With a population of around thirty thousand, Oak Knoll was what Lauren thought of as a “boutique town.” Picturesque, charming, affluent. Not too big, not too small. The downtown was built around a pedestrian plaza studded with oak trees and lined on both sides with hip coffee shops, bookstores, art galleries, and restaurants. To the south and west of the plaza were the college and the beautiful old neighborhoods that surrounded it.
Sissy Bristol had graduated from McAster in the sixties. One of the most prestigious private schools in the country, McAster was especially renowned for its music program. And it was that mix of the academic and the artistic communities that had drawn her back to Oak Knoll when she and Bump had decided on a country house.
Located about an hour’s drive inland from Santa Barbara, and an hour and a half north and west of Los Angeles, Oak Knoll attracted well-educated retirees with disposable incomes and young professionals from the northernmost suburbs looking for a quiet, safe place to raise their families.
The result was a healthy economy, an entrepreneurial spirit, excellent services and schools.
Even the grocery stores were upscale. Lauren parked in the freshly blacktopped lot of the new Pavilions market with its stacked stone pillars and tinted windows. She grabbed a cart and wheeled it inside, where a staggering array of fresh floral displays greeted and tempted customers.
Clever marketing. Begin with a bouquet, set a beautiful table, buy a bottle of wine. Why cook? Select something gourmet-prepared in the deli section.
Lauren succumbed happily. An orzo salad. Poached salmon with dill. A fresh fruit tart from the bakery.
Leah had recently decided to become a vegetarian, but Lauren insisted she at least keep fish and eggs in her diet for the protein. In turn, Leah had made Lauren promise to eat bread every night at dinner because she worried her mother was too thin. A fresh round loaf of sourdough went in the cart.
Dinner was their declared peacetime. Nearing sixteen, Leah had not been in favor of the move to Oak Knoll. She was angry about leaving her friends and felt as if her mother hadn’t taken her feelings into account, which wasn’t true.
Lauren had taken into account the fact that in Santa Barbara her youngest would always be looked on as the sister of an abducted child. She would always be the surviving child of a tragic family. Poor girl. What a shame. The taint of pity for what had happened would be a part of everything she ever did or achieved.
Those were Lauren’s admitted thoughts/reasons/excuses for uprooting her youngest and bringing her here. That this year Leah would turn sixteen—the same age Leslie had been when she was taken—was also a reason was something she kept to herself.
She had read somewhere that sick minds were drawn to significant dates—anniversaries of their past crimes, for instance. The milestone birthday of a victim’s sister didn’t seem like a stretch for the kind of man who had taken Leslie. There would be some kind of sick thrill in it.
Did he know when Leah’s birthday was? Had he seen her on the news after he had taken Leslie, and the family had been in the media spotlight? Leah’s age had been mentioned in the newspapers. Journalists filled column inches with details like that.
Santa Barbara architect Lance Lawton, 39 . . . his wife, Lauren, 38 . . . a younger daughter, 12 years old . . .
Of course he had watched it all unfold on the news, in the papers. Four years had passed since he had taken Leslie. Had he kept tabs on them? Lauren was sure that he had. Did he know they had moved to Oak Knoll? Could he be here now? In this store?
He had stalked Leslie with no one knowing. He had taken her and had gotten away with it. He had stalked the family after the abduction. No one had been able to catch him at it. Why wouldn’t he do it again?
They knew who he was. The police, the sheriff’s department—they knew with ninety-percent certainty who he was. Lauren knew. She believed it with everything in her. But there was no evidence to prove it. They had nothing but conjecture and supposition. It was as if her daughter had been taken by an evil magician who had waved a wand and made her disappear. He walked around free, without consequence. Lauren was the one in prison.
What if he came back into their lives? What if he decided he wanted Leah?
A fist of fear pushed its way up her throat. The sensation of being watched crawled up the back of her neck. She turned quickly and looked behind her.
A stock boy was stacking boxes of crackers on a display. He glanced at her.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
Lauren swallowed and found her voice. “No. Thank you.”
She turned at the end of the aisle and caught a glimpse of a man with shoulder-length dark hair turning two aisles down. Her breath caught. Her heart jumped. A million thoughts shot through her brain like machine gun fire as she turned down the next aisle and hurried to the end of it.
Is it him?
What will I do?
Will I scream?
Will people come running?
What will I say to them?
She took a left and another left, and ran her cart headlong into his.
The man jumped back with a cry. “What the hell?”
Lauren stared at him, speechless.
The narrow face and hooded dark eyes—
No. Oh, no.
This man was stocky and Hispanic with a wide jaw. He wore a mustache. His hair was short.
“Are you all right?” he asked, coming around the cart.
“Is everything all right?” someone else asked.
Their voices seemed to come from the end of a tunnel.
“I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Her own voice seemed to come from the end of the same tunnel. Her hands felt numb on the handle of the shopping cart. Her legs felt like water.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
The store manager loomed over her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, hyperventilating. She was sweating and cold at the same time. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m so sorry. Do you have a ladies’ room?”
“In customer service.”
Before he could say anything more, she grabbed her purse out of the cart and hurried past him. In the restroom she went into a stall and sat on the toilet with her bag in her lap, trembling, blinking back tears, trying to calm her breathing. Her heart was pounding. She felt light-headed. She thought she might get sick to her stomach.
What had she been thinking?
Had she really seen him? Had she imagined him? Was he in the store? Had she simply turned down the wrong aisle?
What would she have done if the man she hit head-on with her grocery cart had turned out to be the man she believed had stolen her daughter? Would she have screamed? Would she have attacked him? Would the police have come and taken her away?
No answers came as she sat there listening to the piped-in music.
The bathroom door swung open and a woman’s voice called out. “Ma’am? The manager sent me in. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
She waited for the woman to leave, then let herself out of the stall and left the store. Her hands were trembling as she dug her car keys out of her purse. It was all she could do to keep from running to the car.
She felt like a fool. Dinner was forgotten. She started the engine and sat there letting the air-conditioning blow on her to cool the flush of embarrassment from her skin.
Outside, the world was going on. People walked by, went into the store, came out of the store. They didn’t look at her. They didn’t know what she’d done ten minutes ago. They didn’t know what she’d gone through four years ago, and every year since—every day since. They didn’t care. Her life did not touch theirs.