Cry Mercy by Mariah Stewart Page A

Belle—Belinda—once said that she didn't have a father, but she assumed that meant the father was dead or was AWOL.”
    “Did the roommate have anything else to say?”
    “Only that while the police report reflects that Belinda took her laptop with her, Debra says that isn't so. She claims that the laptop was still on Belinda's desk when she woke up, hours after Belinda left the room. It was gone later that day, but she can't pinpoint when it disappeared.”
    “Did she report that to the police?”
    “No, but I called the chief on my way back and told him. He was going to speak with the reporting officer about that. Debra thinks he merely misunderstood what she said.”
    “Any other little gems surface?”
    “Not that I can think of offhand.”
    The sound of two small feet running drew their attention to the hall. Seconds later, Chloe and Susanna appeared in the doorway.
    “In case you were wondering, I've commandeered your adorable child,” Susanna told Emme. “She's been a great help to me, separating colored index cards.”
    “I made …” Chloe paused to count. “Four piles. Blue ones, yellow ones, white ones, and pink ones.”
    “Four very neat piles, I might add,” Susanna noted.“Maybe one day next week you can help me organize my pencils.”
    Chloe draped herself across her mother's lap and nodded solemnly.
    “Really, Susanna, you don't have to—” Emme began.
    “It's a pleasure to have her company,” Susanna told her as she stepped backward toward the hall. “Chloe, unless I misunderstood, I think Trula has something in the kitchen she wanted you to see.”
    “What is it?” Chloe's head shot up.
    “Let's go find out.” Susanna beckoned to her, and Chloe was out the door in a flash. “I'll see you both on Monday. Have a good weekend.”
    “Have anything special planned, Susanna?” Mallory asked.
    “Not much.” Susanna smiled and followed Chloe. “You, know, just the usual.”
    “What's the usual?” Emme asked as Susanna's footsteps faded down the hall.
    “No one knows. She leaves at the same time almost every Friday and isn't seen or heard from until Monday morning, but she never says where she goes or what she does.”
    “Maybe she doesn't do anything. Maybe she stays home and reads. Or paints. Or … something.”
    “Uh-uh.” Mallory shook her head. “She goes
somewhere
. Charlie and I were on our way to Gettysburg one weekend and we were behind her in traffic all the way to the cutoff for the turnpike entrance.”
    “Maybe she was visiting family.”
    “She says she doesn't have any.”
    “That could be true. A lot of people have no family.”
Like me
, she could have added.
    “We—Trula and I—think she's seeing someone.”
    Emme looked confused. “But I thought she and Robert—”
    “I thought that at first, too. There's just some sort of buzz—some sort of electricity—between them.”
    “Definitely. I assumed they were an item.”
    “Trula says no. That Robert will never look at another woman as long as he doesn't know whether Beth is dead or alive.”
    “Wouldn't she have contacted him by now if she was alive?” Emme's brows knit into a frown.
    “One would think.” Mallory nodded. “But I think Robert still needs to believe she's out there somewhere and there's a reason why she can't contact him. Amnesia, something like that, maybe. I think it's easier than facing the probability that she and Ian are dead. I think he could accept the truth. He just doesn't know what the truth is.”
    “Meanwhile, there's Susanna,” Emme said thought fully.
    “Yeah. There's Susanna, and that buzz…”
    Over her morning coffee, served with a smile from the same waitress who waited on her many a Saturday morning at the old-fashioned diner just east of Pittsburgh, Susanna studied the state map. Roads she'd already traveled were highlighted in green. It was somewhat disheartening to acknowledge that the green lines transversed half of western Pennsylvania and wove