She's Not There (30 page)

“Mom?” Lili called, running after her. “Wait.”

“Thank God,” Beth whispered, wrapping Lili in a tight embrace.

Caroline watched them, holding her breath. Then she watched as Lili slowly extricated herself from Beth's firm grip.

“I'll call you as soon as the results come back,” she said quietly.

Beth's face crumpled in a combination of resignation and disbelief. “I love you,” she whispered. “Never forget that.”

Then she opened the door, pushed through the phalanx of waiting reporters, and disappeared down the street.

P
eggy called at one o'clock the next day. “I just had a call from the director of the clinic,” she said without preamble. “He has the test results.”

“The results are back?” Caroline asked, as if she might have misheard. “So soon?” Her heart started to flutter rapidly, as if a small bird were trapped inside her chest.

“He wants to know how you'd like to handle things.”

“I don't understand.”

“Apparently the media has been camped outside the clinic since seven
A.M
. He feels terrible because he suspects it might have been his receptionist who leaked the story, and he wants to make sure your privacy is protected.”

“A little late for that, don't you think?”

“What's done is done,” Peggy said, as pragmatic as ever. “The question is, what do you want to do now? He can courier the results over to you, or you can pick them up in person…”

Caroline's head was spinning. “I don't know what to do. There are reporters everywhere.”

“What if
I
go?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can go to the clinic and pick up the report. Nobody's going to recognize me.”

“You just can't leave work…”

“I'm the boss, remember? I have a meeting, but I can get away in about an hour. In the meantime you'd have to call the clinic and give Sid Dormer your permission. Tell his receptionist your name is Angela Peroni.”

“Who?”

“It's his ex-wife's cleaning lady. He'll know it's you. You'll give him the okay; I'll pick up the results and bring them right over. Caroline? Caroline, are you there?”

“I'm here. Oh, God.” She started laughing, although the sound that emerged was more of a crazed cackle. “It feels like we're in the middle of a spy movie.”

“Are you all right?”

“I don't know. I wasn't expecting the results back so soon. I thought I'd have more time. Another day, at least.”

“To do what?”

“I don't know. Prepare myself, I guess.”

“You've been preparing for this for fifteen years,” Peggy reminded her.

Caroline braced herself against the kitchen counter, her legs threatening to buckle under her. “What if it's not her?”

“Then we'll deal with it,” Peggy said. “Look, the sooner I get to this meeting, the sooner I can leave, and the sooner we'll know one way or the other. Do I have your okay to pick up the results?”

“Of course you have my okay.”

“Okay for what?” Michelle asked coming into the kitchen as Caroline was jotting down Dormer's number. She was dressed as if she was going to the gym, in black leotards and a white tank top.

“The test results are back,” Caroline told her, punching in Dormer's number.

“Already? It's only been two days.”

“Can I speak to Sid Dormer, please?” Caroline said into the receiver. “It's Angela Peroni.”

“Who?” Michelle asked.

“Ssh. Hello, Mr. Dormer. Yes, it's most unfortunate about the media. I'm sorry, too. Peggy just phoned me. She says you need my permission in order for her to pick up the test results, so I'm giving it to you. Yes, thank you. She should be there in about an hour.” She hung up the phone.

“God, this feels like something out of James Bond.”

“What feels like something out of James Bond?” Lili asked from the doorway.

“The results are back,” Caroline said as Lili turned a deathly white, her pallor a stark contrast to the dark blue of her denim shirt.

“The moment we've all been waiting for,” Michelle said. “I'll call Dad.” She reached for the phone, leaving messages for him at his office, at his home, and on his cell, telling him to get over there as quickly as he could. “Should I call Grandma Mary?”

“Let's wait,” Caroline said. “There's no point in getting everybody all riled up until we know one way or the other.”

“So what happens now?” Lili asked.

Caroline wondered how many times she'd heard that question these last few weeks, how many times she'd asked it herself. “Peggy is going to pick up the results in about an hour and bring them over. In the meantime, there's not much we
can
do. Except wait.”

Michelle shrugged, broad shoulders reaching for her ears. “Looks like the gym is on hold. Scrabble, anyone?”

“What kind of word is
ramet
?” Lili asked, studying the small wooden tiles Michelle had just laid across the Scrabble board.

“It's a word,” Michelle answered.

“What's it mean?”

“I have no idea. But I don't have to know what it means. I just have to know it's a word.”

“I've never heard of it.”

“Are you challenging me?”

Lili looked across the kitchen table at Caroline, as if appealing to her to intervene on her behalf.

Caroline braced herself. It was never a good idea to challenge Michelle. About anything.

“What happens if I challenge you?” Lili asked.

“We look it up in the dictionary. If you're right, I lose a turn. If I'm right, you lose a turn.”

“Okay, I challenge you.”

Caroline reached for
The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary
on the table beside her, noting it was almost two decades out of date. How many new words had come into being since the last time she'd played Scrabble? How many had been declared obsolete? “Here it is,” she said, locating the word “ramet” between “ramentum” and “rami.” “It means ‘an individual plant of a clone.' ”

“What does
that
mean?” Lili asked.

“Beats me.”

“I'm right. It's a word,” Michelle said. “You lose a turn.” She beamed triumphantly.

Lili shrugged and Caroline smiled. Playing Scrabble had been a good idea, even though Michelle probably hadn't been serious when she'd suggested it.

“Your turn, Mom.”

Caroline glanced down at her letters—two A's, each worth one point, a P, worth three, a Y, worth four, an E and an I, each worth one—then back at the board, stealing a look at her watch as she lifted the P from her rack. It was almost three o'clock. She wondered what was keeping Peggy. She should have been here by now.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“You've been staring at that letter for five minutes. Are you going to do something with it or not?”

Caroline put the P down on a space that awarded her a triple-letter score, then followed it with an I, then an E and a Y on either side of the T Michelle had used to form “ramet,” the Y landing on another triple-letter score.
“Piety,”
she announced. “That's nine points for the P, twelve points for the Y, and one each for the I, the E, and the T.”

“Twenty-four,” said Lili absently as Caroline's smile widened and Michelle's vanished altogether. “What?” Lili asked warily.

“You're good in math,” Michelle said. “Of course you are.”

“Not really.”

“You don't have to try so hard.” Michelle's frown shifted from Lili to Caroline. “She's already on your side.”

“I'm not trying…”

“And you're not fooling anyone,” Michelle said to her mother.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know what you're thinking.”

“What am I thinking?” Caroline asked, genuinely perplexed.

“That this is the first of hundreds of board games the three of us will play together if your prayers are answered and it turns out that Lili is indeed Samantha. That this is what it's like to be a normal family.” She leaned her head back and looked toward the ceiling. “Well, I hate to keep throwing a wet blanket over everything, I really do,” Michelle continued, “but we're
not
a normal family. We haven't been a normal family for fifteen years. And we can't suddenly start pretending we are.
None
of what's happened is normal. And no matter what the test results show or how fervently you pray to a God who's obviously not there or Samantha would never have disappeared in the first place, it's never going to
be
normal.” She stared at the words spread out across the Scrabble board. “And this is a stupid game.” She swept the tiles off the board with the back of her hand, sending them scattering across the kitchen floor.

Lili was on her hands and knees immediately, scooping them up.

“Leave them,” Michelle said. “It's my mess. I'll fix it.”

“It's all right.”

“I said
I'd
do it.” Michelle quickly gathered up the remaining letters, slamming them on the table. “Told you I was a brat,” she said, plopping back into her seat.

“No,” Caroline said after a silence of several seconds. “You're right. This
isn't
normal. It's anything
but
normal. And this is clearly a very tense time. We're all a little on edge…”

“Really? Because you seem so calm.”

“It's just my face.”

“I'm really not very good at math,” Lili said quietly.

Michelle's lips stretched into a reluctant grin. “Have you spoken to Beth since she got back to Calgary?” she asked, returning the Scrabble tiles to their small pouch.

Lili nodded.

“How is she?”

“The same. Upset. Angry. Sad.”

Caroline pictured Beth as she'd seen her last night on the evening news, an obviously distraught woman shielding her face with her hands as she struggled to outrun the herd of reporters pursuing her.

Who are you?
they'd demanded as she hurried toward the taxi idling at the corner
. What's your connection to Caroline Shipley? Can you tell us anything about what's going on in that house?
Is it true there's a girl claiming to be Samantha?

“Is she still being hounded by reporters?” Caroline asked.

“There was this one guy who followed her cab to the hotel. He even trailed her to the airport this morning, but she wouldn't talk to him.”

Caroline didn't have to ask the reporter's name. She already knew.

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, God,” Caroline whispered.

“Oh, God,” echoed Lili.

“As if,” Michelle said. “Someone going to answer that?”

Caroline took a deep breath and headed for the door, Michelle and Lili only steps behind.

“Open up, for God's sake,” Hunter yelled from the other side as they approached.

Caroline quickly opened the door and Hunter shot inside, cameras clicking furiously behind him.

“Hunter,” one reporter called. “Look this way.”

“Can you tell us what's happening?” another demanded.

“Do you have the results back from the lab?”

Hunter slammed the door on their questions. “What's going on?”

“Where have you been?” Michelle asked, their questions overlapping. “I called hours ago.”

“Meetings. What's going on?” he repeated.

“The results are back,” Caroline said.

“You have the results?”

“Peggy's bringing them over.”

“Do you know what they are?”

Caroline shook her head.

A line of perspiration broke out across Hunter's forehead. “Okay. It's important to stay calm, no matter what the results show.”

Caroline could see he was saying this as much for his own benefit as theirs. “Maybe we should sit down,” she said, beckoning everyone toward the living room.

They were settling into their seats when they heard a car pull into the driveway, a door slam, and footsteps hurry up the front walk.

Caroline ran to the door and opened it, grabbing Peggy by the arm and pulling her inside the house, the reporters pelting the closing door with questions.

Can you tell us…?

Is it true…?

What's…?

Caroline ushered her friend into the living room. Peggy wasted no time on unnecessary pleasantries. She withdrew a sealed white envelope from her brown leather bag and handed it to Caroline.