Touching the Past Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Ilene Kaye

  Touching the Past

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Thank you for purchasing

  Zac was watching her. Mallory shook her head. “I’m sorry. There’s noth—”

  She broke off, cocking her head.

  There was something. Almost like a slight echo.

  Someone had called to Kim. Someone she knew and connected with good things, though Mallory didn’t get the feeling it was a relative or friend.

  She tried to focus in. Catch a glimpse. Closing her eyes, she swiveled her head in different directions.

  It was gone. She’d lost it.

  “What is it? What did you see?”

  Zac’s voice, rough with impatience and something Mallory couldn’t identify, came from nearer than she’d expected.

  She opened her eyes. Zac’s face was next to hers. Startled, she stepped back.

  A horn blared.

  Praise for Ilene Kaye

  “IT HAD TO BE YUU offers quick, solid escapism, good for those times when you’re waiting at the doctor’s office or need something light before bedtime.”

  ~Heather Massey, The Galaxy Express blog

  Touching the Past

  by

  Ilene Kaye

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Touching the Past

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Ilene Kaye

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Crimson Rose Edition, 2014

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-682-8

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For Carol and Brenda.

  Thanks for the support and encouragement.

  Chapter 1

  Damn it! He needed Mallory Woods.

  Zac Herrera pushed back from the office desk with its covering of glossy black-and-white and color photos. His office was small. It only took him two steps to reach the narrow window.

  He was lucky to have an office. As the newest and most junior member of Midland’s four person detective squad, he could have been left out in the general office area or shoved in a closet.

  Zac glanced at the pitted gray walls, unadorned except for frames holding his Police Academy graduation photograph, diplomas from Delta College and the Academy, and his detective certification. His mouth twisted in a half-grin. Maybe they had put him in a closet. Outside, rain hit the glass and dribbled down. The sky was dark enough that the lot’s lights were shedding their yellow beams over the parked police cars.

  The grin fading, Zac rubbed the back of his neck. It had been raining all day. A steady, dull cold rain that made the world seem bleak and oppressed the spirit. Maybe that was what had him feeling so frustrated.

  His hand dropped to his side. No, the rain wasn’t what was wrong. It was the case.

  If anyone had told Zac twenty years ago that he’d be a police detective in his hometown, he wouldn’t have believed them. No one who’d known him then would have believed them either. He’d been smart enough, at least that’s what his teachers had said, but lazy. The third generation of a family that lived off state assistance, he’d never seen the point of working at something. Fortunately, Zac’s sophomore year in high school, an ex-Marine sergeant civics teacher had taken him in hand and set him on the right track.

  It hadn’t been easy. Zac had had to fight against a lifetime of bad habits and his family’s indifference to his efforts. He’d done it, though. He graduated salutatorian of his class. Did a hitch in the Army. Came back home to Michigan. Got an Associate’s degree at Delta. Went through the police academy. Worked his way through the ranks. Made detective.

  And now he was looking at a case he didn’t have a clue how to solve.

  Zac went back to the desk and photos. Beth Kennedy, 35, a single mother and dental technician. Daniel Yeun, 18, a student at SVSU with an undeclared major. Kim Gerson, 29, a newly engaged realtor. They had nothing in common. Other than they were all from Midland and had all disappeared within the last three months.

  People disappeared all the time. For all kinds of reasons. But these three didn’t seem to have any reason for dropping everything and vanishing.

  Zac picked up Beth Kennedy’s photo. She was an ordinary-looking, slightly overweight African-American woman who was, by all accounts, totally devoted to her twin nine-year-old sons. There was no ex. No current boyfriend. She wasn’t overly in debt. Had no health problems. There was no reason for her to disappear while commuting between the dental office where she worked and her home.

  Same with Yeun and Gerson. Ordinary people. No criminal records. No major problems or changes in their lives. So why had they disappeared? There were no bodies. At least none that had been found. No sign of violence of any kind. Just abandoned cars and purses and bookbags.

  Zac dropped into his chair, letting Beth’s picture fall to the desk. If there was a connection or pattern, he couldn’t see it. But his gut told him there was one.

  His gut was also telling him to call the one person he was certain could find the connection. Mallory.

  He reached for his cell the same way he had dozens of times the past week.

  The door rattled.

  Before Zac dropped his hand from the phone or responded, Officer Don Wright stepped into the office. “Herrera, you still here? Thought someone left the lights on.” Wright was a tall, slim man with the build of a long distance runner. Which he was. If he allowed the fringe that surrounded his bald dome to grow out, it would be a dirty blond color. “Your shift ended a half hour ago.” His faded blue eyes narrowed within the web of fine lines that surrounded them as he spotted the pictures on the desk. “Trying to earn that promotion?” The cold half-smile on his thin lips did nothing to mediate the edge in his voice.

  “Just looking over some notes.” Zac swept the photos into one pile, keeping his tone easy with an effort.

  It hadn’t taken him long to discover Wright was the kind of man who blamed his failures on everyone else. An unapologetic racist, he made no secret of the fact that he considered Zac a token “Spic”. That he thought Zac had kept him from getting the promotion to detective that he deserved.

  Zac ignored the man and the label as much as he could. The latter was easier than the former. He’d been tagged with labels all his life, some of the kinder being “unmotivated” and “not working up to his potential”. But he’d shed those, same as he would “token”. Eventually.

  He was a token. He knew it. The Midland police force needed more diversity, and he’d applied at the right time. But he could do the job. They’d have to admit that. And they would. And so would W
right.

  As for the “Spic”, he might have been that once, but no more. Both his maternal and paternal great-grandparents had been migrant workers from Texas who followed the crops north and back again. It was his father’s father who decided to stay in Michigan and collect benefits. Zac’s father and uncles did the same, picking up some under the table work here and there for extra funds and poaching the occasional deer to put some extra meat on the table. Zac’s brothers had moved on to dealing pot in high school to add to the family’s unimpressive résumé. The Herreras weren’t the kind of family the hard-working Latino community liked to acknowledge. But Zac—with some help—had broken out of the cycle. He was Detective Zachary Herrera now, not some worthless Spic.

  Wright was still staring at the pile of photos. “You’re wasting your time.” He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his uniform pocket and shook one out. “You’re not going to find those people.”

  There was something in the way the older man said those that caused Zac’s hands to involuntarily clench into fists.

  Wright waved the cigarette at Beth Kennedy’s picture. “That one there. Probably ran off and shacked up with some guy down in Detroit. It’s where she came from.”

  “She wouldn’t leave her sons.” Zac made himself loosen his hands.

  “Right.” Wright smirked at him, rolling the cigarette between his fingers.

  Zac pressed his lips together, forcing back the automatic defense of Beth. Wright was baiting him, trying to make Zac lose his temper. It was how the other man got his kicks.

  Wright knew Beth hadn’t run off with a man. He was the one who’d caught the initial missing person’s report. Bigoted as he was, Wright knew his job. He’d checked all the obvious possibilities before handing the case off to the detectives.

  “And that Chinese kid—”

  “Daniel Yeun is Korean-American.” Zac bit his lip in annoyance as the correction slipped out.

  A point scored, Wright’s smirk deepened.

  Suddenly tired of the man and feeling as if he needed a shower, Zac stepped from behind the desk. “If there’s nothing else, I have a few things to finish.” He crowded Wright, forcing him back out the door. Zac wasn’t a big man, but he knew how to force others to move. It’d started with defending himself against his older brothers, been sharpened by playing point guard on the basketball team his junior and senior years, and polished by his time in the army. And he’d caught Wright by surprise. “Like you said, it’s quitting time.” Zac shut the door in the officer’s face and had it locked before Wright could respond.

  With the other man gone, Zac went back to the desk to brood over the photos.

  Wright was right about one thing. He wasn’t going to solve this case using the usual methods. He was going to have to go outside the box. Outside the department. To Mallory.

  He reached for the phone again. And again, didn’t pick it up.

  The last time he’d talked to Mallory had been at her father’s funeral. Four years ago. There had been so many people there; she probably didn’t remember speaking to him. Bill Woods had touched a lot of people’s lives during his time as a Marine and as a teacher. Including Zac’s. Bill was the one who’d turned the troubled teen’s life around. The big bull of a man gave Zac the encouragement and belief in himself that his own family never had.

  Mallory had been part of that, too. A high school senior to his sophomore status, she’d tutored him in science, algebra, and geometry, helping him to first catch-up with his classmates and then surpass them.

  Zac leaned back and stared up at the ceiling tiles. Mallory, the golden girl. A constant honor roll student. Star of the girls’ basketball team. Lead clarinetist in the band.

  He’d had such a crush on her. He’d never let her know how he felt, of course. There had been the age thing. And it would have been awkward to be shot down by a girl he had to see every day. Plus, her father could have broken him in half.

  If she knew how he’d felt, she never let on. She was kind, but aloof. Never crossing the tutor-student line she’d set up between them.

  Except once.

  Sitting up, Zac’s gaze fell on a picture of Beth Kennedy and her sons. The picture had been taken at the water park in Frankenmuth last summer. The three of them were in the pool. Behind them was something that looked like a small island with giant, plastic standing daisies. Above their heads, near the ceiling, were curving and curling blue tubes. Off to their side a boy bobbed in a donut floater. It was a perfectly ordinary vacation picture. Beth smiled as she hugged her sons.

  She hadn’t hugged her sons for forty-five days.

  “Damn it.” Zac grabbed his cell. He punched in the still familiar number before he could think about it.

  Two rings. Three. Maybe she wasn’t home. “Hello?” A woman’s voice. Mallory’s voice.

  His mouth dry, Zac tried to sound cool and professional. “Ma-Ms. Woods. This is Zac—Detective—Zachary Herrera. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  Chapter 2

  Mallory Woods jumped up from the chair as soon as the dark sedan pulled into the driveway. She’d been watching for it through the big dining room window ever since Zac called.

  Not Zac. Detective Herrera. He wasn’t the kid she’d tutored anymore.

  Excitement and nervousness mixed in her stomach, creating a fluttering sensation. What would he be like—now that he was a man?

  She’d seen him at her father’s funeral. His was one of the few faces that had stood out clearly in the seemingly endless line of friends, colleagues, and former students who’d offered their sympathies. Zac’s had been the warm grip that broke through the numbness that held her. It hadn’t sounded like a platitude when he said, “Call me if you need anything. Anything.” At the funeral dinner, she’d hoped Zac would sit beside her, that his presence would give her some respite from all the kindly meant inquiries of what was she going to do now and was she all right.

  But he wasn’t there. She’d lost track of him in the crowd. In the days after the funeral, when Mallory was trying to adjust to being completely without family, and dealing with the paperwork that comes with every death, she’d wanted to call him. Not for advice. She and her father had talked and planned when Bill Woods first realized he didn’t have long to live. She knew what to do. No, she’d wanted to call Zac to hear a friendly voice.

  She never had, though. Embarrassment and fear held her back. They hadn’t talked since high school. She’d gone to his graduation, but she doubted he knew that. His family had carried him off before she got near him.

  And they hadn’t been friends, really. She was his tutor. His mentor’s daughter. What would he think of her calling out of the blue?

  She laughed to herself. The year she’d spent tutoring Zac had been as close as she’d come to having a boyfriend her entire high school career. The girls in her class had thought she was using the tutoring as an excuse to be with him. Zac might have been a poor student, but he’d been good-looking. If he’d shown the slightest interest, she might have—

  No. She shook her head. That would have been taking advantage of someone she was supposed to help. Her father would have had her hide for doing something like that.

  The doorbell chimed.

  Pushing her hair back behind her ears, Mallory hurried to open the door. “Za—Detec—” Her face warmed. What was she supposed to call him?

  “Zac’s fine.” His smile was a white slash in his soft brown face. “We’re…almost family. Bill was like a father to me.”

  Mallory blinked back sudden tears. “He…he thought a lot of you, too.” She forced a smile. “He was so proud when you went into the service.”

  Zac gave her a crooked grin. “Even if it wasn’t the Marines?” He took her hands in his.

  Something leaped between them as his warm hands pressed hers. A spark went from the top of Mallory’s head to the tips of her toes and back again, leaving her with a tingling awareness of the strength of Zac’s hands and
the feel of his flesh against hers.

  Her laughter hitched in her throat as she tried to regain her equilibrium. “Even if it wasn’t the Marines.” Bill Woods had devoted his life to the Marines and, later, teaching, but he’d never tried to make the countless boys he’d helped follow in his exact footsteps. He was satisfied if they found their own path.

  The shared laughter died. “You look good, Ma—Mis—You look good.”

  “You do, too.” Zac wasn’t tall. In heels, Mallory would tower over him, but the plain black suit he wore emphasized his lean strength. The years and the service had melted away the baby fat that once rounded his face, leaving behind strong planes. The rain had stopped earlier, but it was still misting. Droplets of water beaded in the neatly cut blue-black hair. His dark eyes were bright and alert. The cute boy had become a handsome man.

  Mallory looked away, afraid she’d been staring. Suddenly aware that they were still holding hands, she gently tugged. Zac released her so fast she wasn’t sure if it was in response to her action or if he’d noticed at the same time.

  Feeling awkward and too conscious of the man in front of her, Mallory stepped back. She lifted a hand that felt oddly empty to her hair in a nervous gesture, then dropped it. “Come on in.” She motioned toward the living room. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Diet Coke?” Her heart was fluttering.

  “Coffee’s fine.” His voice sounded stilted. His face was turned away from her.

  She moved toward the counter and coffeemaker. “You go ahead. You remember the way. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Her fingers trembled as she reached into the cupboard for cups. She balled her hand into a fist.

  What was wrong with her? It was Zac. The kid who’d never been able to keep concave and convex straight.

  Except he wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a man. A very attractive man.

  “Do you want cream? Or sugar? Both?” She raised her voice. It sounded high and nervous to her ears.

  In contrast Zac seemed to have relaxed. His deep voice floated in from the other room. “Black is fine.”