Chapter Fourteen

Once every couple of months, Vince’s dad invited Vince to play golf. He didn’t have his father’s love for the game, but he enjoyed the time they spent, just the two of them, walking the course and talking. Most of the conversations were superficial, but he still relished these moments with the man he admired most in the world.

“When do you think you’ll get your truck back?” Dad asked after they had teed off that Sunday afternoon.

“I don’t know. The sheriff’s department hasn’t completed its investigation.” He hooked the shot, and the ball went sailing into the rough. “Do you and Mom need your car back? I could borrow one from a friend.”

“No, you keep it as long as you like.” They trudged toward Vince’s wayward ball. “I was just wondering. Do they have any idea who did it?”

Vince lined up his shot and took it, hitting the ball back onto the fairway. “No. The sheriff asked if I thought it could be Valerie.”

He expected his dad to be shocked or to protest that that wasn’t possible. Instead, he looked thoughtful. “I’ve often wondered if she is still alive somewhere.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Take your shot, son.”

Vince’s heart wasn’t in the next strokes, but he managed to keep the ball on the fairway and eventually in the hole.

His dad led the way to the next tee box. “Why do you think Valerie is still alive?” Vince asked again. Had his dad been keeping something secret from him all this time?

“I suppose because we never found her,” he said. “And because she’s my daughter. It’s a fanciful idea, I guess, but if she’s dead, wouldn’t I feel it? I know your mother feels the same way.”

What did Vince feel? Valerie was his twin, yet he had long ago accepted she was dead. But what if she wasn’t?

He waited until his dad had taken his shot before he spoke again. “If Valerie is alive, why not contact us?” he asked. “Why write cryptic notes or mess up my truck?”

“Maybe she’s under someone else’s control and this is her only way to communicate.” He swung and connected with the ball, sending it straight up the fairway. He was so calm that Vince realized he must have spent a lot of time thinking about this possibility.

“Dad, she’d be twenty-five years old now. How could she be under someone else’s control?”

“Someone could be threatening her, forcing her to do these things.”

“But why? No one has asked for money. No one has tried to physically harm us. It’s just...annoying.” He took his stroke and sliced the ball to the right.

“And a little frightening.” Dad put his hand on Vince’s shoulder, a rare moment of physical closeness from his normally undemonstrative father.

“Yeah, it is frightening,” Vince admitted. “I keep wondering what’s going to happen next.”

“If they want something, you’ll find out,” his dad said. “Scammers are experts at the long game, reeling people in slowly.”

“Is that what happened with you and that guy who claimed to be ex–special forces? The one you and Mom paid all that money to?” That had been a particularly elaborate scam, and a costly one. The man claimed Valerie was being held prisoner in a Mexican brothel, and that, with funds for their expenses, he and some other former military friends could rescue her.

His dad looked rueful. “I thought I was smart enough to see through all the liars by that time. Valerie had been missing five years, and I thought I had heard it all. But this man was a pro. He presented just the right image. I resisted him for a long time, but then he sent pictures—photographs of a young woman he claimed was Valerie. We could only see her from the back—that should have been my first clue this wasn’t legit. But she had the same hair, and we could see the resemblance. He said if we paid for him and a team to fly down there, they promised to get her back. We wanted so much to believe, and he counted on that.”

Vince’s chest hurt, listening to this sad tale, even though he had known the basic outline for a long time. “I think anyone would have done the same in your shoes,” he said.

They played through the next hole, the heaviness of their memories wrapped around them. After Vince’s next shot, his dad said, “I never told your mother this, but I thought I saw Valerie once.”

Vince’s breath caught, and he stared. “Where? When?”

“Seven years ago. I had a work meeting outside of Omaha, Nebraska. A group of us visited a casino on the Missouri river one evening. There was this cocktail waitress—pretty, young, very friendly. I noticed her, but I wasn’t paying any particular attention to her. Then one of the guys nudged me and told me she obviously liked me because she kept staring at me. I looked over, and she caught my eye and smiled. And—I recognized her. It was Valerie.”

“In a casino in Omaha? Dad, why did you think it was Valerie?”

“Her eyes, and the way she looked at me. I hurried toward her, but she darted away. I spent the rest of the night searching for her. I even went back the following day and asked the manager about her. He said they didn’t have any employees that fit the description I gave them. But I know what I saw.”

“What did you do?” Vince asked.

“I took an extra day after the conference. I went back to the casino, then spent hours driving around the area. I guess I thought I might spot her again, but if she didn’t want to be seen, there were a million places she could hide. I finally convinced myself that I must have been mistaken. I went back home and tried to forget about her. But I’ve always wondered.”

“If Valerie is alive, I have to think she would want to see us,” Vince said. “We’re her family.”

“I like to think that too, son. But we don’t know what she’s been through in the time she’s been apart from us.”

She isn’t alive , he wanted to say but didn’t. If it made his father feel better to believe his daughter wasn’t dead, Vince wasn’t going to dissuade him. But that kind of hope felt to Vince like a chain holding them all back. Valerie was dead. Until they accepted that, they could never move on.

M ONDAY , T AMMY TRIED to focus on work, but her mind continually drifted to thoughts of Vince, replaying the two amazing evenings they had spent together. She thought she had been head over heels for a man before. The giddy sensation of wanting to be with someone every minute wasn’t new. But things with Vince were different. More intense, yet less stressful. They connected in a way she hadn’t known was possible, and didn’t feel any pressure to hide the “weird” side of herself from him. She hadn’t realized how much she was holding back in other relationships until she got close to Vince.

“What are you grinning about?” Russ asked as he passed her desk that afternoon.

She immediately assumed a sober expression. “Nothing,” she said.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

She glanced at her computer screen, the cursor blinking on the beginning of an unwritten paragraph—the same position it had been in for the last half hour. She started to repeat Nothing but thought better of it. “I’m writing that piece about the women’s club rummage sale,” she said. “And I’m finishing up my next piece about search and rescue.”

“Don’t forget the planning commission meeting at six.”

She groaned. “Nothing ever happens at those meetings.”

“Then why are they having a meeting?” he asked.

“So they can table making a decision on land-use codes—the same thing they’ve done the last three meetings.”

“They can’t table a decision forever,” Russ said. “And when they reach a conclusion, our readers will want to know what it is.”

She sighed. Russ was right, of course. And she did have the meeting on her calendar. It was just that she would 100 percent have preferred to spend the evening with Vince.

But the meeting did give her an excuse to text him. Though they hadn’t made definite plans for tonight, she sensed that spending every night together was becoming a habit neither was in a hurry to break.

Can’t get together tonight , she typed. I’ve got to cover the planning commission meeting .

She pressed Send and waited, not exactly holding her breath but unable to look away from the screen.

The phone vibrated, and a small thrill raced through her as she read his reply. Too bad. Guess I’ll have to sit at home alone and think about my plans for next time we get together .

She started to type a reply asking for more specifics about what he had in mind but became aware of Russ watching her. “You’re grinning again,” he said.

She frowned and turned the phone so the screen was definitely out of Russ’s line of sight. Looking forward to seeing you again , she typed. TTYL .

The meeting that evening proved as boring as she had anticipated, though the commission did spring for pizza from Mo’s to feed themselves, Tammy and the two locals who showed up. At least she didn’t have to listen to them debate the exact definition of agricultural use on an empty stomach.

By nine o’clock everyone in the room seemed to have had enough. The committee had agreed on some definitions and tabled other decisions until the following month. Tammy gathered her belongings and drove home. She debated dropping by to see Vince but decided instead to call him when she got in.

Her mind played out possible avenues for such a conversation as she climbed out of her car and headed up the walkway to her house.

Then something—or rather, someone—hit her with such force she was knocked off her feet. She didn’t even have time to scream before her attacker landed on top of her and began pummeling her.