The Last Good Night (26 page)

“No.”

“Where's he from?”

“I told you already. Florida. Flagerty, Florida.”

“Do you have any idea where he might go? Any idea what his habits are?”

“No.” I realized suddenly how very little I knew about Jack's time away from me. “I wish I did. But, no.”

The doorbell rang again.

“Christ,” David muttered. “What is this, Grand Central Station?”

Flanders opened the door.

Both Harraday and Carelli stood up, exchanging looks, as a man in an expensive pin-striped suit entered and held out his hand to us. His hair was lacquered to a high shine and even his skin seemed buffed. “I'm Frank Browning,” he said.

His taut face fell a little when we didn't recognize the name.

“Chief of detectives.”

“Of course.”

We shook his hand.

“I just want you to know that we're doing everything we can,” Browning said. “We are, of course, highly concerned. Every resource will be at your disposal. We'll have all the backup we need from the FBI, though it will remain within our jurisdiction.”

“Thank you.”

Harraday and Carelli filled him in for a couple of minutes, and then Browning returned his attention to us. Or, more accurately, to me. “The chief of police is on his way. The mayor has asked me to relay the message that he will personally be monitoring this case. He'd like to stop by later this afternoon to speak with you himself.”

I looked over at Harraday, whose already florid complexion was growing more flushed by the moment. He had not made eye contact with Browning once.

“Would you like a glass of water?” I asked him.

“Yes, thank you.” Harraday followed me out of the room while Browning continued to reassure David about the high-level interest in finding Sophie.

As soon as we got to the hallway, I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him to me. “Detective Harraday, do you have any children?” Desperation made my voice high-pitched, shrill.

I leaned into his weathered face. He had a single scrawl of a purple scar above his right eye and a long broad nose.

“Yes.” His eyebrows knit in apprehension. Maybe he was thinking of them, seeing them. I hoped so. “Two. A boy and girl.”

“Then help me. Please. You have to help me,” I implored him. “Find Sophie. Find my baby.”

“I'll do everything I can.”

“As if she was your own?” I asked.

He nodded and I reluctantly let go of his jacket.

“Miss Barrett?”

“Yes?”

“Is there anything you'd like to tell me? Confidentially?”

“Look for Jack, okay? Jack Pierce.”

“I'm sorry, but I have to ask you this,” he said. “How's your marriage?”

“Fine. Why?”

“Most kidnappings of children turn out to be family matters.”

“No. I'm sure it's nothing like that.”

“Here's my home phone number,” Harraday said, pulling out a card. “If you want to talk. Anytime. About anything.”

I slipped the card into my pocket while he began to head back to the living room.

“Wait,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Tell me honestly, will it help to have them all here?” I asked, motioning to the living room.

Harraday looked at me closely. We were both trying to figure out how much to trust each other. “Yes and no,” he answered carefully. “There are benefits, sure. And I plan to use them. The FBI will let me into their computers right away. And they'll let loose every piece of equipment and manpower they can muster. No one wants bad publicity, least of all the mayor or the police chief. But as far as them standing around out there, no.”

“Why not?”

“Let's just say a case like this…” he continued.

“Like this?”

“High profile,” he explained. “Everyone wants a piece of it. But it can get in the way of the investigation. Too many chefs.”

“The only thing I care about is finding Sophie.”

“I know.”

“You have to find her,” I cried, touching Harraday one last time, as if marking him.

As soon as I returned to the living room I went up to David and whispered in his ear. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

He glared at me and stood his ground.

“Please,” I said.

He followed me into the foyer.

“David.” I tried to reach for him but he moved instinctively away.

“What the hell is going on, Laura? Why didn't you tell me about this Pierce guy?”

“I'm sorry—”

“Sorry? What do you mean, sorry? Sorry is not an explanation.”

“Can we talk about this later?”

“No, we cannot talk about this later. I want an answer now.”

“It's complicated.”

“Obviously.”

“Look, I promise you, we'll talk about it later.”

“You're damn right we will.”

“I'll tell you everything you want to know. But right now, we've got to figure out what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

I told him what Harraday had said about all the political hot shots. “They're worried about how it's going to play,” I said. “He's worried about Sophie. He needs room to work.”

David listened closely, then turned around without saying another word to me.

Back in the living room, he went up to the chief of detectives. “I appreciate your concern. More than appreciate it. I'm going to count on it. But right now, I think it would be better if the mayor didn't come. You understand. We could use some privacy.”

Browning relented, though he was clearly not pleased. “Of course. Well, I'll be in close touch. Rest assured that I will be supervising the entire team of detectives at all times.” He glanced back at Carelli and Harraday, and then he left.

Harraday exhaled, and cocked his head almost imperceptibly in my direction.

 

H
ALF AN HOUR
later, Dora walked in the front door, escorted by a burly policeman in a green suede baseball jacket.

“She said she had to come,” the cop explained. “It's her choice, really. I mean, she's a free woman.”

“It's all right,” Harraday said.

Dora rushed over to me and grasped my forearms. “I'd never do anything to hurt her, I'd never do anything to our little girlie.” Her voice was so frenzied, the island accent so thick, that it was hard to fully understand the jumble of words. Her eyes, beneath her wire-framed glasses, were red and swollen.

The detectives watched her closely.

“The man, he had a gun,” she cried. “He had a gun to her head. I tried to stop him but I couldn't. He had a gun to her head.” She was shaking me ferociously now.

I pushed her away.

Later, I wished I hadn't. Later, I realized she had no choice but to give him the baby, my baby, Sophie. Still, in my heart of hearts, I cannot help but believe I would have found a way not to if I had been there.

But I wasn't.

That is what it came down to, then and forever, in my mind: I wasn't there.

“The gun was pressed against her head. Here.” Dora put her finger to her temple.

I stared at her finger pressed to her skin, my Sophie's skin, where it was most soft and vulnerable. Sometimes I rest my mouth there in an open kiss, feeling her pulse thrum against my lips.

“It all happened so fast,” Dora cried. “I'd never let anyone hurt her. Lord, oh Lord.”

“I know,” I murmured. “I know.” And then, quietly, I asked, “What did he look like?”

“I told them, I didn't see his face.”

Harraday and Carelli listened cautiously.

“Who would do something like this to a baby?” Dora sobbed. “Evil, there's evil people in this world.” She reached to embrace me once again but I slithered away from her touch.

David stepped forward. “Dora, I think it would be best if you left now.”

“Miss Barrett…” she pleaded.

I turned away.

I heard her let out one last cry before she was led to the door.

“I've got to get going myself,” Harraday said. “We're going to set up a command post back at the Sixth Precinct and work out
of there. I'll be there putting the team together if you need me. Of course, we'll call the second we know anything. In the meantime, Flanders will stay here to work the phones with you.”

I grabbed Harraday's sleeve as he began to slip into his coat. “What happens now?” I asked frantically.

“I wish I could tell you, but I don't know.” He tried to disengage my hand, but I wouldn't let him go.

“What usually happens?” I beseeched him.

Harraday paused and in the split second of silence that followed I saw all the children never found, the ones that disappeared on the way to a school bus, a play date, the ones that simply vanished from the earth. I pulled Harraday to me. “Tell me. Tell me what happens now.”

“We'll do everything humanly possible,” he said softly.

“Tell me she's going to be okay.”

“We'll do everything we can.”

“When? When are you going to bring her back to me?” I shook him. “They won't know what to feed her. She must be hungry by now. I'm sure she's hungry, I have to give her lunch. She still gets formula. Not milk. Formula. The kind with extra iron. What if they don't know that?”

David pulled me off of Harraday. “Laura. We have to let them go do their job.”

Harraday looked painfully at me. “We'll check all these people out,” he said. “But, unfortunately, in a case like this, there's always the X factor to consider, too.”

“The X factor?” David asked.

“Fame. We'll look into everyone you've told us about, believe me. And there are some strong leads. But there are an awful lot of people who know you, or think they know you, who we have no idea of. It could be someone who just wants your attention, Miss Barrett. It could be someone who wants money. It could be someone who fantasizes about you. It could be any
thing. Christ, it could even be some nut off the street who has no idea who you are, totally random. Just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” I repeated, aghast.

“I'm sorry, Miss Barrett.”

Baldwin turned to me as he prepared to follow the detectives out. “Laura, what do you want to do about the press?”

“The what?”

“The press. We can try to keep a lid on this for a little while, but I don't think I can keep it out forever. There are always leaks.” He looked accusingly at the detectives.

“This is my baby you're talking about. My baby.”

“I know.”

“Keep it quiet,” Harraday ordered sternly. “I've never seen it help a case yet.”

Baldwin nodded and in a moment they were gone.

 

W
E WERE LEFT
in the room, our room, no longer ours. David, Detective Flanders, and me.

I sank onto the chair, burying my head in my hands.

I saw Sophie, the gun pressed to the delicate skin of her temple, saw her arms flailing out to me, heard her crying for me.

I called out to her, reached for her….

But there was only emptiness.

I heard David in the bathroom being sick. The toilet flushed, and then he was sick again.

Flanders looked at me and then away.

When he came out of the bathroom, David pulled me into our bedroom, away from Flanders's earshot.

“I can't believe you didn't tell me about this Jack Pierce,” he exclaimed.

“I told you, I thought I could handle it.”

“Good fucking thinking, Laura. Our daughter is missing and you thought you could handle it.”

“David, Jack didn't have anything to do with this. I know he didn't.”

“If you're so certain, why did you tell the police about him?”

“I don't know. I…”

“You don't know?”

I shook my head. “I can't take any chances, that's all. Not now. Not with Sophie.”

“You should have thought about that before.”

“I would never do anything to jeopardize her,” I cried. “You know that.”

“I don't know anything anymore,” he replied. “You kept some guy's picture for twenty-one fucking years and you never even bothered to mention his name to me. Then he comes to New York and you see him and you tell me—what? What, Laura? What did you tell me? Were you shopping that day? Were you working? What the fuck did you tell me?”

I didn't answer.

“Is there anything else I should know about?” David continued. “Or, should I say, anyone else? Please, if you don't mind, I'd rather hear about it before the police,” he said sarcastically.

“David.”

“When did you see Pierce?”

“Last month.”

“Is he in love with you?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“No. Of course not. It has nothing to do with that. It was all so long ago.”

“What was all so long ago, Laura? What exactly is going on?”

“David, I'm sorry.” I began to sob. “He was just someone I
knew a long time ago. In a different life. I didn't know how to explain it to you. I thought it was over. It
is
over.”

“Do you think you could get any more cryptic?”

“David, stop. Please stop.” I looked up at him. “All I can think about right now is Sophie.”

He watched me cry. “We're not done with this, Laura,” he said and left the room.

We spent the rest of the afternoon pacing the apartment in our separate corridors of pain.

 

S
OMEHOW, TIME PASSED,
seconds, minutes.

I called the precinct every fifteen minutes but there was no news.

No one found the blue car.

No one contacted us for money.

I crossed myself three times on the forehead. And then in three sets of three, again and again.