For Joy's Sake

And then he’d go home, his usual cheery self, tell a joke, or if things were really bad, ask his dad to watch sports or go to the putting green. Soon all would be well again.

But this, a missing daughter...

“Is everyone positive that she didn’t go with him willingly?” Hunter asked. Maybe it was a horrible question to ask, except that it was a truth Edward had been living with for a decade. His daughter had forsaken family to be with a man who hurt her. So maybe the idea that her disappearance might have been voluntary wasn’t as alarming as the thought that his daughter was being held hostage by a maniac.

Nodding, Edward looked older than he had at the beginning of the week. Older than his fifty-two years. The lines around his eyes seemed more pronounced. “Among other things, she didn’t take her cell phone with her,” he said.

Hunter shifted again, wondering if a cool breeze would be along soon.

“But if they had to leave in a hurry, what with Mary’s...situation and all...”

He really wanted to come through for his dad and Betty. For Edward.

The older man’s smile was knowing. Sad. Almost as though he was giving up.

“They found her purse,” the doctor said. “Three hours north of here. It’d been thrown in a twenty-four-hour box-store trash can and was only found by accident. Her wallet was gone, but inside there was some ID cards, makeup, a handheld electronic reader with children’s books loaded and moist wipes. They’re going through it now.”

“Hopefully they’ll learn something...”

“Hopefully.” The doctor didn’t sound hopeful.

“It’s a start,” he continued. “More than they had before...”

Struggling to find anything in his repertoire for a situation such as this, Hunter dug deep. And still came up empty.

“I need a favor.” It was as though Edward had read his mind.

“Anything,” Hunter said, probably too eagerly. Anything he could do, he would do. They’d ordered but hadn’t been served yet. He could flag someone, get their food to go.

Or skip the meal altogether.

“I have a meeting this afternoon. An interview, more or less. I want you to come with me.”

“What kind of interview?”

“It’s with Joy’s counselor at the shelter. And some other staff. Apparently Joy hasn’t said a word since Mary got her to the neighbors that day. I want to see her...”

Edward’s voice broke. He visibly calmed himself, then said, “The people caring for her aren’t convinced it’s a good idea, particularly since she doesn’t know me. Or probably even know of me. At the same time, I’m family. And being with someone who loves her is vitally important at this point, too.”

He’d go. Of course he would. He just wasn’t sure what he could contribute...

“I have a tendency to come across as standoffish,” Edward said, looking him straight in the eye. “But you walk into a room and suddenly everyone feels comfortable.”

He wouldn’t go that far.

“This meeting is critical to me, Hunter. I can’t afford to have it go wrong. They aren’t going to risk that little girl’s emotional health—and I wouldn’t want them to—if everything doesn’t go perfectly. I know how much I love her. I know I can care for her. I just need a chance to get that chance.”

“When’s the meeting?”

“Four.”

Right in the middle of the time he’d allotted for the shower he’d planned to take before the evening’s round of party visits. Well, a washup and change would suffice.

“You want me to pick you up here?” It would take extra time. Meeting Edward at the shelter would work much better for him.

But this wasn’t about him.

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

And he had an idea...one that was growing on him in leaps and bounds. “Then, afterward, assuming they need a while to discuss things and you don’t get to see Joy right away, you can come to work with me. I always have two tickets to every event, and one of tonight’s functions is to raise money for some technically advanced machine for the new hospital here in Santa Raquel. It’s taking place on hospital grounds. You’d fit right in...”

Finally, something truly helpful he could do.

Introduce Edward to his own kind.

That way, he wouldn’t feel quite so alone while he waited to learn his daughter’s fate.

And his own, too, Hunter supposed, when you considered that he could possibly become guardian to a seven-year-old child he’d never met.

“If I’m not spending the evening with my granddaughter, I’ll probably take you up on that offer, son,” Edward said.

Sounding just like Hunter’s dad.

So much so that Hunter relaxed.

He had this.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#u1748c73e-1d17-5731-a242-703ed7b3ad61)

AFTER A COUPLE of hours with Joy, followed by a board meeting in LA, Julie pulled back into the Stand’s parking lot just after two on Friday. Joy would be out of “school” for the day, and if she wanted to be with Julie, Julie wanted to be with her. According to Sara, they’d had to put Joy’s aunt in a medically induced coma—Julie wasn’t privy to the details—but it meant that Joy was alone.

A feeling Julie knew only too well. Shortly before the attack that had changed her life, she’d lost her own mother. And her father, too.

Memories of the debilitating fear that had taken over her life crept in even now, eleven years later. And she’d been nearly an adult at the time. Seventeen. Joy was only seven.

She’d coped by losing herself in the memories of her childhood. Expressing them through her drawing. And writing.

Amy, the little girl afraid of her own shadow, had been born during that time in Julie’s life. It was no wonder to Julie, and no mistake, in her view, that Joy clung to the fictional character. To the book.

She couldn’t stand in for Joy’s mother or aunt, but she could be a kind stranger who understood what she was going through during these first difficult days. And if there was a chance that she could help Joy tell someone what had happened the day her mother went missing... If there was any clue to her parents’ whereabouts that the child could possibly disclose, then she’d spend every moment she could trying to help Joy come out of her shell enough to communicate with them.

She’d had an idea and was feeling hopeful as she sat with the little girl in the same private room they’d been in that morning, a room in the school wing of the Stand’s main building. She’d set up two identical easels with a table in between. The table held pencils. Sitting at one easel, with Joy at the other, she started to draw freestyle. She invited Joy to do the same.

“This is how Amy came to be,” she told the little girl, her gaze on the page in front of her. She was drawing Amy. At The Lemonade Stand. Joy might not have figured that out yet. But Julie had faith that she would. “My mom was gone, too, and I was scared, and then Amy came into my head, like an imaginary friend, to play with me. Do you ever have imaginary friends?” she asked.

Kids had them. It was normal. Her minor in child development had taught her that much.

“Mine was a lot like me. I named her Amy. But I wanted her to be out here in the world, you know, so I could see her...”