Darkness peering (22 page)

"Don't worry," Rachel said with false confidence. "We're doing
everything we can ..."

"I know she'll be all right."

She could see the strain in his eyes from wanting to believe it. He
must have read about his daughter's case in the papers, picked up on
the growing skepticism of the media, the police, the public in
general.

"We'll find her," Rachel promised, not wanting to destroy his illusion.
Sometimes illusions were the only things holding us together. Besides,
even if she did take a hammer to it, barn, he'd probably find refuge in
the shards.

"Last night," he said, "as I lay in bed, I tried to remember her face.
Only I'm afraid I've forgotten what she looks like." He blinked in the
stripes of washed-out light slanting through the slatted blinds.

The silence was broken by an announcement on the loudspeaker:
"Methamphetamine overdose. Male, twenty-eight years old. ETA five
minutes."

Ignoring the urgency in the admitting clerk's voice, Dr. Castillo
smiled wistfully and said, "She started to read when she was two.
Imagine that."

Rachel's face was frozen with pity. She felt a young Claire at her
side like a sudden gust of wind, imagined a bouncy, smooth skinned
child whose bright, ringing laughter momentarily drowned out the
constant hum of her father's grief.

"Every day," he went on, "it gets a bit worse. You try to hang on to
your optimism."

"Yes."

"She took ballet, you know. Seven years. Piano, tennis. She

was such a strong little girl. And smart." He leaned forward and
rubbed the delicate skin around his sunken eyes. "Listen to me. I
keep saying 'was.""

Rachel sat still while he caught his breath. His shoulders slumped,
his sad vanity evident in the long black strands slicked across his
male-pattern baldness.

"Dr. Castillo," she said softly. "We're doing everything we can.
We're working double shifts. Every officer in the department cares
deeply about this case."

He nodded, his sorrow both soothed and fed by her words, and slowly
regained his composure. "I did my clinical year at Massachusetts
General." His eyes were red-rimmed. "Four years as an undergraduate,
four years of medical school, six years' residency at Kerrins County."
He held out his hands, spread his slender fingers. "Look at that. Rock
steady. I've been told I have a gift."

Rachel shifted in the soft leather-upholstered chair, the kind you
could easily suffocate in.

"The most important thing to a surgeon is eye-and-hand coordination. I
know how to repair potentially lethal bleeding in trauma victims,
restore cardiac function, remove life-threatening foreign bodies. I
know how to be aggressive and when to hold back. I can operate for
hours at a time without getting tired, and yet ..." He looked at her
with resignation. "None of that knowledge, none of that training will
help me bring my daughter back."

The admissions clerk interrupted over the loudspeaker again, and Dr.
Castillo's eyes turned inward. "Jackie keeps asking, is this our
fault? Did we do something wrong?"

"Of course it's not your fault."

"She asks me all the time ... was I a good mother?" His voice broke.
He couldn't go on. He quickly wiped his eyes and stood up. "I'm
sorry, I'm needed out front."

They shook hands. He had a surgeon's grip, rock steady.

"mom! i'm leaving!"

Jackie Castillo found her daughter in the living room, her
valentine-shaped face going all pink as she bent down to lace up her
sneakers. She'd momentarily rested her bike against the wall and left
a scuff mark on the eggshell-colored paint.

"I told you I didn't want you going over there."

"Daddy said I could!"

Jackie bit back her fear and anger. Nicole was getting her way, as
usual, by skillfully playing one parent against the other.

"It's just a sleepover, Mom. We're gonna watch TV and eat popcorn and
shit. I mean stuff." Nicole was lithe in blue Spandex tights, an
oversized banana-colored T-shirt and blue down jacket, her auburn hair
pulled hastily into a Pebbles Flintstone topknot, unruly bangs held in
place by two green glow-in the-dark barrettes. She'd inherited her
coloring from Yale's side of the family--same pale skin with its
propensity to burn, same watery blue eyes, same restless legs and
slender hands. Yale had long ago given up hope that one of his
beautiful, talented daughters might pursue a career in medicine.

"Besides," Nicole said, "I'm sick of staying at home all the time just
because you're a worrywart. It's not fair."

"I'm only thinking about Claire."

"All we ever do is think about Claire. It's like she's dead or
something. Only I had this dream. Mom. Claire's alive. I know she
is. So you can quit worrying."

Jackie fought the urge to stroke her daughter's cheek, since Nicole no
longer allowed it. She held herself erect and didn't move like a child
at all.

"Did you bring a change of clothes?"

"Mom ..." Nicole rolled her eyes, her hand automatically reaching for
her backpack. "And a toothbrush and a hairbrush and my very own
shampoo ..."

Jackie could feel the tension between them like a crack forming on
black ice. "When can I expect you home tomorrow?"

Nicole shrugged and grabbed her bicycle, anxious to leave. She walked
it to the front door. "We'll probably sleep late."

"How late?"

"I dunno ... two?"

"I want you home by noon, young lady. No ifs, ands, or buts."

"All right, already." Nicole swung the front door open and stood under
the yellow porch light, her translucent face glowing with impatience.
Jackie stood in the doorway feeling small, diminished. She was
shrinking by the minute; her life was receding just as her daughter's
gained momentum.

"I love you too much, I guess," she confessed.

"Don't get mushy on me." Nicole bumped her bike down the front steps.
As a tiny baby, she used to bite Jackie's breast while nursing; now she
was this lanky creature with the kind of exotic eyes men killed for.

The front door poked Jackie's arm like some shy girl. Outside, the
November night unpeeled before them, crows weighting the telephone
lines, dark trees bleeding into a violet horizon. A ground fog was
moving in. "Nicole?"

"What?"

"Be careful."

"Careful's my middle name."

"Almost forgot." Jackie tripped down the stairs and hijacked a kiss.
"I'm still your mother, y know."

"How could I forget?"

"I'm going to stand here until you're safe inside."

Nicole frowned. "What am I, three?"

Three years old. Jackie remembered when they'd first moved

to Pumpkin Run Road and bought the house, a white clapboard with red
shutters. There was a side of her back then that desperately wanted to
be Betty Crocker. She had the man she loved and two beautiful little
girls, two miracles in their summer dresses. She spent her days
shaking the sand out of their bathing suits, bandaging their cuts,
buying them just the right kind of peanut butter--smooth, not chunky.

And where was her older daughter now with her sweet smile and
adventurous spirit? Where was the little girl whose asthma
occasionally crippled her enthusiasm, reducing her to a bundle of
trembling limbs and wheezing coughs? Where was the sweet tempered
child who'd sit out on the front sidewalk feeding cane sugar to the
ants one grain at a time?

"Noon tomorrow," Jackie said as Nicole walked her bike down the
sidewalk. "Repeat after me."

"I just said so, weren't you listening?"

"Beef stew for dinner tomorrow night," Jackie added lightly.

"Ugh."

"Ha. Only kidding. Cheeseburgers."

"Very funny, you rat."

"I'm flattered. Rats are smart."

Nicole's eyes shimmered under the virulent moonlight. "Claire's coming
home. Mom. I can feel it." She hopped on her bike and sped to the
end of the street, where she turned into the Pattons driveway.

Jackie waited in the shivering cold until she saw Shelly open the door,
and then and only then, knowing her daughter was safe, did she duck
back inside.

AROUND MIDNIGHT, RACHEL RETRACED THE ROUTE CLAIRE

Castillo had most likely taken from the parking lot to the Hurryback
Cafe and back again. Somebody had left flowers in a corner of the lot
where Claire's abandoned Nissan Sentra had been found. It would've
been foggy that night, just like now. The street lamps were fifty feet
apart. If the perp had followed her with the intention of grabbing
her, he might've snatched her here, at the mouth of the alley between
the shoe store and vacant storefront. The alley was Bible black, the
windows of a nearby apartment house sealed shut against the cold.
Perhaps that explained why nobody had heard any screams that night? Or
maybe the perp had attacked her in the parking lot, in the darkest
corner where her car was found? The forest grew dense in this section
of the lot, and the nearest street lamp was shrouded in fog.

Still, if she'd been physically grabbed, wouldn't her purse have flown
open? Wouldn't a shoe have come off? Wouldn't someone have heard the
screams? There should have been something left of her at the scene,
some sign that a struggle had occurred. A woman had been abducted.
Forced into a moving car or windowless van. According to friends and
family, Claire Castillo would never have given up without a fight.

The scenario didn't make sense.

Turning around, Rachel walked back past the shoe store, the vacant
storefront, the diner, Dale's Discount Hardware, a couple of clothing
shops, a beauty parlor, another empty storefront, a dance hall, a
dental practice. Was it possible the perp had been hiding in the
darkened foyer of the dentist's office? Had he leapt out and grabbed
her from behind before she'd had a chance to

scream? Had he gagged her? Chloroformed her? Injected her with some
swift-acting nervous system depressant? Knocked her out with a sharp
blow to the head? But there were other shoppers out that night. The
ground fog was thick, but somebody surely would've heard the scuffle or
seen a man and woman struggling.

Perhaps it wasn't a stranger, but someone she knew? Perhaps she had
been lured into a car or a building? Maybe a safe-looking stranger in
a police uniform, or dressed as a minister? Hughie Boudreau? He'd
once been a cop with emotional problems. Would Claire have accepted a
ride from Dinger Tedesco? Certainly not while her own car was parked
in the public lot. The Nissan Sentra was found to be in perfect
working condition and with the exception of new brake pads, there
hadn't been any major changes in the last two years. Maybe she'd
accepted a lift to the parking lot from the cafe? Six city blocks
could seem a lengthy walk in the foggy cold of an October night in
Maine.

Now Rachel's cell phone rang, the bright sound of it jangling her
nerves. "Hello?"

"It's me." The strain in McKissack's voice made her heart skip a beat.
"They found a woman in the woods about five miles from Claire's
apartment."

"Is she dead?" Rachel asked breathlessly.

"No, she's alive. They're transporting her to Kerrins County General.
I want you to get over there ASAP."

"I'm on my way."

SIX HOURS INTO HIS FOUR! LEN-HOUR SHIFT AT KERR INS

County General, Dr. Yale Castillo woke up from a brief nap in the
sleep room, gowned up and went back into the Pit. He glanced

at the roomful of sullen faces waiting to be admitted. Tonight was
mostly garden-variety stuff--flu, fever, miscarriage. As the senior
person on call, Yale was in charge of all personnel on staff tonight,
which included two interns, a moonlighting resident, a third-year
emergency medicine resident, two junior residents, a pediatric surgeon,
two technicians and three nurses.

"Looks like we've got a full house, Gladys."

"You said it, Doc." Gladys was the head nurse, a bighearted, matronly
woman who knew enough to keep her distance, which he appreciated.
"They're all coming in at once ... laceration in Room 5, ingrown
toenail in Room 12, gallstones in Room 3 ..."

"Any urgents?"

"No immediates, seven delayeds, six totally non urgent

Suddenly, the EMS radio went off: "Twentyish white female with trauma
to the face and chest ... blood pressure ninety palpable . good vital
signs. ETA five minutes."

His face flushed. He had a flash memory of five-year-old Claire
hurling herself into his arms with a breathless little laugh. "I
always come back to you, Daddy!"

He snapped into action. "Let's get some O-negative blood up here,
stat."

"But, Doctor ... we don't know for sure it's your--"

He was already on his way into Trauma Room 1. "Page Hurley!"

She continued babbling behind him but he shut her out, his thoughts
already spiraling inward--little Claire in sweater and shorts at the
beach, Claire feeding peanuts to the monkeys at the zoo--then he
violently shook his head. He had to keep his wits about him. If this
was Claire ... if indeed this was his daughter, he needed to be at the
top of his game. He winced in the stark light of the trauma room, tore
off a joke note somebody had taped to the wall: "Just say ISO to
nefarious substances."

Moments later, the Emergency entrance doors crashed open and paramedics
wheeled the victim past the front desk directly

into Trauma Room 1. Yale heard a low, plaintive moaning as he
approached the gurney, and suddenly he was smack in the middle of a
vicious slice of nightmare.

Her injuries were incomprehensible. Even the most trauma hardened ER
personnel fell silent, shocked at the violence inflicted on her body.
A naked young woman lay writhing on the gurney with her eyes, mouth and
ears sutured shut. There was so much trauma to her face, so much
swelling, her features were unrecognizable. Blood coagulated around
the tight, precise stitches--simple running sutures placed at an equal
distance and depth, as if to avoid strangulating healthy tissue. The
patient was hyperventilating through her nose, and her right arm, held
in rigid contortion, was sewn diagonally across her chest wall, the
right fist clamped shut, fingers sutured together like a lumpy baseball
resting on her heart.