Birthday Girl Read online

  “Dad swats me, I guess, when I’ve done something wrong.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She puts me in time-out. Then I have to”—he stopped, embarrassed—“negotiate my release, she says.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “Which one of them scares you more?”

  “I don’t like either,” he stuttered. “I mean, nobody likes getting spanked, but Dad doesn’t do it that hard. And the time-out is just . . . silly.”

  The woman made a slight humming noise, perhaps to show she understood or agreed, then seemed to change the subject entirely. “Let me tell you about this house. It is quite old. The basement is so dark, so damp, and so quiet you can hear the spiders when they walk. Mold grows on the walls, which are so thick that, if you were to scream at the top of your voice, no one will hear you, even if they stand just outside and listen. I know, because I’ve done both.”

  Jeremy was unable to look away from her face.

  “Beneath it,” she continued, “is an ancient root cellar, where my grandfather and his father before him put their storage for the winter. It is no bigger than that wardrobe over there. It is so cold, so dark, so quiet, it makes the basement look like a carnival.” She paused. “Last night, I struck you to get you to comply with my wishes. It stung, didn’t it? But the memory of it will fade quicker than the bruise, and soon you’ll be asking yourself: ‘What can I get away with? What will she do to me if I disobey?’”

  He reached for his face instinctively, then dropped his hand.

  She watched his reaction with amusement. “What I’m about to say will not fade from your mind. When I say you will be punished, I won’t swat you. You will not be put in a time-out. I will tie you, hand and foot, and take you, not to the basement, but to that old, cold root cellar . . . and I’ll throw you in. I’ll forget about you. No one will remember you are there. And you will lay there, forgotten, unable to move, screaming a scream that can’t be heard.”

  She paused to see what effect her words had. Then, “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  She picked up his paper again, then took a black marker from her pocket and drew a line through “Jeremy” at the top. “This is no longer your name. You will not speak it again. You will not tell anyone else what it is.”

  She waited until he nodded, then drew more lines, this time through his mom and dad, Julie and Graham. “You will never mention your father or mother or their girlfriends and husbands or your life from before ever again. If you do, you will be punished.” She paused, and he nodded to show he understood. “You will meet your new family soon. You will not tell them about your life from before, and you will not ask them about their lives from before. Is that clear?”

  He nodded once more.

  “Now, pay attention.”

  Slowly, ceremoniously, she raised his hand-drawn picture until it hung between them, then tore it in half. She placed the pieces in a folder, put the folder in the box, then turned to him. She was still smiling, he saw, and her eyes had an odd gleam. Bright, as though lit from within.

  She placed a hand on her breast as if speaking a foreign language. “My name is Sister. This is your home now. Your only home. Do you understand?”

  He swallowed painfully, then nodded one last time. “Yes, Sister.”

  19

  Elliott

  “Did you have to give her my cigarettes?” Amy asked, peeved.

  Odors of stale coffee filled the car as they made their way down the stoplight-tortured Wheaton Pike. Tire King was behind them, though they’d braved the glare of the manager to grab a free cup of coffee from the lobby before they’d left.

  Elliott looked over. “You can’t possibly still be smoking. That pack has to be two months old. It looks like it’s been through a war.”

  “I’ve been trying to quit,” Amy said. “But it was my last pack.”

  “If it was your last, then it doesn’t matter, right?”

  She shot him a sour look. “Some of us have our dependencies, all right? Don’t tell me you never had a crutch or a vice.”

  He turned to the window. “I’ve had my share.”

  “Who hasn’t?” Amy asked rhetorically, unaware of Elliott’s discomfort. “High school was one big blur, but after I met Darren and started partying like it was a job, the blur got even blurrier.”

  Elliott looked back at her, curious despite himself. “When was that?”

  “Freshman year at UMD. Good ol’ CFA, the College of Fine Arts, although most people said it stood for Can’t Fucking Add. The majors were music, theater, art, sculpture. The minors were pot, pills, and shrooms.”

  “Which one were you?”

  “Pot, mostly.”

  He grimaced. “I mean, which major?”

  “Oh, art. Mixed media. I’m a decent artist, but I get bored quickly. I started collecting sticks when I’d walk in the woods and crafting these endless spiral arrangements. Real Andy Goldsworthy stuff.”

  “You stopped?”

  “I went from two-dimensional spirals to three-dimensional helixes,” she said, making a twirling motion in the air with one finger, “and that got me to thinking about infinity and the power of numbers, which led to . . .”

  “Numerology and arithmancy?”

  “Exactly,” she said, missing or ignoring his sarcasm. “When I saw how profound the Pythagorean ideal was, I kind of lost interest in gluing sticks together, you know?”

  “I imagine shrooms helped with the epiphany.”

  “Not really. Shrooms are too much. They get in the way, like a puppy trying to play with you while you’re juggling two plates and a chain saw. I could only do arithmancy when I was straight. Which helped when I switched to math.”

  Elliott did a double take. “Math?”

  “Yep. Double major, math and cognitive science,” she said, then glanced over, grinning. “What? Hard to believe?”

  “No, I . . . ,” Elliott stuttered. “Why aren’t you still there? What happened?”

  “Lacey happened,” she said and the grin faded. A broad silence filled the car.

  Elliott took a sip of coffee and looked at his feet. After a moment, he said, “Well, I’m sorry I took your cigarettes, but we needed Janine to open up. Dave told me he learned to keep a pack around to get people talking. Besides, I’m doing you a favor by getting rid of them.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Anyway, who are we seeing next?”

  He looked at the list they’d compiled. “Faith and Gary . . .” He frowned. “Nuxmein?”

  “Neumann.”

  “Your handwriting is terrible.”

  “Another holdover from art school,” she said. “What do we know about them?”

  Elliott consulted the list again. “Their son was one of the earliest hits we found, at the edge of the five years of files Dave pulled. He went missing almost six years ago and was found about two years later.”

  “What was their son’s name?”

  “Danny.”

  Amy tugged a long lock of hair out of the headband she wore as she drove, twirling it around one forefinger before dragging it across her upper lip. She did it over and over, unaware of the subconscious tic. “That poor woman has been through a lot.”

  “Who? Janine? Yeah, she has.”

  “Did we learn anything?”

  “Less than I’d expected, more than I thought.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Elliott put the list down and slouched back into the seat. “I made an assumption. Shame on me.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought the answer would be with the family.” He ran a finger along the door frame. “Not that I expected to find a . . . I don’t know, a killer birthday party clown in each case, but with Tammy in foster care when she was abducted, a lot of the normal connections I’d planned on following are either gone or much further down on the list.”

  “You mean like someone they knew? An uncle or a teacher?”

  “Yes.”


  “Where does that leave us?”

  “Two connected data points form a line, not a shape. We need more perspectives to build anything resembling a theme, here. You can’t make a constellation out of two stars.”

  “Just like a web isn’t made from a single strand of silk.”

  “Exactly.”

  Amy paused, then asked, “What’s your sign?”

  “What?”

  “Your sign. When’s your birthday?”

  He glanced over. “Are you asking me because I said ‘constellation’?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You had to be born sometime.”

  “I was,” he said. “I just don’t want to tell you.”

  “I’ll tell you mine.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “January tenth. I’m a Capricorn.”

  “That’s wonderful. Let’s concentrate on driving.”

  She pulled over to a curb, where the Celica bucked before coming to a stop, and turned to him. “Spill it.”

  “Are you sure you can get this thing started again?”

  “If I believe in it enough yes,” she said. “But we’re not going anywhere until you tell me your birthday.”

  “It’s really that important to you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You’re helping me find my daughter, and I want to make a connection with you.”

  “And we’re not moving unless I tell you?”

  “Yup.”

  He sighed very lightly. “October.”

  “October what? The date is important.”

  He closed his eyes. “The thirty-first. Halloween. A bad omen, right?”

  She frowned. “No, why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Because it’s Halloween.”

  She waved a hand. “Judeo-Christian crap. There are much deeper mysteries out there.”

  “Really?” He paused. “So, does it mean anything? Being born on Hallo—on the thirty-first?”

  “You’re a Scorpio. You’re analytical, meditative, resourceful, but ruled by your desires. Fierce and independent.”

  “Is that all?”

  “You’re good at hiding your feelings, which can be both good and bad.”

  “You needed a horoscope to tell you that?” He snorted. “I’ll let you guess my weight next time we stop.”

  Her lips flattened into a line. “It’s not nothing, you know. The things I believe in. It’s what led us to the birthday clue. Without it, we’d have nothing.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe we would’ve arrived at the same place if I’d had two minutes to study the dates more closely.”

  “The police did that and didn’t solve a thing,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Because they didn’t care,” he said without thinking. They were quiet for a moment as the truth of it sank in. “I didn’t mean it that way—”

  “No. You’re right. They care, but the way cops care about anything. Enough to keep themselves motivated, enough to take pride in their job. To remind themselves why they do what they do. But maybe not enough.”

  “They have a lot on their plate,” Elliott said cautiously. “You can’t fault them for not investing as much as a parent would.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “But maybe it takes a parent to care enough to persevere.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they arrived in the up-and-coming suburb of Davidson Run, an enclave of closely packed red brick and vinyl-sided homes that promised to have seasonal glimpses of the Potomac River but full-time views of each other’s minivans, soccer nets, and landscaping. A white postal truck was just puttering into the neighborhood, completing the picture of suburban bliss.

  “What’s the address?”

  Standing on the sidewalk, Elliott consulted their notes. “5402 Calm Glenn. Probably on the corner up there.”

  The sun had poked its head out from behind the clouds, sending down a cold, bright light, but there wasn’t a single person visible on the trimmed, still-green lawns or precise brick sidewalks. Elliott hesitated, suddenly aware of how much they stood out. The two of them might not be out of place strolling into a tire shop in a shabby roadside strip mall, but an upper-class suburban neighborhood was not their element. A rattling sound distracted him.

  “What is that noise?” he asked. “I hear it every time you move.”

  “Tic Tacs,” she said. “Sorry if it annoys you. Want one?”

  He shook his head irritably and they walked to the house. A herringbone brick walkway threaded its way from the street to a low, roofed front porch. The lawn hadn’t been touched for several weeks, and the tall grass flopped onto the bricks and the slab of the porch. Two wicker chairs, their white paint chipping, were the only ornamentation. Elliott took in the state of the home, then stepped off the porch to glance at the other homes, which were covered with cornstalks and gourds, flint corn bouquets, and silly cardboard turkey cutouts.

  Amy tucked the stray lock of hair back under her headband, then opened the screen door and rapped the knocker, a brass fish. It took three tries before a shadow moved behind the front window’s gray privacy sheers.

  The shadow would peek through the peephole, Elliott knew, assessing and measuring. It wouldn’t surprise him if the door stayed shut and the shadow retreated into the depths of the house.

  But it opened, revealing a middle-aged man with shaggy white hair. His face was gray and sour, with red-rimmed brown eyes and sagging jowls. A stained, baby-blue polo shirt hung over the waist of baggy jeans. The flesh seemed to hang on his frame, as though a larger person had inhabited his body before leaving for greener pastures, leaving behind something diminished and worn.

  “Help you?” The voice was phlegmy and made Elliott want to clear his throat; then the man’s breath hit them. His skin prickled as he recognized the look, the smell, the feeling rolling off the man.

  Amy asked, “Mr. Neumann?”

  “Yes.” The man looked from Elliott to Amy with slow, bovine swings of his head.

  Amy explained how sorry she was to have bothered him, and did he have a minute, and here’s who they were. It was short and to the point, but doubt and impatience crept into the man’s face. He began to ease back into the house, a slow-motion withdrawal. “I’m not really interested . . .”

  “It’s about Danny,” Elliott said.

  Neumann froze and the eyes, doused before, showed the smallest spark. “What did you say?”

  “We want to talk to you about your son,” Elliott said, pushing his words into the tiny space he’d made. “Mr. Neumann, we know how hard this is, but we could desperately use your help.”

  “What do you want?”

  “My daughter,” Amy began, then stopped, her voice catching. She paused, then continued as if nothing had happened. “My daughter Lacey was kidnapped nearly a year ago. The police have given up looking for her, but I’ve never stopped. Mr. Nash, here, used to work for the police, and he’s helping me try to find Lacey.”

  “What does this have to do with Danny?”

  “We think his disappearance might be related to Lacey’s,” Elliott said. “But even if it’s not, there’s still a pattern there that might point to a single person responsible for the kidnapping of several children.”

  “Kidnapping?” The man looked baffled. “Danny ran away from home.”

  Nonplussed, Amy glanced at Elliott. “I know it’s painful, but can you talk about the circumstances around that?”

  “Why do you think there were circumstances?”

  “We’re just looking for a connection, Mr. Neumann—”

  “There’s no connection between your . . . your daughter and my son.”

  “You don’t know that, Mr. Neumann,” Amy said gently. “And anything you tell us might help.”

  “How about I tell you that I loved my son?” Neumann said, his eyes filling with tears. “And that it didn’t matter a damn.”

  “I know you loved Danny,” Amy said. “But could you tell
us what led him to run away?”

  “There was no damn reason. He just took off one day, leaving us to our little suburban hell.”

  “Kids rarely decide to run away on their own,” Elliott said. “It’s not an idea that occurs to them without reason.”

  A flush sprung up around his neck, forming a scarlet collar beneath the fleshy chin. “I had nothing to do with it. The kid got it into his head to leave behind a home I provided, with money I earned, while Faith sat here, screaming at me to do something, that it was my fault—”

  “Please, Mr. Neumann,” Amy interrupted. “We’re not accusing you of anything. We’re only trying to find my little girl.”

  Pink blooms sprang up on his cheeks, his forehead, across his chin. His voice was chipped and hoarse. “And who helped me when my little boy left? Who knocked on doors after the first week, the first month, the first year? No one. My wife ran from it, my friends ran from it. Only I got to stay and stare at the truth day after day, night after night.”

  “Mr. Neumann, please—”

  But the man swore, took a step back, and slammed the door, rattling the windows. They stood in place for a moment, stunned by the bitterness and violence.

  “I don’t think he’s going to help,” Amy said to the brass fish.

  “No,” Elliott said. The prickling sensation was still writhing under his skin. “Not today, at least.”

  Defeated, they turned around and headed back down the walkway to the car. As they crossed the lawn, a woman at the next house over—thin, blonde, warm-up pants and a large athletic sweatshirt, a pair of garden clippers in one hand—was busy at her mailbox. Peeking, reaching in, looking into the depths again. Elliott paused, then glanced toward the entrance to the cul-de-sac. The mail truck they’d passed on their way into the community was just now coming down their side of the street, pausing to tuck the day’s delivery of junk mail and bills into each house’s box.

  He leaned close to Amy. “See the lady at the mailbox? Go say hello.”

  “What? Why?”

  “She wants to talk to you.” He gave her a gentle push. “Trust me. I’ll wait in the car.”

  Amy gave him a confused look, but headed over to the woman. Elliott walked to the Celica, slid into the passenger’s seat, then leaned back. Through closed lids, he watched Amy introduce herself. The woman started, feigning surprise. Free of Elliott’s presence, however, her expression opened, showing concern as Amy talked. He was no lip-reader, but a first-year psychology student could’ve probably scripted the conversation.