Vanishing Girls (14 page)

I phoned in a dinner order to the Middle Eastern place down Smith Street, and while we waited, I called Billy to check in with him. I couldn’t help wondering if Ladasha and George had really dropped his name from the POI list; if not, by now Billy would probably have figured something out.

“You home?” He sounded groggy, or maybe a little drunk.

“Where are you?”

“Brooklyn Inn, bellied up to the bar.”

“How was your Christmas?”

“Spent the day at my sister’s. It was nice. Yours?”

“Really good. I love spending time with all of them. We hung out a lot at the beach.”

“Hope you brought me back a box of sunshine.” There was a silence, a click of ice on his end, a swallow.

“So, you catch your killer yet?” I’d meant it as a joke, because we would have heard, and was surprised when he answered:

“Maybe.”

“What?”

“We’re taking a real hard look at Pat Scott.”

“Did the lab connect him to Chali?”

“Still waiting on that.”

“It’s been almost three weeks!”

“Yeah, well, the holidays . . .”

It was true: This time of year, everything took twice as long to get done.

“Here’s one you’ll like: We put Antonio Neng the stalker in lockup yesterday. Found a judge who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, got ourselves a warrant on the first try. Turns out he’s got weapons in his apartment, guns, and a journal he keeps that reads like a hit list.”

“Bankers?”

“Each and every one.”

“Any forensics putting him in the Dekker house?”

“I’m telling you, nothing’s coming out of the lab right now. Still recovering from their Hanukkah party, and their Kwanzaa party, and their Christmas party. Probably planning for New Year’s just about now.”

“How’s Abby Dekker doing?”

“Still in her coma.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well.”

“That priest still there, reading her books?”

“Every day.”

“Maybe she’ll come around.” I paused, then said, “Well
I
have some news,” and told him about Dathi.

“Wow, Karin. You know what?
Way to go
.” Another clink of ice, another swallow.

“Thanks. I could use a little support, to tell you the truth.”

“Mac’s not on board, huh?”

“He calls it kidnapping.”

A bark of laughter from Billy made me laugh, too.

“Well, you do what you do, Karin. You wouldn’t be
you
if you sat back and waited.”

He might have been plastered, but I liked the sound of his encouragement.

“Stop by tomorrow and visit,” I told him.

“Working all day.”

“Then stop by after work, have dinner with us.”

“Can’t. Got a
psychiatrist
appointment at eight.” The way he said the word: as if it tasted bad. But I was very glad to hear it.

“Well, then how about Saturday? We don’t have any plans.”

“I’ll give you a call.”

I hung up and went to the window. Mac had finished paths along the sidewalk and to our ground-floor entrance, and was working on the stoop now. On impulse, I opened the front door and told him, “I just talked to Billy. He’s having a drink at the Inn and said maybe you’d like to join him.” A white lie in the white snow. But so what? It would do them both some good, and maybe Billy would rally for my cause.

Mac leaned the shovel against the railing and clapped his gloves together to shake off some ice. “Thanks. I just might do that as soon as I’m done here.”

I didn’t see Mac after that until almost eleven. Meanwhile the food arrived and Ben and I ate dinner together at the kitchen table. Then I gave him a bath and read him a book and put him to bed. I was lying on my own bed, reading, when the downstairs door finally creaked open.

“Karin!” Mac sounded more awake than when he’d left. I heard him stomp his feet energetically by the front door before his footsteps thumped down the hall toward our room. I had the feeling that something was wrong, and sat up to face the door.

“What is it?”

His face was flushed from the cold, and his eyes looked shiny; he’d had a couple of drinks, but he wasn’t drunk.

“They’re waking her up tomorrow morning. Billy just got the call.”

“Who?” But I knew who, because there was only one person whose awakening could possibly merit that much excitement right now: Abby Dekker.

Chapter 13

W
e arrived moments after Abby opened her eyes—her pale eyes, flickering around the room with a vague, uncomprehending expression, suggested she didn’t know where she was or what had happened. The bandages had been removed from her head, and her hair was growing back prickly and blond.

Sasha Mendelssohn, the care coordinator, stood back against the wall, hugging her clipboard to her chest, smiling tentatively as she watched a doctor who leaned over Abby’s bedside. He was tall, with a fringe of longish gray hair, and his name was embroidered on his white coat:
Daniel Alter-Jones, MD, Pediatric Neurology.
Hovering just behind her were two young residents wearing pinned-on name tags. Opposite them, across the bed, stood another white-coated doctor, short and portly with a halo of grizzly orange hair:
Mark J. Miller, MD, Pediatrics
.

Billy walked into the room and greeted the others with a nod; apparently they had all met before. Mac and I hovered in the doorway. We weren’t officially part of this, though a glance from Sasha Mendelssohn acknowledged me with a note of reluctant acceptance. Mac, however, was another matter; Sasha’s gaze stayed with him a moment before crossing to the doorway.

“You are?”

We shifted into the hall, and spoke in whispers.

“This is my husband, Mac MacLeary.” I watched her eyes as I introduced him: moving from my face to his and back to mine, her wariness softening. “He’s also a private investigator; we work together. And just by chance, Mac knew Reed Dekker—Abby’s father.”

Sasha looked at him now with interest. “Does Abby know you?”

“No,” Mac said. “I was acquainted with her dad from the gym. He was a good man.”

“She doesn’t know anyone in that room.” Sasha hesitated, glancing at the doorway as if it could offer guidance. “We’re hoping the Campbells will get here soon. We’d like to get some sense of how she’s really doing, but it’s hard when she’s nervous.”

“Where’s Father X?” I couldn’t remember his last name—something complicated, possibly Greek—but X was easy.

“He’s in the cardiac unit. He had chest pains last night when he heard Abby was being brought out this morning. This has been very stressful for him, and he isn’t exactly young.”

“Heart attack?”

She shook her head. “Chest pains, dizziness, blood pressure shot up. Admitting him was precautionary. He’s being monitored.”

“Well,” Mac said quietly, “they say stress is contagious.”

Sasha’s eyebrows shot up. “Welcome to my world.”

“Has she said anything yet?” I asked.

“Nothing. She’s disoriented, but that’s pretty normal. It can take a while.”

An orderly wheeled up a tiered cart stacked with foilcovered breakfast trays. “Heard she was awake. Taking solids yet?”

“Probably not, we still have to monitor her swallowing; but hold on, let me check on something.” Sasha scooted back into Abby’s room.

Mac and I followed.

Sasha was speaking with Drs. Alter-Jones and Miller, who then looked at Abby, smiled, and spoke to her directly. “Hungry?”

It seemed like a strange question, if swallowing might be an issue, but then it occurred to me that maybe they were just trying to get a reaction from her—any reaction. So far, it appeared she hadn’t said a word, and if she had made eye contact with anyone, I hadn’t seen it.

Abby’s eyes clouded. It was unclear if she’d understood. The IV drip that had nourished her the past three weeks draped from the crook of her elbow to a half-empty bag of clear liquid suspended at the side of her bed. It was hard to imagine a growing child not craving real food. But nothing in her demeanor suggested a claim on any desire or intention at the moment. She seemed deeply perplexed. Lost. And something else about her reaction, or lack of it, compelled me . . . I couldn’t put my finger on it. The more I wanted to cross the room and hug her, the harder I pressed myself into the wall in an effort to make myself invisible. The last thing this kid needed was more strangers insinuating themselves into her space.

“Let’s bring in some breakfast,” Dr. Alter-Jones said to Sasha. Then, turning to smile at Abby: “If you feel hungry, it’ll be right here.”

Sasha disappeared in the hall and returned with a tray. She put it on a small table in a corner of the room, next to the guest chair.

Abby’s gaze followed the tray, then returned to Dr. Alter-Jones.

“You can try eating something, if you feel like it.” The doctor smiled.

Again, no response.

“That’s okay.” Dr. Alter-Jones touched Abby’s forehead lightly with his fingertips: pinkish clean and neatly trimmed. I noticed now that in his other hand he held a penlight; one of the first things he would have done was to check her pupils for indications of brain activity. The way he was trying to reach her suggested that he believed she was reachable.

“I’d be quiet, too,” Dr. Miller said with a chuckle, “waking up in a hospital to a bunch of people I didn’t know.”

Everyone laughed, but it was forced, and kids were famous for their bullshit meters. I watched Abby’s face as the strangers surrounding her tried to humor her into speaking.
Could
she speak? Seeing her so adrift and listless made me uneasy. Brain injury had been the big worry and now its specter seemed to fill the room.

I recalled seeing her for the first time: lying on a stretcher in the dark, being attended to by EMS techs; her wheat-blond hair spilling off the side of the stretcher in a waterfall. Now, the swelling that had distorted her face and parts of her body had subsided and you could see the willowy shape of an eleven-year-old who hadn’t yet tripped up the steps of puberty. She was also paler, with the color wheel of her injuries mostly faded.

“Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?” Dr. Alter-Jones held up two fingers directly in Abby’s line of vision.

She glanced at his fingers, and looked away.

“How about now?” Just one finger this time.

Lines formed across her forehead and she seemed to shrink, as if she wanted to scrunch deeper under her covers. Mac reached over and squeezed my hand. I looked at him: He seemed shaken.

Was he thinking it, too? How sad it was watching this injured, orphaned girl alone among strangers. Was he also connecting her to Dathi, another helpless girl, orphaned through violence? Was he thinking that you didn’t turn away if you had a chance to help? I squeezed back and we stood there, our hands clutched. The truth was, I had no idea what he was thinking, and I doubted that he shared my preoccupation with Dathi. Mac was a tough cookie, even-keeled in the best and worst of times. I was tough in a different way: I had been called reckless, even ruthless, and my stubbornness was a matter of record. I knew that I followed my gut instinct in a way most people wouldn’t dare, and that Mac both admired and distrusted me for it. I didn’t
know
what he was thinking; but something shifted in that moment, and I felt (hoped) I might have finally won his heart on the matter of lost little girls.

Billy stood in the far corner of the room, his one-eyed gaze fixed on Abby. His pupil was pinprick small; though it was bright in the room, it wasn’t
that
bright. A thin layer of perspiration shone on his face. He had that masklike look again, and a now familiar apprehension swept over me. I tugged Mac’s hand and directed his attention to Billy. I felt his alarm as his fingers abruptly released mine.

“Can I talk to you a minute?” Mac whispered to Billy, who looked at him with a kind of surprise that registered interruption. He’d either been deep in thought or I’d been right: He was about to go off.

Reluctantly, Billy allowed Mac to lead him out of Abby’s room. I was about to follow, but changed my mind when the Campbells appeared. I didn’t want to miss it, if this was the moment Abby would finally speak.

The Campbells looked haggard, having now two bedsides to attend to, and I wondered if they had slept at all last night. Linda’s bubble of dyed blond hair was deflated. Steve’s pale yellow dress shirt was tucked in but badly wrinkled, with a lopsided brown stain soiling the pocket from which protruded the top of a cigarette pack, which surprised me.

“Sweetheart!” Linda hovered over Abby’s bed as if unsure how close she could come to the fragile girl. Abby barely glanced at the woman who was to be her guardian, her new mother.

Didn’t Abby want to know why her parents weren’t there?

Did she expect them to sweep into the room? Was that what she was waiting for?

Or did she know they were dead?

What did she know about what happened that night?

Steve stood back with his hands in his pockets, watching his wife try to connect with Abby. Finally Linda lowered her hands, gently cradling Abby’s face.

“We’re so happy to see you,” Linda said. “Don’t be scared. Did they explain you’re in the hospital but you’re okay?”

Both doctors and both residents nodded. “We did,” Dr. Miller said. “But it can be pretty confusing coming out of a coma. It might take Abby a little time to get her bearings.”

“That’s right,” Dr. Alter-Jones agreed. “Abby, would you like to spend a few minutes alone with Linda and Steve?”

Abby didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at the doctor when he spoke directly to her.

“Okay,” Dr. Alter-Jones said. “We’ll be back in a little while.”

As the doctors filed out, it was impossible not to overhear their conversation:

“Can’t know yet if we’re dealing with neurological damage.” Dr. Alter-Jones. “But her vitals are good. She’s basically alert. I’m hopeful.”

“Watch and wait.” Dr. Miller. “Buzz me if . . .”

And then they were out of earshot.

I joined Mac and Billy where they huddled by a vending machine across from the nurses’ station. Billy was twisting the cap off a bottled water. He looked fine now. I wanted to ask him what had happened in there, though I was pretty sure I knew: He had ricocheted back to that frozen moment on Nevins Street when he first saw her, and from there back into the episode that had seized him that night, in a cruel double whammy. And I wanted to ask him,
Why now
, when he’d visited Abby before without incident. But my intention to reach out to Billy was cut short. Linda could be heard sobbing in Abby’s room; Steve was loudly shushing her.

The wall clock ticked forward to exactly ten-thirty and I was starting to wonder about the wisdom of having Star fetch Ben from nursery school and drop him at my mother’s apartment. She was often clumsy and usually late. It didn’t feel right entrusting her with our child, which reminded me how badly we needed to correct our slipshod child-care situation. The thing was, I didn’t
want
to hire someone new; I,
we
, wanted Chali.

“Let’s go,” I said to Mac. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“You’re right.” He turned to Billy. “Come with us?”

“Think I’ll stay,” Billy said.

I looked at him, and it felt just as wrong leaving him here alone as relying on Star to get Ben.

“Mac, why don’t I hang out here with Billy? You can go home and get some work done.”

“You sure? Because I can stay.” But I knew he felt pressured, having fallen behind on his cases when he was sick.

“Absolutely. But will you check on Mom before leaving Ben with her? Her back was bothering her last night.”

“Will do.” Mac kissed my cheek. “I’ll catch up with you later, Billy.”

“I don’t need you to babysit me, Karin.” Billy tightened the cap on the water bottle so hard I thought the plastic would break.

“Seriously? Because you nearly zapped off into la-la land before.”

He uncapped the bottle and drank some water. Capped it again, but not as tightly. “Do what you want; it’s a free country.”

After a minute, Steve and Linda Campbell emerged from the room. He had his arm around her shoulders and led her down the hall—just like last time. It was strange. I wondered why Reed and Marta Dekker had assigned guardianship to a woman who couldn’t seem to hold herself together.

“What’s with her?” I asked Billy.

“Don’t know.” His voice sounded almost back to normal, but not quite, as if the shadow of whatever had overtaken him before had not fully passed.

And then something hit me: Abby’s disconnected behavior had reminded me of Billy when he was falling down the rabbit hole of one of his PTSD episodes. You were not present; you were someplace else entirely, in the grip of something invisible to others, completely unreachable.

We stood in the door, watching Sasha watch Abby, who seemed to stare at the window—a view of the cityscape, covered in ice crystals—but who knew if she was really seeing anything? It was no surprise she’d be traumatized after what she’d experienced that awful night: hit by a car alone on a derelict street; and for all we knew, she had witnessed her parents’ murders. Maybe she wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe she didn’t want to be awake in a world without her mother and father. Maybe. If only she would open her mouth and tell us.

“Well, sorry to drag you all the way up here for nothing.” Sasha noted something on her clipboard. “We’ll call you if things change.”

“Can I hang out a bit?” Billy asked. “Read to her, maybe? Since Father X is—”

Sasha lifted a finger to her lips in a silent
shh
. She shook her head.

Right: Just because Abby wasn’t speaking didn’t mean she couldn’t hear, and it might upset her to learn that the priest was also hospitalized.

“I’m supposed to exercise my good eye,” Billy said.

At that, Abby’s attention brushed across the room and she looked at him quickly. The worry lines deepened across her forehead; she didn’t seem too pleased by the sight of the tall black guy with an eye patch slung across his face like an urban pirate. And then she looked at me and I could have sworn I saw the flicker of a smile at one corner of her mouth before she looked away again.

“Or
I
could read to her,” I impulsively offered. “I read to my son all the time. I love reading to kids. Are they still working on
A Wrinkle in Time
?”

The book was on the table beside the breakfast tray. Sasha picked it up.