When Time Is a River Read online

  On a bench at the edge of the Lithia Park playground, someone is stalking two-year-old Emily Michaelson as she plays with her eighteen-year old half sister, Brandy. The child’s laughter curves through the sunlight, as if on wings. The stalker is more enamored than ever, but aware of Brandy’s vigilance with Emily, knows a kidnapping won’t be easy. Planning to gain Emily’s trust, the stalker gives her a necklace—little girls love pretty things. A few days later, Brandy and Emily arrive at the park for the Children's Health Fair. When the stalker sees them enter the public restroom, the opportunity is seized.

  Not long after Emily's disappearance, Detective Radhauser finds her rainbow-colored sneakers in Ashland Creek, their laces tied together in double knots. Brandy’s father and stepmother blame her for Emily’s disappearance. Radhauser feels sorry for Brandy, but insists she stay out of the investigation. Brandy can’t do that. She is obsessed with finding out who took her little sister, and why. Will Emily be found in time?

  WHEN TIME IS A RIVER

  Winston Radhauser Series, #2

  Susan Clayton-Goldner

  Published by Tirgearr Publishing

  Author Copyright 2017 Susan Clayton-Goldner

  Cover Art: EJR Digital Art (http://www.ejrdigitalart.com)

  Editor: Lucy Felthouse

  Proofreader: Christine McPherson

  © 2017 A Prayer for Emily written by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  © 2017 A Slender Slice of Time written by Susan Clayton-Goldner

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not given to you for the purpose of review, then please log into the publisher’s website and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting our author’s hard work.

  This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  DEDICATION

  For my amazing granddaughter, Elisabeth Moore. I was babysitting for two-year-old you at Lithia Park when the seed for this novel was planted.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am indebted to so many people for this and all of my novels. Gratitude goes out to my husband, Andreas, and my children, David and Bonnie. To my critique group in Portland for both their support and their input. To the four women with whom I’ve written, laughed, cried and drank wine with for 20 years—Martha Miller, Marjorie Reynolds, Jane Sutherland, and Susan Domingos. To Jude and Tim Bunner who read and critiqued this manuscript in various stages. A special thanks to Susan Kelly for all the help she provided, not only in the writing, but in the marketing of my books. And as always, a big thank you to my mentor and friend, James N. Frey—who was there, providing input, from the very first scene. And last, but in no way least, thank you to Tirgearr Publishing for taking a chance on this enthusiastic, but basically unknown, writer.

  WHEN TIME IS A RIVER

  Winston Radhauser Series, #2

  Susan Clayton-Goldner

  “A river cuts through rock,

  Not because of its power,

  But its persistence.”

  Jim Watkins

  Chapter One

  April, 1999

  In the Ashland Outpatient Surgery Center, eighteen-year-old Brandy Michaelson picked at the taped gauze on her cheek. She fidgeted on the edge of the exam table, awaiting the results of her latest surgery. Her palms were sweaty. A successful surgery meant everything to Brandy. No matter how many career opportunities life brought to her, being an actress would always rise to the top. She glanced around the room. Its walls had been recently painted. Yellow. The color of hope.

  Sighing, she watched her dad, a professor of English Literature at Southern Oregon University, read a student essay. She’d been disappointed so many times before. But this time would be different. “I had a dream last night,” she said. “And my face was perfect.”

  He readjusted the crease on his trousers, that neatness he wore like a uniform. “Don’t get your hopes up too high, honey. Life seldom succumbs to our timetable. This type of surgery can take years.” He returned his attention to the same page of the essay he’d been staring at for fifteen minutes. How did he do it—year after year, the same freshman essays on Faulkner’s symbolism in Light In August?

  She studied her dad’s jaw, chiseled with such precise angles that it must have obeyed some law of geometry. A jaw that was as stoic and rigid as his personality. If only her mother were still alive. She wouldn’t have her nose stuck in a frickin’ essay. She’d know how fast Brandy’s heart thumped—how excited and frightened she felt at the same time. Her mother would stand beside Brandy and hold her hand.

  Careful to hide it from her dad, she slipped a small, silver-framed photo from the pocket of her carpenter pants and held it in her palm. In the photograph, a tall slender woman stood forever frozen at the edge of the Pacific, waves cresting behind her back. She wore a sleeveless, yellow sundress and her hair hung to her shoulders in dark, spiral curls. Brandy wondered if as she grew older she’d look more like her mother. Wondered if she should have her hair permed into corkscrew curls.

  In the photo, her mother’s head was flung back and her whole body seemed to be laughing. It wasn’t the kind of smile someone pasted on for a photograph. It was something deeper—something as pure as joy.

  She’d died from ovarian cancer when Brandy was almost four—far too young for memories. At least that’s what her dad claimed. But she often remembered small things. Romping in a backyard garden. Lilac soap. And bath oil that smelled like cinnamon and eucalyptus. The songs her mother tossed into the morning air like ribbons. Yet, despite Brandy’s frequent efforts to see her again, the fuzzy videotape of movement, scents, and sounds never added up to a whole woman. She needed to know more. Especially now that she’d gotten the role of a mother in the senior class play.

  When Doctor Sorenson—a tall, square-jawed man in his early forties—entered the examining room, Brandy tucked the photo back into her pocket. Sorenson wore a bright blue lab coat and his matching blue eyes had mastered the sincere look—like every other plastic surgeon who’d ever examined her face.

  She smiled to herself, wondered if acting was a mandatory course in medical school. “You’re looking wickedly fine, Doctor S. Why not ditch the scalpel and become an actor?”

  “If I had your kind of talent, I might do just that. Speaking of acting, did you land that part in the senior class play?”

  She nodded. “Tickets go on sale tomorrow.”

  He shook her father’s hand. “How are things at the university? Any security repercussions after that fiasco in Columbine?”

  “Not yet,” her father said. “But I suspect there will be.”

  Doctor Sorenson shook his head sadly. “Makes me glad I don’t have kids.” He sat at his desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out a makeover certificate from the Hair E’tage Salon. He handed it to Brandy. “A gift,” he said with a flash of his bleached white perfect teeth. “Nails. Makeup. Hair. The whole kit and caboodle.”

  She sucked it up and gave him her best, on-stage smile. “A little putty and paint,” she said. “That should give me the edge for opening night.”

  “My wife and I saw you in West Side Story last winter. With that voice, you don’t need an edge.”

  “Before she died, my mom and I used to sing together.”

  “During intermission, when I told my wife you were one of my patients, she said, ‘When that girl sings, the angels do
cartwheels’.”

  Brandy smiled for real this time, then pulled her hair to one side and clipped it with a barrette so he could undo the gauze to examine her cheek and the reconstructed lobe of her left ear. Inside her head, she’d rehearsed this scene a hundred times.

  With her dad standing behind him, Doctor Sorenson removed the gauze and tape, cupped her chin, and turned her face into the light. His fingers felt cool against her skin and his hand smelled like antiseptic soap and a hint of British Sterling cologne.

  She braced her palms on either side of the examining table and held her breath.

  “The revisions look good,” Sorenson said, as if her face was a rewritten term paper.

  Brandy’s hands shook as she grabbed the mirror and leaned in close. The patch of grafted skin on her cheek was mottled as parchment paper and bright red. Surgery had improved the scars, but the corner of her left eye sagged. And her mouth pulled upward on that side in a freaky little half smile. One three-inch long scar, the size of a small garden worm, inched up her left temple and into her hairline.

  Her dad took a step back.

  She swallowed and turned away from the mirror, determined not to cry.

  Doctor Sorenson smiled as he put a clean bandage on her cheek. “Wear that for another couple days. And then I guess it’s time I let you go off and win that Oscar.”

  “I’ll race right out and do that,” she whispered.

  Her dad moved closer and tried to take her hand. “It’s too early to judge. You have to wait for—”

  She jerked away. “Yeah, right. I’ll wait a few weeks and then I can audition for a remake of Frankenstein or a Freddie Krueger sequel.”

  Her dad shot her a look that said, cut the sarcasm, then waited the space of three breaths before he looked at Doctor Sorenson. “What’s the next step?”

  She swung her legs too hard and thumped the table with the heels of her boots. “Don’t even go there. I’m not letting anyone cut my face. Not ever again.”

  Doctor Sorenson stopped smiling. The fake sincerity sparkles disappeared from his eyes. “I know you expected more but—”

  “I expected to get my face back.” Brandy’s voice had raised an octave. She looked toward the window and twisted her hair around her index finger.

  Sorenson hesitated. “Believe me. The skin tone will even out. Your cheek will look much better in a few weeks. You form—”

  “Keloids,” she said, then turned to face him again. “Don’t you think I know that? But you claimed you could—” She stopped and sucked in a breath. She should have known better—should have realized Sorenson was a dip-shit liar. “If this is the result you expected, why did you feed me that whacked-out beauty crap?” She glared at him.

  “That’s enough, Brandy,” her father snapped.

  Sorenson asked him to wait in the reception area and give them a few moments alone.

  Her dad frowned, then turned and picked up the essay. “There must be someone who specializes in keloids.”

  Doctor S waited for her dad to repack his briefcase and leave, then pushed the door closed. He clamped his big hand on her shoulder like they were best buddies. “Your dad just wants everything to be perfect for you.”

  “I’m going to be an actress, for God’s sake,” she said. “What the hell does he think I want?”

  Doctor Sorenson took his hand off her shoulder.

  Brandy had never said a cuss word in front of a doctor before. It felt good, but also bad. She knew he liked her, believed in her acting and had probably done his best. It was all so confusing. “My face looks like a tragedy mask.”

  “Listen to me,” Sorenson said. “That slight distortion will disappear when the swelling does. Massage—”

  She lowered her voice, tried to sound calmer. “Please don’t give me the massage and vitamin E lecture. I tried it before.” She unclipped the barrette, pulled her hair over her left cheek and secured it in place with her lime-green cowboy hat. She slipped off the exam table. “In case you haven’t noticed, that crap doesn’t work.”

  He stood still, looked at her, then hung his head and remained silent.

  Brandy recognized that posture—that wish to crawl into yourself and vanish from someone’s stare. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you tried hard to help me.” She waited for him to look at her, then she smiled.

  He smiled back, but his eyes were still dull. “There are other things we can try, Brandy.”

  “Coach Pritchard reserves three rows of front and center seats for cast members’ family and friends. I can get two for you and your wife, if you want.”

  A hint of sparkle returned to his eyes. “That would be great.”

  She gave him a quick wave and opened the exam room door. “See you around, Doctor S.”

  * * *

  Brandy slipped into the front seat of her father’s car and burst into tears.

  He pulled a tissue from the box he kept in the console and handed it to her. “I’m sorry, honey. Ashland’s a small town. Sorenson doesn’t know everything. There’s a plastic surgeon in Portland who—”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I’m not having any more frickin’ surgery.” There, she’d said it. She waited for her father to freak out.

  Instead, he stared through the windshield, his long fingers wrapped around the steering wheel, but he made no effort to turn the key.

  She cried herself out, blew her nose, then grabbed another tissue and wiped her face.

  “Brandy,” he said hesitantly, then turned to look at her again.

  He looked suddenly old. His once thick shock of dark hair had thinned. After marrying Christine, he’d started combing the strands carefully across the back of his head to hide his bald spot.

  “You don’t have to say it again,” she said, her gaze lingering on his hair. “Internal beauty is the only beauty that matters.” She echoed his trifling words, but didn’t believe one of them.

  “We can try one of the ones in Beverly Hills,” he said. “They operate on actresses all the time.”

  Brandy shot him a look, but said nothing.

  “I never took you for a quitter.”

  She turned away from him and stared over the parking lot into a line of maple trees, their spring limbs budding red against the pale sky. A part of her wanted to keep trying. Another part wanted to accept the fact that no miracle was going to erase her scars. “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. That reverse psychology crap isn’t going to work.”

  She was no quitter. For years, while other kids played video games, went roller skating or hung out in the park, Brandy studied classic films and plastered the walls of her room with photos of singers, actors, and actresses who’d excelled despite their lack of perfection. Old actors like Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy. Later there was Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Kathy Bates was no beauty, but had won an Oscar for her role in Misery.

  He put his hand on her forearm. “Scars show you where you’ve been.” He softened his voice. “But, honey, unless you let them, they don’t have to predict where you’re going.”

  Brandy said nothing. What was the point? Her father would only spit out another of his bullshit philosophical platitudes.

  “If I don’t make it as an actress, I have my singing and songwriting to fall back on.” Brandy had started singing lessons when she was four. Kathleen Sizemore, who’d been her nanny for more than a decade, told stories about the way Brandy had held a hairbrush up to her mouth, a pretend microphone, and skipped from room to room singing at the top of her lungs.

  “I have no doubt you’ll be successful at whatever you decide. You’re smart, have an incredible voice, and you play a mean guitar.” He left out his usual spiel about law school or medicine as a career.

  Since she had longed to be someone else for years, imagining herself into a new role came easy. But not this time—this role was different. Big surprise—what did she know about being a mother?

  “Let’s get some ice cream,” he said. “It’ll make you feel be
tter.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Dad, I’m not two years old any more. And stop feeling guilty about my accident. It’s nobody’s fault. Little kids move fast. I see that with Emily. And sometimes they get hurt.”

  No matter how many times her dad told her differently, she still remembered being with her mother that night—both at the mall and in the hospital emergency room. She realized this was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. He felt sorry for her now. Maybe he’d open up. “Did you even read the script I gave you?”

  He looked away. “I’ve had final essays to grade.”

  “You weren’t always like this,” she said, remembering the way it used to be when Kathleen was her live-in nanny and the three of them had talked about her roles at dinner. A time when what she did seemed important to him. “You changed after you married Christine and had Emily.”

  He looked as sad as a little boy who’d just watched his pet bunny get hit by a car. “A father can only do so much.”

  She said nothing. Tears welled again, but she bottled them for later.

  He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you tell me about your new role?”

  This was her chance to show him why she needed to know things about her mother more than ever now. “My character, Isabella, has arranged to adopt a newborn, but when the baby arrives, he’s deformed, brain-damaged, and not expected to live. Isabella’s husband wants to back out. But she can’t because, no matter what, she’s his mother.”

  “That sounds pretty dark for a high school play.”

  “It’s supposed to be poignant. And you can help me make it that way.”

  “I don’t see how,” he said.