Trail of Secrets. Sandra Robbins

of her uncle holding her upright until she learned to balance drifted into her head, and a tear slipped down her cheek.

      She was about to turn away when the lights of an approaching car caught her attention. It moved so slowly she wasn’t sure whether she imagined it or not when it seemed to come to a stop in front of her house.

      A small circle of red lit the interior for a brief second. A lit cigarette. Callie’s skin prickled at the feeling that someone inside that car had stopped to study her uncle’s house. After a minute, the car moved slowly to the end of the street and made a circle in the cul-de-sac before driving past her uncle’s house once more.

      This time she studied the outline of the vehicle more carefully. Her knees trembled, and she grabbed the table to steady herself. Was this the car she’d caught a fleeting glimpse of before Uncle Dan shoved her head into her lap?

      THREE

      Callie rose in bed and pounded her pillow again in an effort to get more comfortable. Her statement that she wouldn’t have any trouble falling asleep had come before a strange car had stopped in front of her uncle’s house. Even though she had watched it drive away, every time she closed her eyes, she either relived the gunshot blasting into the car, the scene of a man with a pillow over her uncle’s face or a dark car with its engine idling in front of the house.

      She glanced at the cell phone lying on the bedside table and sighed. Four a.m. It would probably be sunup in an hour or so, and she hadn’t slept a wink. Groaning, she sat up on the side of the bed and rubbed her tired eyes. She wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes open at the hospital when she went back later today, but she couldn’t help it. Her raw nerves refused to let her relax, and she climbed out of bed.

      She put on her robe, slipped her cell phone in her pocket and went downstairs. Maybe a glass of warm milk would help her fall asleep. After heating some milk, she carried the cup into the den and sipped at it as she stared out the window into the backyard.

      The tree she’d climbed as a child seemed to wave its branches at her as she stared into the darkness. She smiled, remembering the times she had called for her uncle, who was usually busy in his office next to the den, to come watch her climb one branch higher. He had always answered her summons. She still had trouble believing he’d been just as devoted to an unsolved case.

      She paused in remembering and turned her head to stare at the door leading from the den into the office. That room was where he kept all his important papers. Could there be something in his desk that would help her understand his obsession with the case she’d learned about tonight?

      Easing into the room, she switched on the light, placed her cup of milk on the desk and sat down in the chair behind it. She spread her hands out over the smooth wood on the desktop and closed her eyes for a moment. She could almost feel the presence of the man she thought of as her father.

      After a moment, she opened the right-side top drawer, but there was nothing inside except a collection of pens and pencils along with a stapler and an assortment of rubber bands. The drawer below held odds and ends, too. When she opened the bottom drawer, which looked to be the deepest, there were only a few papers lying inside.

      She was about to close it when something strange caught her eye. The drawer appeared deeper than the two above it, and yet it had little room inside to hold items. She leaned closer and stared at the interior before pulling the papers out and tapping on the bottom of the drawer. A hollow-sounding noise told her the drawer had a false bottom.

      She grabbed a letter opener from the desktop and slipped it between the edge of the bottom and the side of the drawer. The bottom of the drawer sprang open to reveal a large three-ring notebook inside.

      Her heart pounded as she pulled out the notebook and laid it on the desk. With shaking fingers, she opened it and gasped at the picture of a woman, her eyes closed in death, on the first page. Tears filled Callie’s eyes as she read the caption written in her uncle’s familiar handwriting underneath the picture.

      Hope

      You will never be forgotten.

      Callie swallowed her tears and turned the page. Entries that followed described the discovery of the body on the banks of the Mississippi River, the medical examiner’s report and facts about the investigation. It seemed every detail that had been known about “Hope” at the time of her death was listed on the pages. What pricked Callie’s heart was the fact that nothing about her identity had been added in the years since.

      She turned to the next section and read through what appeared to be hundreds of reports on missing persons near Hope’s determined age who had disappeared from various parts of the country about the same time as she had. Each entry contained notes on the victim, her uncle’s contact with the families and his conclusion that this wasn’t a match to the woman he was looking for.

      She frowned as she leafed through the thick stack of reports. He’d spent endless hours through the years tracking down dozens of leads, but nothing had yielded the identity of the one he’d buried in Memphis twenty-five years ago.

      Callie had never stopped to think about the number of people who disappeared in this country every year. Her uncle had known, though, and he had cared. She turned back to the picture of Hope and stared at it again. Who was she? Where had she come from? And how did she end up dead in the Mississippi River? Those thoughts must have run through her uncle’s head every day.

      She noticed a piece of paper that looked different from the others sticking from the back of the notebook, and she turned to it. It was a flyer advertising a homeless shelter near downtown. The name Dorothy Tipton, written in her uncle’s handwriting, was paper-clipped to the flyer. What was that about?

      She turned another page and frowned at the names listed with phone numbers beside them. She read through the names, but she’d never heard of any of them. One near the bottom had a check mark next to it, and she stared at it. Melvin Harris. Who could he be? She made a mental note to ask Seth if he knew the man.

      Closing the notebook, she sat there a moment thinking about what she’d found out tonight. Even though the news of her uncle’s secret case had surprised her, she had a different feeling toward it now. Hope had been a real person to him, a woman whose dreams and desires had been cut short by a killer. He wanted justice for her, and he’d tried to give it to her. Now he might not get to do that. Before, she’d felt only worry for her uncle, but now she understood a little better how much this case had meant to him. She was glad to think that Seth could continue her uncle’s work. She’d turn the notebook over to him when he came by in the morning.

      She took the last drink of her milk and was about to return the notebook to its drawer when the sound of shattering glass from the direction of the kitchen ripped through the house.

      She bolted to her feet and glanced wildly around to see if anyone came charging into the den. Another crash split the air, and a new fear engulfed her. She grabbed the edge of the desk to steady herself. Hissing and popping sounds mixed with the odor of an accelerant could only mean one thing.

      Someone had thrown a fire bomb into the house.

      Cold fear washed over her as smoke curled around the corner of the door. Callie grabbed the notebook and ran from the room toward the house’s front door. Before she could reach it, another firebomb crashed through the window to the right of the door. A trail of flames fanned across the entry as a combustible liquid spread across the floor. Another bomb slammed through the window to the left of the door. With a loud whooshing sound a giant wall of fire rose to cut off her exit.

      She clutched the notebook to her chest and stared in horror as she realized her escape routes had both been cut off. It only took her a moment to remember what Uncle Dan had taught her years ago when she’d come to live with him.

      Holding tightly to the notebook, she dashed up the staircase into her room. She raised the window and stepped out onto the roof of the garage that joined the house at a ninety-degree angle. Uncle Dan, always mindful of her safety, had assigned her this bedroom so she would have an easy escape