Nic felt irritated now, and skeptical of everything she’d been told, or had assumed.
“What else should I know?” Nic asked. “Any more charges to her credit cards? Any communications on her cell phone account? And what about the casino? Are you still looking at the security cameras? It can’t be that hard to find someone there.”
The Laguna casino and resort was nothing more than a small cluster of businesses built on tribal land—exempt from the state’s gambling prohibitions. It wasn’t exactly a hotbed of tourism—more like an escape for locals looking to exercise their right to throw their money away in slot machines. Connecticut already had Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. Laguna was their ugly stepsibling. A hotel. A gas station. A Jiffy bus stop with a ticket machine and a covered bench.
Molly Clarke had made one charge paying for two nights. No one recalled seeing her, but the place had been a zoo—people without power seeking refuge. The security cameras were set up high, looking down at heads, facilitating the identification of petty theft more than faces. They’d been through all of it, going back to the night of the storm—looking for her, her beige coat and jeans. Blond hair. A woman alone.
Watkins shook his head eagerly. “No, no. There’s nothing. And we have everyone on alert at Laguna. But, again, the absence of new evidence suggests she covered her tracks. That she doesn’t want us to find her. And, hard as this is to hear, that she doesn’t wantyouto find her.”
Nic let his words settle in place. She had no reason to doubt him. Or at least to doubt that he believed what he was saying. There was no point arguing until she met Edith Moore.
“Okay,” she said, finally. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. So—Officer Reyes? At the diner? I’ll be there by nine thirty.”
Watkins stood up. Nic did the same.
“I take it this means you’re not going home?”
Nic looked at him now, with surprise. She knew how all of this seemed. To her father. To Chief Watkins. To everyone. She didn’t care. It had never seemed right to her, even when she’d tried to force it down, and now this—the inconclusive handwriting report.
“No,” she said. “I’m not going home.”
She left the station with a pounding head and churning stomach. As she got in her mother’s car, still smelling of her perfume, she could hear the voices screaming out from the hollow spaces—begging for some kind of relief. For a drink. For her “friends” at the bar back home. For some loser who might stumble in.
And she told them what she’d just told Chief Watkins. She wasn’t going home. Not this time. Whatever anger she’d felt for her mother for what happened to Annie, the love was deeper, and it was in her bones. With her mother’s absence had come a powerful longing to reclaim those sweet moments that had been lost.
She could see the paths this new information would lead her down—conclusions of what may have happened if her mother hadn’t written that note. If she hadn’t walked away on her own. Two weeks had passed—none of the conclusions were good.
But for now, for right now, as she drove away, there was just one thought.
I’m not going home.
Not without my mother.
5
Day two
Iawake startled. A body lies with me.
Nestled into the curve of my abdomen, head woven under one arm and resting on top of the other as I lie on my side in fetal position.
A little girl in my arms.
She doesn’t move even after my body jolts. Even after I lift my head to see her face.
“Are you surprised?” she asks. She asks this as though I’ve just opened a gift she’s presented to me.
Breath heaves in and out. The room is light. The bed is warm, but the air is cold against my face. Strange bed. Strange clothes. Strange house. It all floods back in.
And a dream lingers. A dream that I was holding Annie. The dream had lulled me into a state of bliss which now breeds despair.
I force myself to remain still.
“Yes!” I say. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I want to jump from this bed. I want to put on my clothes and run.
From where my head rests, I can see most of the room. AndI can see that my clothes are gone from the places where I hung them to dry last night. And my purse—did I bring it into the house? Where did I leave it?
I give Alice a little squeeze but then I slide my arm out from under her head and sit up.
