The Tempted. Amanda Stevens

her arms around her middle. “I’m not sure I have any faith left.” She searched the early-morning sky. White clouds scattered across an intense, blinding blue, and the sun hovered in the east. It was late August, still hot and humid, the temperature marching steadily upward to the nineties. But in spite of the heat, Tess thought she could detect a hint of fall in the air. Or maybe it was her mood. Maybe it was a portent. The seasons would be changing soon. Would her daughter still be missing?

      “I want her to come home. I want to hold her in my arms again. She’s just a baby. She didn’t deserve this. How could something like this happen?” she asked angrily.

      When Naomi reached a hand to touch her arm, Tess flinched away. Immediately remorse set in. Naomi had been nothing but kindness. “I’m sorry,” Tess whispered, putting a trembling hand to her face. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you like that. I don’t do that. I don’t—”

      “Lose control? Fall to pieces? Maybe it would help if you did.”

      Tess wished she could fall apart. She wished she could scream at the injustice and cruelty of a world that would allow this to happen to an innocent child. She wished she could just let go, beat her fists against her chest, tear her hair, do something, anything, to give rein to her rage. But losing control wouldn’t help Emily, and control was about all Tess had left.

      She glanced at Naomi and the hollowness inside her deepened. “How do you do it? After all these years, how do you keep going?”

      Naomi glanced away. “Sometimes it might be easier to just give up, to lose all hope. To accept what fate has doled out to me. But then I think about Sadie out there somewhere, wondering if I’m still looking for her, and I make one more phone call. I follow up on that last lead. I do the next interview because if she is still alive, I want her to know that I haven’t given up. That I’ll never give up.”

      “I won’t give up, either,” Tess said fiercely. “But the police have.”

      Naomi squeezed her hand. “I know it seems that way now, but the case will remain open. Leads will be followed. My sister has put a major career change on hold until they find Emily.”

      Tess lifted her head. “Career change?”

      “Abby’s applied for acceptance at the FBI Academy, but no matter if she’s accepted or not, she’s not going anywhere until Emily is found. That’s how committed she is.” Naomi glanced over her shoulder at the sheriff’s station. “They all are, Tess. You have to remain committed, too. There are things you can do on your own to find your daughter, and the Children’s Rescue Network can help you.”

      “I’ll do anything,” Tess said brokenly. “You know that.”

      Naomi nodded. “The first thing is to stay connected with as many of the missing-children’s networks and foundations around the country as you can.”

      There were so many of them, Tess had discovered. Most of them founded in memory of someone’s missing child, just like the Children’s Rescue Network had been founded in Sadie Cross’s memory. A year from now, ten years from now, would such a foundation be Tess’s only consolation, her only connection to a daughter she loved more that life itself?

      “You’ll want to keep Emily’s story in the news and her picture in front of the public as much as you can,” Naomi said. “And you’ll have to find creative ways of doing that now that media interest is waning. You might also want to think about starting a Web site. We can help you with that.”

      Tess wasn’t as proficient on a computer as she should be in this day and age, but she knew about the Internet’s power, its ability to reach millions of people in the space of a heartbeat. The rest she would learn.

      “What else?”

      Naomi paused. “You can go proactive.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “If the note I found is genuine, then the kidnapper has already made contact once, and he was willing to risk detection to do so. You could do another round of television and radio interviews, asking for your daughter’s safe return. It’s possible the kidnapper will respond to your pleas.”

      Tess seized on her words. “Then you think the note was genuine. You don’t think it was a hoax as the police seem to.”

      “I’m not an expert,” Naomi cautioned. “But I can tell you this. For a split second after I found that message, it crossed my mind that it was from Sadie. I know that sounds crazy. She’s fifteen years old now, almost a young woman, but I guess a part of me still thinks of her exactly as she was the last time I saw her.” A shadow darkened her expression, but her eyes were bright and dry. “The point I’m trying to make is that the note touched me in some way. I think a child wrote it.”

      Relief welled inside Tess. “I think so, too. I think that child was Emily.”

      “If she did write it, then we have to assume she’s still alive. And if she’s alive, someone may have seen her. A neighbor or a family member of the kidnapper may have suspicions, but for whatever reason, hasn’t come forward. You may have to increase the reward offer, and you may also want to consider hiring a private-detective firm to look at the investigation in a different way.”

      Tess’s heart sank. Immediately after Emily’s disappearance, she’d drained her savings to set up a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information pertaining to the kidnapping. That was all the money she had in the world, and her cleaning service had suffered a major financial setback, primarily because she wasn’t around to supervise and coordinate the work.

      For the last three weeks, she’d haunted the sheriff’s station every day, looking for any scrap of information, any bit of news that would give her hope, that would give her confidence the police were doing everything that could be done to find her daughter. She’d worked with the volunteers, stuffing envelopes, answering phones, passing out pictures locally and to the organizations that could distribute them state-and nationwide. No job was too tedious or too overwhelming for her to tackle. She would do anything in her power to bring her daughter home, but Naomi was asking her to do the one thing she could not do. She couldn’t raise the reward offer. Not alone.

      As if reading her mind, Naomi said sympathetically, “The CRN can set up a fund to help you out financially, but it’ll still be expensive. And it could take a while for the donations to mount up. Is there anyone who can help you out immediately?”

      Tess shook her head. “Emily and I have no family except for my mother, and she’s certainly not a wealthy woman.”

      “What about Emily’s father?”

      Tess grew instantly defensive. “What about him?”

      “I know he’s dead, but what about his family? Could they help?”

      “Uh, no,” Tess said awkwardly, realizing her initial response must have seemed a little strange. “They’re on a fixed income, too. They wouldn’t be able to help.” Not that his mother would if she could, Tess thought. Mildred Campbell had been dead set against her son’s marriage to Tess, and her attitude hadn’t softened even when Tess had nursed Alan through the worst of his illness, when she’d kept vigil night and day at his deathbed. The child Tess had been carrying had only served to remind the grief-stricken woman that as one life began another was ending.

      And now it was Emily’s life on the line.

      What about her father?

      A shudder racked Tess at the mere thought of her secret being revealed after all these years. Emily was in grave danger at the hands of her kidnapper, but the note proved she was still alive. She could still be found and rescued.

      But if the truth came out now, there might be nothing Tess could do to save her daughter.

      Chapter Two

      “Here’s your mail, Mr. Spencer. And your messages.”

      Jared