Daddy's Gone a Hunting

41

After his lunchtime meeting with Nick Greco, Mark Sloane stayed at his desk until after 6 P.M., trying to put off the moment when he would call his mother to ask her to have a DNA swab taken to help in the search for Tracey. Talking to Greco had brought back so many memories for him. He had been only ten years old, but he remembered his mother’s heartbroken crying when she learned that his sister was missing. He had stayed with neighbors while she went to New York. She had stayed a week in Tracey’s apartment as the intensive police search went on.

Then, taking the sympathetic advice of the police, she had flown home. Her face ravaged with grief, she had told him that the police thought that something bad had happened to Tracey. “I’m going to hope and pray,” she had told him. “I still think that maybe Tracey had some sort of memory loss. She was working so hard and taking all those classes. Or she may have had a breakdown.”

His mother had even continued to pay the rent on Tracey’s apartment for six months. Then, no longer able to keep it up, she had gone to New York again, that time to pack up Tracey’s clothes and other personal items and bring them home. For another year she had stored Tracey’s furniture in a warehouse but then had told the owners of the facility to give everything to the Salvation Army.

All of this was running through Mark’s mind before he finally made the phone call home. To his surprise and relief, his mother told him that she had already been contacted by Detective Greco. “He was so nice,” she said. “He said that you were going to call me, but he wanted to first assure me that this was an important step to help the process of bringing Tracey home someday. I told him that I remembered how kind he had been all those years ago and that I’ve always been so grateful.”

She changed the subject to ask about his new job and his apartment. When their conversation ended, somewhat heartened by having spoken to her, Mark left the office. He had planned to sign up at the gym in his neighborhood, but instead he decided to go straight home. In the lobby, again waiting for the elevator, he saw the tall, attractive redhead who had been with Hannah Connelly when the marshals had arrived.

She gave him a brief smile, then turned her head away.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s terribly upset, he thought. “I’m Mark Sloane,” he said. “We rode up in the elevator together the other day. Since then I’ve read the story of the explosion at the Connelly factory. How is the sister who was injured doing?”

“She’s developed a fever,” Jessie said, quietly. “Hannah is going to stay overnight in the hospital and asked me to pick up some of her personal things.”

The elevator arrived and they got into it. Mark fished out his business card and handed it to Jessie. “Look, I’m Hannah’s new neighbor. If there’s anything I can ever do to help out, I hope she or you will call on me.”

Jessie looked at the card. “Jessie Carlson. And I’m a lawyer, too. You read about the explosion, so I guess you know that Hannah’s sister, Kate, may be accused of setting it. I’m representing her.”

The distress in her expression gave way to a look of fierce determination. “She is innocent and can’t defend herself.” Then the elevator stopped at Mark’s floor and reluctantly he got off. The lawyer in him wanted to know more about how strong a case was being built against a gravely wounded young woman. The thought of the pain that her sister, who was now his neighbor, was undergoing reinforced his own personal grief about Tracey.

He had no way of knowing that the answer to his own sister Tracey’s disappearance would be found in the rubble of the Connelly complex explosion.