The Mysteries Read Free Page B

headshake, occupied with settling a large leather shoulder bag onto her lap.
    “I have herbal teas.”
    “How nice for you.” She shot me a glance and softened her tone. “I'm fine. And I need to make this meeting short because I'm on my way to work.”
    “OK. Let's roll.” I settled down at my desk and opened her file. So far, it contained only her two e-mails and my replies. “You're looking for your daughter.”
    “Yes. Peri.”
    “Full name?”
    “Peregrine Alexandra Lensky. But we've always called her Peri.”
    “What age is she?”
    “Twenty-one, last week.”
    “And when did you last see her?”
    “Two and a half years ago. It was just before Christmas.”
    I felt something heavy drop, that inward feeling that said it was hopeless, I should refuse this case. I didn't want another failure. Two years was too long.
    Not taking my eyes off the screen, I said softly, “You know, even after a few
months
the chances of—”
    “But I talked to her about five months after she disappeared.”
    That surprised me into meeting her eyes. “You talked to her?”
    “On the phone. She called me, collect, from a pay phone in Scotland. She said—all she said was, she wanted me to know that she was happy. And she loved me.” Laura's eyes were very bright. “I tried to keep her talking, to tell me more, but she wouldn't. She said she couldn't stay. We talked for maybe, I don't know, two minutes.”
    “You're sure it was her?”
    The golden eyes flashed. “I know my own daughter.”
    “Yeah, sure, I didn't mean . . .” I raised my hands helplessly. “I have to ask.”
    “It was Peri,” she said quietly.
    “And she's never called you since?”
    She shook her head.
    “Did you get the feeling that she was . . . I don't know . . . making the phone call under some sort of pressure? That somebody was making her say she was OK?”
    Looking a little puzzled, she shook her head. “Why?”
    It seemed unlikely to me as well, but I was feeling my way. “Was there a big search for her when she disappeared? A police hunt?”
    She shook her head. An old bitterness twisted her mouth, and I knew in advance what I would hear. “Peri was an adult, over eighteen, and there was no evidence of any crime, or force . . . The police always assumed she'd left of her own free will. That she'd had enough of me and her boyfriend and just went off to live her own life.” She sighed. “And, well, maybe she did. Except there was no reason for it—she wasn't unhappy, in fact, everything was working out just as she wanted. There was no reason for her to run away, none at all.”
    I left that one for the moment. “Why do
you
think she called?”
    She sat up a little straighter. “Because she knew I'd be worried. I mean, she
could
have thought of that months earlier, but, well, better late than never. She didn't want me to worry—she wanted me to know she was happy. But she didn't want me trying to interfere, talking her into coming back, which is why she didn't give me any way of getting in touch with her.”
    So far, so ordinary. It was an old, old story; only the details would be different. Peri had fallen in love with a stranger, or she'd joined a religious cult, or maybe she'd just gone on the road to find herself, in her own way, in her own time.
    “And you believed that she was happy? That she was OK? How did she sound?”
    She considered the question carefully, kneading the soft leather of her bag between her hands. “Alive. Herself. Um. Emotional . . . very . . .”
    “Scared?” In my mind's eye, there was a man in a phone booth with the girl, a little snub-nosed pistol pressed into her back.
    As if she could see this melodramatic image, Laura frowned and shook her head. “Not scared. Happy, but . . . I thought once she was on the brink of tears. Maybe a little homesick? Torn two ways? She did say she missed me, but . . .” She sighed and gave her head a shake. “I'd like to think I'm more important to her than I