“I’m interested.”
“You are, aren’t you?” he said, and his expression grew sad as he looked at the pictures on the poster. “I saw her, you know, at the Hawthorne bar. I called the police and told them what I could.”
Rowenna sucked in a breath.
“Did you see who she was with?”
To her surprise, he nodded. “I described him to the police, and I bet I’m not the only one who’ll be able to give a description. It was busy there that night, so someone else is bound to remember them.”
“Was the guy…local?” Rowenna asked.
“I’ve never seen him before, but that doesn’t mean he’s not from the area.”
“What did he look like? Did you ever see him again? Maybe the day Mary Johnstone disappeared?” she asked anxiously.
“I wish I could say that I had, but no. He was tall, good-looking. Built, like he worked out a lot. I got the feeling that he was blue collar. I don’t know—mechanic, construction worker, something like that. He had that…bad-boy kind of edge, I guess.”
“Blond, dark, white, black, Hispanic, Asian…What?” she asked.
“Blond, white,” Daniel said. “Hopefully they’ll put a sketch out, someone will recognize him and they’ll get him. Quickly, I hope. While Mary’s still alive.”
She nodded at him and smiled slowly. “I’m glad you think she’s still alive, too. Brad believes it, of course, but he almost has to, to keep from going crazy. But I think most people think that she’s dead. Especially now that Dinah Green…” She couldn’t bring herself to go on. The mental image was bad enough without putting it into words.
He touched her face. “I think you think she’s alive because you want to,” he said softly.
“That’s not true. I really believe it.”
“You’re a good kid,” he told her. “But will you be a good queen?” he teased, making an effort to lighten the mood.
She shrugged. “It’s hard to think about celebrating anything right now.”
“Yeah, but…that’s what the world does. It goes on. The seasons will always come and go. Until we blow up the planet, of course,” he added dismally. “Well, long day, and longer day tomorrow. I’ll see you then, I assume?”
“Yeah, but wait! I want to hear what you found out.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing huge. I’ll fill you in tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure, thanks.”
His brow furrowed. “Hey, are you all right alone? Should I take you somewhere?”
“No, no, I’m just going up the street.”
“Well, be careful.”
“I’ll stick to the main roads, and I’m only going a few blocks. I’ll be fine.”
He waved goodbye and started off down the street. She watched him go and hesitated, thinking she should have asked him to walk with her and considering calling him back. But she really was going only a few blocks along sidewalks filled with people, and she couldn’t go letting Jeremy and Joe make her afraid of the town she’d lived in all her life.
When she turned the corner, she saw that Adam and Eve hadn’t closed up. In fact, there were still several customers in the store.
She noticed that Eve had taken a corner of her display window to put up the police department’s request for assistance.
She forced herself not to look at the pictures; she still couldn’t understand how she had lost so much time in front of the museum, staring at them. She hadn’t been trying to figure out where they had been or what had happened, but somehow her mind had slipped into those channels anyway.
Maybe she should try to figure out where Mary was, since she was still alive.
For how long?
A sense of urgency tugged at her. If only she had some magic window or a real crystal ball, or if she could even go into a trance to discover the truth. But she couldn’t do that. Despite the way she had felt earlier, the things she had seen, all she had was logic.
All she could do was let herself feel and become.
But it was frightening, painful. And she couldn’t do it now, not here, and not alone.
She was all set to move on when Eve saw her, waved and hurried outside, offering Rowenna a worried smile.
“What are you doing out here on your own? You’re not going to drive home alone, and stay in that big old house all by yourself, are you?”
“I’m staying in town with Jeremy,” Rowenna said. “I’m on my way to meet him now.”
“Smooth move,” Eve said teasingly.
“Eve!”
“Oh, don’t get huffy. I know you wouldn’t sleep with someone just because you didn’t want to go home. Especially not him. I mean, I’d sleep with him without any extra incentive. Wait, that didn’t come out right.”
“Like you’d ever cheat on Adam.”
“I’m married, not dead,” Eve said indignantly. “I can look, at least.” But she glanced back into the store and frowned.
Rowenna had a feeling that there was a lot more than an argument over what merchandise they carried in their shop creating a rift between Adam and Eve.
“Oh, God,” Eve said suddenly, appalled.