Suspicion (14 page)

And he would instantly comply, whatever they wanted.

If they wanted blood, he would gladly offer himself up. If they would let her go, he’d submit himself to the same torture they’d inflicted on Esteban. Just as long as they let her go.

His iPhone rang, and he heaved a big sigh until he looked at it and saw it wasn’t Abby.

Heart hammering.

“No,” he said to Lucy. “Nothing. I looked everywhere. You didn’t hear from her?”

“This is weird, Danny.”

He just exhaled.

“It’s not like her.”

“No.”

“She wouldn’t have, I don’t know, gone somewhere on her own, right? I mean, a pretty sixteen-year-old girl, she’s not—”

“Don’t, Lucy. Just . . . don’t go there.”

“I’m sorry. Danny, you should probably notify the police.”

“You’re right.”

“I mean, it’s just a formality, the sort of thing you’re supposed to do, because I’m sure she’s on her way home, and it was a big misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“Right,” he said dully, and at that moment, he heard a key turning in the lock.

“W
here were you?” he said. Torn between towering relief and towering anger, he tried his best to keep his tone neutral. But there was no disguising the quaver in his voice.

Abby seemed smaller, as if she had shrunk into herself, the way a pill bug rolls itself up into a tight ball when threatened. Her cheeks, normally brushed with pink, were bright red, but that could have been from being outside in the cool air. Her metallic-glinting scarf was wound around her neck several times. Her fine blond hair flew away in wild hanks.

“Shopping with Jenna,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

He got up from behind his desk and approached slowly. “What’s . . . the big deal? What’s the big deal? You didn’t get my phone messages or my texts?”

“I turned off my phone.”

“You turned off your phone.”
Steady
, he told himself.
Cool it
. “When have you ever, I mean ever, turned your phone off? What the hell did you have it off for?”

She shrugged. “I was trying to save the battery.”

“That thing has never been turned off since I bought it for you, not once.”

“That’s not true.” She kept looking to the side, as if avoiding his eyes, as if afraid he’d see through her. She unwound her scarf.

“Can I see your phone, please?”

“For what?”

“I want to see the times of the text messages you sent. I want to see if you were on your phone during the last couple of hours when I was desperately trying to reach you, when I thought something bad might have happened.”

“Like I’m some kind of criminal, that’s why you want to look at my phone? Like you don’t believe me?”

“How come you won’t look at me?”

She pulled off her jacket, head still turned away. She circled around to her right and walked toward the bathroom. “I have to use the bathroom, okay?”

“Hold on a second.” She kept walking. “Will you stop, please? We’re talking.”

Without turning to look at him, staring at the bathroom door, she said, “What . . . do you want . . . to know?”

“You didn’t know I was picking you up at school?”

“Oh, I see, so you’re pissed I didn’t tell you I was going to walk around Newbury Street with Jenna?”

“I told you to come home.”

“I’m home, aren’t I? You didn’t say I had to come home the second school was out.”

“Any reason you didn’t tell me what your plans were? So I didn’t have to waste my time driving over to Lyman and waiting in line and then spending half an hour asking everyone at school where you’d gone? And thinking something had happened?”

She stared straight ahead. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I screwed up. I should have told you but I forgot, okay? What do you want me to do now? Am I going to get grounded for a year or something?”

“Look at me.”

“Can I please just use the bathroom? I’m, like, about to pee my pants.”

“Look at me.”

She turned to her left ever so slightly. “Okay? Can I go now?”

“Turn around all the way. What are you hiding?”

She compressed her lips, furrowed her brows. Then she turned so she was looking straight at him.

“What the hell is that on your nose?”

“What does it look like?”

“Is that . . . ?” He came closer. “Is that a ring in your nose? Did you pierce your nose?”

Quietly now, she said, “Obviously.”

A small metal ring ran through her right nostril and through the side of her nose. He stood a few feet away. “You pierced your nose?”

“So?”

“Did we ever talk about this? Did you ask my permission?”

“It’s my body. I have the right to do whatever I want.”

“No, you don’t, actually. You do not have the right to get piercings or tattoos or anything of the kind, anything permanent, without clearing it first with me. Are you out of your mind?”

“You would have said no anyway.”

“You’re damn right I would have said no. What the hell gives you the right to pierce your nose, like a, a . . .”

“Hey, it’s done, okay? Keep up.”

“I don’t believe this. I don’t believe you defaced your body, put a ring through that beautiful nose. I mean, for God’s sake, that’s going to leave a permanent scar.”

“No, it’s not. I asked her, and she said if I ever decide to take it out, it’s going to leave a little freckle, that’s all.”

“Where did you have this done? Do you realize what kind of infection you might have?”

“Oh, come on, is that what you’re worried about? She was almost like a
doctor
. I mean everything was sterile and she uses a disposable needle and changes it every time, and she was, like, totally anal about, oh, you have to clean it with salt water and you have to put in the right kind of earring, not sterling silver, only fourteen-karat gold or surgical steel or titanium. I mean, she was totally totally crazy sterile about
everything
.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said, and he thought,
She’s right here, she’s alive, nothing happened, no one took her
. Tears came to his eyes. “Don’t ever do that again.”

She noticed his tears and looked at him with alarm.

“This isn’t just about piercing. Don’t you
ever
ignore my phone calls and text messages. Ever. Do you hear me?”

“What is the big deal? What are you afraid of?”

“Two pretty sixteen-year-old girls going around the city by themselves, going into body piercing places or whatever, you’re a target.”

“Oh, please. That’s ridiculous. It was daylight and we were on a busy street with a lot of people around me. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Jesus, Boogie.” He came close and put his arms around her, flooded with relief. She kept her arms stiff at her side, didn’t hug back, her mouth downturned in anger. “I was scared out of my mind, sweetie. Don’t ever do that to me again.”

Finally, she put her arms around him, her face pressed against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said, her words muffled.

“It’s okay.”

She sniffed. “Actually, I really do need to use the bathroom.”

He released her.

When she came out, he was sitting on the couch, waiting for her. “Boogie, come over here for a minute.”

“I have homework.”

“It can wait. Come over here and sit down.” He patted the sofa next to him. She sat down in a chair on the side of the sofa.

“What?”

“Listen. We need to talk about the Galvins.”

“What about them? You didn’t say I couldn’t hang out with Jenna. You just said I couldn’t go over to their house tonight.”

“I don’t want you going over there anymore. I don’t want you getting a ride in Mr. Galvin’s limousine.”

He’d made a decision, finally. Earlier it might have raised eyebrows, his keeping her away from the Galvin family. But Danny could handle it, let Galvin know the loan had nothing to do with it. He’d just say it was about strengthening the father-daughter relationship.

“What is this? All of a sudden you don’t like them? I thought you liked Jenna.”

“I do, absolutely. She’s a great friend. I don’t mind if she comes over here, or—”

“I am not inviting her over here to see this place. You saw what their house is like.”

“If she’s really a friend, she’s not going to judge you based on the fact that your daddy isn’t rich, all right?”

“What’s the difference if I go to her house or she comes here?”

“You’ve been going over there way too much, and you know it.”

She paused, frowned. “So I won’t go over so much, okay? Is there, like, something you don’t like about them? Like they’re a bad influence?”

“I’d like to spend a little time with you once in a while, you know?”

She shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like we have a lot to talk about.”

“Ouch,” he said. “I don’t agree, but if you feel that way, let’s work on it.”

“It’s too intense. It’s like being under interrogation every time we have dinner, like you want to know every last thing about what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. . . .”

“So I won’t interrogate you so much. We’ll just keep it lighter.”

“Is this because you think Jenna made me get my nose pierced? Because that totally wasn’t what happened at all. We both did it. She didn’t
make
me do anything.”

“That’s not it. I just don’t want you going over to their house anymore or riding in their limousine. Okay? Are we clear?”

“I know what this is about. I know about the loan.”

“Loan?”

“He lent you, like, a hundred thousand dollars or something, right? Because you’re going broke.” She turned to face him, accusingly. “You’re just embarrassed about it. You don’t like me seeing how they live, and we live like this. Isn’t that what it’s really about?”

He felt a flush of shame and a quick pulse of anger. He hadn’t told her anything about the money Galvin had lent him. What if Galvin had told Jenna he’d taken care of the Goodmans’ money problem, don’t worry about it . . . ? If he had . . . well, he just shouldn’t have. That really wasn’t her business.

“Abby, that’s not it at all. I just don’t want you going over there anymore.”

She stood up, staring at him furiously, smacked her hands against her thighs. “Why don’t you just admit it’s punishment? You’re pissed off I didn’t ask your permission to get my nose pierced and now you’re punishing me by trying to keep . . .” Her words came all in a rush now, high and run together and indecipherable. Her face was red, and tears glinted in her eyes.

“Boogie. This is not punishment.”

“—the one thing that makes me happy, my best friend, and you want to take her away from me!”

“Abby!”

She turned and ran to her bedroom. He sat back in the couch and folded his arms and stared into space.

He almost wished he could tell her what was really going on.

Almost.

D
anny tried to read in bed but couldn’t make any headway. Maybe he was too much of a wimp to be a dad, but he couldn’t stand watching Abby cry. He hated the fights and the struggle that came with having a kid. Generally, he tried not to give in to emotional blackmail, or to be a pushover—kids needed to be given boundaries and limits. Maybe not as much as his own parents had done. But you couldn’t go too far in the other direction, either. Kids, he decided, were like iPhones: They didn’t come with an owner’s manual.

He wished he could be open with Abby, tell her the truth—that her father had gotten involved in some very scary stuff, that her best friend’s father worked with people who murdered without hesitation. That he couldn’t allow her to be a hostage.

But he couldn’t say anything about it. He didn’t trust her to keep a confidence. Certainly not from her BFF.

Lucy came into the bedroom after almost an hour in Abby’s bedroom. She looked tired. He could see dried traces of tears on her cheeks.

He looked up, raised his brows.

She shook her head. “She’s still upset. I told her to forget about homework, and she didn’t fight me on it. She basically cried herself to sleep.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“I think the nose piercing looks kind of cute on her.” She slipped out of her jeans, then pulled her shirt over her head.

“Oh, come on. She can mutilate her body after she turns eighteen.”

“Whoa, what happened to Cool Dad?”

“I never claimed to be Cool Dad.”

She unlatched her bra and her breasts swayed. “She did it. Okay? That was her little act of rebellion. Believe me, there are far worse ways for kids her age to rebel.”

“She could have pierced her septum and had one of those little horseshoes coming out of her nose.”

“Worse than that. But that’s not what pissed you off, really.”

“That wasn’t the only thing. She went off the grid for three hours. This girl, who sleeps with her phone in her hand and probably posts things on her Facebook page during math class. She just went dark. How would you have felt?”

She settled onto the bed. “You overreacted, okay?”

“I was scared something might have happened to her. She knew I was picking her up at school, and she just vanished.”

“When we were kids, we could go for almost the whole day without talking to our parents, right? On a summer day, you’d go out in the morning, the screen door would slam shut behind you, and you spent the day riding bikes or hanging out with your friends, and there were no cell phones. You didn’t have to check in.”

“It’s a different world. There’re abductions and child molesters and sickos with chloroform driving panel vans.”

“There’s no evidence that kids are more endangered these days. That’s a media myth. Anyway, that’s not even the point.”

“Which is what?”

“You know, I always resented it when people tried to tell me how to raise Kyle. Especially when I was a single mom. Everyone always had advice.
Don’t be so strict, don’t be so lax. Don’t let him watch TV, don’t make TV the forbidden fruit. Don’t let him play computer games or video games.
I mean, it drove me crazy. Even when people were right. From the very beginning, when you and I first started seeing each other, I told you I was never going to play shrink. Never going to tell you how to be a dad.”

“I asked you to go in there.”

“And I’m flattered she wanted to talk to me. It means a lot. I mean, it’s complicated, navigating our relationship. I’m not her mom, and she doesn’t want that.”

“So tell me what she said. How bad is it?”

“Look, Danny, you’re a terrific father.”

“But?”

“But nothing. You are.”

“And?”

She shrugged. “Why are you doing this, Danny?”

“She’s over there too much. Let’s not you and me argue, too.”

“You’re cutting her off from her best friend.”

“It’ll be good for her.”

“I don’t get it. You don’t mind if Jenna comes over here, you just don’t want Abby going over to the Galvins’ house?”

“Something like that.”

“Why?”

He exhaled, frustrated at his inability to tell her the real story. “Spending all that time over there is just giving her unrealistic expectations. It’s warping her.”

“But that’s not what you told her. You said she can never go over there.”

“Well, for the time being.”

“You need to think about why you’re doing this.”

He reached over, stroked the silky skin of her breasts, gave a nipple a gentle squeeze. She folded her arms.

“What?” he said.

“There’s something you’re not telling me about the Galvins.”

He shook his head, didn’t hesitate, and came right out with the lie. “Not true.”

“There’s something. Something about them you don’t like. What is it?”

“That’s not it at all.”

“Cut the crap, Danny. I
know
you. I can read you like a book. That time when you claimed you went to the Wellesley College library and you so clearly didn’t?”

“You’re not still on that, are you?”

“There’s something going on. Something about Galvin. Why don’t you tell me?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” he said, and he rolled over and switched off the bedside lamp. “Nothing to tell.”

She looked at him for a long time, but she left it there. The conversation was over. He awoke some time later, realizing he’d forgotten to send a text message to the DEA confirming that he’d done the deed. He got out of bed as quietly as he could. The floor creaked, and Lucy stirred in her sleep.

In the living room he switched on the lamp on one side of the couch, opened his laptop, and waited for it to join the wireless network.

He signed in to the [email protected] account and began composing an encrypted text message, when he saw there was already a message waiting for him:

Nice work,
it said.
Meet 10 a.m. tomorrow morning to return equip. location tbd.

He wondered how they knew he’d managed to upload the contents of Galvin’s BlackBerry. He’d only told them he’d try. How did they know he’d succeeded? Maybe it had been uploaded automatically; was that possible? Probably.

How much did they know about him? How closely were they watching?

And when, he wondered, would they finally leave him alone?