On a
bench at the edge of the Lithia Park playground, someone is stalking two-year-old
Emily Michaelson as she plays with her eighteen-year-old half-sister, Brandy.
The child’s laughter curves through the sunlight, as if on wings. The stalker
is more enamored than ever, but aware of Brandy’s vigilance with Emily, knows a
kidnapping won’t be easy. Planning to gain Emily’s trust, the stalker gives her
a necklace—little girls love pretty things. A few days later, Brandy and Emily
arrive at the park for the Children's Health Fair. The stalker sees them enter
the public restroom and seizes the opportunity.
Not
long after Emily's disappearance, Detective Radhauser finds her rainbow-colored
sneakers in Ashland Creek, their laces tied together in double knots. Brandy’s
father and stepmother blame Brandy for Emily’s disappearance. Radhauser feels
sorry for her, but insists she stay out of the investigation. Brandy can’t do
that. She is obsessed with finding out who took her little sister, and why.
Will she find Emily in time?
Excerpt –
When Time Is A River
I sat on a concrete bench exactly twenty
yards from the Lithia Park playground and waited for Emily. For thirty-two
days, I’d studied her movements, followed her and Brandy, the teenager Emily
called Band-Aid, trying to determine exactly how and when to execute my plan.
As the sun made its low circuit across a
crisp and cloudless sky, I felt grateful to be free again. To be in this place
where the air smelled like earth and pine bark.
I opened my leather attaché case and removed
my binoculars and The Sibley Guide to
Birds. I set the book in a visible spot beside me on the bench, picked up
my binoculars and scanned the clumps of rhododendron bushes where Emily liked
to hide. She wasn’t there. Shifting the binoculars to the playground, I
searched the line of children at the slides, the sandbox and finally found
Emily on the merry-go-round.
Brandy ran in circles and sang as she pushed
the laughing child. “The wheels on the bus go round and round…” Every time I
saw her in the park, she was singing. Sometimes she came alone, brought a
guitar and sat by the creek.
Small clouds of dust rose with the beat of
her boots on the worn ring of dirt around the merry-go-round. Her long dark and
curly hair was tamed on the top and sides by a hot pink cowboy hat and her skirt
flowed behind her like a multi-colored banner as she ran. A half dozen silver
bracelets made music when she moved her arm. She looked like a gypsy turned
cowgirl.
I focused on her bandaged cheek, flinched
and looked away. More than anything, I hated imperfection.
When she skidded to a stop and the dust
settled, the merry-go-round slowed and my gaze riveted on Emily. As always, she
clutched her worn Pooh bear in her lap. I adjusted the lens on my binoculars
until Emily appeared close enough to count the grass clippings on the back of
her neck. I imagined the toddler turning somersaults on the newly mown lawn—the
legs of her red corduroy pants rising up over the plump soft flesh on her
calves. I tried to steady my breathing. Alive with secrets and desires, I no
longer cared what the dark-suited doctors said. They never understood my needs
or my dreams. Why should I swallow their pills to escape them?
Emily rested her chin on the
merry-go-round’s safety bar. With her legs dangling over the side, she looked like
an illustration in the storybook, Snow
White. A tiny flawless princess—so brightly lit from the inside that I
imagined sunshine, rather than blood, filled her perfect veins. When the
spinning finally stopped, she stood and jumped.
“Be careful,” I whispered as I set the
binoculars aside.
Emily’s hair flew up, then fell back over
her forehead—sunlight rippling through the red highlights in her dark curls. In
midair she flashed a smile, then landed on her feet, giggling over her shoulder
as Brandy chased her around the playground.
A flutter of panic rose in my throat. Brandy
was so vigilant. But even careful people make mistakes.
Emily’s laughter soared through the air and
the two of them passed so close to me I could have reached out and touched
Emily. Then the toddler turned and ran back toward the merry-go-round. As she
passed by the bench where I sat, she paused and waved at me.
Happiness swelled my chest. The dream of
having this particular little girl pulsed through my veins like a mind-altering
drug. It aroused every nerve in my body until even my fingertips throbbed with
expectation.
Brandy scooped Emily up in her arms.
She was so pure and innocent. All I needed
to do was gain her trust and the rest would be easy.
I pulled the necklace from my pants pocket
and smiled as I studied the garnet heart set between two diamonds.
Little
girls love pretty things.
Susan Clayton-Goldner is a graduate of the
University of Arizona's Creative Writing Program and has been writing most of
her life. Her novels have been finalists for The Hemingway Award, the Heeken
Foundation Fellowship, the Writers Foundation and the Publishing On-line
Contest. Susan won the National Writers' Association Novel Award twice for
unpublished novels, and her poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A
collection of her poems, A Question of Mortality, was released in 2015.
Her novel, A Bend In The Willow, released by Tirgearr Publishing in
January, 2017, has nearly 100 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4.6 stars. Her second
novel, Redemption Lake, was released
in May, 2017 and is averaging 4.9 stars on Amazon. Her newest release, When Time Is A River, is available for preorder at half-price and releases
on September 6, 2017.
When she isn’t writing, Susan spends her time
making stained-glass windows and quilts. She says those two activities are similar
to writing—telling stories through glass and fabric.
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