Free Dark Lie (9781101607084) by Nancy; Springer Page B

And the body could be anywhere.
    â€œStop that,” Sam told himself fiercely. Imagining such things wouldn’t help anything. Much as it hurt, it was better to believe that Dorrie might have gone somewhere on her own, on impulse. But where?
    Tonight Sam comprehended as never before how alone in the world Dorrie was. Friends? He’d already phoned all three of them. Relatives? Dorrie’s family seldom kept in any kind of contact except Christmas cards. Parents? You’d think they’d be closer; Dorrie was their only child, and they ought to cherish her—but instead the old broomsticks poked at her as if she were a wild animal in a rickety cage, as if they were afraid she might attack. Nutty old Birch rods lived right here in Fulcrum, might as well be on the moon for all the good they did Dorrie. Home? Ha. What kind of a—
    Wait a minute. Childhood home?
    â€œAppletree,” Sam muttered.
    Most people felt the need to return to their childhood home at some time. Dorrie would tell you Appletree was her hometown. She had reminisced with Sam about barefoot summers spent catching crayfish in the brook, or helping her mother make strawberry-rhubarb pie, or flying high, higher in the swing her father had slung from the oak tree for her. She fondly remembered feeding chickadees and juncos in the wintertime, playing “church” with fir cones on the old graves in the cemetery, finding a puppy her parents actually let her keep. But for some reason she never wanted to go back to Appletree, even though it wasn’t too far away. A few times, feeling as if Dorrie could use a break from routine, Sam had suggested a Sunday drive down there so that Dorrie could show him the house where she had been born and raised. He’d thought she might like going back there, but she would only look away and shake her head. And she’d warned Sam never to mention Appletree to her parents. But she wouldn’t say why.
    Sam started to feel a familiar discomfort, almost as familiar as the fear that Dorrie was unhappy with him. That one he usually suppressed by focusing his energy on the machine shop. This one was maybe not quite as irrational, and sometimes he had allowed it a few moments of consideration. Now, for the first time, he vocalized it.
    â€œSomething weird happened in Appletree,” he mumbled.
    He sat for a moment staring into Dorrie’s closet. Her dresses whispered “Dorrie” to him even though she wasn’t there. Dresses made of soft fabric in gentle feminine colors. Modest dresses, long by today’s standards, styled to cling to her waist and swing from her hips. Dorrie didn’t wear slacks, not because of her upbringing, but because of the way lupus had enlarged her butt. Generous skirts allowed her comfort while turning her so-called “affliction” into an asset, at least as far as Sam was concerned. A lot of the dresses Dorrie sewed herself so she could choose the fabrics she loved and trim them the way she liked. Sam considered himself lucky; how many men had wives who almost always wore pretty dresses?
    Oh, Dorrie.
    Sam didn’t like to take risks. He had hesitated to open the closet. But the results had been productive.
    Trying not to think about what he was doing, Sam ran his hand down the side of the bed and slipped his fingers between the mattress and the box spring.
    * * *
    The kidnapper’s van. I’d found it, and my heart beat hard, harder, because—please, God—Juliet couldn’t be far away.
    If I could just find a phone, I’d have the cops on the spot within five minutes, even if I had to lie. Say I was holding a gun to my head. No, say I was stabbed by a mugger, dying. Whatever.
    Phone. Get to a phone that
worked.
    I ran for my car, perched on the sidewalk at the street corner beside the dud phone. Running on high-test adrenaline, I hopped behind the wheel as if I’d never heard of lupus, started the car, slapped it