His Personal Mission Page 5

  The surprise was that it stung.

  “Your home is lovely,” Sasha said.

  “Thank you,” Joan Barton said.

  Ryan watched his mother bustle around, fussing over the plate of cookies she’d put out with the fresh coffee she’d served. He knew it was just her way—when she was worried, she fussed—but Sasha didn’t. He should have warned her.

  Then again, maybe not; she seemed unflustered by it. Indeed, she’d been effusive in her thanks, and her compliments about the house, especially the colorful garden out front, his mother’s ongoing pet project, the cookies, the coffee, everything.

  Ryan thought she was going a bit over the top. It was just a house, after all, and the cookies were good, but his mom made them all the time, it wasn’t anything unusual. But Sasha was chatting away, as if she were worried about making a favorable impression.

  As if he’d brought a date home to meet the parents, he thought suddenly, tensely. The idea put a whole new light on her easy chatter.

  “Your home is also very comfortable,” Sasha was saying. “In my parents’ place, you’re almost afraid to move. My mother, she collects. Mostly small, breakable things.”

  “Dustcatchers,” Joan said with a laugh. “That’s what Patrick calls them.”

  Sasha looked at his father and smiled. “And right you are.”

  “Hate all that clutter,” he muttered, but he smiled back at her.

  Ryan realized abruptly that this was the first time in a week he’d seen a real smile out of either of his parents. And certainly the first time he’d heard his mother laugh, even though it had been a bit faint.

  He looked at Sasha with a new admiration. He’d never seen her work before, but if this was how she did it, he was impressed. In a matter of minutes, she’d not only charmed them, but relieved at least some of their tension.

  He felt a little silly. He should have known there was good reason that she’d become so quickly indispensable at the foundation.

  “I remember you,” Patrick Barton said suddenly. Then, with a sideways glance at his son, he added, “Always thought Ryan should never have let you get away.”

  “Dad!”

  It burst from him before he could stop it. And he wished he had stopped it; he would have liked to hear what Sasha’s answer to that would have been. But after his yelp, she merely smiled.

  “I thank you for the compliment,” Sasha said. “Now shall we get to why I’m here?”

  “I thought your foundation only worked with children? The police keep telling us Trish isn’t one anymore,” Joan said, sounding aggrieved.

  Sasha hesitated for a moment, and Ryan wondered if she’d guessed that his mother had asked not only out of curiosity, but to delay the inevitable. He also wondered how she’d answer.

  “I’m not here officially, but as a friend,” she finally said. “I work missing children cases mostly, but I thought perhaps I could help. The fact that there’s no sign Trish is in danger doesn’t mean you’re not still worried.”

  Ryan could almost feel his mother relax slightly, and his admiration grew into awe at how easily and quickly Sasha accomplished what he’d been trying to do for a week.

  “And,” Sasha added, “I know it’s hard to talk about it like this, because it’s admitting she’s gone and facing how frightening it is.”

  And just like that she put her finger on the reason his mother had been acting like this was merely a social occasion. Or trying to.

  “It’s horrible,” his mother whispered.

  Hearing the pure pain in her voice, Ryan ached to ease it, to do something, but he didn’t know what. His mother was generally a cheerful, easygoing woman, always looking on the bright side. He supposed that was where he got his own usually sunny outlook.

  And then his father moved, sitting next to her on the sofa, putting his arm around her. His mother leaned into him, taking a deep, shuddering breath. Then, as if she’d drawn strength from the gesture, she seemed to pull herself together, even sitting up straighter. That was all it took, a simple move by his father?

  He realized then that, even had he tried, he couldn’t have comforted his mother so well. In an odd, abrupt shift of perspective, Ryan suddenly saw them as if they weren’t his parents. He saw them as a couple, a unit, still in love after thirty-two years. The size of that suddenly struck him, and it was a jolt. What must it feel like, that kind of permanence? He’d always thought of it as being tied to one person, limiting, confining.

  But now he sat here in shock, thinking there were aspects he’d never considered before. Having one person who knew you, knew what you needed before you asked, who would go to any lengths to provide it, one person you could trust implicitly, who would ever and always have your back, one person who would always be there for you….

  He snapped out of his reverie as Sasha switched into high gear. She asked for a copy of Trish’s senior photo, which his mother quickly got. Then the note Trish had left, and permission to take it with her; one of the experts at the foundation, an ex-cop named Bedford, had a knack for reading between the lines, she said.

  “I’m sure you’ve been wracking your brains,” she said then, “trying to figure out if she said anything, mentioned anything you’ve forgotten.”

  Patrick nodded. “I can’t believe she just did this, and we had no idea. I always thought we were a close family, but obviously we weren’t paying enough attention,” he ended bitterly.

  Ryan didn’t think anybody paid more attention—often too much for his own comfort—than his parents, but that didn’t seem the right thing to say just now. He left it to Sasha to answer.

  “That’s not necessarily true. From what Ryan’s told me, you had no reason to think she wouldn’t want a typical, fun-filled summer here before she headed off to college.”

  “No,” Joan said, a tremor creeping into her voice. “No reason.”

  “So let’s deal with other things. What did she take with her, and what did she put it in?”

  “Her big suitcase is gone. She must have planned to be gone for some time.” The tremor strengthened. “What if she never comes back, what if we never know?”

  “It’s way, way too early to even think about that,” Sasha said, then went on briskly. “This boy she dated for a while, have you spoken to him?”

  “Troy? Yes. But they broke up when he transferred schools when his folks moved to San Diego. He hasn’t heard from her.”

  “Have you looked through her closet? What clothes did she take?”

  “Now that was odd,” Joan said, taking her cue from Sasha’s businesslike tone. “She left most of her summery things.”

  “So she took fall clothes? Or winter?”

  Ryan had no idea what that meant; to him winter meant you put on a jacket. But obviously his mother understood, so it had to be a girl thing.

  “Warmer things. She doesn’t have true winter clothes, since she’s lived here all her life.”

  “And we have no real winter,” Sasha agreed with a smile. “So, what else? Anything obviously missing, or not so obvious?”

  “Her laptop,” Ryan put in. “She has a smart phone, but she took the laptop, too.”

  Sasha looked at him. “What does that indicate to you? I mean, I know for you that means you’ll be gone for the afternoon, but for her?”

  Ryan winced inwardly, but remembering her earlier words, didn’t react to the teasing. Besides, his mother laughed, and that was worth a lot. And when Sasha glanced at Joan Barton and smiled, he realized that had been her intent all along.

  “She used the phone for day to day, I think. I got more texts than e-mails.”

  Sasha nodded. Then she turned to his mother. “May I see her room?”

  “Of course.”

  They went up the stairs, and Ryan started to walk down the hallway.

  “Right here,” his mother said, startling him as she stopped in front of the first door on the right.

  “She moved into my room?” How did I not know tha
t?

  “A couple of years ago. She wanted the window seat,” his father said. “And it’s a little bigger.”

  The window seat. That triggered a memory, of Trish saying something about that. So, maybe he had known, and had just forgotten?

  More likely filed it under “unimportant,” you jerk, he told himself. And now she’s gone.

  “And,” his mother said, putting a hand on Ryan’s arm, “she wanted to be in her beloved big brother’s old room.”

  “Aw, Mom,” he muttered, in light of his own thought, much more comfortable with his father’s prosaic explanation.

  Maybe that’s why they worked so well together, he thought. His father’s reality-based practicality balanced his mother’s rose-colored glasses outlook. The insight—something he suspected he should have realized long ago—again made him look at them in a new way.

  And again he thought of the solidity of them as a team, together for over three decades, a united front, never alone in life…yeah, maybe there were advantages. He could even see himself wanting someone like that, that solid, unwavering, always-got-your-back kind of person.

  What he couldn’t see was ever being that kind of person for someone else.

  Stepping inside what had once been his domain was strange, especially given how different it looked. Gone were his posters of video games—where had Lara Croft ended up?—and the shelves full of computer gear and software boxes. The corner where he’d had his CD player and music now held hers, a unit that turned her portable into a full-on sound system. He had helped his folks pick it out for her.

  Trish had painted the room a soft green, and the trim around the windows bright white. It looked, he had to admit, pretty good. Maybe his black wall—his mother had only allowed him to paint one—had been a bit oppressive. On the walls were some things he recognized, prints of horses running free, and framed photos.

  He stopped in front of one in particular, a shot from the last vacation they had all taken together, the year before he’d graduated from high school. His parents looking amazingly, as they did now, Trish, a lively-looking child with a tangle of sandy brown hair the same shade as his own, and himself, thin, gangly and awkwardly teenaged, zits and all.

  They’d gone to Yosemite, and while he’d groused mightily about the boredom of it, complained that he’d wanted to stay home and hang with his friends, the memories from that trip were among the most vivid—and best—he had.

  The sights, from the amazing two-tiered drop of Yosemite Falls to the towering, unbelievable and almost otherworldly mass of Half Dome, were a dose of genuine reality he’d never forgotten, images no amount of virtual reality could match.

  He hadn’t even minded the constant presence of then seven-year-old Trish tagging at his heels. He’d even been watchful of his little sister, out in the real world where big animals—the favorites of the already-set-on-her-life’s-path Trish—roamed and smaller critters milked the millions of visitors for all the free food they could get.

  If there hadn’t been ten years between them, would they have stayed closer? Would he perhaps have seen some sign, some clue about what was to come? Would she maybe even have confided in him, the way she once had?

  Or was it not the age difference, but his own fault, for being so wrapped up in his own life and world? Was Sasha right, had she been right two years ago? Was he truly that insular, that shallow?

  He stared at the image of his little sister, at the way, in this photo, she looked up at him with what he couldn’t deny was childlike adoration. Had he taken what he had so for granted that he’d lost it?

  Where the hell are you, Trish? And why?

  His mother’s plaintive words echoed in his mind. What if she never comes back, what if we never know?

  That wouldn’t happen. It just wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let it.

  And Sasha wouldn’t.

  He knew that, on some deep gut level he didn’t even question. If there was a way to bring Trish home, or at least to find her safe and explain all this, Sasha would do it. If there was one thing he’d always known about her it was that there was no way she would give up.

  Ever.

  Chapter 6

  “Does Trish have a page or pages on any of the social networking sites?” Sasha asked.

  “No,” Patrick said.

  “Yes,” Ryan said.

  Father and son both blinked as they looked at each other.

  “I see,” Sasha said.

  “She does?” Joan asked her son.

  “Well, yeah. She’s a teenager. They all do, I think.”

  “When was the last time you looked?”

  Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “Right after she set one up, about a year ago. She asked me to, asked for my opinion.”

  “But you didn’t check it with any regularity?”

  “Not once she got it going. Her friends there are mostly teenage girls who punctuate everything with OMG.”

  “OMG?” Joan asked.

  “Oh, my God,” Sasha explained, still looking at Ryan, who grimaced.

  “Anyway, it gets old. And I guess I kind of forgot until you asked just now.”

  He sounded more than just sheepish, he sounded remorseful. Sasha couldn’t imagine having a sibling and not wanting to know what they were doing, but perhaps that was because she had none.

  “We’ll check,” Sasha said, then turned back to his parents. “Has Trish asked for more money than usual lately, or been gone more?”

  “Well, more money for things to go away to school,” Joan said. “We’ve gone shopping for things for her dorm room several times.”

  “But nothing for solo shopping trips?”

  “Sometimes, if there was something specific she wanted.”

  “And did she always come back with that thing?”

  Joan frowned. “Yes, why?”

  Ryan was watching her steadily, understanding clear on his face; he, at least, knew she was trying to find out if Trish had been squirreling away money.

  “She had a small trust fund, same as I did, from our grandfather,” Ryan said. He glanced at his mother. “Was it the same for Trish, she couldn’t touch it until she was eighteen?”

  Joan nodded. “But she hasn’t, I’m sure. She knows it was for college expenses.”

  “I’ll check,” Patrick said, and got up to make a phone call.

  Joan was frowning, but answered the other part of Sasha’s question. “As for being gone, it was the opposite. She was home more. I assumed it was because she wanted to be, since she was going to be off to Davis in a couple of months. Although she seemed to spend most of the time in her room, talking with her friends. Typical teenager, I guess.”

  “On the phone, or online?”

  “Both, probably,” Joan said. “Her laptop seemed to always be on.”

  “Did she ever try to hide what she was doing, if you walked in?”

  “No,” Joan said. “But I always knocked. She hated it if I didn’t.”

  “Hey!” Ryan exclaimed. “So did I, but you never knocked.”

  “Girls need more privacy,” Joan said.

  “Well, that’s not fair,” he grumbled.

  “But it’s true,” Sasha said, purposely using a conspiratorial tone with Joan; she was trying to keep them from worrying too much, but she was beginning to suspect that the Bartons were, as was their son, a bit too trusting that life’s ugliness wouldn’t descend on them.

  “How on earth,” Joan asked, “did a sweet girl like you get into the sad business of looking for missing children? Don’t mistake me, it’s wonderful and I admire you tremendously for doing it, but I’m curious.”

  “I got my degree and then started out working for the county, with Protective Services, but…let’s just say their hands were too often tied. They’d be ordered by some judge to put a child back into a hideous home, and when that child later turned up beaten, or worse, it was just too much for me.”

  “Oh, dear. I can imagine.”

  “When I read ab
out the Westin Foundation, I plopped myself on their doorstep until Zach Westin showed up and I literally threw myself at him. Told him I’d work for a month for free, if he’d just give me a shot. He did.”

  “I knew he was a smart guy,” Ryan said. Sasha shot a glance at him at the implicit compliment. Ryan shrugged as if it were nothing before going on. “They say Josh himself had to step in and run the Aviation Division when he left, until they found somebody who could replace him, do everything he did. And his people would go to the wall for him, the way we all would for Josh.”

  “I’ve read about your organization,” Joan said. “After we met you, we looked it up.”

  She slid her son a sideways glance that made Sasha wonder what Ryan’s parents had thought after those brief encounters. Ryan didn’t meet his mother’s gaze, she noticed, and couldn’t help wondering if there had been a conversation after those meetings as well. And what it had sounded like.

  “So tell me, how did this become your passion?”

  She supposed the fact that Joan knew this said something about what Ryan had told them. She’d been asked this before, and never hesitated to answer. It was important, she’d always thought, that people realize just how lucky they were to have the lives that they had.

  “I know what it’s like to lose people you love, and never know what happened to them. Most of my extended family vanished in Eastern Europe, in the darkest times in the darkest places. My grandparents risked their lives to get out. My parents and I were born here, but my family has never forgotten those we had to leave behind.”

  Joan’s eyes widened. “Then I admire you even more, Sasha.”

  “Thank you, but I’m just part of a team. A great team. We—”

  “She took out a thousand dollars,” Patrick said grimly as he strode back into the room. “The day after her birthday.”

  Joan’s expression of surprise told Sasha she hadn’t known this either. And the expression of pained regret told her Trish’s mother was feeling the weight of her perceived failure as a parent.

  “Don’t feel that way,” Sasha said softly. “If she’d given you no reason to worry before, you can’t be blamed for not seeing this coming.”