Girl Who Wasn’t There Read online

  ALSO BY VINCENT ZANDRI

  The Remains

  The Ashes

  The Scream Catcher

  When Shadows Come

  Everything Burns

  Orchard Grove

  The Detonator

  The Caretaker’s Wife

  Deadly is the Night

  The Chase Baker Action Adventure Series

  The Sam Savage Air Marshal Action Adventure Series

  The Dick Moonlight PI Series

  The Jack “Keeper” Marconi PI Series

  The Steve Jobz PI Series

  For more books, novellas, nonfiction titles, short stories and more, go to www.vincentzandri.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Vincent Zandri

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The author is represented by MacGregor Literary, Inc

  ISBN 978-1-60809-396-0

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing

  Sarasota, Florida

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  “Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”

  —ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

  CHAPTER 1

  Lake Placid, NY

  IT’S GOOD TO be home again.

  And I’m lucky to be alive, having survived a ten-year stint in an upstate New York maximum security prison bookended by the Hudson River on one side and a magnificent forest on the other. You know the kind, with the tall concrete walls, the razor wire barriers, the guard houses manned by corrections officers armed with M16s, and a curious metal banner mounted above the main entrance that reads “There but for the grace of God go I.” As though God had anything to do with my being incarcerated for a quadruple homicide I did not commit.

  But being home again is like a dream come true.

  Truth be told, however, I’m not really sure I know what home is anymore. The house my wife, Penny, and I bought together in North Albany was sold off to help pay for my legal expenses. My belongings, what was left of them, were stuffed into boxes when she had no choice but to move into a one-bedroom apartment, which she shared with our daughter. Then, when she was forced to move into a studio apartment, my boxed belongings were transferred to a mobile storage unit on the south side of the city.

  From what Penny tells me, she hasn’t visited the storage unit in some time, but that we can go there as soon as we get back from our first weekend away together as a family in more than a decade.

  Right now … right this very second … I have Penny and I have Chloe, and they are my home. My home-sweet-home. For the first time in ten years, I’m free, paroled for good if I keep my nose clean, as the rednecks like to say. I’ve got my girls back, and it’s a beautiful day up in the Adirondacks. The lake is clean and cold, the sand white and soft underfoot, the air warm, and the sky bright. A beautiful summer day. Like I said, my new lease on life … it’s a sweet dream come true.

  I mean, what more could a wrongly imprisoned ex-con want?

  The little beach that overlooks Mirror Lake, the smaller lake that adjoins the much larger Lake Placid to the north, is owned by the hotel we’re staying at for a few days. We had to break the bank to afford it, but when you’ve been away from your family for ten years, you’ll do anything for a little time away from it all. Anything short of breaking the law, that is.

  Like the name suggests, the very still, very clear glass-like lake truly mimics a mirror. I stand in the cool shallow waters, only my feet submerged. I stare at the reflection of my face. A somewhat distorted reflection. But I can still make out the scruffy face, the short hair, the dark brown eyes masked by sunglasses. I see me, or someone who looks like me.

  But the mirror reflects more than just my face.

  It reflects the memories. The bad ones.

  You know, the big black Suburban I drove to the house lived in by a Chinese family who owed my boss, Mickey Rabuffo, too much money. Money they could never hope to pay back in this lifetime or the next. I look into the water and see me, the driver. I see myself sitting behind the wheel of the SUV, while the two men the boss entrusted to collect the money head inside the house in the middle of the night. What could be more frightening than a home invasion in the middle of the night?

  I see myself waiting behind the wheel, the 5.7 Liter V8 engine idling, heart pounding in my chest, knowing that at any moment a police cruiser could come around the corner.

  Then came disaster—like my gut told me it would.

  Muzzle flashes that lit up the windows like bolts of lightning, and I knew in my sinking heart that the Chinese family did not have the money. That they never had the damned money. That they never had a chance.

  I was just the driver, but when that family died that night, my soul died along with them.

  So we’ve come to Lake Placid. The lake of calm. The lake of peace and tranquility. It’s our escape from Albany. Escape from our past.

  Or perhaps I should put it another way. Because maybe Penny wants to escape ten years of loneliness. Of nights all alone, of empty bank accounts, of not knowing if her next paycheck is going to be enough. Not knowing if the man who knocks on the door will be informing her of the tragic death of her husband inside one of the most dangerous maximum security prisons in the country.

  As for me, I needed the escape from the gangbangers, the killers, the rapists, the Aryans, the radical Muslims, the foul stench, the constant fear of looking over my shoulder knowing that, at any time, Rabuffo could send someone in after me. To silence me, once and forever.

  I was the last man standing that horrible night.

  The others—the assassins—had been two old high school pals by the names of Singh and Wemps. But I never recognized who they’d become as adults. Perhaps it was a blessing they’d been killed by cops when they reemerged from the house, their semi-automatics in hand, barrels smoking.

  But it ended up being me who took the entire wrap for murders I did not commit. The hell of it is, I never revealed the truth. Not once. But then, that’s not right, either. It doesn’t mean I didn’t say something I shouldn’t have during the exhausting and punishing thirty-six hours of interviews with the Albany Police Department in the wake of the brutal Chen family murder, all four of them found dead in their beds, the victims of execution-style murders. Nine-millimeter rounds to the back of the skull, directly above the external occipital protuberance, to be specific.

  It doesn’t mean I didn’t bring up the name Rabuffo on several occasions. Didn’t bring up the names of my old pals, Wemps and Singh, the former a tall blond cokehead devil, and the latter, a stocky dark-haired weightlifting son of Satan.

  Lack of sleep will do that to a man, especially during a prolonged police interrogation, when life becomes a living nightmare. My pre-med studies in Human Behavior—which I enjoyed far more than calculus or bio chem—defined the symptoms of sleep deprivation as disorientation, paranoia, difficulty concentrating, and even hallucinations. Symptoms also included impaired judgment, memory problems, and just good old-fashioned diarrhea of the mouth. It’s this last bit the cops tried to take advantage of.

  I repeat, I was the last man standing, and I never told anyo
ne in law enforcement anything that would endanger the liberty of my fellow employees with the Rabuffo organization. Rather, never purposely spilled the beans. At least, I don’t remember saying anything to anyone about who was behind the killing. About who reigned as the big boss behind the entire illegal Chinese smuggling operation in Albany, New York.

  Rabuffo …

  I never said a word to nobody, if you’ll pardon the double negative.

  That’s what I keep telling myself. Been telling myself for more years than I care to count. Or let’s put it another way, I didn’t say a word to anyone acting in an official law enforcement capacity, until ten years later when I was offered the deal of the century. That’s when I sang not like a bird—if you’ll pardon the cliché—but instead, like Luciano Pavarotti, may God rest his soul.

  The water looks so inviting I could just drink it all up.

  But for now, I head back up onto the beach and sit in my beach chair, my sunglass-covered eyes focused on my eleven-year-old daughter while she wades in the lake, careful not to go in over her head, nor over her waist seeing as her iPod is stuffed in her bathing suit bottoms. She’s wearing a teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini, just like the old song says. It’s exactly how she put it to me in her singsong voice early this morning when she came out of the bathroom sporting the brand-new two-piece.

  “Sooo, what do you think, Doc?” she said, one eye in the wall-mounted mirror, the other on me. I was lying in bed beside her mother. Something that was new to her. As new as having her father around, a mythical, almost storybook character who resided behind concrete castle walls, up until now.

  “I love it,” I said. But as a dad, even one just getting to know his daughter, I might have preferred something less revealing.

  “There’s even room for my iPod,” she added, sliding the device into the bottoms.

  “No iPod in the water, little lady,” Penny warned. “That’s our second iPod in two months already, and God knows I could not afford the first one. Which means, you destroy this one, there won’t be another.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Chloe said. “I’m taking good care of it. Unless you want to buy me an iPhone, which makes a lot more sense. That way you can call or text me whenever you want. It’s for my safety. Right, Doc?”

  “Your father is not Doc,” Penny said, giving my hand a squeeze under the covers. “It’s dad, silly. And no, you will not get an iPhone until high school. We’ve been over this before, young lady.”

  Penny looked at me over her shoulder, her neck-length brunette hair mussed, her smooth face healthy and radiant, her brown eyes hopeful, even after all she’d been through. My long absence. It was a strange feeling being physically beside her again when, for so many years, I could only imagine what it would feel like. I could only dream. I could only live in my dreams.

  When you’re doing twenty-five to life for a brutal multiple homicide, you begin to lose hope that you’ll ever smell fresh air again, much less lie beside the one woman you love more than any other. You don’t pinch yourself. You kick yourself again and again. You pound your head against the concrete block wall. You picture yourself holding her in your arms once more.

  You ask yourself, Is this real? Or am I dreaming it?

  For a hopelessly incarcerated man, dream reality can be as real as tangible reality.

  I spot Penny walking toward me from the opposite side of the small beach. She’s carrying two bottles of beer. One in each hand. When she arrives, she sets them down on the small white table set beside our beach chairs. The beers are Dos Equis and lime wedges are shoved into the bottlenecks. The beers are sweating in the hot midday sun. They look cold and refreshing, like heaven in a bottle.

  “Wow, beer,” I say, my mouth watering. “It’s been too damned long.”

  “I brought you a cooler full,” she says.

  Just the simple act of Penny sitting down makes my heart beat faster, the blood flow through my veins and arteries more rapidly than God and nature intended. My lungs are robbed of oxygen. My skin tingles. Physiologically speaking, she is a study in the science of sexy.

  She’s wearing a simple black bikini.

  It makes her shapely body look like it’s been carved from the best Italian marble. Her maiden name is Fannuci, her family originating from Rome many generations ago, so the metaphor is not entirely an exaggeration.

  She glances down at my lap. Reaching out, she quickly, but gently, runs her fingers over my midsection.

  “Gee, Doc,” she says, giggling, “you glad to see me or is that a banana in your swim trunks?”

  My face must turn redder than a fire hydrant, the sudden adrenaline and oxygen rush in my system forcing all those little blood vessels to dilate. I glance over both shoulders to make sure no one is watching.

  “Tempt me no more, evil harlot. But yeah, let’s just say I’m so very happy.”

  Truth is, while I arrived home from prison five days ago, Penny and I have yet to find the alone time we need to consummate my prodigal return to the family fold. Chloe is ever present, especially when it comes to our sharing a studio apartment and now, a hotel room.

  Penny picks up her beer, holds it like she’s trying to make a toast.

  “To my husband,” she says, “and his triumphant return to the land of the living. To the family who loves him to death and beyond.”

  I grab hold of my beer bottle and clink her bottleneck. Pressing the lime wedge into the bottle with my thumb, I then take a generous swig while keeping my eyes on Penny’s or else break the spell of the toast. Coming up for air, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “That might just be the best beer I have ever tasted in my life.”

  “Everything should taste better now, Doc,” she says, smiling.

  Doc—it’s the nickname Penny bestowed upon me when we first met and I’d revealed my intention to head back to med school. An aspiration that had fallen by the wayside during my failed marriage to Lauren. In fact, I never made it past the second semester.

  Memories come back to haunt me like bad dreams.

  The dark night more than ten years ago. Me sitting behind the wheel of the Suburban, Wemps and Singh entering into the Albany bungalow under the cover of darkness. Then, that darkness shattered by the flash of gunshots. Police cruisers pulling up behind me and in front of me. Wemps and Singh shooting it out with them, falling to their deaths on the concrete walkaway leading out to the road …

  “Maybe you shouldn’t call me that anymore, Pen,” I say, my eyes drifting back to the lake’s edge and Chloe splashing around in the fresh water. She looks so damn happy it’s almost painful to watch. I can only hope she doesn’t ruin her iPod like her mom warned.

  “You still have time, Doc,” Penny says. But it’s like she doesn’t want to let go of the past. The past we had before the murders, that is. A past that, to me anyway, hasn’t been tarnished, so much as trampled on, crushed, destroyed.

  I place my hand on hers.

  “Always the eternal optimist, Pen. I’m fifty years old now. But I love you for that.”

  “You’re not lying just to make me feel good?”

  “Hey, Pen, I never stopped loving you. Not even when it got hopeless.”

  For a moment we look into one another’s eyes. Even if we don’t pose them to one another, the questions loom large. Like a pack of whales that’s suddenly surfaced on Mirror Lake. Questions about loneliness, about fidelity, about staying true to one’s husband. How is it possible that a woman as beautiful and sweet as Penny could have managed to remain celibate for ten full years knowing that any hope of my parole was next to impossible? Is it fair for me to even ask the question?

  Another gaze at the lake.

  Chloe is now out of the water, playing with another girl about her own age in the sand. The girl’s parents are seated close by, watching the two kids play. The kids are digging a big hole in the sand with plastic shovels. Their bodies are developing into little women, so it looks almost silly the way
they’re playing in the sand like preschoolers.

  That’s what happens when little girls are caught up in that hinterland between child and young adult. The body releases the hormones that stimulate the ovaries that create the estrogen. If only I’d been around to see the little girl. The toddler. The baby.

  But just because I wasn’t with Chloe or Penny for ten years didn’t mean they weren’t with me. In my head I was making plans for us. I knew that my getting out of prison one day was a complete long shot. The long shot of long shots. But that reality didn’t prevent me from harboring hopes and dreams.

  Here’s how I lived in dreams: I saw me and my family walking hand in hand on a long stretch of beach so sun-soaked that it hurt our eyes. The water would be blue and crystal clear, the sky brilliant, the breeze cool, and even the natives would be friendly. A place like Cuba, maybe. Far away from America, but not too far. We’d start a new life there of fishing, swimming, playing, loving one another like a real family should. The love would be our bond, our impenetrable shield, the glue that would hold us together.

  It was the sweet dream I would fall asleep to most nights.

  My hand is still pressing against Penny’s. I can feel her pulse throbbing against my skin. I look into her eyes. She’s not speaking, but I sense she knows precisely what I’m thinking.

  “Our room is on the ground floor,” she reminds me in a soft voice. “It’s only twenty feet away. We can come and go through the sliding glass doors off the terrace. No one will even know we’re gone.”

  The grin on my face grows into a full-blown smile. I’m finding it hard to swallow. Heart is beating in my throat. What’s the technical term for it? Palpitations.

  “What are you suggesting, temptress?”

  “Shall I spell it out for you, Doc?” she probes. Then, silently mouthing the letters, “S … E … X.”

  But something important occurs to me. Something wonderful. Something I’ve been planning ever since I got out. It was a matter of finding the right time. A time when Penny and I would be alone.