“She said, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ I-” Hannah stopped abruptly as she stared at the floor, her eyes wide. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“No.” The eyes narrowed to slashes. “No!”
“Mom, what is it?” Cameryn asked, straightening so she could see inside the car. “What’s wrong?”
That’s when she saw her mother’s purse. The black leather gaucho handbag lay open on the floor. Scooping it up, Hannah dumped the contents on the passenger seat, quickly sifting through them. Her face twisted. “My wallet-she stole my wallet!”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!” With her arm Hannah swept the contents of her purse onto the car floor. “I used my card to buy gas. What am I going to do without money?” She slammed her fist against the steering wheel. “That little thief! ”
Cameryn had never seen a person’s mood change so fast; it was as if a tornado had suddenly landed inside her mother’s small body. “Go and get my wallet!” she cried. “Run! Catch her!”
“Me?”
“Please!” Muscles stretched and pulled on Hannah’s neck like cords beneath her skin. “Jayne’s pictures are in my wallet! I need them!”
It took Cameryn only a moment to decide. She could still see the girl’s bright blue jacket on the sidewalk ahead. As she sprinted, Cameryn’s teeth jarred with every step, her body on automatic. Her mother had told her to get back her wallet, and if she could, she would. Hannah needed her.
Over the icy streets, over the dingy gray mounds of snow, Cameryn flew. Mariah had turned west on Greene Street, and Cameryn, determined, followed in hot pursuit. The girl had a head start but had been slowed by a backpack, bulky and oversized for her small frame. Her braid was long, whipping through the air as she ran. Once Mariah looked over her shoulder, and for a moment they caught each other’s eyes: Mariah’s were scared. Cameryn felt a flash of exhilaration as she registered this fact. She could catch this girl, if for no other reason than that Mariah was afraid. She would grab her and reclaim the wallet, and her mother would be proud.
The two of them became like runners in a frieze, with pumping thighs and knifing arms. It was hard pushing through the people. Mariah knocked into a woman, whose cup of hot chocolate flew into the air. "Hey!” the woman yelled, but Mariah kept running. Cameryn, intent on her prey, slammed into a man dressed in biker leathers. She fell so hard to her knees that tears stung her eyes. The next moment she felt the man’s strong arms pull her to her feet. “You okay, kid?”
“Yeah,” she panted. “Sorry.” Her knees throbbed as she scanned the street. People stood in clusters, their coats and hats as brightly colored as Christmas ornaments, but she saw no girl with a backpack, no long braid of hair undulating. Still searching for blue, Cameryn leaned against the wall until her breathing became even, but she could see only revelers.
Mariah was gone.
Chapter Four
IF ONLY SHE hadn’t worn the boots.
Snow had begun to fall harder. The flakes were powdery, like bits of silk. Cameryn hadn’t been able to gain traction because of the leather soles on her cowboy boots. Why had she worn them today of all days?
“I want a pair like that, too, now that I’m in the West,” her mother had announced on her second day in Silverton. “It’s a good thing you didn’t inherit my wide feet.”
Cameryn grimaced at her own A-width boots, feeling a surge of irritation-they’d made her fail just when her mother needed her.
Ducking around the corner of the Shady Lady, she pulled her BlackBerry from her back jeans pocket and punched in her mother’s number, swallowing hard. It rang only once before she heard, “Did you find it?” Hannah’s voice was high, agitated. In the background Cameryn heard a thumping sound, like a pounding fist. “I know it wasn’t fair for me to send you, but I knew you could run faster than I ever could. Did you find her?” Thump, thump, thump.
“I’m sorry. I tried but… she got away.”
There was a pause. It stretched out so long Cameryn wondered if Hannah was still on the line. “Mom? Do you want me to call Justin? Or the sheriff?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The pounding started up again. “Your father will find a way to turn it against me.”
Cameryn tried to reason with her but it was no use. Patrick, Hannah claimed, would find a way.
“I should never have picked her up.” Hannah stayed on that loop, chastising herself while Cameryn stood there, unsure of what to do. All the world was frozen: the telephone wires, the whiskey barrels that held summer flowers, the grass, the distant trees. Cameryn began to feel a different kind of chill. There was something off about this conversation. From her forensic psychology books she knew that everyone handled stress differently. Was this all it was-stress? She tried to convince herself, but even as she did, she only half-believed.
When Hannah finally took a breath, Cameryn broke in and asked, “Where are you?”
“In my car on Fourteenth.”
“Okay. Let’s think this through.” As a knot of people crossed by, singing, Cameryn pressed a finger in her ear and turned away. “Did you get Mariah’s last name?”
“Just Mariah. I’m sure she’s hitched another ride. I’m sure she’s gone.”
“I can drive up to Ouray and start looking.”
“No!” Hannah sounded genuinely panicked. “Promise me you won’t go. Promise me!”
“Okay, okay, I promise.”
“I’ll handle this myself. You’re a good daughter. I have to go.” With that, she hung up.
Cameryn sagged against the wall, the knees of her jeans dark and damp from when she’d fallen. She’d accepted the news calmly that her mother had been institutionalized, because it had been so long ago. But new doubts began to nibble at her mind.
Stop, she told herself. Think.
Usually she was able to analyze clinically, sifting and examining evidence as though each fact were a mosaic tile. Line them up in their proper place, and a picture would emerge. But the pieces of her mother made no sense. Elusive, defensive, euphoric, despondent-her mother’s emotions cycled as rapidly as the Colorado weather. Punching redial, she heard Hannah’s voice mail immediately kick in. Cameryn slipped the BlackBerry back into her pocket. There was nothing more she could do.
With her head bowed, she threaded her way through the throng of tourists. “Hey, Cammie, aren’t you staying for the dogsleds?” a voice cried, but she didn’t respond, too lost in her thoughts even to look up.
Turning north on Eleventh, she thought how different this problem was from the mysteries she faced in the autopsy room. If it were a body, she would have been fully prepared to peel back the skin and look inside, removing organs, slicing them open in her search for answers. But this was her mother. The mind and its thoughts were intangible, her sharp autopsy knives useless. The dead are so much simpler than the living, she decided.
Realizing she hadn’t had a thing to eat or drink all day long, she bought a hot chocolate from a vendor and gulped it down. She needed to be alone, away from the prying eyes of her father and grandmother, so she set her path for the library, one block up on Reese Street. Lit from within, Silverton’s public library glowed yellow, its light reflecting on snow in rectangular patches. After kicking the snow off her boots, Cameryn made her way up the cement steps.
A small brick building, the library had been built with funds from Andrew Carnegie in 1906. The metal letters over the door were distinct, although the U in the word PUBLIC was shaped instead like a V. Beyond the small antechamber was a second door, this one inset with windowpanes and topped by a glass transom.
A tiny bell jingled as Cameryn stepped inside. Just as she had hoped, no one was there except the librarian, who stood behind a heavy wooden counter. “Cameryn Mahoney, I thought you’d be at the festivities!” Jackie Kerwin exclaimed. Dark-eyed and slender, Jackie was an outdoorswoman who would hike to the top of Kendall Mountain and then, while there, read an entire book. Like many in Silverton, Jackie was a marriage of opposites.