Girl Who Wasn’t There Page 4

  … Hold it together …

  To my right-hand side, a table stacked with white bath towels. Beyond that, a door that leads into the ladies’ and men’s locker rooms. Also a sauna.

  I turn to Penny.

  “You check the locker rooms, Pen,” I say. “I’ll talk to the man in the pool.”

  “Agreed,” she says, heading for the ladies’ locker room.

  Stepping over to the very edge of the pool, I lower myself and take a knee. Instead of shouting, I wait the few seconds it takes for the man to take notice of my presence. He swims toward me. When he comes to the pool’s edge, he stands up straight since the depth is only four feet. He removes his goggles, pushing them up onto his latex-covered brow. It’s then I can see that he’s at least seventy years old, but in very good shape, no doubt due to his exercise regimen.

  “Help you, young man?” he says, the water dripping off his nose and chin.

  It’s been a long time since someone referred to me as a young man. During my ten-year incarceration, I went from soft young man to hard middle-aged man. In some respects, I’m even older than that. If nothing else, prison ages a man far faster than nature intended. Constant, battlefield-like stress will do that.

  “I’m looking for a little girl,” I explain. “Blonde, blue eyes. About five feet two inches tall. She was wearing a yellow polka-dot bikini.”

  “Like the old song goes,” he says.

  “Exactly. Have you seen her?”

  He slowly shakes his head. Squeezes both his nostrils as if to force pool water out of his ear canals.

  “Been swimming pretty much all alone for almost an hour,” he says. “A few people have come and gone, mostly to use the sauna or the toilets. But I haven’t paid much attention.”

  Me, feeling a tightness in my sternum.

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’m sure, young man.” He looks at me for a bit, as if trying to size me up. His eyes can’t help but gravitate to my tattoo. “Can I ask what this is all about?”

  “It’s my daughter,” I say. “She seems to have gone off on her own and we’re having trouble finding her.”

  “We, as in …”

  “My wife and I.”

  Just then, the ladies’ locker room door opens.

  “Nothing,” Penny says, dejectedly. She goes to the Men’s. “I’m going in,” she adds. She knocks on the wood door, opens it tentatively. “Anyone in here?”

  She waits. No response. She enters.

  “That her?” the old swimmer asks.

  I nod.

  “She looks worried,” he says. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Just keep an eye out. We’re staying at the hotel. If you happen to spot our daughter, let her know her parents are looking for her, and to go straight back to the room.”

  I stand, feel the blood rushing back into my head.

  Penny comes back out of the men’s room. She’s shaking her head. She might not be using words, but it feels like she’s screaming at me. She comes to me.

  “What are we going to do, Doc?” she begs.

  “Take a breath and search the hotel,” I say. “Up and down.”

  “Maybe you should check your room before you do anything else,” the old man suggests. “Maybe your daughter is back there waiting for you right now.”

  His suggestion, however simple, makes total sense. It also tells me we’re not being smart about this search. What should we have done in the first place? As clichéd as it sounds, start at the start. Search our hotel room first and branch out from there.

  “Why didn’t we think of that?” I say.

  “Let’s go,” Penny says.

  We turn, start for the pool door.

  “Hey!” the swimming man shouts out.

  “What is it?” I say, looking over my shoulder.

  “What’s your name?”

  “O’Keefe,” I say.

  I can tell I look familiar to him. Maybe he’s been watching the news.

  “Good luck, Mr. O’Keefe,” he offers. “I’ve got my good eye out.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  We pass on through the doors. We’re in a race to get back to our room. Desperate for some good news. Desperate for resolution.

  CHAPTER 5

  WE DON’T WALK. We run the length of the bottom-level corridor.

  Sprint.

  We cross over the vestibule with its vending machines, the entirely imagined image of Chloe standing in front of them, buying candy and soda. The image is already ingrained in my brain like a bad dream I can’t shake.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you guys?” she’d say. “Why did you leave me alone on the beach?”

  … Get the image out of your head, Sid. Keep moving …

  My breathing is labored, my heart pounding. When I come to the door, I pull the credit card–style opener from the little pocket sewn into the interior of my swim trunks.

  “Hurry,” Penny presses.

  I shove the card into the locking device. There’s the mechanical click of the bolt releasing, and the illumination of a little green light. Grabbing the opener, I lift it up and open the door.

  Fragments of the famous song plays over and over in my brain.

  “Well let me tell you ’bout the way she looked

  The way she acted and the color of her hair …

  But she’s not there”

  I push the door open only to find the room as empty as when we left it. Even when Penny shoves passed me and into the bathroom behind the open door, I know that Chloe isn’t inside there either.

  She’s gone now. And that’s all.

  CHAPTER 6

  FOR THE FIRST time, Penny breaks down, begins to cry. She sets her forehead on my shoulder, wraps her arm around my chest, pulls me in tight. I can feel her trembling. Or is it me who is trembling? She’s afraid. Chloe has only been gone for an hour and she’s panicked. I’m panicked.

  But we have to think straight. We can’t fly off the handle, jump to any conclusions that are the product of overactive imaginations. We can’t allow our emotions to eat away at us.

  “Listen, Pen,” I say, looking into her wet eyes. “Let’s look at this logically. A little more than an hour ago, we decided to come back to the room for a few minutes. We were alone for what? Ten minutes. Fifteen tops. Something must have happened to Chloe in that time. She must have walked off on her own. And if that’s the case, she couldn’t have gotten very far.”

  She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands.

  “But what if she was kidnapped, Doc? What if someone abducted her in broad daylight?”

  “On a crowded private beach behind a big hotel?”

  “The beach wasn’t that crowded.”

  “Okay, but there were two responsible parents watching over her. Plus, I think their daughter would have spoken up if some big asshole picked her up and dragged her off the beach.”

  She sniffles, unwraps me, runs her fingers through her hair.

  “You’ve got a point. I’m losing my shit. Nice responsible parent that I am.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I say. “I couldn’t wait to give you that stupid ring, and I really couldn’t wait to get you in the sack and you know it. This is all my fault.”

  “Both our faults.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “So what we need is a plan, Sid.”

  In my head, seeing Chloe walking around town, her earbuds in, music blaring, teenage boys eyeing her in her bikini. Maybe she’s drinking a Slurpee through an orange straw, or munching on a hotdog, or a McDonald’s cheeseburger. No, wait, Chloe doesn’t go for cheeseburgers. She likes hamburgers. How does she do it? She buys two hamburgers, removes the burger from one of the buns and slips it onto the other patty, making it a double burger. If this were March, she’d wash it all down with a green Shamrock shake.

  I might not have lived with my daughter for the past ten years, but she’s sent me letters and visited. Enough so th
at I know her habits. As a prisoner, I found comfort in thinking about her habits. Dreaming about them. The foods she liked, the movies she went to see, the shows she watched, the music she listened to, the way she brushed her teeth—all of it was like candy to a man deprived of his child.

  “Here’s the deal,” I say, looking at my watch. “It’s ten after three. Let’s throw some clothes on and walk into town. Dollars to donuts, we find our little girl chatting it up with some kids her own age at the McDonalds or the Starbucks or who knows where.”

  She nods.

  “Okay,” she says. “Deal.”

  But Penny is losing faith. I can see it, hear it, feel it.

  We get dressed in a hurry.

  Penny in a pair of Levis jeans, tank top, and gladiator sandals. Me in a pair of blue jeans, black t-shirt, and worn combat boots.

  “You don’t look like you’re on vacation, Doc,” Penny says, looking me up and down. Like my clothing is of paramount importance right now.

  “When we get home, I’d better make a Target run. Buy a new wardrobe.”

  But to be honest, I don’t give a damn about my clothes right now. Right now, I’ve got other things on my mind.

  “You’d better get a job before you do that,” Penny adds.

  Her words, however truthful, are also a reminder. I’m required to check in with my parole officer today. By five o’clock. I could do it now, but I don’t want to waste any more time. More importantly, I don’t want to give him the impression that something is wrong. I’ve only been dealing with him for a short period of time, but thus far, anyway, I’ve found him to be perceptive. As if he were trained to recognize trouble brewing, even when simply speaking with a parolee over the phone.

  I open the door and Penny goes to step back out into the corridor. But before she does, I stop her by grabbing hold of her arm.

  She looks into my eyes, a bit startled.

  “Hey, Pen,” I say. “I love you.”

  She sighs, works up a sad smile.

  “I love you too,” she says. Pulling her arm free, she walks out into the empty corridor as if walking all alone.

  CHAPTER 7

  WE DO THE smart thing, or what we convince ourselves is the smart thing. Instead of walking back outside via the back door, we make our way up the stairs to the hotel lobby. Perhaps Chloe decided to chill out in front of one of the computers reserved for hotel clientele. The lobby is big and spacious. Like a wide-open log cabin with a tall cathedral ceiling. Some of the logs that create the walls still have bark on them. There’s a massive stone fireplace that’s two stories tall and a long reception counter located at the front end of the lobby.

  The open floor contains chairs, couches, and wood coffee tables covered with magazines, newspapers, and paperbacks. The wall that looks out onto Mirror Lake is made entirely of glass; its top portion triangular to fit the cathedral ceiling. It offers a panoramic view of the entire beach and lake beyond it.

  Penny and I automatically gravitate toward the glass wall and peer out onto the beach.

  “You see her?” I beg.

  I see Penny’s reflection in the glass. See her pensive eyes, her tight anxious face. I wonder if she sees my reflection.

  “I don’t see her, Doc,” she says. “I just don’t see her.”

  “That bathing suit of hers would stick out,” I suggest. “Yellow polka dots. They would reflect the sun.”

  The sun, which will be going down in a few hours. God help us.

  “Do you see the Stevenses? Burt and Claudia?” Penny asks.

  I look for them, in the spot they occupied all morning and much of the afternoon.

  “I don’t. Must be their little girl … what’s her name, Susan? Must be she got tired or needed another shot, or both. Diabetes treatment can be tricky, I guess. I didn’t really get too far into it in med school.”

  Something wasn’t right with her, I want to add. The little girl didn’t seem all there. Something in her eyes, something in her blood. But I decide to let it go, concentrate entirely on Chloe.

  Turning.

  “The front desk,” I go on. “Maybe they’ve seen Chloe.”

  Once again, hope settles in. Dare I say it?

  But the hope is staged. A ruse designed to torture us, steal greedy bites from of our souls like hungry sharks circling a bleeding fish. The man tending to the desk hasn’t seen a pre-teen girl matching the description we give him. At least, not in recent hours. This is a family hotel, he adds. There’s dozens of little girls running around who might match that same description.

  “Is there anyone in the office in back who might have noticed her?” I beg.

  He’s kind enough to make the effort of actually leaving the counter to head into the back office to inquire with the staff. I can see him through the glass window that separates the office from the front desk. A woman seated at a desktop computer turns to eye Penny and me. She says something I can’t possibly understand, shakes her head.

  The man returns. He’s short, a little overweight, with receding blond hair. Casually dressed in tan slacks and white button down. Probably of German descent like the original owners of this hotel before they sold out to a major chain.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, his face masked with concern. Perhaps he feels liable for my daughter getting lost. Maybe he sees a lawsuit in the making. “Shall I contact the house detective for you?” He goes to pick up the phone, like he’s deciding for me.

  … Police …

  I’m on parole. Only a few days ago I was incarcerated in prison for first-degree murder. For the execution-style death of an entire family of Chinese immigrants. Sure, I was just the driver. But somebody had to take the rap after the two killers who accompanied me on the mission, Wemps and Singh, were killed by the Albany cops.

  I’m not out of prison because of my good looks, or because the courts finally decided that I’m one hell of a good guy after all, or because of Jesus or luck. I got out because after ten years in gen pop trying to avoid rape, stabbings, beatings, sickness, and men who were being paid to silence me for good, I’d finally had enough. I called my lawyer, told him I wanted a meeting with the Albany DA. I revealed everything I knew about Rabuffo, his operation to export Chinese illegals, to sell drugs not only out of his many tailor shops, but also out of the many Chinese restaurants and food trucks he owned. He was making a fortune on crystal meth and the human trafficking slave trade.

  I told them that the Chinese family who lived in that house were owned by Mickey Rabuffo, and that he ordered the hit that was carried out by Wemps and Singh. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t like my two old high school buddies were alive to refute my version of the story. It was me versus a suspected trafficker of hard drugs and human beings. Innocent human beings who just wanted a better life than the shit sandwich they were dealt back in China.

  Soon enough, the FBI will have enough on Rabuffo to put him away for good. But until that time, the last thing I need is the cops breathing down my neck. All it will take is one false move or a hint of suspicion that I’m up to no good, and I’d find myself back behind bars so fast my head will perform a full Exorcist spin. Once that happens, there will be no chance of getting out ever again.

  What it all comes down to is this: I need to find my daughter and I need to do it without the help of the police or even a rent-a-cop, like a hotel detective. If at all possible, I’m going to keep organized law enforcement out of it.

  “You can put the phone down,” I say.

  “Excuse me?” the desk manager says.

  “I said, you don’t need to call in the house detective.” I’m trying to put a smile on my face. Something to put him at ease. “I’m sure my daughter just went out for a walk in the village. Probably to grab a snack or meet up with friends. We’re going to find her right now.”

  He slowly sets the phone back into its cradle.

  “If you say so,” he says, somewhat under his breath. “But if you need help, let me know. We�
�re here for you. We wish to make your stay as enjoyable as possible, Mr. O’Keefe.”

  “Thank you,” I offer.

  As I back away from the desk, it hits me that he knows precisely who I am. He knows that I’ve just been paroled from a maximum-security prison. That the whole wide world thought of me as nothing more than a homicidal maniac. A killer with no remorse.

  “What did he say?” Penny asks, as we make our way to the front, heavy wood door of the hotel.

  “He wanted to call in the house detective,” I say, a little under my breath.

  “Maybe we should bring him in,” she says. “Or is it a her?”

  Me, shaking my head.

  “Whatever,” she goes on. “The point is that we should do everything in our power to get our daughter back, Doc. You said it yourself, we need to be smart.”

  Once again, I take hold of her arm. Maybe I’m a little too rough, because she makes a noise that sounds like a squeal. Her face assumes an expression of alarm. I glance over my shoulder to see the desk manager staring at me. Behind him, the woman who was working at her computer is looking at me through the back office glass window.

  Suddenly I feel like I’m living inside a fishbowl. I let go of Penny.

  I whisper forcefully, “I’m sorry, Pen. I didn’t mean to be so rough.”

  She rubs the spot on her arm where I grabbed her.

  “What the hell is the matter with you, Sid?”

  Penny’s afraid of me. I feel the shame fill my veins like a poison injection. Maybe she’s been afraid of me all along. Maybe she’s been trying her hardest not to be afraid. Maybe she dreaded my coming home. Maybe she didn’t want me to come home at all.

  I open the wood door.

  “Let’s just go,” I insist.

  She hesitates.

  “Please,” I beg. “Penny, please, let’s just go now.”

  She walks out.

  I follow, my convict’s tail between my legs.

  CHAPTER 8

  WE STAND TOGETHER just outside the hotel entry, under the overhead that protects the drive-up. I’m pretty certain the desk manager can see me on CCTV, but somehow, I feel better now that his eyes aren’t peeled directly on me, live and in person.