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“How old was she?”
“She was six, the same age as you were when you were taken.”
“What was her name?”
“Her name was Dora.”
“You should have told me sooner; I would have tried harder to remember,” her voice was full of self-reproach.
“You would have put more pressure on yourself, and that probably would have hampered your memories. Besides, no one knows—not Allina, not my boss, no one. Dawson is a common enough surname that no one thought to connect me to Dora Dawson. And when we divided up the old case files to read through them, I made sure that I got hers, so Allina didn’t read my statement from the day my sister disappeared. I don’t want anyone to find out; I don’t want to get taken off this case. My mother is dying, and I want to give her closure. I want this case solved, so we know who killed Dora, then my mom can have peace of mind before she passes away.”
“I'm so sorry, Jonathon. I wish you'd told me earlier. I understand why you didn’t, but I really would have tried harder to remember if I'd known how much it meant to you.”
“Dora and a little boy named Dominick were the last two children killed. Next were you and Thomas and you two escaped. If they had seen you first, then . . .” he broke off as he realized what he’d just implied.
“Then I would have died, and your sister would have been the one to escape,” Clara finished woodenly.
“I’m sorry, Clara. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” he implored.
“That’s okay,” she wriggled backward off his lap.
Tears were swimming in her eyes, and he hated that he’d caused her pain when she was already struggling to come to terms with so much. He needed to get better at thinking before he spoke. He hadn’t dated much since his divorce, and his ex hadn’t been one who’d gotten offended easily. “No, it’s not okay, I hurt you. I didn’t mean to. I'm glad you're alive, Clara. I wouldn’t ever wish anything to change that; I just wish my sister had survived, too. Forgive me?”
“Really, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I understand.”
Clara said it in such a way that made it sound that she believed what he’d said to be what she deserved. He didn’t like that. “What I said was thoughtless, and it came out wrong. If you weren’t alive, then I couldn’t do this.” Jonathon pressed his lips to her, pleased when after a moment she responded, tilting her head up and deepening the kiss. He could have kissed her all night, could have done a lot of things with her and to her all night, but he wanted to know why she thought it was okay that anyone, whether it had been what they meant or not, wished her dead. When he pulled away, Clara sighed—a half-content, half-sad sigh—and closed her eyes. Cupping her cheek in his hand, still damp from her wet hair, he asked, “What's wrong, Clara?”
“Sometimes I think it would have been better for one of the other little girls to have lived instead of me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because I feel like I'm wasting my life. I just go through the motions. I feel like in those six weeks I lost the ability to feel joy. It’s like I'm numb.” Fresh tears filled her eyes, and she brushed at them. “I don’t want to cry again. It makes me feel weak.”
He wasn’t sure where to start with that. “Well first off, you arenotweak. Anyone who goes through something so traumatic in childhood and then goes on to lead a perfectly normal, productive life, is the very definition of strong. And you can learn to have fun.” Clara said that she no longer got joy out of life, but she had a job she loved. She was close with her family, and she had a beautifully whimsical home—he suspected it was more that she didn’t allow herself to enjoy things. “Maybe you’ve put so much energy into convincing everyone, convincing yourself, that you can lead a normal life despite what happened, that you haven’t had anything left for just being silly and spontaneous. But I can help you with that,” he grinned. In his first marriage, it had been all about fun and craziness, and while that wasn't all he wanted, it was certainly an important part of keeping the magic alive.
“Okay,” Clara smiled back, lifting a hand to cover his. “Can you stay?”
“I'm sorry, honey; I’d love to, but I have to work. I told Allina I'd only be an hour, and I've already been way longer. I could come back later, though? Spend the night again?” he asked, hoping she’d say yes. He loved sleeping with Clara curled up against him.
“I’d love that,” she smiled. “Where’s Naomi?”
“Upstairs—at least I assume she is. I asked her to give us some privacy. I better be going. I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll miss you.” Most traces of pain and confusion were gone from her face; now she just looked tired.
“I’ll miss you, too.”
Unable to resist one more kiss, as his lips met hers, he knew he was falling hard and fast for Clara Candella.
February 12th
12:04 A.M.
It had been a long day. A long, emotionally upheaving day that had left her exhausted. And yet as tired as she was, she couldn’t fall asleep. Clara had been lying in bed for hours now, tossing and turning, getting too hot and then too cold, trying to will her mind to relax enough to turn off and let her sleep.
Snippets of memories from the missing six weeks had been trickling into her mind all day ever since the session with the hypnotist this morning. That had been a truly terrifying experience. To put herself in a stranger’s hands and let the woman pull out of her the memories her brain had deemed scary enough to block out for her own good had been daunting enough, but to do nothing and know that those children’s deaths might have been preventable would have left her eaten alive by guilt.
As horrible as the memories of the cold, the hunger, the pain, the fear every time the man and the woman entered the attic had been, it was the memories of her time with Tommy that were the most unsettling.
