The Connie Kenzie remembered had the kind of figure that turned heads while the woman approaching her had lost a significant amount of weight. The clothes she wore hung on her body like they couldn’t find a place for themselves.
“Connie?” Kenzie asked uncertainly, wanting to make sure that this wasn’t ultimately a case of mistaken identity.
Connie offered a spasmodic smile of acknowledgment when she heard her name spoken, but the smile faded away before it had a chance to register.
The woman blew out a long, shaky breath. “When I asked the policeman downstairs for Detective Cavanaugh, he started to laugh and then he asked me, ‘Which one?’” Connie appeared somewhat dazed and bewildered as she repeated the incident. “How many of your family members are there on the police force?”
“A lot,” Kenzie answered, thinking it might be simpler just to leave it that. “Sit down, Connie. Please,” she added when the other woman seemed disoriented.
Rather than taking her seat slowly, Connie dropped into the chair facing Kenzie as if the air had suddenly been let out of her.
Thinking to break the ice, Kenzie asked the haunted-looking young woman, “How long has it been?”
“A long time,” Connie replied. She ran her tongue along her dry lips, as if they were stuck together, preventing her from saying anything further. It was as if she was afraid that if she did, something terrible would become a reality.
Silence hung between them.
Kenzie tried again. “Is there something I can do for you, Connie?” she asked.
She was unable to think of a single reason why someone she’d known from three classes when she was a college senior would deliberately seek her out now—unless it was for professional reasons.
“I hope so.” The words came out slowly, like bullets fired cautiously and one at a time.
Since she’d begun working in the Missing Persons Division, Kenzie had become accustomed to talking to distraught family members, spouses and/or girlfriends and boyfriends. Getting any sort of viable information at times required a great deal of patience. Kenzie prided herself on being up to the job.
There were other times when interrogation was called for, and she was just as good at that as she was at displays of patience and employing kid-glove treatment with fragile people. It seemed to her that this situation called for use of the latter.
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, Connie,” Kenzie coaxed, then told her, “Take your time.”
Connie swallowed nervously. “You know, I’m probably just being paranoid,” she said.
It was obvious that she was trying to talk herself into believing that. Kenzie could see that the woman was twisting her fingers together so hard, they looked as if they could just snap off at any moment.
Kenzie put her hand protectively over the other woman’s hands with just enough pressure to make Connie stop twisting her fingers like that.
“Paranoid about what?” Kenzie asked gently.
Rather than answer, Connie said in a voice that almost broke, “He’s probably sitting on some beach, or vacationing in the mountains—like I told him to.” Connie looked at her, desperation once again entering her eyes. “You know, he used to talk about going to the mountains.” Tears were sliding down her thin cheeks now.
Kenzie reached over on her desk and extracted tissues from a box she’d brought to the office to help her cope with her last cold. She offered the tissues to Connie, who took them after a beat, wiping away the telltale trail of tears from her face and dabbing at her eyes. She crumpled the tissues in her hand, as if holding them would somehow give her strength.
“Who’s sitting on some beach or vacationing in the mountains, Connie? Who are you talking about?” Kenzie asked, thinking that Connie had to be talking about a boyfriend who had suddenly stopped returning her calls and pulled a disappearing act.
When they were in college together, Connie had had a social life that would have kept three other women on their toes and busy. Heaven knew that Connie had never wanted for company. More than once Connie had offered to “fix her up,” but their taste in boyfriends were worlds apart. Back in those days, Connie was attracted to guys who easily came under the bad-boy heading.
On the other hand, if she had brought someone like that home, said “bad boy” would have been summarily threatened with bodily harm if he didn’t vacate the premises voluntarily and immediately. She’d grown up with four brothers, a father and countless cousins, all of whom were incredibly protective.
Of course, that didn’t keep her from making her own bad choice in the end, Kenzie thought ruefully. She forced herself to focus on the woman crying next to her desk.
More tears slid down Connie’s face as she choked out, “John Kurtz. My father.”
“Your father?” Kenzie repeated, confused. “You’re talking about your father?” she asked again.
Connie wiped away the tears from her cheeks and then blew her nose, as well. She took in a deep breath and released it.
Kenzie pushed the box of tissues closer to her. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning.”
Connie swallowed, struggling to get hold of herself. “I guess that would be when my mother died.”
Kenzie could remember a vivacious, lively redhead who had attended their graduation. They had that loss in common, she thought.
“I didn’t know,” she apologized. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Connie. When did your mother die?”
Connie closed her eyes, as if summoning the memory was painful. “A little over three years ago.” Opening her eyes, she looked at Kenzie. “My father became almost a hermit after she died. It was understandable at first—” A sad smile punctuated her statement. “They’d been the classic high school sweethearts who got married right after graduation. My mother worshipped the ground my father walked on—and the feeling was mutual,” she added with feeling.
Her voice cracked as she tried not to cry.
“Take your time,” Kenzie told her again even though she really wanted to hurry the woman along and pull the words out of her throat. She tamped down her impatience. Kenzie was the type who always read the end of a book before she then turned to page one. She had always had an insatiable need to know how things turned out before she ever got to that part.
But in this case, she kept quiet, letting Connie tell her story at her own pace, in fits and starts.
Connie sighed again, as if that would somehow shield her from what she was talking about.
“Anyway, when she died, Dad just withdrew into himself. I thought he’d come around eventually, but when he didn’t, I tried to get him to go out, to see people again. He thought I meant that he should start seeing other women—and maybe I did—but I told him he was wrong. And that it was also wrong just to sit home and brood day after day the way he was doing.”
Connie sniffed and looked off, no doubt reliving the incident she
