All the Way Home (33 page)

“All right . . . please wait here for a moment.” The receptionist sticks a straw wrapper into the page of her book and tosses it onto the counter, then strides away, disappearing behind a closed door.

Rory waits, looking around at the two uncomfortable-looking vinyl chairs separated by a low table covered in dated, dull-looking magazines—
Popular Science, Reader’s Digest.
The walls are paneled in a rich, dark, ornately carved wainscot that must once have been highly polished. Now it’s dull and dotted with ugly prints—birds, cats—in cheap metal frames. There’s a large floor-to-ceiling window on one wall, the bottom half obscured by an oversized window air conditioner that must not be working very well, because the room feels close and warm.

Rory paces anxiously over and looks out the top half to see a wide lawn sweeping toward the bluff above the river. A chain-link fence runs along the back of the property. There are a few people out by a picnic table beneath a grove of tree-sized lilacs—some of them in wheelchairs, one in a white nurse’s uniform.

“May I help you? I’m Lydia McGovern, the director of St. Malachy’s.”

She turns to see an older woman stepping into the room, the receptionist on her heels. She’s as tall and angular as Sister Theodosia, her gray cardigan and black slacks baggy on her bony frame. But her face is softer than Sister Theodosia’s, and her eyes, behind a pair of glasses perched low on her nose, are somehow both kind and wary as they focus on Rory.

“I’d like to see David Anghardt,” Rory tells the woman, a fact she’s certain she already knows.

The receptionist slips back behind her counter, but doesn’t pick up her book again. She, too, is watching Rory with unveiled curiosity.

“You’re a friend of the family?”

“I was. A long time ago. I was a friend of his sister.”

“Emily.” There’s a flicker of sadness in the woman’s eyes.

“You knew her?”

“No. I’ve only been here a few years. But Sister Margaret, the former director, told me what happened.”

“She isn’t here anymore?”

“No. Nobody’s here, actually, from ten years ago. Almost everyone was laid off and the whole place nearly shut down at one point. David Anghardt was one of the few residents who stayed, probably because there was no place else to send him. Anyway, then we got our federal grant money, and Sister Margaret was able to bring me on board as her assistant director, and the two of us hired a new staff—”

“Where is Sister Margaret now?” Rory asks, impatient with the woman’s painstaking history of the home and its financial woes.

“Oh, the poor dear had been suffering from glaucoma for years. She finally went completely blind. She’s living at a retirement home in Kingston, but we still keep in touch.”

“So she knew David’s family?”

“Absolutely. She said that David adored his sister. And she felt the same about him. Such a terrible tragedy. Sister Margaret said that David was never the same since she vanished,” Lydia says, shaking her head.

“No wonder,” the receptionist puts in. “His own father—”

“Susan, please,” Lydia McGovern says in a warning tone.

The receptionist picks up her book again.

The director turns back to Rory. “So you were Emily’s friend? That would mean you must be from . . . ?”

“Lake Charlotte,” Rory supplies. “It’s north of Albany. Emily and her father lived next door to my family before she disappeared.”

“You wouldn’t, by any chance, have kept in touch with Mr. Anghardt?”

Rory senses that the woman is attempting to make the question casual, and keeps her reply on the same level. “No, I haven’t,” she says. “The last I knew, he moved away. Actually, I never saw him again after Emily disappeared.”

“Neither did David,” Lydia McGovern says. “In fact, Sister Margaret mentioned that she believed the father might very well have died soon after his daughter went missing. The loss must have devastated him. He lost his wife, you know, when she gave birth to the twins. She was from a wealthy family down South, and David’s care is paid for by her trust fund.”

“So that’s how he’s able to stay here. I thought maybe his father was sending money to pay for that.”

“No. As I said, we’ve never heard from him again. That’s why, when Susan said there was an old friend here to see David, I thought perhaps you would know.”

“No,” Rory says, “I wish I did.”

She almost tells the woman that until a few days ago, she didn’t even know David existed, but she thinks better of it. She wants to see him, and if she reveals that she’s a total stranger to him, the director might not let her.

“Can I see him?” she asks, hoping she doesn’t sound too eager.

Lydia McGovern eyes her cautiously again. Then, with a nod, she says, “I suppose so. It’ll be nice for him to have a visitor. Nobody comes to see him except that nun.”

Rory’s stomach flips over. “Nun?” she echoes, frowning. “Which nun?”

“Sister Mary Frances. She’s from a parish upstate, somewhere near Albany, I believe. She’s been coming for years to visit all the patients here—”

“Oh.”

Why did Rory speculate, for a moment, that it was Sister Theodosia coming to see David?

There are hundreds of thousands of nuns in the world,
she reminds herself.
And the vast majority are wonderful people. The kind of people who, out of the goodness of their hearts, visit strangers in depressing places like this
.

She shoves aside a prickle of guilt for having come here for selfish reasons.

Even now that I know he won’t shed any light on what happened, I’ll spend more time with Emily’s brother, and with the other patients, too,
she promises herself.

“Anyway,” the director goes on, “Sister Mary Frances seems to have taken a special liking to David, and he clearly feels the same way about her. He lights up whenever she’s here. I wish she could get here more often, since it makes him so happy. But there are times when months go by without a sign of her.”

“She just visited this past week,” Susan pipes up, clearly not as absorbed in her book as she appeared to be.

“Oh? I didn’t realize. It must have been on my day off. Well, that’s good,” Lydia says. “David needs a lift every now and then. Seeing you will be good for him, too,” she tells Rory. “Come with me. I’ll take you up to his room.”

M
olly wakes up, glances at the clock, and sees that it’s past noon. She groans and rolls over onto her back, staring at the ceiling, thinking about last night. After docking the boat, she and Amanda and the others had gone to a party out at the Curl.

She slowly becomes aware that her head is pounding and her mouth feels strangely dry.

It must be a hangover,
she realizes.
So this is what it feels like
.

Why had she drunk those beers? In part, because people kept handing them to her. She was treated like a celebrity by kids who never would have given her a second glance a week ago. And not just Amanda and her friends. The older kids who were there were all interested in her.

Well, not in me,
she admits to herself.

They wanted to know all about Rebecca. About whether anyone was stalking her, and whether Molly had heard any screams the night she disappeared.

Disturbing questions, all of them.

God, why didn’t you just leave?
she asks herself guiltily.
Why did you humor those people? They couldn’t care less about Rebecca
.

Or about me
.

But at the time, she couldn’t seem to keep herself from talking to everyone. She’d even said that sure, Rebecca
could
have had a stalker without her knowing.

After all, anything was possible

And everyone seemed to pay more attention to her when she said things like that, instead of just, constantly, “I don’t know.”

Okay, she might have humored them with their nosy questions, but at least she hadn’t said anything she’d regret, and she certainly hadn’t
done
anything she’d regret, like Saturday night with Ryan . . .
had
she?

Her memories, especially of the end of the night, are a bit fuzzy.

But she’s positive Ryan wasn’t even there.
That,
she wouldn’t forget.

Some of the other guys—older, high school guys—were flirting with her, but she hadn’t been interested in any of them. All the questions about Rebecca upset her, reminding her that her best friend was missing, might even be—

God. The
last
thing she wanted to do was hook up with some guy she barely knew.

She just kept drinking beer, hoping to numb the pain, and looking around for Ryan, wishing he’d show up, disappointed when he didn’t.

Disappointed enough about him, and upset enough about Rebecca, to drink more than she should have, and say things that she shouldn’t have.

Okay,
stop beating yourself up. It’s over
.

She forces herself to get up, feeling slightly dizzy, and, for a moment, like she’s going to throw up. Then she slowly gets out of bed, and realizes that she has to get something to drink. Like,
now
.

Without bothering to get dressed, wash up, or brush her teeth, Molly makes her way downstairs, clinging tightly to the railing as she goes.

The house has a deserted feel to it. Where is everyone?

Who cares?

At least there’s no one here to bug you
.

In the kitchen, she pours a huge glass of iced tea and stands at the counter, drinking it down. She’s never been so thirsty in her life.

She’s pouring a second glass when the phone rings.

Maybe it’s Ryan.

Or even Kevin.

She snatches it up and is bitterly disappointed when a male voice says, “Hello, is Rory there, please?”

“Nope,” Molly says, without bothering to check. She’s pretty sure no one’s home, and, anyway, even if Rory is around someplace upstairs, Molly’s not about to traipse all the way up there looking for her.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“Nope.”
God, my head is pounding,
she thinks, wincing and rubbing her temples.
Does he have to talk so loud?

“Can you please leave her a message?”

“I guess so,” Molly says, in a tone that’s meant to convey that she’d really rather not, so he’ll say he’ll just call back later instead.

No such luck.

“Thanks,” he says. “My name is—”

“Hang on a minute while I get a pen,” she says, opening a drawer and digging for a paper and pen, annoyed
.
“All right, go ahead.”

“This is Barrett Maitland.”

“Uh-huh.” The name is totally unfamiliar, but she’s sure she knows who it is. The guy Rory was talking to the morning Rebecca disappeared. The one who showed up here as Molly was leaving for the Randalls’. The one with the voice that seemed so familiar.

In fact, it still does.

“Do I know you?” she asks.

“We met briefly the other day on your front steps—”

“No, I mean from before. From, like, a long time ago.”

There’s a moment of silence. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Are you from Lake Charlotte?”

“No.”

“Oh. Then I guess I don’t know you. I just thought your voice sounded kind of familiar. Okay, go ahead . . . what’s the message?”

“Just tell Rory I had to go out of town for a few days, I can’t leave a number where I can be reached, but I’ll call her when I get back.”

“Fine,” Molly says, jotting
left town, will be back
in messy handwriting Rory probably won’t be able to read. Oh, well, too bad.

I’m not her freaking secretary,
Molly thinks grumpily, carelessly shoving the note under a magnet on the refrigerator door.

“Okay, thanks a lot. ’Bye,” Barrett Maitland is saying, apparently in a hurry to hang up all of a sudden, which is fine with her.

Molly disconnects the call, and then, still holding the receiver, impulsively starts dialing Ryan’s number.

“No!” she says aloud, hanging up.

She stands there, drinking more iced tea, considering it for a few seconds. Why not call him? She can mention casually that she was boating with Amanda, and out at the party at the Curl last night. Let him know that she’s been hanging around with the in crowd, in case he hasn’t called her because he thinks she’s too much of a goober to hang out with.

Again, she feels a stab of guilt, thinking of Rebecca.