Magic hour: a novel (47 page)

The word hits Girl hard. It is what Him used to say when he was mean and wobbly from the stuff he used to drink. What does Jewlee mean? Girl feels the panic growing inside her. She scratches her cheek and shakes her head.

Jewlee holds Girl’s hands in hers and says it again.

“Brittany.”

This time Girl hears the question in the word. Jewlee is asking her something.

“Are you Brittany?”

Had those other words been there all along, only drowned out by Girl’s heartbeat?

Are you Brittany?

Brittany.

The question is like a fish swimming downstream. She grabs onto its tail, swims with it. She gets an image of a little girl—tiny—with short, curly black hair and huge white plastic underwear. This baby lives in a white world, with lights everywhere and a soft floor. She plays with a bright red plastic ball. Someone always gives it back to her when she drops it.

Where’s Brittany’s ball? Where is it?

She looks at Jewlee, who is so sad now it makes Girl’s heart hurt.

How can Girl tell her how happy she is here, how this is her whole world now and nothing else feels right?

“Are you Brittany?”

She understands finally.
Are you Brittany?
Very slowly, she leans toward Jewlee, gives her a kiss. When she pulls back, she says, “Me Alice.”

“Oh, honey . . .” Jewlee’s eyes started leaking again; she seems to shrink. She pulls her into her arms, holding her so tightly that
Alice
can hardly breathe. But she laughs anyway. “I love you, Alice.”

She says it again, just because she can, and because it makes her feel like she can fly. She isn’t just Girl anymore. “Me Alice.”

A
T HER DESK IN THE STATION HOUSE
E
LLIE STARED DOWN AT THE HUGE
array of papers spread out in front of her. The tiny black letters swarmed the pages, blurred. She shoved the pile aside, feeling a ridiculous satisfaction when the papers fluttered to the floor.

She got up from her desk and left her office. There, alone amidst the empty desks and quiet phones, she paced back and forth.

Back and forth.

What now?

All of their investigations had led them nowhere. There was no way they could convince the court that George Azelle was an unfit parent.

Julia—and Alice—were going to lose.

Ellie went to the secret cabinet in the back room and grabbed a bottle of scotch so old it had once belonged to her uncle. “Thanks, Joey,” she said, nodding as she poured herself a drink. At the last minute she decided to take the bottle back with her. Switching on the light, she sat down at her desk in the main room and sipped her drink.

What now?

It kept coming back to that, like bits of flotsam circling a drain.

She was just pouring another drink when the door opened.

George Azelle stood there, wearing faded designer jeans and a black suede shirt that was open just enough to reveal a triangle of thick black chest hair.

“Chief Barton,” he said, stepping in. “I saw the light on.”

“It
is
the police station.”

“Ah. So you’re always here at midnight, are you? And drinking?”

“These are hardly ordinary times.”

He nodded toward the bottle. “Do you have a second glass?”

“Sure.” It wasn’t exactly professional, but she was off duty and right now she didn’t care. She went into the kitchen, got him a glass and ice and returned to her desk. In her absence, he’d dragged a chair over to sit across from her. She handed him the glass. The ice clinked against the sides.

She studied him closely, noticing the shadows beneath his eyes that told of sleepless nights; the thin strips of scarring that lined the inside of his left wrist. Sometime, long ago, he’d tried to kill himself. “I love her, you know. Regardless of what you think you’ve learned from all those reports on the floor.”

His words struck her deeply, found a soft place to land. They were compelling; no doubt as he’d intended. She leaned back from him, needing distance between them. “Tell me about your marriage.”

He gave a negligent flick of the wrist. The movement was strangely seductive. She was reminded of some rich, idle Lord of the Realm. “It was terrible. She slept around. I slept around. We fought like crazy people. She wanted a divorce. It would have been my third.” He smiled disarmingly. “I’m a romantic, in my way.”

Ellie knew about that kind of faith.
A believer,
she thought,
like me.
She pushed that comparison away. “And where is your wife now?”

“I don’t know. If you’re wondering why I sound so emotionless when I answer, remember that I’ve been answering that question for years. No one ever likes my answer. I thought she took Brittany and ran off with some new man.”

Ellie watched him talk. There was something deeply seductive about him. Maybe it was in the tone of his voice, so soft and confident, or the way his lilting accent made every word sound carefully considered. “Did you testify in your own defense?”

“’Course not. The lawyers said there was too much to cross-examine me on. I wanted to. I would have been convincing, too. I thought about that a lot in prison. Regrets keep you company in there. I paid a fortune to private investigators. The best lead came from that flower delivery man who reported seeing a man in a yellow slicker and Batman baseball cap sitting in a van across the street from my house.”

“And?”

“And we never found him.”

“So you wish you would have testified.”

“I didn’t know how it would . . . stay with me. People think I’m a monster.”

“Is that why you’re here? To use Alice—I’m sorry, Brittany—to prove your innocence?”

He gazed at her; there was no smile on his face now, no hint of it in his eyes. He looked as honest as a man with a deeply troubled past could look. “When the world sees that she’s alive, they’ll have to question all of it.”

“But she’s already been so hurt.”

“Ah,” he said quietly, sadly. “So have I.”

“But she’s a child.”

“
My
child,” he reminded her, and at that, she saw past the regret, past the sadness, to a wounded man who would do anything to have his way.

“I don’t think you understand how traumatized she’s been. When we found her, she was practically wild. She couldn’t talk or—”

“I’ve read the newspaper accounts and watched the tapes. Why do you think I’m talking to you? I know your sister saved Brittany. But she’s my daughter. You have to know what that means. I’ll get the best help for her. I promise you.”

“My sister
is
the best, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. If you love Alice—”

He stood up. “I should leave now. I thought if you knew how much I love my daughter, you’d be a cop. But you’re Julia’s sister, aren’t you? This is one more place I won’t find justice.”

Ellie knew she’d gone too far in questioning his love for his daughter. “You’ll ruin her,” she said quietly.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Chief Barton. I truly am.” He walked over to the door, yanked it open. Then he paused, looked back. “I’ll see you—and Brittany—tomorrow.”

Ellie let out her breath in a sigh. His words—
I thought you’d be a cop
—stayed with her for a long, long time.

In all the tussle of facts and emotions and fear of the past few days, she’d been focused on Alice and Julia. She’d forgotten that she had a job to do. She was the chief of police. Justice was her job.

T
HE NIGHT FOR
J
ULIA WAS ENDLESS.
F
INALLY, SOMETIME AROUND THREE
o’clock, she gave up on sleep and went to work. For hours she sat at the kitchen table, in the glow from a single lamp, reading about George Azelle.

His life was a web of innuendo and speculation. Nothing had ever been proven.

Pushing the papers aside in frustration, she put on her jogging clothes and went outside, hoping the cool air would clear her head. She would need her wits about her today. She ran for miles, down one road, up another, until she was aching and out of breath. Finally, near dawn, she found herself back on her own driveway, coming home.

She went to her father’s favorite fishing spot and stood there, breathing hard, watching sunlight creep over the treetops. Though the world was inky dark and freezing cold, she could remember how it had felt to be here in the summer with him, how his big, callused hand had swallowed her smaller one and how protected she’d felt by that.

She heard footsteps behind her.

“Hey,” Ellie said, coming up beside her. “You’re up early.” She handed Julia a cup of coffee.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She took the mug, wrapped her fingers around the warm porcelain.

In silence, they stared across the silvered field to the black forest beyond. Cal’s house was a twinkling of golden lights in the early morning mist.

“He’s going to get custody, Jules.”

“I know.” Julia stared down at the river, watching the pink dawn light its surface.

“We need to
prove
him guilty.” She paused. “Or innocent.”

“You watch too much
CSI.
The state spent millions and they couldn’t prove it.”

“We have Alice.”

Julia felt a shiver run down her spine. Slowly she turned to face her sister. “She doesn’t remember anything. Or she can’t tell us, anyway.”

“Maybe she could lead us back to where she was kept, or held.”

Lead us back.

“You mean . . . My God, Ellie, can you imagine what that could do to her?”

“We might find evidence.”

“But, El . . . she could . . . snap. Go back into herself again. How could I live with that?”

“How traumatized is she going to be when Azelle takes her away? Will she ever understand that you didn’t abandon her?”

Julia closed her eyes. This was precisely the image that stalked her. If Alice felt abandoned again, she might simply fade back into silence and next time there might be no escape.

“I’ve thought it through from every angle. I was up all night. This is my job, Jules. I have to follow the facts. If we want to know the truth, this is our only hope.”

Julia crossed her arms, as if that simple movement could ward off this deepening chill. She walked away from her sister. Ellie didn’t understand what her proposal could mean. How fragile a child’s mind could be, how quickly things could turn tragic.

But Julia knew. She’d seen it happen in Silverwood.

Ellie came up behind her. “Jules?”

“I don’t think I could survive if Alice . . . cracked again.”

“All roads lead to Rome,” Ellie said quietly.

Julia turned to her. “What do you mean?”

“No matter what we do—or how we do it—Alice gets hurt. No child should grow up without a father, but losing you would be worse. You’ve got to trust my instincts on this. We need to
know.
”

To that, there was no answer. Ellie put her arm around Julia and pulled her close.

“Come on,” Ellie finally said, “let’s go make our girl breakfast.”

M
AX WAS GETTING OUT OF THE SHOWER WHEN HE HEARD THE DOOR-BELL
ring. He toweled off, put on an old pair of Levi’s, and went downstairs. “I’m coming.”

He opened the door.

Julia stood there: he could see how hard she was trying to smile. “Ellie wants to take Alice into the woods. To see if . . .” Her voice wavered. “. . . if she can find . . .”

He pulled her into his arms and held her until she stopped trembling, then he led her into the living room. On the sofa, he once again took her in his arms.

“What do I do?”

He touched her face gently. “You already know the answer to that. It’s why you’ve been crying.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“She could regress. Or worse.”

“And what will she do if Azelle gets custody?”

She started to say something, then paused, drawing in a deep breath.

In the silence that followed, he said, “This is the time to be her mother, not her doctor.”

She looked up at him. “How is it you always know what to say to me?”

He tried to glance away, couldn’t. Very slowly, he pulled away from her and went upstairs. On the bureau he found what he was looking for: a five-by-seven framed photograph of a little boy in a baseball uniform, smiling for the camera. His two front teeth were missing. He took the picture downstairs and resettled himself on the couch.

Julia sat up, alarmed. “Max? What is it, you look—”

He handed her the picture. “That’s Danny.”

Frowning, she studied the small, shining face, then looked at Max again, waiting.

“He was my son.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “Was?”

“That’s the last picture we have of him. A week later a drunk driver hit us on the way home from a game.”