Magic hour: a novel (7 page)

As identical as prongs on a fork, the three old ladies matched each other step for step.

Daisy, the eldest, was the first to speak. As always, she clutched an old black urn that held her late husband’s ashes. “We’ve come for word of the child.”

“Who is the poor dear?” Violet demanded, squinting up through scratched glasses.

“Can she truly fly like a bird?” Marigold asked.

“Or jump like a cat?” This came from someone in the back.

Ellie had to remind herself that these people were her constituents. More than that, they were her friends and neighbors. “We don’t have any answers yet. I’ll let you all know when we do. For now, I could use your help.”

“Anything,” Marigold said, pulling a flower-spangled notebook out of her purple vinyl handbag.

Violet offered her sister a tulip pen.

“The child will need clothes and such. Maybe a stuffed animal or two to keep her company,” Ellie said. Before she’d even finished, the Grimm sisters had taken over. The three ex-teachers corralled the group and started delegating tasks.

Ellie and Peanut left the crowd. Together, they walked up the concrete path to the hospital’s glass doors. The sliders whooshed open.

“Hey, Ellie,” said the receptionist at their approach. “Dr. Cerrasin is waiting for you at the old day care center.”

“Thanks,” Ellie said.

She and Peanut didn’t speak as they walked down the hallway and into the elevator. On the second floor, they went past the X-ray room and turned left.

The last room on the right had once been a day care center for employees. It had been designated and designed years ago, when the city coffers were full. In the time since the spotted owl and the dwindling salmon runs and the protection of old growth forests, those accounts had grown too thin to support luxuries like day care. The room had been empty and unmanned for more than two years.

Max stood in the hallway with his arms crossed. Fluorescent lighting tangled in his hair and made his ever-present tan look faded. She hadn’t seen him look this bad since the time he fell forty feet down some mountain. Then, he’d had two black eyes and a split lip.

At their approach, he looked up and waved, but didn’t bother smiling. He moved sideways to make room for them at the window.

The room beyond was small and rectangular, with red and yellow color-blocked walls and cubbyholes full of toys and games and books. A sink and counter took up one corner, used years ago, no doubt, for art projects and daily clean up. Several small tables surrounded by even smaller chairs filled the center of the room. Along the left wall were a single hospital bed and several empty cribs. There were two windows in the room. The one in front of them and a second, smaller one which overlooked the rear parking lot. To their left, a locked metal door was the only entrance.

Ellie sidled close, letting her shoulder touch his arm. “Talk to me, Max.”

“Last night, after we finished the testing, we diapered her and tucked her into the bed. This morning when she woke up, she went crazy. There’s no other word for it: crazy. Screaming, shrieking, throwing herself to the floor. She broke every lamp and smashed the mirror over the sink. When we tried to give her another injection, she bit Carol Rense hard enough to draw blood, then hid under the bed. She’s been there almost an hour. Do you have an ID on her yet?”

Ellie shook her head, then turned to Peanut. “Why don’t you go to the cafeteria? Get kid food for her.”

“Sure, send the fat girl for food.” Peanut sighed dramatically, but couldn’t help smiling. She loved to be a part of things.

When she’d gone, Max said to Ellie, “I don’t know what to tell you, Ellie. I’ve never seen a case like this.”

“Tell me what you do know.”

“Well . . . I think she’s probably about six years old.”

“But she’s so small.”

“Malnourished. Plus, she’s had no dental or medical care, and her body is pretty scarred up.”

“Scarred?”

“Little things mostly, although there’s one that looks more serious. On her left shoulder. Maybe an old knife wound.”

“Jesus.”

“I drew blood and swabbed her mouth for DNA. If it were up to me, she’d still be sedated for hydration, but you wanted a diagnosis. . . .”

“Has she spoken?”

“No, but her vocal cords look unimpaired. I’d say—and this is just a guess—that she is physically able to speak, but I can’t tell if she knows how.”

“She doesn’t know
how
to speak? What are you saying?”

“All I know is that her screams are unintelligible. I recorded it. There were no recognizable words. Her brain waves show no anomalies. She could well be deaf or mentally challenged or severely developmentally delayed or autistic. I can’t be sure. I’m not even sure I know what tests to run for her mental state.”

“What should we do?”

“Find out who she is.”

“Gee, thanks. I meant right now.”

He nodded toward Peanut, who was coming toward them with a tray of food. “That’s a good start.”

Ellie looked down at what Pea had chosen: a stack of pancakes, a pair of fried eggs, a waffle with strawberries and whipped cream, and a glass of milk. It made Ellie hungry.

Max said, “I’ll get an orderly to crawl under the bed and get her—”

“Just leave it on the table,” Peanut said. “She might be odd, but she’s a kid. They do things in their own way and their own time. Hell, you can’t make a two-year-old eat and they’re tiny.”

Ellie smiled at her friend. “Any other advice?”

“No more strangers. She knows you, so you should take the food in. Talk to her in a soothing voice, but don’t stay. Maybe she wants to be alone to eat.”

“Thanks.” Taking the tray, Ellie went into the brightly painted room. The metal door clicked shut behind her. “Hey, little one. It’s me again. I hope you don’t hold that whole net thing against me.” She moved cautiously forward and set the tray on one of the tables. At the movement, the keys on her belt jingled; she clamped her hand over them. “I thought you might be hungry.”

Under the bed, the girl made a growling sound. It made the hairs on the back of Ellie’s neck stand up. She tried to think of just the right thing to say, but nothing came to her, so she backed out of the room and closed the door behind her. The lock clicked loudly into place.

In the hall again, Ellie stood by Max at the window. “Will she eat it?”

He opened the girl’s chart and got out his pen. “I guess we’ll find out.”

In silence, they stood there, looking through the glass at the room that appeared empty.

Several minutes later a tiny hand came out from underneath the bed.

Peanut gasped. “Lookee there.”

More time passed.

Finally, a dark head appeared. Slowly, the child crawled out from her hiding place on all fours. When she looked up at the glass and saw them standing there, her nostrils flared.

Then she dashed to the table, where she froze again and bent low over the food, sniffing it suspiciously. She threw the whipped cream to the floor, then ate the pancakes and the eggs. She didn’t seem to know what to make of the waffles and syrup. Ignoring both, she grabbed the strawberries and took them back to her hiding place under the bed. The whole incident took less than a minute.

“And I thought my kids had bad table manners,” Peanut said. “She eats like a wild animal.”

“We need a specialist,” Max said quietly.

“I’ve contacted the authorities,” Ellie answered. “The state, the FBI, and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They all need an identity or a crime to get in the action. I don’t know how to find out her identity if she won’t talk.”

“Not that kind of specialist. She needs a psychiatrist.”

Peanut drew in a sharp breath. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of it. She’d be perfect.”

Max frowned. “Who?”

Ellie looked at Peanut. “She’d never do it. Her clients pay two hundred an hour.”

“That was before
.
She can’t have many patients left.”

“God knows she’s qualified for this,” Ellie said.

“Who in the hell are you two talking about?” Max asked.

Ellie finally looked at him. “My sister is Julia Cates.”

“The shrink who—”

“Yeah. That one.” She turned to Peanut. “Let’s go. I’ll call her from the office.”

I
N THE PAST TWELVE HOURS
J
ULIA HAD BEGUN AT LEAST A DOZEN PROJECTS
. She’d tried organizing her closet, rearranging her furniture, scrubbing her refrigerator, and deep cleaning her bathrooms. She’d also gone to the nursery to buy autumn plants and to Home Depot for deck stain and paint stripper. It was a good time to do all of the projects she’d been putting off for . . . ten years.

The problem was her hands.

She was fine when she started a project; more than fine. She was optimistic. Unfortunately, her optimism was as thin as an eggshell. All it took was a thought (it’s time for Joe’s appointment, or—worse yet—Amber’s) and her hands would start to shake; she’d feel herself go cold. No temperature setting was high enough to keep her warm. Late last night, in the deepest hour of darkness, when the traffic behind her condo had dwindled to a drone as faded as a single mosquito’s flight and the mighty Pacific Ocean out front had whooshed steadily toward the golden sand, she’d even tried to write a book.

Why not?

Every pseudofamous person went that route these days. And she wanted to tell her side of the story; maybe she even needed to. She’d slipped out of her comfortable queen-sized bed and dressed in fleece sweats and Ugg boots, then gone out onto her small deck. From her place on the sixth floor, the midnight blue ocean lay before her, always in motion. Moonlight cut the sea in half, tangled in the foamy surf.

Hours she’d sat there, her booted feet propped on the deck rail, her yellow pad in her lap, her pen in her hand. By midnight she was surrounded by balled-up yellow wads of paper. All any of them said were:
I’m sorry.

Somewhere around four o’clock she fell into a fitful, nightmare-ridden sleep.

The phone wakened her.

Julia heard it as if from far away. She blinked her gritty eyes and sat up, realizing that she’d fallen asleep out on her deck. Wiping her face with one hand, she eased out of the chair and stepped over the piles of balled-up paper.

At the phone, she stopped.

The answering machine clicked on and she heard her own voice say cheerily: “You’ve reached Dr. Julia Cates. If this is a medical emergency, hang up and call 911. If not, please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks and good-bye.”

There was a long beep.

Julia tensed. In the last months, most of her calls had come from reporters and victims’ families and straight-out kooks.

“Hey, Jules, it’s me. Your big sis. It’s important.”

Julia picked up the phone. “Hey, El.”

There was an awkward pause, but wasn’t that always the way it was between them? Though they were sisters, they were four years apart in age and light-years apart in personality. Everything about Ellie was larger than life—her voice, her personality, her passions. Julia always felt colorless beside her flamboyant Miss Popular sister. “Are you okay?” Ellie finally asked.

“Fine, thanks.”

“You got released from the lawsuit. That’s a good thing.”

“Yeah.”

There was another awkward pause, and then Julia said, “Thanks for calling, but—”

“Look, I need a favor.”

“A favor?”

“There’s a . . . situation up here. You could really help us out.”

“You don’t have to do it anymore, Ellie. I’m fine.”

“Do what?”

“Try to save me. I’m a big girl now.”

“I never tried to save you.”

“Yeah, right. How about when you got Tod Eldred’s little brother to ask me to the prom? Or when you brought all of your popular friends to my sixteenth birthday party?”

“Oh. That. Mom made me do all that stuff.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? None of your friends even talked to me at the party. And don’t get me wrong: I appreciated it. Then and now. But it’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.”

“I thought you said you
were
fine.”

Julia was surprised by the perceptiveness of her sister’s question. “Don’t worry about me, El. Really.”

“For a shrink, you’re a shitty listener. I’m telling you I need you in Rain Valley. Specifically, I need a child psychiatrist.”

“You’re older than I usually take.”

“Very funny. Will you fly up here? And I mean right now.” There was a pause, a rustling of paper on the other end of the line. “Alaska has a flight in two hours. Another one in three. I can have a ticket waiting for you.”

Julia frowned. This didn’t sound like the ordinary super-sister-saving-loser-sister scenario that had set like concrete in their school years. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“There isn’t time. I want you to catch the ten-fifteen flight. Will you trust me?”