“Yes,” said Leonard, “let’s hope.What with her going missing, then what happened to Scott, I bet everyone would appreciate some good news.Will that be all, Mr S?”
“For now.”
Leonard left the office.Without speaking, Renders followed him.Only when he was certain the boy was on his way to the dorm did he return to Santopietro.The principal was standing by the window, his hands clasped behind his back, and Renders knew he was thinking about Mallory Norton.They both were.
After all, they were the ones who had taken her.
Chapter 46
It was just before three p.m.when T.K.Norton got home.He entered his daughter’s bedroom to discover his wife seated at the end of Mallory’s bed, clutching one of her stuffed animals, while a woman with wispy, graying hair stood with her back to the closet, holding Mallory’s hairbrush in her right hand.The woman looked familiar to T.K., though he couldn’t place her.It was only when his wife spoke her name that he made the connection.
Sabine guessed T.K.was at least a decade older than Anita.He was a handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair and soft, sad eyes.Any concerns about abuse that Sabine might still have entertained were immediately dissipated.She had felt nothing of it in the environs of the house or from Anita, but only in the presence of the husband could she be certain.Not surprisingly, T.K.was puzzled to find a medium in the bedroom of his missing daughter; puzzled, but not angry.
“I dropped by on the chance someone might be here,” said Sabine.“I asked if I might see Mallory’s bedroom, and your wife was kind enough to allow it.”
“She wants to help,” Anita told her husband.“No one else has been able to.”
“And?”
It was the first word he’d spoken since entering.
“And now I feel I know your daughter better,” said Sabine.
“You look for the dead, right?”
“The missing.”
She might not have spoken.
“I don’t accept that she’s dead,” said T.K.
“Nor should you.For what it’s worth, I don’t accept that she’s dead either.”
In the quiet of the bedroom, before T.K.Norton’s arrival, Sabine had been reaching out, tentatively trying to pick up some trace of the girl while surrounded by her possessions.So far, all that she could say was that Mallory Norton, alive or dead, was not in Bingham.
She took in the parents.She was tempted to ask about Scott Theriault but decided against it.That would be for the private investigator when he finally made his way here.For her to raise the subject of the Theriault boy with the Nortons might do more harm than good.She picked up her jacket.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said.
T.K.Norton asked: “What now?”
“As I told your wife, I’ll call your daughter’s name and listen for a response.”
“And then?”
She touched his arm.
“Then we’ll talk again.”
Chapter 47
In Spero’s office, Renders continued waiting for Santopietro to speak.Even after what they’d done together, and what they’d shared, Santopietro remained his employer and Renders was content to defer to him.Santopietro was easy to underrate; it was a function of his appearance, his mode of dress, his slightly hunched way of walking, and the soft sibilance of his speech.But Renders, like Spero’s more perceptive students, had come to appreciate that Santopietro deliberately cultivated a self-effacing air, particularly on the rare occasions when he was away from the school.Santopietro was a man who did not care to be noticed beyond Spero’s confines and had constructed a persona to suit that end.So accomplished was he that no one even bothered to examine more closely this reserve, or conjecture what it might conceal.Renders could only speculate on how uncomfortable it must have been for Santopietro when Leonard Levesque, of all people, touched on the answer.
Santopietro began filing away the papers on his desk.He did not like unresolved business.
“This is an awkward position in which we find ourselves,” he said.
“Levesque doesn’t know anything,” said Renders.
