Noah's Rainy Day (33 page)

“The Williamses have positively identified the boy Kevin Benson was carrying as little Max,” Streeter explained. “And we have confirmed Judy Manning was on the same plane as little Max, flying under an assumed name.”

“As Ida. My sister. Maybe she intended to snatch little Max and pretend it was a kidnapping. Or had someone kidnap him so she could have him all to herself. No more parents?” I mused, realizing if she had, my sister’s name would be all over the paper trail.

“That’s what I’m wondering,” Gates said.

“We’ll have to be delicate,” Streeter cautioned. “She’s the person who knows little Max the best and could help us the most if she’s not behind the abduction. We can’t risk alienating her if she’s not the perp.”

“Wait, Streeter!” I said, staring at the screen and pointing to the shelf beneath the two with DVDs. “There’s one missing. See?”

“Good catch,” Streeter said after zooming in on the shelf with the
missing DVD. “Maybe I can work that into my line of questioning, see what comes of it.”

I studied the monitor that was trained on Judy Manning in the other room, the aged woman clutching her purse. “See if she’ll show you what’s in her purse.” The two men turned on their heels and eyed me as they reached the door. To their questioning stares, I shrugged and said, “Call it woman’s intuition.”

“But you don’t even carry a purse.”

Noah

BECAUSE OF MY TWISTING
and turning, my winter hat had slid down my forehead and over my eyes. I kept trying to get Emma’s attention so she would lift it away from my face, but it wasn’t happening. What little vision I had in my right eye, I really needed. The soft contact lens Mom sometimes put in that eye helped me see a lot better. But each time she bought a new one I managed to lose it. I liked to think I lost my contacts from messing around at school, being so active, so rough and tumble and on the go. Mom teases me about the foreshadowing of me being an irresponsible teen.

The stocking cap was really starting to bug me. The temperature had finally clawed above freezing. Mom had let me out of the house for the first time in over a week. I loved being outdoors, but she said it had been too cold. The crisp, cold air on my cheeks and in my small lungs felt wonderful. If it weren’t for the stupid stocking cap covering my eyes, I’d say it was starting to look like the best Christmas ever.

I groaned to get my sister’s attention. Emma ignored me. Like always. My frustration quickly steamed into anger. But it didn’t last long. It never did. In fact, anger was not one of my strong suits. I tended to lose
it too fast. It was a wasted emotion, in my opinion. It never accomplished much.

Strapped in my chair, clad heavily in winter clothes, I hung my head, chin against my chest, in defeat. I could hear Emma laughing and talking to her snowman, Howie. And I knew all I could do was to wait for Mom to notice,
if
she noticed, because I’d like to see again and take a look around a bit, before having to go back inside. What a bummer.

Emma introduced herself to her newly built snowman. She mimicked a low, grown-up voice, “How do you do, Howie? Nice to meet you, sir. Howie you doing?”

Amused by her own wit, she giggled.

Her giggling made it difficult for me to stay mad at her. I joined in, laughing slowly at first but eventually as energetically as Emma. She bounced through the snow toward my parked wheelchair and adjusted my hat so I could see again. After adjusting my cloudy vision to the bright sun reflecting off the crusted snow, my first image was of the angelic, freckled face of my sister framed in curly, red hair. I could see that much. She had pushed her face within an inch of my nose so I could see and smell her.

I couldn’t help but laugh at Emma when she demanded in her low, grown-up voice, “Give me your hat. Howie needs your hat.”

She smelled like peppermint candy canes.

Snatching the winter hat from my head, Emma bounced back through the snow to see if it would fit on her friend Howie’s large, round head. When it didn’t, she stretched the hat in every direction to make it big enough to fit. I listened to my sister arguing with the hat and complaining to Howie.

Until something by the fence caught my attention.

I turned my head toward the fence and listened. The noise was muffled and I almost convinced myself I’d imagined it at first, but I definitely heard something. I heard the soft crunching of the crisp snow beneath cautious footsteps. Someone was there. I strained to hear more noises coming from the neighbor’s fence.

“Aren’t your ears cold?” a small voice asked from behind the fence.

I startled. My arms tightened against my body like the underdeveloped
wings of a newborn chick and my knees jerked skyward with a spasm. The child’s voice was so strong and small that it had completely surprised me.

I turned my face toward the voice and furrowed my brow with determination. Although my left eye was useless, I strained to make out a shape or figure with my bionic eye. Focusing, I could make out a small silhouette behind the spaced slats of the neighbor’s fence. Given the size of the image and the sound of the voice, I’d guess it was a child younger than Emma. A lot younger. The gaps between the wooden slats were not quite wide enough for the toddler to pass through, but wide enough for me to see where the child was standing.

Pink coat. Black hair. No cap or mittens.

“Didn’t you hear me?” The small voice sounded again. “I said, aren’t your ears cold?”

I smiled at the child and exhaled a noise that was not quite a laugh, but sounded more like being on the verge of one.

The child replied, “Why’d that girl take your hat?”

This made me laugh. Even this kid couldn’t understand my strange little sister. I could hear Emma’s engrossed conversation with her frigid friend, Howie, which made me laugh even harder. I laughed so hard that I sucked air to catch my breath and instead made a squealing noise. The small child from behind the fence giggled. The giggling was intense, playful, and as contagious as the chicken pox. I couldn’t stop laughing. He kept giggling.

Then, something in my gut told me to be still. To listen. Alarms sounded in my head. CLANG! CLANG! I heard the bells at Six Flags near the kiddie park roller coaster in my head. Something was wrong about that funny laugh. I forced myself to stop laughing, stop moving, stop breathing … and to just listen.

In a single moment, an extreme wave of anxiety flooded my chest, which made my heart beat faster, my breathing quicken, and my brow and forehead break out in nervous sweat. I had heard that giggle before just an hour ago, not last summer. It sounded like the giggle from the news program we had been watching this morning that I’d heard float up from the vent. It was on an Amber Alert about the boy who was kidnapped from the Denver Airport, the boy who kept telling his nanny to watch him. It was the same boy. I was sure of it.

Dead sure.

My body contracted like a coiled spring as I strained to listen, to confirm, to be sure. I memorized the giggling that was coming from behind the fence only two feet from me and realized I had made no mistake. This
was
the boy from the news. I pulled my arms into my chest, hoping to reach the football through all the layers of clothing, to activate the listening device so I would have proof.

The child said, “You’re funny.”

His voice. It was the same. This was the missing boy. I needed to get Emma. I yelled for Mom. A long, worried screech came from my lungs, which I thought would surely have Emma running over to me and my mom coming outside, but all I managed to do was make the boy laugh.

Giggling, he said, “I see you from my bedroom. I looked for you this morning when I woke up. You were lying on the floor by your window. Why do you lie next to that window so much?”

I smiled, pleased that the boy had noticed. I let out another high-pitched holler, nerves constricting my throat. I wanted to tell him I had noticed him, too. And that I saw him last night. Late. By the window. I wanted to tell him I lie by the window because I love the outdoors, the birds that sing in the trees, the wind that blows through the branches, and the rain that falls on the windowpane. I wanted to tell him I knew who he was and what was going on. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. All I could do was gurgle and shriek up and down the musical scale as I tried to call for help.

“Why do you keep making those funny noises? Can’t you talk?”

I knew the boy was too young to understand why I wasn’t answering—why I couldn’t answer—and it made me sad to think the little boy might think I’m rude or, worse, that I’m mean. I smiled and let out a quieter noise to encourage the boy to keep talking.

As I waited for the boy’s response, I heard my sister’s footsteps crunching in the snow behind me. The child’s giggling must have caught Emma’s attention and she came bounding toward the two of us to see what was happening. Perfect. Now Emma could explain to the little boy why I couldn’t answer his questions and I could explain who he was. Instead, my body stiffened from the sudden chill as Emma pushed the cold, wet hat that was too small for Howie back on my head.

“Hi! My name is Emma. What’s yours?”

The child from behind the fence stammered in a very small voice that faded to a whisper, “Uh … well … I’m not supposed to tell you. It’s a secret.”

It’s Maximillian. Maximillian!
the voice in my head shouted. But nothing more than a garbled mess tumbled from my stupid, lazy lips.

“Ooh,” Emma squealed. “I just love secrets.”

“I’m not even supposed to be out here. I snuck out while Papa was making me a sandwich.”

Papa? He calls Mr. Creepy, Papa?
Emma, look at me. I have to tell you something. Emma!

Emma faced the fence. “Can I guess what it is? Your name? Since you can’t tell me?”

I could understand how Emma couldn’t see it at first. I barely recognized him with that black hair since it made his green eyes look so much bigger and more brilliant. But couldn’t Emma hear it in his voice?

“Sure, I guess so,” the child said, shrugging his small shoulders and stuffing his bare hands deep inside the pockets of the pink coat. “But make it quick. I’ve gotta go before he finds me out here.”

Emma tapped her temple with a gloved finger. The small figure shook his uncovered head at each name she guessed. “Megan? Patty? Ivy?”

It’s Maximillian, Emma!
My inner voice screamed.
Five fingers, Em. Let me explain.
Nothing. I needed to get the boy to laugh. Then Emma would understand and tell Mom and Dad.

“Those are all girls’ names. I’m not a girl,” scoffed the little boy.

I arched my back and stomped my feet. They ignored me.

“Then why are you wearing a pink coat?” Emma argued.

The boy giggled at her silliness. I went still. This was definitely the missing boy named Maximillian.
Emma, listen! Can’t you figure it out?

The little boy added happily, “You can call me Sammy.”

And he laughed. It was
that
laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Emma asked angrily. “How was I supposed to know? I’m not the funny one. You’re the funny one. Only girls wear pink.” She stomped her foot in the snow to show how angry she was.

This made the kid giggle even harder, which really upset Emma. “You’re not my friend anymore, Sammy!”

She stomped again before running off around the corner of the house to make another snow friend for her snowman. Out of sight.

Come back, Emma! It’s him. It’s the missing boy on TV!
I screamed after my sister. The only sounds were jumbled again. I felt my mouth tighten into a frown.

The small shape huddled on the other side of the fence. Why was the boy here? Here of all places? The child, who had been missing since Christmas Eve, the boy an entire nation was looking for, was playing in the backyard by my house. It just didn’t make sense.

The small boy said sadly, “Will you be my friend?”

I turned my face to him again and forced myself to smile in response, hoping to make the boy feel better somehow.

The child was just too young to understand why I didn’t answer him.

“Will you? Please?”

My muscles tightened, my arms crossing, my smile broadening. When my head stiffened against the headrest of my wheelchair, I once again pushed my hat forward and over my eyes. Accidentally. Just as I lost all sight of the child’s shape, I heard a door slam and felt startled by the noise. But no one yelled, “Don’t slam the door!” so I knew it wasn’t Mom or Dad or Emma.

I heard the crunching of large footsteps in the snow on the other side of the fence.

JUDY MANNING LOCKED EYES
with me the second we walked into the room. It was her—the woman on the train—without a doubt. She even had on the same clothes.

Chief Gates and Streeter Pierce sat opposite Judy Manning at the table and I hung back by the door, hoping the nanny would focus on the two men across from her rather than on me. But that wasn’t happening.

Although yesterday I thought the woman on the train appeared less English and more Amish, Judy Manning’s appearance had totally changed to be almost unrecognizable. Her long, black hair was now pulled back into a severe bun and straggles of hair tumbled loose around her face and shoulders. Her eyes were rimmed red, bloodshot.

The nanny’s voice was squeaky yet firm, clawing me from my observational reverie and forcing me to listen as she answered Streeter’s first question about where she lived. “If you take the first right and then take four flights of stairs. I’m in apartment 407.”

“And when do you go to work?” Streeter was asking.

“I work every day for Mr. Williams at the Manhattan house. I love little Max. I am at their home by 6:20 each morning. Eastern time.” Her
eyes may have flitted across different areas on the table, but they seemed to always rest on mine.

“What can you tell me about little Max?” Streeter asked.

“He is a dear, dear boy. So energetic. A regular bundle of joy, he is,” she said. Her accent was most certainly English; there was a note of refinement in the way she lingered on certain words. “I’ve been with him since he was born. Five and a half years. I’ve been an au pair for over twenty-five years.” So much for her being around my age, as I’d speculated. Unless she had started working when she was a kid. Judy added, “No one would want to hurt him. No.”