Birthday Girl Read online

  Cee Cee isn’t on the bench or on the swings.

  She isn’t in the playground.

  She’s gone.

  33

  Amy

  Overhead, a truck rattled across the overpass in the darkness, shaking the struts of the bridge and dropping a cascade of grit and sand that hit her cheek before it skittered down the brick slope. Some instinct told her dawn wasn’t far away. Behind her, Elliott’s breathing was even and deep, light on her neck.

  Amy waited as long as she could, then whispered his name. He stirred, took a sudden breath. “What?”

  “Tell me about Cee Cee.”

  He stiffened. “Why?”

  “You must’ve yelled her name a dozen times last night. You cried.”

  There was a long pause. His arms, wrapped around her for warmth, were sprung pieces of steel; then the tension in him seemed to melt away. His voice, low and rough, rumbled in her chest. “I told you. Cee Cee was my daughter.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s something about her you haven’t told me. Something I think you want to say.”

  “Jesus. I don’t need any of your New Age bullshit.”

  “Maybe not, but I need it. Please. I want to know,” she said. “I need to know.”

  He groaned as though pushing a millstone off his chest; then a wash of cold air hit her back as he lifted his arm and peeled away, fumbling for a bottle of water. Amy rolled to face him, waiting. In the gloom, he was an indistinct, rounded shape: a head, shoulders, a torso. He raised a pale hand to his forehead, held it there.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Please, Elliott,” she said. Then again, “Please.”

  He sat cross-legged, his head cradled in his hand for so long that Amy thought he would simply refuse, that silence was his answer. She thought he might order her to leave, or tell her that he was leaving. Then he began talking.

  “I told you about my parents, my childhood. By eighteen, I’d had enough summers of pick-your-own fruit and scoring weed for mom and dad. I wanted the normal life I saw on TV and in the magazines. I went away to school. Made it on scholarships and hard work. Filled a wall with psychology degrees, got a job at a university, found a wife. We had a daughter. We had Cee Cee.”

  He shifted, and his boot scraped the grit of the concrete floor.

  “Life was good, but the job was unfulfilling. It seemed . . . trivial, running trials and writing papers. So, I adjusted course and got the training to go into forensic psych. I worked with police, testified at trials, made a name for myself. Colleagues told me I was doing important work, good work, but most of the time I didn’t even know what the verdict was. It started to wear me down, and my big switch from the trivial to the meaningful started to look like a hell of a mistake. I’d started out hoping I was doing something noble, but the futility of it was . . . disheartening.”

  He picked up a piece of gravel and lobbed it over the ledge.

  “Is it trite to say the work drove me to drink? Most alcoholics can give you a reason if you ask. Classic psychological projection. Shifting the blame. It’s not me. It’s this shitty job, it’s these rotten people, it’s this goddamned world. Everyone in the office, every cop I knew, had a vice, something that got them through. Why couldn’t I?

  “So, I drank and I worked and I soldiered on, doing the best I could. Or so I thought. I don’t think the drinking ever affected my family, but that’s a lie that drunks tell themselves. Luckily, work kept me out of the house most of the time. I put in extra hours in the office and on the bottle. My wife got sick of both and gave me a choice: straighten up or she’d leave and take Cee Cee with her.”

  His voice was bitter, and he ran a hand through his hair.

  “I took some time off. I was a good dad, and for a little while, I was even sober. I took Cee Cee to soccer practice and the dentist and to the park. But by the end of the first week, I was taking a nip of booze before we left the house. By the end of the next, I was taking the bottle with me.

  “We went to the park a lot. Cee Cee liked the monkey bars. One day, while I was half in the bag, a couple of kids fell off the slide and got banged up. Lots of screaming and crying. The parents jumped up to see what was wrong, giving hugs and wiping noses. When the dust had settled, I turned around and Cee Cee was gone.”

  Elliott said nothing for long, ponderous minutes. Dull dishwater light slowly filtered into their little nook. Finally, he coughed like an engine coming back to life.

  “Dave led the investigation, ran himself into the ground. Weeks passed. But if I’d been drinking before because I was bored with my work, well, now I began drinking in earnest, like that was my job. Luckily, Dave and I had grown close, and there was more than one night he poured me into his car and took me home. They never found her body. Just her clothes, her blood, and Kerrigan’s threats.”

  He sighed.

  “Those times I was dry enough to focus, I read the case files obsessively, sifting through the letters and weights and numbers and descriptions. Kerrigan’s psych profile. Notes and interview transcripts with him, my own and others. All of it, looking for an explanation. Why it happened to us. To Cee Cee. There were no answers. I blamed my wife for not being there. She blamed me for bringing us to Kerrigan’s attention. We blamed each other because we had no one else. But I blamed myself most of all, because the why isn’t really important. Bad things are going to happen. It’s how you let them happen to you and what you do in response that matters. And what I did was let my little girl get killed because I was a goddamned drunk.”

  He raised his head to look at her. “What I said to you back at the bar was cruel. Selfish. Hypocritical. It was all aimed at myself. You were right, I don’t have the capacity to forgive. Myself or anyone else. But no one deserves what happened to me, what you’re going through. What you still might go through.”

  A horn honked in the distance, followed by the slow buzz of tires on asphalt that grew in volume until a car passed overhead. Silence followed it.

  “Thank you,” she said finally, or tried to say. “I understand now.”

  His voice, coming out of the gloom, was grating and thick. “None of my experience will help you. I have no lessons to teach you that you don’t already know. We will find Lacey or we won’t. The pain you feel now, this poisonous weight in your chest that wakes you up in the middle of the night, will either melt away or it will be dwarfed by what’s to come. All I can tell you is I won’t quit looking until we find her.”

  “I know,” Amy said, her own voice rusty. She crawled over to Elliott, very close, and folded him in her arms. Hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her, and they held each other until the light was full and bright.

  34

  Sister

  The news was all over the office.

  Did you hear? . . . on every channel . . . the Kelly boy, barely alive . . . behind an abandoned house. . . DC police.

  Yes, she’d heard.

  Yes, it was wonderful he’d been found alive.

  Oh, he’d come through their office? No, she didn’t recall the case. You know, so many children . . .

  By the third person who’d accosted her, she couldn’t take it anymore and sprinted to the bathroom, where she banged open the door to a stall and vomited, standing up, into the toilet. The woman in the next stall pawed at the toilet paper, hurrying to finish her business before heaving noises started again.

  When she had the bathroom to herself, she collapsed on the floor, leaning her head against the bowl like a repentant drunk, not caring about the filth from the dozens of people who’d used it since that morning.

  Charlie was alive.

  The simple statement was the loose thread that signaled the unraveling of her life; she knew it. She’d never failed before, but of course her imagination had envisioned all kinds of outcomes if what she did to the children simply . . . failed.

  And now she had her answer.

  T
hat child would talk to the police, who were unlikely to be curious about a failed overdose, at least initially. But eventually the truth of where he or she had been for the last four years would burst forth like water from a dam, sweeping away not just her, but all she’d done and all she’d ever do for the children to come.

  Talked to the police? She groaned and put a hand to her head, feeling as though it was about to split.

  How stupid could she have been? Surely it was Charlie her brother had been talking about over lunch, the boy he’d been so proud to save from the nearly fatal overdose. Of all the people . . . how was it that he’d been the one to find one of hers? And what if he was the one who would talk to Charlie, discover the truth about where the young man had been all this time? What if he was on his way to the old house right now? She began to shake at the implications.

  Was this how Mother had felt? Abandoned by her husband, saddled with an army of children, her future an endless downward drop? No choices, no hope, nothing. Small wonder she’d snapped, killing everyone around her—had she’d thought of it as an act of mercy, at the end?—and finally, taking her own life. The motivations of a woman she’d spend a lifetime failing to comprehend now seemed clear and lucid.

  “Enough.” She pushed away from the toilet, getting unsteadily to her feet, then staggered out to a sink, where she splashed water in her face. The door to the bathroom opened and a few sharp footsteps sounded on the porcelain tile, but she didn’t bother to look, simply stared at the haggard face looking back, the tight, pinched lines around her lips, mouth, and eyes. Dark brown eyes, her mother’s eyes, stared back at her.

  Mother probably said the same that day, telling herself to pull it together, didn’t she? Just before—

  “Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it.” She slapped herself in time to the words, crying, and the footsteps retreated. Breathing in gasps, she grimaced into the reflection. Spit trailed down from her lips, and the little bit of lipstick she wore was smeared like a clown’s.

  Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the mirror, the ghost of her mother vibrant and alive in her mind. With a supreme effort, she pushed against the living memory, forcing it into a corner, visualized pushing it into a box that became smaller and smaller as she willed. Her mother shrank from a towering vision to a speck that eventually wailed as it vanished from sight.

  Raising her head, she confronted the face in the mirror.

  Mother was gone.

  It was just her. Only her.

  She spat, gargled, and spat again.

  Mother had given into her fate, but there was no reason she had to. She would not destroy herself, nor was it certain that anyone else would.

  What, after all, could Charlie actually tell her brother or the police? Nothing. The young man knew her face to see her, of course, but what were the chances their paths would cross again? Why would the police—even if they believed the half-crazed story of an apparent teen drug addict—bring him back here, of all places? They’d question the family and friends and the strangers who had visited the wealthy Kelly home. The case would be further complicated by the parents’ high-profile, society-page squabbling and acrimonious divorce.

  She had to restrain herself, certainly. No more rescues, not for a while. But that was easily done—new Charlie was quite docile, and her other siblings were all nicely behaved. Well, almost all of them. Charlotte, with her sideways looks and the sly rebellion in the eyes, had not been behaving lately. The girl was . . . recalcitrant. Willful.

  She pushed on those feelings, examined her own emotions regarding Charlotte . . . and realized she didn’t feel the same love for the girl that she once had. She seemed like a stranger, not really like family anymore.

  Was it her time, as well? Regardless, could she take the risk and . . . transition the girl, so close to the other? Would the public believe another almost-teenage overdose on the heels of Jay Kelly’s?

  Of course they would.

  The world was full of abusive parents and neglected children and drug-addicted kids who’d been thrown to the street. In fact, there was nothing for the public to believe; it happened every day. And while the likes of a Kelly family heir might make the news, another foster child gone wrong would be lucky to make the back page of the newspaper, never mind spark a police investigation.

  In fact, she thought as she dabbed at her mouth with a paper towel, wouldn’t it be better to do it now, while the region’s attention was locked on the Kelly family? She’d never held two birthday parties in a month, never rushed things, but she had felt Charlotte slipping away for some time now, and when she unlocked her own heart and looked inside, deep inside, she saw the well was nearly dry. To her, the girl was less like Charlotte than she was like herself. Really, wasn’t that the final, and most important, criteria?

  It was worth considering. Once done, she could lay low and dedicate herself to caring for the brothers and sisters she already had. Resist the temptation to save any more, at least not right away. In time, the public would forget, as it always did, about the children who were thrown away or ran away or were scared away.

  And when they were, she’d be there to help them, as she always had and always would.

  35

  Elliott

  By seven thirty, they’d made their way, stiff and sore, back to the strip of malls and stores, eating another meal of bananas and peanut butter sandwiches on the way. They picked up Amy’s now fully charged phone behind the defunct car rental building and, in exchange for buying a Coke, the kid at the corner gas station let them take turns washing up in the bathroom.

  At the bus stop on Reece, Elliott studied the wall-mounted route map and schedule. He poked through their pool of money. “We’re going to need some luck and a hell of a lot of walking to get there.”

  “Get where?”

  “Old Town.”

  “Why there?”

  He shrugged. “I know it. I have friends there. Might even get us a place to stay.”

  “Better than an underpass?”

  He smiled. “A little bit.”

  “Then I’m in.” She looked at the money in his hand. “How far can we get on what we have?”

  “I promise we can get on the bus,” he said. “After that, we’ll have to see.”

  The bus, empty of passengers, pulled up a few minutes before ten. Tickets for the two of them ate up the rest of their cash, but the driver gave them a nod and they tottered to a seat in the back before the bus jerked into motion and headed down the road.

  Amy stared at the seat in front of her. “I feel like we know everything and nothing. Lacey is alive, but we don’t know where. We know the children are being kidnapped, but we don’t know by whom. We know all the kids had a connection, but we don’t know what. And we can’t go to the police with any of it because either they won’t believe us or they’ll arrest us on sight.”

  Elliott was looking out the window, watching the suburban landscape pass by. “When Lacey was . . . taken into foster care, how did it happen?”

  Amy, her face stricken, said, “Why would you ask that now?”

  He turned to her, contrite. “I’m sorry, Amy. I’m not asking to hurt you. It’s a painful subject, I know, but your answers might actually help us.”

  “Okay,” she said doubtfully. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me the step-by-step process. You can give me just the overview, but don’t skip anything.”

  She swallowed painfully. “Someone must’ve reported me as an . . . an unfit mother. A CPS worker came out and talked to me, then talked to Lacey. I thought things were okay and I thought I’d dodged a bullet, you know? I promised to get straight; then CPS came out the next morning and took Lacey away.”

  “Was it the same officer?”

  “No.”

  Elliott frowned. “Hmm. Did you have a hearing?”

  “Yes, almost right away. I . . . wasn’t in good shape. When they took her, I fell apart and popped a pill to get back on my f
eet. I didn’t realize I’d get a chance to represent myself and I—” She started to shake.

  “You were high? At the hearing?”

  “Yes,” she said, miserable. “And it was obvious. Lacey went into foster care straight from the courtroom.”

  “Was this downtown? DC Superior?”

  “Yes,” she said, surprised. “How did you know?”

  “I used to testify all the time, remember? Almost never in the juvenile courts, but I walked by them almost every day. And I know foster kids in the District have to go through a review called a CHINS hearing—child in need of services.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, if I remember correctly, there’s a special stable of judges just for CHINS cases. Do you remember who your judge was?”

  “Even high, I’d remember,” she said, bitter. “Susan Cranston. Bitch.”

  The bus made a wide turn, and they swayed in their seat. “Who else was present at the hearing? Literally, in the room?”

  Amy made a face. “I barely remember it. There were lawyers and the CPS officer and some clerks, I guess.”

  “Did you recognize anyone? Had you seen any of them before?”

  “The CPS officers who came to the house gave a statement, but everyone else was a complete stranger.” She gave him a curious look. “Why all the questions?”

  Elliott pressed himself back in the seat. “I have a theory, but I need one more piece of information. Let me see your phone.”

  Dave

  Dave was driving home, but he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between a forefinger and thumb anyway.

  He’d shot the day working just one case. A brother, six, and a sister, eight, children of an abusive father, had been reported missing by a neighbor in northwest DC. By some miracle, Tony had found the brother hiding in a gutter, and it had taken the two of them an hour to talk him out. But there was no sign of the sister, and the son-of-a-bitch father wasn’t talking despite their best good-cop, bad-cop, fire-and-brimstone routine. Tony had finally told Dave to go home while he kept on the case, agreeing they could switch in the morning. He’d promised he’d call if he dug something up in the meantime.