“It’s Gussie,” she said, a note of panic in her voice. “I can’t find her.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I got out of the bath, she wasn’t in the apartment.”
“Where are Joseph and Esther?”
“At the hospital. The baby’s coming.”
“Could she have gone to the hospital?”
“I called over and checked.”
Stuart didn’t think he had ever met a child who disappeared with the kind of regularity that Gussie did. “What about Isaac? Could she be with him?”
Anna shook her head fiercely. “He left yesterday on the four o’clock train.”
“For where?”
“Florida, I think.”
“For good?”
Anna nodded her head.
“Christ,” said Stuart.
Anna covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders began to heave.
Stuart closed the remaining distance between them. He grabbed Anna by the shoulders but let go of her almost immediately, worried he’d overstepped. He’d yet to apologize for the way he had treated heron the beach the other night. It was quite possible she wanted nothing to do with him or his money but there was no use thinking about that now. “Where do you think she went?” he asked.
“I thought she might be looking for you.”
Stuart pictured the rock, with the pair of painted sea horses on it. He’d put it in his pocket, and later found it when he was emptying his loose change into a small jar he kept on his dresser top. “I haven’t been in the stand today. But let’s check there first.”
They took off at a run toward Kentucky Avenue. At the corner of Atlantic and Tennessee, Anna stepped off the curb and might have been hit by a speeding truck had Stuart not grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back onto the sidewalk. When the avenue cleared and they could safely cross, he didn’t let go. They ran down Ohio Avenue, past the hospital and the junior high, and didn’t stop until they were standing in front of The Covington.
The beach was unusually crowded for it being so late in the afternoon. Stuart let go of Anna’s hand and checked his watch. Any minute, the lifeguards would lower their stands and come in for the night.
“What if she’s not here?” Anna gasped.
From across the beach, Stuart could already tell the stand was vacant. Like Stuart, Robert was off for the day, so Stuart watched as two subs tipped the stand backward into the sand.
“Hey, guys!” he called as he made his way toward them. “You see a little girl this afternoon? Dark hair. Seven years old. She might have come around asking for me.”
“She was wearing a yellow-and-white gingham dress,” Anna offered.
The young men looked at each other, as if they were trying to do a quick inventory of the thousands of small children who had required their attention. One of them said, “The beach was packed today, so I can’t say for sure. But no one came asking for you.”
“Dear God,” said Anna, moving a hand to her mouth. “What if she went swimming?”
“She hates swimming,” Stuart reminded her matter-of-factly, and watched as Anna’s face brightened.
“Where else could she be?” he asked her.
Anna listed off several places: the incubator exhibition, the plant, Fannie and Isaac’s apartment—although she was sure Gussie didn’t have a key.
They made their way from one place to the next as quickly as possible. “Does she know Isaac’s gone?” Stuart asked Anna as they tried the door to the apartment.
