Any Minute (24 page)

“I left the flowers for you in the grass, Mama. You told me to do that, and I did it.”

“Why aren’t you in the car yet?” Jane looked like she was about to cry. “Why don’t you ever do what I tell you to do? Can’t you ever do anything right?”

“I can’t open it. It’s big. It’s more than a little girl can do.”

The mother punched the button, yanked open the Oldsmobile door (“Nothing to it!”), and pointed inside. When the child hung her head in disgrace, the bone at the nape of her neck protruded like a drawer knob.

“Come
on
. What are you waiting for? Get
in
.”

I’ll never be good for anything, will I?

The three travelers watched those words hammer their message ever deeper into the little girl’s open, innocent heart.

I can’t do anything right. No matter how I try, I’m always going to be worth less than everyone else. If I hadn’t been born, Mama’s life would have been so much better.

When the car bounced out of the driveway and sped off in ripples of chrome, grown-up Sarah, the Sarah who had watched a child’s yearning face as it slipped away behind the window, was the one who began to cry.

Chapter Sixteen

T
he divers thought it was time to give up, Joe could tell. He could see it in the weary arcs of their arms as they stroked toward the platform, in their plodding climb as they mounted the ladder from the river, in the way their colleagues grabbed them beneath the armpits and hoisted them up, water falling from their sleek bodies like splinters of glass. The uniformed officers, Chicago’s Finest, thought so too. Some forty-five minutes into the search, Joe could see it in the way they pressed their radio mikes tight against their lips, fingers cupping their noses as they squeezed the Talk bar, their voices low and their eyes on him as they spoke.

Joe could see it in the rusty crane that stood at the rain-streaked waterfront motionless, its pulleys, cables, and hook dangling at half-mast.

He could see it in the medics’ crossed arms and extended legs, the way they talked among themselves with their heads turned sideways. He could see it in the whirling lights atop the city vehicles. Even the pulsing red-and-blue seemed to have slowed down.

Nearby, out of the corner of his eye, he even noticed Pete glancing at his watch. He saw Gail grab the cuff of his best friend’s sleeve and yank it down. Pete lowered his wrist.

Across the way where troopers had cordoned off the street, the yellow tape—Police Line. Do Not Cross—hung in sodden ribbons.

“It’s okay, Gail,” Joe said without turning. “I know how long it’s been.” He speared his hands through wet hair. Joe couldn’t even feel the rain running down his collar anymore.

Joe didn’t know what he would have done without them. Gail and Pete had made it to his side in record time. They’d fended off reporters. They’d done their best to answer questions from the police, and when they didn’t know the answers, they relayed only the most pressing questions to Joe. Before she even arrived, Gail was the one who phoned Sarah’s parents and suggested they pick Mitchell up from school. Pete had kept his rope-of-an-arm snaked behind Joe’s shoulders and held him upright. Joe leaned on his best friend, too empty and shocked to speak, his only thought to overcome the dark dizziness that told him he might pass out.

All this time, all this searching, and Joe felt like he was the one drowning.

“Your nanny’s number? Do you have it, Joe?” Gail asked. “I think I ought to call again.”

Joe shook his head dumbly. He couldn’t think of it. Not only the number—he couldn’t even think of the woman’s
name
. “They’re going to stop, aren’t they?” he asked. “Any minute now they’re going to call off the search.”

Pete clenched his friend tightly around the shoulders. “Man, Joe. I’m sorry. This is tough stuff.”

For some brain-misfiring reason, while Joe couldn’t remember the nanny’s name, the date of Gail’s party popped into his mind. He sat down hard on a concrete barrier. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

“I’m calling Sarah’s mother again too,” Gail said, ignoring him.

“You should do that,” Pete said. “They should pick up Kate. The family ought to be together.”

“Pavik,” Joe blurted as if he’d figured out the
Jeopardy
question just before time ran out. “Her name’s Pavik. That’s it.”

“Let me have your cell phone again,” Gail said. “I’ll just scroll down to her name.”

Joe couldn’t stop shuddering. He could hardly make his lips move. He fished in his pocket for his phone.

A shrill signal echoed across the river. What looked like two buoys bobbing in the waves changed into two straggling divers. One waved, his arm raised high overhead.

The other folded his fingers against his teeth and whistled again.

Along the shore, men jumped into action. The crackle of two-way radios seemed to meld into one seamless strand of sound. “They’ve got something,” Joe heard the officer beside him say.

Not until Joe rose did he hear the shriek of sirens again. He realized they’d never been turned off; the wail had simply drifted above him somewhere until it had become so common that it disappeared. Nothing moved in slow-mo anymore. Divers were donning air tanks and racing into the water everywhere.

The crane lurched forward, its pulleys swaying. An EMT notified ER they might have located a victim, they might be coming in, to be on standby. Patrol boats revved from trolling speed to full throttle. From crackling radios, snippets drifted into earshot.

…settled on its…

…no apparent way to…

…dislodged at impact…

Joe staggered toward the closest medic and gripped his arm. “They’ve found the car, haven’t they? That’s what they’ve got. The car. And she’ll be in it.”

A vise-grip claimed his shoulder. The hand belonged to Pete. “Come on, Joe. Stick with me. Let them do their job.”

“That’s my wife down there. You’ve got to help her.” But Joe only said it by rote. He said it because he’d been repeating those words like a broken record for three quarters of an hour.

“We’re doing everything we can, sir.”

Gail anchored her arm around Joe for support, and he let his friends propel him aside. These two had become his lifeline. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you being here. I wouldn’t have anyone.” And it was true. He would have been alone. His own parents would take hours to get here from Wisconsin. At least he had Harold and Jane to be with the kids.

“You want to know one of the last things I said to her?” Joe said. “I kept complaining to her about her job. I kept finding things she was doing wrong, especially with the kids. I kept telling her and telling her. She was furious with me. She said I didn’t see how hard she was
trying
.”

The question hung in the air between them. Maybe Pete took a second too long to say, “Joe. You can’t think this is your fault.”

“If I hadn’t upset her, she might have been driving more carefully. It
is
my fault!”

“No.” Pete stood his ground. “This is absolutely not your fault. When it’s all over you’ll sort it out—” Pete stopped abruptly. He’d been about to say “
together
. You’ll sort it out
together
.”

The crane began its task. The gigantic hook ranged out over the water. It reflected in the river, two steel
J
s, one upside down and one right side up, as Joe’s throat tightened with dread. “They’re just raising the car. Why are they doing that? Why aren’t they bringing her up first?”

The man with the Patterson badge, the one introduced as chaplain, started toward Joe. Another officer fell in beside him, their steps synchronized, their movements choreographed with purpose.

Run
, Joe told himself.
If you aren’t here for them to tell you, then it can’t be real.

But his feet stayed glued to the spot. “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?” He gripped Pete’s shirtfront. “I’ve lost her.”
I lost her a long time ago
, he thought, only he wouldn’t say that.

Something between them had always been missing; he’d tried for years to put his finger on it. Even after they dated, even after they fell in love, he realized there was always something about her that she kept aloof from him.

But was that all it was? Really? It almost seemed she’d been looking for ways to hide her true self from him. To put up barriers between them. Walls to hide behind. She behaved as if she had a dark secret, something she didn’t want anyone to know about the real her. Even him.
Especially
him.

And now there’d never be any chance to make it right. Maybe there never had been. “It’s taking too long, Pete. You know what they’ve found.”

Not until the officers approached, not until they began to speak and shake their heads in somber confusion, did Joe realize he’d been mistaken. There was the chaplain, of course, and the badge said the other man’s name was Hamm. Together, each of them starting where the other left off, they went to great lengths to describe the position of the vehicle. Located forty-three feet below the surface. Front end demolished from colliding with the water. Vehicle resting on its right side. Nothing unusual there.

Patterson crossed himself.

Hamm probed the crevice between his gums and one of his tricuspids with a frayed toothpick. “I’m afraid they found a car but not a body.”

All Joe would remember later was the round slowness of the guy’s mouth as he pocketed the worn toothpick and tried to explain.

But there wasn’t any explanation for it. Although the front end had been mangled, none of the windows had been broken out. They’d found the driver’s seat belt fastened.

But the SUV had come up empty.

Sarah Harper wasn’t there.

Chapter Seventeen