Sam and Andi had breakfast early, and prepared to get on the road. Sam thought Andi seemed withdrawn or preoccupied, but suspected she was concentrating on her upcoming decision about where to go next. Sam had private thoughts of his own, wondering what he could do to keep her from leaving him for New Mexico. He didn't see how he could let her go without telling her who she was, but he had serious worries about how to do that without it being really traumatic for her. Their first hour of driving west was pretty quiet.
"Will you tell me more about Emma?" Andi asked, at last.
Sam glanced over at her. She was observing him intently. "I think I've told you pretty much what I know about her disappearance."
"No, I don't mean that. I want to know what she was like - her character, her personality, what she liked to do. You said you've known her a long time."
Sam smiled. "Not her whole life, but pretty much of it. She's extra special to me. I'll be glad to share." He gathered his thoughts for a minute or two. "I guess I'll just say things as I think of them, not really in their order of importance.
"So, what does she look like? She's very pretty, but I guess you could say that about every woman in the world, in one sense or another. No, even when she was 13 or 14, there was something about her that made you think she was going to be a very striking woman in a few years. She is, but I don't think she's ever realized just how remarkable she is. Ree-Jane - that's the daughter of Emma's mother's business partner - always found ways to try to diminish Emma - make her feel inferior in looks and general attractiveness. Well, Ree-Jane is four years older, and is certainly pretty in the common way. I think she may have realized that Emma had so much more going for her, and was always jealous. It wasn't that Emma, the Ugly Duckling, was going to someday turn into a swan. Emma already had the swan characteristics, for everybody to see.
"Let's see, what else. Well, she's always been the master of the quick response. A young friend of hers - one who prides herself on the quickness and outrageousness of her own answers - told me that Emma's lying abilities put hers to shame."
"That doesn't sound very commendable."
"Yeah, I don't think 'lying' is really the right word for what Emma does. If she doesn't want to tell you something - or if she doesn't know what you want to know - something just instantaneously pops into her head, and out her mouth. If she wants a conversation to go a certain way, but it looks like it's going to get bogged down in unimportant stuff, she just speeds it along.
"If you have time to think about it - or if you try to analyze it later - you'll realize that the few grains of truth are well covered up by the rapid response. Her lies aren't malicious - and are usually pretty clearly lies."
He paused. "It's sort of amazing, really. Did you ever know anybody like that?"
Andi gave him a long look, but didn't respond.
"Another thing I see as 'pure Emma' is her need to go all the way around Robin Hood's barn in order to ask what should be a very straightforward question."
"Robin Hood's barn?"
"You don't know that saying? I guess it's been around for hundreds of years, but nobody seems to know how it originated. I mean, what's Robin Hood's barn? Still, the meaning is usually clear enough. It just means that you take the most complicated way possible to get to your destination."
"How does Emma go around Robin Hood's barn?"
"Well, say you want to know where Jane Jones lives. The quickest - and most logical way - to get the answer would be to ask if anybody knows where Jane Jones lives. Emma doesn't seem capable of that. First, she'll say that her mother grew up in this area. She moved away while still in grammar school, but she always remembered a friend she had back then. Her name was Jones. She lived around here, and Emma's mother wondered if she still does.
"If she asks this question in a crowd, everybody starts thinking about every Jones family they ever knew, and which ones are still around, and where the others went. Emma eventually says how old her mother is, which may narrow down the field a little bit. After that has been discussed for a while, she says she thinks the woman's name may have started with a 'J,' or maybe an 'S.' That sets off a whole new round of speculation, while they think about Jones women with names starting with those initials. Somebody finally comes up with the name of Mrs. Jane Jones. Emma declares that sounds right, and asks where Mrs. Jones lives."
Andi laughed. "That's crazy! Why does she do that?"
"I have no idea, but it seems compulsive with her. It turns every question into a community event, and everybody seems to have fun. Do you know the old joke about the man whose cat died while his brother was taking care of it?"
"I don't think so."
"Well, you don't need the whole joke, but I think Emma must have taken lessons from the story. It goes like this.
"A man went away for a while, and left his cat with his brother. When he got home, he phoned his brother to arrange to pick up the cat, and his brother immediately told him the cat had died. The man bawled out his brother for being so insensitive, and suggested a nicer way to have given the news. 'For instance,' the man said, 'The first time I called, you could have told me the cat was on the roof, and wouldn’t come down. Then the next time I called, you could have said the cat had fallen off, and it was at the veterinarian's office. The third time I called, you could have said the cat had passed away. Then, I would have been prepared to hear the bad news.'
"Well, that's the way that Emma asks questions. See what I mean about Robin Hood's barn?"
Andi laughed, again. "I do."
"Well, I'm painting a pretty silly picture of her. It's definitely her - and certainly part of why I've always loved her - but certainly not the most important aspect. What really matters is that she is amazingly smart, and amazingly tenacious. Even before she was a teenager, she'd hear about something that interested her, and she wouldn't let go of it until she'd found out all there was to know about the subject. Her ability to analyze situations - to be able to ask the important questions - would have put most adults to shame, no matter their education level. She solved a 40-year old murder case pretty much on her own - not one we considered a 'cold case,' but one we didn't even know had been a murder! Another time, she led us to a more modern murderer, when we were pretty much on the wrong track. Also, she found out what really happened years ago when a baby was allegedly kidnapped from a local hotel.
"I'm not exaggerating when I say she does this all on her own. She asks herself questions, she reads old newspapers and old police reports, then asks other people questions. She just keeps going until she finds something."
"She sounds amazing."
"She is, but there's a serious down side to this. She can be really precipitous. When she gets on a scent, she seems to have no awareness of consequences - of personal safety. She just barges right on, wherever the clues lead. I sometimes have worried about her, because she's put herself in harm's way more than once. With the 40-year old murder I mentioned, she figured out what happened, all right. Unfortunately, the murderer found her, and was very close to killing her. Emma was only saved at the very last minute."
"Did you rescue her?"
"No, I did not. I'm ashamed and embarrassed to say I didn't know what was about to happen. Another friend of hers had been watching over her - she didn't realize it - and he saved her, really at the very last moment.'
"Why do you think she's like that?" Andi asked.
"I don't know. I'm not very good at psychology, and I don't have kids of my own. I don't think I actually know very much about kids. Therefore, it's pretty presumptuous of me to look at her relationship with her mother for answers, but I do. I think I give her mom both blame - and credit - for how Emma has developed.
"Emma once told Maud - who told me - that she was sure her mother loved her, but that it was kind of a long distance, formal kind of love. I don't know what her father was like - he died before I got to town - but her mother, in all the years I knew her, seemed to keep her kids at arm's length. Except for a few basic rules - for Emma, not much more than don't be late for your work at the hotel - she left them pretty much on their own. I'm sure she didn't know where either Emma or Will were at, most of the time.
"Giving a child independence is really good, I think. It allowed Emma to develop and use a lot of her skills, and promoted a strong initiative in her. Still, I don't think the initiative came from confidence; I think it developed out of necessity. She's needed someone around to communicate with, someone to offers ideas and to critique hers, and to help her set sideboards on how she went about her investigations.
"So, Andi, have I told you what you wanted to know?"
"Yes, I think so. Thanks."
***
They had been on the road about five hours when they crossed the bridge between lakes Michigan and Huron, and started south. They found a good sandwich shop in Cheboygan. Andi had been quiet for the last hour or so, after they stopped talking about Emma.
"Sam, would you mind if we stopped early today? I'm a little tired, and I'd also like to have some more time to talk to you about some things."
He studied her a moment. "Thinking about your decision coming up?" he asked.
"In a way, yes. Is it all right? I know you're eager to get home to Maud."
"Sure, it's fine. A half-day won't change the driving time much."
They went another quarter of an hour to the community of Wolverine, and found a motel. It was too early to eat, again.
"Do you want to rest for a while, Andi, or talk?"
"Let's talk. I think it'll take some time."
Sam checked into his room, then came back over to Andi's. "Okay, what's up?"
Andi looked at him for a moment before replying. "A couple of things have been bothering me, that I'd like to clear up. They're about your search for Emma. You didn't tell me many details of where you'd been, but I know you were looking for her on the way to southern California. It seems odd to me that you would have been looking in North Dakota."
It came out as a question. Sam didn't respond.
"Then, when we met, you told me that you were on your way home to Maud, and were eager to get there. Again, it seemed odd to me that the way you picked to go home would be through North Dakota."
Sam still didn't reply.
"So, what I'm thinking is that our meeting on a country road in North Dakota wasn't by accident?"
"No, it wasn't an accident."
"Then, if you were looking for me, it seems to me that you must think I'm Emma."
"That's exactly what I think."
Andi's reaction to that surprised her. If it was true - that she was Emma - she thought she should feel elation that she now knew who she was. She did, but she also sensed a real confusion. She might have been "Emma" most of her life, but the last two years had been all "Andi." That was hard to set aside.
"Why do you think I'm Emma, Sam?"
Sam cleared his throat, and seemed to be gathering his thoughts. "I don't think you're Emma. I've known you were, since the first day I saw you on the road. When you left at 16, you were still pretty much a 'kid.' Two years later, due to age and experience, you are clearly a woman, but Emma - my Emma! - is still right there. It's been murder for me these past couple of days, sitting near you, and talking to you as a stranger. What I've wanted to do is hug you to me, tell you how much I love you, and how amazingly happy I am to have found you, again. I know I couldn't do that, because you didn't know any of it - probably, still don't know." He stopped, knowing he was close to tears. "So, let's take it back out of the 'personal,' and look at the 'facts' I've gathered.
"You remembered correctly that we had lost track of Emma on her way to southern California. I think I told you that she had sent several postcards as she took the bus west. What I don't think I told you is that the last card was from Santa Fe. She wrote that she'd decided to stay there for a day, to look around. That was the obvious place to start my search. I found her suitcase still at the bus station, so I was pretty sure that - whatever had happened - she hadn't continued west.
"I told you I'd made the one trip west, without success. Back home, I continued to make regular contacts all through the winter and early spring with police stations, hospitals, and newspapers between Santa Fe and California, and in late spring I was rewarded. A police officer named Oñate, in Santa Fe, remembered a brief phone call he had with a friend, a Dr. Anders. Anders had asked him to check any recent reports of women missing in Idaho or Colorado. He checked, couldn't find anything, and told that to Dr. Anders. My latest inquiry reached him just a month later. I flew back to New Mexico.
"I met Oñate at his office, and he told me how to find Dr. Anders, which I did. Anders told me about meeting with Mary Dark Hope, and you. I showed him a photo of Emma, and he thought it could be you. However, the photo is almost three years old, you had obviously changed from a girl to a woman in that time period, and you were also probably older-looking because of your three months in the mountains. Those were good reasons for him not to make a positive identification.
"I assume you remember that meeting?"
"Yes, very well. So, did you see Mary?"
"I did. I went to her home north of Santa Fe. She was barely home from your adventures in Idaho. She was reluctant to talk to a police officer - understandable, considering your later adventures - but I told her about seeing Dr. Anders. Then, I showed her the photo. She was more positive than Dr. Anders had been, but still had her doubts. Those disappeared when I showed her the postcards Emma had sent, and she immediately agreed that your and Emma's handwritings were identical. Right then, I knew I had found Emma, and you were alive and not far ahead of me."
She looked a little sad, and a little stunned. "What made you want to talk about this, now?" Sam asked. "Was it our talk this morning?"
"Partly, but it was mostly because I've started to remember some things. Yesterday, I remembered your last name. I know you never mentioned it, and it certainly isn't a name one could guess at."
"DeGheyn. No, I don't think it's one you'd stumble across. It would be sort of like Rapunzel trying to guess Rumpelstiltskin's name?"
"Who?" She looked confused.
"You don't remember that story? In the fairy tale, Queen Rapunzel had to guess Rumpelstiltskin's name, or she'd have to give him her first-born baby." Andi still looked puzzled. "Sorry. I'm just being silly. But you said you remembered more than one thing.. What else?"
"I remember sitting in a booth in a restaurant with Maud."
Sam chuckled. "That's the Rainbow Cafe - Shirl's place - where Maud works. You two spend a lot of time in that back booth, eating and talking. Anything else?"
"Not really. Just fuzzy stuff, so far. But can you tell me what happened to me?"
"I think I can guess most of it, but a lot is just speculation. We know you were in Santa Fe when you sent the postcard. It was that same night that you stayed at the motel with Harry Wine. That's the date he signed the guest book."
"I was only with him one night?"
"That's right. That business about Cripple Creek: He was there to gamble, but that was before he abducted you. Apparently, he really was at Santa Fe for some kind of meeting that next morning.
"I don't think he blatantly kidnapped you. From what I've learned about him, it doesn't seem to have been his style to do something that would be clearly criminal, if someone happened to see him. I think he just took advantage of a situation. Clearly, you were unconscious - or at least very woozy - probably from a fall where you hit your head - or maybe you had fainted, but I don't know why you would have. Anyway, he saw you go down, stopped, and put you in his car. If somebody had seen him, he could have said he was taking you to the hospital.
"When he took you to the motel, you were either still unconscious, or else he helped it along with drugs. The amount of time you were out, with no obvious serious injuries afterward, certainly suggests he kept you unconscious some way."
"He raped me."
"Yeah, I don't know any other reason that a man would bring a helpless woman to a motel room."
"No, I'm sure he did. When I woke up, I was dressed, but I really ached, and it was just an assumption, then. When I confronted him in Idaho, he admitted it. He said I hadn't been 'that good.' I don't know what he expected from an unconscious 16-year old girl!"
"That son of a bitch!"
"Yeah. Unfortunately, that's all he would tell me about. He made up a bunch of stories about how I came to be with him, but they were all lies. I didn't know anything, until you told me the truth, just now.
"I have wondered what he intended to do with me, if I hadn't escaped."
"I've wondered about that, too. Apparently, he really did have a meeting he needed to go to, but he certainly couldn't have risked leaving a drugged or tied-up girl in his room. That would have brought either a doctor, or the police - or both. You might have stayed unconscious until he got back but..."
"I had one idea about that. As you said, he couldn't leave me alone in the room, drugged or tied up, and I think he was much too calculating to have misjudged the time he'd be away. I think he'd dressed me, then told the manager that I might be over for breakfast, for the very reason that I might wake up.
"When I talked to the manager, it was clear that Harry had really won her over. She talked about how handsome he was - with his blue eyes and dark, curly hair - and how charming, with his interesting stories of his travels. If I had appeared, with some story about being kidnapped and not knowing who 'Daddy' was, what would she have thought? Obviously, I wouldn't have been a captive, and I would have looked 'old enough' to willingly be with a man in a motel room. Maybe the manager would begin to think she had misjudged the 'father-daughter' relationship - such things happen in motels - but there would certainly be no grounds for her to suspect any captive or coercive situation. With Harry so apparently open and charming, there would have to be some other reason for my accusations. I pretty quickly realized that she wouldn't be any help getting me out of danger. Even without knowing Harry at the time, I had the feeling that he would be able to talk himself out of any situation - with the motel manager, certainly, but probably even with the police. That's when I decided I would have to make my escape entirely on my own."
Sam thought about what she said. "That sounds like pretty good reasoning. It still doesn't get to the question of what would he have done with you if you hadn't escaped. I'm thinking he probably had done what he wanted to do with you - sorry to put it that way! - and would just like to have you quietly disappear. It would have been pretty difficult to keep you a prisoner, after you woke up and saw what was going on. Another thing that comes into this, and puzzles me, is that - unless he was absolutely positive you weren't a local woman - would he have risked even keeping you overnight, when you might have been reported missing within a few hours? I don't think he saw you get off the bus - that would have meant that loading you in his car wasn't spontaneous. Maybe he assumed, because of your backpack, that you were just passing through. It's curious, though. We've talked about him being a risk-taker, but his 'risks' seem like they always had a way out for him. What's that term - plausible deniability? He always left himself with a way to explain away any questions that might arise. Would he - on the basis of your backpack, alone - really take the chance of assuming you were someone without local connections? It doesn't seem likely to me.
"Well, I'm still thinking that, if you hadn't escaped, he would have got you away from the motel, then dropped you off by the side of the road somewhere. If you tried to explain your situation to anyone, he would have hoped his 'plausible deniability' was enough. Him losing track of you really didn't change things that much."
She paused a moment before responding. "Did you know that he did find me, after I got away?"
"I did not! When was this?"
"After I escaped, I accepted a ride from a man in a pickup truck. I didn't want to hitchhike, but it was getting close to nightfall, and I was still quite a ways from the mountains. Of course, I didn't know him, but he did match the motel clerk's description of 'Daddy.' However, he wasn't in the Idaho sedan from the motel. We talked casually, and he finally let me off, and went on his way. He didn't try to detain me, but later I got to thinking that, as soon as he realized I didn't recognize him, he would know he didn't have to worry about me, anymore. I think maybe he started back to Idaho pretty soon after that."
"And you're sure it was him?"
"Oh, yes. He admitted it when I confronted him later in Idaho." She was thinking. "So, I guess that's all we'll ever know about what actually happened."
"Maybe not," said Sam, "But, when you find out, it may be a pretty tough way to hear it. I've wondered if maybe you did know at the time what was happening, and you 'forgot' it, along with everything else. In fact, I've wondered if that was part of the reason your amnesia was so complete and lasted so long. Think about it. You were probably still stressed from your mom's death and the hotel sale. You likely had some trauma from whatever your head injury was, and suddenly you're being assaulted in a motel room. Two years ago, you were still a kid. You hadn't even had boyfriends. Kidnap and rape would be traumatic for anybody of any age, but for you - with what you'd already been through... Well, maybe those are details that you don't need to know."
She paused. "No, I think I really need those memories, if they come back to me. I don't know why. It just seems like a part of my life will remain missing, otherwise."
***
They seemed to be talked out, so Sam returned to his room, and they both slept for several hours. At dinner, Emma seemed a little subdued, but that was probably to be expected. When they returned to their rooms, she stopped him.
"Sam, could you come in when I'm ready to go to bed, and just stay with me until I get to sleep? I think I'm okay, but this has been - to say the least! - a very heavy, confusing day. If you stayed with me for an hour or so, I wouldn't have to scream and pound on the wall to get your attention."
Sam chuckled, but he knew she was serious. "Sure, I can do that. I was going to call Maud tonight. If I call from your room, you could say hello, if you wanted to."
An hour or so later, he came back to her room, and called Maud. The half of the call she heard sounded like this. "Is this the Maud Chadwick who is greatly loved by a ruggedly handsome sheriff? Well, I guess that's close enough. How are you, Maudie? Yes, I am rather missing you, too. Where am I? We're in Michigan, a little bit south of Cheboygan. Yes, I did say 'we.' My traveling companion is partly Andi, and partly Emma. It's a little confusing for both of us, but I think we're getting it straightened out. Do you want to say hello to her?" He handed the phone to Emma.
"Hi, Maud. Yes, you sound just like you, too, even over the telephone. I'm okay, I think, but as Sam says, it's pretty confusing. No, I haven't known very long. We're actually just sorting it out today. I started to remember a few things, like Sam's last name. No, he said it would be like trying to guess Rumpelstiltskin’s name. How long until we get to you? I'm looking at him, and he's holding up two fingers. Two days? Yes, he says two days. No, I'm excited, too. Here he is, back."
"Hi again, Maudie. I figure we'll get down to around Toledo tomorrow, so it'll be a relatively short distance home the next day. Yes, my love, I am looking forward to all kinds of good stuff. 'Night."
Sam and Emma talked for a few minutes, but both were exhausted. Emma crawled into bed, while Sam took a newspaper over to the comfy-looking armchair. Both were asleep within minutes. Sam woke about 4 a.m., and went back to his room to sleep a couple more hours.
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