Read Online A Daughter's Story by Tara Taylor Quinn - Free Book Online Page A

know why the evidence from Claire’s
case is missing. Walters couldn’t have taken it. He’s in prison. But did he have
an accomplice? Or is there someone else out there involved in Claire’s
disappearance who wants to make certain there’s never a chance of getting
caught? When Miller called me, it was pretty clear he thought my father or I
might have had something to do with the missing evidence.”
    The words dug at the hole in Emma’s heart. “Oh, Cal, I’m so
sorry. Even after all this time, to be hunted like a suspect…”
    She and Rose had a lot to answer for. Too much to answer
for.
    “There’s no way to make it better,” she said aloud. “If I could
change what we did—”
    “I’ve made mistakes, too, Em. We all did. We did what we had to
do to survive in the only ways we could see fit.”
    “You must hate us.”
    “I don’t hate you.”
    But he’d said he hated her mother. And while she loved Rose
fiercely, would protect her fiercely, she couldn’t blame Cal for hating her.
    “I need to know who took that evidence, Em. Claire’s DNA could
lead us to answers separate and apart from the Walters case. Someone didn’t want
her evidence looked at for a reason.”
    “I know.” She understood that he was asking her to give Miller
what he wanted.
    He was asking Emma to face the idea that her baby sister might
have died at the hands of a fiend. That she might have suffered horrible
atrocities.
    “I’ve got the hair ribbons my mom used to put in our hair every
day,” Emma said. They were still in the wooden box they’d always been kept in.
It was tucked away in the back of the closet in her office. “She never put
ribbons in my hair again after that day.”
    Her mother had done everything she could to make certain that
Emma was the plainest girl around. Not so unattractive to attract pity, just
invisible, so that no one would notice her.
    “If he can’t lift any of Claire’s DNA, he could get a sample of
yours. It wouldn’t be an exact match, but there’d be enough to identify one of
the victims as a close relative of yours. Or not.”
    She didn’t really have a choice to make. They all needed
answers. Frank deserved answers. After being hounded for twenty-five years, just
having his name cleared probably wasn’t enough. The older man was probably not
going to rest until he knew that the real culprit was caught and charged with
the crime he himself didn’t commit.
    “I’ll give the ribbons to Detective Miller. And a sample of my
DNA if he needs it. I just need a little time. As badly as I need to know… I’m
dreading… I mean, what if I find out my baby sister was—”
    “Would you like me to go with you? I can fly up.”
    She wanted to accept Cal’s offer.
    “I’d like to, Emma. I know we won’t get the results right away,
but I don’t want you doing that alone. Especially since I’m asking you to do it.
It seems right that we go together.”
    She hadn’t seen Cal in twenty-five years. Had never met him as
a man. And yet, this was the big brother she’d lost at the same time her world
had been blown apart. Right when she’d needed him most.
    “I can’t believe I’m saying this—I’m usually so capable—but
would you?”
    “Of course.”
    She wrapped her finger around a napkin. And watched it
shake.
    “Okay, good. When?”
    In less than a minute, she had plans to see Cal in just over
two weeks. He was in the middle of teaching an intercession class—a break in the
college semester that allowed for special two-week classes—until then and wanted
to be able to take a couple of days with her.
    Just in case. He didn’t say that. But she knew.
    “You’ll call me with your flight information?”
    “I’ll do better than that,” he said. “Give me your email and
I’ll send you a copy of the itinerary.”
    She was committed. To finding out the truth.
    And to seeing Cal again.
    She was confronting the past that had taken away her present
and future for long