding Jerica before the sun went down. New Jersey nights were still frigid, and after dark the dangers grew exponentially.

Sergeant Riordan gave Melanie detailed information about how the search would be handled throughout the day. “We’ll be in contact with you at least every hour to update you,” the sergeant said, moving toward the door.

Melanie felt the panic mount at the thought of being left alone in the house again. But she walked the two men to the front door. They were halfway down the steps when Riordan’s pager sounded. He motioned for his partner to remain with Melanie and walked out to the driveway to answer the page. Melanie watched him carefully, and her heart quickened when she saw him turn and start back up the drive. He was actually smiling.

“Looks like your little girl’s been found, Mrs. LaSalle,” he said. “Sounds like she’s fine.”

Melanie’s knees buckled, and she slumped down on the front porch steps.

Officer Pilsen rushed to sit down beside her. “Are you okay?”

Barely able to speak, she held up a hand. “I’m okay,” she finally managed to choke out. “I … just want to see my daughter.”

“Of course,” Sergeant Riordan assured her. “Apparently an elderly couple saw her walking near the Marta Vista County Park. They’re staying with her until the police arrive. We’ll probably want to take
her to a hospital”—he held up a hand at Melanie’s gasp—“just as a precaution … to check things out. It sounds like she’s in fine shape.”